OVP: The Towering Inferno (1974)

Film: The Towering Inferno (1974)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, Jennifer Jones, OJ Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Jack Collins

Director: John Guillermin

Oscar History: 7 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture, Supporting Actor-Fred Astaire, Art Direction, Cinematography*, Film Editing*, Score, Song, Sound)

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 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's career hit its financial peak in 1974, when he starred with Paul Newman in today's film The Towering Inferno.  At this point, Newman & McQueen were two of the biggest names in movies, and there were quite a few arguments over who would get top billing in the picture (ultimately it was a draw, with McQueen's name first but Newman's name higher), but after this both would suffer career lulls.  Newman would rebound eventually in the 1980's with films like The Verdict and The Color of Money, the latter winning him his only competitive Oscar, but McQueen would never regain this position.  He'd make an ill-fated Ibsen film in 1978 (one that would basically disappear from public consciousness), and then a pair of pictures in 1980 (Tom Horn and The Hunter), both decent-sized hits that might have hallmarked a comeback, but that wasn't to be.  Just over three months after the release of The Hunter, Steve McQueen would be dead.

(Spoilers Ahead) But before we get into that, let's get into the height of his career, at least commercially.  The Towering Inferno was a landmark movie in terms of its box office in 1974.  In the previous years, films like Airport and The Poseidon Adventure had found a formula for success-put a bunch of famous stars, including at least a few studio system legends that can scoop up a supporting acting Oscar nomination, and place them in an insane disaster situation, one that will have at least a few of them die, but the audience can look on in horror as we wonder who from this insanely-stacked call sheet might be safe.  This film is no less than these, and arguably has the starriest cast  of the bunch, but is much more in the vein of Airport (which I did not enjoy) than The Poseidon Adventure (which I did enjoy, in large part due to Shelley Winters' solid work).  The film has the tallest building in the world on fire, and all of our characters, including architect Newman and firefighter McQueen, fighting to stay alive as more-and-more paths to the ground floor are forfeited.  Along the way, some live (including, surprisingly, conman Fred Astaire), and some die, most shockingly Jennifer Jones, who in a morbid twist would be flung from the top of a giant building in the movie two years before her daughter would commit suicide in exactly the same way.

If only the movie was any good.  Technically, this is impressive-the set design, effects, and especially the stunt work are out-of-this-world, but the film spends no time trying to develop the characters, giving us two-dimensional feats from genuinely talented actors.  It's not like someone like Faye Dunaway or Paul Newman can't add a bit of three-dimensionality to their work, but there's no call for it.  Our star of the month, Steve McQueen, feels almost ancillary to the plot of the picture even as he's supposed to be the hero.  Fred Astaire would receive his only competitive acting Oscar nomination for this movie, and man is it unnecessary-he barely has anything to do, other than shout for a dead Jennifer Jones toward the end of the picture.  It feels weird to live in a world where Fred Astaire (whom I love) never got a competitive acting nomination, but, like...over John Cazale in The Godfather, Part II or John Huston in Chinatown...let's not be ridiculous here.

As I said above, Steve McQueen would disappear from movies after this, having a bit of a nomad period where he just went out into the country in a motor home, in the process turning down parts in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Apocalypse Now that might've dramatically changed his legacy.  But his health by the late 1970's was in terrible shape, and he developed mesothelioma (likely due to asbestos exposure from his time in the Marines).  The National Enquirer, at that point most famous for its ongoing coverage of the death of Elvis Presley rather than the right-wing attack ads that it would become known for to modern supermarket shoppers, broke the story that McQueen was dying shortly before his death (he'd been trying to keep it a secret), and McQueen attempted a number of experimental procedures, including a surgery to remove a tumor from his liver in Mexico, a procedure he couldn't have performed in the United States because no doctor would do it (since it would kill him).  12 hours into the surgery, the American doctors were proven correct, and Steve McQueen died at the age of only 50 from a heart attack.

Next month, we're going to talk about a man who was good friends with McQueen, even if they also had something of a professional rivalry during McQueen's early stardom.  Like McQueen, he also would die young, but unlike McQueen, that death would cement his legacy in a way that would in many ways outlast any films he made in life...and would become the source of near constant conspiracy theory in the decades to come, in ways that would haunt his family for generations.

What if Singers Got Nominated for Best Original Song?

Whitney Houston with Bruce Springsteen at the Oscars

I recently was reading an article online (if I could find it, I'd reference it, but alas I cannot) about the new Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody.  In it, they talked about how Houston who won an Emmy & a Grammy, had gotten halfway to the entertainment honorific the "EGOT," coming short a Tony & an Oscar.  In the article, though, they erroneously stated that Houston had been nominated for an Oscar for her songs "I Have Nothing" and "Run to You" from The Bodyguard...which is not true.  Houston was in The Bodyguard, she did sing those songs, and they were cited for Academy Awards (eventually losing to Aladdin), but she wasn't nominated for them because she was not one of the composers or lyricists of the songs.  At the Oscars, the people who sing the Best Original Song nominees in their movies are not nominated-that only goes to the people who write the songs...

...but this got me thinking-what if they did get nominated?  The Best Original Song category started in 1934 at the Oscars, and though the number of nominees have changed through the years, it has been omnipresent ever since.  A quick google search bore out that it was somewhat easy to find the number of people who had sang the most Oscar-winning songs, but not when it came to the Oscar nominees.  And so over Christmas break, I decided that it was my duty to answer that question.  Today we're going to discuss who would be the biggest victors if Oscar gave nominations to the people who sang songs in movies.

Starting this off, it was a lot harder to ascertain who actually sang the songs in some movies than you would expect.  For starters, a lot of songs in movies are sung by choruses or large groups of non-famous people.  Think of a song like "Days of Wine and Roses" where the initial song in the movie is clearly sung by a chorus of singers.  This happens by my count 22 times, including for three winning songs, so I didn't count those for my nomination total.

Secondly, a lot of the most popular versions of Oscar-winning songs weren't sung by those artists in the original movie.  "Days of Wine and Roses," for example, you'd normally associate with Andy Williams, but he didn't sing it in the original movie.  Debby Boone's version of "You Light Up My Life" isn't in the movie of the same name despite being a Number 1 hit for most of 1977, and Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa" is not only not sung by him in Captain Carey USA, it's not even sung in English.  So there was a lot of bubble bursting, particularly for films I hadn't seen, in researching this article.

It also has to be noted that dubbing is frequently used, especially in older films.  If you watched the movies alone, you'd assume that people like Jeanne Crain, Deborah Kerr, & Rita Hayworth would get nominated for Oscars this way, but you'd be wrong-they're all dubbing.  Sally Sweetland, who was a prolific voice dubber for women like Joan Leslie & Martha Vickers in the 1940's, would've gotten three nominations despite never appearing in her movies.

And lastly, I have to admit in some cases it's difficult to know where to draw the line on "who is a principal vocalist or not."  If the Academy allowed this, there'd be rules about it, but I tried my best judgment.  If a song only had one singer, obviously they got it, but in duets or group songs, I went with the primary artists.  This resulted in 376 musicians or musical acts (occasionally I just gave the nomination to a group), singing Oscar nominated songs.  We're going to break down below who benefits the most from this rule change.

14 nominations: The one, undisputed king of nominations this way would be Bing Crosby, who has sung 14 Oscar-nominated songs onscreen, and would've gotten four Oscar statues this way alone to go with his Best Actor citation in 1944.  Everything from legendary songs like "White Christmas" in Holiday Inn and "Swinging on a Star" from Going My Way to songs you'd be forgiven for not knowing ("Zing a Little Zong" being the deepest cut) number among Crosby's nominations.  Crosby's the only person who gets to double digits this way.

9 nominations: Coming in behind Crosby is Fred Astaire, who never won a competitive Oscar, but would've gotten nine nominations and a trophy for "The Way You Look Tonight" from Swing Time.  Astaire's nominations largely come from his work with Ginger Rogers in the 1930's, and only one of his songs comes post 1943 ("Something's Gotta Give" from 1955's Daddy Long Legs).  For comparison's sake, Ginger Rogers only gets two nominations this way, though she'd double her win count for being a vocalist on "The Continental" in The Gay Divorcee (I watched the scene specifically to see if Astaire sang in it, and he doesn't).

7 nominations: Four singers tie for third, with seven songs a piece, and we have a couple of firsts with this quartet.  Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, & Randy Newman all sang seven songs, and it's worth noting that while all of these people are Oscar winners (Garland is the only one who never won a competitive trophy in her career), two of them are noted songwriters.  Both Streisand & Newman have not only been nominated for Best Original Song, but they've also won it (Streisand for 1976's "Evergreen," Newman for 2001's "If I Didn't Have You" and 2010's "We Belong Together").  Both are also still living & work regularly, so if anyone's going to come close to at least tying Astaire, these are your candidates.

6 nominations: Only one singer gets sixth place, and that's Doris Day, who would've gotten two trophies for singing 1953's "Secret Love" (in Calamity Jane) and 1956's "Que Sera Sera" (in The Man Who Knew Too Much).  Day is a first on our list for a very big reason.  While she was nominated for an Oscar in real life (as Best Actress in 1959 for Pillow Talk), she never won an Oscar, not even an honorary trophy, which would make her the first person on this list to not have a statue of some sort from the Academy.  However, you have to go one step down to have the title of "Oscar nominee" bestowed on someone for the first time through this method.

5 nominations: Three singers would get five nominations this way, and while Julie Andrews won Best Actress in 1964, neither Johnny Mathis nor Betty Grable ever were nominated for an Oscar in their lifetimes (Mathis, at age 87, is still alive and still performs, though his last Oscar-nominated song was 1978's "Same Time, Next Year").  Before writing this article, it never would've occurred to me that Mathis should get an Honorary Oscar, but given this distinction...maybe he deserves to at least be in the conversation?

4 nominations: That gets us through the Top 10, though I'll call out some notables for the 3-4 nomination mentions.  Four people have sung four Oscar-nominated songs: Sting, Phil Collins, Jennifer Warnes, & Deanna Durbin.  Sting & Collins are both Oscar-nominated songwriters (Collins has an Oscar), while the other two never won competitive statues (Durbin won a Juvenile Oscar).  Warnes would've cleaned up under these rules-of her three Oscar-nominated songs, only one (1981's "One More Hour") didn't win.

3 nominations: Once you get below 4 nominations, the number of singers get increasingly large, here 15 singers have sung three Oscar-blessed songs.  Three nominations is where Whitney Houston would land (she also sang 1998's "When You Believe," which would've gotten her the Oscar for her hypothetical EGOT if these rules existed).  Alice Faye & Bob Hope are here, both actors who never got Oscar nominations in real life, and we have active singers who could definitely add to their counts in this lineup (Celine Dion, Dolly Parton, & AR Rahman all still work regularly).  For those keeping track at home, this year we'll almost certainly add Lady Gaga to this list, though she's gotten a nomination for each of her songs and would again even if she weren't singing for "Hold My Hand" from Top Gun: Maverick.

OVP: The Sky's the Limit (1943)

Film: The Sky's the Limit (1943)

Stars: Fred Astaire, Joan Leslie, Robert Benchley, Robert Ryan

Director: Edward H. Griffith

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Scoring, Original Song-"My Shining Hour")

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Oscar in the early 1940's tended to nominate a lot of movies, mostly due to a quirk in the music categories, where the number of nominees was bizarrely large.  You'd see fields of songs stretch to 15-20 strong, and as a result there are a lot of movies that have been nominated simply for their music that otherwise would've been long-gone in the AMPAS pantheon.  This occasionally means that we get films that aren't impressive, cited for songs that aren't all that good.  That's not the case here-The Sky's the Limit, as we'll discuss below, has a solid song nominated for best Original Song, a nod that Oscar shouldn't at all be ashamed of.  The strange part of it is...the movie features one of the best-loved songs of the entire decade, one of the most important songs of Fred Astaire's career, which was eligible for this film, but somehow didn't get the inclusion over the less iconic ballad.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place during World War II, where flying ace Fred Atwell (Astaire) comes home on a ten-day leave a national hero with a ticker-tape parade.  Fred is supposed to be on a tour boosting national morale, but he wants to have fun (and meet some girls) so he sneaks away from the trip and meets Joan Manion (Leslie) at a nightclub.  She's a singer there, and so Fred, tired of being always identified with his hero persona, lies to her and pretends to just be a roustabout.  She attempts to get him a job, which of course he doesn't want because he has to go back to the front soon, but their unlikely chemistry sparks into love, and soon Fred must decide if and when he's going to tell Joan that he loves her and that he is, in fact, a war hero.

The movie is a relatively run-of-the-mill piece of wartime propaganda, a standard romance whose appreciation of it will depend entirely on your latitude with the two stars.  I personally adore Fred Astaire, and will watch him in anything, so I liked the movie even if the film's plot is absurd.  It's silly after a while that when Astaire's Fred starts to fall for Leslie's Joan that he doesn't just come out and tell her that he's a pilot, after all, he's going to have to eventually & leaving her behind feels a bit bizarre.  But it's short & sweet & to the point, and a fun way to spend a Sunday morning while you're folding laundry.

The film's two Oscar nominations are bizarre, though, as I mentioned above.  The film was nominated for Scoring, which is logical (it is a musical), though it doesn't have a lot of interesting dancing for an Astaire picture (only a couple of numbers with Leslie), and only three really significant songs.  One of them, "My Shining Hour" is pleasant & reprised, with Leslie & Astaire dancing wordlessly to it  It's lovely, truly-there's nothing wrong with this nomination...

...except that this movie features "One for My Baby," which I assumed initially was already a standard that Astaire had had put into the film (this happened a lot in this era).  That wasn't the case-"One for My Baby," a ballad that has been popularized by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Bette Midler (who famously sang it on the final Johnny Carson episode of The Tonight Show) was written specifically for Astaire for this film, meaning it was eligible for the Oscar.  The number is dynamite in the film, with a lovelorn Astaire singing it to a bartender, knowing he can't be with the girl he loved because he's shipping out, and while I get that "My Shining Hour" is a good song & great within the confines of the film, this is arguably the most important song of Astaire's career, and I don't honestly get how "One for My Baby" didn't get the Oscar citation.

OVP: Carefree (1938)

Film: Carefree (1938)

Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ralph Bellamy, Luella Gear, Jack Carson, Hattie McDaniel

Director: Mark Sandrich

Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Art Direction, Scoring, Original Song-"Change Partners")

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The partnership of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers is the stuff of cinematic legend, one of the most iconic pairings in Classical Hollywood.  That the two were at best "fine" with the pairing by 1938 was something that was starting to be reflexive in its box office returns.  Carefree, our movie for today, is the eighth in the ten films that the two made together, and was the first movie starring the two not to turn a profit according to box office receipts at the time.  It was also one of the first films in the series to really mess with the formula of the two, being shorter than you normally saw from an Astaire-Rogers picture, and with far less-dancing.  The result is a quirky (the plot is weird if not unpleasant) little musical with much less of what we'd learned to love from the Astaire-Rogers pairings in terms of toe-tapping.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is centered on Tony Flagg (Astaire), a psychiatrist who has been asked by his friend Stephen (Bellamy) to help make his girlfriend Amanda (Rogers) come to a decision on whether they should be married or not.  Amanda is a successful singer, and isn't sure she's ready to give that life up, or if Stephen is the right guy for her.  Tony puts Amanda under hypnosis, and in the process Amanda comes to (in a trance) and starts destroying property & behaving as a menace.  She also, in the process, begins to start having dreams about her doctor, and becomes convinced she's in love with him, not Stephen.  Eventually Tony realizes after putting Amanda under a trance again (where he instructs her to not like him) that he is in love with her, but at that point it's too late...until of course it isn't when in the end Tony interrupts Stephen & Amanda's marriage, and during one more subconscious session, convinces her he loves her.

As I said above, unlike a lot of Astaire/Rogers films, this one has less focus on the dancing than you'd expect.  At this point in their partnership, the public's interest in the couple was waning, and their careers were headed in different directions.  Rogers was on an upswing, as the success of Stage Door proved she didn't really need Astaire, and within a few years, she'd be an Oscar winner & the highest-paid actress in Hollywood.  Astaire, meanwhile, was in the middle of one of his down swings (we think of him as one of the great performers of the Golden Age, which he was, but that was checkered with several comebacks as he went in-and-out of fashion).  The plot is a bit, silly, but it's kind of fun.  It allows Rogers, in particular, some great comedic moments as she has to wander throughout her hypnotized state, oftentimes for laughs.  But I will admit as someone who just adores Fred Astaire, I could've used one or two more musical numbers.

The film won three Oscar nominations.  The art direction is sublime (isn't it always in Astaire-Rogers musicals?), with gigantic ballrooms, large spacious offices, and a glorious wedding hall among the highlights.  It all feels very modern, but in an elegant way...you can definitely see the money that was clearly spent on this film (the first of the pairings partnerships to lose money).  The scoring is good, though as I mentioned there's only really one number that's of note, and the rest is just sort of there (it's lovely, because of the stars, but there's nothing notable here).  The one number that stands out, though not ultimately in the pairings long pantheon of dancing, is "Change Partners," which is the Oscar-nominated turn.  It's sung at the very end of the picture as Fred is trying to woo Ginger away from Ralph Bellamy, and it's quite lovely-sort of this lovelorn song about a man trying to win back a girl who is with someone else.  It became a standard afterward, and it works quite well within the picture.

OVP: Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Film: Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Stars: Delores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Raul Roulien, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire

Director: Thornton Freeland

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Carioca)...I listed 1933 for this because it came out in 1933, but it's worth remembering that since it came out on December 29th it was eligible at the 1934 Oscars, and that's what the label below is indicating since those are based on Oscar ceremonies more than the actual calendar years.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Few cinematic pairings are linked together in the same way as Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers.  Like Abbott & Costello or Bogart & Bacall, the two are synonymous, and their films are the stuff of legend at this point.  I have seen a chunk (though not a majority of their films), but what I didn't realize when I started watching Flying Down to Rio the other day was that their first film didn't have them in the leads.  Flying Down to Rio is the premiere movie of their ten-picture pairings, and it's also a movie that does feature the two dancing, but they aren't the stars, and their love story (if you can call it that) is ancillary to the plot.

(Spoilers Ahead) While they aren't the leads, this film follows the path of most Astaire/Rogers pictures in that the plot is unneeded at best & mostly a vehicle for singing & dancing, but we'll still give it its paragraph.  Roger Bond (Raymond) is a composer who tours with a band that includes vocalist Honey (Rogers) & assistant band leader Fred (Astaire).  Roger is in love with one of the women in the audience at a show, Belinha (del Rio), who is heavily chaperoned & he's unable to make a play for her.  He finally finds a way by flying her to Rio, and getting to a deserted island when they have to make an emergency landing.  It's clear the two love each other, but Belinha confesses she's engaged.  When they make it to Rio, it turns out that Belinha is engaged to Roger's buddy Julio (Roulien), and a love triangle emerges between the three, which Julio concedes after realizing that Belinha is in love with Fred and not him.

The main plot is blasé, and not worth our time.  Del Rio would be a big star in her era, but neither she nor Raymond have the same level of ubiquity that Rogers & Astaire do because they aren't that good-the chemistry between the two is middling, while the latter's is dynamic (there's a reason that they were given movies together after this...it's like watching lightning-in-a-bottle when they're onscreen together for the first time).  If you're someone who is solely interested in scripts or plot, this is not a good fit for you.

That being said, Flying Down to Rio is fun.  The repartee between Astaire & Rogers is delicious (and sometimes a bit salacious...this is pre-Code, after all), and their dancing is dynamite.  It's easy to see why "Carioca," an otherwise bland & ineffectual song, got nominated for an Oscar, and it's because they were basically just nominating the Astaire/Rogers dance routine.  Del Rio's famous bikini scene is played without too much notice (she was the first actress to appear in a bikini in a major studio film)-no wolf whistles or bug eyes, but the movie's other major calling card, the incredible trick photography that made it seem like a bunch of chorus girls are dancing on the wings of a plane is awe-inspiring.  Linwood Dunn (the genius behind the visual trickery of King Kong, Citizen Kane, and the original Star Trek TV series) was behind this, and it's amazing.  Obviously a modern audience can see the way he did this, but compared to other films of its era it's extraordinary, and clearly influential.  Astaire/Rogers and Dunn's "aerial ballet" are worth the price of admission even if you might not be vested in del Rio & Raymond's listless affair.

OVP: You'll Never Get Rich (1941)

Film: You'll Never Get Rich (1941)
Stars: Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Robert Benchley, John Hubbard, Osa Massen
Director: Sidney Lanfield
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Scoring, Original Song-"Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Rita Hayworth-click here to learn more about Ms. Hayworth (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We are going to start our month-long look at the career of Rita Hayworth with arguably the film that catapulted her from being a notable side character in films like The Strawberry Blonde and Blood and Sand (where she was still getting out-billed by other actresses such as Olivia de Havilland and Linda Darnell) into being not just a proper leading lady, but arguably the most important film star on the Columbia lot throughout the 1940's.  She did this, weirdly enough, by teaming with someone whose career at the time was on the wane, Fred Astaire (someday we'll include Astaire as a "Star of the Month" because few actors this side of Frank Sinatra had so many "career lulls & comebacks" to profile).  Hayworth's early years on the lot, despite not being a trained singer (something that Hayworth resented the studio for not helping her with), were almost entirely based in musical comedies, and that was due to the immense success of You'll Never Get Rich.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is a fluffy romp that puts Robert Curtis (Astaire), a tyrannical manager of a theater, into the firing line of Sheila Winthrop (Hayworth), the most promising dancer in his troupe. The theater's owner Martin Cortland (Benchley, and yes this is the "Robert Benchley" of Algonquin Round Table fame), is enamored with Sheila, and is trying to woo her, but there's a problem-he's married and his wife is in control of all of his money, so he can't get a divorce without ending up in the poorhouse.  Through a series of misunderstandings (You'll Never Get Rich is a movie where you have to suspend a lot of belief), Robert initially is thrown into a faux courtship with Sheila, and then to escape it he joins the army.  While in the army he reveals that he's madly in love with her, and tries to win her back even though she's being pursued by Captain Barton (Hubbard).  All the while, Martin keeps getting Robert in trouble with his philandering ways as he pursues a different showgirl Sonya (Massen).  The film ends with Martin finally confessing his role in keeping Sheila & Robert apart due to his own selfishness, and the two end up in each other's arms.

You'll Never Get Rich is a mess, but the best kind of mess.  The plot rarely makes sense (there's a series of random sight gags involving Astaire and two bumbling sidekicks of his played by veteran character actors Cliff Nazarro and Guinn Williams, but it's not entirely clear what binds the three other than convenience), and the romance at the center is a bit of a stretch (why, exactly, does Sheila love Robert?), but you won't care.  This is a fun movie, one filled with great dancing, and though the songs are less memorable (that Scoring nomination doesn't feel as earned as some of the other nominees that year), it's a joy to see Astaire & Hayworth together.  Astaire would later confess that his favorite onscreen dancing partner was not Ginger Rogers or Cyd Charisse, but instead Hayworth, with whom he'd make this film and one other, You Were Never Lovelier, which we won't get to this month, but it was nominated for several Oscars so it'll show up eventually.

The movie received a second Oscar nomination, for its original song "Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye," which is unusual, though it doesn't involve our featured actress at all.  It is sung halfway through the film, with an all-black singing quartet called the Four Tones doing vocals while Astaire dances and sings a little bit nearby.  The scene is notable because it couldn't have possibly happened in real life-at the time, the army was segregated, and would remain so until the end of the 1940's.  It's hard to know what Columbia and director Sidney Lanfield were trying to do by sending a message of inclusivity in the film, insinuating that a white man like Astaire would be serving in the same unit as black soldiers, but I thought it was worth noting for having such a political message (for its era) in a movie that otherwise is pretty fluffy.

Silk Stockings (1957)

Film: Silk Stockings (1957)
Stars: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Oscar History: Despite the film's rather storied place in musical history, it received no Oscar nominations.  It did, however, get two Globe citations for Best Picture & Best Actress (Charisse).
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We enter Week 4 of our look at the career of Cyd Charisse with what will be our final musical from the actress.  As has been noted before, Charisse's career at MGM led to a series of much-lauded musicals, many of which are still beloved today (like Silk Stockings) but the films were not particularly financially-successful, and shortly after Silk Stockings came out, Charisse largely retired from musicals and from dancing in general.  As a result, she ended up with a quintet of truly beloved musicals during this time all but one of which we've chronicled here (In Singin in the Rain Charisse wasn't the lead, and weirdly I've never reviewed the picture on the blog, something I'll rectify the next time I see it, though it's pretty much a perfect film so its place at the top of this pantheon is appropriate).  Next week, for our final outing with the actress, we'll be looking at one of her rarer non-musical roles, but this week we conclude her run as the best hoofer on the MGM lot during the 1950's with Silk Stockings.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around Steve Canfield (Astaire), a film producer who wants a Russian composer to help him score his next picture.  The problem is that the Soviet government doesn't want Boroff to leave, and is worried that he'll defect to the West (they're accurate in assuming this-he has every intention of leaving), and so they send a trio of bungling government agents (including Peter Lorre) to Paris to monitor Boroff's involvement in the film.  The men become entranced with the city and the western indulgences (and western women), and as a result Ninotchka (Charisse), a stern government agent, is sent to the city to monitor them, but in the process also falls in love with Steve.

If that plot sounds very familiar, it should.  Ninotchka was a 1939 film where Greta Garbo filled the role played here by Charisse, and was a smash hit in 1939 for MGM; George Tobias, best known today for his role as Abner Kravitz in Bewitched, actually appears in both films.  Like our last outing with Astaire & Charisse, there's a lot to offer here.  The musical and dance numbers are sublime, with particular attention to be paid to Charisse's wordless poetry in the title sequence, where she dances with (and eventually puts on) silk stockings.  There's also a great moment late in the film where Astaire smashes his top hat, which wasn't just literal but also a metaphor in the film.  At this point in his career Astaire had basically given up on musicals and was ready to retire from dancing.  Though he'd appear in television specials in the next few years, this was basically it for the spats-and-top-hat look for Astaire, and his penultimate musical.  He'd play an Irish rogue eleven years later in Finian's Rainbow opposite Petula Clark, but otherwise would only do straight or comedic roles for the rest of his career.

I've bagged a bit this month on Charisse's abilities as an actress, which feels mean, and it's not like she doesn't have talents for film, it's just that they only come across in her dancing, not her acting.  This is arguably the best performance we've seen from the actress so far this month, and while I wouldn't have nominated her for anything, she shows a comedic ability that we haven't really noticed prior to this.  However, it's hard to focus on Charisse when Janis Paige is starring opposite her.  Paige is magnificent in this role, and should have gotten an Oscar nomination for her work as Peggy Dayton, a scandalous picture star who is trying to play a serious part (but can't seem to commit to it, constantly throwing in musical numbers for herself).  Paige was never really a leading lady like Charisse, otherwise I might throw her in later in this series as I was that enamored with her work here, but I'm definitely going to be seeking her out in the future, as this is one of the better performances we've seen so far in the Saturdays with the Stars series.

OVP: The Band Wagon (1953)

Film: The Band Wagon (1953)
Stars: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Story & Screenplay, Costume, Scoring)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned yesterday, we are now in Month #3 of our Saturday with the Stars series, and as a result, we are starting our dive into the career of Ms. Cyd Charisse, which I'm super excited about because of all of the stars we're going to profile this month, she is arguably in the most famous movies, and it's likely that some of you have seen these films (which I haven't-them's the rules).  At this point in Charisse's career, she'd appeared opposite Farley Granger in The Wild North (one of her bigger hits), and was about to break out as a headlining name in 1953, with Sombrero and our picture of today, The Band Wagon.  This Vincente Minnelli film, quite frankly, might be the most-famous English-language film that I've never seen (I've done pretty well to knock out all of the classics), so I was super excited to tuck in on a Saturday night-tis my life to spend Saturday nights alone, watching old movies), and watch this celebrated picture starring Charisse in the role that would make her a legend.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Tony Hunter (Astaire), a washed-up former song-and-dance movie star who has had a string of flops and is trying to make his big comeback on Broadway, only to find that Broadway has changed dramatically from what he grew up with on 42nd Street.  Aided by his married couple friends Lester (Levant) and Lily (Fabray), a well as a flamboyant actor-director called Jeffrey Cordova (Buchanan...this is supposed to be Jose Ferrer, right?...like, it's not subtle), they recruit a gorgeous ballerina called Gabrielle Gerard (Charisse) to join the show despite being hesitant to make the jump from the classical ballet to show business.  The quintet attempt to make a "modern" Broadway version of Faust, but it's poorly-received by the audience so Tony hocks his entire art collection in order to put on the show they originally dreamed of, a classic musical of yore, and of course this being a Hollywood movie with Astaire at its center, the show is now critically-acclaimed and a smash hit.

There's a lot of art imitating life here.  Written by Comden & Green (clearly the basis for Lester & Lily), the film shows Astaire as a failing movie star thinking of getting out of the game (Astaire was purportedly considering retirement at the time), and Charisse was a ballet dancer who was also struggling to figure out what her role would be in Hollywood.  Conversely, this sort of film had gone out of style in Hollywood despite the success of Gene Kelly's An American in Paris just two years prior, and was one of a number of critically-acclaimed flops that hallmarked Charisse's career (we'll get to a lot of them in the coming weeks, as she rarely made hits).  However, this life-imitating-art works wonderfully, as Astaire in particular is divine playing the lead, as few people played themselves quite as well as Fred Astaire.  I also loved Nanette Fabray in a supporting role (I hope I remember this when we get to the 1953 OVP, as I want to call her out as someone who should have been nominated for her splendid big-voiced work here).  Charisse, on the other hand, is both not-very-good and breathtaking all in the same film.

Charisse, if this is any indication, was not a particularly strong actress.  Some have accused Leslie Caron of a similar criticism, but Caron eventually got her dramatic acting chops once she wasn't under Gene Kelly's gaze, and at the very least was divine in Lili.  However, Charisse feels far too stiff onscreen here, an actress that, as Pauline Kael put it "sounds like she learned her lines phonetically."  There's zilch chemistry during her love scenes with Astaire & her big speech at the end has an odd timing to it.  But when she's dancing, it's as if she's suddenly gone from being Tara Reid to Meryl Streep.  Her work in "Girl Hunt Ballet" was marvelous, a sexy duet with Astaire putting music to an homage to Scarface or The Public Enemy.  Even better is "Dancing in the Dark," one of the best musical numbers I've ever seen onscreen.  For real.  The film probably should have ended here rather than a retread of "That's Entertainment," as Astaire & Charisse are so elegant, moving, and romantic that I just started randomly weeping, completely without notice.  Seriously-I can't really explain it, but it was like all of the things I love about the movies was playing out in one elegant loop.  The film is excellent despite a lack of chemistry between Astaire & Charisse in their spoken-word scenes, but it would be an all-timer for me if it had equalled that scene in Central Park, with Astaire and Charisse wordlessly expressing their love through a series of impossible sophistication.  I can't wait to see if there's another scene like this in store for me as we progress through Ms. Charisse's filmography, as honestly that one scene in itself would have made this entire series worth it.

The Six Women Who Danced with Astaire & Kelly

There's nothing I love more than a well-designed trivia question, particularly one for movies or politics.  Occasionally, I come across a particular trivia question I want to share with everyone, even people who aren't really into said genre, because it feels so well-structured and so simple.  A few weeks ago, I was randomly in a Wikipedia hole because I was looking up a film starring Mitzi Gaynor, and suddenly after googling if Gaynor had ever starred with Fred Astaire (she hadn't, though she'd made Les Girls with Gene Kelly), I thought: how many women have danced with both Astaire & Kelly on the big screen?

You can find the answer on IMDB if you look hard enough, but I figured since they keep it just to a sentence and don't list out the actual pictures, I'd do the work for you and include the list of the six women who have danced with both on the big screen:

(Note: I counted only narrative, studio films here.  Documentaries are excluded, as are television specials or awards shows, as then the lineup would surely get longer)

1. Rita Hayworth

Danced with Gene Kelly: Cover Girl (1944)
Danced with Fred Astaire: You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
Trivia Within the Trivia: During the filming of Cover Girl, Hayworth would elope with Orson Welles, oddly enough on the same day they filmed the wedding scene for the picture.  Kelly would reprise his role from Cover Girl in 1980's Xanadu (his final onscreen role), which may mark the longest gap an actor playing the same character has ever had between first and second films (can anyone think of a longer one?).
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: I unfortunately do not have the time to watch all of these movies (I will, eventually, though, as I've added a lot of them to my Netflix queue), so for each I'm going to go with pitting in YouTube the first dance number of each pair and see which one is better.  For Hayworth, it's "Put Me to Test" from Cover Girl versus "The Shorty George" from You Were Never Lovelier.  The Kelly number is classic, with both movie stars looking gorgeous in light green, but I loved the tap synchronicity of Astaire & Hayworth, both sporting spats and mixing multiple different dancing styles.

2. Judy Garland

Danced with Gene Kelly: For Me and My Gal (1942), The Pirate (1948) and Summer Stock (1950)
Danced with Fred Astaire:  Easter Parade (1948)
Trivia Within the Trivia: Garland also starred with both men in Ziegfeld Follies (1945), but didn't appear in any scenes with Kelly or Astaire.  That particular MGM film is far better known today as the only film (other than the That's Entertainment series) that had both Astaire and Kelly dancing with each other, to the tunes of George & Ira Gershwin.  Garland & Kelly also starred in Words and Music and Thousands Cheer, but it doesn't appear they danced together in either so I'm not counting them in the lineup (I haven't seen the picture, though, so if I'm wrong correct me below).
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: YouTube randomly selected "We're a Couple of Swells" from Easter Parade to compete against the title number from For Me and My Gal.  While the costuming of Easter Parade is priceless (Garland & Astaire dressed as swanky hobos), it's not really a killer dance number (Judy was a singer more than a dancer).  As a result, I prefer the slowly romantic number between a derby-wearing Kelly and Garland, tapping around a soda shop.

3. Vera-Ellen

Danced with Gene Kelly: Words and Music (1948) and On the Town (1949)
Danced with Fred Astaire: Three Little Words (1950) and The Belle of New York (1952)
Trivia Within the Trivia: Arguably the least-remembered of these six women today, Vera-Ellen may have been the best dancer of the bunch, and Astaire in particular admired her terribly.  She went to dance school as a child with Doris Day, the rare musical-comedy actress of this era who never appeared onscreen with Kelly or Astaire.
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: Astaire caught a bit of a lucky break here when "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" was #2 for the YouTube searches for Kelly, as that's one of my favorite Kelly numbers, but the search algorithm preferred 'When You Walk Down Main Street" from On the Town.  As a result, I'm going with Astaire's number, "Mr. and Mrs. Hoofer at Home" from Three Little Words, with Vera-Ellen in a shimmering lime green skirt dancing her through domestic strife.

4. Cyd Charisse

Danced with Gene Kelly: Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Brigadoon (1954)
Danced with Fred Astaire: The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957)
Trivia Within the Trivia: Again, I haven't seen the film here (there's a lot being added to my Netflix queue this Tuesday), so while It's Always Fair Weather definitely stars Charisse & Kelly, but I'm seeing no indication that they actually dance together in the picture.
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: Kelly presumably gets the advantage of "Erotic Dance" from Singin in the Rain here, with Charisse's impossibly long legs extended to take out his hat (arguably the most iconic moment in the actress's career).  At least I figured it was an advantage until I saw "Girl Hunt Ballet" in The Band Wagon, where a gangster-bedecked Astaire romances Charisse in a flaming red cocktail gown.  I don't know that I've ever used the word "sexy" to describe Fred Astaire, but it fits like a glove here.  The closest pairing of the bunch, but I give the edge to Astaire's high-hoofing (how does someone jump on their knees like that in their fifties?!?)

5. Leslie Caron

Danced with Gene Kelly: An American in Paris (1951)
Danced with Fred Astaire: Daddy Long Legs (1955)
Trivia Within the Trivia: With the recent death of Debbie Reynolds, Caron is the only living person to have danced with both Astaire & Kelly onscreen (she is 87).  In 1988, she pulled off an unusual feat for a ballet dancer, doing a number with Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov (arguably the two most important male danzatores of the 20th Century) at the Paris Opera Ballet.
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: "Sluefoot" from Daddy Long Legs competes against the iconic ballet sequence in An American in Paris, and I can't take away two classic dance numbers from Kelly in the same article.  An easy win for the Best Picture winner, in the movie's best scene.

6. Debbie Reynolds

Danced with Gene Kelly: Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Danced with Fred Astaire: The Pleasure of His Company (1961)
Trivia Within the Trivia: By 1961, Astaire had largely retired from dancing onscreen (thinking he was too old), and wouldn't dance again on the big screen until 1968's Finian's Rainbow.  However, he gamely did a small dance with Reynolds during a party sequence in the film, and received a Golden Globe nomination for his troubles.
Who Had the Better Musical Number?: While it's a sweet scene, Reynolds & Astaire are simply dancing onscreen with each other, while "Good Morning" from Singin' in the Rain is one of the most impressive scenes in the history of the movies.  So, no contest for Kelly here.

OVP: The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)

Film: The Barkleys of Broadway
Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Oscar Levant, Billie Burke
Director: Charles Walters
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

The films of Astaire and Rogers have never known for what one would consider particularly compelling screenwriting.  No one went to these films, which inevitably had the two playing dancers of some sort who fall in love or re-fall in love, because the plotting was particularly wonderful.  They went because these were two spry and gay performers, quite adept at musical comedy, and of course they went to see the dancing.  This is true even for their last outing (and their only picture where they weren't at RKO), but I will say that the film does veer a bit more into the fine acting sphere than I was expecting.  Perhaps because Rogers wasn't the first choice for the role (Judy Garland was, but she was fighting off her first major round of demons and losing multiple major roles at the time) the film touches on some more interesting plotting in between your standard Astaire-Rogers storytelling.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is the story of a wildly popular husband-and-wife musical comedy team who have different views about where their careers should head.  Josh (Astaire) is fine where they are, while Dinah (Rogers) wants to try something a bit different, and is wooed by a french director into playing a young Sarah Bernhardt on-stage.  The two fight over this, and eventually break up, with Josh having a solo act and Dinah struggling with turning into a dramatic actor.  Eventually Josh realizes that Dinah is struggling, and doing a French accent, coaches her over the phone while imitating the director and she becomes a smash success.  Dinah learns that Josh has been coaching her and she runs back into his arms, happily ever after.

The film may have been written with Judy in mind, but it weirdly mirrored Ginger Rogers' life in reality.  Rogers, by most accounts, was tired of playing opposite Astaire in only musical comedies at the end of the 1930's and wanted to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress.  She succeeded in this venture, even earning an Oscar for Kitty Foyle, but by the time 1949 rolled around her career had subsided a bit and she needed a jolt, which re-teaming with her old dancing buddy surely seemed like it could be.  Her work here is fascinating in some ways-she's clearly a bit out-of-practice in terms of dancing (Astaire gets some of the harder aspects of the numbers), but she's quite good at selling her dramatic scenes in a way I haven't seen before from Ginger Rogers-I loved the way that she seems sort of distant and informed when flattery turns to insults.  It's a strong piece of work from an actor who admittedly isn't one of my favorites.  Astaire, on the other hand, seems a bit on autopilot here (though he's still marvelous in the dancing numbers, particularly the green-screen assisted "Shoes with Wings On,"), and isn't as exciting as Rogers.

The film received one Oscar nomination, for Best Cinematography.  It's obvious to see why-it's not just the joy of seeing Astaire and Rogers in-color (this was their only film not in black-and-white), but it's also that the film knows to use larger, richer colors for the Technicolor palette.  The nomination is helped by being for legendary cinematographer Harry Stradling, who won two Oscars and 14 nominations in his career.  I will say that it doesn't have the naturalistic sensibility of some of the outdoor films of the time (the lighting seems a bit staged), but it's still quite beautiful.

Overall, though, I will say that the film was fine but not good-the script itself has interesting touches, but is too routine to reward the actual picture instead of just the leading lady.  Therefore I'll go with two-stars, though if you're a fan of musicals or Ginger Rogers in particular this is worth your time.  If you've seen it (or if you have a favorite Rogers/Astaire musical), pipe up in the comments!

AFI's 25 Greatest Actors, Part 1

This Article is Part of a 15-Year Anniversary series commemorating the American Film Institute’s 25 Greatest Stars.  For the Actresses, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

One of the things that I learned with the 25 Greatest Actresses list is that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to actresses, but for whatever reason (perhaps the length of their careers or the fact that Best Picture nominees tend to have lead actors), I do considerably better at catching the classics of the most famous actors.  In fact, there is no actor on the list that I haven’t seen one of their pictures.  Still, though, there are a number of actors that I am missing a major part of their filmography, and I’m sure this is the case for you as well, so share along in the comments.  We’ll investigate the first eight men on the list, and then explore the remaining men, the “just-misses,” and the living nominees all throughout the next week or two.  Without further adieu…

1. Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957)

Oscar Nominations: Three, with a win for Best Actor in 1951’s The African Queen

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the tough-but-sensitive man who charmed Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca.  It’s amazing how a gigantic career can come down to a single role, and indeed Bogie has had a pretty impressive set of characters throughout his career, but Casablanca and his trench-coated Rick is easily what he is most identified with today.

My Favorite Performance: Casablanca is my favorite movie, and there’s really no beating Bogart in it-his Rick is a lost soul content with living in his memories, until they come back to bring him into the present.  It’s a wonderful performance in the greatest of films.  That being said, I do adore Bogie in general when he’s playing a guy skirting the law, and any of his noir films are toward the high end on my personal list.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I’ve seen most of his bigger films (The Maltese Falcon, African Queen, Key Largo, Sabrina, Treasure of Sierra Madre, and of course Casablanca), but I have somehow never gotten around to In a Lonely Place where he charms the eternally sexy Gloria Grahame, despite it being high on my personal to-do list.

2. Cary Grant (1904-1986)

Oscar Nominations: Two, for Penny Serenade and None But the Lonely Heart; Grant also picked up an Honorary Oscar at the 42^nd Academy Awards

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the guy that inspired George Clooney (kidding, kidding, though Clooney frequently gets compared to him).  Grant’s known to modern audiences for his class, handsomeness, and consistent charm, even if they’ve never seen one of his movies-everyone is enchanted with Cary Grant.

My Favorite Performance: Like all things in life, it’s a tough call between Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story, though in this case I’m going to lean toward Philadelphia (the opposite of what I did with Katharine Hepburn in the same circumstance, for the record).  His C.K. Dexter Haven is just mischievous enough to charm everyone on the screen, and I find him as a cad more believable than as a loveable nerd.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: My mom’s favorite actor is Cary Grant, and so I’ve seen basically every major Cary Grant film.  I’ve seen all of the films with the Hepburns, all of the films with Hitchcock, and most all of his screwball comedies.  Looking through his filmography, though, I do notice two misses: His Girl Friday his bouncy film with Rosalind Russell in 1940 and the previous year’s Gunga Din with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

3. James Stewart (1908-1997)

Oscar Nominations: Stewart won five Oscar nominations in his career, winning Best Actor for 1940’s The Philadelphia Story.  He also went on to win the Life Achievement Award at the 57^th Academy Awards.

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the guy that inspired Tom Hanks (again, kidding, kidding, though Hanks frequently gets compared to him).  Stewart’s the affable, awe shucks nice guy that everyone seems to admire.  A war hero in his day and one of the great stars, he’s best known to modern audiences for that Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life with Donna Reed (you know it-every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings…)

My Favorite Performance: I’m going to go against type here.  I do think Stewart is sensational in It’s a Wonderful Life, but there’s no comparing to what he did in Vertigo-it’s so jarring seeing the nicest guy onscreen play a ruthless, obsessed man torturing poor Kim Novak.  It’s Hitchcock’s best film, and Stewart’s as well.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I’ve seen most of his biggest hits (again-most people have, which is why the comments should be interesting here if you’ve only missed one or two films).  I’d probably go with Anatomy of a Murder, the only of his Oscar-nominated work I haven’t gotten around to, but I’ve seen basically every other major film he was in.

4. Marlon Brando (1924-2004)

Oscar Nominations: Brando nabbed eight nominations in his career, winning for 1954’s On the Waterfront and 1972’s The Godfather.

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the greatest actor of all-time?  At least to some people that is (myself included).  For others, he is one of those names you throw out when you try to benchmark great acting like Meryl and de Niro.  And of course, he is running through the street screaming "Stella!" and constantly making people offers they cannot refuse.

My Favorite Performance: Brando is so good so often he's one of those rare actors who could genuinely equal Katharine Hepburn's four wins with me for the OVP.  For me, though, he will always be the sexiest man in the history of the screen, seducing everything in his path in A Streetcar Named Desire, in my opinion a tie for the greatest performance of all-time (with Vivien Leigh...in A Streetcar Named Desire).

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've seen most of Brando's biggest films because he's my favorite actor, but I've never seen his musical debut in Guys and Dolls-that would probably be the one with the biggest intrigue around it.

5. Fred Astaire (1899-1987)

Oscar Nominations: Astaire only received one competitive Oscar nomination in his career (for The Towering Inferno of all things), but did receive an Honorary Award in 1950, presented to him of course by Ginger Rogers.

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the classiest hoofer of them all.  His longtime partnership with Ginger Rogers onscreen is the stuff of Hollywood legend, and even if you're someone who has never seen an Astaire/Rogers film (and I insist that you rectify this situation immediately), you'll know that Astaire is one of those actors who's "gotta dance."

My Favorite Performance: Astaire was an extremely classy dude onscreen, but he, like Rogers, frequently played himself.  I'm going to go with Top Hat in a slight nod over Swing Time (since that's always been my favorite of their films, despite modern enthusiasm being for the latter film).  Funny Face is also wonderful, but I can't list it because the age difference between Hepburn and Astaire has always given me the heebie jeebies (though it's a marvelous movie otherwise).

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Astaire is the first actor on this list where I can say that I've got some work to do.  While I've hit a couple of his major films with Rogers, films like The Gay Divorcee and Follow the Fleet are still in the ole Netflix queue.  However, some later Astaire (including Easter Parade, The Band Wagon, and Daddy Long Legs) is still on the to view list, so this would need to be a marathon.

6. Henry Fonda (1905-1982)

Oscar Nominations: Just two for acting, but boy did he make them count: The Grapes of Wrath, for which he lost to Jimmy Stewart, and On Golden Pond, for which he won Best Actor.  He was also nominated for producing 12 Angry Men and won an Honorary Award in 1980.

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the father of an acting dynasty, as well as his work in The Grapes of Wrath, a move most high school students will sit through at some point (and he's also in 12 Angry Men, another high school movie staple).  His larger career isn't quite as consistently noteworthy as Stewart, Grant, or Brando, but the highlights are known by pretty much anyone.

My Favorite Performance: I feel really weird not listing Grapes of Wrath (Fonda is just wonderful in that movie), but for me there is no topping cold-hearted Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West, the greatest western ever made, and one where Fonda plays duly against type as a ruthless villain being challenged by good guy Charles Bronson.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've seen most of his major hits, so if we're ranking by fame I'd probably have to go with something on the B-roster of Fonda movies like The Ox-Bow Incident or The Wrong Man, but personal preference would be for The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, which was one of my grandpa's favorite movies and one that I have oddly never seen.

7. Clark Gable (1901-1960)

Oscar Nominations: Gable received three, winning for 1934's It Happened One Night.

Probably Best Known Today For: Not giving a damn.  It's amazing how a single scene or line can make someone immortal amongst the public, but while Gable was once the King of Hollywood and starred in multiple classic film roles, his work as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind will eternally be the film that he is most famous for with the general populace.

My Favorite Performance: This is a tough call, as I really love Gable in It Happened One Night, and he's probably my fourth favorite performance in GWTW.  Still, fourth in GWTW is toward the top of my personal list, and so I'll go with his "not a gentleman" work in that movie.  What I love about that film, even today, is how desperately modern both he and Vivien Leigh's work seems-the script may be dated, but the performances could work just as well today.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: For some reason, I have never gotten around to Gable's third Oscar-nominated performance in Mutiny on the Bounty (this is also one of the extremely rare Best Picture winners that I've never seen).  That would definitely be toward the top of the list, and I honestly think it actually is-I want to say it's in my next ten movies on my Netflix queue.

8. James Cagney (1899-1986)

Oscar Nominations: Cagney received three nominations in his career, winning for 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy

Probably Best Known Today For: He's not as well-known today, if we're being honest.  This was one of the more surprising elements of the AFI list not because Cagney didn't deserve to be on the list, or that I didn't expect him on the list (I did and would have), but because he's clearly the least well-known in the Top 10.  That said, Cagney's work today is probably most known due to his early gangster pictures.  People picture him holding a gun, not wanting to get caught, and cheering for him to get away.

My Favorite Performance: I mean, there's no really beating White Heat is there?  His demented Mama's boy is a startlingly real and powerful performance, and one that seems to get lost when you're listing the classic performances of the 1940's, but it shouldn't be.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I am going to say The Public Enemy.  Part of me thinks that I've actually seen this movie, but I'm not 100% certain if I have (I've seen a lot of movies...part of the reason that I started this blog was to keep track of them and my opinions on them)-maybe it's just that I've seen Cagney shove that grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face so many times that I feel like I've seen the movie.  Either way, that's the top of the list (...or, since it's Cagney, perhaps top of the world?).

Those are the first eight actors on our (what will be five-part) series on the AFI's 25 Greatest Actors list.  These are some of the most famous film stars of all-time, so I know you've got opinions on their best, worst, and the films you're most looking forward to seeing-share them in the comments!

OVP: Royal Wedding (1951)

Film: Royal Wedding (1951)
Stars: Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah Churchill
Director: Stanley Donen
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Too Late Now")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Continuing on with our wedding week OVP viewing, we have one of those films that is marketed as "classic" even though there's a good chance you've never heard of it: Royal Wedding, from 1951.  The film sure feels like a classic-it has golden age stars Fred Astaire and Jane Powell (though they oddly are not romantically involved, but instead are paired as brother-and-sister instead) and features singing-and-dancing in a bunch of well-orchestrated numbers that you've never heard of, but feel you should.  Is it a classic, though?  Let's take a look, shall we?

(Spoilers Ahead) The film opens for us with Tom and Ellen Bowen (Astaire and Powell), a brother-sister vaudeville dancing team (shades of real life, since Fred Astaire got his start with his sister Adele on the same circuit), and both have very similar attitudes toward love: they like love, they hate marriage.  Ellen, in what has to be the closest I've ever seen a 1950's studio film get to showing female empowerment through sexuality, juggles beaus on a regular basis (she doesn't have the heart to break up with them...though they're all pretty good looking and I suspect that Ellen just is having a fun time), and Tom is all work and just the occasional ladies' man.  The two of them are hired to go to England during the wedding season for the young prince and princess (clearly inspired by the recent wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip, which had been enormous news around the world at the time).  Off-they-sail, and on the ship, Ellen meets a handsome young lothario named John Brindale (Lawford) who charms her and quickly becomes her one-and-only.  We also get a hilarious dancing number onboard the ship (did anyone else get massively freaked out by the wave crash during that cutaway and worry they'd accidentally started watching The Poseidon Adventure?), with Powell and Astaire being rolled around the floor, despite the tables, chairs, and other patrons of the performance staying stagnant.

Once in England, Astaire falls quickly for an English dancer named Anne (Churchill), whom he becomes enamored with despite her not having the verve one usually associates with an Astaire love interest (I know this is weird to say, but Powell and Astaire had such good chemistry you secretly wish the writers hadn't made them brother-and-sister, and instead had them falling in love), and both siblings wrestle with their attitudes toward marriage, to of course decide in the end that they should follow the prince and princess down the aisle.  With only ninety minutes of runtime, it's a very light and fluffy film, but not without anything to lend itself.

As I mentioned before, Astaire and Powell own the screen here.  Both absolute MGM pros who could sell pretty much any musical number, each radiates charisma and whenever they're playfully sparring with each other, the film comes to life (which is often).  You kind of wish that the entire film would just consist of the two of them going out and doing musical numbers, then running back to their dressing rooms and talking about their respective love lives and then going out and doing another musical number-I think I could watch that for hours.

The film isn't nearly as fun when they are apart, though.  I know that Powell got the film's Oscar nod for her solo number "Too Late Now" (which is beautiful, if a bit out-of-place in this light of a comedy), but they never achieve the sort of chemistry with their romantic counterparts that they do with each other.  Astaire in particular is saddled with Sarah Churchill, an actress with an extremely famous last name (her father was Winston Churchill) who made some waves as an actress in the 1940's and 1950's in television and cinema, with this being her most significant film.  Churchill had a tragic life (alcohol and failed marriages), and probably would make for an interesting biopic someday, but as an actress I wasn't impressed at all in her signature role.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Did you, like me, find yourself adoring this film way more than you thought you would?  Who thought "Too Late Now" deserved the 1951 Oscar?  And since it's Wedding Week-which casual wear dress was the better bridal gown-Powell's or Churchill's?  Share in the comments!