A rarity: not only were the supporting actor nominees of 1968 all first-timers - they were never nominated again! Sure, Gene Wilder would return as a co-writer on Young Frankenstein for Best Adapted Screenplay, but this is the only time he was recognized for his thesping, and no one else would return to this stage. Not Jack Albertson, though he found more solid fame (and three Emmys!) for Chico and the Man, and joined Wilder in the realm of cinematic immortality with Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Not Seymour Cassel, though he kept a solid career and would have buzz again for In the Soup and Rushmore. Not Daniel Massey, the Golden Globe winner - though I suppose the nomination is the reward for British character actors. And not Jack Wild, who found greater fame on the small screen in H.R. Pufnstuf...and tragedy through his long battle with alcoholism. No, these men and boy did not return for more accolades, for more praise. And indeed, only two of them received real competitive nominations throughout the season.
Daniel Massey is the only Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor to make it to the Oscars. Hugh Griffith was twice-nominated by the HFPA for his cameos in The Fixer (above, left) and Oliver! (above, right) - and I really do mean cameos; one scene per performance, though his Oliver! one is genuinely deserving of the nod. Also among the Globe honorees: Beau Bridges as a young hippie who wants to keep his wealthy family's maid at any cost in For Love of Ivy (terrific), Ossie Davis as an escaped house slave sold to a trapper in the Western comedy The Scalphunters (going by runtime and arc, he's THE LEAD, but whatever), and Martin Sheen as the son in The Subject Was Roses (also category fraud; like Ordinary People, the entire family unit works as a triptych lead).
Faces' Seymour Cassel won the National Film Critics Society award for Best Supporting Actor, beating out two other very arthouse NSFC-type titles: Dirk Bogarde as a sympathetic lawyer in The Fixer and Sydney Tafler as a Jewish gangster in The Birthday Party. Bogarde is aces in his film - hell, he's aces in all his films. Tafler's pretty good, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Patrick Magee.
That's who didn't make it. Here are the one-and-dones that did. After the jump.
This week, the Oscars of 1968 continue with the nominees for Best Supporting Actor, Best Score (Not of a Musical), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture, and finally - Best Actress! The movies we'll be talking about are:
Do y'all know the podcast This Had Oscar Buzz, in which Joe Reid and Chris Feil "perform the autopsy" on films that "at one time or another had lofty Academy Awards aspirations, but for one reason or another, it all went wrong?" In a recent episode, Reid pointed out that they mainly cover films from the late-90s and beyond, as that period - coinciding with the domination of Miramax - is where Oscar Buzz and the Awards Season as we know it really came into its own. True! But I could not help thinking of the failed 1968 Oscar prospects of Petulia and The Boston Strangler. Neither landed a single nomination; both were early favorites for Best Actor.
Oscar watchers were stunned, then, that it all came to naught, with room instead being made for NYFCC Award winner Alan Arkin, Golden Globe winners Ron Moody and Peter O'Toole, National Board of Review winner Cliff Robertson and...Alan Bates for The Fixer? Have any of you even heard of The Fixer? I hadn't before I started this project, and I have to say...well, you'll see what I have to say. After the jump.
Usually, I like to group the Score categories together - Musical/Adapted/Song Score with Original/Comedy or Dramatic Score - since, you know, they're sister categories. For 1968, I decided to do things a little differently and pair Musical Score with Original Song, mainly because it's only natural for there to be overlap (and there is!); even better, it saves me room on the tags.
Some great music...and some dull music! All after the jump.
The idea of an Original Screenplay sounds straightforward enough - indeed, in 1968, the category's official name was Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (emphasis mine). Yet...
Do we discount 2001: A Space Odyssey because it is suggested by, and an expansion of, a number of Arthur C. Clarke stories from the 1950s? Is The Battle of Algiers any less original because the writers used Saadi Yacef's memoir Souvenirs de la Bataille d'Alger as a jumping-off point? What about Faces, scripted but with input and improvisations from the actors? And why no love for WGA Award nominees The Brotherhood, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, or Star!?
Original, somewhat original, original enough...whatever the case, these are the nominees Oscar voters designated as The Best, after the jump.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke
***
The Jupiter Mission is a suspenseful sequence - artificial intelligence, technology run amok. The sequence right before is intriguing enough with its businesslike approach to space discovery. Imaginative all around. I also have to admit I don't really get it.
The Battle of Algiers
Franco Solinas
story by Franco Solinas and Gillo Pontecorvo
****
Embeds us within both camps - the revolutionaries and the authorities - without fully becoming a "both sides" appeasement nor a whitewash of the devastating violence. It's thoroughly on the side of the freedom fighters, but oh, the cost! Intimacy without melodrama - clear-eyed, personal, passionate.
Faces
John Cassavetes
**
Love the idea of power dynamics between men and women, of the transactional nature of sex, of the ways we avoid meaningful and productive conversations in favor of sweet nothings. But every scene feels at least ten minutes too long - self-indulgent is the word.
Hot Millions
Ira Wallach and Peter Ustinov
**
Slight conman caper that feels both sketched and stretched. No pretensions about itself - it's here to make the adults have a chuckle, and at that it mostly succeeds. A fun time overall...but is it really nomination worthy?
The Producers
Mel Brooks
****
Not every joke has aged well, which can be expected when much of the humor is designed for shock value. Mostly still relevant, though, as it eviscerates every aspect of show business: the creatives who believe their own bullshit, the grifting businessmen, and the audiences who play at self-righteousness only to lap up digestible trash.
-------------------------------------
Fun thing I always forget but is nice to remember: the Oscar went to (still-living!) comedy legend Mel Brooks! Actually makes the Don Rickles bit preceding the win kind of appropriate:
And honestly, my own vote goes to...
MEL BROOKS
for
THE PRODUCERS
Yes, I co-sign the Academy's choice!
Tomorrow, the nominees for Best Original Song - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, For Love of Ivy, Funny Girl, Star!, and The Thomas Crown Affair - and the nominees for Best Musical Score - Finian's Rainbow, Funny Girl, Oliver!, Star!, and The Young Girls of Rochefort.
How does one judge Best Director separately from Best Picture? It's a question many awards watchers, obsessive and amateur alike, ask annually; it's especially relevant in a lineup like this one, where who wasn't nominated was just as much a talking point as who was.
I'm talking about Paul Newman, making his directorial debut with the Best Picture nominee Rachel, Rachel. Newman was up for the Directors Guild Award and won both the Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director. His absence was the shocker of nomination morning. Wife Joanne Woodward, herself a nominee in Best Actress for the same film, threatened to boycott the ceremony, but the good sport Newman convinced her otherwise.
