L'Eclisse (1962)

****
Country: Italy
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

The first time I watched Antonioni's L'Eclisse was years ago, and I remembered so little about it—two brief scenes and the amazing silent coda which lasts several minutes—that when I recently watched it again I was essentially seeing it for the first time. The greatest impression the film left with me was what a completely visual filmmaker Antonioni was. Paul Cézanne once said of Claude Monet, "He's nothing but an eye, but what an eye." I think this comment could equally be applied to Antonioni, for here incident is less important and has less impact than visual detail. Each shot in L'Eclisse is masterfully composed, at once abstract and fraught with significance. The choice of objects and people; their placement and movement in the frame; the geometry, perspective, and depth of the intricate yet crisply delineated compositions; the subtle tonal gradations of the black-and-white images; the purposeful transitions from one image to the next; the architecture of buildings, rooms, and streets—all visual aspects of each image in the movie are carefully and precisely planned by Antonioni.

In contrast to this complete control of the visual elements of the movie, the most important elements of conventional narrative—character and plot—seem startlingly casual. The main characters, Vittoria (Monica Vitti), a translator, and Piero (Alain Delon), a stock trader, are only sketchily defined. She is a detached observer of her own life living almost entirely in the sensations of the moment, while he is a shallow materialist driven by an ethos of competition and acquisition. The events of the movie seem almost self-propelled, unfolding in an episodic way that defies conventional narration in which one event leads to the next as the plot proceeds to its conclusion. Antonioni instead simply lays out a series of incidents whose impact is essentially cumulative.

The movie does have a clear beginning, as Vittoria breaks off her engagement and her relationship to Riccardo (Francisco Rabal) in a long, elaborately choreographed and edited sequence as self-contained and visually distinctive as the lengthy montage at the end. But from that point on events, although presented chronologically, seem to evolve spontaneously as the movie meanders from episode to episode. Events occur almost in isolation from one another, and the most memorable parts of the movie have little causal connection: The evening Vittoria spends with her girl friends, chatting, dressing up, and fooling around. The eerie episode when Piero's car, having been stolen by a drunk, is lifted from the river where it has crashed, with the drowned thief still in it. The frenzy of the stock exchange where Piero works, at one point interrupted by a minute's silence for a dead colleague before the trading bell rings and pandemonium instantly resumes. A quiet interlude in a small private airplane, where Vittoria seems to come unmoored from her ordinary existence and float free for a brief time, a sequence that more vividly than any other in the film gives a sense of the contrast between interior confinement, with four people crammed into a tiny airplane, and the openness of exterior space, with the plane floating through the sky and clouds.

Even the ending is wholly ambiguous. After their last tryst, Vittoria and Piero vow to meet again that evening and every day after that. Yet after they part, Piero replaces all the telephones he has taken off the hook for the duration of the tryst and resumes his normal commercial life, while Vittoria wanders down the staircase hesitatingly, her facial expressions hinting at indecision and conflict, actions that mirror those of the first sequence when she was working up the nerve to tell her fiancé she had decided to end their relationship. Yet there is method to this apparent narrative randomness: it corresponds exactly to what I take to be the point of the film, that in the modern world people's lives simply proceed from one stage to the next without clear meaning or purpose. Tellingly, Antonioni declines to do with his narrative what storytellers traditionally have always done—impose form where there is none inherent.

The one element of conventional narrative that Antonioni does not minimize is setting. In fact, he makes this the centerpiece and the unifying element of the movie. Always there is the emphasis on space—the lack or surfeit of it—and the contrast between overfilled interior spaces and empty exterior spaces—the vast, soulless ultra-modern postwar suburbs where Vittoria lives, places that are nearly silent except for the rustling of foliage, the spooky vibration of metal fence posts in the breeze, the clang of metal gates as they open and shut.

All this attention to visual detail is not just decorative, but profoundly thematic. The places where these people live and work, the landscapes through which they move tell us more about them than do their words and actions. The people in the foreground and what is happening to them are less important than the buildings, streets, objects, even other people in the background and on the periphery, for it is through location that Antonioni reveals his preoccupation with mood. The movie is ultimately more about the shifting moods of its characters than about their personalities, problems, or motivation. The people in the movie are almost vacuums. The places where they exist have greater substance and form than they themselves do, in a sense standing in for the vacancy of their inner lives.

Then there is that stunning final montage (Antonioni's version of Ozu's pillow shots?) when we revisit outdoor locations where scenes in the movie have taken place, but without any of the main characters present, ending as the streetlights come on and night falls. Containing no dialogue and with no obvious narrative connection to the rest of the film, this sequence is still perhaps the most meaningful in the entire movie. Antonioni seems to be saying that people and events are transient, that only places last. This is most strongly expressed in recurrent images of a barrel of water in which Vittoria earlier dropped a stick and which has now sprung a leak. As Antonioni repeatedly returns to the barrel we watch the water slowly emptying from it and flowing down the street and into the gutter. Life simply goes on, he seems to be saying, slowly flowing away, leaving behind only the empty vessel that once contained it. It is to Antonioni's credit that he has made a film about ennui that itself is never boring, a quality due largely to his astounding ability to use the camera to evoke mood and to transfer that mood almost subliminally to the viewer.

The strongest memory of a living person we take from the film is of Monica Vitti, whose Vittoria—in her aimless drift through life, unable to connect for long with anyone or anything—is the human focus of the movie. And the strongest human images that remain behind are the many lingering shots of her unreadable face, her expressions enigmatic yet hauntingly suggestive of a woman lost in a strange, bewildering, and apparently meaningless world.

Sandra Bullock in Pictures of Famous Actors and Actresses Set 2

Sandra Bullock

Sandra

Famous Actress Sandra Bullock

Birth Name: Sandra Annette Bullock

Nickname: Sandy

Spring in a Small Town (1948)

****
Country: China
Director: Mu Fei

I had never heard of this movie before I spotted it in the library recently. Reading on the DVD case that it was chosen the best Chinese film of all time by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society in 2002, I just had to watch it. I haven't seen many films from Mainland China, and those I have seen were all made in the last twenty years or so. But I must say that this one is an unpretentious gem which deserves its status as a classic.

Spring in a Small Town—the last of only six movies directed by Mu Fei, who died in Hong Kong in 1951—seems on its surface quite simple. There are only five characters in the movie and just a handful of locations, and the plot can be summed up in a few sentences. In China just after the end of WW II a man weakened by illness (it is described at various times as tuberculosis, a heart condition, and depression), the son of a family that has lost its wealth, lives in the half-ruined family home with his unhappy wife, his 15-year old sister, and an elderly family servant. Into this placid existence comes a visitor whose presence brings the somber household to life but at the same time causes a great deal of emotional tension. The visitor, a medical doctor, is the best friend of the husband but also happens to have been the first love of the wife.

The action in the film is largely psychological and interior, and much more is suggested than openly expressed. This is a movie where an apparently calm surface conceals turmoil and unsuspected depths just underneath, where the characters' emotions are reined in and rarely revealed to one another, where the most commonplace things—unemphatic gestures, brief glances, ordinary conversations—can hold great meaning. Yet these small things evoke strong emotional responses in the viewer—no easy thing to accomplish in such a circumscribed narrative context.

Mu Fei's subdued direction shows great confidence in the power of location, situation, and acting rather than directorial flourishes to put across evocative emotions, yet in no way does the movie seem impersonal. This unobtrusive style applied to an uncomplicated story resembles in spirit the postwar humanist realism of movies like Forbidden Games, Umberto D, and Pather Panchali. The few outdoor locations are particularly well chosen. The ruined city walls where the movie opens and where characters often meet are a reminder of the isolation of these people and of the precariousness of their existence amidst encroaching decay. The river where, in an especially lovely sequence, the principal characters spend a day out boating suggests liberation from the tedium and limitation of their daily lives. In interior shots the director shows great attention to architectural pattern and detail and also great care with the atmospheric use of lighting, especially in scenes that take place at night.

Equally responsible for the film's greatness are the restrained, naturalistic performances of the three main actors, each of whom immediately establishes a dominant mood for his or her character that never wavers. As the visitor, Wei Li is a bundle of repressed conflict between the loyalty and sympathy he feels for his sick friend and the powerful emotions caused by unexpectedly encountering his first love again. Wei Wei, superb as the wife, is also torn between conflicting feelings—on the one hand resignation to the barrenness of her present life with her husband, on the other the longing for emotional fulfillment awakened by the reappearance of a more vital man from her past. Perhaps most impressive of all is Yu Shi as the sickly husband, a non-reactive man fading away from his own passivity, but acutely aware of his responsibility for his wife's disappointment and of the hopelessness of their situation. His facial expressions, his posture and bearing, his lethargic movements all deftly portray a man defeated and profoundly sad. In one poignant scene he sneaks into his wife's empty bedroom, walks to her bed, gingerly caresses her pillow for an instant, then, overcome with emotion, flees.

One final comment: The visual transfer of this movie is only fair; you have to imagine how splendid it would look in a pristine, restored state. Even so, Spring in a Small Town is so affecting and so subtly nuanced that I really can't recommend it more highly.

---

For another view of Spring in a Small Town read Allan Fish's excellent review at Wonders in the Dark.

Black Angel (1946)

***
Country: US
Director: Roy William Neill

Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968) was an American author who after writing several unsuccessful literary novels in the 1920s and 30s turned to genre writing and, sometimes publishing under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley, became a prolific writer in the thriller and mystery genres. His eerie, convoluted tales, whose surprise endings were often based on far-fetched psychological premises, proved to be ideal fodder for the movies of the 1940s and early 50s, and according to Wikipedia more screenplays for films noirs (apparently using a pretty broad definition of the term) were adapted from his works than from those of any other writer. As a failed writer of serious literature, he reportedly had little respect for these commercial novels and short stories, considering them little more than potboilers. But he was unquestionably successful at producing them and earned a comfortable living from their sale. Robert Siodmak's early film noir The Phantom Lady was based on one of his novels as was The Leopard Man, one of the Val Lewton horror films. In the late 1960s François Truffaut made two movies adapted from his work, The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid. Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window was an elaboration on Woolrich's short story "It Had to Be Murder."

In 1946 Universal released a nifty little psychological noir called Black Angel, based on Woolrich's 1943 novel of the same title. The film is essentially a murder mystery that centers on the killing of a blackmailing floozie named Mavis Marlowe. The two main characters of the film are a former nightclub singer, Cathy Bennett (June Vincent)—whose husband, Mavis's former lover and one of her blackmail victims, is arrested for the murder, then convicted on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to die—and Mavis's ex-husband, the alcoholic songwriter Martin Blair (Dan Duryea). Cathy is convinced that her husband, whom she still loves even though he was cheating on her with Mavis, is innocent and persuades Martin to join forces with her to find the real murderer. As the execution date draws nearer, the two locate intriguing clues that at first seem to be drawing them closer to the real killer but always end up leading them down blind alleys.

The most promising clues have to do with the shady owner of a nightclub, Marko (Peter Lorre), another of Mavis's blackmail victims. To get more information about Marko, Cathy and Martin audition for, and get, a job performing at Marko's club as a singer and piano accompanist. A great deal of the action takes place at the club, and highlights include their humorous audition—a bizarre touch of black comedy in an otherwise somber movie—a couple of good song performances, some imaginative camera work in the eye-poppingly elaborate nightclub set, and a very suspenseful sequence with Cathy trying to burgle the safe in Marko's private office before he returns.

The cast is uniformly good. The attractive, sweet-natured Vincent is a bit lacking in charisma but still makes a determined heroine and is quite a good singer too. This was the biggest movie role she ever got, but she did a great deal of work in television in the 1950s and 60s. Lorre, of course, is a reliably sinister presence. Broderick Crawford, in one of his first roles after military service in WW II, plays the detective investigating the murder, and his performance is a revelation. He acts with uncharacteristic restraint, giving the quietest, most controlled, and most sympathetic performance I've ever seen by him. This movie makes it clear that Crawford's physique and vocal timbre resulted in typecasting that severely limited the range of characters he was allowed to play. Best of all is Duryea, whose atypically introspective performance is quite affecting. Duryea made a career of playing despicable rats in movies like Scarlet Street and Winchester '73, and he was great in those roles. But this film makes it clear that, like Crawford, he was capable of much more. He succinctly underplays his part and convincingly comes off as a nice guy. He is in a sense the real victim of the movie—a hapless loser whose creativity is stifled by his alcoholism, a man in love first with a woman who despises and exploits him, then as he falls in love with Cathy, with a woman who cannot return his affection.

This was the last film directed by Roy William Neill (he died in 1946), best known for Universal's Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone. Like the best of those movies, Black Angel shows him as a craftsman-like director capable of finding and revealing the strengths and subtleties in his material and especially suited to atmospheric stories of crime and suspense. If he had lived longer, he might well have become one of the more dependable directors of the American noir movement of the late 1940s.

My Oscar Picks, Part 4: 1950-1955

In this post I'm continuing the process of comparing my own Oscar picks from among the nominees with the real winners. As before, the opinions expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and are not intended to be taken as objective judgments.

1950

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: All About Eve
My Pick: All About Eve

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve
My Pick: Carol Reed, The Third Man

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Jose Ferrer, Cyrano de Bergerac
My Pick: William Holden, Sunset Blvd.

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday
My Pick: Bette Davis, All About Eve

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: George Sanders, All About Eve
My Pick: George Sanders, All About Eve

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Josephine Hull, Harvey
My Pick: Thelma Ritter, All About Eve

Another historical year for the number of high-quality pictures released. Best picture was a close call between All About Eve and Sunset Blvd. A tie would have been justified, but I went with Eve by a nose. For best director I chose Carol Reed for The Third Man (not nominated for best picture), the movie that the British Film Institute named the best British film of the 20th century. I divided the acting awards between Eve and Sunset Blvd. Davis's incredible failure to win best actress for her Margo Channing is probably down to the fact that costar Anne Baxter was also nominated, thus splitting the vote. Draining more votes away from Davis was Gloria Swanson in her comeback performance as the demented has-been Norma Desmond. Another factor at play was that at the time nobody had won three times for best lead performance, and perhaps the Academy voters were reluctant to break that precedent for Davis, who had recently left Warner Bros. after a string of flops. As for Holden, nothing in his ten-year-long career had suggested he was capable of this level of acting, and perhaps Academy voters were simply caught off-guard. Maybe they were too mesmerized by Swanson's flamboyance in the same picture to recognize the subtlety of Holden's introspective performance. Or maybe his opportunistic Joe Gillis simply hit too close to home for comfort. In the supporting categories, I went with George Sanders as the acidulous Addison de Witt and Thelma Ritter as the wise and loyal Birdie in All About Eve. (Maybe Mankiewizc should have gotten a special award for creating the most amusing character names.) Biggest omission: Humphrey Bogart's Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place.

1951

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: An American in Paris
My Pick: A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: George Stevens, A Place in the Sun
My Pick: Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Humphrey Bogart, The African Queen
My Pick: Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
My Pick: Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Karl Malden, A Streetcar Named Desire
My Pick: Karl Malden, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire
My Pick: Thelma Ritter, The Mating Season

The most astounding year for misguided awards since 1941. I can only infer that even though its preoccupation with sex had been toned down from the stage version, A Streetcar Named Desire was just too shocking and unconventional for the Academy. Instead, they went for the charming but innocuous An American in Paris (far from the best Hollywood musical) for best picture and gave a Career Achievement Award to George Stevens for his tasteful direction of A Place in the Sun. It is incomprehensible that Marlon Brando was denied an Oscar for the most innovative and influential performance by an actor of the decade. That Humphrey Bogart got a Career Achievement Oscar for his emasculated character performance in The African Queen is simply a travesty, a repudiation of the forceful screen persona he had worked so hard to establish during the previous ten years. At least the Academy realized that Vivien Leigh, playing a delusional middle-aged version of Scarlett O'Hara, was as in 1939 the only reasonable choice for best actress. For best supporting actress I chose Thelma Ritter for the second year in a row for this, her best comedy performance, over Kim Hunter, who I thought was overshadowed by her costars. Biggest omission: Robert Walker, best actor for Strangers on a Train.

1952

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: The Greatest Show on Earth
My Pick: High Noon

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: John Ford, The Quiet Man
My Pick: Fred Zinneman, High Noon

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Gary Cooper, High Noon
My Pick: Gary Cooper, High Noon

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Shirley Booth, Come Back, Little Sheba
My Pick: Julie Harris, The Member of the Wedding

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Anthony Quinn, Viva Zapata!
My Pick: Jack Palance, Sudden Fear

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Gloria Grahame, The Bad and the Beautiful
My Pick: Jean Hagen, Singin' in the Rain

In this year's best picture race a bloated, lavish entertainment once again prevailed over a smaller, more intimate picture. Maybe Westerns weren't taken seriously; a Western hadn't won since Cimarron in 1931 and wouldn't again for several more decades. Or maybe the possibility that High Noon could be interpreted as a condemnation of McCarthyism (this during the height of the Cold War and the Hollywood blacklists) scared off the Academy. (I've never particularly seen the movie in this light myself, always focusing more on the universality of its depiction of collective cowardice.) High Noon's director was snubbed too, in favor of veteran John Ford for the ultimate expression of his Irish fetish in the cornball (but in its way amusing) blarney of The Quiet Man. At least Gary Cooper, perfectly cast as the laconic sheriff under pressure, was justly rewarded for his performance in High Noon. Shirley Booth took best actress for her turn as a pathetic frump in Come Back, Little Sheba, but I have to admit that this is a performance I find wearing and that after a while begins to irritate. I can understand how living with her would drive Burt Lancaster to drink! Instead I went for Julie Harris as Carson McCullers's Frankie in another Zinneman film, the underappreciated The Member of the Wedding. She's not wholly convincing as a 12-year old but might pass for a mature 14-year old. Still, it's a mighty impressive performance, a unique character played with amazing concentration and conviction. I have a weakness for psycho characters, even if the Academy doesn't, and for supporting actor went with Jack Palance's psycho in the Joan Crawford damsel-in-distress melodrama Sudden Fear. I like Gloria Grahame a lot, but apparently the Academy didn't like the bad girls she played to a tee (including the one in Sudden Fear) and rewarded her instead for this rather bland, minuscule part. For supporting actress I picked Jean Hagen's broadly comical Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain. Biggest omission: Singin' in the Rain for best picture.

1953

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: From Here to Eternity
My Pick: From Here to Eternity

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Fred Zinneman, From Here to Eternity
My Pick: Fred Zinneman, From Here to Eternity

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: William Holden, Stalag 17
My Pick: Montgomery Clift, From Here to Eternity

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday
My Pick: Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Frank Sinatra, From Here to Eternity
My Pick: Frank Sinatra, From Here to Eternity

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity
My Pick: Thelma Ritter, Pickup on South Street

The Academy made up for its mistakes of the year before by giving Oscars to Zinneman and his follow-up picture. This is a movie that still impresses me today. Its narrative strategy of relating two connected but parallel stories that barely intersect seems years ahead of its time. William Holden got his Oscar for playing a softened version of essentially the same character as in Sunset Blvd. but in a different environment and with a more acceptable outcome, thus removing any implicit criticism of the Hollywood establishment. He was probably helped by the dual nominations for best actor for From Here to Eternity. Burt Lancaster's performance in the movie seemed to attract more attention than Montgomery Clift's, but I went with Clift as the tortured Private Prewitt. Audrey Hepburn hit the big time with an irresistible performance, and there was no way anyone else was going to get the Oscar for best actress this year, a sentiment with which I completely concur. Donna Reed was impressive in the Zinneman picture, but the great Thelma Ritter, who for me can do no wrong, gave her best performance ever in a rare dramatic role in Samuel Fuller's Cold War film noir Pickup on South Street, and I went with her for best supporting actress for the third time in four years. Biggest omission: The Naked Spur—for picture, director, actor, supporting actor (Robert Ryan), or supporting actress (Janet Leigh).


1954

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: On the Waterfront
My Pick: On the Waterfront

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront
My Pick: Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront
My Pick: Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Grace Kelly, The Country Girl
My Pick: Judy Garland, A Star Is Born

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Edmond O'Brien, The Barefoot Contessa
My Pick: Edmond O'Brien, The Barefoot Contessa

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront
My Pick: Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront

For once the Academy's concept of best largely conformed to mine. I departed from their choice in only two categories, but those departures were significant ones. Alfred Hitchcock, like Cary Grant and Greta Garbo, is one of those classic film artists whose lack of an Oscar is frequently cited as proof of the Academy's disconnect with quality and consequent irrelevance. Rear Window (not nominated for best picture) is without a doubt Hitchcock's most loved film, by cinephiles and ordinary moviegoers alike. It satisfies and entertains in an exhilarating way that no other American movie of the year does, and those qualities are clearly down to Hitchcock's expertise in the manipulation of material, actors, visual realization, and above all audience reaction to achieve precisely calculated effects. Grace Kelly, who appeared in no less than five films released this year, was a lovely and enchanting actress, especially when directed by Alfred Hitchcock. But her Oscar for her dowdy performance in The Country Girl has always mystified me. Perhaps it was a reward for deglamorizing herself and playing against type, hardly the last time this would happen. Judy Garland, on the other hand, gave a big, flavorful, and variegated performance in A Star Is Born. (She is said to have lost to Kelly by just six votes, one of the closest races in Oscar history.) Garland, who hadn't appeared on the screen in four years, was probably hurt by the feeling that she was past her prime (while Kelly's star was on the rise) and by her reputation for neurotic, unprofessional behavior. Also unhelpful was the fact that the movie was butchered after previews. The film's director, George Cukor, certainly attributed her loss to pre-release tampering with the picture by Warner Bros. and has stated that neither he nor Garland could bear to watch the release version of the movie, knowing what had been removed. Garland's brilliance shines through even in the truncated version that remained after re-editing, but it wasn't until the restored version of 1983 that the full genius of her performance (or of costar and fellow nominee James Mason's) could be appreciated. Biggest omission: James Stewart, best actor for Rear Window.

1955

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Marty
My Pick: Marty

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Delbert Mann, Marty
My Pick: Elia Kazan, East of Eden

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Ernest Borgnine, Marty
My Pick: James Dean, East of Eden

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Anna Magnani, The Rose Tatoo
My Pick: Katharine Hepburn, Summertime

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Jack Lemmon, Mr. Roberts
My Pick: Jack Lemmon, Mr. Roberts

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden
My Pick: Betsy Blair, Marty

Many people find Marty overly sentimental, but I've liked this movie since I first saw it many years ago. I find its sentiment honest and, by Hollywood standards, pretty restrained, and for once Paddy Chayevsky's writing isn't saddled with a heavy-handed Message. If East of Eden, The Night of the Hunter, or Rebel Without a Cause had been nominated for best picture, making a choice would have been much more difficult. I diverged from the Academy's choice of best director because Elia Kazan was nominated (Nicholas Ray, who would have been my first choice, wasn't). Ernest Borgnine got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the lead in Marty. However, I went with James Dean. Admittedly, his equally fine performance in Rebel Without a Cause the same year influenced me in this choice. Dean was probably too young and too radical in his acting style to prevail over Borgnine. Dean had died several months before the awards, and his status as an acting legend wasn't as firmly established as it is today. Also, the Academy had never given a posthumous acting award, and we all know how reticent they are to defy precedent. I like Magnani very much, but subtlety was not part of her acting style, and nowhere is this more apparent than in her English language movies. I adore Hepburn's finely calibrated acting in Summertime and for best actress went with her graceful performance instead. I didn't find Jo Van Fleet in East of Eden as impressive as her costars—including Julie Harris and Raymond Massey, neither one nominated. For best supporting actress I preferred Betsy Blair's touching performance as the repressed, parent-dominated teacher in Marty. Perhaps all those other wins for the picture hurt her chances, and the Academy felt compelled to recognize East of Eden with some award. Biggest omission: The Night of the Hunter—best picture, director, actor, or supporting actress (Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish).

THE SUMMING UP 1934-1955

BEST PICTURE
Agreed: 9
Disagreed: 13

BEST DIRECTOR
Agreed: 11
Disagreed: 11

BEST ACTOR
Agreed: 6
Disagreed: 16

BEST ACTRESS
Agreed: 7
Disagreed: 15

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Agreed: 12
Disagreed: 8

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Agreed: 11
Disagreed: 9

During these years, I disagreed with the Academy most often in the lead acting awards. The reason is likely that these are the awards most influenced by personal popularity with peers, by box office success, and by sentimental appeal. But I must say that even though the Academy didn't duplicate my pick all that often, the choices they did make were generally acceptable ones—good performances that I can live with. The majority might not have been my own preference, and it's shocking how many memorable performances weren't even nominated, but looking back over the list of winners, I can't think of any winning performances that were downright mediocre. Although I disagreed with the best picture awards less often, I would say that those were, in comparison, far more serious disagreements. The Great Ziegfeld over Dodsworth, The Life of Emile Zola over The Awful Truth, How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane, Gentlemen's Agreement over Great Expectations, An American in Paris over A Streetcar Named Desire, The Greatest Show on Earth over High Noon—to my mind these are all horribly misguided awards. I think that this pattern of making forgivable mistakes over the acting awards and horrendously glaring mistakes over the best picture award is one that has continued to plague the Academy even beyond the years under consideration in these last two posts, and I expect this pattern to persist for as long as the Oscars continue.

My Oscar Picks, Part 3: 1945-1949

In this post I'm continuing the process of comparing my own Oscar picks from among the nominees with the real winners. As before, the opinions expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and are not intended to be taken as objective judgments.

1945

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: The Lost Weekend
My Pick: The Lost Weekend

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Billy Wilder, The Lost Weekend
My Pick: Billy Wilder, The Lost Weekend

BEST ACTOR:
The Winner: Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend
My Pick: Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce
My Pick: Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: James Dunn, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
My Pick: Robert Mitchum, The Story of G.I. Joe

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Anne Revere, National Velvet
My Pick: Eve Arden, Mildred Pierce

This wasn't a particularly strong year in American movies, so the best were pretty easy to identify. Both Milland and Crawford got the roles of their careers and made the most of them. Interestingly, neither was the first choice for the role. Milland got the part after Paramount rejected Wilder's first choice, Jose Ferrer. Crawford was cast only after Bette Davis, Rosalind Russell, and Ann Sheridan turned down the part. I departed from the Academy's choices only in the supporting actor and actress categories, awards that seemed to me based on the sentimental nature of the parts. This was the only nomination Robert Mitchum ever received, for what at the time was his most noticeable part in a major picture. (In the New York Film Critics Circle awards, Mitchum was the runner-up to Milland for best actor.) As well as Eve Arden, Ann Blyth was also nominated for Mildred Pierce, and at this time it was rare for a nominee to prevail when more than one actor was nominated for the same picture. Blyth's role was showy but her acting awfully unsubtle in comparison to Arden, one of the great supporting performers. This is for me her best work, a distillation of her screen essence. Biggest omission: John Ford, best director for They Were Expendable.

1946

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: The Best Years of Our Lives
My Pick: The Best Years of Our Lives

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner, William Wyler, The Best Years of Our Lives
My Pick: Robert Siodmak, The Killers

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Fredric March, The Best Years of Our Lives
My Pick: James Stewart, It's a Wonderful Life

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Olivia de Havilland, To Each His Own
My Pick: Celia Johnson, Brief Encounter

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Harold Russell, The Best Years of Our Lives
My Pick: Claude Rains, Notorious

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Anne Baxter, The Razor's Edge
My Pick: Anne Baxter, The Razor's Edge

The Best Years of Our Lives was not only timely but also an excellent movie. Wyler was such an impeccable craftsman that he was incapable of making a sloppy film. But The Killers, which wasn't nominated for best picture, is not only an essential film noir but also a real director's movie, so I went with Siodmak for best director. I'm a great fan of Fredric March, but I think Dana Andrews gave the better performance in The Best Years of Our Lives, the best of his career, and he wasn't even nominated. James Stewart in Capra's It's a Wonderful Life—one of the greatest, most moving screen performances of all time. It would be impossible for me even to consider any of the other nominees for best actor. Best actress was the weakest it had been in years. The two best performances of the year—Dorothy McGuire in The Spiral Staircase (directed by Siodmak) and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious—weren't even nominated. Olivia de Havilland took best actress for her performance in the soapish To Each His Own. (That Oscar might also have been a reward for her courage in standing up to Jack L. Warner even if it meant not working for a couple of years. A second good performance playing good and evil twins in The Dark Mirror, again directed by Siodmak, probably helped too.) For the first time I went with a British actress, Celia Johnson, in Brief Encounter. Teresa Wright wasn't nominated as best supporting actress for The Best Years of Our Lives, so I stuck with Anne Baxter, the best of those who were nominated. Harold Russell's win was plainly a sentimental one, especially in view of the special award he also received from the Academy for his brave and heartfelt performance. I chose instead Claude Rains, nominated several times before but always bested by someone else. Who else could have actually made you feel sorry for such an unrepentant villain? Biggest omission: Notorious—for picture, director, actor, or actress.

1947

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Gentleman's Agreement
My Pick: Great Expectations

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Elia Kazan, Gentleman's Agreement
My Pick: David Lean, Great Expectations

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Ronald Colman, A Double Life
My Pick: John Garfield, Body and Soul

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Loretta Young, The Farmer's Daughter
My Pick: Susan Hayward, Smash-Up

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Edmund Gwenn, Miracle on 34th Street
My Choice: Edmund Gwenn, Miracle on 34th Street

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Celeste Holm, Gentleman's Agreement
My Choice: Celeste Holm, Gentleman's Agreement

I disagreed with most of the Academy's selections this year. Gentleman's Agreement is another of those noble but dull pictures chosen to show Hollywood's endorsement of Right Thinking. Who today would seriously consider it a significant film? Great Expectations, on the other hand, is to my mind the best movie version of a Dickens novel ever, and also one of the best movies of any kind ever made. Oscar went with sentiment over merit and adhered to the Career Achievement concept with its award of the best acting prizes to Colman for his flashy performance and Young for her earnest one, two respected veterans who finally got a role that justified honoring their entire body of work. I went instead for two younger actors who both gave bold, intense, and exciting performances. I did agree, though, with the Academy's choices in the supporting categories. The supporting actor field was especially strong this year—any of the five nominated performances would have been a worthy choice—but I stuck with Edmund Gwenn's Kris Kringle. Biggest omission: Robert Mitchum, Out of the Past.

1948

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Hamlet
My Pick: The Red Shoes

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: John Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
My Pick: John Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Laurence Olivier, Hamlet
My Pick: Laurence Olivier, Hamlet

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Jane Wyman, Johnny Belinda
My Pick: Olivia de Havilland, The Snake Pit

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Walter Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
My Pick: Walter Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Claire Trevor, Key Largo
My Pick: Claire Trevor, Key Largo

For the second year in a row, I went with a British film for best picture. Michael Powell, who was never nominated for best director, is in my directors' pantheon, and The Red Shoes is my favorite of his many fine movies. (Anthony Lane recently wrote a loving review of this film in the New Yorker, well worth checking out.) This was a great year for John Huston, who directed The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the finest American film of the year and arguably the first revisionist Western—although the location was transplanted to Mexico—in which he grafted his noir sensibility onto that most American of genres. In addition, he was responsible for my picks for the two best supporting performances of the year as well as two notable performances—Humphrey Bogart in Sierra Madre and Edward G. Robinson in Key Largo—either of which would have been worthy of a best actor nomination. I concurred with the Academy's award to Olivier for best actor for his Hamlet, but I don't see how they failed to give the best actress award to Olivia de Havilland. Jane Wyman's award would have been understandable in another year but not in this one, in which de Havilland gave the best performance of her career and one of the very best of the decade by any American actress. The reason de Havilland lost was likely that just two years earlier the Academy had given her a premature Career Achievement Oscar for To Each His Own. Oscar doesn't tend to repeat itself that soon if it can be avoided. Biggest omission: John Wayne, Red River.

1949

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: All the King's Men
My Pick: The Heiress

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, A Letter to Three Wives
My Pick: Carol Reed, The Fallen Idol

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Broderick Crawford, All the King's Men
My Pick: Gregory Peck, Twelve O'Clock High

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress
My Pick: Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Dean Jagger, Twelve O'Clock High
My Pick: Ralph Richardson, The Heiress

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Mercedes McCambridge, All the King's Men
My Pick: Mercedes McCambridge, All the King's Men

All the King's Men strikes me as an uneven picture that plays like a superficial condensation of the 464-page long Pulitzer Prize-winning novel it's based on, carried largely by the strength of the performances. The movie's deficiencies in both narrative and character development are all the more surprising given the screenwriting experience and proven ability of its writer-director, Robert Rossen. A much better movie about the contemporary South—Clarence Brown's Intruder in the Dust, based on the novel by William Faulkner—didn't receive a single nomination. I went instead with yet another literary adaptation directed by William Wyler. While Mankiewicz's winning picture is quite enjoyable, it has nowhere near the gravity and artistry of Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol, the reason I chose Reed for best director. Gregory Peck did what to my mind is the best work of his career in Twelve O'Clock High, and I chose his rounded and subtle performance as the best of the year by an actor. The Academy's choice, Broderick Crawford, was certainly striking as Willie Stark, but I found his performance compromised by the opacity of the character, whose transformation from idealist to corrupt demagogue (the gruff Crawford is much more convincing as the latter) is presented as a fait accompli rather than explained. De Havilland gave another brilliant performance in The Heiress, easily outacting any of the other nominees. For supporting actor, I went with Ralph Richardson as de Havilland's cold father in The Heiress. Biggest omission: James Cagney's unforgettable Cody Jarrett in White Heat.