Best Actor 1966

[flipp525]

Scofield on the other hand, is as un-Olivier as one can possibly be which makes his turn so effective. And having his performance in Delicate Balance in mind, the idea of him as George is rather intriguing, I think.

Paul Scofield's monologue about killing his pet cat in A Delicate Balance is still one of the most chilling scenes that I can recall. His George would've gone into much scarier territory, I think.

[Mister Tee]

I would always wander off to the book department and pick up the paperback version of Virginia Woolf and read the dirty language for titilation purposes.

The paperback version of The Godfather, much later, did the same for a number of us. Was it page 26 where Sonny Corleone has his way, standing, with some woman?

That paperback made the rounds in my high school, as well, with people being instructed to read page 26. Was the woman's name Santina?

No, it was Lucy Mancini -- fiction's first extra-wide-vaginal woman.

The scene was dealt with rather wittily in the flm. There was a brief flash of the Lucy character at a table with her hands about a foot apart -- a reference all novel-readers picked up on.

Santino was Sonny's actual birth name.



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[Damien]

I would always wander off to the book department and pick up the paperback version of Virginia Woolf and read the dirty language for titilation purposes.

The paperback version of The Godfather, much later, did the same for a number of us. Was it page 26 where Sonny Corleone has his way, standing, with some woman?

That paperback made the rounds in my high school, as well, with people being instructed to read page 26. Was the woman's name Santina?

[ITALIANO]

Virginia Woolf would have definitely been a big hit even with Davis and Fonda. It could have even made Davis the first three-times Best Actress winner. But it's true that, in terms of cinema, of the mythology of cinema, having the most famous, most talked-about real-life couple of the day in it made it so legendary and most importantly makes it STILL legendary. It gave the movie aspects, nuances that it would have never had otherwise; it didn't make the movie necessarily better from an artistic point of view (though honestly, and even if I know that Albee had an older Martha in mind, the idea of Bette Davis flirting with George Segal doesnt look that intriguing to me), but certainly emotionally stronger.

[Reza]

I would always wander off to the book department and pick up the paperback version of Virginia Woolf and read the dirty language for titilation purposes.

The paperback version of The Godfather, much later, did the same for a number of us. Was it page 26 where Sonny Corleone has his way, standing, with some woman?

[Damien]

It certainly might have been interesting to see a Davis/Fonda version, but film history would have been very different. Few of the great American plays have been given screen versions that preserved the "event" quality they had on stage. Streetcar is about the only other one, and that of course was electrified by the shocking new-ness of Brando. Woolf with Davis/Fonda might have been wonderful, but it likely would have been just another small movie made from a hit play. The Taylor/Burton pairing made it a spectacle and, resultantly, a smash hit, and has kept the play alive more than any other film version could have.

I respectfully disagree. Bette Davis was still a box-office draw in 1966, and Henry Fonda -- never a superstar -- was no slouch at the wickets either. Virginia Woolf was notorious enough as a stage play that short of casting Mary Ann Mobley and Dean Jones the movie was going to be a Major Event (especially with Broadway wunderkind Mike Nichols directing. It might have been different if Daniel Petrie, or one of the Manns -- Delbert or Daniel -- was helming).

The play had seeped into the general consciousness enough so that at age 10 when my family went shopping at CalDor's (a 60s Connecticut version of Wal-Mart), I would always wander off to the book department and pick up the paperback version of Virginia Woolf and read the dirty language for titilation purposes.

[Okri]

In an interesting twist, Henry Fonda was actually offered the part for the original Broadway production but rejected it.

Voted Burton, in pretty much a no-brainer.

[Big Magilla]

Richard Burton was at his best bickering with Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virignia Woolf?, though I've always wondered what Henry Fonda and Bette Davis would have done with the material had they been given the chance.

I haven't seen The Sand Pebbles or The Russians Are Coming, so I won't be voting here. I will say, however, that this strikes me as a truly bizarre "what if?" I was not yet born at the time, and had no idea Fonda and Davis were ever considered for the parts until I just read it here.

As Damien points out, the author (Edward Albee) wanted Bette Davis and James Mason for the roles, but Jack Warner didn't think were big enough box-office stars at the time. Davis, herself, wanted Fonda.



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[Big Magilla]

I don't know, with the then shocking dialogue and Mike Nichols' high voltage direction, I doubt the film would have been a very staid affair whoever was in it, but I suspect Davis woud have chewed the scenery as well as Taylor and Fonda would have matched her, which isnt to say that what was there wasn't worthy of all that praise.

I don't know about the old ladies, but I suspect 50-something Judith Crist's apparent dislike of Virginia Woolf stemmed from her long-standing disdain for Liz and Dick. She never struck me as a prude.

[Mister Tee]

So, who were these old ladies?

I can't find a roster of the NY Critics in those days, but it certainly included whoever was pseudonymously calling herself Kate Cameron at the Daily News, as well as co-critic Wanda Hale (one of the two of them, can't recall who, gave four stars to The Bible that fall). The Journal American had folded a few months earlier, so Rose Pelswick was probably not involved, but, during the very brief time of the World Journal Tribune, Judith Crist ruled there, and she, I distinctly recall, had Seasons as number one with Virginia Woolf left off the list.

Every history of the critics group in that era has described it as a battle between hidebound old ladies and the new guard -- whether the losing battle of My Fair Lady vs. Dr. Strangelove in '64, or Richard Schickel telling off the crowd that voted for Lion in Winter in '68. And, according to Inside Oscar, while Crowther may have praised both Seasons and Woolf, at the balloting that year, he accused his fellow critics of having flipped their lids and voted like wild evangelists when they lopsidedly voted for Zinnemann's film.

I view A Man for All Seasons as a mediocre if pleasant play -- its ideas are mostly spelled out carefully enough to be discussed in high school civics classes. And, really the deck is totally stacked for Thomas More -- he gets all the witty lines, seems to understand what's going to happen at every turn, and of course is the only morally unreproachable character in sight. For me it doesn't compare to the vivid world-view articulated in Virginia Woolf.

It certainly might have been interesting to see a Davis/Fonda version, but film history would have been very different. Few of the great American plays have been given screen versions that preserved the "event" quality they had on stage. Streetcar is about the only other one, and that of course was electrified by the shocking new-ness of Brando. Woolf with Davis/Fonda might have been wonderful, but it likely would have been just another small movie made from a hit play. The Taylor/Burton pairing made it a spectacle and, resultantly, a smash hit, and has kept the play alive more than any other film version could have.

[Damien]

4 of the 5 nominees here give Oscar-worthy performances and it's such a difficult task to winnow it down to one.

First off, strike Alan Arkin. He's amusing in The Russians Are Coming, but no more so than Carl Reiner. Not a memorable enough comedy performance for a win. But don't weep for Arkin. He'll go on to give Oscar calibre performances over the next 3 years, in Wait Until Dark, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter and Popi, Sadly, he'll only be nominated for Heart.

Paul Scofield has beautiful line readings in A Man For All Seasons, but those lines are ultimately in service for a turgid film.

The Sand Pebbles is probably Steve McQueen's best movie (although you could make a case for Baby, The Rain Must Fall). He's wonderful, and never elsewhere u so much passion, depth and conviction to a role. But his character doesn't have quite the depth of the remaining two.

Michael Caine is perfect in Alfie. He sublimely captures both the slick, shallow, self-absorbed person his character starts off as, as well as the only somewhat (and that's the impressiveness of the piece) gradual self-awareness Alfie ultimately acquires.

But ultimately, there's no denying Richard Burton. Greatest actor giving his greatest performance in his greatest role. I syll wish Jack Warner had followed Edward Albee's wishes and cast Bette Davis and James Mason (or Bette's suggestion of Henry Fonda) but Burton is just perfect.

[Bruce_Lavigne]

Richard Burton was at his best bickering with Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virignia Woolf?, though I've always wondered what Henry Fonda and Bette Davis would have done with the material had they been given the chance.

I haven't seen The Sand Pebbles or The Russians Are Coming, so I won't be voting here. I will say, however, that this strikes me as a truly bizarre "what if?" I was not yet born at the time, and had no idea Fonda and Davis were ever considered for the parts until I just read it here.

To my modern perception, however, the film of Virginia Woolf is almost less about the material itself than it is about seeing this vicious, then-groundbreaking material acted out by Hollywood's most notorious, headline-grabbing power couple of the time. Imagining the movie as anything other than a "Liz & Dick" showcase seems like imagining it as a completely different film, and almost certainly a less interesting one.



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[Uri]

As I said – Burton WAS brilliant, yet – as Magilla put it – there's a tiny what-it-would-be-like-had-Fonda-played-it element to his performance, meaning it can be looked at as a bit too grand, a bit too stylish, a bit too not-enough-American for its own good. This is why Taylor is so great here – the trashiness she brings is spot on. And while his sophistication vs. her earthy presence fit perfectly in with the characters they play, still his thespianism might be a little bit over punctuated. Scofield on the other hand, is as un-Olivier as one can possibly be which makes his turn so effective. And having his performance in Delicate Balance in mind, the idea of him as George is rather intriguing, I think.

[ITALIANO]

Yes, well, while A Man for All Seasons can be easily (and a bit unfairly, I think) dismissed as conservative filmmaking today, I had no idea that it was The King's Speech of its day - I wasn't born yet so I really don't know. I feel that, even just because of its fashionable writer, it must have been seen as more profound and even award-worthy from the moment it came out. But of course I might be wrong. (I'm quite sure, though, that The Social Network isn't Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf or, God knows, Blow-Up).

But A Man for All Seasons certainly isn't a very exciting movie - intelligent, well-acted, but a bit too solemn for my tastes. Paul Scofield is undeniably very good in it, but the character - as so many other characters in historical dramas of that period - sounds more like a man of the 60s than a man of the early 16th century, or at least that's what I thought when I saw it (which was at school - during our hour of Religion. Yes, there are Religion lessons in Italian schools!).

This is the time for me to vote for Richard Burton, for what is probably his best film performance. Caine is also good, but this is Richard Burton's turn, definitely.



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[Big Magilla]

The PR people behind A Man for All Seasons may have have pushed that Vietnam-resister analogy, but that wasn't what the film represented to the old ladies in the NY Critics' Circle and the reactionary branch of the Academy. What it was to them -- they who'd spent most of the year fearing they had no alternative to voting that movie with all the dirty words the year's best -- was almost salvation itself: a Clean Family Film with critical endorsement, that freed them up to vote square without seeming hopelessly backward. Not unlike The King's Speech.

So, who were these old ladies?

As I related in the 1965 thread, I was out of the loop for much of 1965, all of 1966 and half of 1967, most of which I spent in the U.S. Army in Germany so I have no first hand knowledge of the contemporaneous critical reception of most of the films. However, I do know that the N.Y. Times' Bosley Crowther, who could be a bit of an old lady himself, liked A Man for All Seasons; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the year's even more controversial Blow-Up well enough to place all three on his alphabetical top ten list for the year. I really don't know too many people who don't appreciate all three films and don't see A Man for All Seaons as a case of old values winning out over questionable new ones, which was clearly the case with The King's Speech's win over The Social Network, which I liked, and [/i]The Black Swan[/i], which I didn't.

I really don't get howA Man for All Seasons, which was brilliantly written by Robert Bolt, honed its reputation on stage and was beautifully filmed can be compared to the so-so King's Speech other than that they are both about British monarchs, one of whom is ancient history and one of whom some Oscar voters may recall from their younger days.