Day Ten: Best Picture, 1969

I mentioned it in last month's 1968 retrospective - '67 was the announcement of New Hollywood, '68 was the last gasp of Old Hollywood...and '69 is where '67 paid off.

Even Anne of the Thousand Days, a prime example of Royal Melodrama, puts such an emphasis on sex and semen that it could only have been touched by a major studio in this period (well...unless Otto Preminger had his hands on it). Even the Western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, is a hangout buddy flick with a decidedly non-western score, unorthodox romantic trio, and a fare-thee-well to the genre. Even the standard Liberal Cause Drama is the cynical, French-language, Socialist-sympathizing Z. Only Hello, Dolly! actually stands as a prime example of the Big Studio Musical, albeit with some anarchic twists. And Midnight Cowboy...well, hell, ain't nothing like Midnight Cowboy. Maybe that's why it won:

The nominees, after the jump...

Day Seven: Music, 1969

Music time, folks - a ten-deep one, as we look at the nominees for both Best Score and Best Musical Score.

Naturally, John Williams shows up in both categories, the first of many times he would be double-nominated. He had recently broken-through with his nomination in Best Adaptation and/or Treatment Score (as Best Musical Score was then known) for Valley of the Dolls in 1967. Thus was launched one of the most successful careers in all of show business, the rare composer that's also a household name: 24 Grammys, seven BAFTA Awards, five Oscars, four Golden Globes. His movie themes can be heard in theme parks across the world, and his theme for the NBC Nightly News can be heard, er, nightly.

Let's hear the competition after the jump.

Here It Comes!

Get ready for back-to-back flashbacks on this here blog!

In July: the films of 1968. Two weeks of Oscar nominees, a week of other movies I watched, and then the grand finale - Top Ten, Nominees, two days of Hollmann Awards. Featuring Best Picture nominees:

And in August: the films of 1969! In the same format! Featuring Best Picture nominees:

 

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