Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 148: Amazing Grace

Imagine you're Judy Garland, I know it's an odd way to start this blog but stick with me, you've just given birth to your son and the Oscars have sent cameras to the hospital where you are about to receive your Best Actress Award at the 1955 ceremony for her role in A Star is Born and then the winner is... Grace Kelly and you're left with a bunch of flowers from Groucho Marx describing the decision as the biggest robbery since Brinks Which I think is doing Kelly a disservice as her role in The Country Girl, the next film on the Oscar list, is probably her best. Kelly was possibly one of the first glamorous actresses who learnt that if you want to win an Academy Award its best to go a bit dowdy and a play a brow-beaten character since then the method has been used as by Charlize Theron, Holly Hunter and Nicole Kidman among others. Kelly plays Georgie Elgin the wife of once great actor Frank who has become an alcoholic since the death of their young son an incident for which he blames himself. Frank is given a second chance at a career by William Holden's Bernie Dodd who was a fan of his earlier work but has to fight the show's producers and financial backers. Dodd believes that Georgie is holding back Frank and affecting his performance especially since Frank tells him stories about her suicide attempts and drunke behaviour which are actually about him. After Frank causes an incident in a bar and is arrested Dodd then realises that all of his hatred for Georgie comes from both Frank's lies and the fact that he is has feelings for her. Frank pulls himself together and becomes a star and realises that Dodd and Georgie both have feelings for each other he gives her permission to begin a relationship with him but in the final scene she decides to stay with her husband.

I hadn't really read anything about The Country Girl before watching it, which is sometimes the best way, but after viewing I was convinced it was based on a play and it turns out I was right. I had this inkling as the majority of the scenes feature characters in rooms talking to each other but because those characters are played by Crosby, Kelly and Holden you don't really care. Obviously since you've got a talented singer like Crosby you may as well use him but the context here sees him playing a man haunted by the fact that he let his son's hand go to take a promotional picture the song he sung that day is used a reason for him to start drinking again. In fact of all the films I've seen him in I feel that this is Crosby's best performance it's so much more gritty than all of the others in which he essentially plays himself and a lot better than Going My Way for which he won his Best Actor Oscar for. I feel The Country Girl was unfortunate to come up against On The Waterfront so Crosby lost to Brando but any other year I reckon he would've won the award. Kelly is also great having to play the doting wife with the alcoholic husband with her hair up and glasses on she doesn't look like Grace Kelly which is why you can really feel for Georgie and William Holden is also great basically playing another member of the audience trying to guess which of the couple is telling the truth. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that Dodd finally decided he was in love with Georgie I could see it coming but didn't think it fit with the rest of the film. Also winning an Oscar for its brilliant adapted screenplay, The Country Girl is a great film from beginning to end featuring three fine performances from a trio of the time's top stars and I would highly recommend it.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 109: Nun of Your Business

If you ever find yourself in a tie-break at a quiz and the question is what is the first ever film sequel to be nominated for an Oscar, I have the answer - The Bells of St. Mary's. Never heard of it? Well it is the sequel to Going My Way, the winning film at the 1945 Oscar ceremony. A year later we meet Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley continuing improving the church system by moving to a flagging catholic school run by a bunch of nuns which is in dire need of repair. O'Malley clashes with the unrealistic views of the nuns who hope to convince local business owner Mr Borgadus to give them the new complex he is building to house the school. O'Malley's unconventional techniques also incur the wrath of the lead nun Sister Mary Benedict convincingly portrayed by Ingrid Bergman. We also follow the story of Patsy Gallagher whose daughter appeals to the Father to allow her to start the school as she doesn't know what to do with her. Obviously Patsy reforms her way and starts to improve her grades but Mary and O'Malley clash again when she fails her final exam and can't graduate. The ending involving Mary Benedict's removal from the nunnery is odd as it is really neither happy or sad but maybe the message just is that life goes on. Although they did succeed in moving St. Mary's after appealing to the good nature of Borgadus who was suffering from various illnesses and the next year would become an iconic figure as Clarence the Angel in It's a Wonderful Life.

Back to the Bells of St. Mary's a sequel to a film that I felt did not deserve to win the Best Picture Oscar over the tremendous Double Indemnity. But St. Mary's is only a sequel in the fact that it continues the adventures of the same characters, it doesn't really reference O'Malley's work in Going My Way and instead presents this as an entirely new story. Although it is very similar, Bing Crosby arrives at a Catholic institution the locals are suspicious but then won round and he ends up getting what he wants. After winning a Best Actor Oscar the year before, Crosby's performance really hasn't changed but that really doesn't matter. As an actor Crosby can instantly put me at ease as his style is very relaxed and that works well for the character. Ingrid Bergman was also nominated after a win for Gaslight the year previous, her sister Mary Benedict could be a clichéd stuck-up character but she can go toe-to-toe with Bing and they spark off each other with their very asexual chemistry. The film does suffer from being very overlong and also there are entire sequences that I felt could've been cut out but it is decent entertainment and if you like a good nun-based film you could do a lot worse.

Big Oscar Challenge Day 93-94: Catch-Up Part 4

The 1940s Oscar contenders didn't tend to be light-hearted and as well as Chaplin's masterpiece there are only two other pieces that are fairly easy-going. The first is the first winner of the Best Picture Oscar when the field thinned back to five nominees at the 1945 ceremony. Going My Way was a sort of comic musical and featured Oscar winning turns from both Bing Crosby as a young priest and Barry Fitzgerald as the older priest who Crosby has come to take over from. The film is an easy-going film about Crosby's Father O'Malley's efforts to improve the parish by getting all the boys together into a choir as well as mentoring a young woman who also surprisingly has a lovely voice. As the film stars Crosby there is plenty of singing and also plenty of life lessons learnt. Crosby is a fine, jovial lead but it is Fitzgerald as the older priest who seems to have more to do as he realises that he isn't as relevant as he once was. Going My Way was a triumph winning a total of seven Oscars including one for its director Leo McCarey.

The other comedy film is The Philadelphia Story a nominee from the 1941 awards it stars Katherine Hepburn alongside Cary Grant as her ex-husband and James Stewart as the reporter come to cover the story of her relationship. I know The Philadelphia Story much better in its musical version of High Society and had never seen the original version which I quite enjoyed thanks in part to Cary Grant however this was the film that James Stewart won his Oscar for despite him putting in much better turns in Mr Smith Goes to Washington and It's A Wonderful Life. But The Philadelphia Story was an enjoyable enough fare but it never really bothered Rebecca as a serious contender for Best Picture.