Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 180: Judgment Call

One of the interesting things about doing this Oscar challenge is seeing how the stars of the 1930s have changed when we get to the 1960s. Spencer Tracy for example, whose final film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner has already been talked about here, had his initial success in the 1930s however had a career resurface in his final decade. An example of this is Judgment at Nuremberg where Tracey plays a small town judge Dan Heywood who has been recruited to sit as the chief justice at one of the many military tribunals of German judges accused of committing crimes against humanity by sending people of different religious beliefs to Concentration Camps. One judge in particular is the quiet and reserved Ernst Janning, played by an almost unrecognisable Burt Lancaster, who feels that he shouldn't be tried alongside the crueller judges who seemingly knew what the Nazis were doing. The sides are argued by the forthright American Colonel Tad Lawson, played by Richard Widmark, and the passionate defence council Hans Rolfe played by Maximilian Schell who went onto win the Best Actor Oscar for his role. While in Nuremberg Dan meets Marlene Dietrich's Frau Bertholt a wife of one of the judges who was previously put on trial and one that he almost romances however he realises that she is trying to manipulate his feelings to give a different verdict at the trial. Most of the film is set during the trial but is still incredibly gripping as Stanley Kramer attempts to make us question if doing something when you don't know the full consequence is as bad as what the Nazis were doing at the concentration camps and I have to say it was a fascinating watch.

Despite its three hour run time Judgment at Nuremberg flew by thanks mainly to Tracy's great performance as the conflicted Dan who comes off as an ordinary guy who has to make an extraordinary decision. Dan's almost-romance with Frau Bertholt perfectly exemplifies his tough decision as she is one of the many characters who try to influence him in some way. The film is basically about accountability and how much each of these judges actually knew about the sentence they were giving to those who received them. Schell's Oscar winning performance was incredibly heartfelt as he is able to convey someone who is sticking up for the bad guys but can still justify it because he is 'doing his job' and his final words to Dan perfectly encapsulate his feelings on the matter. It's not just Schell though as I thought Tracy's performance here was just captivating and better in fact than his two Oscar wining turns back in the 1930s. He's one of those screen presences who can mesmerise you without saying anything at all and for that reason I feel in a way he should've won Best Actor over Schell. I also enjoyed Burt Lancaster, who is silent for the majority of his time on screen, as his final testimony is one of the highlights of the picture and once again adds to the moral ambiguity of the plot. While Judgment at Nuremberg may not be particularly cinematic it as at the same time an enthralling tale that I was never bored at and for that reason alone it deserved its place as one of the five Best Picture Nominees.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 170-171: Simply Sidney

For those of you who have been following the Oscar challenge you will now that when I can I group a number of films together by actor or genre. This is true of this latest trio of films all starring Sidney Poitier who historically was the first African-American actor to become a big star and in terms of this was also the first black male to win an Oscar outside of the honorary categories. We first met him at the tail end of the 1950s in The Defiant Ones for which he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar and his golden touch continues with all the three films in this list winning at least one award. As you can imagine with a black actor in the 1960s a lot of these films deal with racial prejudice with Poitier often playing against how people of his colour were often portrayed here playing doctors and detectives. But we'll start off with a film in which he neither plays a professional nor is race the main issue.

The film I am referring to is Lilies of the Field the film that won Poitier his Best Actor Oscar and sees him play Homer Smith a drifter and jack-of-all trades who has no fixed abode. When his car runs out of water one day he stops to fill it up at a convent run by Eastern European nuns with the mother superior of the outfit hiring Homer to do some work around their property for the day. However after a while he discovers the mother superior won't let him leave until he has built them a chapel and he soon learns from others the exploitative nature of these nuns. At the same time he sympathises with their struggle to leave their native Germany, they had to climb over the Berlin Wall, and as he had always wanted to be an architect he sets about trying to build the chapel. As word spreads people from the community, mainly Hispanics, come to lend support and materials however Homer refuses their help wanting this to be a single-handed project. He eventually gets the help and the chapel is finished however Mother Maria is too proud to let him stay and so he slips away while the other sisters are singing one of the Baptist hymns he taught them. Lilies of the Field is such a simple film but at the same time is lovingly produced and well put together by director Ralph Nelson. The main theme of the film here is outsiders coming together in this case an African-American drifter, a group of East German nuns and poor Hispanic families as they work to construct something that the community can be proud of. Poitier's performance is larger-than-life with his laughter being infectious and his general aura radiating from the screen he is tasked with leading the film for the most-part and does an excellent job. The desolate locations are well-filmed by Ernest Haller and there is also an excellent supporting performance from Lilia Skala as Mother Maria which earned her an Oscar nod also. This was just a lovely simple tale about family and taking the gifts that are offered to us when they are given.

Four years later, at the 1968 ceremony, Sidney starred in two of the five films nominated for Best Picture including the movie that went onto to win Best Picture that year - In the Heat of the Night. In this film the plot is centred around Poitier's Virgil Tibbs' race as he hauled to the police station in Sparta, Mississippi as he believed to have killed a man he had never met. The racist police Chief Bill Gillespie, played by Rod Steiger who won a Best Actor Oscar for this film, is embarrassed to learn that Tibbs is actually a homicide detective and devices ways to keep him around in order to have his help on the murder case. As Tibbs' targets the wealthiest man in Sparta he soon his confronted by a mob who threaten his life and he is advised by Gillespie to leave the town however a defiant Tibbs refuses until he's solved the murder. Tibbs is able to link the crime to the pregnancy of a local teenager who police officer Sam Wood had taken a liking to and after a conversation with the local backstreet abortionist he is able to track down his man. However will it be too late for Tibbs who has angered even more of Sparta's residents during his snooping. In the Heat of the Night is an excellent film showing racial prejudice at its most extreme with the scenes in which Tibbs his hunted down by a mob being very shocking indeed however the film is also keen to point out that Tibbs is also prejudice against many of the Sparta police department seeing them as stupid. Though Poitier does lend almost a moral backbone to the film it is Rod Steiger who is the star here as Gillespie learns some tolerance and some respect towards Virgil towards the end of the film. There were some points when I watched In The Heat of the Night where I wondered if it should've won the Best Picture award but this film had a good central mystery as well as having a good message about not judging anyone on where they live or the colour of their skin.

The colour of skin also has a massive impact in Poitier's last film here the outstanding Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Here Poitier plays widower doctor John Prentice who while on holiday in Hawaii meets Christina Drayton and falls in love planning to marry her but first wanting to get the consent of her parents who he thinks will worry that a black man is with their white daughter. Christina's parents, played by the brilliant Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey the latter in his final film role, have always preached her tolerance but her father Matt is concerned now that he may have a black man as a son-in-law. Things get more complicated when John's parents decide to fly in for dinner despite the fact he has yet to tell them that he wishes to marry a white girl. The film is essentially based around people's opinions of a mixed-race couple for example if love is more important than the colour of someone's skin. I just found it hard to fault Guess Who's Coming to Dinner apart from the fact that I think Poitier should've shown up in the acting categories alongside Hepburn and Tracy both of whom shine throughout this wonderful film. Possibly it's not as cinematic as it could been but the performances and script are flawless throughout so by the time Tracy delivers his final monologue you'll be entrnaced. For me this was the better of the two Poitier films released this year due to its themes, acting, music and script. Though out of the three films this is the one in which Poitier has the least to do yet his presence is still felt which is the mark of a great actor as is the fact that everyone of the roles in these three films he plays very differently.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 131-132: A Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor Part 1

Sadly earlier this year we lost a big film legend in Elizabeth Taylor. Even sadder is the fact that I haven't really watched a lot of her films save National Velvet and The Flintstones when I was younger. So I have used the 1950s Oscar Hunt to watch five her films all nominated for Best Picture during this decade to kick off the first three.

Liz Taylor really made her name in the aforementioned National Velvet but then was still considered a child star but she had to wait till 1950 for what many think as her first adult role in the original version of Father of the Bride a nominee at the 1951 ceremony. Obviously I'm very aware of the Steve Martin remake but have never seen the original starring Spencer Tracy as the father and Taylor as his daughter who gets engaged to Don Taylor's Buckley. Obviously the film shares a lot with the remake but what there is much more of an emphasis on is how much the wedding will cost Tracy's Stanley Banks and his wife Ellie played by Joan Bennett. It also doesn't strike me that the relationship with the daughter is as strong as it is in the remake despite this there is a good chemistry between Tracy, Bennett and Taylor as well as the two actors playing their sons. Tracy's comic voiceover is particularly affecting including in one of the opening scenes where he tries to remember which one of Taylor's potential suitors Buckley is. Tracy is also able to show off his slapstick side in a very long scene in which he tries to try on his old suit which is far too tight for him and which he ends up ripping. From the wedding onwards I recognised most of the scenes from Stanley worrying what he has to say in the church to the fact that he never gets to say goodbye to his daughter until she leaves. I feel that the film isn't quite as funny as it thinks it is but it is still very sweet and you believe that the Banks are a real family going through with a real wedding. To be fair Taylor doesn't have a lot to do apart from look very pretty and sulk occasionally when she feels her wedding is being planned by other people. An interesting Oscar nominee in that is predominantly a comedy film but nonetheless a great film.

A year later Taylor starred opposite Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun again a film nominated for Best Picture and once again Taylor missed out on an acting nomination although Clift and fellow co-star Shelley Winters were both nominated. The film starred Clift as George Eastman a poor relation to a wealthy industrial family. George meets his uncle and cousins and is introduced to Taylor's society girl Angela Vickers instantly falling in love. However he feels he isn't good enough for her and instead starts working in the family factory and beginning a casual relationship with Winters' Al. Al and George go out a couple of times and then George is moved up the social ranks and eventually starts seeing Angela but things are complicated when Al reveals she is pregnant and wants to marry George telling him she'll reveal all to his new friends if he doesn't. Desperate for a happy ending with Angela, George sets out to kill Al while on a boat but instead he can't go through with it but when she accidentally drowns he covers it up and is eventually arrested for her murder in the end he doesn't get A Place in the Sun that he so desperately wanted to share with Taylor. As a romantic melodrama, A Place in the Sun was a great film but I'm not sure if it was Oscar-worthy while Clift and especially Winters both deserved their nominations I feel that Taylor was cruelly snubbed here as every time she breezed onto the screen it lit up. A scene in which she realises she is in love with George happens so smoothly that Taylor is able to show the audience her feelings just using her eyes. It's a bit odd to think that Taylor was only 17 here playing against Clift who was over twelve years her senior but their chemistry does work and you do really understand why George would risk everything for Angela because at the end of the day it is Elizabeth Taylor!

Another year and another Oscar nominee for Liz this time in the swashbuckling adventure Ivanhoe. This was during the time in her career when Taylor wasn't getting the roles she wanted and in terms of this film she wanted the main romantic lead Rowena which went to Joan Fontaine and instead she had to settle playing Rebecca the girl who loved Ivanhoe from afar but could never get him and was forced into a relationship with George Sanders' Norman soldier De-Bois Gilbert who knew that Ivanhoe could never love her. In fact this was Taylor and Fontaine's film both women giving strong performances making the women more than just love interests and a lot more interesting than the lead man. Yes Robert Taylor's pioneering hero who was trying to fight King John's men and reinstate Richard the Lionheart was in fact incredibly bland. 15 years removed from the Errol Flynn era this almost seemed like a back-step for the 1950s cinema. I'm sure that the studio heads wanted to revisit these blockbusters to film them in Technicolor but this did nothing for me and went downhill when Robin Hood had to step in to help Ivanhoe and introduce all his Merry Men. The final scenes in which Taylor is falsely accused of witchcraft were poorly but together and I didn't really care about any of the characters coming away from it. Taylor really wanted bigger films than a supporting role in a mediocre epic thankfully in a few years later she would get that chance.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 57: Some Light Relief

After bubonic plagues, evil stepfathers and French revolutions dominating the last three films I watched on the challenge I thought it was time to indulge in a bit of light-hearted relief so here we go with another screwball comedy, bizarrely directed by the guy who directed the Tale of Two Cities adaptation, Libelled Lady. The film sees Connie a millionaire heiress played by Myrna Loy sue a newspaper after a they print a scandalous rumour about her. The newspaper's editor, played by Spencer Tracy, decides to hire ladies' man Bill, played by William Powell, to get Connie to drop the suit. He does this by getting the editor's fiancée Agnes, played by Jean Harlow, to marry him and then manoeuvre it for Connie to fall for him and Agnes to catch them together. Of course this being a screwball comedy things don't go to plan, and Agnes begins to fall for Bill much to the editor's displeasure. Things come to a head as Connie and Bill get engaged and Agnes reveals that she and Bill are actually married and then Connie and Bill have to convince her that she and the editor belong together.

Unless Frank Capra is involved I find these romantic screwball comedies incredibly lightweight. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing and this one trots along at a nice pace. William Powell and Myrna Loy have proved that they have great on-screen chemistry and indeed the scenes featuring Connie and Bill are probably the film's best. Despite Powell and Loy's chemistry, it was Powell and Harlow who were involved at the time of the film's release. This is in fact Jean Harlow's first appearance in the challenge, she accounts herself well in quite a small role but she is still strong enough to contend with the other actors while Tracy excels at doing something a bit lighter than what I have usually seen him in. Not really an Oscar contender per se, this is still an amiable enough comedy that wiles away an hour and a half quite easily.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 47: Just Testing it Out

And its farewell to the cosiness of LoveFilm as I reach the great abyss with at least another twenty-four films to watch, and maybe more if I can find them somewhere. And we're kicking off with a reunion of San Francisco's leading men Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable and that film is Test Pilot.

The relationship between Gable and Tracy is similar to that in the disaster flick they filmed a couple of year's previously. Gable is the reckless womaniser and Tracy is the more grounded sage who worries about him. Here Gable plays Jim the eponymous test pilot who is tasked to try planes out before they are ready to fly and try and break speed records, Tracy plays mechanic Gunner who finds Jim reckless and often has to get him out of tricky situations. Near the beginning of the film, Jim crashes a plane in Kansas and meets Myrna Loy's Ann who is excited by his lifestyle and leaves her fiancée to be with him. Soon we have three relationships the romance between Jim and Ann, the friendship between Gunner and Jim and the relationship between Gunner and Ann which is based on knowing that Jim's job means that he often faces death. When a fellow test pilot dies in a plane that was meant for Jim, Jim gives all his money to the widow and then goes on a drunken bender. The finale sees Jim quitting the test pilot life after Gunner is crushed during one of Jim's test runs, Jim decides he has to spend time with his wife so decides to train the next generation of test pilots instead.

One thing that really stood out for me in Test Pilot was the cinematography, the shots of the planes were particularly fantastic. However there was no nominations for cinematography instead the editing did get nominated as did the original screenplay. All of the acting talent was well represented and of all of his performances I have to say I have enjoyed Spencer Tracy the most in this film and his double act with Gable was probably the highlight of the film. Myrna Loy didn't really have a lot to do in terms of plot but she is a fine actress as proved in her roles opposite William Powell. Overall a great little film but not one that ever stood the test of time especially in that list at the 1939 ceremony but it's an admirable effort. However at the next year's ceremony the next collaboration between Clark Gable and director Victor Fleming would clean up, that film being of course Gone With the Wind.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 42: One Disaster after Another

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 38: This Town is Our Town

After starring in Captain Courageous, Spencer Tracy would get back to back Best Actor Oscars the second at the 1939 ceremony for his performance in Boys Town. Boys Town is one of those 'based on a true story about inspirational mentor' films that seem to always crop up around awards season (Dead Poets Society for example). Boys Town looks at Tracy's Father Flanagan who decided to start a society for young boys who would otherwise be getting into fights and ending up in young offender's institutes. After several successful years with the Father almost going bankrupt the society becomes a success but Flanagan gets a call from a gang boss asking him to look after his younger brother before he turns to the gang life. That boy is Mickey Rooney's Whitey the stereotypical bad lad stirring up trouble by smoking and fighting in the peaceful society. Although Whitey tries to escape something always keeps dragging him away and that gets him into more trouble finally getting in the way of one of his brother's mob hits but ultimately he is saved by the boys from boys town.

The thing that surprised me with Boys Town was how little impact Spencer Tracy had. Sure he was the inspirational figure but a lot of the time he sat back and watched the boys slug it out. Obviously this happened in real life but for a performance that won Tracy the Best Actor Oscar I really didn't think it was up to much. The film itself was much as you'd expect in a film where the majority of the performers are teenage boys. Mickey Rooney for his part wasn't as annoying as other films that I'd seen him in up to this point and was almost bearable in the other lead role. But I just felt this lacked something and especially in a year where La Grande Illusion and The Adventures of Robin Hood were both nominated and You Can't Take It With You won this almost feels a little stuck in the past compared to the modern feel of those other films.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 35: Sailing with Spencer

Various computer issues have stopped me from having a fruitful week of watching and now I'm desperately trying to get up to at least forty films before I go to Portugal on Thursday. Last time I watched my first film starring the iconic Bette Davis and this time was no different as I watched the first film in the list starring another icon - Spencer Tracy. Of the early screen men (Bogart, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda) I was less familiar with Tracy's work than I was any others. I'm not sure how good it was to start off with Captain Courageous while, although this won Tracy his first of two consecutive Best Actor Oscars, he is also given second billing as child-star Freddie Bartholomew's name is top on the poster. In fact Tracy doesn't appear for at least the first twenty minutes of the film as first we follow Bartholomew's Harvey a very spoilt and obnoxious child whose father is incredibly rich and Harvey uses this to try and bribe his way through life. When his father finally wises up to this fact he takes Harvey away with him to Europe, to try and introduce him to the world of work however Harvey starts messing around and ends up falling out of the ship but is soon rescued by Tracy's Portuguese fisherman Manuel. Manuel is part of the crew on a fishing ship and Harvey has to quickly learn how to be productive and how he has to work for his money. He becomes less spoilt and looks to Manuel as a father figure as he spends more time with him than his father normally does (Harvey's mother never features in the film and we assume she died in his childhood). The film is mainly about fathers and sons and growing up and it's those two films that are seen throughout the film. There is quite an emotional scene towards the end of the film where things change up but at the end Harvey's father learns to appreciate his son and vice versa.

While I thought Tracy did a good job as Manuel, I'm not sure whether it was an Oscar winning performance. I think mainly its due to the kind of family-adventure nature of the film because while it is a naval adventure movie it never kind of explores any adult themes in the way something like Mutiny on The Bounty did although as you can see from the poster it is just as good. But I think Tracy is only that good because he is backed up by a very good almost all-male cast, at the beginning of the film I did want to dropkick Bartholomew but at the end of the film I'd warmed to him, it must've been so hard as a child actor in the early days of cinema to know how to pitch yourself between precocious and annoying. Another child star on board is Mickey Rooney who has a supporting role as the Captain's son while Lionel Barrymore again steals every scene as the ship's Captain. Very well made and well-paced I wish a lot more non-animated family films were as good as this these days, but I don't think we'll ever seen Brendan Fraser or Steve Martin nominated for their roles in their PG friendly films.