Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 174: And then Some Audrey

So here it is the first Oscar Challenge post on this brand new blog in which I continue my quest to watch every film nominated for Best Picture which I think has a projected finish date of 2015. To start this new site off we present another double bill of one person's efforts in the decade and this time we focus on the delicate features of Miss Audrey Hepburn.

Despite being nominated for five Best Actress Oscars only two of those films were nominated for Best Picture one being Roman Holiday which we looked at last decade and the other being The Nun's Story. Hepburn plays Gabrielle Van Der Mal the daughter of a brilliant doctor who herself dreams of being a medical professional and decides to become a nun so that she can work in one of the hospitals in the Congo. The first hour of the film is devoted to her becoming a nun, later known as Sister Luke, including her taking orders as well as learning her vows which means she can no longer have memories or want physical things. When it finally comes to time to take her medical exams her mother superior suggest that she fail her exam in order to show humility however when she passes she is assigned to a mental hospital in her native Belgium rather than her preferred destination of the Congo. Finally she is allowed to go to Africa where she works with Peter Finch's brilliant atheist Dr Fucani who tries to get her to open up but her vows won't allow it. While in the Congo she sees the dangers of the country when one of the other nun's is killed by a villager and she is later transported back to Belgium after she contracts TB. Missing her life in the Congo she is called to be a nurse again when she has to treat casualties hurt in the bombing of World War 2 however her feelings towards the Nazi Party make her think that she can be a nun no longer especially when she finds out her father has been killed. The film ends with Gabrielle denouncing her orders and leaving the convent once and for all her experiences their having made her a better person.

As I mentioned the first hour of The Nun's Story is almost exclusively reserved for Gabrielle's transformation into Sister Luke including watching her during dinner and during mass. As you can imagine this is pretty dull at times however it does make you relate to the characters and also what it takes to become a nun in the first place. The film really picks up in when Sister Luke makes it to the Congo partly due to the on-location filming that really makes you feel like you're there with the characters and partly because of Peter Finch. This is the first time we're seeing Finch as part of the Oscar Challenge, it won't be the last, and he makes Fucani his own being very forthright but at the same time you can see he cares about Sister Luke whether that be in a romantic way or just friendly concern is a matter we have to decide for ourselves. What makes The Nun's Story so great though is Hepburn herself who at times is the only reason to keep watching throughout you can really believe her as this young girl forced to leave behind everything she knows to give herself wholly to God. I feel she is better here than in her Oscar-winning turn in Roman Holiday partly because this film is heavier meaning the role has more gravitas and partly because it is a more mature performance. Overall this was a film of two halves one a semi-documentary on how nuns are welcomed into a convent and the other a medical film set in Africa coupled with a World War II movie. Thankfully Audrey Hepburn is the star that makes the most of her role and therefore this film is a lot better for having her be a part of it.

I'm not sure the same can be said for My Fair Lady, at least not all of it, which was the film that won Best Picture at the 1965 Oscar Ceremony. Most of us know the story of Professor Henry Higgins taking flower girl Eliza Dolittle off the street and making a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he pass her off as a lady at the next embassy ball. The film deals with their relationship as Eliza develops into a lady with Higgins winning his bet and in turn her being pursued by Freddy Eynsford-Hill a boy of breeding who is charmed by her frank nature. However Eliza has fallen for Higgins and runs away from him after he fails to thank her for winning his bet but at the end of the day she returns to him so we the viewer have to decide what happens next. For me this was Rex Harrison's film rather than Hepburn's his blustering, domineering Higgins is a joy to watch mainly because Harrison makes this brute of a man somewhat sympathetic. For me Hepburn struggles with the earlier segments in which she has to play at being a rough cockney flower-seller and personally I never bought her verbal attacks against Higgins finding them forced at times. Hepburn is better in the latter half of the film after she has almost been transformed into a lady her scenes at the races and the embassy ball being my favourite. Stanley Holloway is also great as Eliza's money-grabbing father as is Gladys Cooper as Higgins' disapproving mother. What's so great about My Fair Lady though is how it looks and how it sounds with the production design splendid, the costumes fantastic and the songs being memorable. This musical boasts some of the most famous songs from the theatre including 'I Could've Danced All Night', 'I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face', 'Get Me to the Church on Time' and my personal favourite 'On the Street Where You Live.' Like with Oliver! and The Sound of Music I'm still not convinced that an old-school musical like this should've won a Best Picture prize but again I will reserve judgment until I've seen all five.

OK hope you like the new place more to come soon.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 149: Happy Holliday

Its not hard to make links between The Country Girl and the next film on the list - Born Yesterday. Both are based on plays and so mainly feature people talking in rooms, both star William Holden and both have the winner of that year's Best Actress award in them and in this instance it was Judy Holliday. More surprising is the fact that Holliday beat both All About Eve's Anne Baxter and Bette Davies as well as Sunset Boulevard's Gloria Swanson. Holliday's character is Billie Dawn a former chorus girl who is the girlfriend of dodgy uncouth tycoon Harry Brock and is forced to go to a Washington hotel so Harry can do a deal with a few politicians. While meeting with the upper-classes Harry realises that Billie won't be able to mix with the people that he'll be doing business with so he organises her to have some lessons with Holden's journalist Paul Verrell. Obviously as this is a screwball comedy Paul and Billie soon become romantically entwined as she learns more about the country she lives in and is able to understand more than Harry wants her to. As soon as Billie becomes more aware of some of the documents that Harry is having her sign she refuses to do his dirty work so he hits her. Eventually she gets her revenge as she and Paul leak documents of his underground shenanigans to the press before they leave together.

There was much debate on the YouTube comments if Holliday should've won the Best Actress Award at the 1951 ceremony. I have to say it's certainly a memorable performance as she makes Billie the stereotypical gangster's moll with a high-pitched voice and a funny walk. But she is captivating as the character grows and learns to stand up for herself and her final scenes where she gets one over on Harry is a fist punch in the air moment. Holliday is ably supported by William Holden as the straight man and by Broderick Crawford, himself just coming off a Best Actor Oscar win, as the brutish Harry. The main problem with the film is that again it is a play adaptation and therefore there are many scenes in Harry's hotel suite in which he welcomes his guests and has meetings with his dodgy lawyer. Obviously the medium of film allows for exterior scenes so we see Paul and Billie exploring Washington landmarks but this almost seems a little forced like the director needed to differentiate the film and the play however it all still fits together. I did enjoy Born Yesterday and found Holliday's performance extremely funny and likeable and I laughed a lot. While Davis, Baxter and Swanson all gave memorable dramatic turns and at points chewed the scenery I have to say that we all like a laugh once in a while and it's good to see a comic actress pick up the prize something that hardly ever happens these days.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 103: Bergman Goes Bonkers

So we're back with a few updates from my recent delving into the archive for the Big Oscar Challenge. Now when you ask most people which film did Ingrid Bergman win her Best Actress Oscar for they would answer Casablanca. However she was not successful in her quest to be crowned Best Actress that year, Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette triumphed, but one year later she got the prize for the film Gaslight. That film was also nominated for Best Picture and sees Bergman's Paula being sent to Italy following the death of her opera-singing aunt. She returns to the place of the murder years later accompanied by her new husband Gregory Anton. Soon Paula begins to think she is going mad, she hears sounds above her and when she goes out she ends up getting hysterical and mistakenly mislaying items to find them later on. Of course as the audience we know that it is Anton sending her barmy so he can go off and do whatever it is he is doing. Anton also employs a new maid Nancy, an incredibly young and sort of sexy Angela Lansbury, who is very stand offish towards her new mistress and her stubborn nature sends Paula even more nutty. Unbeknownst to Paula help is on its way in the form of Joseph Cotten's Cameron, a policeman who recognises Paula and links her to the crime at the house years before. Cameron enlists the help of Paula's nosy neighbour to try and gain access to the house and also uses junior policeman to try and get information out of Nancy during nightly hanky panky. Things come to a head when Anton finds out what Cameron has been trying to do and Paula discovers the truth about her new love. But, I won't spoil it for you if you haven't guessed.

Gaslight builds very strongly with the first half an hour getting the audience member hooked into the mystery surrounding Paula's aunt's death. Paula's meeting with her soon-to-be neighbour Miss Thwaites, played by the glorious Dame May Robson, is both comic and sinister in tone and sets up the central mystery of the film. However once Paula starts to go mad things feel a bit repetitive with Anton, played by the over-the-top Charles Boyer, blatantly making her feel more ill at ease than she already is. The best parts of the film's second half mainly come from Lansbury, nominated here for Best Supporting Actress, her turn as the young, flirty and obstinate Nancy are very fun to watch. Joseph Cotten also plays his part well even if he once again is playing the gallant hero trying to help the vulnerable Paula out of her life. For her part Bergman is very good but not as strong as she was playing in Ilsa in Casablanca and it's a shame that she won the Oscar here beating Claudette Colbert in Since You Went Away which was arguably a much better performance but Bergman still deserved the Oscar she didn't win the year before. Overall this is an interesting mystery thriller which gets a bit repetitive but is saved by some interesting performances.

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.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 56: A Bit of Charlie

In what seems like a lifetime ago I watched two films based on the works of one of Britain's best loved wordsmiths, William Shakespeare, now I'm dipping back into the list and getting two films that follow a similar pattern as both were based on works written by another chap you may have heard of - Charles Dickens.

First off is George Cukor's massive adaptation of David Copperfield, Copperfield is probably one of the better known of Dickens' work and was obviously a good choice to be one of the first of his books to be adapted since the advent of talking movies. Cukor was also responsible for some of the 1930s adaptations that I've already looked at on this list, Little Women and Romeo and Juliet. For those unfamiliar with the story it shows the development of David Copperfield, from being born to being raised by a single mother with the help of Peggorty the maid. Copperfield's mother then remarries and he is sent first to a boarding school (not seen in the film) and then to a factory in London. There he meets the jovial but constantly in debt lanlord Wilkins Micawber but when Micawber is sent to the debtor's prison, Copperfield feels like he has nothing to live for and treks from London to Dover to live with his great aunt and her dotty companion Mr Dick. As David grows up he falls in love with the beautiful Dora while he also works as a trainee clerk alongside the devious Uriah Heap. David's old school friend Steerforth returns and seduces and absconds with Peggoty's niece Emily, this incident gives the film one of its most vivid scenes as Pegggoty's brother searches high and low for Emily in a windswept montage. In the end David married Dora but she dies in childbirth so he remarries the sensible Agnes while the bad guys all get their comeuppance.

For one of the earliest Dickens adaptations, Cukor has been able to fit in a lot of detail and filmed some rather superb sequences. David's trek from London to Dover is a brilliant sequence as comes ever nearer to his aunt. The scene in which Steerforth and David meet Dora for the first time is also rather cute and as previously mentioned the search for Emily. It's a shame then that the two actors in the lead role almost let the film down Freddie Bartholomew who was annoying in Captain Courageous doesn't change my opinion of him here, while Frank Lawton as the older David is fairly bland. Thankfully the colourful characters are given fitting actors to play them W.C. Fields is witty and warm as Micawber, Lionel Barrymore is as excellent as ever as Mr Peggoty and the Benny Hill-like Lennox Pawle brings the eccentric Mr Dick to life spectacularly. Although, at well over two hours, the film sometimes drags overall Cukor has done a good job of bringing the world of Copperfield to life.

Although both of these adaptations were released in the same year Copperfield qualified for the 1935 ceremony losing to Mutiny on The Bounty while A Tale of Two Cities had to wait till 1936 to lose to The Great Zigfield. This time Jack Conway, who we've previously met directing Viva Villa!, tries to adapt Dickens' account of the French revolution. The story sees Lucie Manette discover that her father is still alive imprisoned in the Bastille. Lucie brings her father back across the channel and while on the boat meets the charming Darnay who comes from one of France's most tyrannical aristocratic families. On entrance to England, Darnay is framed for treason, but is released thanks to the efforts of Sydney Carton a lawyer who is able to get a confession out of the men who frame Darnay. Carton falls for Lucie but Lucie has already fallen for Darnay and they marry and have a daughter. We are then taken back to Paris where the French underclasses rebel against the aristocrats but then a certain number of them what revenge against the families that have wronged them including Darnay. He is tricked in going back to Paris only to be arrested despite Lucie and Carton's best efforts he sentenced to be executed but the day before this happens Carton swaps places with Darnay and is able to end his life a hero.

Again a brilliant adaptation this time the scenes that resonate the most are those during the French revolution. A combination of dim lighting transposed with large amounts of fire is quite horrifying. Also the scenes in which Carton falls for Lucie are incredibly well done meaning that the terror is transposed with some humour. Ronald Colman as Carton is brilliant here, previously I wasn't sure about his acting ability especially in Arrowsmith, but in A Tale of Two Cities he brings the drunken, smitten and ultimately selfless lawyer to life. Also worth a mention are two actors who appeared in both of these films first of all Basil Rathbone who has played villains in both pieces as Copperfield's evil stepfather in the first film he terrifies every time he comes on screen while here as the heartless Marquise he is incredibly sinister. Meanwhile Edna May Oliver, who also played the aunt in Little Women and the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, played Copperfield's mad aunt and the loyal and eccentric maid in A Tale of Two Cities, in the latter role she is able to kick-ass and protect Lucie in the final scenes.

I think both of these films deserved their place on the nomination lists as they were able to bring Dickens' stories to an audience who had probably never read them. Although Copperfield probably wasn't a match for Mutiny on The Bounty, A Tale of Two Cities in some way was better than the overly-long spectacular The Great Ziegfeld. But both are examples of how adaptations of classic novels should be done.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 52: My Day with Katharine Hepburn

So far I've encountered a lot of the great female icons of the era during this search - Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford in Grant Hotel, Bette Davis in Jezebel, Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express and Claudette Colbert in a number of films. However one star has eluded me so far so I decided to watch all three of her nominated films from that decade in one day, that star is Katharine Hepburn.

Although Katharine Hepburn won her first Best Actress Oscar for only her third performance in Morning Glory. The first film that she was in that was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar was George Cukor's adaptation of Little Women that was up for Best Picture at the 1934 ceremony. Most people already know the story of Little Women but if you don't it basically concerns four sisters as they grow up and become women by finding love and independence. In this version it is Hepburn who plays second eldest sister Jo an aspiring playwright who meets the shy Laurie and they begin to fall in love however she rejects his advances and goes to New York to work as a nanny and to concentrate on her writing. Meanwhile of her other sisters Meg gets married, Amy goes off with her auntie and Beth contracts and eventually dies of Scarlet Fever. The end of the film comes full circle as Beth's death reunites the family and Jo discovers that Amy and Laurie have fallen in love and are about to be married so she accepts the proposal of the German linguist who works with the children that she nannies. Approaching this film I only had a smattering of what the story was about, mainly from that episode of Friends where Rachel gets Joey to read it. At first I found this a little hard to grasp and at times I mixed up the non-Hepburn sisters but once it found its stride and the male characters were introduced I really started to enjoy it. Hepburn's regular strong female stance was on display here as Jo, here she never lets her guard down till the very end and anchors the film from beginning to end however I also thought Jean Parker as Beth was particularly compelling and older character actress Edna May Oliver did a good job of portraying the wealthy but harsh aunt of the girls. Overall this was a good literary adaptation and as so won the Adapted Screenplay Oscar and Cukor was nominated for his strong direction. This probably would've made it into the list of nominees had it been five strong but it just wasn't as different and challenging as that year's winner Cavalcade.

Two years later at the 1936 awards Hepburn was nominated for her second Best Actress Oscar for her titular performance in the film Alice Adams. Hepburn here would be unsuccessful losing to Bette Davis for the film Dangerous but for me Alice Adams marked a departure for Hepburn in terms of character, Alice displayed little in terms of bravado and instead was quite weak and understated. The film is all about class as Alice and her mother hope to rise above their lower-middle class status. The family's father is ill in bed and, even though his job at the glue factory has been left open, they have little money. Alice goes to a party and unable to find a job has to go with her smart Alec brother. While there she meets and dances with the dashing Arthur however her lowly class means that she feels she isn't good enough for him. Alice's mother convinces her father to sell an invention for a new type of glue without consulting his business partner and boss essentially meaning he gets called a thief. The finale of the film sees the Adams family host a dinner party with Arthur which is awkward as Alice struggles to make conversation with Arthur while the rest of the family is worried about the consequences of the father's actions. However just when everything seems lost Alice's father and his business partner make up and Alice gets her man, something I found a little far-featched. Despite that finale, Alice Adams was a charming enough picture with another great little performance from Hepburn who is ably supported by Fred MacMurray as Arthur and Frank Albertson as her brother. Again not a film that was ever going to hold a candle to that year's winner Mutiny on The Bounty but again there was nothing particularly wrong with the film.

Hepburn's final Best Picture nominated film came two years later and this time she shared the headline status with Ginger Rogers. This film was Stage Door about a group of aspiring actresses who share a boarding house together with Rogers playing the street-smart dancer and Hepburn the haughty rich-girl newbie who puts everyone's noses out of joint. As well as Hepburn and Roger's characters is Kay Hamilton played by Andrea Leeds a young actress who had won rave reviews for her first performance but was struggling to find enough work to pay for rent and meals. Hamilton's chance comes when she auditions for a show directed by Anthony Powell, a respected director who is pompous and arrogant and refuses to see Hamilton leading to her fainting and Powell getting a tongue-lashing from Hepburn's Terry Randall. However eventually Terry's rich father agrees to finance Powell's show but only if his daughter in the lead role which again means that Randall is an outcast in the boarding house once again. In the end Kay dies and Terry dedicates her performance to her and is eventually forgiven by the rest of the inhabitants. The final scene sees yet another aspiring actress enter the boarding house and life goes on as normal. Out of these three films I think I enjoyed Stage Door the most, the mainly female cast do a great job of everyday banter and you can really believe that they are struggling actresses. Hepburn returns to her strong nature playing the posh girl in a house full of down-to-Earth characters but she really has some good chemistry with Ginger Rogers. Even though Rogers played a small grittier role in 42nd Street this film sees a complete departure from the work she did with Fred Astaire and is great. But it is Andrea Leeds as Kay who was nominated for Supporting Actress that year and that was rightly deserved. Rounding off the cast was Adolphe Menjou again playing a little bit of an unsavoury gentlemen, while some of the smaller parts were taken by actresses who would find fame later on including Lucille Ball, Eve Arden and Ann Miller. Despite this being my favourite of the three films it did the worst at the Box Office and by the end of the 1930s Hepburn along with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire were considered Box Office poison and weren't getting the roles that they once got.

However Hepburn would turn that around and still holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscars but most of those would be awarded in the 1950s and 1960s so for now its goodbye to Miss Hepburn.