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...
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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