The Oscar Quest: Best Actress – 1943
Love me some 1943. Casablanca is such a perfect choice for Best Picture, I’m amazed it won. I really am. It also won Best Director for Michael Curtiz (talked about here), which he had coming to him for a while before this, so it was nice that it worked out the way it did. Now, Best Actor this year is a decision I hate very much. In fact, I think it’s a decision most people hate very much. Because Paul Lukas, who won for Watch on the Rhine, didn’t give that great of a performance. And he beat Humphrey Bogart for Casablanca. What the fuck happened?
Best Supporting Actor this year was Charles Coburn for The More the Merrier (talked about here). And, as I said in the article, while I love the performance, Claude Rains really should have won there. But I’m okay with it (because Claude Rains should have won in 1946 if he didn’t win here. So either way, it’s the Academy’s fault). And Best Supporting Actress was Katina Paxinou for For Whom the Bell Tolls, which, is pretty much a blank, since the category is really weak. I’d have gone another way, but, it’s not that major a decision where it’s good or bad.
Which brings us to this category. The big problem here is that Ingrid Bergman wasn’t nominated for Casablanca. That’s the performance that probably should have won here. Even so, it’s possible that she still could have won based solely on the strength of her year. I don’t think so, since they gave her three Oscars after this, but it’s possible that if she won here, maybe Barbara Stanwyck could have won her well-deserved Oscar the year after this. The world may never know.
BEST ACTRESS – 1943
And the nominees were…
Jean Arthur, The More the Merrier
Ingrid Bergman, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Joan Fontaine, The Constant Nymph
Greer Garson, Madame Curie
Jennifer Jones, The Song of Bernadette (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor – 1975
1975 is a really strong year. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest wins Best Picture over Jaws, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon and Nashville. All (though I’m not the biggest fan of Nashville) would have been acceptable decisions for most people. Cuckoo’s Nest also wins Best Director for Milos Forman and Best Actress for Louise Fletcher (talked about here). I love the Best Actress decision, and, while I accept the Best Director decision, I don’t particularly like it, since Sidney Lumet, Stanley Kubrick and (an un-nominated) Steven Spielberg gave better efforts than Forman did. Forman’s effort was pretty theatrical. Plus Kubrick and Lumet were already overdue by this point.
Best Supporting Actor this year was George Burns for The Sunshine Boys (talked about here), which I like as a decision. Nice way to reward a veteran who gave a great performance. And Best Supporting Actress was Lee Grant for Shampoo, which I also like, since — the category sucked. She was gonna win one at some point, and this was the logical category for her to do it.
Which brings us to this category. A very strong one, performance-wise. And the decision had to happen, however one may feel about it (but I can’t imagine anyone would actually be against it), since Nicholson was way overdue by this point and gave one of the defining performances of his career.
BEST ACTOR – 1975
And the nominees were…
Walter Matthau, The Sunshine Boys
Jack Nicholson, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon
Maximilian Schell, The Man in the Glass Booth
James Whitmore, Give ’em Hell, Harry! (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actress – 1987
Thank God we’re almost done with 1987. I hate this year. It’s not that they made bad decisions, it’s just — it’s so boring. The Last Emperor is just a boring Best Picture choice. It’s a great film, but does anybody care that it won? Bernardo Bertolucci winning Best Director for it (talked about here) is a good decision, I’ll give them that. But the film is just so boring as a Best Picture winner.
Michael Douglas won Best Actor for Wall Street (talked about here), which is a wonderful decision, and one people can’t complain about because the category is so weak. Best Actress was Cher for Moonstruck, which, as I said here, I hate as a decision. Really hate. Holly Hunter and Glenn Close were such better choices. And Best Supporting Actor was Sean Connery for The Untouchables (talked about here), which — it’s Sean Connery. Of course it’s great.
Which brings us to this category. Oh yeah, we’re looking for alternatives here. I definitely disagree with two of these nominees. And since most of the other three are so weak, I’ll sacrifice any one of those three as a third nominee. Let’s see if there were any other performances worth nominating instead — nothing. At least at first glance. Wow, this year sucked. Every decade has one, it seems.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 1987
And the nominees were…
Norma Aleandro, Gaby: A True Story
Anne Archer, Fatal Attraction
Olympia Dukakis, Moonstruck
Anne Ramsey, Throw Momma from the Train
Ann Sothern, The Whales of August (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor – 1939
1939 is the best year in the history of movies. That’s not an embellishment. 9 of the 10 Best Picture nominees are legit classic (and amazing) films (Dark Victory is just okay). Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Love Affair (later remade as An Affair to Remember), Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights. All pretty strong, right? Yeah? Now listen to this half of the Best Picture nominees. Stagecoach. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The Wizard of Oz. Oh, and a little film called Gone With the Wind. Yeah. It’s pretty famous.
Gone With the Wind rightfully wins Best Picture, Best Director for Victor Fleming (talked about here), Best Actress for Vivien Leigh and Best Supporting Actress for Hattie McDaniel. Automatically these are top three decisions of all time in their respective categories. (Well, maybe not Best Supporting Actress. That’s definitely a top ten, though, since she was the first black actor to win an Oscar.) This is a perfect film and deserved every award it won (and even more). Best Actor this year was Robert Donat for Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which, as I said here, is a pretty bad decision. Jimmy Stewart really should have won for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It was so bad they blatantly gave him a makeup Oscar the year after this for a performance that should never have won an Oscar in a hundred years.
So that’s 1939. A brilliant year all around. And then we have this category, which is amazingly strong.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – 1939
And the nominees were…
Brian Ahene, Juarez
Harry Carey, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Brian Donlevy, Beau Geste
Thomas Mitchell, Stagecoach
Claude Rains, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Director – 1985
I really hate 1985. Out of Africa was a terrible Best Picture choice. The Color Purple should have beaten it. Geraldine Page was a terrible Best Actress choice for The Trip to Bountiful (as I said here). Whoopi Goldberg really should have beaten her for The Color Purple.
Anjelica Huston was a weak choice as Best Supporting Actress for Prizzi’s Honor (talked about here). Oprah Winfrey or (my personal choice) Meg Tilly should have beaten her, for The Color Purple or Agnes of God, respectively. Don Ameche is an okay choice as Best Supporting Actor for Cocoon, but it doesn’t really help the year any.
And then there’s this category. Steven Spielberg wasn’t even nominated for The Color Purple. And the category just feels so weak and generic without him. The choice here comes down to two people — the Best Picture-winning director (who is a great director in his own right), or the legend who only got this single Oscar nomination. It should be obvious which of the two I’m taking.
BEST DIRECTOR – 1985
And the nominees were…
Héctor Babenco, Kiss of the Spider Woman
John Huston, Prizzi’s Honor
Akira Kurosawa, Ran
Syndey Pollack, Out of Africa
Peter Weir, Witness (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actress – 1950
This is a big category, historically. A lot of people have strong opinions on this one. I’m gonna be honest with you — you’re all right. In strong categories, there almost are no truly correct decisions. So let’s recap the rest of the year and then get into this one.
All About Eve wins Best Picture, Best Director for Joseph Mankiewicz (talked about here) and Best Supporting Actor for George Sanders. I don’t have a problem with Best Picture, even though my personal choice would have been Sunset Boulevard, and I really like Best Supporting Actor. I do, however, have major problems with Best Director. As I said in the article I wrote about it, I consider it to be the single worst Best Director decision of all time. Carol Reed should have won this award twice for his direction of The Third Man. I don’t care if it was the Best Picture, the best effort is the best effort. And Reed gave by far the best effort. Best Actor this year was José Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergerac (talked about here), which I don’t like at all. It makes no sense to me. Best Supporting Actress was Josephine Hull for Harvey, which is a great decision, based on the category.
So now, let’s get into this one. Where, to me, there are three legitimate contenders (not four).
BEST ACTRESS – 1950
And the nominees were…
Anne Baxter, All About Eve
Bette Davis, All About Eve
Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday
Eleanor Parker, Caged
Gloria Swanson, Sunset Boulevard (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actress – 1979
1979 is well-covered on this blog. I don’t like it. I don’t mind Kramer vs. Kramer winning Best Picture over Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz so much. The films speak for themselves, and it’s pretty clear which ones are better. My problem is that Robert Benton won Best Director for Kramer vs. Kramer over Francis Ford Coppola and Bob Fosse (talked about here). That’s sickening.
Best Actor this year was (rightfully) Dustin Hoffman for Kramer vs. Kramer, and I fully support that decision, because he’d won one of these twice over by this point and had nothing to show for it. As much as I love Peter Sellers and Roy Scheider, Hoffman was the choice. Best Actress was Sally Field for Norma Rae, which, as I said here, I love as a decision. And Best Supporting Actor this year was Melvyn Douglas for Being There, which is no secret that it’s the single worst Best Supporting Actor decision of all time. The worst. Robert Duvall was clearly the choice there for Apocalypse Now.
Which brings us to this category — a slam dunk if there ever was one. When Meryl wins a category, she really wins a category.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 1979
And the nominees were…
Jane Alexander, Kramer vs. Kramer
Barbara Barrie, Breaking Away
Candace Bergen, Starting Over
Mariel Hemingway, Manhattan
Meryl Streep, Kramer vs. Kramer (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor – 1964
I like 1964. I don’t love it, since I love Dr. Strangelove and would totally have given that Best Picture, but I know the Academy would never have done that. And My Fair Lady is a great film. It’s a classic film. It’s a great choice for Best Picture. And George Cukor winning Best Director is a great decision, because the dude should have had one 30 years earlier. So that worked out really well.
Best Actress this year was Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins, which I like, based on the category. I’ll talk about why specifically when I get to that category, but the shorthand is — it’s Mary fucking Poppins. Lighten the fuck up. Best Supporting Actor this year was Peter Ustinov for Topkapi (talked about here), which I’m cool with. The category really sucked hardcore. And Best Supporting Actress was Lila Kedrova for Zorba the Greek, which, honestly, the category was so bad, I understand it. But the complete disrespect for Agnes Moorehead by the Academy is just astounding. The fact that she didn’t win (ever) really shocks me. That’s just as bad as Claude Rains never winning.
And then we end up here. I know how we all feel, so I’ll say it this way, and this is how it’s gonna stay: yes, Peter Sellers gave the best performance. Yes, I’m voting for him. No, the Academy was never going to give him the Oscar here. Yes, Rex Harrison was the best choice in that scenario. So this was actually a good decision.
BEST ACTOR – 1964
And the nominees were…
Richard Burton, Becket
Rex Harrison, My Fair Lady
Peter O’Toole, Becket
Anthony Quinn, Zorba the Greek
Peter Sellers, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actress – 1947
I don’t like 1947. I like the big decisions, but I feel the nominees this year were pretty weak, so, while they made the best decision, it just feels ho hum. Gentleman’s Agreement wins Best Picture and Best Director for Elia Kazan. Its competition was a B-movie version of the same story (Crossfire) two fantasies that are better served as Christmas films (The Bishop’s Wife and Miracle on 34th Street, which, if It’s a Wonderful Life didn’t win the year before this, these had no shot), and a classical literary adaptation (Great Expectations, which, is a great film, but not one that should win Best Picture. They wouldn’t make this mistake until the year after this). So, they made the right choice, but, the choices were pretty weak, so that’s why I don’t really think of this as such an amazing decision.
Best Actor this year was Ronald Colman for A Double Life. This was a “veteran” win, in that, he was a well-respected actor, and, like David Niven, it was only a matter of time before he won one of these. And, honestly, the category sucked so bad, I’m okay with it, even though I didn’t much like the performance (loved the concept behind the performance, but the performance itself felt very theatrical). Gregory Peck gave the best performance, but, he won an Oscar later, so it’s okay that he didn’t win. Then Best Actress this year was Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter, which was probably the second worst Best Actress decision of all time. Rosalind Russell really should have won for Mourning Becomes Electra. This is considered to be the worst Best Actress decision, but, we already know my feelings on that one. And Best Supporting Actor this year was Edmund Gwenn for Miracle on 34th Street (talked about here), which I like a lot and accept, but Richard Widmark was so awesomely insane in Kiss of Death, I had to vote for him there. He pushes an old woman in a wheelchair down the stairs.
Which brings us to this category. It’s really weak. There were only two decisions they could have made that were okay. This was one of them.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 1947
And the nominees were…
Ethel Barrymore, The Paradine Case
Gloria Grahame, Crossfire
Celeste Holm, Gentleman’s Agreement
Marjorie Mann, The Egg and I
Anne Revere, Gentleman’s Agreement (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor – 1951
The great thing about 1951, for the acting categories, is that you can just say, A Streetcar Named Desire, and that eliminates any questions. The bad thing about 1951 is that A Streetcar Named Desire didn’t win Best Picture. Which is just strange.
An American in Paris wins Best Picture. I’m not sure anyone has ever figured out why. Even stranger is that the film’s director, Vincente Minnelli, didn’t win Best Director for it. George Stevens won Best Director for A Place in the Sun (a terrible decision, talked about here). This reminds me of the year after this. The Best Picture/Best Director split alongside the best film not winning Best Picture makes me think they deliberately didn’t want to vote for it. I don’t get it. Streetcar is an American classic.
Humphrey Bogart (finally) wins Best Actor this year for The African Queen (talked about here). This was a career win, pure and simple. The clear best performance was Brando in Streetcar, but Streetcar winning the rest of the acting awards — Best Actress for Vivien Leigh, Best Supporting Actress for Kim Hunter, and this category — probably made it feel like overload. Plus Bogart is one of the few names (alongside Henry Fonda and John Wayne) who, if they won an Oscar for any performance, any year, no one would question it because they are who they are. So, I accept the decision (plus Brando won twice after this), but based on what performance won and what didn’t, it was a terrible decision.
So, that’s 1951. Great, outside of Best Picture and Best Director. What the hell happened?
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – 1951
And the nominees were…
Leo Genn, Quo Vadis
Karl Malden, A Streetcar Named Desire
Kevin McCarthy, Death of a Salesman
Peter Ustinov, Quo Vadis
Gig Young, Come Fill the Cup (more…)
Can You Feel The Love Tonight: A Pictorial Analysis of a Sex Scene That Wasn’t There When You Were Six
Sometimes you think you knew it all, only to be surprised.
Most people, when they reach college age, they begin to understand that the Disney films of their youth may have a little more subtext than we once thought:
(Which they conveniently cut out of this DVD release. The scene fades just as the “sex” cloud goes into the air. Hence the reason that photo looks like shit. It’s from an old copy I found online.)
Of course there’s more. The penis in The Little Mermaid, etc. (I don’t count the racism, because subtext implies that it’s not out in the open.) But, you come to realize that Disney films are a bit more adult than you thought they were when you were a child. And you see stuff like that sex cloud up there, and you think that’s it. But then you discover more. Much more.
The Oscar Quest: Best Actress – 1992
I’m torn on this one. I love the actress who won, and her winning made some future categories a lot easier, but — she didn’t give the best performance. So I don’t know what to do with this one.
As for the rest of 1992, I like it a lot. Unforgiven wins Best Picture, Best Director for Clint Eastwood (talked about here) and Best Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman (talked about here) which I love. I like A Few Good Men and Scent of a Woman a lot, but, Unforgiven was the right choice this year. And as I said in the article, I think Gene Hackman was the best choice in his category (mostly because Nicholson didn’t need to win). Al Pacino finally won his well-deserved Best Actor award for Scent of a Woman (talked about here), which had to happen, despite Robert Downey Jr. and Denzel Washington giving better performances. Sometimes the Academy just needs to atone for fuck ups (which, as we saw here, created more fuck ups). And Best Supporting Actress was Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny (talked about here), which I love as a decision, so much so that I took some shit for it (which I also love). So that’s 1992. I like 5 of the 6. Maybe 6 of 6.
Let’s get into this category, now. Because I’m really torn about this one…
BEST ACTRESS – 1992
And the nominees were…
Catherine Deneuve, Indochine
Mary McDonnell, Passion Fish
Michelle Pfeiffer, Love Field
Susan Sarandon, Lorenzo’s Oil
Emma Thompson, Howards End (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Director – 1941
We can all agree that 1941 is one of the biggest travesties in Academy history. How Green Was My Valley, a good film but not a great film, wins Best Picture over Citizen Kane. It’s bad, yes, we know. No need to repeat the obvious.
Donald Crisp also won Best Supporting Actor for the film (talked about here), beating my personal choice, Sydney Greenstreet for The Maltese Falcon. Best Actor this year was Gary Cooper for Sergeant York (talked about here), which, as much as I love the film and as iconic as the character is, I don’t like as a decision. I think Orson Welles should have won for Citizen Kane. But I’m not that upset about it, since Welles really should have won for Screenplay and Director. I could have lived with Cooper winning if Welles had won those other ones. But it’s fine. Then Best Actress was Joan Fontaine for Suspicion, which is a total makeup Oscar for the year before this, where she probably should have won for Rebecca. My personal choice in this category would have been Greer Garson for Blossoms in the Dust, but Fontaine was a good choice considering she didn’t win the year before this. And Best Supporting Actress was Mary Astor for The Great Lie, which on the surface, doesn’t sound like an Oscar-worthy performance. She was fine in the film, but, the real clincher is the fact that she was also in The Maltese Falcon this year. Plus she’s an actress who definitely deserves an Oscar. So that was a great decision.
So, really, 1941 is a great year, outside of Best Picture and Best Director. The rest of the decisions are at worst acceptable and understandable. So, really, we blame William Randolph Hearst for this one, since he single-handedly torpedoed Kane‘s chances. Someone should make a film about Rupert Murdoch, see what happens. (I bet he doesn’t have a pet name for his mistress’s vagina.)
BEST DIRECTOR – 1941
And the nominees were…
John Ford, How Green Was My Valley
Alexander Hall, Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Howard Hawks, Sergeant York
Orson Welles, Citizen Kane
William Wyler, The Little Foxes (more…)
