1951 BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!

This is my choice (choices) for Best Picture for the year 1951.  My criteria is that I can only use films that are on the 1001 list. To make it a little easier on myself, I am using the rules of the first Academy Award and name a winner for Best Picture (won by Wings for 1927-1928) and Best and Unique and Artistic Picture (won by Sunrise from 1927-1928). 

And the nominees on the entries from every edition of 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die are...

Ace in the Hole
A Streetcar Named Desire
Strangers on a Train
The Lavender Hill Mob
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
The African Queen
Diary of a Country Priest
An American in Paris
A Place in the Sun
The Day the Earth Stood Still

                    

And the winner for the Best Picture of 1951 is…A Place in the Sun

A Place in the Sun

One of the most famous dramas from the fifties, A Place in the Sun is based on Theodore Dreiser's early twentieth century novel, An American Tragedy. The plot involves poor, but ambitious George Eastman (Montgomery Clift), who works his way up the corporate ladder of his rich relatives business and gets involved with the loving, but simple Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters). He later meets the beautiful Anglea Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) who he falls for right away. This creates a problem with the lingering presence of Alice, whose relationship with George is further complicated by the fact that she is in a family way...

It sounds like a bit of a soap opera when you try to recount the plot, but it really is a strong drama, with well-cast leads, a tragic story (as the original title indicates) and very solid directorial touches from George Stevens (who won the Academy Award for A Place in the Sun). In fact, the film won the most Academy Awards of any film released in 1951 (6), but lost out to An American in Paris for Best Picture.

A Place in the Sun

And the Award for Unique and Artistic Picture of 1951 is...Ace in the Hole

Ace in the Hole

Ace in the Hole is probably the most famous Billy Wilder film that I had never seen before starting this blog. It is the story of a little news story about a man trapped in a cave that gets blown up by an opportunistic reporter played by Kirk Douglas. And it is dark. And it is seedy. And it is a movie that is so bleak and has such a dearth of unsympathetic characters, I'm surprised that even a director as respected as Wilder got it made! The alternative title of the film was The Big Carnival, which is what the reporter turns this story into it.

Spike Lee commented that Wilder had a crystal ball peering into the future of modern day news coverage and how things are in today's media. It's easy to imagine the plot of this story being played out today each night on The Nancy Grace Show or on various Internet news outlets. Definitely not a feel good movie, but certainly a good if not great one.

Ace in the Hole

1950 BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!

This is my choice (choices) for Best Picture for the year 1950.  My criteria is that I can only use films that are on the 1001 list. To make it a little easier on myself, I am using the rules of the first Academy Award and name a winner for Best Picture (won by Wings for 1927-1928) and Best and Unique and Artistic Picture (won by Sunrise from 1927-1928). 

Some great ones to choose from this year.

And the nominees on the entries from every edition of 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die are...
Orpheus
The Ashphalt Jungle
Rashomon
Winchester '73
Rio Grande
All About Eve
Sunset Boulevard
Los Olvidados
In a Lonely Place

                    

And the winner for the Best Picture of 1950 is…Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard is the story of the over-the-hill movie the star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and her kept young man (William Holden) is part film noir, part Hollywood tell-all, part horror movie sprinkled with just a dash of camp. Wilder and Charles Brackett's screenplay is smart and sharp and the casting of the three leads (Erich Von Stoehim being the third) is perfect.

I admit that this film does make me think of the Carol Burnett skits that featured Burnett (as Norma) and Harvey Korman (as Max). Some may also think of Glenn Close's turn as Norma on Broadway in the musical version of the story. Or might make you think of a drag queen performing as Norma Desmond at a night club near you. 

Regardless, Sunset Boulevard in its original form is a must see for any movie buff.

The actual Academy winner All About Eve, The Asphalt Jungle and In a Lonely Place might have been my choice if they had come out in different years. Oh, well. 

Sunset Boulevard

And the Award for Unique and Artistic Picture of 1950 is...Rashomon

Rashomon

After that first time I watched The Seven Samurai, I felt compelled to watch other Kurosawa movies and thought Rashomon was a good place to continue. Rashomon is a film whose very title has become a part of our language when a situation arises that involves competing and contradictory points of view. The presentation of this drama with its four (maybe five) stories really is food for thought about how we perceive things. If anyone asks me where to start with Kurosawa movies, I'd probably recommend Rashomon first before jumping into The Seven Samurai.

Rashomon

1944 BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!

This is my choice (choices) for Best Picture for the year 1944.  My criteria is that I can only use films that are on the 1001 list. To make it a little easier on myself, I am using the rules of the first Academy Award and name a winner for Best Picture (won by Wings for 1927-1928) and Best and Unique and Artistic Picture (won by Sunrise from 1927-1928). 

The classic Billy Wilder film noir was an easy choice, despite this being an excellent year for films of this ilk. The choice for the artistic slot was  more difficult. 

And the nominees on the entries from every edition of 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die are...
Meet Me in St. Louis
To Have and Have Not
Laura
Gaslight
Henry V
Ivan the Terrible
Double Indemnity
Murder, My Sweet

                    

And the winner for the Best Picture of 1944 is…Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity

Billy Wilders’ film based on the James M Cain book is considered by many the first film noir. The plot is about an insurance man (Fred MacMurray) who gets involved with an unhappy young wife (Barbara Stanwyck) and they both plot to do away with her husband and collect the life insurance money. I still really like Double Indemnity, I’m happy to say. Stanwyck is good and the usually likeable MacMurray is even more effective in this change of pace role. The one draw back, which has also been pointed out by others, is the “lack of heat” between the lovers MacMurray and Stanwyck.* They kiss a little and occasionally change positions on the sofa during scene breaks. I honestly can’t tell if they just had sex or were about to play a game of Parcheesi. The major problem, of course, stems from the censorship of the era. I’ve mentioned before that I thought censorship may have actually helped some films from this era as it forced filmmakers to be more creative. In this case, I think if hurt in some of the things they couldn't show, such as not showing that Stawyck and MacMurray (gasp!) probably slept together. However, this is a small complaint to a film that would still be on my favorite 100 films of all-time if I ever take the time to compile such a list.** The setting, music, tone, direction and story are all first class in my book.***

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to…Edward G. Robinson. MacMurray and Stanwyck are impressive in their roles as lovers, but Robinson as the Insurance claims adjuster absolutely steals this movie in every scene he is in. When he goes on and on about statistics on suicides, he’s really fun to watch (I'm not kidding!).

And the first James M. Cain cuckold award goes to…Tom Powers as Stanwyck’s doomed husband. Cheated on and murdered. And not as good a role as Cecil Kellaway had in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Sorry, Tom.

*For more heat of course, you could just watch Body Heat.
** Still haven’t taken the time to compile such a list
***Book for sale in your theater lobby.

Double Indemnity

And the Award for Unique and Artistic Picture of 1944 is...Henry V

Henry V

I think it's interesting that the 1001 book includes Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944) over his more famous and Oscar winner Hamlet from four years later. Henry V has beautiful color and costumes, a distinctive style, skilled acting and creative storytelling. One of the most interesting aspects of the piece is how the beginning is depicted as a performance at the Globe Theater in 1600 before seamlessly morphing into something more cinematic.

For more on the life of Olivier, you may want to check out Donald Spoto's informative Laurence Olivier: A Biography (HarperCollins,1991).

Henry V

THE LOST WEEKEND (1945)

HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE

(Post 44 of 50)

Hard hitting movie for its time about the day to day struggle of an alcoholic writer played by Ray Milland. The movie is strong, but seems to pull its punches at the end. Interesting that director Billy Wilder used more of a romantic leading man Milland in the dramatic lead role much the same way he used romantic comedy lead Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity. It's an overall strong movie, but wouldn't rank in my top five of Wilder films. (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment and Some Like It Hot would be those five. I also like One, Two, Three a little more.)

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to...Howard Da Silva. I recently saw Howard as one of Alvin York's buddies in Sergeant York. He gave support in many movies in the 40's, the bartender in The Lost Weekend being the most prominent. A victim of the blacklist in the 50's, Howard returned during the 60's to play his most famous role, Ben Franklin in the musical 1776. That movie is a favorite of mine and I've seen it at least a dozen times. And Howard Da Silva is Ben Franklin.

THE APARTMENT (1960)

HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE

(Post 23 of 50)

After all these years and several viewings, The Apartment remains one of my favorite films. C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) works in a giant New York office where he sits at one of the endless rows of desk which would seem to be a good recipe for making any worker an anonymous drone. The only way to move up for C. C. is to lend out his apartment for the lecherous executives to have a place to take their girlfriends to. Women are pretty much playthings to these guys. The one guy who seems to really respect women and falls for the elevator operator played by Shirley MacLaine is C. C. himself. But C. C. does get a promotion, when he loans out his apartment to the big boss played by Fred MacMurray. But this ends up causing more problems than solving them.

I'm a big Billy Wilder fan and The Apartment has the winning dialogue I associate with his movies. Lemmon is also a very good everyman and I love when he tells a floozy that he is single and she says it must be sad to go home to an empty apartment every night. He wryly responds that he may be single, but that doesn't mean he has an empty apartment. 

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to..Ray Walston. I could give this to Fred MacMurray as Lemmon's unsympathetic boss, but I'm going with Walston who plays one of the execs who borrows C.C.'s apartment.Walston is brash and he and the other execs schedule their rendezvous at the apartment like they are scheduling business meetings. 

It's certainly not the most memorable role in the film, but Walston is so unflappable in his arrogance, that he comes across as funny and likable despite himself. I grew up watching Walston in the 60's as Uncle Martin in the more that likely dated show My Favorite Martian. But I certainly loved the show when I was four! I was surprised to see that Walston was never nominated for an Academy Award. I would think that his movie stealing 1958 roles in Damn Yankees! and South Pacific would have been good for at least one nod! Walston's later roles included Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Mr. Boothy the caretaker in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picket Fences and some pretty funny AT & T commercials.

ACE IN THE HOLE (1951)

HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE

(Post 16 of 50)

Ace in the Hole is probably the most famous Billy Wilder film that I had never seen before. It is the story of a little news story about a man trapped in a cave that gets blown up by an opportunistic reporter played by Kirk Douglas. And it is dark. And it is seedy. And it is a movie that is so bleak and has such a dearth of unsympathetic characters, I'm surprised that even a director as respected as Wilder got it made! The alternative title of the film was The Big Carnival, which is what the reporter turns this story into it.

Spike Lee commented that Wilder had a crystal ball peering into the future of modern day news coverage and how things are in today's media. It's easy to imagine the plot of this story being played out today each night on The Nancy Grace Show or on various Internet news outlets. Definitely not a feel good movie, but certainly a good one.

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to…Ray Teal. Ray Teal is one of those guys that I've seen if probably dozens of movies and television shows over the years (Out of 340 IMDB credits!), but I honestly didn't know his name before I saw Ace in the Hole. He is best known for his long run as the sympatheic sheriff on Bonanza. In Ace in the Hole, he plays also plays a sheriff, but this sheriff is crooked, opportunistic and pretty much only cares about being re-elected. It's a real meaty role for Mr. Teal. And I ain't votin' for him for sheriff!

SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)

HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE

(Post 1 of 50)

Sunset Boulevard
Norma descends the stairs

I've watched (and re-watched) a lot of the classics from Hollywood's Golden Age (The period I generously define as starting during the early days of talkies and running until the early 60's) since I've started this blog. However, I find that there are a lot of films from this era that I still haven't gotten around to watching (or re-watching) in that time. So, I'm just going to bite the bullet and try to watch fifty of them in a row. Some will be from the 1001 lists and some won't. And since this was such a golden era for supporting players, I will give my Elisha Cook Jr. award for supporting players for each movie mostly because I enjoy doing it. 

And what better movie to start this these posts than with than the Billy Wilder classic  

Sunset Boulevard?

The story of the over-the-hill movie the star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and her kept young man (William Holden) is part film noir, part Hollywood tell-all, part horror movie sprinkled with just a dash of camp. Wilder and Charles Brackett's screenplay is smart and sharp and the casting of the three leads (Erich Von Stoehim being the third) is perfect.

I admit that this film does make me think of the Carol Burnett skits that featured Burnett (as Norma) and Harvey Korman (as Max). Some may also think of Glenn Close's turn as Norma on Broadway in the musical version of the story. Or might make you think of a drag queen performing as Norma Desmond at a club near you. 

Regardless, Sunset Boulevard in its original form is a must see for any movie buff.

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to…Erich Von Stroheim. I'm going with the obvious choice for the award on this one. Erich's career follows an interesting trajectory with the fictional Max. Erich was a great silent film director (like Max), even directing Gloria Swanson in a couple of films. Erich's career bottomed out after talkies (also like Max's). Though Erich was relegated to B-films instead of becoming a servant. But Sunset Boulevard was a great role for him and his absolute devotion to Norman Desmond is a chilling yet sad testament to misguided loyalty.

"Madame is the greatest star of them all"