Best Cinematography 1956

1927/28 through 1997
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Which 1956 Oscar nominees has the best B7W and color cinematography?

Baby Doll (Boris Kaufman)
2
11%
The Bad Seed (Harold Rossen)
5
28%
The Harder They Fall (Burnett Guffy)
1
6%
Somebody Up There Likes Me (Joseph Ruttenberg)
1
6%
Stagecoach to Fury (Walter Strenge)
0
No votes
Around the World in 80 Days (Lionel Lindon)
0
No votes
The Eddy Duchin Story (Harry Stradling Sr.)
1
6%
The King and I (Leon Shamroy)
0
No votes
The Ten Commandments (Lloyd Griggs)
4
22%
War and Peace (Jack Cardiff)
4
22%
 
Total votes: 18

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Precious Doll
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Re: Best Cinematography 1956

Post by Precious Doll »

Overall its a very ordinary line-up.

B&W is most uninspiring. I voted for The Bad Seed and the nominations for Baby Doll, The Harder They Fall & Somebody Up There Likes Me are respectable at best. I have seen Stagecoach to Fury but honestly can't remember anything about it.

The color line-up is disappointing in that so many better films were omitted. The Ten Commendments is a easy choice but there is nothing really outstanding about the other nominees.

Omissions (some not eligible) that were better than any of the nominees include Bigger Than Life, Written on the Wind, Qivtoq, Anastasia, The Searchers, Tea and Sympathy, Street of Shame, Early Spring, A Man Escaped, The Court Jester, The Last Wagon, Great Day in the Morning & There's Always a Tomorrow.
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Big Magilla
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Re: Best Cinematography 1956

Post by Big Magilla »

Black-and-White

This is the year that Diabolique, La Strada, Seven Samurai, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Ladykillers, The Killing, Umberto D. and The Prisoner were all eligible, yet none of them were nominated even though any one of them would have been a better choice than any of the actual nominees.

If you've never seen the B western, Stagecoach to Fury, you're not alone. If you're waiting to see it before you vote in this poll, good luck!

Cinematographer Walter Strenge had been in Hollywood since the 1920s, but his best work was apparently done for TV where he was a seven-time Emmy nominee, winning for a 1974 episode of Marcus Welby, M.D. This was his only Oscar nomination.

Baby Doll is one of those films I just don't get. I've often thought that any votes it got were in protest to the vitriol against it from the censors of the day led by New York's Cardinal Spellman and the Legion of Decency which condemned it. It was such a grotesquerie that the whole campaign against it was just plain silly. Boris Kaufman deserved his Oscar for On the Waterfront, but his second nomination should have been for the following year's 12 Angry Men, not this.

Of the two boxing films, Somebody Up There Likes Me is the better one, though The Harder They Fall isn't a bad one. Both Ruttenberg and Guffy are master Oscar-winning cinematographers, but both have done better work. Of Ruttenberg's four wins, this was the least of his accomplishments.

My default choice here is the deliciously malevolent opened-up film version of Broadway hit, The Bad Seed which would have gone to the Oscar-less Rossen, whose first of five nominations was for The Wizard of Oz. The guy was more than due.

Color

Not too much to gripe about here, although a case could certainly be made for The Searchers, Giant, Friendly Persuasion and Bhowani Junction over the winner and maybe one or two of the other nominees.

Around the World in 80 Days certainly had a lot of cinematography, though none of it was truly memorable. Lindon's best work was probably his non-nominated cinematography for The Manchurian Candidate.

The Eddy Duchin Story was quite popular in its day. Duchin himself was quite popular. Nowadays few know the name. Hell, half of today's moviegoing public has never heard of star Ty Power either. Stradling, though, won the two he deserved to win for - The Picture of Dorian Gray before and My Fair Lady after.

Cardiff always made an impression, but Vidor's version of War and Peace is such a chore to sit through, it doesn't really deserve consideration.

Shamroy always delivers and with The King and I he achieved the near-impossible. He made you forget that what you were seeing was essentially a mounting of the play rather than a full-bodied feature film, which was in spite of its origins.

The Ten Commandments was years in the making and Griggs' work is testament to his hard work. He may have won for his best work when he won for Shane, but the imagery he produced with The Ten Commandments still inspires awe. It gets my vote.
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Best Cinematography 1956

Post by Big Magilla »

And so it goes...
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