Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 172: More Musical Melodies

I know I've been laying low for a while in terms of the Oscar hunt but that's because I've had other things on soon these posts will have their own exclusive blog dedicated to them but for the moment I present a quadruple bill of 1960s musicals. However the characters in the musicals aren't the most savoury of characters - child thieves, gang members, murderers and conmen who can all hold a tune, isn't it just lovely. And we'll kick off with the first two films from that quadruple bill.

Starting off with the film that triumphed at the 1962 ceremony - an update of Romeo and Juliet starring too warring, gun-toting, all-singing, all-dancing gangs. I'm talking of course of West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein and Steven Sondheim's classic musical, which was transplanted to the screen in 1961 to rave reviews. As always with films that I know quite well it's hard for me to know how much plot detail to put in but I will say that the film deals with the rival gangs the Latino-only gang The Sharks and The Jets which are made up of mainly Polish immigrants. Russ Tamblyn plays Jet leader Riff whose lieutenant Tony has essentially quit the gang preferring to work at the local drugstore however he is convinced to come to the dance where both gangs will arrange a rumble. That's where Tony meets Natalie Wood's Maria the sister of Bernardo the leader of the Sharks, played by George Charkiris, with Tony and Maria obviously being the equivalent of Romeo and Juliet. As we all know the story the two warring factions end up getting in the way of the love story with both Biff and Bernardo biting the dust before the final scenes. The only change-up is that Tony is killed but Maria survives telling the gangs to stop what they are doing before there is even more bloodshed. For me the opening fifteen minutes of West Side Story builds it up perfectly with the opening conflict between the two gangs played out to minimal beats building up to a large climax which provides the impetus for the rest of the film. Though I do have a bit of a problem finding gangs that are that in time when dancing together particularly threatening everything else about this film is great. While I found Wood and Richard Beymer a little flat as Maria and Tony there was support elsewhere in two Oscar winning turns from Chakiris and Rita Moreno the latter playing Bernardo's girl and Maria's confident. Actually out of all the performances I feel that Moreno's is the best especially towards the end when The Jets are circling around her following Bernardo's death. The songs are spectacular from America to Maria to Someday and the staging is perfect especially the playground with wire around it a perfect place to start and end the film. So all in all a perfect Oscar Best Picture winner then.

Moving on to the next year a less racy and more traditional musical with The Music Man although it does still feature an unsavoury lead character in conman Professor Harold Hill who comes to the sleepy Iowa town of River City to flog band uniforms and instruments to the unsuspecting townsfolk. Hill is played by Robert Preston, who played the role on stage, however both Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant were offered the role with the latter turning it down saying nobody could play it as well as the man who did on Broadway. Hill is aided in his con by associate Marcellus who is the only one who knows him by his real name Gregory. As he is a showman he convinces the majority of the town to steer away the young folk from the pool tables and instead get them to take part in a band. His pomp and circumstance is infectious as the older women of the town form a dance group while the four men on the school board form a Barbershop Quartet, in actuality they are played by real life quartet The Buffalo Bills. Hill's main opposition comes from the town's mayor who wants his credentials and the local librarian Marian who teaches piano. I was a big fan of The Music Man before revisiting agan and what I like about it so much is in the little details from the opening number set on a train that has all the men in suits and hats complaining about Hill to the final reprise of '76 Trombones' with the whole town now kitted out in their band uniforms. The other songs are just as brilliant with the most famous being 'Till There Was You' however my favourite has to be the famous 'Trouble in River City' in which Hill convinces the people that the pool table is bad news. Both Preston and Shirley Jones are a great couple with support coming from the brilliant Buddy Hackett and a young Ron Howard. While this isn't going to win any points for originality it is still a fine old-fashioned musical and one of the last of its kind.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 77: Christmas Comes Early

They say that Christmas comes but once a year, but Christmas films can come any time you see fit. As Miracle on 34th Street was nominated at the 1948 ceremony I'd decided I would watch It's a Wonderful Life which I had to watch online, at the same time.

First up then is Miracle on 34th Street, a film I'm very familiar with but mainly due to the 1994 remake. For those who have no idea of the story it's about a department store manager, Doris Walker, who hires a new store Santa after she finds her current Santa drunk. The new Santa, Kris Kringle, believes himself to be Santa and after an altercation ends up in a mental asylum. Kringle then has to prove he is not insane and Fred Gailey, Doris' suitor, decides to defend him thanks to a batch of children's letters to Santa. Meanwhile Doris' daughter Susan is a very grown-up girl and doesn't believe in Santa but Kringle tries to change her mind. I do love this story it's all about belief and love and the true meaning of Christmas. Kringle starts to tell parents where they can get presents cheaper even if it is not in Macy's, the store where he works. The incident that leaves Kringle in a mental institution is after he is goaded by Sawyer, Macy's psychologist who believes Kringle is insane. Sawyer picks on a young Macy's employee who Kringle has befriended and once this happens Kringle strikes Sawyer with his cane and Sawyer exaggerates the injury. I felt this incident was a bit contrived and preferred the old Santa trying to get revenge which happened in the remake. Apart from that though this film is full of old-school warmth and has some great performances. As Doris, Maureen O'Hara is able to show a woman who finds it hard to trust but melts after her encounters with Kris and Fred. Edmund Gwenn won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Kris and it is a lovely natural performance while Natalie Wood shows that not all child actors have to be annoying. This is a Christmas classic whether you watch this version or the '94 remake.

The other film in this double bill is It's a Wonderful Life a film that is always associated with Christmas however only the film's last half hour is set at Christmas time. For the three people who have never seen the film it concerns James Stewart's George Bailey who has basically helped out every member of the community in Bedford Falls but after a lot of money goes missing from his Savings and Loans business he tries to commit suicide. A kindly but dithering angel named Clarence is entrusted with helping Bailey out and showing him what he meant to everyone. However this comes at the end of the film and most of it is depicting George's life from a young boy to the present day. This is shown by Clarence's superiors in order to educate him about George. We see a man who helped his brother from drowning, his boyhood boss from poisoning most of the town and from taking over his father's business rather than going to college. It also shows him marry the love of his life Mary and have four children together and his many clashes with the greedy Mr Potter. After Potter convinces Bailey that he isn't worth anything, George goes off and that's when Clarence shows him how much he helped people. This is all done on Christmas Eve accompanied by snow and renditions of various carols. And I think this is why this film has got so much of an association with Christmas and to be fair it is feel good entertainment up to a point. This is Frank Capra's last film to be nominated for an Oscar and his third collaboration with James Stewart after You Can't Take It With You and Mr Smith Goes to Washington, the latter of those will be the next entry in this blog. By this point in his career Stewart showed that he was a more than competent leading man and gives a great turn as the extremely likeable and hard-working George ably supported by Donna Reed as the loving Mary. Stewart got the only acting nomination which is a shame as there are two other brilliant performances. The first is from Lionel Barrymore, who up to this point had mainly been seen playing kindly old men, playing the villainous and callous Potter. The second is from Henry Travers as Clarence who isn't on screen very long but steals the film most of the time he is. Stewart and the movie both lost out to The Best Years of Our Lives, but out of the five films nominated this year this has stood the test of time which can only be a good thing.