TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[bluepiano]

I seem to remember that being a shtick in Where the Boys Are, her first movie. Paula towered over the boys she was getting fixed up with, and then Jim came along and it was love at first height. (my own yuk yuk).

Hutton also starred (without PP) in a loose remake of The More the Merrier, transposed from war time Washington DC to Tokyo during the 1964 Olympics, called Walk, Don't Run. Cary Grant had the matchmaker role that was played by Charles Coburn in the original. It's been years since I saw it on TV, but I remember thinking it wasn't very good. And that it was weird to see a movie in which Cary wasn't the romantic lead. It wasn't long after Charade and Father Goose and he still had looks and charm to spare.

[elle]

8 hours ago, bluepiano said:

Hutton also starred (without PP) in a loose remake of The More the Merrier, transposed from war time Washington DC to Tokyo during the 1964 Olympics, called Walk, Don't Run. Cary Grant had the matchmaker role that was played by Charles Coburn in the original. It's been years since I saw it on TV, but I remember thinking it wasn't very good. And that it was weird to see a movie in which Cary wasn't the romantic lead. It wasn't long after Charade and Father Goose and he still had looks and charm to spare.

I agree that Cary Grant still had the looks and charm to spare, he never really lost them.  I enjoy seeing him use that charm to play matchmaker.  The story that I usually hear about why Grant was in this movie is that he requested to be in a movie where he was not the romantic lead as he felt that his time in that role had passed.  This was also Grant's last film.  I think of it as a love letter to his fans especially when at the end of the movie he "blows a kiss" to the two little kids who had been watching his antics throughout that film.  I think that his is good bye to movie fans too.

[Rinaldo]

Yes, if I remember rightly at the time (and I was young, so I may have it wrong), people kind of assumed Father Goose might be his last, but he wanted to do one more, to pass the baton to a younger generation, so to speak. So I agree that it was a conscious farewell to his movie fans. The screen creation "Cary Grant" had had a good long run, after all.

[Padma]

23 hours ago, mariah23 said:

I just looked up Ann Prentiss and she went to prison for terrorizing her family and trying to find someone to kill her brother-in-law!!!

What a weird, sad story! Like a movie itself. Ann looked and sounded so much like her sister--they were only a year apart--and even changed her last name to match Paula's stage name (instead of "Ragusa").  The surprisingly little information about her trial alleged the father had abused both girls (both later had emotional problems of different kinds--Paula's nervous breakdown and Ann's effort to have both her father and Richard Benjamin murdered.)  No one was killed, but she still got a 19 year prison sentence which seems pretty severe and died in prison at 69.  Very sad.

On a positive note, it was nice to see that Paula and Richard (both born 1938) are still around, still married, and look very good (especially Richard Benjamin who has changed into sort of a kindly, friendly grandpa v. the cold wooden weirdness of his early days--at least that's how he seemed to me. I wasn't a fan of everything he did, but did like him a lot when I saw him on TCM a few months back in "The Last of Sheila" (a very enjoyable mystery-among-rich-movie-people with a script by Anthony Perkins and Steven Sondheim.)

[Rinaldo]

On August 15, 2016 at 1:58 AM, Padma said:

And thanks for the  heads up for "The Fallen Idol", I was so glad to see it--great film--directing, story, acting. Bobby Henrey, the little boy, was amazing--very natural. His childish cluelessness about the "adult world things" that, of course, the audience would understand but he really didn't was fascinating. What great, subtle writing. And  I really like Richardson's very restrained performance--again, subtle. Also impressive was how Greene et al built the suspense and showed Phillipe trying so desperately to help (by lying) and failing so badly--and everyone's reactions, simultaneously letting the audience see a child's point of view and what was really going on with the adults. Really unique film, beautifully done.

A belated thank you for this, and a further (concluding?) thought or two. The mismatch between the boy's perceptions and what's really going on are so subtly (your word again!) conveyed. And Richardson's performance is a marvel, because so understated and real (which takes the highest level of skill): one one level he finds the boy's relentless cluelessness as irritating, at moments, as we probably do; at another level, he nevertheless treats the kid with kindness and attention just out of the decency of knowing that his only fault is being young and undeveloped as yet, plus being rather neglected; and another part of him has been putting up with a miserable marriage for a long while, and is taking the risk of finding a little adult companionship on the only weekend when he'll have a chance to. All in a setting I've never otherwise seen in a movie, beautifully directed. Further evidence in the file of Carol Reed, Unsung Great Director.

[Padma]

17 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

A belated thank you for this, and a further (concluding?) thought or two. The mismatch between the boy's perceptions and what's really going on are so subtly (your word again!) conveyed. And Richardson's performance is a marvel, because so understated and real (which takes the highest level of skill): one one level he finds the boy's relentless cluelessness as irritating, at moments, as we probably do; at another level, he nevertheless treats the kid with kindness and attention just out of the decency of knowing that his only fault is being young and undeveloped as yet, plus being rather neglected; and another part of him has been putting up with a miserable marriage for a long while, and is taking the risk of finding a little adult companionship on the only weekend when he'll have a chance to. All in a setting I've never otherwise seen in a movie, beautifully directed. Further evidence in the file of Carol Reed, Unsung Great Director.

I appreciate your thoughts on The Fallen Idol, Rinaldo, especially as the thread has indeed moved on rather quickly, but the film is really staying with me!  What you wrote about Richardson above made me aware of the layers of his performance, all while still being as you say, so understated--(and yet still somehow letting us know he was experiencing so many deep emotions.  He's just so amazing.)

I took a look at the Wikipedia article about Carol Reed. It had an interesting intersect with Graham Greene's time as a film critic. Reed's first directing job on his own was "Midshipman Easy (1935)" and he described himself as "indefinite and indecisive...pretty much lost" in making it. But Greene, the then-film critic for The Spectator, observed of Reed, even then, that he "has more sense of the cinema than most veteran British directors". Later about "The Stars Look Down", Greene wrote that Reed "has at last had his chance and magnificently taken it."  And, re: the acting, he added, "one forgets the casting altogether: he [Reed] handles his players like a master, so that one remembers them only as people." What a thrill as a great director it must have been--after being given so many run of the mill films--to have a script by Graham Greene and a star like Ralph Richardson.

And a wiki piece of trivia for fans of The Third Man.  Selznick apparently had wanted Noel Coward as Harry Lime but Reed insisted on Welles. Also, Greene wanted Cotten and Valli to wind up together at the end, but Reed insisted on the final scene that we know (which, interestingly, seems so much more consistent with Greene's work than Greene's own preference.) 

"Carol Reed, Unsung Great Director".  So true! Just on the basis of Reed alone, I'm now sorry that I didn't watch "Oliver!" when TCM recently showed it. It seems funny for Reed to get an Oscar for something so different from his usual work, but "Oliver!" also received the 1969 BAFTA Award for Best Film.  Also I'm keeping a look out for often-playing-on-TCM, "Our Man in Havana" and "Night Train from Munich"--this time, not just for Guinness and Harrison.  Again, thanks for the recommendation--great to discover that Reed was so much more than the director of one great, classic film.

[mariah23]

TCM Remembers strikes again!  Arthur Hiller (who I thought had died some time ago) has died at 92.

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, Padma said:

Again, thanks for the recommendation--great to discover that Reed was so much more than the director of one great, classic film.

You're welcome. There's a movie-fan blog (I'm struggling to remain non-judgmental) somewhere -- I have no intention of finding it again -- which said something like "Carol Reed is a hack whose other famous movies are garbage like The Agony and the Ecstasy and Oliver!, so The Third Man must be secretly directed by Orson Welles." I ask you. I'm not going to go to the mat for The Agony and the Ecstasy, but Oliver is just a terrific movie (and I didn't love that musical onstage!). It still shows Reed's facility with handling child performers, and his genius for filling a simple narrative with subtle undertones. I saw it with my movie-director father, and he was in awe of the way the lighting and camera movement created a magical world. That blogger can go stuff it. (Presumably he figures that musicals are just inherently inferior, which makes actually watching it superfluous.)

Postscript: I just found a good online appreciation of Carol Reed. "6 Essential Films of Carol Reed"

Edited August 17, 2016 by Rinaldo

[Crisopera]

3 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

"Carol Reed is a hack whose other famous movies are garbage like The Agony and the Ecstasy and Oliver!, so The Third Man must be secretly directed by Orson Welles."

Oh, how stupid and awful!  Carol Reed is indeed an "Unsung Great Director."  His later films declined (I'm not very fond of Oliver or The Agony and the Ecstasy and his films after that are genuinely awful), but between 1940 and 1955 he made some of the greatest films ever.  His eye for casting was brilliant.

[bluepiano]

Odd Man Out and his other collaboration with Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, while not enduring classics, are also very good movies.

Speaking of great directors, just saw (a TCM debut) Swamp Water, Jean Renoir's first American movie. The story goes that Renoir won the battle with Zanuck to allow him to shoot some scenes on location in the Okefenokee Swamp. While I think most of the movie was back lot, the locations scenes are well blended and do add some authenticity. But I guess Zanuck won the war, because he didn't let Renoir shoot the concluding scenes. I had a sense something was wrong even before I read that, because the ending does seem kind of perfunctory.

And for those who only know Walter Brennan from his "old coot" days (which lasted a couple of decades) he gives a really amazing performance as the wrongly accused murder who has been forced to live for years alone in the swamp. He has to deliver some poetically written speeches that a lesser actor might've struggled with, but he makes them totally believable.

Edited August 18, 2016 by bluepiano

[Padma]

4 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Postscript: I just found a good online appreciation of Carol Reed. "6 Essential Films of Carol Reed"

Nice list! (And I enjoyed the comments about Welles' acting in TTM. Hard to believe he was only on screen for 15 minutes. Even in that still of Welles and Cotton, his face has got that great mocking and ironic expression that made the whole set up work.)  I'm adding "Odd Man Out" to my "Carol Reed must see list" above.  While I'm not a fan of Roman Polanski (based on seeing only one film--Macbeth), when a reputable director calls a film I've never heard of "his favorite film", it still means something.  (Plus, others obviously think well of it, too.)

[Rinaldo]

Reading the three volumes so far published of Simon Callow's biography of Orson Welles, a recurring pattern becomes clear that Welles tacitly encouraged the idea that he had done more on his productions than he actually had: he might not literally say so, but he would talk about the creation of the lighting, the design, the script, the music and leave people to make their assumptions. (There's even a memo from one of his staff for one of his Mercury Theatre stage productions, asking that the people who actually did those jobs not be too vocal about their contributions, so that others might assume that Welles did it all.)

Of course Welles was indeed great in so many ways, his real contributions would be more than enough glory for one lifetime; but he seemingly felt compelled to behave this way, and dropped such hints about The Third Man (and much later, retracted them). From the evidence, he showed up on the set for just a day or thereabouts, completing his role in that time, and literally had no chance to do more on the film.

[bluepiano]

Regarding The Third Man, I've often heard that Welles wrote the famous speech he delivers in the ferris wheel about Switzerland having produced nothing in centuries of peace except the cuckoo clock. That could one of those myths that he himself helped promote. If so, it's pretty rude to try to steal credit from Graham Greene, one of the greatest writers of all time.

Edited August 18, 2016 by bluepiano

[Padma]

3 hours ago, bluepiano said:

Regarding The Third Man, I've often heard that Welles wrote the famous speech he delivers in the ferris wheel about Switzerland having produced nothing in centuries of peace except the cuckoo clock. That could one of those myths that he himself helped promote. If so, it's pretty rude to try to steal credit from Graham Greene, one of the greatest writers of all time.

Wikipedia has a long bit about the cuckoo clock speech. Here's part:  "Welles added this remark – in the published script, it is in a footnote. Greene wrote in a letter[23] 'What happened was that during the shooting of The Third Man it was found necessary for the timing to insert another sentence." Welles apparently said the lines came from "an old Hungarian play"—in any event the idea is not original to Welles, acknowledged by the phrase "what the fellow said". 

Welles later liked to say that after the film came out, "The Swiss kindly informed me that they had never made cuckoo clocks as they came from the German Black Forest."

For those who haven't seen it, IMDB lists some of the memorable dialogue.  It's a nice taste of what the movie was--and how great Graham Greene was at every kind of writing he did http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041959/quotes  The dialogue reads like the screenplay might have been adapted from a novel and in a way it was. Greene wrote "The Third Man" as a novella first, just to help him prepare for the screenplay, not planning for it to be published--but, after the film's success, it was:

Edited August 18, 2016 by Padma

[Crisopera]

So, what does everyone think about the upcoming remake of A Star is Born starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper (who will also direct)?  I have not seen her act (I don't watch American Horror Story), but doesn't she seem the wrong type?  And frankly, I've always thought that the male lead was the plum role.  Fredric March, James Mason, Kris Kristoffersen (and Lowell Sherman in the progenitor, What Price Hollywood) all give the better performances (and I yield to no one in my love of Judy Garland).  Opinions?

[Willowsmom]

Every time that movie is remade it loses a generation of quality.

[Charlie Baker]

March and Mason (who breaks my heart every time I watch) are truly excellent in their Star Is Born performances.  But Kristofferson is so uneven.  Sometimes he commits, sometimes he seems to be sleepwalking.  I find Gaynor brisk and engaging, Garland at peak powers, and Streisand for good or ill giving undiluted Streisand, none of them overshadowed.

I remember a discussion of Ruby Keeler here a while back and her limitations.  She was yesterday's Star of the Day.  I took a look at Go Into Your Dance, because it was the only movie she and her then husband Al Jolson made together, and truthfully it's not very good.  The script is all over the place from comedy to gangster melodrama to romance.  The score is not so great, but it does have a few good numbers, the title song and "About a Quarter to Nine." Helen Morgan unfortunately only gets one of the lesser songs.  Worst of all, Jolson spends a lot of time, including the finale, in blackface.  What I found most interesting about the movie was that Keeler's acting opposite Jolson is substantially better than what I saw of her work previously.  Was it just that she improved with experience or the relationship with Jolson affected her work?

[voiceover]

Ahhhh...Casablanca.  Once again: the Perfect Movie.  Once again: Claude Rains wuz robbed!!  Once again: I practically recite the entire film (not out loud; my lips move) while watching it.

This was the first classic film that made a real impact on me, and my opinion on all the featured actors was colored -- for years! -- by their characters in this movie (e.g., thought Paul Henreid kind of a weenie until Now Voyager came into my life).

Some day I'll finish my white paper on how Rick/Louis and Scarlett/Melanie are two of the greatest friendships cinema has wrought.

[Wiendish Fitch]

Many people have said this, and now it's my turn: I hope I never meet the person who doesn't like Claude Rains. 

[movingtargetgal]

There must have been some sort of technical problem because Casablanca cut out before it ended! :(  Suddenly the new host came on to introduce Dark Passage.  

[Moose135]

3 hours ago, voiceover said:

Ahhhh...Casablanca.  Once again: the Perfect Movie.  Once again: Claude Rains wuz robbed!!  Once again: I practically recite the entire film (not out loud; my lips move) while watching it.

You said it - the Perfect Movie.  It's a good thing DVDs don't wear out, or I'd have gone through several by now.

[Crisopera]

I have a lingering fondness for Ruby Keeler, mainly because she herself realized that she wasn't the most talented. 

Quote

It's really amazing. I couldn't act. I had that terrible singing voice, and now I can see I wasn't the greatest tap dancer in the world, either.

And Pauline Kael had one of her funniest lines about Keeler:

Quote

Ruby Keeler dances while bending down anxiously to watch her leaden feet.

She does seem to be more awake in Go Into Your Dance, the plot of which is completely disjointed.  I certainly didn't expect Ruby Keeler to 

Spoiler

be shot!

And the blackface is gross, as it always is.  But the movie certainly woke me up when I said, out loud, "Hey!  That's Helen Morgan!  What's she doing in this?"  Not much interesting, as it turned out, unfortunately.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Crisopera

[Wiendish Fitch]

Pauline Kael also called Ruby Keeler "awesomely untalented"; like most Kael put-downs, I'm torn between thinking that's really mean, or really hilarious. 

Keeler indeed wasn't very talented, but there was something endearing about her just the same. It's probably the charming dissonance between her big, Disney Princess doe eyes and heavy "Noo Yawk" accent. 42nd Street is easily one of my favorite movies of all time; every time I see it, I love it more and find something new to love about it. It's interesting that the majority of 42nd Street's musical numbers are technically diegetic: they take place strictly in rehearsals and on stage. It's only in the final number that we're magically transported to non-diegetic, Busby Berkeley Land, in a musical sequence that in no way could be performed on stage (I'm willing to buy "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and "Young and Healthy" taking place on stage, elaborate as they are).

[Charlie Baker]

Suddenly there are more titles on On Demand to catch up with than usual.  (Time Warner Cable in NYC's number of TCM On Demand titles fluctuates unpredictably, and yes, I will gripe again that they won't effing give access to Watch TCM.)

Anyway, I watched The Set-Up, a tough, lean, noirish boxing picture.  Directed by Robert Wise, beautifully shot and edited, it plays out in real time (just a bit over an hour), and includes a long sequence in a claustrophobic shabby arena while the crucial four-round fight unfolds. And Robert Ryan in prime form. 

I am going to do my best to get to some of the others I haven't seen before they vanish.

[Milburn Stone]

On August 16, 2016 at 10:37 AM, Rinaldo said:

Yes, if I remember rightly at the time (and I was young, so I may have it wrong), people kind of assumed Father Goose might be his last, but he wanted to do one more, to pass the baton to a younger generation, so to speak. So I agree that it was a conscious farewell to his movie fans.

Which reminds me of the ending of the wonderful movie version of Finian's Rainbow. When Fred Astaire dances off into the valley, it's not just Finian McLonergan dancing off into the valley never to be seen again--it's Fred Astaire dancing off into the valley, effectively never to be seen in a movie musical again. Francis Ford Coppola knew exactly what he was doing in creating that valedictory moment, which is why I can barely watch it through my sobs and tears.

[voiceover]

Bette Davis Day.  Who was better with a cigarette?

[bluepiano]

On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 11:36 AM, voiceover said:

Ahhhh...Casablanca.  Once again: the Perfect Movie.  Once again: Claude Rains wuz robbed!!  

He's near the top of my list of greatest actors to never win an Oscar. So many amazing performances over the years. Same with Edward G. Robinson, who should've gotten the Best Supporting Actor award for Double Indemnity. Believe it or not, Eddie G. was NEVER nominated for an Oscar, either Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor. What were they thinking?

Then there's James Mason, who like Claude Rains did it all over the course of an amazing career. And Cary Grant, because the Academy didn't appreciate impeccable comic acting. (He did get nominated for two of his infrequent "dramatic" roles).

On the female side, how could Thelma Ritter never have won Best Supporting Actress (she was nominated 6 times) and Barbara Stanwyck never have won Best Actress (4 nominations)?

Edited August 22, 2016 by bluepiano

[3pwood]

15 hours ago, voiceover said:

Bette Davis Day.  Who was better with a cigarette?

And who had a better opening scene than hers in The Letter?  No one, before or since.  

[Padma]

19 hours ago, voiceover said:

Bette Davis Day.  Who was better with a cigarette?

Or a line. I never get tired of her performance in All About Eve--showing command of cigarettes, martinis, and biting lines --"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride"--No one could do it better.

And I know Josephine Hull was wonderful in "Harvey" but against Thelma Ritter, I'd have given the Oscar to Thelma for "All About Eve", just because.

Peter O'Toole was nominated many times, too, but never won, despite "Lawrence" and, my favorite PO'T film, "The Lion In Winter".  (And then there are the notoriously undeserved awards--Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8 is one that comes to mind. and from what I've read she didn't think she deserved it either. I guess winners like that would help put it all in perspective for those who never won.)

[Rinaldo]

1 hour ago, Padma said:

Peter O'Toole was nominated many times, too, but never won, despite "Lawrence" and, my favorite PO'T film, "The Lion In Winter". 

Lion in Winter is a fine Peter O'Toole choice -- at the time it was a highly welcome change of pace for his movie image after a series of pale sensitive types (which probably wasn't literally true, but that became the perception: "Oh, he's doing that O'Toole thing again"). King Henry was a wonderfully broad, boisterous performance. But even finer, for my taste, is his performance in Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The sappy songs make it hard to sit through at times, but he's consistently superb in it.

Quote

(And then there are the notoriously undeserved awards--Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8 is one that comes to mind. and from what I've read she didn't think she deserved it either.

Those are the sorts of situations for which one almost needs to do an archeological reconstruction to track public opinion -- not that I really have, but I recall or have read about some partial context. I think the award for Butterfield 8 was in part a gesture of sympathy, the nomination period occurring during one of her most extreme periods of ill health. But also, it was a kind of make-up for not honoring her really fine performance in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (released during a period when popular gossip branded her a "homewrecker" for the affair with Eddie Fisher, so no award for her then).

There are other examples of "We're sorry we neglected to honor you that other time"; one of the first that comes to mind is Rod Steiger. Not that he wasn't a good and deserving actor, but his almost universally admired performance in The Pawnbroker had somehow been beaten out by Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou (again, nothing against the excellent Mr. Marvin, but I remember it being a big surprise at the time, and I have no contextual explanation for that one, unless he did a lot of campaigning). So pretty much the next halfway plausible leading performance by Steiger (and of course he was much more than that in ItHotN) was going to win an Academy Award.

One instance in which a "it's now or never, let's honor his career while we can" opportunity did work out is the late-career Oscar for Paul Newman for The Color of Money. I think it's fair to say that a lot of his earlier work is much more vividly remembered, but someone else had always outweighed him in those years. So at least he didn't have to join the ranks of O'Toole, Kerr, Burton, Ritter, et al. 

[Crisopera]

At that period in his career, I would have given the Oscar to Paul Newman for The Verdict, in which he gives a genuinely great performance, but he was up against Ben Kingsley in Gandhi, who was the obvious winner that year, even though the movie itself is awful.

[mariah23]

Remember, Shirley MacLaine said regarding Butterfield 8: "I lost to a tracheotomy!"

[Crs97]

There are many times that I know the Academy Award is truly for the previous year's performance.  For instance, Judi Dench was wonderful in Shakespeare in Love, but I think it is pretty clear she was really winning for Mrs. Brown.  Lots of other examples to choose from.

[bluepiano]

5 hours ago, Crisopera said:

At that period in his career, I would have given the Oscar to Paul Newman for The Verdict, in which he gives a genuinely great performance, but he was up against Ben Kingsley in Gandhi, who was the obvious winner that year, even though the movie itself is awful.

I was really rooting for Newman to win for The Verdict, figuring it may be his last chance. His win for The Color of Money was definitely a "career achievement" award. (though there was some poetic justice that he was playing the same character that he'd played in The Hustler, probably still his greatest performance.)

In The Verdict I was also rooting for James Mason to  finally win the best supporting Oscar. Don't remember who he lost to.

That same year, Peter O'Toole was nominated for My Favorite Year, and also lost to Kingsley. No way was he going to win for a role in a rather lightweight comedy, though he was wonderful in it. The last of his eight (!) nominations was for Venus, in 2006. That would've certainly be another "career achievement" award. (He lost to Forest Whittaker).

Many great actors seem to have won their Oscar for the "wrong" role. It always surprises me that Jimmy Stewart won for The Philadelphia Story, in which he plays second fiddle to Cary Grant. I have to think he was really winning for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington the year before. When I think of Stewart's many great performances (Vertigo, It's A Wonderful Life, Harvey, Anatomy of a Murder etc.) The Philadelphia Story is never one that comes to mind.

[Padma]

1 hour ago, bluepiano said:

I was really rooting for Newman to win for The Verdict, figuring it may be his last chance. His win for The Color of Money was definitely a "career achievement" award. (though there was some poetic justice that he was playing the same character that he'd played in The Hustler, probably still his greatest performance.)

In The Verdict I was also rooting for James Mason to  finally win the best supporting Oscar. Don't remember who he lost to.

I looked it up (Wikipedia of course). It was Louis Gossett, Jr. (An Officer and a Gentleman).  Also passed over that year was Robert Preston (Victor, Victoria), another good actor who received several Tony's but no Oscar. (Interestingly, it was Preston who originated the Henry II role in "The Lion in Winter" on stage. I wish I could have seen that.). 

[Mumbles]

I can't even imagine Robert Preston as Henry II. I wish I had seen that too!

Another recent example I would offer of an actor getting an award for a career rather than a performance is Alan Arkin (who I think is great) in the lovely but slight Little Miss Sunshine.

Newman is giving a master class in The Verdict. The look in his eyes when he sees Lindsay Crouse looking at his Pan Am shuttle ticket kills me. And his closing argument to the jury makes me farklempt. Yes a lot of it is Mamet's writing but lesser actors would have made it cheap, instead of quiet and hopeful and heartbreaking all at once.

[ratgirlagogo]

17 minutes ago, Mumbles said:

an actor getting an award for a career rather than a performance

Michael Caine for Hannah and her Sisters.

Also I'd say ( as great as a performance as of course I believe it to be) that Olivia De Havilland's Oscar for The Heiress was at least in part a big Thank You from her fellow performers for having the guts to extricate herself from the contract system and open that road up for everyone else.

Edited August 23, 2016 by ratgirlagogo

[Mumbles]

....Also, Caine for Cider House Rules. Haley Joel Osment was robbed! (And not just because he was a kid. His scene with Toni Collette at the end....the room gets dusty when I think of it.) Even Caine seemed a little embarrassed by his win when he accepted. (No slight meant toward Caine. Love him!)

[Charlie Baker]

I read somewhere that Bette Davis felt her Oscars should have been for The Letter and All About Eve, then later Baby Jane.

Meryl Streep's third should have happened before Iron Lady and for a better movie.

And though they eventually did honor her, Myrna Loy never got a nomination.

[bluepiano]

After I posted earlier that Edward G. Robinson never got a nomination (still astounding to me) I remembered that Myrna Loy didn't either. Which is referenced in a very nice TCM tribute to her done by Julianne Moore, especially in regards to The Best Years of Our Lives. I can understand her not getting recognized for her comedy work, because few performers were, but she gives a performance of great depth in Lives. But part of what makes it great, its subtlety, is probably why she didn't even get a nomination. She didn't have any big showy scenes like co-star Frederic March, who won that year.

And she didn't wear make-up that made her unrecognizable, speak in a foreign accent, or play someone with a disability, all things that have traditionally screamed "this is great acting" to the Academy. Al Pacino didn't win an Oscar until he played a blind man, and Peter O'Toole lost out one year to Cliff Robertson in Charley. Robertson was good, but to a large extent it was probably the part itself that was getting the reward.

Edited August 24, 2016 by bluepiano

[Rinaldo]

5 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

[an actor getting an award for a career rather than a performance] Michael Caine for Hannah and her Sisters.

I would disagree with this (in a friendly way), I guess. He wasn't that far into his career at that moment in time (and he got a second award, as has already been noted, 13 years later). I think people genuinely liked Hannah and Her Sisters, and were happy to recognize him and Dianne Wiest for their performances in it. Others were getting recognized for supporting performances in Woody Allen movies around then, like Mira Sorvino, and Wiest again (and I personally think Judy Davis was the clear choice in her year for Husbands and Wives).

[voiceover]

Since we're swimming in these waters, I highly recommend Danny Peary's book, The Alternate Oscars.  He second-guesses the Academy's Picture/Actor/Actress choices through the years.  I of course adore it because he agrees with me about Alastair Sim (#bestever).

[Padma]

1 hour ago, voiceover said:

Since we're swimming in these waters, I highly recommend Danny Peary's book, The Alternate Oscars.  He second-guesses the Academy's Picture/Actor/Actress choices through the years.  I of course adore it because he agrees with me about Alastair Sim (#bestever).

That sounded so interesting I had to go find it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Alternate-Oscars-Danny-Peary/dp/0385303327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472009304&sr=8-1&keywords=the+alternate+oscars

It's out of print so you can get it for .01 + shipping without guilt.  It got my attention just in that little review from Library Journal mentioning how Henry Fonda should have won for "Grapes of Wrath". When I mentioned Butterfield 8 upthread, I was also thinking about Henry Fonda being honored, maybe for his lifetime work in a way but also for the timing of his failing health when he won for "On Golden Pond".  He was so good in so many films, but I think "Wrath" would have been an excellent choice.  And I'd forgotten that neither "Citizen Kane" nor "Dr. Strangelove" won for Best Picture.   Interesting & fun book that I'd never heard of--thanks for flagging it.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Padma

[voiceover]

2 hours ago, Padma said:

Interesting & fun book that I'd never heard of--thanks for flagging it.

You're welcome!  Peary's love for film comes through in all his writing, even when you disagree with his (very opinionated) reviews.  I stumbled across his Guide for the Film Fanatic years ago in the days of the Paperback Book Club.

[Sharpie66]

17 hours ago, Mumbles said:

Another recent example I would offer of an actor getting an award for a career rather than a performance is Alan Arkin (who I think is great) in the lovely but slight Little Miss Sunshine.

I've never seen Little Miss Sunshine, but Alan Arkin is a great actor with amazing range that, IMO, he deserves any Oscar they want to give him. The first thing I remember seeing him in was the original The In-Laws (with Peter Falk), which I think is one of the funniest movies ever made. My sister and I still occasionally break out with "Serpentine, serpentine!!!" Then years later, Sis sat me down in our basement family room with no lights on while we watched "Wait Until Dark," just so she could see me leap off of the couch at the pivotal moment towards the end. Arkin is just so chilling as Harry Roat, Jr. in that movie!

[Mumbles]

Agreed,  Arkin is in that category of actor who is almost universally great in everything he's done (even something as fun but inconsequential as "So I Married an Axe Murderer") but for some reason is never listed as one of the "greats."

[Charlie Baker]

Thanks to bluepiano I saw Swamp Water through On Demand.   Of course it doesn't come near Renoir's French masterworks, but it was an intriguing movie.  I agree about Brennan and his range--and he was the first actor to win three Oscars, right? The movie is offbeat, all right; cast against type as well as Brennan were Dana Andrews as the sincere backswamp hero and young Anne Baxter as a near feral foster child (!) Both pulled it off, pretty much; as bluepiano says the dialogue in this one is a bit tricky and could definitely come off unbelievably. 

Another great Alan Arkin performance is in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.

[bluepiano]

1 hour ago, Charlie Baker said:

Another great Alan Arkin performance is in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.

Yes, he was heartbreaking in that. An earlier Arkin performance that I loved, in a much lighter movie, was Popi in 1969. (Although if made now, there might be some flack about a Jewish American actor playing a Puerto Rican.)

13 hours ago, Padma said:

When I mentioned Butterfield 8 upthread, I was also thinking about Henry Fonda being honored, maybe for his lifetime work in a way but also for the timing of his failing health when he won for "On Golden Pond". 

That's another good example of a "lifetime work" Oscar. Considering Fonda's age and health, I'm sure the voters figured it was a last chance to honor this iconic American actor. I think it was a similar situation when John Wayne won for True Grit. I remember there was a lot of talk at the time that it was a sentimental career award. (Though I think he was quite good in it, and I'm not a huge Wayne fan).

Michael Caine is one of my all-time favorites, so I'm okay with him winning for any part. Though I wish he had a Best Actor award, instead of (or in addition to) his two Supporting wins.  I was pulling heavily for him to win for Educating Rita, figuring it might be his last great leading part before becoming a character actor. He was amazing in Sleuth, though Olivier also being nominated for Best Actor from the same movie probably killed his chances. And then of course there was Alfie, though he was quite young at the time.

When Caine passes away it will be a very sad day for me. Though he didn't come along until the '60s, I think of him as the last of the old time movie stars. Though he's always so humble and self-deprecating in interviews, he would probably balk at that description.

Edited August 24, 2016 by bluepiano

[Bastet]

Little Miss Sunshine is an utterly charming movie that I have watched countless times.

Quote

I can understand her not getting recognized for her comedy work, because few performers were, but she gives a performance of great depth in Lives. But part of what makes it great, its subtlety, is probably why she didn't even get a nomination. She didn't have any big showy scenes like co-star Frederic March, who won that year.

Myrna Loy never being nominated is the Academy's greatest snub, IMO, and I agree it's most surprising for The Best Years of Our Lives.  That role is Oscar bait of the best kind, and they still ignored her.  One of the many reasons she's my favorite is how natural her acting style is, and I've long wondered if that blinded voters to how much great work was going on in her performances (that TCM piece narrated by Julianne Moore points out a few examples, including from Lives).  I've also seen it theorized that being an outspoken liberal long before that was common in Hollywood played a role.  Whatever the reasons, it's too bad.

[Jordan Baker]

This afternoon, I stumbled on "In the Cool of the Day". I'd never seen it, nor had I ever heard of it.

What at odd film. Some of the moments (particularly those with Angela Lansbury) were pretty good, but . . . the film was so overwrought. And the music? Subtle it was not. A very young Jane Fonda was given some pretty bad dialogue to say, and, well, she struggled.

Instead of focusing on the story, I kept thinking how illogical some things were. For example, why would someone with chronic lung problems go trudging up hills? Who talked Jane Fonda into taking this role?

It was nice to see Peter Finch, though. And Greece was beautiful.