Hitch's Last Chance: Best Director, 1960

Here we come to the final Oscar category we're covering for 1960, the nominees for Best Director:

Jack Cardiff, Sons and Lovers

Jules Dassin, Never On Sunday

Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho

Billy Wilder, The Apartment

Fred Zinnemann, The Sundowners

Now, this would not be Hitchcock's year at the Oscars, though he didn't leave 1960 without some honors: when the Walk of Fame officially opened in early 1960, Hitchcock was among the first honorees, with two stars, one honoring his film work, the other honoring his television work. And as we discussed before, Psycho itself was a major hit, breaking box office records all around the world, with Hitch himself raking in over $15 million. It was a great year for the director, the year that, I would argue, made him the legend he is today. The Oscar nomination was the capper. Unfortunately, it wasn't a win, and it was his final nomination; he would finally get an Oscar seven years later ... an honorary award.

The night's big winner was Billy Wilder. Hitchcock had five Best Director nominations, Wilder had seven Best Director nominations, and four times - 1944, 1945, 1954, and 1960 - those nominations were against each other. This was the second time Wilder triumphed. It was also his last nomination, in this category, at least. Worth noting, too: this was also the third match-up between Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.

And how do I rate them? From fifth to first, here we go:

Billy's Turn: Best Director, 1945

We came to 1945 for the same reason we came to 1944: to explore all the years where Alfred Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director. This was his third nomination overall, for his second film under the auspices of producer David O. Selznick. The two admired each other, but both laid heavy hands in their work, so it's little surprise that, despite technically working for Selznick, Hitch made more films on loan to other studios during their seven years "together." Spellbound, fortunately, was a huge hit, the third greatest earner of the year in the US, while breaking box office records twice over in London.

Hitchcock found himself up for Best Director in a rare 3/5 repeat of the previous year's Best Director lineup:

Clarence Brown, National Velvet

Alfred Hitchcock, Spellbound

Leo McCarey, The Bells of St. Mary's

Jean Renoir, The Southerner

Billy Wilder, The Lost Weekend

The year before, Hitchcock, McCarey, and Wilder were all nominated, with McCarey winning; this year, Wilder would come out the winner. Hitchcock and Wilder were up against each other twice more, which we'll get into next month. In the meantime, my rankings, from fifth to first:

Right After That: 1945, An Intro

Our look at film years wherein Alfred Hitchcock was Oscar-nominated for Best Director continues with 1945. Just last week, we wrapped up 1944, a year in which Hitchcock lost to Leo McCarey for Going My Way, a juggernaut that took home seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. 

Hitch Limits Himself: Best Director, 1944

The 17th Academy Awards' nominees for Best Director are:

Alfred Hitchcock, Lifeboat

Henry King, Wilson

Leo McCarey, Going My Way

Otto Preminger, Laura

Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity

Hitchcock is the reason we're here. This month, next month, and the month after that, I'm focusing on 1944, 1945, and 1960, years where he was nominated for Best Director (we've already covered 1940 and 1954). 

Having read Patrick McGilligan's Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light - and perused, without finishing, Leonard J. Leff's Hitchcock and Selznick - earlier this year, I...won't say I'm expert on Hitchcock, but I have some context. Context I hope to share, accurately, with you, dear reader. Both tell of how Hitchcock was the wünderkind of British cinema, having worked his way up from title writer and art director to film director, even learning the ropes from the visionaries of German Expressionism. But by the 1930s, those German visionaries had been run out by the Nazis, while British cinema was famously very limited regarding resources. It was difficult for a man of Hitchcock's vision to get the films he wanted to make, made in the way he wanted to make them, and already by the mid-1930s, he was looking to Hollywood. He secured the services of Myron Selznick as his agent and, would you believe, the best offer came via Myron's brother David O. Selznick and his independent Selznick International - amazing!

Hitchcock came to the United States with a New York Film Critics Circle Award (for The Lady Vanishes) and 26 films already under his belt. He was no novice. Yet, apparently, there was little joy in the making of his first American film, the very British Rebecca, since David O. had a very heavy hand in production, and Hitchcock was used to doing his own thing. Fortunately, it was possible to be loaned out to other studios - thus 20th Century-Fox and the making of Lifeboat.

Hitchcock makes a cheeky cameo

This was Hitch's half-realization of his dream project, which was to explore the tensions and joys among sex and race and class in a single space (the full realization would have been a film about twelve hours in one of those famous London parks, either Kensington or Covent, I forget). The desire was retooled a few times throughout his career, but he was able to scratch that itch within a timely wartime milieu with Lifeboat, an original concept that saw a glamorous journalist, a tycoon, several shipmates, a mother, a nurse, and a Nazi, all thrown together for 97 minutes. Execs, and some critics, balked at what they saw as noble treatment of the Nazi (as always, a critique says more about the viewer than about the filmmaker), and the film was dropped at the end of January 1944 to disastrous box office. Nevertheless, it managed three Academy Award nominations, a spot in the National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of 1944, and the NYFCC Award for Best Actress for Tallulah Bankhead in her first real screen performance since 1932.

Were those accolades all due to Hitchcock? Did he deserve this nomination? I've ranked the nominated directors from fifth to first:

We're Back!: An Intro to 1944

If you're here, chances are you've been here before. I started retrospective Oscar years in 2011; my last one was in September of last year, the next one begins right now - the longest I've gone between retrospectives in three years.

But here we are! As voted on by you, the next three retrospectives will all focus on the years in which Alfred Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director. 

Despite being heralded as one of the greatest (and certainly most influential) filmmakers of all time, Hitchcock never won a competitive Academy Award, despite five nominations (he did win the non-competitive Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1968). All five nominations came within a 20-year period, beginning with his first Hollywood feature, 1940's Rebecca (as we covered in 2024), and ending with his most famous film, 1960's Psycho (which we will cover in July). 

In addition to Rebecca and the films of 1940, - which, by the way, include Hitchcock's second Hollywood production, Foreign Correspondent - we've also already looked at his nomination for Rear Window and the films of 1954. Which means only three years to cover, beginning with his second nomination: Lifeboat, 1944.

Now, recall - or learn, if it's your first time here - we don't just focus on just the one film or the one category or even the one ceremony. No, I've watched 89 films released in 1944, and we're going to look at all of them, the good and the bad. We're gonna look at Charlie Chan films. We're gonna look at almost-nominated buzzworthy films. And, of course, we're gonna talk about World War II, still ongoing, though this would be the final full year of the war. Of the 89 films I screened, at least 49 either depict or reference - or are an allegory for - the War.

We'll get into it, starting tomorrow. But I do want you to know what we're talking about, so here are the 90 films we'll cover:

Oscar 1940: Best Director

The thread through this month's retrospective, next month's, and July's is: The Winner Is John Ford. 

February 1st marked the 130th birthday of the director whose work inspired and influenced Orson Welles, Steven Spielberg, Satoshi Kon, and countless others. His body of work encompasses over 140 films across a span of about sixty years, comprised of documentaries, westerns, war films, romances, coming-of-age dramas, biopics, a disaster film, and even a Shirley Temple vehicle. He immortalized Arizona's Monument Valley. He has been, over the years, embraced and rejected by progressives and conservatives alike. 

And he won four Academy Awards for Best Director, the most by any filmmaker, ever. His first was for 1935's The Informer; the second came in 1940, for his adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Both novel and film courted controversy with their frank depictions of the effect the Great Depression had on the population, the callous repossession of long-held family farms by banks, the exploitation of desperate workers by greedy employers, and the need for the people to organize. Both novel and film were also huge successes. Contemporary, artful, and a moneymaker? You better believe they gave that man an Oscar.

I imagine his biggest competitors were the directors behind the three bigger moneymakers: Alfred Hitchcock, whose adaptation of Rebecca landed #3 at the box office and won Best Picture and Best Cinematography (Black-and-White); George Cukor, whose adaptation of The Philadelphia Story landed #4 at the box office and won Best Actor and Best Screenplay; and Sam Wood, whose adaptation of Kitty Foyle landed #10 at the box office and won Best Actress. William Wyler - historically, the most-nominated Best Director with twelve (and three wins, all for Best Picture winners!) - was also up, for his adaptation of The Letter.

The men:

The 1954 Retro Hollmann Awards: Part Two

Yesterday, we finally began the 1954 Retro Hollmann Awards. Today...we complete them.

Best Original Song

1. A Star is Born - "The Man That Got Away"
music by Harold Arlen
lyrics by Ira Gershwin


2. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - "Wonderful Wonderful Day"
music by Gene de Paul
lyrics by Johnny Mercer


3. White Christmas - "Sisters"
music and lyrics by Irving Berlin


4. Johnny Guitar - "Johnny Guitar"
music and lyrics by Peggy Lee and Victor Young


5. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - "Lonesome Polecat"
music by Gene de Paul
lyrics by Johnny Mercer

After the jump - Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture....and more!

Day One: Best Director, 1954

As I mentioned earlier, musicals brought me to 1954, particularly the Actor-and-Actress-nominated A Star is Born and Best Picture nominee Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - stellar cinematic works whose directors (George Cukor and Stanley Donen, respectively) went un-nominated. You'd think Seven Brides would have a better shot here, but 1954 was one of those odd years where only 2/5 of the Best Director roster helmed Best Picture nominees: On the Waterfront's Elia Kazan and The Country Girl's George Seaton.

The three "lone" director slots went to Alfred Hitchcock for the unassailable thriller Rear Window, Billy Wilder for the influential rom-com Sabrina, and William A. Wellman

 for the execrable-but-profitable disaster flick The High and the Mighty. For Hitchcock, it was the second of three times that he would be up for a film that wasn't a Best Picture nominee, the other two being Lifeboat and Psycho. For Wilder, it was the second time in a row, having been nominated just the previous year for Stalag 17 - he'd be a lone director nominee again for Some Like It Hot in 1959. For Wellman, it was a first, his previous nods having come from Best Picture nominees Battleground...and the original A Star is Born! Funny how things work out...

Was their 1954 output worthy of a nomination? Let's check after the jump....