The Winners of the 1962 Retro Hollmann Awards

Wrapping things up with the winners of the 1962 Retro Hollmann Awards. Make sure you refer back to the nominations for full context, as well as the Top Ten for further insight.

Let us begin:

Best Ensemble

The End of Summer

2. Long Day's Journey Into Night; 3. The Connection; 4. Billy Budd; 5. Victim

Every character, no matter how brief their turn, is perfectly performed. Not just the sisters and their father, but the aunt who shows up in two scenes, the mistress's daughter and her American boyfriend, the potential suitor, the woman who runs the bar, the two farmers at the end: all of them have their own stories happening off-screen, and the glimpse we get makes them just as compelling as our leads.

The remaining 17 categories after the jump...

Nominees for the 1962 Retro Hollmann Awards

I screened 69 movies for the 1962 retrospective:

Advise & Consent

Billy Budd

Billy Rose's Jumbo

Birdman of Alcatraz

Blast of Silence

Bon Voyage!

The Cabinet of Caligari

Cape Fear

The Case of Patty Smith

Carnival of Souls

The Connection

Confessions of an Opium Eater

Creature from the Haunted Sea

Damn the Defiant!

David and Lisa

Days of Wine and Roses

Divorce Italian Style

Electra

The End of Summer

Experiment in Terror

Eyes Without a Face

Fallguy

A Flame in the Streets

Freud

Gigot

Girls! Girls! Girls!

Hatari!

Horror Hotel

In Search of the Castaways

The Interns

Jack the Giant Killer

Jules and Jim

Last Year at Marienbad

Lawrence of Arabia

Lolita

Long Day's Journey Into Night

The Longest Day

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Manchurian Candidate

The Miracle Worker

Mr. Arkadin

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation

Mothra

Murder She Said

The Music Man

Mutiny on the Bounty

Peeping Tom

Period of Adjustment

Phaedra

The Phantom of the Opera

Premature Burial

The Road to Hong Kong

Satan Never Sleeps

State Fair

Sweet Bird of Youth

Tales of Terror

Taras Bulba

A Taste of Honey

Tender is the Night

That Touch of Mink

Through a Glass Darkly

To Kill a Mockingbird

Tower of London

Two for the Seesaw

Victim

A View from the Bridge

Walk on the Wild Side

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

From that batch of films comes this slate of nominees - 32 films in 18 categories, all after the jump:

My Top Ten of 1962

A month late it may be, but I think that extra reflection gave me a more accurate read on which movies really knocked my socks off. Some faded a little after the initial excitement, while others that just wouldn't leave me be. Apologies to the nine that just missed out: Blast of Silence, The Connection, In Search of the Castaways, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Miracle Worker, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, Mothra, Phaedra, and Taras Bulba.

Now, without further blah-blah: my top ten films of 1962, in alphabetical order:

Cinema '62: The Moneymakers

And now, the Top Ten Films of 1962...at the box office.

Cinema '62: In Color!

Almost done. Here are five films in glorious color:

Cinema '62: Lives of Crime

The following films deal with crime, at least as it was interpreted in 1962. We've got murder, rape, stalking, sex trafficking, drug use, conspiracy, racketeering, theft, and back-alley abortions. Bring the kids!

Cinema '62: Something Queer

Lawrence of Arabia has the Turkish Bey, David and Lisa has David's smitten friend Simon. There's a scene in Tender is the Night sympathetic to a young one, That Touch of Mink has a running gag in fear of it, and there's definitely something happening between Claggart and the titular Billy Budd. And then, of course, there's Walk on the Wild Side, wherein the lesbian madam has taken her star attraction as a lover. The 1962 Academy Awards were full of winks, nods, and semaphore signals to the lavender set. Restrictions were loosening, thank goodness, and the button-pushers were coming out (ha!) to take advantage. Here are some other queer-tinged films released that year: 

Cinema '62: Sing It!

In addition to musical fare discussed before, a number of 1962 releases - some musicals, some not - feature notable songs or musical numbers. A look at nine of those films:

Cinema '62: Boo!

It's Halloween! Happy Halloween, everyone! We've discussed the Academy Award nominees of 1962, so, in light of it being October 31st, why not discuss the year's horror offerings? The following ten films were released in the US in 1962, though some were out much earlier in their home countries:

Cinema '62: Best Picture

And here we have it - the finale! The nominees for Best Picture of the Year are:

Cinema '62: Best Actress

Full stop, this might be one of the greatest Best Actress lineups of all time, not a whiff in the lot, everyone giving their all, sometimes above and beyond what's asked of them. The nominees:

Cinema '62: Best Actor

This is my last post on a Peter O'Toole Oscar nomination! I've managed to watch them all, my thoughts on each are linked below (except for Venus, which I think I reviewed on my long-defunct LiveJournal; at the first-ever Hollmann Awards, its one acting nomination went to Leslie Phillips in Supporting). Naturally, I saved his first for last, because...well, that's just the way it worked out.

Indeed, I've managed to discuss all these actors before. They are favorites of Oscar: a total of 28 nominations, an average of 5.6 noms per actor! Not that those always translated to wins: only four statues among all five, and two of them were Jack Lemmon's. Still, compare that to 1962's Supporting Actor, a five-wide race of one-and-doners; or Supporting Actress, where both first-time nominees were also one-time nominees; or Lead Actress, where...oh, we're talking about that tomorrow. 

In the meantime, the nominees for Best Actor:

Cinema '62: Best Original Screenplay

For the second year in a row, non-English language films dominate the Original Screenplay race. Last Year at Marienbad had been submitted by France for Best Foreign Language Film consideration the year before; beautiful yet inscrutable (to me), it's the kind of film people picture when they say "art film." Through a Glass Darkly won Best Foreign Language Film the previous year for Sweden, a Bergman film dealing with a family on the verge of collapse. And then there's the previously-discussed Divorce Italian Style, not even submitted for Foreign Language Film consideration, just a hit!

Joining them are the biopic Freud and That Touch of Mink, a rom-com in the Rock Hudson-Doris Day-Tony Randall style but with Cary Grant instead of Hudson, Gig Young instead of Randall. Day remains, thank goodness. 

The nominees:

Cinema '62: Best Original Song

From scores we move on to songs - sing along, won't you, if you know the words?:

Cinema '62: Best Original Score

Each category always seems to have one lone nominee, the sole representative of a film that, perhaps, had greater Oscar dreams. I'm sure the lone nominee in this category had higher aspirations: Taras Bulba.

Based on the novel by Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba is the story of a family. Taras is a proud Cossack, a ferocious military leader, an enemy of the Poles, a friend as well a father to his sons. His sons Andriy and Ostap are educated in Kyiv, where Andriy falls in love with a Polish noblewoman. This leads to some tensions when the Cossack take arms against the Polish government. Exciting battle scenes, with so many horses, extras, and pyrotechnics, you'll thrill even as you worry for everyone's safety! A bear pit! Lots of drinking and singing! Great performances!

And, of course, a sweeping, epic score - let's discuss further:

Cinema '62: Best Adapted Screenplay

All five Best Picture nominees were adaptations, yet the Adapted Screenplay category is a better side-by-side match with Best Director. The only exception is Divorce Italian Style, an original screenplay, which we'll discuss later. Otherwise, all the best-directed films also appear to be among the best-written, with Lolita in the fifth slot.

"How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?" That was the original ad copy, and it was a fair question - this was, after all, the controversial novel about a middle-aged pedophile defending his lust for his stepdaughter. The discerning reader can see Nabakov's disdain for his subject, as well as his distress at the elements that enable their exploitation. And he does it all with a dark, sly sense of humor - Stanley Kubrick proved a perfect match for that sensibility.

Anyway, the nominees:

Cinema '62: Best Director

Although we've seen this before, rare indeed is the Best Director lineup where the majority of nominees are representing films not nominated for Best Picture. Indeed, I believe since the category went five-wide in 1936, three lone directors have only occurred five times: 1954, 1955, 1962, 1963, 1966. Curious that they're all within a 12-year span, coinciding with the winnowing-away of the Hays Code and the growing appreciation for international cinema. 

The lone directing nominees here represent David and Lisa, a drama about youths in a residential home for mental health issues; Divorce Italian Style, an Italian comedy about a man who plots the death of his wife so he can seduce his teenage cousin; and The Miracle Worker, a surprise Best Picture snub, about Anne Sullivan teaching Helen Keller how to communicate. The directors "snubbed" are The Longest Day's triumvirate of Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, and Bernhard Wicki (with significant though uncredited contributions from Gerd Oswald and Darryl F. Zanuck); The Music Man's Morton DaCosta; and Mutiny on the Bounty's Lewis Milestone (with uncredited filming from Carol Reed, who was fired mid-production). Here's who made it:

Cinema '62: Best Supporting Actress

Today, we look at the nominees for Best Supporting Actress, with four movies we'll be seeing a lot more of - Bird Man of Alcatraz, The Miracle Worker, Sweet Bird of Youth, To Kill a Mockingbird - and The Manchurian Candidate. 

The original AFI List of the 100 Greatest American Movies included The Manchurian Candidate at #67, TIME named Mrs. Iselin among the 25 Greatest Movie Villains, and Screen Drafts called it the second-best Cold War film. It's a well-done noose-tightener about brainwashed soldiers, political manipulation, and the conspiracy that binds these two into one master plan. It's interesting because there's not a lot of mystery behind it, the movie tipping its hand pretty early as to what's going on, though not necessarily why it's going on. That seems a little muddled, particularly the cross and double-cross. Great performances from Laurence Harvey and Khigh Dhiegh. Ballsy finale. Great (Oscar-nominated) editing by Ferris Webster. I wish I liked it!

The nominees:

Cinema '62: Best Supporting Actor

Yesterday, we looked at the Adapted Scores of 1962. Today, it's the Best Supporting Actor lineup. All of these actors were here for the first time; none of them would be back for a second nomination (although...one of them still could, one day). We'll talk about many of these films again, but there is one film for which this was the lone nomination: Billy Budd.

Have you seen Billy Budd, co-written and directed by Peter Ustinov, adapted from the novel by Herman Melville and a play by Louis O. Coxe and Robert H. Chapman? It's a beautifully done movie whose conversations about interpreting justice, shortcomings of the law, and the decision to believe in and behave the best in the face of the worst could be dull or didactic; instead, the intelligent screenplay and complex performances make for an exciting two hours. Good year for boat films!

The nominees:

Cinema '62: Best Adapted Score

Our first category is Adapted Score, or as it was known at the time, Scoring of Music - Adaptation or Treatment. Four of these nominees are musicals, while one of them is an "adaptation" (read: orchestration) of a score by Jackie Gleason. The nominees:

Cinema '62 Starts Now!

It's been three months - long overdue for our next retrospective, this time focusing on the year 1962. Why 1962? Honestly, Mutiny on the Bounty led me to this decision: it's the first and, so far, only time a remake of a previous Best Picture winner (1935's Mutiny on the Bounty) was itself nominated for Best Picture. With Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story coming, I figured it was appropriate. 

But we'll get into Best Picture next week. This week, we're looking at Adapted Score, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director,  and Adapted Screenplay. But first, some of the other nominated films:

The 1985 Retro Hollmann Awards - The Winners

Here they are, the winners of the 1985 Retro Hollmann Awards!

The 1985 Retro Hollmann Awards in 2021

And the nominees for the 1985 Retro Hollmann Awards are:

Best Visual Effects

Back to the Future

Kevin Pike, special effects supervisor

Ken Ralston, supervisor of visual effects (ILM)

Cocoon

Greg Cannom, special alien creatures and effects

Peter Anderson, creature development / visual effects

Ken Ralston, visual effects supervisor

Mitch Suskin, visual effects production supervisor

Enemy Mine

Bob MacDonald, Jr., special effects supervisor

Don Dow, visual effects supervisor

Lifeforce

John Gant, special effects

John Dykstra, special visual effects

Robert Shepherd, special effects producer

Young Sherlock Holmes

Stephen Norrington, animatronics supervisor

Kit West, special effects supervisor

Dennis Muren, visual effects supervisor

More, after the jump....

Top Ten of 1985

Honorable Mentions: Fright Night, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, The Return of the Living Dead, Smooth Talk, The Trip to Bountiful, Trouble in Mind, Twice in a Lifetime, Wetherby.

And now, the Top Ten, in alphabetical order.

Oscar '85: Best Picture

The Best Picture nominees of 1985:

Oscar '85: William Hurt and Best Actor

My two all-time favorite actors are William Hurt and Vincent Price. Only one of them won an Oscar:

It was the first of a three-year streak of the Academy loving Hurt's performances, which I've discussed before in my coverage of 1986 and 1987 (linked below). You can tell that the room was with him - a semi-standing ovation, a shout of support, an incredible wave of adulation. And being that he is my favorite actor, you could perhaps assume what my take on his performance, his win, and his competition may be. But read it for yourself:

Oscar '85: Steven Spielberg, Sydney Pollack, and Best Director

The nominees for Best Director this year do not include Steven Spielberg for The Color Purple. It's a significant point, for two reasons. Number one: The Color Purple led with eleven nominations, and while Picture and Director are rarely a five-for-five deal (even these days with the expanded lineup in the former, lone directors such as Thomas Vinterberg still pop up), one would think that the most-nominated film of the year would have the director who brought it all together lauded. Number two: not only was he nominated for the Directors Guild Award - against Huston, Pollack, Weir, and Cocoon's Ron Howard - he won the damn thing. In the 38 years of the DGA Awards, Spielberg was the first to win without even being nominated for the Oscar, a "feat" that's only been accomplished twice more: Howard for Apollo 13 in 1995 and Ben Affleck for Argo in 2012. Frankly, I think the Academy's directors branch got it right: I like The Color Purple, but I think some of Spielberg's choices are to its detriment. But even if he had been nominated at the Oscars, could he have forestalled the inevitable?:

Probably not. A sweep is a sweep is a sweep. What a tough choice to make, though! Look at the contenders:

Oscar '85: The Writing Awards

The Best Picture lineup consisted of four adaptations and one original work. All were nominated for their screenplays. Looking back, one sees the obviousness of these wins - the Best Picture juggernaut for Adapted, the lone Best Picture nominee for Original, duh!:

But I don't know that it would turn out the same way today. Maybe Witness would still be the one to beat, given its WGA Awards win, but the way campaigns and buzz run now, I can see a reality where Prizzi's Honor and The Purple Rose of Cairo come out ahead on Oscar night due to precursor support and a spreading of the wealth. Is it a reality I prefer? Find out after the jump...

Oscar '85: John Barry, Lionel Richie, and the Music

The leads of Singin' in the Rain came out in yellow raincoats to present the music awards, beginning with Original Song. The Color Purple was the only Best Picture nominee to make the cut, though I believe Kiss of the Spider Woman was also the only other Best Picture nominee to even have an original song. The other films nominated were Back to the Future, Richard Attenborough's tepidly-received but, to my eyes, very underrated adaptation of the Broadway smash A Chorus Line, and the Cold War dance drama White Nights - twice! Clearly, it was too good to deny:

But would I deny it? Let's find out:

Oscar '85: Geraldine Page and Best Actress

Best Actress! A lineup of three winners, a newcomer, and a perennial bridesmaid on her eighth nomination. Finally, a nomination that turned to a win:

There's hope yet, Glenn Close! The nominees are:

Oscar '85: Anjelica Huston and Best Supporting Actress

Best Supporting Actress saw competition between five performers from four films: Best Picture nominees The Color Purple, in which Celie Johnson experiences heartache after heartache in the rural South at the turn-of-the-century, and Prizzi's Honor, in which mob hitman Charley Partanna falls in love with a freelance hitwoman; Twice in a Lifetime, a grounded, wonderful drama in which a family man ends his 30-year marriage after falling for a barmaid and the fallout from it; and the curiously dull melodrama Agnes of God, in which a court-appointed psychiatrist investigates the state of mind of a novitiate accused of murdering her newborn child. Much as Supporting Actor went to a long-beloved veteran, this one went to a legacy:

Unfair to characterize the win as such? Let's talk performances:

Oscar '85: Don Ameche and Best Supporting Actor

It's a lineup of one-and-done, where absolutely no one was nominated before, nor would they ever be nominated again. Not long ago, someone on Twitter called this the worst Supporting Actor lineup in history. I can understand that feeling, honestly, as many of the performances seem "lightweight," or at least less memorable compared to some of the year's other choices (John Lone in Year of the Dragon, Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future, Danny Glover in The Color Purple...though I suspect he had a Best Actor push). On the other hand, I think a lot of the disappointment comes from the bastardization of what this category has become. These are all clearly character actors in supporting roles, even Roberts', none of them with towering subplots, no one a mega-star "slumming" it for an easy get. The closest you get to that is Don Ameche, a star in the 30s and 40s who'd aged into supporting roles. That veteran status is probably what catapulted him to the win - peep that standing ovation:

The film for which he won isn't the usual usual, either. Cocoon is a sci-fi-fantasy dramedy about a clique of senior citizens who frequent a neighboring pool during the off-season, when its renters aren't home. This year, unbeknownst to them, the home is occupied by aliens using the pool to rejuvenate cocoons of their left-behind brethren; suddenly, it becomes the Fountain of Youth, and our old-timers enjoy a renewed vitality. A surprisingly moving treatment of mortality and loss, with a great ensemble and beautiful score from James Horner. Other films nominated here: Best Picture nominees Out of Africa and Prizzi's Honor; Jagged Edge, a wonderful pulpy legal thriller in which a defense attorney falls in lust with her client, accused of raping, then murdering, his wife; and Runaway Train, an uninvolving thriller about two escaped prisoners on a speeding train with no crew, and no signs of stopping. And the performances nominated? They are:

Oscar '85: How To Make History Without A Nomination

Today, every distributor who can afford to do so sends screeners to Academy members for films that are "for their consideration." Wasn't always so: before, members had to attend special screenings in cinemas, presenting their membership cards for admission. Then and now, these screenings/-ers are, of course, in addition to the print ads in The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, The Los Angeles Times and Variety. Embassy Pictures could not afford these luxuries, but John Boorman could, so in order to get The Emerald Forest seen by Academy members, he made VHS tapes and made them available for free to Academy members at select rental outlets. And so, the first Oscar screeners were born.

The Emerald Forest, based on a true story, begins with an American family newly arrived in South America, the patriarch heading a construction project that's destroying the Amazon; when he takes his family to see the site, his son is taken by an Indigenous tribe known as The Invisible People. Ten years later, they finally meet again, though now the son has completely assimilated, the son of the chief, reluctant to return "home" with Dad. It's another Boorman winner, a thoughtful examination of colonial exploitation of Native lands and natural resources, a difficult fathers-son drama about defining home and family. Gone from the Oscar conversation since Deliverance, and two years away from his return with Hope and Glory, it would make some sense to honor this Boorman film; if not in Picture or Director, difficult fits for box office also-rans, then certainly in categories like Cinematography, Production Design, Makeup.

The strategy did not work then. It received three nominations at BAFTA (Score, Cinematography, Makeup) and one at the Césars (Poster). Still, it kicked off a way to reach voters that changed the industry forever. One-week qualifying releases that depended more on screeners and word-of-mouth than on an actual release include films like Still Alice, Biutiful, The Father, Minari. Screeners are also not just relegated to home video materials like VHS and DVD, but streaming links as well, particularly important in this COVID age.

So, The Emerald Forest made history but could not crack the crafts. Here are films that did, with special attention paid to films we won't get to discuss elsewhere:

More from '85

Ten more films from 1985...

Dying in '85

Spoiler alert: death plays a part in each of these films. Let's talk about it.

The Worst of '85?

The Golden Raspberry Awards were founded in 1980. They've been shitting on fun ever since: consider their first Best Picture lineup not only included my favorite film of all time, Xanadu, but William Friedkin's best film Cruising. Five years later, they still struggled with how to appraise parody, targeted actors who weren't bad but were obnoxiously popular, and found a groove they would never get out of - dishonoring Sylvester Stallone and John Travolta. And, as if that wasn't enough, they had the audacity to nominate the great The Last Dragon in Worst Original Song...for the two best tunes on the soundtrack! Risible. Among the many which I did not see, here were nine films nominated for Razzies:

Old Friends of '85

As I looked at the films of 1985, I realized that I had seen many of them before, not just once, but many times. In addition to the aforementioned Cannibal Holocaust and Oscar nominees Out of Africa and Ran, I reacquainted myself with such familiar faces as:

Horror '85

Many agree that the genre films of the 1980s are unlike anything that came before and cast long shadows over that which came after. This particular genre, horror, is a favorite of mine, and 1985 seems a particularly fertile year for it. Vampires and zombies, some fantasy (though I've saved pure fantasy for another day), a good balance of scares and laughs, here is the year in horror (going by US release dates).

Why 1985?

1972 is barely cold, but we forge ahead with the films of 1985! So why 1985? I blame Juan Carlos Ojano and his podcast The One-Inch Barrier.

The One-Inch Barrier takes a look at the Academy Awards' Best International Feature category, known through 2018 as Best Foreign Language Film. Its name is derived from one of Bong Joon-ho's acceptance speeches, in which he said he hoped more people would take to watching films in other languages and not be put off by the "one-inch barrier" of subtitles. The podcast's host Carlos takes that idea and runs with it; every episode, he and a guest watch and discuss the five nominees of a given year, some of them readily available, some of them hard-to-track-down rarities, a good many of them forgotten - yesterday's Oscar nominee is today's footnote.

Carlos asked me to guest for the episode concerning 1985 back in February, which featured this lineup:

The 1972 Retro Hollmann Awards, Part Two

Our final day of looking at the films of 1972. With three (performance-based) wins for 1776 yesterday, three for Cabaret, and one apiece The Poseidon Adventure and Super Fly (in its only nomination), here are the remainder of the 1972 Retro Hollmann Awards winners. As always, re-familiarize yourself with the Top Ten and nominees, then come back here to witness:

Best Cinematography

1. 1776

Harry Stradling, Jr.

2. Across 110th Street

Jack Priestley

3. Cabaret

Geoffrey Unsworth

4. The Godfather

Gordon Willis

5. Lake of Dracula

Rokurô Nishigaki

The remaining eight awards, after the jump...

The 1972 Retro Hollmann Awards, Part One

The Top Ten is done, you've seen the nominees - now the winners of the 1972 Retro Hollmann Awards...Part One:

Best Original Song

1. "Pusherman" from Super Fly

music and lyrics by Curtis Mayfield

2. "Money, Money" from Cabaret

music by John Kander

lyrics by Fred Ebb

3. "Sister" from Black Girl

music and lyrics by Ed Bogas and Jesse Osborne

4. "Mein Herr" from Cabaret

music by John Kander

lyrics by Fred Ebb

5. "The Song from The Poseidon Adventure" from The Poseidon Adventure

music and lyrics by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn

Eight more categories, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Director, after the jump...

The 1972 Retro Hollmann Awards Nominees

With the Top Ten unveiled, here are the nominees for the 1972 Retro Hollmann Awards:

The Top Ten Films of 1972

Here it is, finally: my Top Ten Films of 1972! With apologies to Buck and the Preacher, Deliverance, Frogs, The King of Marvin Gardens, Malcolm X, Murmur of the Heart, and What's Up, Doc?.

Now, without further ado, in alphabetical order:

1972: The Watchlist

The 81 films I watched for 1972:

1776

Across 110th Street

Avanti!

Baron Blood

A Bay of Blood

Ben

The Big Bird Cage

The Black Belly of the Tarantula

Black Girl

Blacula

Bone

Boxcar Bertha

Buck and the Preacher

Butterflies Are Free

Cabaret

The Candidate

Child's Play

Come Back Charleston Blue

Deliverance

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Dr. Phibes Rises Again

Duck, You Sucker

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

The Emigrants

Fat City

Four Flies on Grey Velvet

Four Times That Night

Frenzy

Fritz the Cat

Frogs

Georgia, Georgia

Get to Know Your Rabbit

The Getaway

The Godfather

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid

The Heartbreak Kid

The Hot Rock

Images

Jeremiah Johnson

Junior Bonner

Kansas City Bomber

The King of Marvin Gardens

Lady Sings the Blues

Lake of Dracula

The Last House on the Left

The Legend of Boggy Creek

The Legend of Nigger Charley

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

Limelight

The Little Ark

Malcolm X

The Man

Man of La Mancha

Marjoe

Minnie and Moskowitz

Murmur of the Heart

Napoleon and Samantha

The Nun

Pete 'n' Tillie

Pink Angels

Pink Flamingos

Play It Again, Sam

Play It As It Lays

The Poseidon Adventure

Prime Cut

Private Parts

The Ruling Class

Savage Messiah

Season of the Witch

Shaft's Big Score

Silence

Slaughterhouse-Five

Sleuth

Sounder

The Stepmother

Super Fly

Tomorrow

Travels with My Aunt

Trouble Man

What's Up, Doc?

Young Winston

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1972: The Best Picture Oscar

The evening ends with Clint Eastwood (of Joe Kidd) presenting Best Picture, with, as he points out, a diverse slate of nominees. Cabaret (ten nominations, eight wins so far) is a musical about a showgirl and a tutor living it up as the Nazis rise to power in Germany. Deliverance (three nominations) is a thriller about a group of friends from the city who go camping and wind up in a fight for their lives against backwoods locals. The Emigrants (four nominations) is an epic about Swedish farmers who make the desperate decision to immigrate to the United States. The Godfather (ten nominations, two wins so far) is a family saga about a crime family adjusting to a new age. Sounder (four nominations) is a drama about a family of Black sharecroppers and their dog just trying to live with some dignity against the odds.

Man, The Godfather really made it count with those last categories! Did it deserve the win? Tell me what you think - I know what I believe, which you can read after the jump:

1972: Liza Minnelli and Best Actress

Now that Sacheen Littlefeather was off stage, Rock Hudson and Raquel Welch (of Kansas City Bomber) came to present Best Actress, and were very harrumph-y about what just happened. "Hope none of them has a cause," Welch said. Unfortunate!

As far as people go, it's a good lineup. A past winner, Judy's daughter, a foreign language performance, and, for the first time, two Black actresses nominated (the next time it would happen was...just this past year, Viola Davis and Andra Day). The actual performances in the films? Let's talk:

1972: Sacheen Littlefeather and Best Actor

In a category where The Godfather had no competition from Cabaret, it was an easy win for leading actor Marlon Brando. Yet, famously, it was not he who received the trophy from Liv Ullmann (nominated for The Emigrants) and Roger Moore (currently filming Live and Let Die). Instead, Sacheen Littlefeather took the stage, and delivered remarks protesting the treatment of the Indigenous communities by the United States and Hollywood.

It was a moment that was a punchline for decades afterward, though I think history has since vindicated Brando and Littlefeather, especially since, 50 years later, Hollywood still hasn't gotten its shit together and the nation's gnat-swatting treatment of the First Nations people continues unabated. For years afterwards, however, there was a rule against acceptance speeches being delivered by a "representative;" on the other hand, the "stunt" probably inspired similar uses of the global stage in future acceptance speeches. 

Anyway, the nominees:

1972: Puzo, Larner, and the Screenplays

So now we come to the last five categories: Screenplays, Lead Acting, and Best Picture. Up to this point, the only Best Picture to have won anything at the ceremony was Cabaret, cleaning up with seven awards, and only three to go! Deliverance? Zilch. The Godfather? Nada. Sounder? Not a thing. The Emigrants? It won for Best Foreign Film last year, so it was fine. And now came Jack Lemmon, who just bared all in Avanti!, to present the writing awards:

Good news for The Godfather, finally, and for poet/critic/novelist/political speechwriter Jeremy Larner! It's his second and final credited screenplay, following the adaptation of his own novel, Drive, He Said, the previous year.

Anyway, here's my take on both lineups:

1972: Bob Fosse and Best Director

Yes, yes, I know, I said this would be Adapted Screenplay, but I have been trying to emulate the order of the Oscar ceremony and realized I'd made a mistake. So today, we look at the nominees for Best Director! Mostly terrific films, all Best Picture nominees with the exception of Sleuth, a fun, sophisticated cat-and-mouse game with a cast of two (more on them later). Also, with the exception of Sleuth's, all the nominees were first-timers, so it was quite an exciting night. Of course, given the way the evening had been going, the winner - presented by Julie Andrews and director George Stevens - was a little expected:

Deserved? Let's talk:

1972: Original Song

Having just accepted the Oscar on behalf of Charles Chaplin, Candice Bergen returned to the stage, this time with Billy Dee Williams (of Lady Sings the Blues). The category was Best Cinematography, a loss for 1776, but another feather in the cap for Cabaret - this now made it six wins from six categories. Somehow, despite two new songs written for the film, both of them much better remembered than many of the nominees, Cabaret missed out on any nods for the next category: Best Original Song, presented by the remarkable Sonny and Cher:

I really can't believe Cabaret had nothing here, nor indeed did qualifying titles like Black Girl, Georgia, Georgia, Savage Messiah, Shaft's Big Score, Sounder, Super Fly, Trouble Man. Instead...well, take a look for yourself: 

1972: Charlie Chaplin and Scores

An Honorary Oscar was awarded to Charles S. Boren, who for almost 40 years worked to improve labor relations in the industry - 'twas he who negotiated the five-day workweek, pension plan, and nondiscriminatory policies - presented by Richard Walsh. Following that, spouses Robert Wagner (of Madame Sin) and Natalie Wood (who cameoed as herself in The Candidate) announced Marjoe as the Best Documentary Feature of the year. Marisa Berenson (of Cabaret) and Michael Caine (nominated for Sleuth) awarded Best Costume Design to Travels with My Aunt's Anthony Powell. Eccentric legend and past Oscar winner Greer Garson came out with Laurence Harvey (of Escape to the Sun) to give Cabaret its fourth award of the night, this time Best Art Direction. Now came the Music Categories, starting with the Original Dramatic and Musical/Adaptation Score nominees. Burt Reynolds (of Deliverance) and Dyan Cannon presented.

There is a lot happening in the Original Score category this year. The winner is Charlie Chaplin's Limelight, a 1952 film about a fading music hall performer and his romance with a suicidal ballerina. Because of Chaplin's politics and legal struggles, it took twenty years to come and play in Los Angeles theaters (it played in New York, though, and was cited in 1952 by both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review). It was Chaplin's only competitive Oscar win and instigated a rule change where the time between a film's initial release and LA release had to be a much smaller window.  

The Godfather originally received eleven nominations, the highest of any movie that year. Nino Rota's score was later rescinded when it was discovered that the "Love Theme" was a new arrangement of a theme he wrote for 1958's Fortunella. Now, I think there's plenty of other music besides the "Love Theme," but it seems so did the Academy - they allowed the Music Branch to vote one more time from a smaller pool of shortlisted titles. They changed their minds the second time around - Sleuth took the film's spot. Oddly, The Godfather: Part II would later win this category in 1974, despite being made up of arrangements of the original's themes and old Italian standards.

Here's what wound up getting nominated:

1972: Joel Grey and Best Supporting Actor

With Eileen Heckart having won, the ceremony continued. Elke Sommer (of Baron Blood) and Jack Valenti (head of the MPAA) presented the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar to The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, while John Gavin and Katharine Ross (who had two movies out, Get to Know Your Rabbit and They Only Kill Their Masters) revealed that The Hot Rock lost its only Oscar bid to, wouldn't you know it, Cabaret. Then Diana Ross, nominated this evening in Best Actress for Lady Sings the Blues, took the stage alongside James Coburn, having a very prolific year of US releases with Duck You Sucker, The Carey Treatment, The Honkers and A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die. The category? Best Supporting Actor, which accounted for three of The Godfather's ten nominations. The mob blockbuster already lost two categories to Cabaret ... this one would make it a third.

I'll have more to say about The Godfather and Cabaret when we discuss Adapted Screenplay, Director, and Picture. Let's look at the individual nominees:

1972: Eileen Heckart and Best Supporting Actress

The 45th Annual Academy Awards held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles began with an Angela Lansbury musical number, as everything should (Seventh Heaven! What a callback!). Father-and-son team Eddie Albert (nominated for The Heartbreak Kid) and Edward Albert (star of Butterflies Are Free) presented Best Sound to Cabaret, Merle Oberon gave The Poseidon Adventure a Special Achievement Oscar for its visual effects, and Beatrice Arthur and Peter Boyle (of The Candidate) did the short subjects. Now it was time for reigning champion Cloris Leachman and The Godfather's Robert Duvall to present Best Supporting Actress:

What a group of films to honor! There's The Heartbreak Kid, painfully hilarious in its depiction of a newlywed abandoning his bride (Jeannie Berlin) during their honeymoon. Fat City is a depressing drama about a fading alcoholic boxer repeatedly falling off the wagon alongside a barfly (Susan Tyrrell). Pete 'n' Tillie is a rom-com with dramatic elements about the relationship between two people, brought together by a mutual friend (Geraldine Page). The Poseidon Adventure is a disaster epic, more an effects showcase than a performance one, and yet its large ensemble (Shelley Winters, et. al.) is undeniably superb. Finally, there's the winner, Butterflies Are Free, whose synopsis about a young hot blind man falling in love with a kooky free spirit, much to his mother's (Eileen Heckart) chagrin, makes you wanna roll your eyes...and then you see it and realize what a thoughtful, effective film it really is! Five very good movies. And as for the performances...:

1972: Some Nominees

Cinematography, documentary, and film editing - these are the films honored in those categories only, who didn't break the threshold into the music, screenplay, acting, directing, or Picture categories - though, frankly, one or more of them definitely should have:

The Rest of the Gang

And here, besides the Oscar nominees, are all the other movies I watched:

Other Golds from 1972

Yesterday, we looked at the Golden Globes. Today, we look at the films honored by other awards ceremonies, keeping movies and their makers in the minds of Academy members up to the moment they turned their nomination ballots in.

The 30th Golden Globes

Ah, the Golden Globes! Awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association since 1944, they're a guaranteed mix of future Oscar nominees, bizarre curiosities, and genuinely good movies. As it is now, so it was in 1972 when, alongside eventual Academy Award nominees, these were the honored films:

Crimes of '72

When The Godfather won Best Picture, it became the fourth crime drama to do so. Crime seemed to be on the mind of the 1970s film community: The Godfather was the second of four consecutive Best Picture winners in the subgenre, and the first of three to completely center the criminals as the protagonists. Maybe it was the pessimism of the ongoing Vietnam War, maybe it was the way the Tate-LaBianca murders brought a violent end to a hopeful decade, maybe it was the loosening of restrictions and complete dismantling of the Production Code in 1968. Whatever the reason, crime was a big focus for the industry, from independent exploitation efforts to big studio programmers. Such as:

Old Friends of '72

In addition to what I'd never seen before, there are, of course, a good amount of 1972 movies I had. Cabaret, The Godfather, Man of La Mancha, and these...

Why '72?

I told myself I wasn't going to do another 70s retrospective.

After all, with 1970 just in the books back in December, that would make six editions of this retrospective series devoted to that one decade - more than any other! It was time to give more love to the 30s, the 40s, the 90s...

But then I went back home for an extended period of time. I saw family. And they all had recommendations. Well, not so much the kind of "You should see this!" recommendations, more like they reference a movie, I said I'd never seen it, they said, "You've never seen it?! You?! Oh, Walter, you got to see this movie!" So I started noting them down and, whether it says something about that year or their age, realized that every single movie they recommended was from 1972! The signs were clear: I must close the gap between 1968-1971 and 1973-1976.

These were the films they recommended:

A Year Ahead: 94th Oscars Predictions

The Oscar dust has settled, as far as I'm concerned. I only correctly guessed 14/22 of the winners, was a little disappointed by the Best Actress, pleasantly surprised by Best Actor, kicking myself for having changed my Cinematography prediction...water under the bridge now.

This means it's time to start thinking about next year's Oscars! Will next year's qualification period run from March 1, 2021-February 28, 2022, to keep with the weird timeline established out of panic? Or March 1, 2021-December 31 2021, a truncated version to get us back on track? Or will they go back to January 1, 2021-December 31, 2021, allowing January/February releases to qualify as long as they weren't nominated at the 93rd Oscars? Stranger things have happened, certainly. 

Still, Oscar does have its favorites. When I predicted this past Oscar ceremony a year ago, I foresaw the nominations for Minari in Best Picture, Anthony Hopkins in Best Actor, and LaKeith Stanfield in Best Supporting Actor, among other nods. Meanwhile, I went 0/5 in both Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay, though the fact that six of the eight films I predicted across the two categories were pushed to late-2021/early-2022 absolves me of any guilt. 

Let's see what happens, shall we?

BEST PICTURE

Annette

Belfast

Canterbury Glass

Cyrano

Dear Evan Hansen

Dune

The Harder They Fall

In the Heights

King Richard

Red, White, and Water

I don't know, I'm taking a swing - four musicals nominated, one of them an original from an arthouse French director and Sparks? In addition to a Black western, a sci-fi epic, a tennis biopic, a 1930s period piece that may be a comedy, a drama about The Troubles, and Red, White and Water? Ah, who knows, probably, maybe.

BEST DIRECTOR

Kenneth Branagh, Belfast

Leos Carax, Annette

Jon M. Chu, In the Heights

Lila Neugebauer, Red, White and Water

David O. Russell, Canterbury Glass

Baby, I'm telling you, either neither of them gets nominated at all, or the Oscar win goes to (only once nominated previously) Branagh or Chu. Maybe! All foreign arthouse favs get here eventually, maybe this is Carax's time to shine. Russell for that in-the-club prestige shine, Neugebauer just because, there you go.

BEST ACTOR

Christian Bale, Canterbury Glass

Clifton Collins, Jr., Jockey

Peter Dinklage, Cyrano

Anthony Ramos, In the Heights

Will Smith, King Richard

Feels like people want to nominate Collins or Dinklage for something - why not both? Charismatic Ramos in the lead role of what's sure to be a popular musical. Smith as King Richard, father of Venus and Serena, seems like either pure commercial play or his winning role. Bale in 30s suits for the director who got him a win and a surprise follow-up nod.

BEST ACTRESS

Caitriona Balfe, Belfast

Ana de Armas, Blonde

Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Jennifer Hudson, Respect

Jennifer Lawrence, Red, White and Water

Belfast sounds like one of those coming-of-age stories, but set around the Troubles; the mom roles in these tend to be pretty good (Sarah Miles in Hope and Glory, Cicely Tyson in Sounder), so expect Balfe to make it in. Bombshell De Armas as bombshell not-quite-Marilyn seems too perfect, and they love a biopic - hence, too, why I predict nods for past nominee Chastain's Tammy Faye Bakker and past winner Hudson's Aretha Franklin. Winner Lawrence returns after some time away from the public.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Willem Dafoe, The Card Counter

Richard E. Grant, Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Brian Tyree Henry, Red, White and Water

Delroy Lindo, The Harder They Fall

Mike Myers, Canterbury Glass

Lindo, never nominated, getting a nod a year after he should have won - that sounds right. Four-time nominee Dafoe, thisclose to a win, in a Paul Schrader film. Nominee Grant, the most pleasant man in showbiz, in drag in a musical. Henry, never nominated, probably will be one day, has multiple roles in some buzzy titles - just a matter of guesswork. Myers, never nominated, a comedian, in a 30s period piece for David O. Russell - hey, it could happen.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams, Dear Evan Hansen

Chanté Adams, A Journal for Jordan

Judi Dench, Belfast

Jayne Houdyshell, The Humans

Olga Merediz, In the Heights

Amy Adams and Glenn Close are the two "when's it gonna happen?" actresses; it's only right that they finally triumph in musicals, but Adams gets there first. Chanté Adams was terrific in The Photograph, a movie that didn't quite rise to her talents, and maybe a Denzel Washington flick will do her better. Houdyshell won a Tony for the same role; Merediz was nominated for a Tony for the same role. And Dench? She's been here before, but never for her work with frequent collaborator Branagh.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Belfast - Kenneth Branagh

Canterbury Glass - David O. Russell

C'mon C'mon - Mike Mills

The Harder They Fall - Jeymes Samuel / Boaz Yakin

Red, White and Water - Elizabeth Sanders

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Cry Macho - Nick Schenk / N. Richard Nash

Dear Evan Hansen - Steven Levenson

Dune - Jon Spaihts / Denis Villeneuve / Eric Roth

The Humans - Stephen Karam

The Many Saints of Newark - David Chase / Lawrence Konner

Those are all the categories I guess this far in advance. 

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Predicting The Oscars, 2020-21 Edition

Lean and mean predictions for who's winning Oscars tomorrow night. 

I believe this will be a true "spread the wealth" year, with each of the eight Best Picture nominees getting at least one Oscar.

Here we go:

LIVE ACTION SHORT: "The Letter Room"

ANIMATED SHORT: "If Anything Happens I Love You"

DOCUMENTARY SHORT: "A Love Song for Latasha"

DOCUMENTARY FILM: Time

ANIMATED FILM: Soul

INTERNATIONAL FILM: Another Round

SONG: "Husavik" from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

SCORE: Soul

VISUAL EFFECTS: Tenet

SOUND: Sound of Metal

EDITING: The Trial of the Chicago 7

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: Pinocchio

COSTUME DESIGN: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Mank

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Nomadland

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Yuh-jung Youn, Minari

ACTOR: Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

ACTRESS: Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday

DIRECTOR: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Father

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Promising Young Woman

BEST PICTURE: Nomadland

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Coming Attraction, 2021 Edition

OK, let's get back to blogging...

Later this month, Oscar predictions - both this year's winners and next year's nominees.

In May, we're looking at the films of 1972, featuring Best Picture nominees Cabaret, Deliverance, The Emigrants, The Godfather and Sounder.

In June, it's the films of 1985, featuring Best Picture nominees The Color Purple, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Out of Africa, Prizzi's Honor and Witness.

In July, it's the films of 2021 so far.

And that's what's to come...soon.

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