This has been one of the more interesting retrospectives for me. It's the first time in a while that I've disagreed with all but one of Oscar's choices (though it was close for some of them!). I've liked more movies than I've disliked, many of them equally, so that making a Top Ten and deciding a winner here have been equally frustrating tasks. I'm sure it was the same for the Academy 50 years ago; only the National Board of Review agreed with their pick:
Unless...I agree, too? Oh, ho-ho, read on, my friends...
The Best Actor nominees this year were all nominated at the Golden Globes for Best Actor in a Drama. That includes, among the other previously discussed and soon-to-be-discussed films, The Great White Hope, a compelling drama about a black boxer who becomes a target of the US government not just because of his becoming heavyweight champion of the world over all the white competitors, but because of his relationship with a white woman. Thoughtfully written, perfectly cast (in addition to nominees James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, the ensemble boasts Lou Gilbert, Beah Richards, Marlene Warfield and Hal Holbrook), with an eye for detail and a scale of design on par with most epics.
But there were no Comedy/Musical Globe nominees! Just straight-faced misses. That means the Oscars skipped out on:
Richard Benjamin for Diary of a Mad Housewife. As the ambitious husband pressuring his wife to help him surpass the Joneses, Benjamin is obnoxious, thoughtless, amusing. He's also supporting Carrie Snodgress, and supporting is where he belongs!
Albert Finney for Scrooge, a musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Finney was in his early 30s when he took the role of 50+ Ebenezer Scrooge. Despite winning the Golden Globe and already being a nominee for Best Actor, he missed out...though he'd eventually return to the Academy's good graces. I'm glad they didn't. He's...miscast.
Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland for MASH. As Trapper John, M.D., and Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce, respectively, Gould and Sutherland anchor the anarchy. Gould was nominated the year before for Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice; Sutherland is still waiting.
Jack Lemmon for The Out-of-Towners. Lemmon's everyman routine gets an edge. Visiting NYC for a business meeting that he hoped to parlay into a getaway with his wife, the domino effect of just terrible mishaps that greet them quickly take him from harried businessman to entitled asshole. It is hostile and the best.
Of the four first-timers, three weren't just helming Best Picture nominees: they made the biggest hits of the year. Only Airport outgrossed MASH and Patton; Love Story topped them all.
The other first-timer was Ken Russell, director of the D.H. Lawrence adaptation Women in Love, about two sisters whose lives become entwined with a pair of best friends - one a teacher, one heir to the mining company their town runs on - and the various thrills, sexual and otherwise, that come about because of it. Russell would go on to make several films that showcased, as women in Love star Glenda Jackson put it, sexual neuroticism, often through biographies of composers like Tchaikovsky (The Music Lovers) or Liszt (Lisztomania). He also directed one of my all-time favorites, The Devils.
The fifth nominee was Federico Fellini, up for the third time for Fellini Satyricon, an extremely sweaty adaptation of the ancient work by Petronius. The film follows a gay youth's travels through society as he searches for his young lover: he goes to bath houses, experimental theatre, bacchanals, even faces off against a minotaur. A sweaty, erotic, very gay, dreamlike film, the nomination must have come as a surprise for...well, many, especially considering it's the film's only nomination!
The eventual winner was Franklin J. Schaffner, director of such films as The Best Man and Planet of the Apes, honored for his work on the #4 film of the year, Patton:
This year's field was dominated by Best Picture nominees: Airport, Patton, and the winner, Love Story:
Two exceptions, though, one from a newbie, the other from a veteran of the game...
Cromwell is a historical drama in the vein of Anne of the Thousand Days or A Man for All Seasons, depicting the clash between statesman Oliver Cromwell and King Charles I - a clash that included Civil war, the execution of the King, and Cromwell's becoming head of state and government. It feels like a film made for those who already know the history, with the many people and their titles and their loyalties increasingly difficult to track - I know there's betrayal and double-crosses and whatnot, but I could not for the life of me figure out who was betraying or why. Hoarse Richard Harris disappoints; Alec Guinness is great. This was one of the film's two nominations; it won for Costume Design.
Sunflower is a drama about a woman who refuses to believe her husband, declared MIA, died in war; she searches for him in the Soviet Union and uncovers the shocking truth. Sophia Loren (who this year, returns to cinema in Netflix's The Life Ahead) is quite gutting in the film. Otherwise, I wasn't too crazy about it. I don't mind its score, though, which you can hear, alongside the other nominees, right here:
