Best Actor 1967 Revisited

[Big Magilla]

If Steiger had won for The Pawnbroker it would easily have gone in 1967 to Tracy on a sentimental vote. Along with Hepburn's win it would seem quite appropriate.

That could be. Steiger himself thought that Tracy would win.

[Reza]

For me the weakest link amongst the nominees is Warren Beatty's mannered performance. He was never a really good actor. His best performances were in Bugsy and Bulworth. So I would easily include Poitier and knock off Beatty.

If Steiger had won for The Pawnbroker it would easily have gone in 1967 to Tracy on a sentimental vote. Along with Hepburn's win it would seem quite appropriate.

[Big Magilla]

Related counterfactual: if Rod Steiger had won in 1965 for The Pawnbroker, who wins this year?

Interesting question. I think Steiger would still have won.

The only major competitive award Steiger won for The Pawnbroker was the BAFTA for Best Foreign actor over Sidney Poitier in A Patch of Blue. He won the same award over Poitier again in In the Heat of the Night for which they were both nominated. The other two nominees for the award for 1967 films were Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde and Orson Welles in Chimes at Midnight. Cool Hand Luke, which was BAFTA eligible that year. wasn't nominated for anything.

Spencer Tracy won the BAFTA for Best Actor of 1968 for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the first year in which there weren't separate awards for Best British Actor and Best Foreign Actor. Dustin Hoffman wasn't nominated even though The Graduate won for Best Film of 1968. Katharine Hepburn won for Best Actress for both Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and The Lion in Winter over Anne Bancroft in The Graduate, Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour, and Joanne Woodward in Rachel, Rachel.

[Okri]

Pictures at a revolution indeed.

a) Going back over that thread, it's fascinating how many people were like "I really like Paul Newman, but I can't vote for him EVERY time." He's actually our most award winning male performer (with four wins) and had won for his first three nominations. I also was reading in his memoirs (amazing book for those who are interested, though I suspect less revelatory for others than it was for me) and while I don't quite recall which film, he mentions being the third person (after Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) to command a million dollar fee. The lack of a best picture nomination for the film suggests he might have been vulnerable, but I go back to that level of enthusiasm

b) The other comments that came up in that thread was just how weird it would be to drop Dustin Hoffman or Warren Beatty, despite neither being the strongest acting element from their films - though similar to Magilla's Newman comment, they're both competing with the rest of their legendary careers.

c) So yeah, I do think Spencer Tracy is the weakest of the five. That said, Tracy is from a film that had gotten four acting nominations (and this year saw three films hog 60% of the acting nominations). It's impossible to prove, but I suspect that these five candidates were closer to each other than they were to the sixth candidate. In Cold Blood also had a lot of enthusiasm for Robert Blake in that thread, so I'm not even sure Poitier would've been the one to make it [though I do see that Poitier got a Golden Globe nomination and Blake didn't and as Magilla mention, Poitier had a terrific year].

d) Related counterfactual: if Rod Steiger had won in 1965 for The Pawnbroker, who wins this year?

[Big Magilla]

We had an interesting discussion on this topic twelve years ago:

viewtopic.php?t=1023

Following up on that discussion, which doesn't fully address the absence of Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night, I think it would be interesting to speculate as to which of the nominees we would eliminate in order to give Poitier his rightful due.

I suspect that most would say Spencer Tracy in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner given that he is the only one of the five nominees who didn't get a single vote in the original poll, but I don't agree.

Having just rewatched Cool Hand Luke, I would suggest that Paul Newman is the one who should be eliminated. It's a fine performance even if it doesn't reach the heights of his earlier work in The Hustler and Hud or his later work in The Verdict and Nobody's Fool, but it's the only one of the nominated performances that is not from a Best Picture nominee making it the most vulnerable among the nominees. It ranks as the sixth best performance of the year in my opinion, following in order:

Rod Steiger whose performance in a difficult role opposite Poitier in In the Heat of the Night was an easy choice for the win.

Poitier for his combined work in In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's coming to Dinner, and To Sir, with Love, but specifically for In the Heat of the Night.

Spencer Tracy, who did some of his finest acting late in his career in The Last Hurrah, Inherit the Wind, and Judgment at Nuremberg. His performance in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner doesn't really reach that level of acting until his final speech, but that speech alone, filmed twelve days before he dropped dead of a heart attack in Katharine Hepburn's kitchen, is quite a speech. Hepburn's teary-eyed reaction to it is probably what got her the Oscar for one of her weakest overall nominated performances in a film that was the most eagerly awaited of 1967's end-of-year releases.

Dustin Hoffman, whose nomination for his sensational breakthrough performance in The Graduate was considered award enough at the time, a view I still hold despite his having won our earlier poll.

Though it may not be as strong a performance overall as Newman's, I don't see how you can nominate four other actors in Bonnie and Clyde without nominating Beatty's charismatic portrayal of Clyde.

So, have at it.