The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Film: The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn

Director: Norman Jewison

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 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 Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Steve McQueen is a weird star persona today.  In his era, McQueen was a big name, one of the biggest in movies, but because of a combination of factors (movies that aren't entirely in the modern zeitgeist, as well as his estate limiting his visage in merchandise after death), he's not remembered in the same way as other stars of his era.  James Dean died younger, Elvis Presley was more ubiquitous, Robert Redford & Paul Newman lived longer and were therefore able to make movies with men like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, & Chris Evans (i.e. the next generations of action heroes).  McQueen is remembered today by pop culture for Bullitt, being really cool, and dying young.  But he made a comparable amount of hits to Redford & Newman, and certainly more than Dean or Presley and he started it earlier in his career.  While he spent most of the 1950's doing television, theater, and B-movies (like The Blob), a chance skirmish in the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra essentially fired Sammy Davis, Jr. from working on Never So Few after they had a fight) gave McQueen the chance to really prove his worth, nearly stealing the picture from Sinatra.  The following few years included some massive hits, all led by McQueen, including The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Carpetbaggers, a now-forgotten sudser that was the #4 film of 1964, behind certified icons of the year Mary Poppins, Goldfinger, & My Fair Lady.  All of this is to say that by 1965, when McQueen was leading an all-star cast of Old & New Hollywood figures, he was already one of the definitive actors of the decade.

(Spoilers Ahead) Despite its name evoking a gangster picture, The Cincinnati Kid is not an actual action film (we'll get into a few of those to match our monthly theme with McQueen in the coming weeks).  The film is about The Kid (McQueen), a dynamite poker player who is tired of playing big games around New Orleans, and wants to move up in the ranks, potentially even moving to Miami, but knows he needs to beat Lancey (Robinson), the greatest poker player in the city, first.  The film's first half really focuses on the lead up to this, with Lancey clearly threatened by the Kid potentially coming for his throne, while the Kid's relationship with his best friend Shooter (Malden) and his girlfriend Christian (Weld) are thrown asunder, particularly as Shooter is blackmailed by local mobster Slade (Torn) into trying to fix the match for the Kid.  The film's most famous scenes are in the back half of the movie, when we see an aggressive, long-stakes game of poker between the Kid & Lancey, along with a host of other characters, most colorfully Joan Blondell as a boozy gambling diva named Lady Fingers.  The movie ends with Lancey once again beating the Kid, proving that youth and his cool demeanor are not enough to dethrone the champ.

The film's ending is maybe the most interesting part of the picture.  The entire high-stakes game is really something, and genuinely (and surprisingly, for a sports film) thrilling to see who might win.  It's pretty clear that so many of the side characters, especially Slade & Shooter's lusty wife Melba (Ann-Margret) want the Kid to win, which in movie language means that he won't, but the idea of the villainous older guy needing to make way for a new generation is also a trope of this genre that is ignored.  The ending also differs depending on the cut you see.  The one I saw was not what director Norman Jewison wanted.  He wanted a much more dour ending, with the Kid losing a game of penny-pitching against a kid who has been trying to beat him all film, ending with another shocking defeat for our leading man.  Instead, we get a more conventional ending with McQueen & Weld embracing, her forgiving him for having slept with Ann-Margret a few minutes earlier.

The movie's script needs tightening in this regard, but I get why this became storied in the world of poker, as it glamorizes the skill needed to make it in the world of poker, and the badass nature of it.  Most of the young cast is really hot, sexy cool spilling out from every corner of the film, including the end credits with a sleek, jazzy song by Ray Charles.  This might not shock people reading this about, say, McQueen or Ann-Margret or Tuesday Weld, but modern audiences will shocked to be reminded that Rip Torn at one point was a total Chad.  I can't quite put my finger on what might improve this film (one wonders if Karl Malden was miscast...you could see this part being played better by, say, Gene Hackman a couple of years later, and I say this as someone who generally likes Karl Malden), but most of it's great, including Robinson in one of his last roles, and Blondell totally stealing the picture.  As for McQueen-he plays this placid, unflappable, introverted character so well it makes sense it would become his go to for much of his career.

Saturdays with the Stars: Steve McQueen

Each month of 2026 we are looking at an actor or actress who found their fame in action films, fighting bad guys & saving the day.  Last month, we talked about Charles Bronson, an actor who in the 1960's had a lot of promise as a performer who would, in the bluntest of terms, sell out for insanely high paychecks when Hollywood eventually found a niche for him in violent movies.  Bronson, in many ways, would become the template for a lot of the stars we'll profile in the back half of 2026, men who showed promise in early films but would frequently sell out their talent for bigger paychecks.  However, in May we're going to talk about a star who is so singular in Hollywood he doesn't really have a contemporary or a predecessor (though many have tried).  He therefore stands out as both an action star (he would star in some of the most successful action films of the late 1960's and early 1970's, and would rival Bronson as the highest-paid star in Hollywood), but also as an introvert's action hero, a man who would gain an Academy Award nomination during his period of great success for Best Actor, and would die far before his time, still shrouded in enigma.  This month's star is Steve McQueen.

McQueen's early childhood, like much of his life, has a sense of drama and mystery that feels clouded with a bit of tragedy.  His stunt pilot father abandoned him when he was less than a year old, and his mother eventually gave him up to live with his grandparents.  His mother would eventually remarry, bringing him back to her life (and an abusive stepfather), which led him to being sent to a reformatory school, where he matured quickly, and eventually served a brief stint in the US Marines before starting to act, first in New York and then in Hollywood, getting bit parts in TV shows and films, culminating in his first lead role in the classic horror film The Blob.  McQueen's big break happened later though, when Frank Sinatra (at the time in a feud with Sammy Davis, Jr. for comments that Davis had made about Sinatra's racist treatment of him, the rare time in their friendship where Davis stood up for himself), replaced Davis with McQueen in Never So Few, directed by John Sturges, who would put McQueen as the lead in his next picture The Magnificent Seven, a film that would cement his place as a leading man in Hollywood for the next twenty years.

McQueen is the "King of Cool" and as fascinating offscreen as he was onscreen.  He had a penchant for race-car driving, competing in a number of competitions alongside his movie career.  He was devoted to physical fitness, while obsessively using marijuana & for stints, cocaine.  When he was one of the most famous people on earth, he would be arrested for a DUI that somehow didn't remotely derail his career.  He would romance actresses as varied as Mamie van Doren, Lauren Hutton, and (most famously) Ali MacGraw, being one of the principal super-couples of the 1970's.  He was indispensably cool...but still voted for Richard Nixon in 1968 when that was a decidedly square thing to do.  And he would appear as a new type of action star-one who had some of the bravado of Connery & Bronson, but also with a sensitivity that would be more at home with Marlon Brando or Paul Newman.  And all of this he would achieve in just 50 years, for as we'll talk about this month, unlike Connery & Bronson, Steve McQueen wouldn't live long enough to have late-in-life career changes that would reshape his legacy.

A Brief History of Congress Members on the Supreme Court

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) & Mike Lee (R-UT)

In a midterm election year, one where the president has a trifecta in his party, it has become a common discussion around Supreme Court retirements.  Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, & Joe Biden all had appointments during their first midterm of a like-minded justice retiring and being replaced by someone whose belief system matched the president, and George W. Bush had this happen preceding his second midterm.  Rumors have abounded for weeks over a plausible retirement, many of them centering around Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and while Alito has claimed he'll stay on through the end of the year...I'll believe it when I see it.

One of the interesting things that has popped up with this conversation has been around politicians who are interested in Alito's seat.  Sen. Chuck Grassley has publicly floated the names of Sens. Ted Cruz & Mike Lee for a theoretical opening, and there are reports from Axios that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been "begging" for a job in the Trump administration, or even a shot at the open Supreme Court seat.  This all feels a little odd for most modern Court watchers, who have largely seen established or career jurists on the Court.  Of the current nine members, all but one (Elena Kagan) served previously on the federal bench in a lower Court but it's not crazy for jurists to have a more blatantly political background before joining the Court.  While none of the current members have held political office (the last Supreme Court justice to have held political office in their career was Sandra Day O'Connor, who was an Arizona State Senator in the early 1970's), many have served in political offices prior.  Kagan was a member of the Clinton & Obama administrations, Thomas & Alito both served in the Reagan administration (Alito would also serve in George HW Bush's, as would John Roberts), Neil Gorsuch served in the second Bush administration, and Amy Coney Barrett & Brett Kavanaugh were both attorneys for the Bush campaign during the 2000 Florida recall.  So I thought it'd be interesting today to take a look, specifically at members of Congress, and their history of serving on the Supreme Court given the possibility that Lee or Cruz might join them.

Prior to the 17th Amendment, there was a relatively common history of members of Congress being nominated for or even winning seats on the Supreme Court.  Edward Douglass White is maybe the most notable member to do this, having served as a US Senator from Louisiana for a few years, and was chosen as a compromise option by President Cleveland after two previous nominees he'd put before the Senate were rejected (White would go on to become Chief Justice, appointed by William Howard Taft, the man who would eventually succeed him to that position, and would serve a total of 27 years on the bench).

But we'll focus this article on those chosen after the 17th Amendment, when senators & House members were both elected directly by the public.  During that time, just five US Senators and one House member were chosen for the Supreme Court: George Sutherland, Hugo Black, James F. Byrnes, Harold Hitz Burton, Sherman Minton, & Fred Vinson.  The most recent of these was Minton in 1949 (it's worth noting that Earl Warren, who had been Governor of California prior, and is generally the most commonly-cited politician/Supreme Court jurist outside of Taft, was appointed later than this in 1953 by President Eisenhower), so there's not a lot of recent precedence for this.

Justice Hugo Black

Historically, senators had a much easier time in the very clubby upper chamber getting appointed to the Supreme Court.  George Sutherland, for example, was confirmed on the day of his nomination to the Supreme Court, as was James Byrnes, and Harold Burton was confirmed the day after his nomination, as was Fred Vinson.  The only two nominations of these six that appeared to have any sort of resistance were Black's and Minton's.  In Black's case, it was allegations that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (which turned out to be true), and in Minton's case there were allegations of cronyism, given he was a close friend of Harry Truman's from when they were in the Senate together.  But all six would be confirmed, either by voice vote or overwhelming margin.

This would not, however, be the case for Homer Thornberry.  While Minton was the last member of Congress to be put on the Supreme Court, Thornberry was the last time one was nominated.  Thornberry was nominated by President Johnson in 1968 for the Supreme Court, and at that point in many ways his time as a congressman from Texas (who had succeeded LBJ into the House) had been eclipsed by his appointment to the 5th Circuit in 1965 by Johnson.  Johnson had wanted Thornberry to take over for Associate Justice Abe Fortas, who had been nominated to succeed the late Earl Warren as Chief Justice.  But Fortas was in a contentious battle at the time of his nomination with Sen. Storm Thurmond (R-SC), who alleged that legal (but questionable) payments that Fortas had received through American University would color his judgment, and Fortas's views on pornography in relation to free speech had made him a cause celebre for Thurmond.  Eventually Fortas's nomination was lost as a result of the filibuster (signs of things to come) and given Fortas was a sitting Associate Justice, without him getting a promotion, Thornberry didn't have a place to go (and for reasons that aren't entirely clear, Johnson didn't just try to nominate Thornberry directly to be Chief Justice), and so Thornberry remained on the 5th Circuit bench for the remainder of his career.

Thornberry is the last time that a member of Congress was formally nominated, but that doesn't mean that rumors haven't come up repeatedly in recent decades that the trend could return.  Ronald Reagan looked at Orrin Hatch, Howell Heflin & Paul Laxalt for his open Supreme Court Seats, and John Danforth was considered by George HW Bush.  This has continued on with Joe Lieberman & George Mitchell mentioned by President Clinton, John Cornyn, Mike Crapo, Mike DeWine, & Mel Martinez by President George W. Bush, and during the Obama administration Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, & Claire McCaskill were all mentioned.  In fact, during Trump's first administration Cruz & Lee were also rumored for spots.  The only recent president to not have publicly floated names of a member of Congress is Joe Biden.

All of this is to say that the Cruz & Lee thing feels right on schedule-it would be weird if we didn't have Senators on the list of potential Alito replacements.  But as we've seen in the past 70 years, just because you're on the list, doesn't mean you won't be considered.  Trump's atypical approach to the job could change this, but this is definitely "believe it when I see it" instead of expecting Lee or Cruz to be truly considered.

Murphy's Law (1986)

Film: Murphy's Law (1986)

Stars: Charles Bronson, Carrie Sondgress, Kathleen Wilhoite, Robert F. Lyons

Director: J. Lee Thompson

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 Charles Bronson: click here to learn more about Mr. Bronson (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

After Death Wish, Charles Bronson would spend the remainder of his career making, for lack of a better word, schlock, most of these movies for Cannon Films, a production company that produced our picture today Murphy's Law.  Cannon would make some notable films, including Runaway Train with Jon Voight & Eric Roberts, as well as Street Smart which featured a breakout role for Morgan Freeman (all three of these actors would get Oscar nominations for their parts), but it was best known for producing lucrative action flicks that would play really well in the emerging home video market.  In many ways it was a predecessor to the direct-to-video trend of the 1990's (and the later phenomenon of RedBox movies featuring fading action stars like Mel Gibson & Bruce Willis), and the two actors they were most well-known for working with were Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson.  Outside The Indian Runner with Dennis Hopper & Patricia Arquette, after 1980 Bronson would work pretty much exclusively on the 1980's equivalent of Poverty Row movies, making a fortune in the process, but largely eschewing any sort of acting legacy as none of these films post-Death Wish have really lasted in the public's memory.

(Spoilers Ahead) This doesn't mean that all of these films were bad, exactly, but they were formulaic and they were decidedly not Sergio Leone or John Sturges.  Murphy's Law is about a man who essentially feels like he's on autopilot (or maybe that's just Bronson's blasé performance).  Jack Murphy (Bronson) is a cop who spends the film's opening scenes arresting Arabella McGee (Wilhoite), a young carjacker with a foul mouth.  We see intercuts of a mysterious woman we later learn to be Joan Freeman (Snodgress), who is bent on revenge against Jack for imprisoning her years earlier, and frames him for murder, which means that he and Arabella must go on the run as he tries to solve the case.  The film involves a series of dead bodies stacking up, along with some nudity, drugs, and (because this is a 1980's action film with a female lead under the age of thirty) sexual assault, and a variety of character actors getting killed, including Bill Henderson, who you may recognize as the Cop in the movie Clue (or at least that's how I recognized him, though perhaps more learned people will know he was an accomplished jazz musician).  The movie ends with Arabella & Jack injured but clearly friends (and maybe more), while Joan is flattened on a pavement after a fall.

The movie almost works on a camp level, even if it's not remotely any actual good.  Wilhoite, whom you might know from either her years of voicing the title character in the cartoon Pepperann or from playing Luke's sister on Gilmore Girls, has some of the most ridiculous dialogue I've ever heard in a film.  She is asked to insult someone every 15 seconds, frequently with profane or even offensive (this movie is CRAZY homophobic, though notably there is in fact an actual surprise gay couple to at least make one of the insults feel accurate if still offensive), in a schtick that would basically suffocate your kidneys if you turned it into a drinking game.  We learn virtually nothing about Snodgress other than (as she goes) she's clearly mentally insane, but she tries her best to instill a sense of fun into these proceedings, but all-in-all, this film fulfills its purpose: it's fast-paced, feeding your baser instincts, and disposable.  That it isn't particularly good doesn't feel like Cannon (or Bronson's) concern since they already got your money.

This is where I put in that it's disappointing what Bronson would do with his later career, because he would never get a post-fame reassessment like some of his peers (I'm thinking specifically of Clint Eastwood & Burt Reynolds, both of whom would eventually become Oscar-nominated actors) would in the years that followed.  This wasn't for a lack of trying.  Bronson turned down the role of The Shootist (John Wayne's final role, and one of his best) because the main character was dying of prostate cancer, and Bronson didn't want to play that onscreen.  Ingmar Bergman was fascinated by Bronson, and tried to work with him, but Bronson didn't like Bergman's films & wasn't interested.  He tried out for a number of major movies of the era, including Capricorn One, Escape from New York, and bizarrely the lead in Superman, but wasn't "right for the part" and it went nowhere.

The most famous role, and one that would've changed his legacy that Bronson would turn down was of Curly in City Slickers.  Initially the role went to Jack Palance, but Palance had a scheduling conflict, and so they brought in Bronson for the part.  But at the time, Bronson's beloved wife Jill Ireland was dying of breast cancer, and Bronson wouldn't allow himself to work while she was suffering.  Bronson turned down the role, the City Slickers producers found a way to get Palance into the schedule...and Palance would go on to win an Academy Award for the role.  Bronson would never have a role of that caliber offered to him again, and would work irregularly until a hip surgery eventually made it impossible.  Toward the end of his life, before his death from lung cancer in 2003 at the age of 81, Bronson would walk with a cane, one that contained the ashes of Jill Ireland, whom he couldn't bear to be apart from, even in death.  The cane would be buried with him.

Next month, we're going to talk about a contemporary of Bronson's, and a frequent costar (they would make three films together), but one whose legacy post-fame was decidedly more critical-friendly...though his life would be considerably shorter than Bronson's which would have an even bigger impact on that legacy.

Abdul El-Sayed and the Limitations of a Blue Wave

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI)

This past weekend, the Michigan Democratic Party had their convention, where they nominated several candidates for major office, including Garlin Gilchrist for Secretary of State and Eli Savit (in something of an upset) for Attorney General.  The Senate race did not have a nominating component (the nominee will be chosen in the primary later this year), but that doesn't mean that the Democrats running weren't still speaking, and it was very clear which candidates had the most support.  Rep. Haley Stevens was literally booed at the convention, and as State Sen. Mallory McMorrow was leaving the stage, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed was already getting cheers from the crowd, with chants of "Abdul!" coming before McMorrow was gone from the podium.  Had the US Senate primary been decided by the convention, it's clear El-Sayed would become the Democratic standard-bearer to replace Sen. Gary Peters.

But conventions didn't decide this, nor should they (if you've read this blog for any length of time, you'll know that I think nominating conventions and caucuses are deeply undemocratic, and primaries choosing nominees is always preferable).  However, it's hard to ignore the clear momentum that El-Sayed has coming out of this with the base, and wonder what this could mean for the Michigan Democratic Primary, arguably the most competitive blue-held seat on the map in November (I think this is more at risk than Georgia).

While there is currently what looks like a blue wave approaching, Michigan is one of the swingiest of swing states in the country currently, and someplace the Democrats shouldn't be worried if they want to have the Senate majority, but polling shows that the race is close for the general election between all three of the Democratic candidates and presumed Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers (who just barely lost here in 2024).  Aggregate polling shows Stevens up over Rogers by 2-points, while he's up by less than a point over McMorrow, and up 2-points over El-Sayed.  None of these aggregates, it's worth noting, has either candidate above 45% of the vote.  This indicates to me that while this looks like a close race, it's one that will be decided by independents, likely people who have voted for Trump (at least once), but have been open in recent years to Joe Biden, Gary Peters, Elissa Slotkin, and especially Gretchen Whitmer.  If you want to win this, it'd be wise to pull a play from Whitmer's playbook: someone who is results-focused, charismatic, and willing to bend across the aisle when needed to get stuff done for the state even if they're generally reliable blue.

El-Sayed does not have that reputation.  While Stevens (as the moderate) has clear crossover appeal, and McMorrow's plain-spoken directness (and honestly her really impressive retail politicking skills) cover that she's nearly as liberal as El-Sayed (a similar tactic that James Talarico is employing in Texas), El-Sayed has a number of red flags that are going to make winning over Trump/Whitmer voters challenging.  He has actively courted the support of Hasan Piker, the controversial far-left activist who has faced increased scrutiny from those in the party who think he's an unhealthy addition to the coalition (it's worth noting that Elissa Slotkin, who successfully won a Senate seat while Donald Trump won her state last year, basically the definition of whom we should model a race upon, has refused to meet with Piker).  He has also vocally endorsed the "Defund the Police" movement, something neither Stevens nor McMorrow have backed.  Regardless of your opinions on this movement, this is not a popular one, certainly not in purple state Michigan.

I will own, because I've gotten comments on various platforms about Graham Platner, that unlike Platner I would be able to hold-my-nose and vote for El-Sayed even though I don't agree with him on everything.  But I do sincerely feel that he puts this seat not just at risk, but I think he would be the underdog.  Stevens is a generic Democrat (and a lousy campaigner), but she'd win the seat because it's a blue wave and she's a left-of-middle House member.  McMorrow is certainly to the left of the median Michigan voter, but she'd also be able to win this race, and given her talent and age (she's only 39), having a talented progressive representing a swing state would be a great way for us to prepare our bench for the 2030's & 40's.  She'd have six years to basically pull a Jon Ossoff (i.e. be known as a workhorse who's secretly more progressive than her public statements let on), but she seems capable of doing that.

But El-Sayed-I don't buy it.  This is, at best, a Keith Ellison situation-where a much-to-the-left of the state candidate wins based off of a large swath of voters electing him even though though they don't like him much (and lucking out to get into two midterms that were either blue or abortion-focused).  But Michigan is not Minnesota (hence why, even though I'm not voting for her in the primary, Peggy Flanagan doesn't really get this sort of scrutiny from me as I think she'd still win the general, even if it's by less than Craig would).  A blue wave is not magical, and sometimes people's stats-based analysis ignores that there are outliers, and usually those outliers in a wave have something in common.  In 2010, Sharron Angle & Ken Buck lost races that they were expected to win...because they were lousy candidates and the states weren't willing to go that extreme with more generic Democrats as options.  The same can be said for Andrew Gillum & Mandela Barnes, the former losing a state that the Democrats had just barely lost two years prior (just like Michigan) by running too far to the left and the latter losing Wisconsin (about as close to Michigan as you can get) in a big part because "Defund the Police" was used against him.  These four candidates all feel very similar to Abdul El-Sayed, who like Graham Platner, seems unusually vulnerable to lose the same voters that his opponent (in this case a pretty generic Republican in the form of Mike Rogers) can take advantage of; the only problem is that while Platner has continually proven through polling that Maine might just discard its past trends (i.e. Susan Collins closing well with moderate, Dem-POTUS favoring women), polls in Michigan back up the theory that El-Sayed could easily lose to Mike Rogers.  And if El-Sayed loses here...the Democrats' Senate majority dreams go up in smoke.

1964 Oscar Viewing Project

If you've been following me on social media, you'll know that I have been working diligently on the 1964 screenings, and that this was the next year in my Oscar Viewing Project.  This is amazingly the 33rd Oscar Viewing Project, which means we are one-third done with the project (see links to the other 32 below).  As a reminder, for the Oscars, we see all of the nominees in all of the narrative, feature-length film categories, which in this year had many still split between Color and Black & White (something that happened from the late 1940's to the mid-1960's).  I have seen every single one of the below categories, and will be picking (in a vacuum) my favorites of the bunch.  Finding domestic box office records pre-1980 is surprisingly challenging, but the general consensus on the Top 10 highest-grossing domestic films of 1964 are:

1. My Fair Lady

2. Goldfinger

3. Mary Poppins

4. The Carpetbaggers

---From Russia with Love*

5. A Fistful of Dollars

6. Father Goose

7. A Shot in the Dark

8. A Hard Day's Night

9. The Night of the Iguana

10. What a Way to Go!

* - From Russia with Love was released in the UK in 1963, and is generally considered to be a 1963 film which is what we will consider it for the My Ballot, but it was first released in 1964 in the US, and would be in 5th place if it was considered a 1964 film.

With the exception of The Carpetbaggers (a now-forgotten 1960's bestselling novel & artifact of the sexual revolution that only could've been a film hit in the mid-to-late 1960's, which sounds intriguing in a smutty sort of way but I don't know if I'll get around to before the My Ballot) I've actually seen all of these movies already, including several that didn't get nominated for the Academy Awards.  In the weeks ahead, I'll be seeing a lot of 1964 films (follow along here for my weekly screenings), though, as I try to get a complete picture of the cinematic landscape outside of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

But now, it's time to go back to a time of Washington passing the Civil Rights Act, Muhammad Ali becoming the heavyweight champion of the world, and a car they're calling the "Ford Mustang" taking center stage at the World's Fair.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Note: 7 Faces of Dr. Lao received a non-competitive Makeup statue in 1964, before the category was established.  I did see the film (as you'll see below), but wanted to make a note of that.  We'll do Makeup as a My Ballot category with five standard nominations, so you'll be able to see if I picked it then, but I will note for posterity that the makeup is very good (if, admittedly, a bit racist, which I'll talk about with its Visual Effects nomination).

Picture

1. Dr. Strangelove

2. My Fair Lady

3. Mary Poppins

4. Becket

5. Zorba the Greek

The Lowdown: One of those lists that proves the insanity of the Oscars-five films that only have the year they were made in common (even the musicals are shockingly different).  I am picking the sharp Kubrick-led black comedy, perhaps the quintessential black comedy, in a slight bid over My Fair Lady.  As you're going to find in this list, my childhood love of Eliza & Professor Higgins translated into adulthood, and I enjoyed the movie far more than most on Letterboxd & Film Twitter.  Really, though, any of the Top 4 (I wasn't really into Zorba) would be a fine addition to the Best Picture pantheon.

Director

1. Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove)

2. George Cukor (My Fair Lady)

3. Robert Stevenson (Mary Poppins)

4. Peter Glenville (Becket)

5. Michael Cacoyannis (Zorba the Greek)

The Lowdown: In one of the few years Oscar did this (and part of the reason I picked this year as there was so few films to catch up on), the Best Picture & Director lineups were exactly the same...and I'm going with the same order.  I think to at least some degree I'd have Mary Poppins & Becket closer to the #2 slot here than I would otherwise (I think that it's bizarre that a director so good with intimate films like The Philadelphia Story and The Women like George Cukor would win his sole directing Oscar for a gigantic musical...but that's Hollywood, I guess).  But yeah-Kubrick's going to win this, and I'm increasingly wondering if the "Kubrick gets the most OVP Directing statues" train is inevitable at this point.

Actor

1. Peter Sellers (Dr. Strangelove)

2. Peter O'Toole (Becket)

3. Richard Burton (Becket)

4. Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady)

5. Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek)

The Lowdown: This is an underrated race for the best this category has ever been, certainly one of the most impressive lineups-there is not just no bad performances in this list, there's no even "merely good" nominee in this list.  Instead, we have four great performances against a titanic one.  O'Toole and Burton, two of the most famous Oscar bridesmaids, will not be curing that here (O'Toole is now 0 for 3 for his eight nominations, Burton this is his first miss to date), as there's just no beating Peter Sellers taking on three very divergent roles in the absurdist Dr. Strangelove.

Actress

1. Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins)

2. Kim Stanley (Seance on a Wet Afternoon)

3. Sophia Loren (Marriage Italian Style)

4. Anne Bancroft (The Pumpkin Eater)

5. Debbie Reynolds (The Unsinkable Molly Brown)

The Lowdown: We will get into the Audrey Hepburn of it all with the My Ballot, as that's focusing on the year at large and this is just about Oscar's list (and I need to respect that).  But without Audrey, it's a competition between two totally different performances from Julie Andrews & Kim Stanley (I also quite like Sophia Loren this year, but not enough to threaten the two best).  I actually rewatched Mary Poppins specifically to see if it held up, and was beyond impressed with the way that she finds a gentle, but never cloying way to play the part.  It's kind of a miracle, as is her singing voice (as is Marni Nixon's...), and so it's an easy call.  Side note, but it's a damned shame this is the only performance Debbie Reynolds ever got an Oscar nomination for given she's a fine actress and this performance is so discardable.

Supporting Actor

1. Stanley Holloway (My Fair Lady)

2. Lee Tracy (The Best Man)

3. John Gielgud (Becket)

4. Edmond O'Brien (Seven Days in May)

5. Peter Ustinov (Topkapi)

The Lowdown: Honestly one of the weakest lineups in an otherwise stellar year for the Academy.  My love of My Fair Lady and its plentiful soundtrack extends to Holloway, who I think nails his "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" number, and while he is a bit over-the-top in other scenes, it is in a delightful way fitting of his picture.  I'm therefore going to give him the statue over stellar-if-not-the-best work from Tracy & Gielgud on the sidelines.

Supporting Actress

1. Agnes Moorehead (Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte)

2. Grayson Hall (The Night of the Iguana)

3. Gladys Cooper (My Fair Lady)

4. Lila Kedrova (Zorba the Greek)

5. Edith Evans (The Chalk Garden)

The Lowdown: Similar to Supporting Actor, this isn't what I'd call the best nomination list.  My My Fair Lady love extends far, but not far enough to include Cooper, who is fine but hardly necessary (and in shockingly little of this movie-I'm surprised they noticed her).  You have to indulge some over-the-top work from the Top 2, but you still get some winning performers, and occasionally insight into their characters that the 1960's otherwise might not have allowed.  I'll go with Moorehead, I think a bigger presence in her picture.  Also, even in a weak lineup, isn't it a joy to see ten character actors nominated in the supporting categories instead of the obsessive "movie star slumming" we see today.

Foreign Language Film

1. Woman in the Dunes (Japan)

2. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (France)

3. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Italy)

4. Raven's End (Sweden)

5. Sallah (Israel)

The Lowdown: Two classics in this lineup, both of which dominated the Oscars...a year later (Oscar rules were weird in the 1960's & 70's, and we'll get into how we'll handle that when we hit the My Ballot in the next few weeks).  A shocking amount of these movies have weirdly similar plots (doomed, sometimes forced romances, and whether to stay in them), which makes them somewaht easier to compare, and for me Woman in the Dunes, one of the scariest films I've ever seen, is more adept than the flawless color perfection of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg or the surprisingly strong anthology film Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, so I'm going with that in a battle of classics.

Adapted Screenplay

1. Dr. Strangelove

2. Mary Poppins

3. Becket

4. My Fair Lady

5. Zorba the Greek

The Lowdown: Probably the only time in Oscar history where the Picture/Director/Adapted Screenplay lineups are all exactly the same films (and it's worth noting-had Dick van Dyke gotten in for Mary Poppins instead of one of the Becket boys, that'd have been the same for Best Actor, also all Best Pictures).  This doesn't quite match those lineups even if they once again have the same victor-Dr. Strangelove is a genius script, but its biggest competition ends up being Mary Poppins, which is a challenging adaptation (how do you not make Mary more conventional?), but a fine one, and it fights a lot of impulses other live-action Disney films of the 1960's would indulge.

Original Screenplay

1. A Hard Day's Night

2. One Potato, Two Potato

3. Father Goose

4. The Organizer

5. That Man from Rio

The Lowdown: Relatively weak lineup here, with the latter two having active plotholes that make these nominations (their only ones in 1964) feel all the odder.  It reads in some ways as weird to give this statue to A Hard Day's Night, a movie that frequently evokes being made just as the Beatles are randomly being screened, it's so spontaneous.  But that's not really the case-it just feels that way due to Alun Owen's fizzy script.  I therefore pick it over the showier (and more writerly One Potato, Two Potato), a racial drama that has largely been forgotten at this point but is worth your time if you've never heard of it.

Sound

1. My Fair Lady

2. Mary Poppins

3. Becket

4. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

5. Father Goose

The Lowdown: When it comes to Oscar, you have to remember that he likes what he likes, and in the Mixing category, even in the 1960's, what he liked was musicals which is why 60% of this category falls into that category.  For me, Molly Brown isn't worthy to be in the same sentence as the other two...so we won't do that.  Mary Poppins has the added advantage of incorporating animation into its sound sequences, and so if this was a contest between the two for editing, I'd be a bit more inclined to spread the wealth, but given it's solely Mixing (and we had to make sure that Marni Nixon felt organic to the story), I'm going to go with Eliza & her crew.

Sound Editing

1. Goldfinger

2. The Lively Set

The Lowdown: 1964 was only the second year that Oscar was distinguishing between Mixing and Editing (it's why 1963 will be the first year we do these separate categories for the My Ballot awards), but even then, it was very clear that he had his preferences, picking both the action-adventures and the car racing scenes (if only there was a submarine, this would truly feel in Oscar's wheelhouse).  For me, it's not just that Goldfinger is a much better picture (The Lively Set, for those who haven't heard of it, is a snore), but also it has considerably better special sound effects, as The Lively Set's race cars (experimental though they may be) do not compare to the explosions on display with 007.

Score

1. The Pink Panther

2. Mary Poppins

3. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

4. Becket

5. The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Lowdown: Truly sensational work from Henry Mancini (give or take "Moon River," the best thing he's ever done), The Pink Panther comes in with its sole nomination and totally sells it.  With all due respect to the luxurious Charlotte, and the breathtaking high-flying antics of Mary Poppins, there's really no other option but to pick one of the most memorable movie tunes of all time (I had to check, and Oscar went with my second place, which is an understandable if not acceptable path...this should've been Mancini's). 

Scoring

1. My Fair Lady

2. A Hard Day's Night

3. Mary Poppins

4. Robin and the 7 Hoods

5. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The Lowdown: Given the musical was on life support by 1964, it is bonkers how good the Top 3 is here (I've got a few more to see, but it'll take a tsunami to best one of these for my My Ballot).  The other two basically don't exist for me, and it's three musicals, with me weirdly picking the one that wasn't original, mostly because it does a superb way of expanding beyond the confines of a Broadway stage to really feel like it's taking up space...with truly loverly incorporation of these classic tunes.  But A Hard Day's Night or Mary Poppins would've been worthy had Oscar picked them (forgive the weird photo collage on this one...I forgot to include A Hard Day's Night and I'd already deleted my individual photos so didn't want to have to recreate this from scratch).

Original Song

1. "Chim Chim Cheree" (Mary Poppins)

2. "My Kind of Town" (Robin and the 7 Hoods)

3. "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" (Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte)

4. "Where Love Has Gone" (Where Love Has Gone)

5. "Dear Heart" (Dear Heart)

The Lowdown: One of those categories where Oscar only chose good nominees...but my list is going to look much different because, quite frankly, 1964's Original Song options are absurd (thank the lord My Fair Lady wasn't an original).  For the win it's a hard bet between the top 4, with sentiment and a bit of magic giving Mary Poppins the win over Frank Sinatra and two lush ballads, in an era where those sorts of songs still became standards.  Really, though, any of the Top 4 is better than you'd guess and makes a strong choice for the win.

Art Direction (B&W)

1. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

2. The Night of the Iguana

3. Zorba the Greek

4. The Americanization of Emily

5. Seven Days in May

The Lowdown: I mean, I'm a sucker for a gigantic swamp-ravaged mansion, particularly when you've got it surrounded by Olivia de Havilland & Bette Davis in a horror film.  The detailing in Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte and the way that the ambience becomes almost part of the story (it certainly helps to aid the story) gives it the edge over The Night of the Iguana and Zorba the Greek, both of which have surprisingly more outdoor scenes (something that at this era usually precluded nominations here) than you'd expect.

Art Direction (Color)

1. My Fair Lady

2. Becket

3. What a Way to Go!

4. Mary Poppins

5. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The Lowdown: Much more into this lineup, and honestly having a hard time between the Top 2 (all of them are good though).  I think I'm picking My Fair Lady because there's more personality in the set pieces (particularly the streets of London, which are gorgeous studio shot situations, as well as Professor Higgins' house), though I am in awe of what they're doing in the gigantic expansions of Becket.  I also love the ingenuity of What a Way to Go!, as we are so informed on the men in this picture through the sets themselves.

Cinematography (B&W)

1. Zorba the Greek

2. The Night of the Iguana

3. The Americanization of Emily

4. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

5. Fate is the Hunter

The Lowdown: With the exception of Fate is the Hunter (which if you have been around this blog a long time you might remember I reviewed for our Saturdays with the Stars tribute to Nancy Kwan six years ago), this is a really strong list (I know I'm repeating myself in praising 1964's Academy Awards, but it's very true for both Cinematography lineups-Oscar outdid himself).  I like the sweaty heat of The Night of the Iguana, the sophistication of The Americanization of Emily, and the gothic horror of Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte's involved lensing, but you can't compete with Anthony Quinn's dancing in Zorba the Greek.  It is the most indelible image of his long career for a reason-the playful way the team plays with long & close shots...it's something else.

Cinematography (Color)

1. Cheyenne Autumn

2. My Fair Lady

3. Becket

4. Mary Poppins

5. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The Lowdown: All five of these are 4-star or higher achievements-this is one of the best lineups of Color Cinematography Oscar pulled together.  In terms of the actual win, My Fair Lady, Becket, & Cheyenne Autumn, all three very different takes on cinematography (one showing the majesty of a studio lot, the next lots of interior location shoots, and the next the grandeur of Monument Valley).  I have to pick Cheyenne Autumn if forced to choose.  It's large-scale, epic John Ford grandeur (when that was about to stop being a thing) at its very best, a beautiful tribute to a dying film genre, with every scene basically a painting. 

Costume Design (B&W)

1. The Night of the Iguana

2. The Visit

3. A House is Not a Home

4. Kisses for My President

5. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

The Lowdown: This category features Kisses for My President, maybe in the Top 10 most disagreeable films I've seen for this project (at least pre-1967)...which still has better costumes than some.  Honestly, this field is a list of relatively decent contenders, but not necessarily any truly outstanding ones.  I think it's a competition between Night of the Iguana, a sexy batch of heat-sweltered looks from Ava Gardner, Richard Burton, & Sue Lyon, and then a gorgeous array of looks from Ingrid Bergman in The Visit.  I think I'll go with Gardner & Burton looks lusty over Bergman's fanciful wealth, but it's a close contest.

Costume Design (Color)

1. My Fair Lady

2. What a Way to Go!

3. Mary Poppins

4. Becket

5. The Unsinkable Molly Brown

The Lowdown: On the flip side, you have the Color categories, where literally all of these are outstanding, and at least a few I expect to make it to my My Ballot when all is said and done.  The best look, and probably what's getting it the win, is that Royal Ascot iconography of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (all the looks are good...but that scene is film history), which is a shame as the pink deliciousness of What a Way to Go! deserves a win just as much.

Film Editing

1. Becket

2. Mary Poppins

3. My Fair Lady

4. Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte

5. Father Goose

The Lowdown: Potentially hot take, but when it comes to the three Best Picture nominees cited here (all of which, at this point, you should understand my love of to the point you can cut me some slack for not being a full-on stan), none of them seem like you could call them "film editing" standouts.  I think that Becket wins here in part because it has a stronger and better build in its expected tension than either Mary Poppins or especially My Fair Lady, and so I'm giving it the title, but in a year where Oscar was a monolith, I kind of wish they'd have gone with some different options here (you'll see a lot of different titles when I tackle this for the My Ballot).  Also, because this write-up made me look like I didn't like Father Goose, I want to be very clear for the record that I did (it's just not in the same league as some of these other movies...but I have deeply fond memories of watching it with my little brother and our beloved aunt-and-uncle when we were kids in their apartment in Wyoming).

Special Visual Effects

1. Mary Poppins

2. 7 Faces of Dr. Lao

The Lowdown: Both of these are intriguing options, but only one of them is legendary.  The way that Mary Poppins incorporates animation into the live-action scenes is not new (Disney had been doing this as far back as Song of the South), but it'd never been so seamless.  It felt like Andrews & van Dyke (and those two kids) had been popped into this world in a way that was sparkly but also believable.  7 Faces of Dr. Lao is really more of an achievement in makeup effects if we're being totally honest (and those are a bit racist given one of Tony Randall's characters is in yellowface), but some of the claymation figures, particularly the Medusa tentacles, are impressively ahead of their time.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1972, 1981, 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, 2025

Death Wish (1974)

Film: Death Wish (1974)

Stars: Charles Bronson, Vincent Gardenia, William Redfield, Hope Lange

Director: Michael Winner

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 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 Charles Bronson: click here to learn more about Mr. Bronson (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Charles Bronson's career and star persona would've certainly been different were it not for today's movie.  At the age of 52, most character actors are transitioning out of the limelight or more stunt-heavy spots, and instead becoming the sage for a younger, more famous actor (or playing the father to a younger, more famous actress).  It's rare, though, that you are going to become a true movie star in your 50's, but that's what Bronson did.  At this point, it's worth noting (as we've seen the past few weeks) that Charles Bronson was a relatively decent & successful box office draw, specifically in Europe, but he wasn't as big of a deal in the United States.  Death Wish would change that, though.  The movie, in 1974, would become a cultural phenomenon, making an extraordinary amount of money, and staying in the box office for weeks on-end.  To give you a perspective of how long the legs were for this movie, it became the #1 movie in America on its twentieth week at the box office, and would end the year as the #9 movie of 1974, putting Bronson in the same leading man category as people like Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, & Charlton Heston.

(Spoilers Ahead) The politics and cultural resonance of Death Wish, though, is controversial, and that involves getting into the plot.  The film is about Paul Kersey (Bronson), who is very in love with his beautiful wife Joanna (Lange), with whom he has one adult daughter.  One day, a group of hooligans (including a very young Jeff Goldblum) break into the Kersey's home, murdering Joanna and raping his daughter.  Paul, a relatively mild-mannered architect, cannot handle that the two women he loves will not receive justice, and so he decides to take the law into his own hands.  He goes out, trains himself with a gun, and then starts to purposefully get mugged in the streets of New York by petty criminals who threaten his life.  He then turns around, and starts to murder them, all technically in self-defense, but clearly with the intention of killing them each time he goes out.  During this time, the city of New York starts to celebrate him, even as Inspector Frank Ochoa (Gardenia) tries to capture Paul, which he does (with the help of a very young Christopher Guest), but has to set him free because Paul, as the "vigilante" has become a folk hero.

The politics of Death Wish are not subtle, and it's worth noting a history lesson here.  The New York of the 1970's was dramatically different than it is today, and that's also true of America at large.  Violent crime rates spiked notably in the 1970's, and that increase would hold until the early 1990's when they would drop precipitously (despite what you may see on Fox News, America is considerably safer now than in the latter-half of the 20th Century).  This would, oddly enough, coincide with when Bronson would be a proper leading man, and might explain the divergence in opinion on Death Wish.  The movie sparked hot debate at the time-virtually every film critic of the era, from Roger Ebert to Vincent Canby to Charles Champlin to Gene Siskel all made a point of arguing that it was kind of reprehensible, essentially arguing that violence is the only way to stop other violence, and that it's not important to understand what is causing this rise in crime-just that we destroy it, even if it means trampling on people's civil liberties & right-to-justice in the process.  Even the author of the novel that inspired the movie, Brian Garfield, would try to distance himself from the picture.

Watching the film, it's hard not to agree with these critics.  Bronson's character is not super complicated, and while he plays him as a bit of a fish-out-of-water, he doesn't have the same everyman appeal that, say, Bruce Willis would have a few years later in Die Hard in a similar motif.  The film's then-aggressive violence is rather tame by modern standards (save for the brutal break-in scene), and Winner's confidence with editing & cinematography (and Bronson's undeniable presence) make it very watchable-it's easy to see why this was a hit, but it's completely fair to say that the film glorifies the violence it indulges in, and offers little in the way of political commentary other than endorsing the behavior of Bronson's Paul.  Hell, even by the end the police officer is supporting this sort of brutality.  On its technical merits, it's a 3-star movie (it's too good for me to go lower), but it also borders into dangerous in its messaging.  It's so sleek and so well-paced that it's clearly condoning this type of violence, and so I think the film's complicated legacy is justified (and it's hard to celebrate it's glorification & countless sequels).  And as we'll talk about next week in our final Saturday with Charles Bronson, it would change the trajectory of the actor's career, definitely for the more lucrative, but also making him a far less daring performer compared to the man who once starred in genuine classics like The Great Escape and Once Upon a Time in the West.