The 1952 Retro Hollmann Awards: The Winners

Well, a week late, but here we are. You've seen the Top Ten, you've looked at the nominees. Now, after 77 films screened and 32 nominated, here are the winners of the 1952 Retro Hollmann Awards:

The 1952 Retro Hollmann Awards: Nominees

Following my Top Ten, I took a few days to consider, very carefully, what I consider the best in 1952 cinema. Here they are, 32 films across 18 categories, the nominees for the 1952 Retro Hollmann Awards:

My Top Ten of 1952

Wish I could get these posts done on time, but one does have a full-time job and a social life. Anyway, A few days later than I wanted, but here we go.

Anyway, here are the 77 films I watched for 1952:

Actor's and Sin

Affair in Trinidad

The Atomic City

The Bad and the Beautiful

Because You're Mine

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla

Bend of the River

Big Jim McLain

The Big Sky

The Black Castle

Breaking the Sound Barrier

Brighton Rock

The Browning Version

The Bushwhackers

The Card (aka The Promoter)

Caribbean

Carrie

Clash by Night

Come Back, Little Sheba

Cry, the Beloved Country

Deadline - U.S.A.

Five Fingers

Flat Top

A Girl in Every Port

The Greatest Show on Earth

Hans Christian Andersen

The Harlem Globetrotters

High Noon

Ivanhoe

Jack and the Beanstalk

Japanese War Bride

The Jazz Singer

Just for You

The Las Vegas Story

The Lavender Hill Mob

Lure of the Wilderness

The Lusty Men

Macao

Man Bait

The Man in the White Suit

The Medium

The Member of the Wedding

The Merry Widow

Million Dollar Mermaid

The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima

Monkey Business

Moulin Rouge

My Cousin Rachel

My Six Convicts

My Son John

Navajo

The Narrow Margin

O. Henry's Full House

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Park Row

Pat and Mike

Plymouth Adventure

The Pride of St. Louis

The Quiet Man

Rancho Notorious

Rashomon

Red Planet Mars

Road to Bali

Scandal Sheet

Singin' in the Rain

The Sniper

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Son of Paleface

The Star

Stars and Stripes Forever

Steel Town

Sudden Fear

The Thief

Viva Zapata!

Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie

What Price Glory

With a Song in My Heart

Ironically, given the delay, this was one of the quickest Top Tens I've ever made. With apologies to the briefly-considered The Bad and the Beautiful, The Black Castle, Brighton Rock, Million Dollar Mermaid, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Rashomon, and especially the two that did almost make it, My Cousin Rachel and Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie, here are my ten favorite films of 1952, in alphabetical order:

Oscars 1952: Best Actor

What to say about this crop of Best Actor nominees except to say that they are unusually great, all of them? How about this: 1941 and 1952 are in conversation with each other. John Ford wins in 1941, never nominated again until 1952, where he wins again. John Huston's directorial is in 1941; by 1952, he's nominated against Ford...and a veteran Oscar winner. For unnominated films, Swamp Water is remade as Lure of the Wilderness. And, if we're talking repeat winners, Gary Cooper finally wins an Oscar in 1941...only to repeat, once again uncontested, in 1952:

But who do you even vote for in this lineup? The Academy spoiled us this year, as witness:

Oscars 1952: Best Supporting Actor

Supporting Actor. What a funny category, always. In 1952, neither the BAFTAs nor the New York Critics nor the National Board of Review had gotten on board with an award the Academy had been handing out since 1936. The Golden Globes had, but none of their three nominees were nominated at the Oscars: not The Happy Time's Kurt Kasznar, not The Bad and the Beautiful's Gilbert Roland, and not the winner, My Six Convicts' Millard Mitchell. Given that, who could be said was the favorite to win among these five?

I'm not sure how Arthur Hunnicutt came to his nod. I can guess that Sudden Fear's great reception pulled Jack Palance along for the ride. And with The Quiet Man once planned as John Ford's followup to The Informer, it seems good and proper that both the director and the star, Victor McLaglen, of that 1935 film would both end up nominated. But all were considered also-rans compared to Richard Burton, a leading man campaigned as supporting by his studio, for his star-making performance in My Cousin Rachel. Like Gary Cooper's second Best Actor Oscar, this was a foregone conclusion.

So everyone was surprised when Mexican actor Anthony Quinn, who'd been playing gangsters, Indians, and other supporting baddies for over a decade, won for playing a genuinely supporting part. He couldn't make it, but his wife accepted on his behalf:

...she being Katherine DeMille, daughter of none other than Cecil B. DeMille. It really was DeMille's night, huh?

Here's how I look at this lineup: 

1952: The Circus Comes To Town

It's February in 1952 and, although no one knows it yet, the Oscar race is over. The Greatest Show on Earth is out. 

It will spend six weeks in a row at the top spot of the box office and end the year as the #1 highest-grossing. It's a high point for producer-director Cecil B. DeMille, a Hollywood veteran since his 1914 film debut The Squaw Man. Since then, he's cemented himself as a master of the art and the business: indeed, the older he gets, the more successful and acclaimed his movies become. The Greatest Show on Earth, a Technicolor epic about life in the circus featuring actual acts and performers from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, is no exception. And it's the only time he will win Best Picture.

But the Academy Awards are in March 1953. Right now, it's February 1952. And it's not the only film in town: