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