Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 250-251: Franklin in Reverse

Sometimes I plan these double bill posts in advance, but occasionally they happen by accident such as when I realised my next two films were directed by the same man. The man in question is Franklin J Schaffner, who helmed two historical epics both of which went on to be bombarded with Oscar nominations. However, due to the fact that I only found out about this connection after watching the first film, I've presented this brief retrospective of his career in reverse.

We start with 1972 nominee Nicholas and Alexandra, an audaciously filmed account of the Romanov family and in particular the marriage of Tsar Nicholas to Princess Alexandra. Problems start to arise from the very beginning of the film when the couple's newborn son is diagnosed with hemophilia. Distraught at this news, Alexandra looks for answers which she finds from Russian peasant Grigori Rasputin, who claims to be a holy man. Rasputin's words of faith calm Alexandra who believes that he alone can heal her ill son, but his presence in court has a negative impact on the monarchy due to his lewd behaviour. When Nicholas is forced to cast Rasputin aside, Alexandra is upset and their son's condition worsens. It's only upon his return that Alexi begins to get well again and Nicholas is forced to find some other way to get rid of him. In the meantime Russia is really going through social upheaval, and Nicholas turns a blind eye when he hears of the Bloody Sunday Massacre. The second half of the film deals with World War I and how the Russians struggled to cope with leaders that were odds with one another. As the conflict continues, the Romanovs lose power and are shipped around Russia while their fate is decided elsewhere. Ultimately, this film has a rather grizzly ending but one that is somewhat left to the imagination.

While watching it, I felt like Nicholas and Alexandra would work as a great companion piece to Doctor Zhivao, due to both focusing on major events in Russian history. So I wasn't surprised to learn that producer Sam Spiegel decided to work on the film after being shut out by David Lean on Doctor Zhivago. The choice of Schaffner as director came after a number of men had already walked out on the project due to the length of time it took to construct a script. To Shaffner's credit he managed to construct the film well with Freddie Young's cinematography bringing to life some of the big historical events on show here. Due to budget restraints, Spiegel was forced to cast relative unknowns in the lead roles and have the big stars in smaller roles, such as Laurence Olivier as royal advisor Count Witte. But I feel the casting of lesser known actors was ultimately a positive for the film and there was much to like about the two leading performances. As Nicholas, Michael Jayston plays the flawed leader to perfection and even makes us sympathise with him in the later scenes. But he is acted off the screen by the brilliant Janet Suzman, who is absolutely compelling as Alexandra as she showcases the entire spectrum of emotions throughout the course of the film. Suzman was rewarded with the film's only acting nomination with the piece ultimately going on to win two awards for its sumptuous production design and brilliant costumes. One performance that I did feel was deserving of a nod was that of Tom Baker as the hedonistic Rasputin, who stole the first half of the film for me. It's odd watching Baker and not thinking of Doctor Who, but his Rasputin was one of the things about the film that get me going when the rest of it was dragging. Having watched film-making grow in the 1970s, Nicholas and Alexandra definitely felt a little old-fashioned, especially due to the fact that it had an interval. But there's no denying the visual spectacle of the piece coupled with a number of memorable performances.

Schaffner actually took on the direction of the film after scriptwriter James Goldman saw Patton, the film that had won the Oscar the year before. Just like with Nicholas and Alexandra, Patton is an incredibly well-shot story about a flawed leader who didn't really ever have his priorities in check. That leader was General George S Patton and the film follows his exploits over World War II from his work in North Africa to his final arrival into Germany. Patton opens with arguably its most memorable moment, the General's address to his troops in front of a massive American flag. From there we see him ruffle the feathers of a number of American officers in Africa who he believes aren't taking the campaign seriously. Though he's portrayed as a brilliant man, his inability to follow orders often makes him appear pig-headed and that's certainly true of the scenes involving the invasion of Sicily. Patton's views also get him in trouble when he accuses a shell-shocked soldier of cowardice and tells him to get back to the front line. Though Patton eventually weasels his way back into being part of the Battle of the Bulge, his words continue to get him in trouble. He insults the Russians on several occasions and finally loses command of his troops completely after comparing the major US political parties to the Nazis. In the end Patton isn't the stereotypical flag-waving war film that the opening suggested it would be, which made me enjoy it even more.

One thing I would say about both of the films in this post was that they were extra-long and could've probably done with trimming down at least twenty minutes from the overall running time. I did get the impression here that Schaffner and the screenwriters felt that every part of Patton's history was important and took almost three hours to tell a story that could've probably be done in two. That being said Patton the character is a lot more compelling that Patton the film thanks to the brilliant performance given by George C Scott. In fact it's Scott's performance that carries Patton from beginning to end and definitely why it won the Oscar for Best Picture. Patton is a flawed character and somebody who always speaks his mind even he should probably keep his mouth shut. Though we've seen Scott in supporting roles in the past, his role as Patton was his defining moment and resulted in a well-earned Best Actor Oscar that he ultimately declined. The problem with having such a memorable screen performance like Scott's is that every other cast member suffers as a result and not even the brilliant Karl Malden made an impression in one of the many supporting roles. Just like with Nicholas and Alexandra, Schaffner excels at presenting the historical set pieces and makes all the major battles feel important. Jerry Goldsmith's brilliant score adds almost an unsettling tone to the film with the brass instruments making me uneasy whenever I head them. Though I did find Patton compelling at times, I struggled to maintain my interest in the film over the three hour running time. Thankfully Scott kept me going throughout and I do feel that without his performance Patton wouldn't be as well-regarded as it is today.

Next time we have something completely different from the audacious historical dramas that I've just written about.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 195 and 196: Girls in Love

Regular readers of this blog will know how often I like to group two or three films together in one post. Usually, I've planned this in advance but occasionally I'll do a double film post out of the blue. This is one such post as I noticed a link between two that being young women routinely getting their heartbroken. The stories are centuries apart but both centre around young lovers and hurdles put in their way to stop them finding love. 

Of course we all know the hurdles that are put in the way of Romeo and Juliet - family rivalry, mates being killed and ridiculously large balconies. Obviously Shakespeare's play has had many different screen versions however Fraco Zeffirelli's adaptation, which was nominated at the 1969 ceremony, is one of the most famous. In fact at the time the film was the most commercially successful film version of a Shakespeare play ever partly due to its contemporary feel. Another reason for its appeal is that it was the first time that the two actors playing the titular lovers were of a similar age. Teenage viewers saw the film in their droves due to the fact that fifteen year old Olivia Hussey and seventeen year old Leonard Whiting played the lead roles. Indeed their casting caused controversy not least because of Hussey appearing in a very brief nude scene. I personally felt that their casting added a lot to the overall believability of the story and can see why it would appeal to a younger audience. Hussey especially excelled at portraying Juliet's naive qualities and really made you believe that Romeo was her first love. Personally I wasn't as much a fan of Whiting, however he was still compelling in the scenes in which Romeo kills Tybalt and essentially ruins any chance of happiness he had with Juliet. While we're on the subject of the cast I felt that Michael York was perfectly snide as Tybalt while Milo O'Shea was a great choice to play Romeo's confident Friar Lawrence. The whole film was also given a bit of Shakespearian authenticity by the fact that Laurence Olivier provided the voice-over for the film, even though he was never credited. 

Away from the casting, the other reason for the film's success was its use of colour and setting to convey the story. I personally loved the Oscar-winning costume designs which were used to differentiate the two warring families. While the Montagues war drab greys and blues, the Capulets were decked out in brighter colours and were definitely viewed as the richer of the two tribes. The fact that the whole film was shot in Rome added to the authenticity of the film and the exterior shots were particularly impressive. Indeed Pasqualino De Santis' cinematography also won an Oscar and I felt his visuals shone throughout the film. I personally felt that the balcony scene and the duels which saw the deaths of both Mercutio and Tybalt were brilliantly filmed. Even though the style and the casting were spot on, I can't say that I was completely wowed by the film. At well over two hours, I found the film dragged and there were some scenes that still didn't really work on film. Overall though, Zeferelli was the first director to give Romeo and Juliet that cinematic flare that it so richly deserved. The use of colour, setting and age-appropriate actors all added to the original text and I ultimately found this film to be a rewarding watch. 

We now rewind back seven years for the second film in this double bill. The film in question is Fanny, whose titular character is played by Leslie Caron of Gigi fame. In the 1950s we saw Caron star in two musicals, An American in Paris was the other one, however here Fanny is a musical with the songs removed. Caron's Fanny is an eighteen year old fish-seller who is desperately in love with young bartender Marius. Marius has been ear-marked by his bar owning father Caesar to take over the family firm but his son dreams of becoming a sailor. Fanny later receives an offer of marriage from elderly bachelor Panisse but turns him down as she wants to be with her true love Marius. Fanny eventually realises that Marius feels trapped and doesn't want to pressure him into a relationship. The two spend one last night together, but she still encourages him to go abroad and tells him that she's rather marry Panisse for his money. Two months after Marius' departure, Fanny discovers she is pregnant with his child and accepts Panisse's offer of marriage mainly to save face. Even though Panisse realises he'll be raising another man's child, he wants his family name to continue and feels this will be the only way to do so. Marius soon discovers the truth but finds out that Panisse will not let Fanny takes his child away and so she turns down Marius once again. Obviously Fanny is torn between her love for Marius and for her young son, and so will be left heartbroken either way.  

I have to say it took me a while to warm to Fanny, mainly because the first twenty minutes or so all revolved around the characters either selling fish or playing cards. It was only after Marius and Fanny had their first heart-to-heart that I really got into the story and found myself really caring about the characters. Indeed Fanny has at least four stand-out performances not least from Caron who is much improved from her turn in Gigi. It's also interesting to see veteran actors Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier appear here as both have featured in films on this list since the early 1930s. Boyer, the only member of the cast to get an acting nomination, anchors the film as the passionate yet lonely Caesar. But it was Chevalier who impressed me most in what was a fairly dramatic role, his Panisse was a man who'd never truly found love and used his money to marry Fanny. However Chevalier played a man who really did care for this young woman and longed for her to love him. Horst Buchholtz was a brilliant Marius and had great chemistry with Caron and Boyer meaning that his relationships with both characters were utterly believable. Jack Cardiff's Oscar nominated cinematography captured the French shipping town well and really added to the overall mood of the film. While Fanny was by no means perfect, I found myself getting rather emotional towards its climax and ultimately found it to be an affecting and well-played romantic drama. 

And as I've revealed my soppier side here, I feel the only way to go next is with an iconic sword and sandals epic. 

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 113: Moors Moors Moors How Do You Like it?

So far we've seen Laurence Olivier as Shakespearian figureheads Henry V and Hamlet as well as the lead in an adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca and in the next film on the list he plays another literary antihero in Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff. For those unfamiliar with the tale, who unlike me didn't do it as part of their A-Level English Literature course, the story involves a love story on the Yorkshire Moors between Heathcliff a gypsy orphan bought to live at the large establishment of the title and Cathy the daughter of the family he's bought into. However many things come between them including the death of Cathy's father, the hatred towards Heathcliff from Cathy's brother Hindley and Cathy's love of the finer things in life when she meets the nice but dull Edgar Linton of the neighbouring house The Grange who Cathy ends up marrying. Heathcliff goes and returns later on to exact revenge on all that have wronged him by buying Wuthering Heights from a drunken Hindley and marrying Edgar's sister Isabella to get back at both Edgar and Cathy. However the book and film differ from there on out, in Emily Bronte's novel there is whole other section involving the children of Hindley, Heathcliff and Cathy but the film ends abruptly with Cathy's death and Heathcliff haunted by Kathy's ghost. The whole story is narrated by Wuthering Heights housekeeper Nelly to The Grange's new occupant Mr Lockwood but I found that the voiceover technique was lacking and Nelly's voice was often drowned out by the score or by other character's voices. The film ends, not with the uniting between Cathy and Hindley's children, but with the ghosts of Cathy and Heathcliff walking off hand in hand together. In fact it wasn't Olivier or Merle Oberon who played Cathy in this scene as both had moved on to other projects so body doubles had to be used in this final scene.

And this wasn't the only thing that went wrong with the film as nobody seemed to get on. Producer Samuel Goldwyn wanted the final scene while director William Wyler thought it would seem a bit tacky this is why the body doubles had to be used. Goldwyn claimed that this was his project and Wyler was simply the director however Wyler didn't really seem to get on with his cast. Wyler and Olivier constantly clashed because Wyler wanted Olivier to retake scenes again and again while Olivier and Oberon didn't get on either especially during their love scenes together as Olivier wanted his new love Vivien Leigh to star alongside him. Goldwyn hoped that this would be the vehicle to launch the then unknown Oberon but at that year's Oscars it was Leigh who would win Best Actress for Gone with the Wind while Oberon didn't even get a nomination. Personally I thought the best scenes in the film were the ones in which Cathy and Heathcliff clash as you can actually see the hatred between Oberon and Olivier in these scenes. Like in Hamlet, I felt Olivier was miscast here I just didn't feel the pain that Heathcliff is meant to have over never probably having Cathy. My two favourite performances came from Flora Robson as Nelly and again from David Niven as the put upon Edgar. As someone who knows the story fairly well I think I was put off by the fact that there were so many omissions in this film that it was disturbing to see the book dealt with in this way. I just hope that the people who watch this actually read the book as well or they may well think that Wuthering Heights as a happy ending, which Spoiler Alert: it doesn't.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 110: Canadian Hideout

Of all the films they worked on together only two of the works from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were nominated for an Oscar. The first, which I watched much earlier, was the classic The Red Shoes which has come to the forefront of the public knowledge after the recent release of Black Swan. However the second film is the lesser known 49th Parallel, a film that Powell made to try and convince the USA to join the war. 49th Parallel sees a German U-Boat crash on the Canadian shore and tracks the adventures of the six Nazi officers as they try to traverse the land and find a way back home. On the way they come across various stereotypical Canadian characters including a French Canadian trapper bizarrely depicted by Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard's reclusive British intellectual and Raymond Massey's soldier who has gone AWOL and in the film's final scene stops Eric Portman's Hirth, the leader of the group, from entering the partisan USA and they both travel back towards Canada where Hirth will be arrested. There also a very long scene in a commune with East German farmers who are pacifistic and live together as a family. The Nazi gang don't understand how they don't have a leader or a secret handshake and instead live in harmony without having strict rules. One of their number even decides to stay only to be found guilty of desertion and killed by his so-called friends.

I'd never thought I'd compare a Powell and Pressburger film to an episode of South Park but that's before I'd seen 49th Parallel a film which resembles 'Christmas in Canada' where the four boys travel round Canada trying to find Kyle's brother Ike and during that time they run into a French Canadian, a Mountie and a Newfoundlander. All of these can be found in this film as can the Scottish Hudson Bayer played by Whisky Galore narrator Finlay Currie who enjoys playing chess over the radio. There are plenty of stereotypes in this film for example having Olivier playing a French Canadian was a mistake and I think the classical Brit actors who play the Nazis were a little too over the top. But it also an interesting film that Powell and Pressburger spent a lot of time working on and thinking about the motivations of the Nazi party. Having the Nazis as the main characters is almost a reverse road movie as they drop off one by one, some dying and others being handed into the police. But notably none of them are credited on the poster instead it is Olivier, Massey and Howard who have been given the lead roles of the three Howard impressed me the most as the character who outwits the Nazis who believe they have a superior intellect. I feel this may've been hailed as a classic if it had got the casting a bit better but as it is it feels a bit dated unlike some of the other P and P works  such as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and A Matter of Life and Death, neither of which were nominated which is a great shame.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 105: More from Charlie and Bill

Next up we have adaptations of two classic works of British literature from two classic British directors. First of all Charles Dickens' Great Expectations directed by David Lean and then Laurence Olivier's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Henry V. When writing about any of these films its always tempting to go into plot detail but with works of classic literature it feels like ret-reading old ground a lot of the time so instead I shall simply discuss the style and acting.

First up then Lean's Great Expectations which goes straight into the story as young Pip first encounters the convict Abel Magwitch and is forced to steel food and a file so that the convict can get away and have something to eat. These scenes between the startled Pip and the terrifying Magwitch are some of the film's best and the way they are shot and edited and the music that accompanies them all adds to the haunting mood and rightfully the film did win the Oscars that year for Art Direction and Cinematography. The Art Direction is also prevalent in the later scenes when Pip is invited to play at the house of Miss Havisham and her ward Estella whom Pip falls in love with. Lean again gets it just right showing this house as a large daunting place full of cobwebs and dust where the clocks are stopped to the time when Miss Havisham was stood up at the altar. About an hour into the film the action switches and Pip is now an adult played by John Mills, it is in these scenes that Pip goes to London to live with Alec Guinness' adorable Herbert Pocket and also romances the grown Estella. For me I felt that Mills was miscast as Pip, I felt that he seemed almost too old to be playing a 21 year old and also didn't really convey the fact that he'd made the transition from blacksmith's mate to gentleman in training. But Mills' performance is the exception rather than the rule as there are some fine performances in the supporting cast from Francis L Sullivan as the belligerant lawyer Mr Jaggers to Bernard Miles as the kindly Mr Joe and Finlay Currie as the terrifying Magwitch all these roles are played as they should be my only criticism is that I feel that Martita Hunt went a little overboard as Miss Havisham almost making her performance lapse into pantomime. As the final scenes come on and Pip finds out who it was that paid for him to become a gentleman and also of Estella's true parentage the film comes together with the final scenes playing out as they should. Lean abridges the book rightfully chopping out the bits that don't really contribute to the overall narrative and at the end producing a great piece of British cinema which was ahead of its time in many ways and was certainly deserving of the two technical Oscars that it won.

Similarly Olivier's Henry V was deserving of the Special Oscar it won for Laurence Olivier in his achievement of bringing this unique retelling of one of the Bard's most famous works to the screen, he was honoured as a director, producer and actor and excels in all three. This film was shot in Technicolor which, in 1944 when it was being shot, was still quite rare and the way the colour is used in this film also feels ahead of its time creating almost like a separate world as Henry V and his charges head to France. However the film actually starts as a performance in The Globe theatre as we see the audiences take their seats and Leslie Banks, as the chorus, welcomes us to the performance as the actors deliver the first couple of scenes from the stage before Henry and the English hit the sea to France to fight in the Battle of Agincourt. The Agincourt scenes themselves are spectacular, the exterior shots are obviously done in interior studios but at some times I had to sort of take a double back as they are so realistic but at the same time quite obviously fake. This contrast creates almost a surrealist feel and when two soldiers are surrounded by what is meant to be snow covering the French castle it feels out of the ordinary. Olivier makes a brilliant Henry V and his performance and the film as a whole are a lot better than Hamlet the film that won him the Oscar and took home the same prize. Henry V was seen as a morale-booster for the British army and therefore this Techincolor marvel was funded by the British Government and some of Olivier's speeches do have a certain morale-boosting resonance to them. This is getting away from just a filmed version of a Shakespeare play and using the medium of film to try and play around with the audience's expectations. I have to say my favourite parts are when the camera goes backstage to see the actors getting ready before taking the stage again at The Globe. As Henry and Katherine get married at the end of the film we return to the theatre with the audience clapping and I'd like to think that the post-war audience was doing the same thing.

O.K. that's your lot for this little update hopefully be back with more Oscar-ness soon.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 72: Great Danes

After two Shakespearian adaptations failing to win the Oscars in the 1930s, the final winner at a 1940's Oscar Ceremony was indeed based on one of Will's best loved works. And it was by one of the men who would become famous for his Shakespearian leads that being Laurence Olivier who also won as Best Lead Actor and produced and directed the piece. Unlike a lot of the other films I'm not providing a plot synopsis here because most of you should know the story of Hamlet i.e. Danish prince tries to avenge the death of his father by his uncle, who then married his mother, by trying to get him to admit to the crime and then killing him himself. Obviously this being a tragedy the lion's share of the characters die one way or another, Hamlet's love Ophelia goes a bit potty and drowns herself, Hamlet's mum is poisoned and my favourite is Polonius who is stabbed while behind a curtain giving us the message that Peeping Toms never prosper. But adaptations of Shakespeare's plays should always be analysed by how they look visually. To some extent Olivier has done a good job the scene in which Hamlet writes a play basically about his uncle killing his father is done very well, with the space used for the play being particularly apt. The way this whole scene is lit is brilliant and some colour almost creeps into the scene also. The way that Hamlet's father's ghost is portrayed is also done very well with a suit of armour with a blacked out face surrounded by smoke creating a sense of fear. The filmic techniques also allow for some of the dialogue to be changed with Hamlet delivering some of his soliloquies in voice-over. On the whole though I did find the film was overly stagey and Olivier didn't quite utilise all that was available to him in terms of filmic space. As there was so much opportunity to do something special I feel it was squandered and most of the scenes felt like they were simply being acted on the stage. I know it's an adaptation but Olivier failed to make edits and almost 2 and a half hours it feels too long.

Another problem I had was in Olivier's lead performance, although there's no denying he's one of the greatest actors of all time, I just feel that he was maybe a little too old for Hamlet and he failed to portray some of his vulnerability instead going for all out thespian-mode. The other nominated member of the cast, Jean Simmons as Ophelia, also didn't do a lot for me and I was rather glad when she drowned herself. There were some good supporting performances mainly from Basil Sydney as Claudius, Eileen Herlie as Gertrude and Felix Alymer as Polonius. At the end of the day I think the academy wanted to seem a little cultured that year and that's maybe why Olivier's Hamlet won the big one. I'm not saying it's a bad film but for me Olivier failed to make a film instead this felt more like a filmed version of a Hamlet performance.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 64: Lions and Tigers and Bears and Dead Wives Oh My!

So we're finally into the ten ceremonies that took place in the 1940s, in other words films that were released between 1939 and 1948, the first five ceremonies still had ten nominees but at the 1945 ceremony it retreated back to the original format of five nominees something that stayed the same until this year's ceremony where we went back to ten nominations. Anyway that's way in the future but what's quite exciting is that I own four DVDs of films nominated in this decade so that's where I'm going to start.

And first up is a classic that most of us have seen at one time or another yes it's The Wizard of Oz. I won't really go into the plot that much because if you don't know the story then you've lead a very sheltered life and your childhood was obviously very severe if no-one ever sat down with you and watched the film. What I will do is talk about some of the bits I'd forgotten and some of the segments that make it impressive at least from a filmic point of view. Obviously the first thing to say is the transformation between the sepia beginnings when Dorothy is still in Kansas and then the brilliant Technicolor scenes in Oz. In particular when Dorothy arrives in Oz the colours are so stark and it is so well filmed that at the time audiences must have been stunned. What I'd forgotten about is how good those pre-Oz scenes where and how well Judy Garland portrays a girl who really wants to escape the life she has. The other misconception I'd had was that this was a strong musical film however the second half of the film, from the first meeting with the Wizard onwards, contains no singing whatsoever. For a film released in 1939 the effects are really well done, the twister scene in which Dorothy's house flies through the air and encounters all the other characters is very well executed and later the scenes where the gang encounter the Wizard for the first time is also very well done. From the costumes, to the make-up and the acting the film is just excellent. Which makes it very odd that it was shown very little love at the 1940 Oscar Ceremony. Although it was included in the list of ten films that was nominated for Best Picture, it only got another four noms. From the 1940s some films were shot in colour while a lot remained in black and white, because of this the cinematography category was split into how the pictures were filmed and Wizard of Oz was nominated for colour cinematography as well as special effects both of which it should have won and didn't. There was success for the film in the Original Score and Song categories, the latter was for Over the Rainbow but that's it and that's a shame because there should've been at least a couple of acting nods. In particular Margaret Hamilton as The Wicked Witch of The West deserves a mention, from her opening scenes as the evil Miss Gulch to her terrifying presence after she dons the green make-up she steals the show from everyone else. One scene that still scares me to this day is the one in which Dorothy sees Aunt Em through the witch's crystal ball and as she is shouting her aunt's name the witch appears and taunts her, Hamilton should've got a nomination for Best Supporting Actress and I would've also but The Wizard himself Frank Morgan in there as Supporting Actor. However director Victor Fleming wasn't that upset as his other picture released that year went onto win, you may have heard of it as it was a little film called Gone with The Wind.

Talking of winners the next year's ceremony saw the only Alfred Hitchcock film to win the award and it was Hitch's first major Hollywood picture - Rebecca. I will forgive anyone who doesn't know the plot of this film but basically it sees Joan Fontaine's character, who is never named, meet Laurence Olivier's widower Maxim De Winter while in Monte Carlo. After a whirlwind romance the two get married and return to Maxim's large stately home Manderlay. Soon the new Mrs DeWinter is told tales of the eponymous Rebecca, Maxim's first wife, who supposedly drowned during a boating accident. In particular Fontaine has many run-ins with Manderlay's housekeeper the chilling Mrs Danvers who starts by making subtle digs at her and soon is blatantly taunting her. Maxim also seems to be haunted by memories of his first wife and when his new wife appears in one of Rebecca's old dresses he becomes enraged and forces her to change into a new dress. The final third of the film discovers the mysterious circumstances in which Rebecca died but to talk about those would be to reveal the plot. What I will say is that Rebecca is an excellent film and in particular the filming of both the exterior and interior of Manderlay is what makes it particularly chilling. The film did win Best Cinematography, its only win apart from Best Picture, which is more than justified as the camerawork makes Manderlay another character in and of itself and evokes memories of Rebecca in all of the other characters. The nominated score also deserves a mention as a lot of the scenes feature Fontaine creeping around the large house trying to discover Rebecca's memories for herself. Olivier and Fontaine were both nominated for their lead performances but lost ot James Stewart and Ginger Rogers respectively. However the best performance in the film belongs to Judith Anderson as the cold, distant and ultimately wicked Mr. Danvers who has to be one of the best screen villains of all time. Anderson was nominated also nominated, as Supporting Actress, but also lost out. In all Rebecca got eleven nominations but only two wins, it was also the first of five nominations for Hitch who famously never won an Oscar for directing. This has to be one of the biggest snubs of all time and it's a damn shame that one of the finest directors of all time was never rewarded with accolades that he deserved.