The Sun Also Rises (1957)

Film: The Sun Also Rises (1957)

Stars: Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert, Juliette Greco

Director: Henry King

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Errol Flynn: click here to learn more about Mr. Flynn (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Errol Flynn, one of the most consistently strong performers at the box office for Warner Brothers for nearly 18 years, ended his career with the studio in 1953.  At that point Flynn was in his mid-40's, and while his handsomeness was still there, years of drinking & health problems made it unlikely that he could achieve some of the stunt acrobatics that were a huge calling card in his early fame.  After going broke trying to self-finance The Story of William Tell (a film that never was actually released), he started to make bad decisions with his career, making B-movies, choosing poor projects like Istanbul & The Big Boodle, and only really had one important film left in him, where he would have to endure the indignity of being fourth-billed, here against a guy who for much of the 1930's & early 40's, one could argue Flynn was a more important action star than, Tyrone Power.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Sun Also Rises is a glossy Fox film that tackles Ernest Hemingway's famed novel.  This is where I'm going to confess something that doesn't often come up on this blog: I don't particularly care for Ernest Hemingway's writing, and in some ways that translates to the screen.  A lot of the novel's strength comes from discussions about Jake's (Power) impotence, both as a man who has moved on from a war (and a nation that has stolen his virility without much thanks), and that comes across in the movie...to a degree.  The Hays Code was getting hit a little bit at the time (if you look at posters for this film, they say very clearly "Not Suitable for Children" and that's because they use the actual word "impotence" in the film), but that lack of sexual stamina is lost in the movie because they can't really discuss it as the Code still drove a lot of scripting decisions.  It doesn't help that Power is at least ten years too old for this part (it's hard not to wonder how different this might've been in the hands of an actor like Marlon Brando, who was closer to the age Jake is in the novel), and that they aren't really able to point out how Ava Gardner's Lady Brett absolutely loves sex, and while she takes on some "lovers" in the film they aren't really hinted at in an oblique way.  It all feels dry and neutered (pun truly unintended...only caught the double entendre while editing this article).

Flynn's character is essentially a cad, one who can satisfy Brett (which Jake can't, even though they're in love with each other), but isn't honorable and is a giant walking fuck boy.  This isn't a new part for Flynn, but I will say that, even robbed of much of his charisma (and a decent script), Flynn is the best part of this movie because there's an unrest in his performance that I found really melancholy.  He plays his Mike as a man who knows he's a failure and likely to die unsatisfied...but also can't stop himself.  Flynn would die of a heart attack, exacerbated by cirrhosis & fatty degeneration of the liver, just over two years later at the age of only 50.

That is not where Flynn's story ends though, and in many ways it was only beginning.  In terms of Classical Hollywood stars, only Marilyn Monroe can rival Flynn for things we found out about him after his death.  For starters, there are allegations that Flynn had a sexual affair late in his life with 15-year-old actress Beverly Aadland, whom he would make his last movie Cuban Rebel Girls with (during which time Flynn spent much of production becoming pals with Fidel Castro).  There have also been a lot of debates about his politics, with some accusing Flynn of being a fascist, specifically the highly-publicized biography by Charles Higham which also alleged that Flynn was bisexual and was a Nazi spy.  There is no evidence of him being bisexual or a spy (he was investigated by the FBI, and they didn't find evidence of this), but it is a case where he was friends with Herrmann Erben, who was a Nazi intelligence officer during World War II, and whom Flynn was friends with until at least 1940 (after meeting on an expedition to Spain in the 1930's), and possibly throughout World War II.

This was not the only friendship that Flynn had that caused headlines after his death.  A correspondence with Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was uncovered in Penthouse magazine in 1982 by Hubbard's son Ronald, and the two would engage in sexual & drug-induced debauchery together.  It's worth noting we haven't heard from Flynn's son Sean, a photojournalist, about him because he would disappear in 1970, likely being killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (we talk about this more in one of our Unsolved Hollywood mysteries articles here).  All-in-all, Flynn's life is remarkably complicated by the many things he was never asked about as they came to light after his death, making his star persona one of the most challenging to tackle beyond the big screen.

My 1957 Oscar Ballot

All right, I let Oscar have his say, and now it's my turn.  I have officially seen all of the screenings that I wanted to before weighing in on 1957, including every narrative, feature-length Oscar-nominated movie, and am prepared to say what films I would pick to nominate for all of the Oscar categories.  I will own that this year took longer than I thought, because 1957 is one of the best years of movies I've encountered.  The Best Picture lineup here is incredible, filled with directors & genres that I love (Mysteries! Westerns! Epics! Oh My!), some of them hidden gems but many of them films that Oscar just couldn't realize at the time were genius.  As always, I haven't seen every film from 1957, so if there's a particular favorite of yours that I missed, don't hesitate to ask in the comments before you assume I just snubbed it!

A few notes before we start.  I do not intend to always copy Oscar verbatim.  You'll notice here that there are actually a few additional categories (like Makeup & Hairstyling) that Oscar didn't include until later (which is insane given how crucial makeup has always been at the movies), and I have larger lineups for things like Visual Effects than Oscar (which at this point in history is probably more of a "Special" effects situation given there's no CGI quite yet, so I'm counting stunt work, camera tricks, and practical effects here).  I also included the category of Dance Direction, which had a short-lived run in the 1930's as a category for Oscar, but I think is really interesting, so I'm going to include it for all of the run of Classical Hollywood (when musicals regularly featured dancing).  With that said, let's begin!

Picture

3:10 to Yuma

An Affair to Remember

The Bridge on the River Kwai

A Face in the Crowd

Nights of Cabiria

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

White Nights

Wild Strawberries

Witness for the Prosecution

Gold: Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal is one of those movies that stays with you your whole life.  I saw it during college, and it changed how I look at cinema, it felt so breathlessly fresh & new despite being almost 50 years old at the time.  It gives you a sense of the unrest of death, the way that no matter when or how it happens, we aren't prepared for it, but know that no one can escape it.

Silver: David Lean's brilliant The Bridge on the River Kwai won the Best Picture Oscar, and though I didn't quite give it my top prize, it still is so fine that it ranks amongst the best decisions Oscar ever made in the category.  A look at the paranoia that comes from war (and the madness...MADNESS).

Bronze: Finishing off one of the finest lineups I've ever assembled for this prize (give or take 2007, I don't know that I've come up with a better Top 10 list) is A Face in the Crowd, Elia Kazan's prescient look at the way that celebrity can cover up the darkness in men's souls (and in their audience's).

Director

Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal

Federico Fellini, Nights of Cabiria

Elia Kazan, A Face in the Crowd

Stanley Kubrick, Paths of Glory

David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai

Gold: We're going to keep Bergman in the gold medal seat here (he nearly got a double citation for Wild Strawberries, as he was in sixth place for it), because it's one of the great achievements in the craft.  Many directors have tried to explain the meaning of life through their movies.  Bergman comes the closest to figuring it out.

Silver: David Lean is up there with Bergman as one of my all-time favorite directors (they'd both make a Top 10 list if I had one), and you see that with Bridge in the way he blends the epic scale of the movie with the quiet, desperate control of the performances he has that will all lead up to the title scene of the picture.

Bronze: Speaking of Top 10 all-time directors, Stanley Kubrick takes the bronze here with the definitive war-is-hell epic (give or take Apocalypse Now!), a haunting look at life in the trenches of World War I, and how it sucks the humanity out of its soldiers while bureaucrats shuffle papers.

Actor

Kirk Douglas, Paths of Glory

Henry Fonda, 12 Angry Men

Andy Griffith, A Face in the Crowd

Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai

Charles Laughton, Witness for the Prosecution

Gold: Alec Guinness is known to a generation of filmgoers as Obi-Won Kenobi, a terrific performance that I will undoubtedly nominate when I get to 1977 at the end of this year.  But this...this is his finest hour as a haunted, by-the-books Colonel Nicholson who loses all sense of logic as he cannot escape a lifetime of duty.

Silver: For anyone who grew up watching him as Andy Taylor on his eponymous show, Andy Griffith is the most unlikely person imaginable to be playing a ruthless, power-hungry hillbilly given the platform of the world.  It's hard not to think of Donald Trump while watching the way that his cruelty becomes fodder for the masses.

Bronze: Kirk Douglas is not an actor I generally cite as one of my favorites, and indeed he's generally a mixed bag for me (at best) in his long run during Classical Hollywood.  So color me surprised (but delighted) that I will include him as a My Ballot medalist for the best work of his career in Paths of Glory, a fully-felt and realized anti-war achievement.

Actress

Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution

Giuletta Masina, Nights of Cabiria

Deborah Kerr, An Affair to Remember

Anna Magnani, Wild is the Wind

Patricia Neal, A Face in the Crowd

Gold: The first time I saw Nights of Cabiria, I was in a second-run movie theater in Los Angeles, and remembered walking out, sunset behind me as I looked for my car, entranced by the things that Giuletta Masina had done in this movie, giving us a vibrant, singular title character that will always be with me.

Silver: Oh Marlene, I'm sorry I couldn't give you the top prize (and oh how wrong Oscar was to not even consider you), but the many chapters of her work (so layered) in Witness for the Prosecution would've won if Masina wasn't giving us a role most would fall before.

Bronze: All of which means that one of my personal favorite movies, one that I've probably seen more than any other mentioned on this list, just barely enters the medal conversation.  I love the chemistry that Deborah Kerr, so regal & kind, brings to her romance with Cary Grant.  The unapologetic romance of the movie's close only works because Kerr is so committed to the material.

Supporting Actor

Lee J. Cobb, 12 Angry Men

Bengt Ekerot, The Seventh Seal

Sessue Hayakawa, The Bridge on the River Kwai

George MacReady, Paths of Glory

Max von Sydow, The Seventh Seal

Gold: Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a performance is great or if the role is so crucial to the film you kind of have to love it.  Bengt Ekerot toes that line (and part of me wishes that I'd seen more of his work so I'd have faith I'm doing the right thing giving him the top prize over a really solid assembly), but a recent rewatch confirmed how much he understands the inevitable malice of his character...to the point it almost feels comical.

Silver: Behind him is Sessue Hayakawa, one of the great casting decisions of the 1950's (Hayakawa was the first Asian leading man of the 1930's before largely disappearing from Hollywood movies), playing the maddened villain of David Lean's epic (though of course the true villain, and even Hayakawa's Col. Saito falls to it, is war itself).

Bronze: Similar to Hayakawa, George Macready has to embody the villain in his role, but in a much less literal way.  Macready's performance is filled with indifference, and the way that he has escaped years of threats to his life, giving the attitude less of a war commander and more of a hostess planning a dinner party.

Supporting Actress

Ruby Dee, Edge of the City

Elsa Lanchester, Witness for the Prosecution

Una O'Connor, Witness for the Prosecution

Janis Paige, Silk Stockings

Kay Thompson, Funny Face

Gold: It's not often we get to see the benefits of a marital chemistry brought to life on the big-screen, but that's the case with Elsa Lanchester's performance in Witness for the Prosecution.  What could've been a silly part as Charles Laughton's private nurse feels crucial to understanding his character, the driving backbone of the picture.

Silver: It's not often you get the same movie getting the top two prizes, but Una O'Connor has spent a lifetime in movies stealing scenes (hell, we may have both of them back for Bride of Frankenstein in 1935).  She gives a memorable piece-of-work as a maid, devoted to her benefactress (but also angered by the inheritance she was cheated out of).

Bronze: The late, great Janis Paige steals all of Silk Stockings for herself (Cyd Charisse is just left in her wake).  The "Satin and Silk" number is the highlight, but she does delicious, sexy work as a picture star who wants to be taken seriously...but more so wants to have a good time.

Adapted Screenplay

The Bridge on the River Kwai

A Face in the Crowd

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

Witness for the Prosecution

Gold: I am likely going to say this a few more times in 1957, but man is this a stacked category (for the record, original screenplay is not an all-timer lineup...but this is).  In picking the #1, I'm going to go with Paths of Glory.  I think it's the rare war film that gets most of its strength from the plotting and dialogue, which unfold a political message that the audience probably isn't anticipating, which gives it more punch.

Silver: Behind it is another story that you don't necessarily anticipate all of its turns.  A Face in the Crowd is a movie that we can see coming now, because we understand the corrupting influence of celebrity, but part of the reason we can see it is that movies like A Face in the Crowd blazed that trail before us...a truly formative screenplay.

Bronze: The Seventh Seal is more of a director's film than a writer's (even though they're the same person), but its complicated look at the Black Plague as metaphor for all of life's troubles (and all of mankind's folly) is smart, concentrated plotting from a man best known for giving us feeling over structure.

Original Screenplay

The Devil Strikes at Night

Forty Guns

Kanal

Nights of Cabiria

Wild Strawberries

Gold: The other Bergman picture is my choice for Original Screenplay.  Wild Strawberries is not about the universal nature of death, but instead about the way that our accomplishments become all that we have to stand upon, and what we give to our loved ones as memories of our time (whether we want to or not).

Silver: Nights of Cabiria is a movie that gives us raw, sometimes uncomfortable dialogue as we live life through a woman full of boundless passion...and men that want to suck it out of her.  The scene toward the end where she is begging the only man she's ever trusted for death is frightening, and gives us a sense of the beauty of what comes next.

Bronze: Largely forgotten today, The Devil Strikes at Night (a Best Foreign Language Film nominee that lost to Nights of Cabiria) is a strange amalgamation of genres (it is both a film noir and a look at the rise of fascism in one picture).  Its realism, and the way that it inspires the movie's cruel (and unusual ending) are really finely delivered.

Sound

3:10 to Yuma

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Funny Face

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

Gold: The Bridge on the River Kwai...I say the name and you can hear the whistling & marching.  The movie's best moments are linked to sound-tension, music, conversational dialogue.  It is a film given the sound-laden trope of a war picture, but it gets the best results by escaping that cliche, using it as an addition rather than a crutch.

Silver: The Seventh Seal doesn't quite have the budget of Lean's epic, but it also makes use of sound work, from the dancing ending to the abrupt use of the score to drive what's to come, and how the audience must feel (even before the characters)...telegraphing I wouldn't normally enjoy except it gives us time to realize that no one can stop what's coming.

Bronze: Oscar always finds room for a musical here, but I don't...I need it to truly step up to the plate before I just give a musical one of my big five (if done correctly, you should never have a "default" nominee).  But Funny Face...that's a movie that earns it.  Think of the grandeur of the photo shoot montage-combining a bouncy score with a witty repartee between Astaire & Hepburn, and then a bouncy bit of sound effects all to lead to the movie's famous Nike of Somethrace sequence, when everything combines...and it's just magic.

Score

An Affair to Remember

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Forty Guns

Gates of Paris

The Seventh Seal

Gold: Getting back to that telegraphing, I just am in awe of the music of The Seventh Seal.  The film largely uses original music, which is insane as it feels plucked from a chorale concert at the height of the 11th Century, authenticity used for a movie with a modern message.

Silver: Technically the Colonel Bogey March is not eligible here, which is why it's not getting the Gold Medal, but that's the only thing holding back The Bridge on the River Kwai, a grand lesson from Malcolm Arnold in how to craft a big, distinctive composition that feels at once at home within the picture and forever in our memories, bringing us back.

Bronze: Using the title song to keep us linked, Hugo Friedhofer unveils a giant, romantic backdrop to An Affair to Remember, full of big swings & woodwinds, a full-scale romance for a movie that doesn't shy away from the melodrama that comes from burgeoning, first-time true love.

Scoring

Funny Face

Les Girls

The Pajama Game

Gold: This category differs from Best Score in that it is focusing on how musical songs are incorporated into the picture, with it feeling like it needs to be a plot point (it's not technically a "Best Musical" category but it's definitely where we'll favor it when it comes to the category because musicals are going to have a leg-up in how they handle songs since they are part of the plot, and that's true of all of my nominees in 1957).  The gold medalist here, the first time we've done this category in a My Ballot, is Funny Face, which doesn't have quite the same amount of musical numbers as some other contenders but gives us a new interpretation of Gershwin classics.

Silver: Following it is the the "put on a show" deliciousness of Les Girls, incorporating into a surprisingly plot heavy musical fun divergences like "Ladies in Waiting" there to keep you from guessing too much about how this will end up for Gene Kelly and his many dalliances.

Bronze: Finishing this off is the Broadway translation of The Pajama Game, never quite escaping its Shubert Alley roots, but you'd be hard-pressed to care as Carol Haney vamps it up in "Hernando's Hideaway" (the best translation, and the only one that doesn't feel like it's staged) or Doris Day falling desperately in love with "Hey There"...you'll be forgiven for thinking this is a better movie than it is.  

Original Song

"3:10 to Yuma," 3:10 to Yuma

"An Affair to Remember," An Affair to Remember

"All the Way," The Joker is Wild

"Gunfight at the OK Corral," Gunfight at the OK Corral

"Wild is the Wind," Wild is the Wind

Gold: I will own going into this year that I did not expect that Best Original Song would be a category where I'd be actively bartering with myself over 5-star songs that I have to cut, but this ended up being an all-timer lineup, to the point where I literally cut "Jailhouse Rock" (which was eligible) from my list.  The song that came out on top for me is Johnny Mathis's haunting overture "Wild is the Wind" which molds the struggling romance within that (very solid) picture.

Silver: Behind it we have Frank Sinatra singing one of his signatures, "All the Way" in another movie that in a lesser year would likely have gotten more notes on this list (it's very good, and has a strong performance from TMROJ favorite Mitzi Gaynor).  The song informs the really haunting, personal approach of this biopic.

Bronze: Finishing off this medal round is one of the two Frankie Laine western songs I cited here, "Gunfight at the OK Corral."  I'm picking this over "3:10 to Yuma" as I feel like it's a quintessential western song (maybe the quintessential western song), and also it's just so fun-I dare anyone to listen to this and not need to dive right into the movie that follows.

Dance Direction

Funny Face

Les Girls

Silk Stockings

Gold: One more music category, but this time it's clearer where the focus is (and, as expected, it's going to heavily favor musicals as they're the ones that generally have dance sequences).  Funny Face again wins here, and while the obvious reason is the elegant grace of Fred Astaire (the first of potentially many match-ups between he & Kelly as they fight over this My Ballot statue for years to come), the secret weapon is Kay Thompson, breathtaking (she nearly medal-ed for me, and is one of my favorite nominees I fought to include above), in a rare acting role after many years as an entertainer & writer.  

Silver: Gene Kelly's dancing gets the next position.  Les Girls doesn't have a lot of musical numbers, and Kelly himself only dances in a few of them, but when you have Kelly having a jazz-inspired ballet of sorts with Mitzi Gaynor (both dressed head-to-toe in skin tight black against a red-and-white stage set), the screen almost starts to steam it's so sexy.

Bronze: We're back to Astaire with Silk Stockings, not my favorite of his musicals, but you've got Astaire just showing off with things like his spats-and-tails take on rock-and-roll with "The Ritz Roll and Rock" and Cyd Charisse's impossible elegance extending into "It's a Chemical Raction."

Art Direction

Desk Set

Funny Face

Les Girls

Paths of Glory

White Nights

Gold: That red-and-white staged bar is just one of many reasons to marvel at the set design of Les Girls.  I particularly was smitten with the simple detailing in the title trio's apartment, filled with little splashes of color and clutter that you don't usually find in a Golden Age musical.

Silver: Outdoor design is also something that you don't generally get a lot of beauty for in Classical Hollywood pictures, but the way that we get a visually stunning, realistic trench in Paths of Glory is just one way that the movie inspires a different outlook on what you'd expect in a war picture of the era.

Bronze: You can see both the inspiration (movies like Port of Shadows that came before it), as well as movies like Don't Look Now and Querelle that would not be possible without it, but that doesn't take away from the enchanting loneliness that White Nights (aka Le Notti Bianche) achieves as we get lost in a succession of Italian nights with two desperate souls in a gorgeous, haunting Tuscan village.

Cinematography

3:10 to Yuma

Forty Guns

Nights of Cabiria

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

Gold: There are a dozen movies that would've normally gotten mentioned here (so many pretty pictures), so every one of these movies are bringing their A-Game.  I'm going to give the top prize to Paths of Glory both because it's gorgeous, and because it uses the cinematography to tell the story, the wandering camera in long shot (Kirk Douglas's walk through a battle is unforgettable).

Silver: Behind it is the beautiful cathedral style approach of The Seventh Seal, a movie that uses somewhat closed sets to still insist on a sense of beauty & mystery.  Like Paths of Glory, its one image so ingrained in moviegoers' memories (the dancing on the hill) is just part of a continually impressive story.

Bronze: Has the west ever felt so isolating (and alive) than the gigantic widescreen scale of Forty Guns, a movie that you almost can feel the dust hitting your face during some of the horse chases.  At one point near the beginning the camera gives us a look from the vantage of a pair of frightened horses to instill that this is not just a typical late-stage western we're watching.

Costume Design

Funny Face

Les Girls

Raintree County

The Seventh Seal

Silk Stockings

Gold: Edith Head, on her first nomination for the My Ballot, already has secured a Gold Medal for her Givenchy-aided work in Funny Face.  I don't know that Audrey Hepburn has ever looked as glamorous as she does coming down the steps of the Louvre in a strapless scarlett gown...hell, I don't know if anyone has ever looked that glamorous in a movie.

Silver: Three times the fun for Orry Kelly in Les Girls, getting to do different riffs on what Kay Kendall, Taina Elg, & Mitzi Gaynor will do with matching outfits is a lot of the character-building fun in this movie.  Particularly love the giant chapeaus they have in black velvet dresses & white silk gloves in the title song (complete with crimson pumps to keep the sex appeal as high as you can get it).

Bronze: Cyd Charisse's elegant ballerina act with a see-through teddy lingerie (it's got the title name for a reason) is the best look, but this film is constantly throwing out fun stuff (even for the men...Astaire looks super dapper), and I love that it sees its leading ladies mile-long legs (Charisse & Paige) as an asset in the costume department.

Film Editing

The Bridge on the River Kwai

A Face in the Crowd

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

Wild Strawberries

Gold: We're getting toward the end, and one last "all Best Picture" lineup (sometimes I get creative with Film Editing...apparently not in a year this tight).  The winner is our Best Picture winner, The Seventh Seal, which has tricky editing (it's not always clear what time we're in, or if we're in a time at all), but that it gets us where we need to go is a true achievement.

Silver: Behind it is the wartime struggles of Paths of Glory, a movie whose pacing is almost hidden, as you can't quite understand where it's going.  It makes key scenes at the end, like those of the prisoners scared of death, all the more potent because we've been lulled into this not realizing where we're about to be taken.

Bronze: The pacing of The Bridge on the River Kwai is easier to ascertain, but it still feels crucial as it's not picked up by all of the characters...the tension isn't in what's about to happen, but more so will they understand in time.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Funny Face

Kanal

Nights of Cabiria

Paths of Glory

Witness for the Prosecution

Gold: The gorgeous clown makeup Giuletta Masina dons in Nights of Cabiria, complete with an elegant pixie cut that doesn't read as chic so much as easy (very important to a character who aspires to glamour but can't actually achieve it) are some of the subtle touches brought to this beautiful work.

Silver: To say too much about the achievement in Witness for the Prosecution would be to ruin some of the best little bits of the picture, but let's just say it's transformative, and that the still-life beauty of Marlene Dietrich in her early scenes proves that she only got more devastating with age.

Bronze: While it's a mainstay in this category for modern movies, realistic or wartime makeup is not something I normally get to recognize for this category in the Golden Age.  But Kanal is made far from Hollywood (and is years ahead of its time), and the grungy sewer looks of this movie, as they try desperately to escape, adds to its haunting power.

Visual Effects

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Jet Pilot

Paths of Glory

The Spirit of St. Louis

Gold: And for our final gold medal we're going to introduce a movie that we haven't mentioned once, The Incredible Shrinking Man, a movie about toxic masculinity before that was a phrase (the opening scene he spends demanding his wife get him a beer...and the movie that follows he literally becomes less of a man).  The special effects here, especially those involving him against the backdrop of live animals (you see actual cats & tarantulas in the picture) are some of the best I've seen in this era.

Silver: Though there are some war-time effects throughout, The Bridge on the River Kwai is getting this medal solely for one big bang at the end of the picture.  David Lean (who took a heavy hand in this sequence) had multiple cameras set up to see an actual bridge explode for the title scene, and what comes out of it is one of Hollywood's best finale climaxes.

Bronze: In a face-off of two aerial showcases for the bronze, I'm going to go with The Spirit of St. Louis over Jet Pilot, mostly because I like the retro charm and grace that it uses compared to the sleekness of Howard Hughes' final big production, but both are well-showing why the movies turn to the skies.

Other My Oscar Ballots: 1931, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

1957 Oscar Viewing Project

One of the biggest regrets I had with finishing the blog was that I wasn't going to do one last season of ballots for the OVP.  The series that basically started this blog was going to get ignored, and while I cheated a bit by having the Halloween blogathon serve as a "placeholder" for the Oscar Viewing Project goodbye, that wasn't enough.  I'll be honest-October has been really challenging on a personal level (one of the main reasons that I'm ending the blog is because I had a wake up call about my personal life), but I have pushed myself in the past couple of days to finish the four remaining films I hadn't completed from 1957 so that they were done, and I can officially unveil the 27th completed season of the series (a truncated version, as I didn't have the bandwidth to write a full twenty articles, but at least I got something!).  For those who have enjoyed this (including me), I want you to know that I have started to transpose all of the previous OVP winners from past seasons onto my Letterboxd lists, and will continue to do the winners on there going forward, so if you want to continue to see what I'm picking (I'm ending the blog-the Oscar Viewing Project continues to see another day), you can find me here.  My brother is trying to help me figure out the best way to present the My Ballots (I didn't have time to finish that for 1957), but I promise as soon as he figures out a way to do this (he's better at such things than I am), I will continue posting those on Letterboxd as well.  But below, you will find the ranked from first-to-last choices for the 30th Academy Awards.

That's enough shop talk.  Now it's time to go back to an era of Sputnik & the Little Rock Nine, of Althea Gibson & Mamie Eisenhower.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. 12 Angry Men

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: The Bridge on the River Kwai has been a part of my life since I can't remember when-it was my grandfather's favorite movie, and one that played in the background (along with Patton and Tora! Tora! Tora!) on repeat after he had a stroke.  The only one of these movies that really approaches its grandeur is Witness for the Prosecution, which honestly is kind of a miracle and the best Christie adaptation I've ever seen.  12 Angry Men is very well-done, and a masterpiece but one that might (unfairly) have lost some luster it's been done so much since, and the other two are handsome-but-dull (Sayonara) or a total snooze (Peyton Place).

Director

1. David Lean (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Billy Wilder (Witness for the Prosecution)

3. Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men)

4. Joshua Logan (Sayonara)

5. Mark Robson (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Even more than the Best Picture field (if you hadn't noticed, these are carbon copies of each other), David Lean takes the lead here.  Oscar Winner Sydney Pollack once said that a director's job is "less artist, more damage containment expert" and that might be what is drawing me to Lean to a degree.  He has the more challenging job, particularly given that Wilder & Lumet are largely staying in the same locations, and are bringing to life staged plays, but it's more than that.  Think of the ending of The Bridge on the River Kwai, having so many storylines come together with staggering precision-you only get that from thinking meticulously, even in a gigantic epic.

Actor

1. Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution)

3. Anthony Franciosa (A Hatful of Rain)

4. Marlon Brando (Sayonara)

5. Anthony Quinn (Wild is the Wind)

The Lowdown: This is entirely down to the British actors (Guinness & Laughton).  Franciosa (who is in lead, Shelley Winters' memory be damned), gives a good performance but is in an underwritten movie, while Brando is a fabulous actor in a stuffed shirt sort of role.  Guinness gets my vote over Laughton primarily because he's playing so specifically to this character.  Laughton's role is appropriately loud-and-boisterous, he's typecast but in the best way possible.  Guinness isn't initially who I would guess in 1957 for this role (he was better known for comic work in movies before this), but that works to his advantage as Colonel Nicholson is a man obsessed, whose madness toward the end as he realizes what he's done is a crucial component to the entirety of Lean's epic.

Actress

1. Anna Magnani (Wild is the Wind)

2. Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces of Eve)

3. Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison)

4. Elizabeth Taylor (Raintree County)

5. Lana Turner (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Here's where I'm going to confess something-I have never gotten the hype around Joanne Woodward's performance in The Three Faces of Eve.  I think part of why she got this award (and so many plaudits since) is because it was such a revolutionary idea onscreen-a woman playing three characters in one.  But it isn't as impressive as some of her peers were, and while Woodward is a good actress, this isn't her best work, and she's only as high as she is on this list because this is a weak field.  Magnani stands out more for me-she's a more obvious actor compared to the organic Woodward, but the way she plays this woman is so three-dimensional and felt.  I love it.  Kerr is lovely-but-not-stretched in Heaven Knows, while Taylor & Turner both have their best (sultriest) instinct muted in their dull pictures.

Supporting Actor

1. Sessue Hayakawa (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Red Buttons (Sayonara)

3. Russ Tamblyn (Peyton Place)

4. Arthur Kennedy (Peyton Place)

5. Vittorio de Sica (A Farewell to Arms)

The Lowdown: Hayakawa, at one point a major leading star of the Silent Era, made a comeback with this role very late in his career, and it's easily the best of this quintet.  The way that his Colonel Saito creates a humanizing aspect to his villain is years ahead of what you'd normally expect from such a part, and stands up against what Guinness & Holden are doing.  Buttons' heartbreaking work is a worthy runner-up, and I like that Russ Tamblyn got a nomination here (he's my favorite part of Peyton Place), but Hayakawa is the best choice of the bunch.

Supporting Actress

1. Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution)

2. Miyoshi Umeki (Sayonara)

3. Carolyn Jones (The Bachelor Party)

4. Hope Lange (Peyton Place)

5. Diane Varsi (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Man is this a rough one.  Given 3/5 of these are in movies that underwhelmed me already, and The Bachelor Party is just an odd picture, thank the lord for Elsa Lanchester.  Her doddering in Witness for the Prosecution is marvelous, and would've made a fine winner (I would've found room for her costar Una O'Connor, and will in my My Ballot).  The rest, though, are uninspired in a field that could've been great had they invested more in musicals in 1957.  Umeki's groundbreaking win isn't the worst thing to happen to this category (there's an understanding in her work that I liked), and seeing Carolyn Jones outside of the Addams mansion is a change of pace, but man...Lanchester is the only truly acceptable winner of the bunch.

Original Screenplay

1. Funny Face

2. The Tin Star

3. I Vitelloni

4. Designing Woman

5. Man of a Thousand Faces

The Lowdown: It's weird, given the weak point of most of Fred Astaire's films is a cobbled together by scotch tape plot, that I'm giving his film this statue.  In a perfect world, you'd probably see a few of the Foreign Language Film nominees included in this lineup, but the only subtitled film of this bunch is Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni, where the screenplay is one of the weakest parts in an otherwise really attractive movie.  Funny Face is well-structured, and if you get past the fact that the 30-year age difference should be more of a plot point (let's be real, though, Fred Astaire & Audrey Hepburn are such ageless figures it's hard to think of them as anything more than ephemeral tricks-of-the-light), the only movie that comes close is The Tin Star, a well-structured morality tale that's admittedly a bit predictable and guided by strong work from Henry Fonda & Anthony Perkins.

Adapted Screenplay

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. 12 Angry Men

3. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: The real battle here is between The Bridge on the River Kwai and 12 Angry Men, both impeccable screenplays.  12 Angry Men it's sometimes hard for me to tell if I should dock points for it clearly being a filmed play or if that works onscreen.  Since I can never quite tell, I'm going to go with Bridge, which has a stronger end game, and also manages to tell a lot of subplots without losing focus (harder than it sounds).  Kudos to Heaven Knows in third, particularly in the way that it handles the complicated (for 1957) romantic angles of the story that otherwise could've been abandoned by a different writer.

Foreign Language Film

1. Nights of Cabiria (Italy)

2. Gates of Paris (France)

3. The Devil Strikes at Night (Germany)

4. Nine Lives (Norway)

5. Mother India (India)

The Lowdown: In the early years of this category, you'd get masterpieces from renowned filmmakers like Fellini, which makes it really hard to judge in some ways because how do you compete with something like Nights of Cabiria, one of the all-time great pictures and featuring a beautiful performance from Giuletta Massini?  It's a pity, though, as there's some treasure trove films here too.  Gates of Paris is a wonderfully dark French crime film (with a romantic subplot that'll rip your heart out), while The Devil Strikes at Night gives you a really strong look at the rise of fascism from a film noir perspective. The only one of the bunch I couldn't get into was the unfathomably long Mother India, a well-regarded Bollywood picture that was at least two hours too long.

Score

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. An Affair to Remember

3. Raintree County

4. Boy on a Dolphin

5. Perri

The Lowdown: Any of the Top 3 here would be a worthy prize (Boy on the Dolphin feels like it got nominated based on the composer, and Perri ranks as one of the sillier films to ever be cited for an Academy Award since it's just a children's nature documentary about a squirrel).  Even with the most famous cut of the score being a non-original piece (the "Colonel Bogey's March" is not original to the picture), I think that Bridge does the most with its music, and it will get my nod.  Either Affair or Raintree would make good choices, though, both of them lush & filled with a lot of romance (I'm still finalizing my My Ballot Awards, as I mentioned above, but as of this writing all three of these films would make my nominees).

Original Song

1. "Wild is the Wind" (Wild is the Wind)

2. "All the Way," (The Joker is Wild)

3. "An Affair to Remember," (An Affair to Remember)

4. "Tammy," (Tammy and the Bachelor)

5. "April Love," (April Love)

The Lowdown: A genuinely terrific group of songs-there's not a bad one in the bunch, and in many cases, we're getting some big-deal singers' signature tunes.  The Top 3, in particular, is pretty immovable, and my pick of "Wild is the Wind" might be a little cheat given my favorite version of the song is by Nina Simone (not, as sung in the movie, by Johnny Mathis, though Mathis is also marvelous).  It's such a creepy love ballad.  Sinatra's classic "All the Way" and Marni Nixon belting out the standard "An Affair to Remember" (through Deborah Kerr) are totally acceptable answers here too, though.

Sound

1. Pal Joey

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. Sayonara

4. Les Girls

5. Gunfight at the OK Corral

The Lowdown: I will be honest-every single one of these films will be getting replaced when I do my My Ballot.  That's not to say there isn't good stuff happening (Pal Joey has some solid musical numbers and the dialogue is crisp, Witness has the great final courtroom scene & Marlene singing), but nothing here stands out in a big way.  The shootout in Gunfight, for example, is a disappointment (the best part of it is the Frankie Lane title song), and Les Girls is a great movie, but not one that has a lot of super memorable musical numbers (it works better on its plot).  The Bridge on the River Kwai is clearly missing.

Art Direction

1. Les Girls

2. Funny Face

3. Raintree County

4. Sayonara

5. Pal Joey

The Lowdown: Gorgeous sets abound here, but in particular for the Top 2 (in another year Raintree County's elaborate and epic southern looks would be a serious contender for the win, here it has to settle for the bronze).  I'm going to go with Les Girls for the statue because it plays more with the beautiful looks of Paris than Funny Face does, and the sets have a bit more color and personality, but honestly they're both so good this is splitting hairs.

Cinematography

1. Funny Face

2. An Affair to Remember

3. The Bridge on the River Kwai

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: This one comes down to the romances for me-this is the one area where I think Bridge is good but isn't necessarily breaking the bank except for the final sequence, and so I'd put this between Affair and Funny Face.  Funny Face probably benefits a bit from its plot-there film is literally about catching the exact right photo of Audrey Hepburn, and you get gorgeous scenes and fashion shots of her to accompany that.  I do like the intercontinental glamour and radiant CinemaScope beauty of An Affair to Remember, but if forced to pick, I'd end with Funny Face.

Costume Design

1. Funny Face

2. Les Girls

3. Raintree County

4. An Affair to Remember

5. Pal Joey

The Lowdown: With costume design, sometimes you get contests where you were never going to win.  There are really good nominees in this category (for my money, the best lineup Oscar pulled together in 1957), and some are extraordinary.  That exquisite orange & white dress Deborah Kerr wears in An Affair to Remember, the plunging bodices sported by a never-more-beautiful Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County, the monochromatic swimsuits & matching chapeaus of Les Girls...all grand.  But when Audrey Hepburn in a strapless scarlet dress & matching scarf walks down the steps of the Louvre in Funny Face...that's what makes movies, movies-it simply has to win.

Film Editing

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. Gunfight at the OK Corral

4. Pal Joey

5. Sayonara

The Lowdown: I feel like too many of these categories are Bridge on the River Kwai facing off against Witness for the Prosecution with the latter coming up short.  This is true here, even though it's close-Bridge sometimes sags in the middle (maybe its weakest aspect even if the beginning and end are so well-conceived), and you can't deny that Witness builds its tension masterfully.  Still, the ending of Bridge is just too good to ignore, and neither Marlene Dietrich or Dennis Hopper's very effective final scene in Gunfight at the OK Corral can really compete with it.

Special Effects

1. The Spirit of St. Louis

2. The Enemy Below

The Lowdown: Our only category with only two nominees in the bunch, this is a battle between two war pictures.  The Spirit of St. Louis is really impressive when you keep in mind this is a special effects category, and so therefore the plane stunt effects and trick flying should be part of your calculation.  It helps that Jimmy Stewart was a pilot in WWII and actually knows what he was doing.  The Enemy Below is both a lesser movie, and honestly has lesser effects by comparison (Lindbergh gets my win).  It's not bad-the water effects toward the end all are strong & believable in a world without CGI, but it's nothing you wouldn't see in a dozen other war films of the era.

OVP: Tammy and the Bachelor (1957)

Film: Tammy and the Bachelor (1957)

Stars: Debbie Reynolds, Leslie Nielsen, Walter Brennan, Mildred Natwick, Fay Wray

Director: Joseph Pevney

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Tammy")

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Debbie Reynolds: click here to learn more about Ms. Reynolds (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Debbie Reynolds was a household name for pretty much the entire run of the 1950's & 60's after her time in Singin in the Rain, but similar to last month's star Doris Day, she didn't get to that point solely through the movies.  Today's film is Tammy and the Bachelor, a film series that didn't actually feature Reynolds in the subsequent films (she would get replaced in the sequels by Sandra Dee), but did spawn a career as a recording star for Reynolds.  Anyone who watched Singin in the Rain knew that Reynolds could sing, but the title song from Tammy and the Bachelor, "Tammy," would become a massive hit song in 1957, getting her both a gold record and a Billboard #1.  While Reynolds had done live shows since the 1940's, "Tammy" opened the doors to what would end up being her longest show business legacy.  Similar to actresses as divergent as Mitzi Gaynor, Ann-Margret, Mamie van Doren, & Joey Heatherton, Reynolds would spend decades doing shows in Las Vegas & Los Angeles, frequently trotting out "Tammy" as the centerpiece of her act.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Tammy (Reynolds), a girl who lives in the delta of Mississippi with her grandfather (Brennan).  One day a handsome man named Peter (Nielsen) crashes his plane near their houseboat, and the two of them nurse him back to health.  Tammy quickly becomes smitten with Peter, but he dismisses her, and we soon learn why-he's the young heir to a proper family fortune, and his parents want him to marry a more suitable girl.  When Tammy is forced to live with this family after her grandfather is arrested for bootlegging, this comes into crystal clear view.  Tammy starts to show not only Peter, but his parents and his aunt (played by Mildred Natwick) that living a moral, but straight-forward life is the best, and in the process Peter falls in love back with her just in the same way she has with him.

The movie plays poorly today, and I suspect wasn't that good to begin with.  A pretty young white girl lecturing about Christian morality and how people around her aren't living up to the ideals in the Bible (the way she is) would 100% be the villain today (that isn't meant to be a political statement, but it definitely is real...conservatives have a point there).  She's kind of obnoxious throughout the movie, allowing for a lot of kindness but very little grace.  The film needs more humor, or it needs a bit more sex, to make it appealing (Leslie Nielsen is definitely trying in the latter part-if you're only used to him from the Naked Gun movies, you're going to be surprised he's a total snack).

But the song is wonderful, and totally earns its Oscar nomination.  The song is sung at the beginning of the opening credits, but it most takes off when Reynolds sings it about halfway through the film, with Natwick overhearing her.  It's romantic, and is honestly part of a better movie.  I get why, in a year of Elvis Presley and Buddy Knox getting kids to dance until they dropped, this was a song that literally knocked Elvis off of the #1 position on the Billboard charts.  Though Reynolds would continue singing for the remainder of her career, this was the only #1 she'd ever achieve.

The Pajama Game (1957)

Film: The Pajama Game (1957)

Stars: Doris Day, John Raitt, Carol Haney, Eddie Foy, Jr., Reta Shaw, Barbara Nichols

Director: George Abbott & Stanley Donen

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Doris Day: click here to learn more about Ms. Day (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Doris Day's popularity and more so the length of how long she was popular is kind of hard to grasp.  Day became a box office draw, a consistent one, as early a 1951's I'll See You in My Dreams, her most successful film for Warner Brothers at the time.  After that she would enjoy 15 years where not only she made a string of successes, she made a successful film every single year; very few actors of her era achieved that king of longevity.  Day's popularity, and the ubiquity of it, makes her easy to underestimate because so many of her films are similar, but it's worth noting how much she added to her pictures.  A good example of this would be today's, film The Pajama Game, which was brought to Hollywood as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra, but when Sinatra didn't do it, Day was brought in because the studio wanted a movie star as box office insurance given that the rest of the cast was unknown.  The result is a pretty much textbook lesson in why movies & the theater are different, and a lesson that very much comes out in Day's favor.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about the Sleeptite Pajama Factory, a small-town company that produces loungewear and where the workers are threatening to go on strike.  They are led by Babe Williams (Day), who must go toe-to-toe with the factory's superintendent Sid (Raitt), but the two find this difficult when they fall in love with each other.  Babe leads a "slow-down" at the factory as a union tactic, but when that doesn't work, she breaks one of the machines, leading to her being fired by Sid.  They split apart, but it becomes clear after he does some investigating that the raises that the workers are asking for had already been approved, and the plant's manager is the one who has been stealing the cash himself.  The film ends with Babe & Sid getting together, and we get a fashion show of the pajamas before the closing credits.

The best part about The Pajama Game is the music.  I was struck while watching this how many totally grand musical numbers are in this show that is rarely revived on Broadway.  Everything from "Hey There" to "Hernando's Hideaway" to "I'm Not At All in Love" are wonderful productions, really catchy tunes.  There's honestly not a bad song in the film, and that makes you wonder why the movie isn't better-regarded.  Other films of that era based on big-time Broadway musicals (like South Pacific or West Side Story) were Oscar-nominated or at least huge box office bonanzas, and The Pajama Game doesn't stand out as a particularly important film (and received no nominations, not even for scoring).

The reason for that is the cast.  Day is perfectly cast in this film-she's always good as a virginal noblewoman who is discovering love for the first time.  But the rest of the call sheet was actually a carry-over from the Broadway production, including Tony-Winning dancer Carol Haney in her only speaking role in a movie.  But they don't work.  Film and theater are two different mediums, and in movies you have to sort of seduce the camera.  Raitt, especially, feels like a disappointment compared to Day, even though he's in fine vocal performance and is handsome (just not in the way that movie stars are supposed to be handsome).  It's hard not to wonder what it might've been like had Frank Sinatra & Shirley MacLaine replaced Raitt & Haney (casting movie stars of the time, that's what would've happened), as while it would've been a bit gaudier, it would've been less of a curio and more of a fully-fledged movie spectacular.  I think in the end, it would've been a better movie (even if this isn't bad).

Love in the Afternoon (1957)

Film: Love in the Afternoon (1957)

Stars: Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier

Director: Billy Wilder

Oscar History: The film received no Oscar nominations, which given its precursor count would number as a BIG upset by today's standards-Wilder was nominated for both the DGA & the WGA, and the film was cited for Best Picture at the Golden Globes (as well as lead nominations for both Hepburn & Chevalier).  If a film today got that, they'd be a sure thing for a few nominations from the Academy.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Audrey Hepburn: click here to learn more about Ms. Hepburn (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

One consistent thing that we'll see all year for this theme is that while some of the actresses we'll profile did, in fact, wait around in Hollywood for a bit before they became "America's Sweetheart," all of them pretty much had that picture, that afterward they were instantly stars.  For Audrey Hepburn, that movie was Roman Holiday, which won her an Academy Award and made her a household name.  For the next ten years, Hepburn could do no wrong, with virtually all of her movies doing well with audiences ...with only 1-2 exceptions, the biggest being today's movie Love in the Afternoon.  Why are we focusing on one of those exceptions today, you might ask?  Because, well, I didn't realize it'd flopped until after I'd watched the movie and I have seen so many of her films that I didn't think it would be wise to waste a screening.  Today, we're going to talk about arguably the highest-profile miss from Hepburn from this era, one that paired her with an icon of the previous generation (which may have been the problem).

(Spoilers Ahead) Love in the Afternoon is about Ariane (Hepburn), a young cello student who lives with her father Claude (Chevalier) in Paris.  Claude is a private detective, one who makes his living investigating the crumbling romances of the various men of Paris, many of whom are losing their wives to a lothario named Frank Flannagan (Cooper).  When a client threatens to kill Frank, Ariane intercepts, and manages to save his life...but in the process she becomes enamored with him.  Having read about his escapades for years in her father's notes, she is able to manipulate him, pretending to be a worldly sophisticate and someone he can easily romance without strings attached (this is basically "friends with benefits" for the 1950's), but she's in fact deeply in love with him.  When he becomes jealous of all the men she's "been with" he goes to her father's detective agency...at which point her father realizes what's happened.  He wants him to dump her, knowing that he will break her heart, but at the end (in a romantic train station goodbye), they embrace, and the closing narration shows that she finally tamed the playboy, and made him her husband.

Audrey Hepburn, similar to Grace Kelly, spent much of her acting career being romanced by older men.  Humphrey Bogart was 30 years her senior, Rex Harrison 21 years older, Cary Grant was 25 years older, and Fred Astaire, again, was 30 years older than Hepburn.  There are a lot of guesses as to why Hepburn & Kelly, specifically, were asked to do this, but it was largely because Hollywood had a lot of over-the-hill actors who were still somewhat bankable & they didn't think audiences would continue to see them if they continued to romance women their own age like Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck.  This wasn't always a problem for Hepburn-you watch films like Sabrina, My Fair Lady, Charade, & Funny Face, and she plays really well against these guys, using their screen personas and her youthful whimsy to full advantage.  This is why she made so many good movies, as she was the rare romantic lead who could compliment these men's star persona so beautifully, even with an age difference.

But that did not manifest with Gary Cooper.  Love in the Afternoon is a good movie, mind you.  There's a solid script here, even if it should probably be funnier, and the premise works really well.  It's Gary Cooper's casting, though, that doesn't click.  Cooper is not my favorite actor, but in his best roles he did two things well-he was very good as an honorable man stuck in a tough situation and he was really good at playing an idiot being outmaneuvered by a smarter woman.  The script doesn't play into the first part at all, and doesn't really lean into the latter well enough.  Cary Grant was the first choice for this movie, and would've been much better, as in many ways this foreshadowed their work in Charade (which unlike this, was a massive hit).  Cooper & Hepburn, both screen stars in their own right, don't work together, and it's hard to put any of the blame on Hepburn, playing this role decently.  The scenes she has with Maurice Chevalier, for example, are quite light & melodious.  A missed opportunity, and a shame that all of these flashy names couldn't pull together a better picture.