Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 232-233: An I-Lumet-nating Double Bill

If you put a gun to my head and asked me what my favourite film of all time was then the answer would probably be 12 Angry Men. It's one of those films that I could just watch over and over again while it's also incredibly well-made. Shockingly, I've watched very few of director Sidney Lumet's other films and that's one mistake I've been able to correct with the help of this project. This post will look over the two Oscar-nominated films that he directed in the 1970s.

One of the things that makes 12 Angry Men so effective is that it's almost entirely set in the jury room and I felt the same way about Dog Day Afternoon. Though it's not restricted to one setting, Dog Day Afternoon is almost wholly set in and around a bank that is being robbed. The film begins with Sal and Sonny robbing a bank and attempting to commit the crime without being caught. Things soon go awry when they discover that there's hardly any money left in the bank and instead decides to steal a bunch of traveller's cheques. However, as Sonny tries to burn off the bank's register on the cheques, smoke starts to billow from the bank which in turn alerts locals that something's not right at the bank. Soon the pair are discovered and the police descend on the bank and, as they attempt to diffuse the situation, we learn more about our central pair. As Sonny is the man that the police are in constant contact with, he comes out of the bank on several occasions to talk to Detective Moretti, the policeman in charge of handling the hostage situation. Sonny soon becomes a local hero as he is attempting to stand up for the common man. Sonny later becomes a gay icon as we discover he married a man in a secret ceremony and has robbed the bank in order to pay for his wife Leon's sexual reassignment surgery. However, Leon is less than thrilled with this revelation and it seems as if he's been trying to escape Sonny for years. Meanwhile, the more menacing Sal is getting increasingly agitated as he doesn't really care for Sonny's flamboyance and his need to be a friend to all of their hostages. Soon, the stage is set for the final act in which Sonny and Sal attempt to escape, while the police endeavour to stop them.

I found Dog Day Afternoon to be a slow burning story that took its time to develop. It was only after Moretti and his team arrived that I really started to get involved in the film. Lumet and writer Frank Piersen create an intriguing anti-hero in Sonny, a character who we begin to learn more of once the hostage situation is in full swing. Throughout the film our perception of Sonny changes as we learn that, in an odd sort of way, he's trying to do the best for everyone. The character of Sal is more interesting, as we have to make our own minds up about him, and he really isn't as in your face as Sonny is. The pairing of Al Pacino and John Cazale is a great one and their loud and calm double act contrasts their roles in The Godfather films. I found Pacino to be more captivating here than he was in The Godfather films and I found that the character of Sonny really tested him. Meanwhile Chris Sarandon was brilliant in his handful of scenes as Leon, the pre-op transsexual who wanted nothing to do with his new husband. The claustrophobic nature of the over-heated bank added to the tense feel of the film as Sonny started to lose his head. As I'd never seen the film before, I have to admit that the final sequence had me on the edge of my seat. I felt that Dog Day Afternoon perfectly enforced my views that Lumet is an assured director who gets the best out of his actors and utilises his setting to full effect.

If I hadn't thought that already then I would've definitely to come that conclusion after watching Network. Of all of Lumet's films Network definitely did the best at the Oscars and Paddy Chayefsky's script is still widely regarded as one of the best of all time. Though I'd never seen Network before I was aware that it centred around Peter Finch's Howard Beale and the fact that he claimed he was going to commit suicide live on air. What I didn't realise was that the main story was a lot bigger than that and involved the UBS Network's head of programming Diana Christensen and her wish to put Beale back on the air after he becomes one of the biggest talking points in the country. Christensen is portrayed as a woman who puts her career before anything else and can't seem to sustain a relationship with anyone. Even her affair with the married former head of news Max Schumacher doesn't satisfy her and he eventually tries to act as the voice of reason in the film. Meanwhile Beale's power over the masses has no ends and he soon attempts to block a merger between UPS' owner CCA and Saudi Arabians. Obviously the CCA aren't happy about this and attempt to put end to Beale once and for all. But, as Network shows us throughout, people are guided by television and trust it more than they do the people in their own lives.

Coming into Network, I was expecting it to all revolve around Peter Finch as Howard Beale, but I was wrong. Even though Finch rightfully won the Best Actor Oscar, I would've said he was more of a supporting performer while William Holden was the real star of the show. Holden's Schumacher is the wise old sage of the film and he is the only person who doesn't always think about what's best for ratings. Chayefsky's satirical look at the world of television is incredibly witty and the dialogue is written with a sort of beat at the heart of it. Finch is utterly spellbinding as the crazy Beale while Faye Dunaway puts in an Oscar-winning performance as Diana. I found Dunaway to be great here also, playing the strong woman in a man's world she was almost the tragic heroine of the piece as she discovered that she couldn't be anything other than her job. Robert Duvall as the company' money man and Ned Beatty as CCA's chairman both put in great supporting turns with the latter really playing the film's version of the devil incarnate. In fact, the only cast member not to make much of an impression was Beatrice Straight, odd seeing as she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in the film. Straight does hold the record for appearing on screen for the shortest time. Network continues Lumet's love of filming inside a certain location, with the UPS network buildings housing the majority of the film. Once again these buildings feel quite claustrophobic as they contain rooms full of people talking about meaningless statistics and programme concepts. Overall, I found Network to be a more wholly enjoyable film than Dog Day Afternoon even if it wasn't as intriguing or gripping. Network, and in particular its script, has influenced a whole generation of directors and screenwriters, many of whom have mocked the industry in which they made their name. Though Network is an incredibly influential film, it still holds up today in its own right and I do think people should seek it out if they haven't already seen it.

Next time we take things a bit easier with a lightweight comedy about the afterlife.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 215-216: A Couple of Major Disasters

Back when I was reviewing films from the 1930s it appeared as if the major studios were competing against each other in making disaster movies. Films such as San Francisco and In Old Chicago explored events like earthquakes and floods, putting major stars at the front of these disasters. However, the definite golden age of the disaster movie was the 1970s in which all-star casts were forced to deal with disasters ranging from fires to floods as well as plenty of mishaps up in the air. These disaster films did particularly well at the Oscars with two of them being nominated for Best Picture.

 The first of these was Airport, which arguably started the whole disaster movie craze. Though not focusing on a particular disaster, Airport was definitely influential due to its all-star cast being put in peril as well as its focus on special effects. The plot of the film is all based around a Chicago airport which is managed by Burt Lancaster's Mel Bakersfield, a man who spends more time at work than he does at home. Mel is besieged by issues such as snow grounding several of his planes, complaints from local residents that planes are flying too low over their houses and the fact that his staff have recently apprehended a stowaway. Mel doesn't take the stowaway case too easily when he discovers that the culprit in his a little old lady in the form of Helen Hayes' Ada Quonsett. Though Mel's loyal assistant/love interest Tanya doesn't share his views and wants Ada watched at all times, though this doesn't happen and the stowaway soon escapes and boards a plane to Rome. The plane to Rome is also where D.O. Guerrero plans to end his life after a string of financial failures and onset depression. Guerrero feels the best way to help his wife his to blow up a plane, with his death meaning that his wife will be able to cash in on his life insurance. Mel and Tanya soon learn of Guerrero's plan and inform Dean Martin's Captain who devices a plan to try and stop Guerrero. From there its a race against time to try to prevent an explosion and get all of the passengers to safety. 

Having some obvious knowledge of the disaster genre I would definitely say that Airport wouldn't classify in the same league as some of them. Despite this, I feel that writer/director George Seaton set up enough peril in the form of Guerrero's bomb to have me on the edge of my seat. I also felt like Seaton had introduced just enough characters for me to know who everybody was and who was in secretly in a relationship with who. Burt Lancaster was the perfect person to play Mel as he was an assured lead who attempted to keep everything at the airport running smoothly while dealing with one problem after another. He was perfectly supported by the much more suave Dean Martin as the captain who was having an affair with one of his stewardesses played by the equally glamorous Jacqueline Bisset. However, the two Oscar-nominated performances came from the supporting actresses who played very different roles. The brilliant Helen Hayes was perfect as comic criminal Mrs Quonsett who was quite matter-of-fact about her stowaway exploits. The fact that Ada later gets to play heroine adds another layer to a character who could've easily been a one-note supporting player without Hayes' performance. Meanwhile Maureen Stapleton adds an air of humanity to the film as Guerrero's wife who attempts to stop his plan before it's too late. Despite its over-the-top nature I still really enjoyed Airport as a film in its own right though I wouldn't particularly class it as a disaster film in the traditional sense of the genre.

The disaster genre itself really began with The Poseidon Adventure, which was nominated for several Oscars but not Best Picture. Two years later we had possibly the ultimate disaster film The Towering Inferno, which had so many stars that they couldn't decide who should receive top billing. Indeed, one of the most infamous stories about the film was that Paul Newman and Steve McQueen both considered themselves to be the leading man so both the poster and the opening credits had their names diagonally placed so as to insinuate that both were taking the lead. In addition, both actors were appeased by having the exact same number of lines of dialogue so the audience would feel satisfied that both were on an equal footing. Personally I would consider Newman the star just because his character, architect Doug Roberts has more of a pivotal role as he discovers that his newly designed building has plenty of electrical faults. It soon transpires that the tower's builder, James Duncan, cut many corners in order to cut costs. These cost-cutting measures included concreting over fire exits and having his son-in-law, electrical engineer Roger Simmons cut as many corners as possible. As a fire breaks out on one of the floors, Roberts attempts to warn Duncan about the incident but he refuses to end his luxury party just because of a small blaze. Predictably the fire is soon out of control and the party-goers are trapped with more and more of their possible exits being trapped. Thankfully McQueen's fire chief O'Hallorhan has several ideas how to rescue the party, with differing results, and at the end of the day some of the more expendable characters have perished. 

While Aiport's body count was extremely minimal, there were plenty of deaths in The Towering Inferno to satisfy those who feel a disaster film should have a life-threatening incident at the centre of it. Unlike Airport though, I didn't feel that I got to know all of the characters before the fire began to take shape. Indeed, aside from Roberts, O'Hallorhan and Duncan the rest of the characters felt a little clichéd. For example, Fred Astaire's conman, who obviously shares a lot of similarities with Helen Hayes' Airport character, isn't given a lot of backstory. While the characters played by Robert Wagner, Jennifer Jones and Robert Vaughn are similarly one-note creations. As Roberts' long-suffering love interest, Faye Dunaway does have a little bit to do but the latter scenes involve her simply worrying about things. Worst of all is Richard Chamberlain's Simmons, who is the smirking British villain of the piece, as I found him to be a very poorly-written antagonist. Despite the wealth of two-dimensional characters, The Towering Inferno was still an enjoyable thanks to the impressively choreographed fire sequences. The peril was steadily built up as the exterior shots of the building saw more and more flames break out, while the more dangerous methods of escape had me on the edge of my seat. The film won well-deserved awards for cinematography and editing while its central theme 'We May Never Love Like This Again' was also rewarded with Best Original Song. While The Towering Inferno may seem cheesy by today's action movie standards, I still felt it provided enough peril to pass the time and, looking at it now, it can be held up as an incredibly influential piece of film-making. 

Next time I'll present a double bill that you won't be able to refuse.  

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 166: Bridging the Gap Between the Decades

So somehow I've finished the 1950s I didn't think it would ever happen and no doubt it will take me another year before I make it through the 1960s however as I have done before I will end on a winner. The Bridge on the River Kwai is yet another war film but unlike Battleground or 12 o'clock High it doesn't feature men up in the air or down on the ground instead we journey to Thailand and a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the war. When first we get to the camp we meet William Holden's Commander Shears who has been there for quite some time and dreams of escape. At the same time Alec Guinness' Colonel Nicholson arrives with his men and his told by the camp commander Colonel Saito that all men must work on the new railway bridge including the officers. Nicholson's refusal to let his officers work results in a stand-off with the British ultimately winning as Nicholson is released and agrees to help out by using his resources in the right way. Meanwhile Shears has escaped but almost drowns thankfully he is rescued by people in a small town and taken to the nearest army hospital where he has a bit of a fling with one of the nurses. He is then commandeered by the British Major Warden to help in his commando mission to blow the bridge up at the same time as Nicholson is finishing his work and thanking Saito for co-operating. The final stand-off sees those who are trying to blow the bridge up come up against the team of Nicholson and Saito with only one surviving in the film's final spectacular scene.

I really think that The Bridge on the River Kwai is a film of two halves one in which Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa verbally spar with one another over the officers issue and the other in which William Holden and Jack Hawkins creep back to the camp to blow the bridge up. It is this first half that is the better one with Guinness' British resilience earning him a Best Actor Oscar however Hayakwa is equally as compelling and one wouldn't be nearly as good as the other. Maybe I'm just suffering from William Holden fatigue but his leading role in the film was overshadowed by the other acts despite his being the star name here. There are far too many scenes of the creeping through the jungle for my liking and I wish the second film would've been more equally split as I feel that Nicholson's need to get the bridge finished on time is as important to the final scene as the men coming to blow it up. Those criticisms aside though this is a great film thanks to the work of David Lean who used to all of the elements available to him to sculpt a beautifully looking film with a captivating plot. From Jack Hildyard's cinematography to the adapted screenplay everything is on fine form here and overall there is a believable thread to the narrative especially in the relationship between Saito and Nicholson. Though I personally don't believe this should've won Best Picture, see the next post for more details, this is certainly one of the best British films of all times and any other year it would be a no-brainer for the top award. Overall a great-looking well-acted spectacularly-written war movie which is only slightly hindered by its middle section.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 160: The Last Days of Summer

There are several stars that keep cropping up during each decade and in the 1950s it's William Holden from the brilliant Sunset Boulevard to the melodramatic Love is a Many Splendored Thing he's excelled at playing male leads and the latest film Picnic is somewhere in the middle. Set over 24 hours in an idyllic Kansas town it features Holden's Hal Carter coming into town having stowed away on a freight train and is now eager to find his old college pal Alan Benson as he believes Benson's father will give him a job. Before finding Alan, Hal first encounters Alan's sweetheart Madge Owens and her bookish sister Millie. Alan initially offers Hal a job wanting to impress the college football hero, now that he has fallen on hard times but obviously he catches the eyes of both of the sisters with Millie suddenly discovering hormones and dressing up for Alan. The title of the film refers to the Labour Day picnic which signals the end of the summer and will be the last time for Madge and Alan to announce that they're going steady. Along with Hal, Alan and the Owen sisters the picnic also comes kindly old lady Mrs Potts, the single parent of the two girls, store owner Howard and his would-be love schoolteacher Rosemary. The film's pivotal scene is where Hal and Madge are dancing and a drunken Rosemary breaks it up wanting to prove she is still young and exposes him for what he really is in what felt like a scene from a Tennessee Williams story. After being blamed for getting Millie drunk he runs away with Alan now jealous of him he decides to skip town but the question is will Madge come with him?

Of all of these films I think this is the one in which Holden is fully showing off his sex symbol status and Hal does find any excuse to remove his shirt or have it ripped from him. To be fair he does add some substance to his physique portraying the fading jock who once used his looks to help him get by but now realises he should've worked harder and not flunked out. He has great chemistry with Kim Novak as Madge with the scene in which they dance being the film's most memorable as they sizzle and create jealousy from most of the other characters. Also worth a mention is Rosalind Russell as Rosemary a woman who transfers her own fears about growing old and alone onto the unstable Hal with her diatribe directed towards him being fairly brutal. Another plus point in terms of Picnic was the idea of this damaged character coming into this small town and changing everyone's lives within a 24 hour period. The downside was the fact that as there was so many characters some of them got little time to develop and that's true of the girl's mother played by Betty Field who essentially becomes a cliché full of worry and nagging in addition the music was a bit over the top for a film which was on the whole subtly filmed. Overall a great character-led piece which should've been nominated for more acting awards which gave a story of a man languishing as he readied himself for middle age.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 152: Sidney, Tony, Jenny and Bill

Part two of the catch-up with one film I remember and one that really hasn't stuck with me at all.

The film I can't really remember is  Love is a Many Splendored Thing which stars Jennifer Jones and William Holden. As you can probably imagine from the title this is a romantic drama set in Hong Kong in the 1940s with Jones playing it borderline racist as Han  a Eurasian doctor who falls in love with Holden's reporter Mark  a man who was previously married but is now separated. The two enjoy a love affair which is later tarnished by racial barriers as Han is ostracised by her Chinese community for falling in love with an American which is further complicated by the fact he was previously married. I don't want to give the plot away after that for those of you who may want to watch it but for me this was a predictable melodrama that somehow was nominated for eight awards and stopped classics like To Catch a Thief, Guys and Dolls and Rebel Without a Cause from getting a nomination. The only thing really memorable about this film is its award winning title tune and that's about it both Jones and Holden have been in better films and both should've known better.

Finally a film that I did enjoy with two Oscar nominated Best Actor performances for both Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones. Curtis and Poitier play John and Noah respectively who are two criminals that escape from a chain gang and are stuck with each other despite their mutual loathing. As you could imagine from a film released in the late 1950s race comes into play as John has a hatred of Noah based on the colour of his skin while Noah hates John's prejudice towards him. Though over time they learn a little bit about each other and despite their differences they learn to get along for the hope of actually escaping from their lives as prisoners. The final third of the film sees them happen upon a young boy and his mother a lonely housewife who falls for John and wants to escape with him leaving Noah behind to fend for himself. But by this point in the film the two have formed an unbreakable bond and John has to make his mind up whether to be free or stick with his newfound friend. I really enjoyed The Defiant Ones, which was a film I wasn't familiar with before I watched it, as it is a tense cops and robbers film with the camera also following the police's attempts to apprehend the two escapees. In his first starring role Poitier really goes for it and becomes a star while Curtis is also brilliant in a role which shows off his gritty demeanour. The fact that this lost to the very twee Gigi just shows how wrong Oscar gets a lot of the time but I will now be listing this as one of my favourite films I've watched so far which I'm sure is some consolation to those involved, or perhaps not.

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 148: Amazing Grace

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

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

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 128: Faded Stars and Small Pictures

By the 1950s film-makers and screenwriters were playing around with new ways to drive the action and one way this was done was by focusing on Hollywood itself and 1951 nominee Sunset Boulevard does just that. Narrated by its lead character, William Holden's struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis, it tells the story of how he came to be living with former star of silent pictures Norma Desmond. Gillis while trying to escape from people who owes money to has a flat tyre and drives into the garage of what he believes to be a deserted mansion. It is only when he is confronted by the only member of staff, Erich Von Stroheim's Max, that he finds out that the house actually belongs to Desmond. Gillis, who owes money all over town, agrees to help Desmond edit her screenplay about Salome and bit by bit he finds himself living in the house and eventually in the room in which all of Desmond's former husbands have lived in. Although a satire the film almost becomes a horror picture with Joe feeling trapped in the house, which in itself becomes a character, and by Desmond who buys Joe expensive clothes and accessories to make him stick around. Meanwhile Joe is secretly sneaking out to Paramount Studios to work on one of his own screenplays alongside the beautiful Betty Schaefer who just happens to be engaged to one of his best friends. These nightly rendevouzes quickly turn into something more and when Desmond discovers what he's been up to she goes into a fit of hysterics. She also discovers that she is no longer wanted by any director, Cecile B De Mille pops up at one point as himself as one of Desmond's former friends and has to do something drastic for the cameras to focus on her.

Sunset Boulevard was partly successful at the 1951 Ceremony winning three awards including a very deserved prize for Best Screenplay and Story. One thing that drives Sunset forward is its narrative provided by Gillis now looking back on all the mistakes he had made throughout the course of the film. The Art Direction of the daunting house and Franz Waxman's haunting score also picked up wins. I believe though had the film not come up against the juggernaut that was All About Eve it would've triumphed even more. It is one of only a handful of films to have someone nominated in all four acting categories and I was especially surprised to see that Swanson lost to Judy Holliday rather than one of Eve's two principal actresses. Swanson is definitely the best thing about the film her Norma Desmond sticks in the mind long after you've finished watching from her manic eyes to her raspy commanding voice everything about her strikes fear in the viewer. Holden is brilliant as the down-on-his-luck everyman who thinks he spots an opportunity to exploit Desmond before seeing that it is the other way around. Von Stroheim, also nominated, adds something more to the film as Max's true identity is revealed later in the film we find out why he is devoted to Norma in the way he is. Finally the beautiful Nancy Olson as Betty was also nominated for bringing a strong presence to a character who could've just become the token love interest. I'm so glad I re-watched this film as I'd forgotten just how good it was and just how brilliant the writing is. I've not got a problem with the fact that it lost but as long as people still remember the film and still watch it then I'll be happy with that. And I think I agree with Desmond one aspect the pictures now have gotten smaller than they were when Sunset was released.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 106: Small Town Charm

After the Human Comedy set in the small town of Ithaca we return to small town life on the Oscar Challenge with Sam Wood's 1940 adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Our Town set in Grover's Corner, New Hampshire. In the early 1940s it seems that adapting plays to the screen still meant almost a scene for scene reconstruction of how they first played in the theatre. Like on the stage Our Town begins with the character of Stage Manager, here played by Frank Craven, who addresses the audience directly and introduces them to the characters and day-to-day activities in the small town. The film concentrates on two families - the Gibbs and the Webbs and in particular their two eldest children George Gibbs and Emily Webb played by William Holden and Martha Scott. You can kind of sense the film was a play to begin with as it seems to be divided into three acts the first with George and Emily's schooldays and their first attraction to each other, the second with them getting together properly and getting married and the final with Emily's death during childbirth and her appearing as a ghost looking back at her life. However some changes were made from the play when it became a film most notably is that Emily's death is just a dream in the film, something that didn't happen in Wilder's original work, presumably because Wood wanted the wartime audience to have a happy ending leaving the cinema on a high with Emily's words about really living still ringing in their heads.

Although as I previously stated there are some issues over the adaptation of the play in that it still feels quite stagy there are some nice touches most of them in the film's final act. Emily's presence as a ghost looking at her funeral is done very well she is shot with a bright light surrounding her wearing only white and as she is taken up to heaven, before waking up, the screen closes in around her so she is in black addressing the audience with her final speech. There are also some good scenes elsewhere the funeral itself with the camera focused on a lot of umbrellas at the grave is a nice touch and the wedding scene is also well done. But there are a few dodgy bits as well a scene at an ice cream parlour goes on far too long and also a scene during a choir rehearsal at a church seems misplaced. In terms of the acting I was surprised that the names that I recognised - Holden, Thomas Mitchell and Fay Bainter, didn't give memorable performances but instead it was Craven's Stage Manager and Scott's Emily who really made an impact during the film and Scott was rightly given a Best Actress nomination for her role losing out to Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle, another film directed by Wood. Overall a quaint adaptation which suffers from filmic limitations but is given life by a great central performance from its lead actress.