Day Ten: Best Picture

Meant to put this up last week, but I was struck down by an illness that kept me weak and in bed. Now, finally, the grand finale of the 1959 Oscars - Best Picture of the Year!

But soft - this ain't the end of 1959 just yet. I saw 63 films from this year (going by US release dates), so you know I have a Top Ten and some Retro Hollmann Awards on the way! Many of these films, while not up for Oscar, were nominated by other awards bodies throughout 1959, so make sure you check out every single category page, from Best Actress to Best Actor to this one, for brief thoughts on those.

And now - the nominees for Best Picture....after the jump.....

Day Six: Best Supporting Actress

This specific category - 1959 Best Supporting Actress - is a fun one. It marks one of the three times I participated in StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Smackdown. That was about nine years ago, and I have to say, my feelings from then do not necessarily reflect my feelings now. Anyway, check out the Smackdown, as well as my take on each individual film. Let's see how those have aged.

But first...my new rankings. After the jump.

Day Five: Best Director

It's been a while. You know where we left off, right? On Best Supporting Actor, which Oscar gave to Hugh Griffith and I gave to...well, check it out if you haven't already. And check out our look at Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Score.

As for today? Let's get to Best Director, after the jump.

Day Four: Best Supporting Actor

Now that we've honored The Nun's Story for its lead actress and score, Porgy and Bess for its orchestrations, and Wild Strawberries for its screenplay, its time to let another film into the fold. And we'll do that by looking at the nominees for Best Supporting Actor, made of four first-timers, only two of whom would be back for more.

Hugh Griffith in Ben-Hur

***

Notes: First of two nominations, first and only win; National Board of Review Winner for Supporting Actor

An unlikely winner, Griffith's Sheik Ilderim is just a dash less broad than you think it is. He has a fantastic scene where he entices Stephen Boyd's Messala to take a very rich gamble on the chariot race. And he's a good time entertaining Judah Ben-Hur in his tent, trying to get him to belch in appreciation of the fine dining. It's some welcome comic relief that goes beyond the dye job, but I'm still shocked this is the performance from Ben-Hur that got nominated.

Arthur O'Connell in Anatomy of a Murder

***

Notes: Second of two nominations

Folksy alcoholic attorney whose arc from mess who can't get hired to unexpected hero of the hour plays more or less in the background, subtly. It helps that his second chance comes up within the first thirty minutes of the movie. O'Connell, to his credit, does not overplay a moment. Not the drunkenness, not the career rehab, not the chemistry with James Stewart: it's all natural.

George C. Scott in Anatomy of a Murder

*****

Notes: First of four nominations

Much like the character, a performance that sneaks up on you. Quiet at first, with a respectfully condescending manner that grates - Scott even gives him an odd highfalutin' accent: something about his vowels sounds practiced, a great choice that makes Claude Dancer's distance from this small town even more deliberate. And when he fights, he fights hard: the sweaty, clobbering evisceration he attempts on Mary Pilant; the quiet, confident redirection he gives the local DA; his "embarrassed" manipulation of Laura Manion's rape accusations - this guy plays to win.

Robert Vaughn in The Young Philadelphians

**

Notes: First and only nomination; Golden Globe Nominee for Supporting Actor

Mind-boggling. How is this the sole performance to be honored by the Globes and the Oscars? He's solid, delivers witticisms with the appropriate drollness, plays pathetic drunkenness at the just the right pitch for this kind of movie, but that's it. It's not especially unique or revelatory - it just...is.

Ed Wynn in The Diary of Anne Frank

***

Notes: First and only nomination

Wynn is convincing as the oft-annoyed, doom-and-gloom dentist who can't stand the close quarters of the attic. He annoys you to the brink of insanity, but then there's this hopelessness in his slackened face and downcast eyes. He's our last hint of what's happening outside, and it's not pretty. Wynn, mostly known as a comic actor, delivers the goods.

Also in the conversation:

• Fred Astaire, On the Beach (Golden Globe Nominee for Supporting Actor) - A surprise snub, though maybe his come-and-go "British" accent was a hurdle. His scientist-turned-lush is a welcome change of pace: cynical, straight, but not without heart. *****
• Stephen Boyd, Ben-Hur (Globe Winner for Supporting Actor) - As Messala, the villain and object of Ben-Hur's obsessive revenge quest, Boyd is, surprisingly, the film's beating heart. There is always something going on just beneath the surface. You can't take your eyes off him. *****
• Peter Finch, The Nun's Story (BAFTA Award Nominee for British Actor) - BAFTA had no lead/supporting distinctions, but he's probably in less than 15 minutes of the movie; still, he has a great impact, and you miss him...much like Hepburn's nun. *****
• Laurence Olivier, The Devil's Disciple (BAFTA Award Nominee for British Actor) - A scream as a British commander during the Revolutionary War. No villain; indeed, he's almost comic relief, in an already light film! ****
• Tony Randall, Pillow Talk (Golden Globe Nominee for Supporting Actor) - Funny; delivers dick jokes with class. ***
• Joseph N. Welch, Anatomy of a Murder (Golden Globe Nominee for Supporting Actor) - As the out-of-town judge with the Huckleberry Hound voice, Welch steals the movie with aw-shucks comic timing and dignity. *****
• Donald Wolfit, Room at the Top (BAFTA Award Nominee for British Actor) - Chummy, commanding, polite even when seething. ****

------------------------------------

Griffith benefited from the Ben-Hur sweep.

But I just don't see it. In fact, I only see one nominee that comes close to deserving the Oscar...

GEORGE C. SCOTT

for

ANATOMY OF A MURDER

In our next adventure, we'll look at Best Director: Jack Clayton (Room at the Top), George Stevens (The Diary of Anne Frank), Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot), William Wyler (Ben-Hur), and Fred Zinnemann (The Nun's Story).

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Day Three: The Scores

A music break, and a large one at that. If you've been here before, you may recall that the category for Music Score used to be split into two categories: Original and Adapted. The names sometimes changed - this year, they were called Scoring of a Dramatic/Comedy Picture and Scoring of a Musical Picture - but the kinds of films nominated in each category remained the same. The one exception would probably be On the Beach, whose "original score" gets quite a boost from its use of "Waltzing Matilda."

Let's have a listening party, shall we? Starting, after the jump, with.....

Come Monday

Meant to post a tease earlier this month, but what are you gonna do? Starting tomorrow, we take a look at the films of 1959, featuring:

Ben-Hur

Winner: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Charlton Heston), Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Best Dramatic Score, Best Cinematography - Color, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Color, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design - Color, Best Sound Recording, Best Visual Effects

Black Orpheus

Winner: Best Foreign Language Film

The Diary of Anne Frank

Winner: Best Supporting Actress (Shelley Winters), Best Cinematography - Black-and-White, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Black-and-White

A Hole in the Head

Winner: Best Original Song ("High Hopes")

Pillow Talk

Winner: Best Original Screenplay

Porgy and Bess

Winner: Best Musical Score

Room at the Top

Winner: Best Actress (Simone Signoret), Best Adapted Screenplay

Some Like It Hot

Winner: Best Costume Design - Black-and-White

....and many, many more, including non-Oscar-nominated films like A Summer Place, House on Haunted Hill, and The Crimson Kimono!

It all starts tomorrow with Best Actress: Doris Day in Pillow Talk, Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story, Katharine Hepburn in Suddenly, Last Summer, Simone Signoret in A Room at the Top, and Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer.

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The Diary of Anne Frank

There are some movies that are better suited to a more intimate setting. A movie theater, say, or a living room with your girlfriend and/or best friends. A viewing station in the middle of the library is probably not the best choice -- at all -- but beggars can't be choosers, and they wouldn't let me check it out. Suffice to say, I found myself trying to avoid public hysterics while working through the emotional impact of The Diary of Anne Frank.



I trust we are all familiar with her story. Anne Frank was a girl in 1940s Holland who, being Jewish, hid away with her family in an attic. Having received a diary at the age of thirteen, she chronicled life in the hiding place for the two years she, her parents, her sister, a family of three, and a dentist stayed there. It was adapted for the stage and, eventually, the screen.

So, I know this is going to sound odd, but I was kind of reminded of Night of the Living Dead. A claustrophobic setting, a handful of refugees, uncertainty of the outside world. I know, I know -- this is fact, Night of the Living Dead was fiction, but still, it was interesting to see how in both cases, the inhabitants still get into major quarrels over the silliest of things. Or how fierce an unassuming mother can become. Or how young people still find time for romance. Or how, no matter how horrifying the situation, people can still cling to hope.

The film is quite tastefully done, never sensationalizing the story, shying away from melodrama. Millie Perkins has the title role; I've seen people play Anne Frank as a kind of contemporary Joan of Arc, but Perkins, fortunately, remembers that Anne was thirteen, and fills the character with the precociousness and confusion and "wisdom" of that age. Mind, she was about twenty during filming, so that she was able to take the role so seriously as to not take it seriously is quite an achievement (I find actors of that age group tend to "ACT" rather than play it as it lays).



She also happens to be incredibly beautiful.

I think I like the last bit the most. Anne and her beau Peter Van Daan (Richard Beymer, who afterwards met a girl named Maria) are upstairs, and she has just delivered the famous line about people being good at heart, when we hear the sirens getting louder and the Nazis busting in. And without hesitation, she and Peter kiss passionately for what they know will be the last time. God. I must have looked a mess.



It was for this movie that Shelley Winters won her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. And I gotta tell you here and now, I love Shelley Winters. I had a mild crush on her when I saw The Night of the Hunter at the age of ten (or thereabouts). I own Alfie and Lolita. I saw The Poseidon Adventure in sixth grade just for her (well, OK, for Grandpa Joe, too). The Winters and I, we're palsies.

Which means I'm fully aware that she is a "shrill" actress. The woman is loud and brassy. She is typecast in the role of the whiny woman, the demanding mother that no one can stand. Watching her in Alfie is just bizarre, of course, but every time I see her on screen, I always think of her at breakfast with Sue Lyons ("Keep your table off the, ugh, ELBOWS OFF THE TABLE!") And truly, Petronella Van Daan could easily be another one of these. There are times when it seems she is about to do the Shelley Winters thing, going big when she needs to go small.

Which also means that, despite my love for The Winters, I often underestimate her.



There is a scene at the beginning where she talks to Anne about boys. Anne asks her if she had a lot of boyfriends growing up, and although Mrs. Frank (Gusti Huber giving the Greatest Performance of a Mother Ever) admonishes her, Petronella replies, "No, I don't mind." AND SHE DOESN'T. By which I mean, Winters' eyes light up at the question, and she goes into details of her youth, and you can see her actually going there. Her nostalgia is both charming and sad, tinged the realization that she is not the woman she used to be. And as she shows off her great legs, there is a cry of desperation for a compliment, a glance even, anything! That Winters can combine both humor and sadness in one scene is miraculous, and so subtly done, too.

Petronella's mink coat gives us two great scenes. One is where Petronella lets Anne try it on, gushing about how it was a gift from her father. It is clearly the most precious thing the Van Daans own, and Winters glows with pride. When Anne spills milk on it, SNAP goes Petronella, and Lord have mercy, I had no idea anyone could that fast. And instead of playing it angry or bitchy, you can actually hear Winters' Petronella choking back tears as she runs foggily upstairs.



Later on, her husband (Lou Jacobi) goes to take the coat to sell, and Petronella tries to fight him for it. She loses, and sinks on the bed in defeat. Bam. That's it. That one shot of The Winters sitting with her head bowed is enough. Throughout the film, we see the woman go through all sorts of humiliating moments, but for me, this is the one that sticks out. The love of her father and her own pride were both wrapped up in that stole, and in many ways, it was the only thing she had left of either. When it goes, so, too, does much of her hope. She even looks smaller.

I love the little moments like that. I love when Anne comes back from Peter's room, having received her first Real Kiss. She kisses everyone in the living room good night as she floats to her bedroom, pausing even to kiss Petronella, Peter's mum, on both cheeks. And in reply, Mrs. Van Daan gives a little smirk: "Uh-huh." And that's all anyone says or needs to say. Winters' delivery of that line is so incredibly perfect.



Really, in moments like that one, or in talking about the boys, she reminded me of my roommate's mother, who is like my other mother (but not the Coraline kind). And I feel that if you can watch a performance and say, "Holy crap, that is SO whats'ername" then the actor has done their job. They have given you a real human being. So, Shelley Winters, here's to you.

THE MOVIE: **** (out of 4)
THE PERFORMANCE: ***** (out of 5)