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

OVP: The Turning Point (1977)

Film: The Turning Point (1977)

Stars: Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine, Tom Skerritt, Leslie Browne, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Martha Scott

Director: Herbert Ross

Oscar History: 11 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actress-Shirley MacLaine, Actress-Anne Bancroft, Supporting Actor-Mikhail Baryshnikov, Supporting Actress-Leslie Browne, Original Screenplay, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Shirley MacLaine-click here to learn more about Ms. MacLaine (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We are jumping 16 years into Shirley MacLaine's career this week (really, MacLaine is one of those actors we should probably return to someday for this series as she's had such a long career in movies) to 1977.  In the years after The Children's Hour, MacLaine had what were probably the peak years of her fame.  She got another Oscar nomination for Irma la Douce, replaced Marilyn Monroe in What a Way to Go! and was winning opposite Michael Caine in Gambit (an underrated movie).  By the 1970's, though MacLaine's star wasn't nearly as bright as it had been.  Sweet Charity bombing at the box office (today we consider this one of MacLaine's signature roles, but at the time it was a massive flop) cost her dearly, as did the low-rated & quickly-cancelled TV series Shirley's World and between 1972-77 she didn't star in a single narrative film.  Instead she found success in other venues, including her Oscar-nominated documentary The Other Half of the Sky and a series of sold-out concerts she did in London & New York.  But it wasn't until 1977's The Turning Point came along that MacLaine had what would be considered a "cinematic comeback," one that would kick-start a terrific second act for the actress that would dominate the next decade at the movies.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Turning Point is a film that is ostensibly about two women who used to be rivals at a prominent ballet company: Deedee (MacLaine), who got pregnant early in her career and quit to start a family with Wayne (Skerritt), and Emma (Bancroft), a one-time great prima ballerina who has not been able to retire from the ballet despite her best days clearly being behind her.  Deedee's daughter Emilia (Browne) is accepted into Emma's ballet company, and quickly becomes a star, repeating the paths of both Emma (by standing out quickly) and her mother (by romancing her costar Yuri, played by Baryshnikov).  As the film continues, Deedee struggles with her daughter, who clearly favors the path of Emma & wants to emulate her, and with her long-standing jealousies with Emma, whom she begrudges for potentially taking away her chance at stardom.  This culminates in the two women having a rooftop fight where they air their grievances, with Deedee admitting that she still thinks about the career that might have been, and Emma (after fighting this assertion for much of the film) admitting that she encouraged Deedee to get pregnant so that she wouldn't be competition for the titular part in Anna Karenina they were both up for.  The film ends with Emilia becoming a prima ballerina like Emma, and both women rekindling a broken friendship, understanding that Emilia will have regrets about her life no matter what she does next.

The film is at its best when it's trying to talk about this lost youth, a universal topic (no one appreciates their youth until it is over), and one that MacLaine & Bancroft both embody.  Their rooftop argument is the best part of the picture, and it gives it a life that (quite frankly) it's lacking in the remainder of the movie.  MacLaine is good at capturing that worry that she made the wrong decision, that fear that she made a decision not because it was the correct one, but because it was the easy one.  Bancroft, too, captures this-she lived MacLaine's dream, even if she knew it would eventually fade as she got older, and has to now accept that her time in the spotlight is done.  These two are at their best when they are playing off of each other, two actresses that never really got past their prime (even if they're playing characters that feel their greatest moments are memories).

The problem with The Turning Point is that much of the film is not centered around these two women, but instead their relationships with Emilia.  Browne's Oscar nomination is kind of notorious at this point because she's considered such a leaden actress, but this belief is not incorrect upon my visiting the picture.  There are times where you almost think she's doing this weird avant-garde character work (like when she randomly affects a Russian accent in a drunken bar scene), but that's not the case-it's just wooden & mechanical.  One could say the same for Baryshnikov, but he's asked to do less work than Browne in keeping the film afloat, and he also has a magnetism (particularly in the dance sequences) that is impossible to ignore.  Browne doesn't stand out as a dancer in the same way (she's talented, but you don't see why she's a great rather than just as good as the rest of the chorus line), and she brings down huge chunks of the movie.  Neither Bancroft nor MacLaine can elevate her scenes, and honestly, she makes you question whether these two women should've been included in Oscar's lineup at all considering they can't pull off their scenes with Browne.

As a result, I'm mixed on The Turning Point, a movie that infamously was cited for 11 Oscars but won none.  The rest of the tech awards are a mixed bag.  The cinematography for the dance sequences is impressive, though so magical & outside the rest of the picture it honestly feels a bit cheap to give it a full nomination (it'd be like nominating only half the film).  The sound & editing are in the same boat-great dancing, the rest not as much, though what I will say for the editing is that they do a great job of hiding that Bancroft is not an actual dancer (strangely it was MacLaine who in real life trained in ballet, not Bancroft whose character is the great talent in the picture).  The Art Direction might be my favorite of the tech nominations-you do get a sense of the opulent grandeur of the stage, and unlike the other tech nominations, it doesn't feel like it's lacking in the scenes not directly associated with the dancing, as all of the homes & dressing rooms feel like reflections of the actual characters.  This is all to say, it's less the film was snubbed by not winning a single Oscar & more that the film was simply over-rewarded in a year that, to be fair to Oscar, didn't have a lot of obvious contenders beyond the two alien odysseys & Annie Hall.

OVP: Agnes of God (1985)

Film: Agnes of God (1985)

Stars: Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Meg Tilly

Director: Norman Jewison

Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Actress-Anne Bancroft, Supporting Actress-Meg Tilly, Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We are continuing on our look at the category of Best Supporting Actress with a turn from the mid-1980's, and one that has a bit of history behind it.  Meg Tilly is not an actress we talk a lot about today, but she is part of a really good trivia question-Tilly and her older sister Jennifer are one of only three pairs of sisters to be nominated for acting Oscars, and they are the only ones to have been nominated without competing against each other (to date).  Infamously Joan Fontaine beat Olivia de Havilland at the 1941 Academy Awards, and (less infamously, since unlike Joan & Olivia they were lifelong friends), Lynn & Vanessa Redgrave both lost to Elizabeth Taylor at the 1966 Oscars.  While Jennifer would score a surprise nomination for 1994's Bullets Over Broadway, her younger sister won her nomination a decade earlier, for a more conventional role (by Oscar standards) in the filmed adaptation of the play Agnes of God.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around three women.  The first, whom we meet in the opening scenes, is Sister Agnes (Tilly), a novice at a conservative nunnery who is found bleeding profusely after giving birth to a now stillborn baby.  It is unclear if Sister Agnes has killed her baby (or if she has miscarried), and so a court-appointed psychiatrist named Martha (Fonda) is assigned to investigate the case, under the watchful eye of Mother Miriam (Bancroft) who distrusts Martha & seemingly wants to protect Agnes.  This sets off a strange series of events, as the film encounters conversations about faith (Martha is a former believer, Agnes & Miriam are deeply entrenched in the church, frequently at the cost of Agnes's wellbeing, as she punishes herself through starvation & for getting her period).  We understand as the movie continues that it's likely that Agnes was raped, but after years of mental abuse by her mother didn't understand this & thought that it might be God who had had sex with her.  She is found not guilty (due to an insanity defense), and is left in the convent, the audience never knowing exactly who raped her or what Mother Miriam's true contribution to the death of the child is.

If that plot description feels a little sloppy, it's because this movie is pretty sloppy.  It feels like for the bulk of the movie that the writers don't have an answer as to why Agnes keeps exhibiting stigmata (seemingly out-of-nowhere), and who actually is the father of her baby.  It also doesn't feel like they (or Bancroft) know whether or not Mother Miriam intended to provide the tools for Agnes to kill either herself or the child, though Bancroft's guilt toward the end makes me believe that she knew there was a chance this mentally ill woman would kill her baby.

As a result, the film's Oscar nominations feel cheap.  Tilly's work is routine-she's asked to be beautiful & innocent, but she doesn't bring enough perspective to her work for my taste, and this feels like a flat creation.  The same can be said for Bancroft, who really gets a goose egg in her final Oscar-nominated role, particularly considering Bancroft had done very well with interpreting stage work to the screen before.  She always feels like she's showing her cards in this performance, as if she forgot "oh crap, this scene I'm supposed to act guilty."  Fonda, the only one of the three without an Oscar nomination, has the least showy role, but also doesn't find much to do here.  The only nomination that feels somewhat earned is Georges Delerue's chilling (but forgettable) score, giving the film an atmosphere that no one else seems able to match.