Best Picture and Director 1959

[Big Magilla]

Ben-Hur does not have to be seen on a big theatre screen to achieve the film's full impact.

It's better seen in a theatre as are all films, but the times, they are a-changin' and we have to change with them. A widescreen TV of 50'' or more would be optimal for home viewing.

Room at the Top was one of the premier kitchen sink British melodramas being released in the late 1950s-early 1960s. Simone Signoret is unforgettable, but I think the main reason she won over Audrey Hepburn, whose performance in The Nun's Story is far and away the best dramatic performance of her career, is that Hepburn had won six years earlier. A secondary reason is that actresses who look like they've been put through the wringer almost always win. Think Shirley Booth in Come Back, Little Sheba over Susan Hayward in With a Song in My Heart, Anna Magnani in The Rose Tattoo over Katharine Hepburn in Summertime and Hayward in I Want to Live! over Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame.

The more fascinating aspect of the surprise nominations of Room at the Top were those for Best Picture over Some Like It Hot and North by Northwest, Director(Jack Clayton) over Alfred Hitchcock for North by Northwest, Actor (Laurence Harvey) over Cary Grant in North by Northwest and Supporting Actress Hermione Baddeley over Edith Evans in The Nun's Story.

If the awards were to be voted on from today's perspective, either Some Like It Hot or North by Northwest would win. Back in the day, however, Some Like It Hot with its six nominations including Best Director would likely have been the replacement for Ben-Hur over North by Northwest with just three.

For the wins without Ben-Hur in the mix:

Picture - The Nun's Story

Director - Fred Zinnemann for The Nun's Story

Actor - James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder

Supporting Actor - none of the actual nominees - either Joseph Schildkraut in The Diary of Anne Frank, Joe E. Brown in Some Like It Hot, James Mason in North by Northwest, or Joseph N. Welch in Anatomy of a Murder.

Due to Academy rules of the day, Schildkraut and Mason would probably have been eligible for lead, rather supporting nominations so either Welch, better known for the Army-McCarthy hearings or veteran Brown would likely have been nominated over Griffith, and won.

Art Direction - Journey to the Center of the Earth

Cinematography - The Nun's Story

Film Editing - North by Northwest

Costume Design - The Best of Everything

Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture - The Nun's Story

Sound - The Nun's Story

Special Effects - Journey to the Center of the Earth

I think that with The Nun's Story sweeping, a loss by Audrey Hepburn to Simone Signoret would have been more than a surprise, it would have been a shock and therefore probably not have occurred.

[Reza]

Reza wrote
To get the full impact of Ben-Hur one has to see it on the big screen. Like Lawrence of Arabia it loses a lot of its power and spectacle on the small tv screen.

Well, then I guess I'll wait.

So, The Nun's Story wins Best Picture and Director, but Audrey Hepburn doesn't win Best Actress?

Who wins Best Supporting Actor?

Nope Audrey doesn't win even if The Nun's Story sweeps. You have to see Room at the Top to understand why Signoret won.

George C. Scott wins supporting actor. Mentioned that below.

And the other slots:

Adapted Screenplay
Anne Frank enters the race and Nun wins.

Score
Some Like It Hot enters the race and Nun wins.

Sound
The Five Pennies enters the race and Nun wins

Art Direction
The Five Pennies enters the race and The Big Fisherman wins

Cinematography
North By North West enters the race and Nun wins

Costumes
Pillow Talk enters the race and The Big Fisherman wins

Editing
Some Like It Hot enters the race and Nun wins

Special Effects
North By North West enters the race and Journey to the Center of the Earth wins

The Nun's Story takes home 7 Oscars and is the night's biggest winner.

Would love to hear from Big Magilla and Mister Tee on this as not only do they have greater insight on the older races but they are also the only ones very much around in the year 1959.

[Sabin]

Reza wrote
To get the full impact of Ben-Hur one has to see it on the big screen. Like Lawrence of Arabia it loses a lot of its power and spectacle on the small tv screen.

Well, then I guess I'll wait.

So, The Nun's Story wins Best Picture and Director, but Audrey Hepburn doesn't win Best Actress?

Who wins Best Supporting Actor?

[Reza]

Watch it. Not bad at all. In fact the best of the so-called Biblical type films.

I'm happy to. I just haven't gotten around to it.[/quote]

To get the full impact of Ben-Hur one has to see it on the big screen. Like Lawrence of Arabia it loses a lot of its power and spectacle on the small tv screen.

[Reza]

Reza wrote
Hope you've seen Room at the Top.

I should have been clearer. No, I have not seen Room at the Top.

Hard-hitting and remarkably frank in its depiction of sexual mores for the time. Well worth seeing. And Simone Signoret is unforgettable.

[Sabin]

Reza wrote
Hope you've seen Room at the Top.

I should have been clearer. No, I have not seen Room at the Top.

Reza wrote
*Gasp*

Watch it. Not bad at all. In fact the best of the so-called Biblical type films.

I'm happy to. I just haven't gotten around to it.

[Reza]

To be frank, I don't know enough about Room at the Top to assess its chances.

Hope you've seen Room at the Top.

[Reza]

I haven't seen Ben-Hur

*Gasp*

Watch it. Not bad at all. In fact the best of the so-called Biblical type films.

[Reza]

The obvious film to gain by the omission of Ben-Hur is Some Like It Hot. It would get a Best Picture nod.

Otto Preminger (Anatomy) would get the director nod in place of Wyler.

Tony Curtis (Some Like It Hot) would probably get Heston's slot

Joseph Schildkraut (Anne Frank), Tony Randall (Pillow Talk) or Fred Astaire (On the Beach) would probably get Hugh Griffith's slot with George C. Scott winning.

Although maybe the studio was promoting Schildkraut in the lead category because he was nominated as lead at the Globes.

I think The Nun's Story would win Best Picture and Zinnemann (he won the NY critics) the director award.

Yes, I think Stewart (Anatomy) would have won with Heston off the list. I would like to think Lemmon (Some Like It Hot) would have won but the Academy rarely awarded comedic performances.

[Sabin]

Well, my latest obsession continues.

What would the 1959 Oscars look like if Ben-Hur had not been released, pushed back, or a huge flop? Eleven Academy Awards up for grabs and twelve nominations.

I haven't seen Ben-Hur so I'll bow this one out, also because I have absolutely no idea what the winner would be. My first guess would be The Diary of Anne Frank but upon first glance it seems the film was not a success, failing to break even. The Nun's Room (which I haven't seen) grossed quite a bit more and also got a corresponding Film Editing whereas The Diary of Anne Frank did not. It's hard to imagine the Academy going for Anatomy of a Murder. To be frank, I don't know enough about Room at the Top to assess its chances. Or does Ben-Hur's absence from the conversation open up room for something else?

I can imagine James Stewart getting Best Actor and George C. Scott getting Best Supporting Actor but beyond that... no clue?

[FilmFan720]

I can finally check this one off the list, having caught up with The Nun Story last night. Like many here, I split votes for the two best films on the list: Anatomy of a Murder for Picture and Billy Wilder for Director

[Greg]

There are some dull races in the years ahead, but there's one year upcoming where I have quite a lot to say, even if almost all of it is about only two of the nominees.

I'm guessing you're talking about 1962, and Lawrence Of Arabia and To Kill A Mockingbird.

[Big Magilla]

Just waiting for the dust to clear from the current Oscars.

1960 was the first year I put together my own awards. It remains one of my favorite movie years.

[dws1982]

Are we going to go into the sixties ever?

I figured we would hold off until after the Oscars...just wondering if we were going keep going now that the Oscars are in the rear-view. There are some dull races in the years ahead, but there's one year upcoming where I have quite a lot to say, even if almost all of it is about only two of the nominees.

[Mister Tee]

We ought to be thankful this board wasn't active during this race. The groans when Wild Strawberries, The 400 Blows and North by Northwest lost screenplay to Pillow Talk would have been epic.

Those three films all deserve more attention than they got. I'd also echo two of dws' choices: Rio Bravo (despite my general Westerns aversion) and the all-too-obscure but gripping Sapphire.

The actual slate feels like one of the more formidable of the era -- even if there are some that don't completely float my boat, they deserve respect as major works, unlike the Love Is a Many Splendored Thing's that were too typical of the 50s.

I'm one of the few heere who grew up in the actual era-of-popularity for the Biblical epics. I saw a whole bunch of them in theatres, including utterly forgotten ones like Damon & Pythias, and The Colossus of Rhodes, because that's what guys my age went to see. When I reached adolescence, and the 60s revolution simultaneously arrived, the whole genre quickly came to seem hopelessly passe to me; the idea that the Ten Commandments was once taken seriously was a laugh to me and everyone I knew. It was in this context -- when I was 18, around 1970 -- that I finally saw Ben-Hur (on black and white TV, hardly its best medium). I thought it was, for a Biblical epic, respectable -- not full of howler dialogue; made with tact. These were mostly negative virtues, but virtues nonetheless. The next time I watched the film end to end was in somewhat better circumstances -- on a 36" color TV about 2-3 years ago -- and I felt about the same. It's not remotely the kind of thing I care to see at the movies, but it's not an insult, which is more than you can say for most of the rest of the genre (Spartacus the exception).

The Diary of Anne Frank is a story that's been moving audiences in multiple mediums since the young girl's artifact was first discovered. This dramatization of it -- and Stevens' visualization -- lacks much inspiration, but the inherent power of the material carries it. It wouldn't get my vote, but I understand its inclusion.

The Nun's Story is another long-long one (1959 rivals 2012 for required 3-hour viewings). I can't say I've watched the whole thing in many years (though I caught about the last half during TCM's 31 Days last year), but it seems to me it's Zinnemannn at not quite his From Here to Eternity peak, but above his other output of the period. Audrey Hepburn gives one of her best performances, and the material is, typical of Zinnemann, thoughtful if not exactly exciting.

I had a reaction to Room at the Top similar to BJ's. I'd seen it once in high school and had very little memory. But when I saw it again (sometime in the 90s) I found it surprisingly bracing: full of crackling dialogue and sharp observation. Laurence Harvey was an actor for whom I'd had almost no use -- he indifferently played a dreary series of cads through most of the 60s -- but here I could see why he had a career: he was terrific. And Simone Signoret was sublime; one of the best female performances of the era.

But I, like much of the group so far, most prefer the two films that got snubbed, one under film and one under director. I think Anatomy of a Murder is a wonderful movie -- maybe the best ever in the courtroom genre. The case is gripping, peopled by a broad cast of vivid characters (defendants, lawyers, judge), and the plot turns/dialogue are top-notch. On the whole I'm not the fan of Preminger's career that the auteurists would have me be, but in this case -- as with Laura -- he plainly deserved a best director nod.

But then there's Some Like It Hot, which somehow lives up to its reputatIon of being maybe the funniest movie ever made. The sheer insanity of the premise -- mixing Charley's Aunt-ism with a gangster movie -- is a major asset, but the movie just keeps going and going to further comic heights: Curtis' Cary Grant impression, Joe E. Brown's sly obtuseness, and, above all, Jack Lemmon's full-throttled surrender to his delusional character (maybe his two funniest moments -- "I'm a girl/I'm agirl/I'm a girl" and "Security!" -- show a character who's REALLY taking a journey). Billy Wilder didn't really do that many flat-out comedies -- his early, Brackett collaborations were mostly serious, if snarky, and many of the I.A.L. Diamond pairings were comic stories with serious underpinnings. It's amazing this one flat-out attempt at farce (well, maybe second, after The Major and the Minor) should be about the most successful in 20th century cinema.

The Academy effectively killed the Oscar chances of both films by denying each in a major category. But they've made it alot easier on me. I'd have had to struggle...probably ultimately giving Wilder best picture and and director, but agonizing over denying a film I love as much as Anatomy. Here, they've given me a no-brainer choice in each slot. Anatomy of a Murder is my easy best picture choice, Billy Wilder once again my best director. Case closed.