1950 Oscar Watch

1950 is a great year because you have Sunset Boulevard and The Third Man, two of the best movies ever made.  1950 is a terrible Oscar year because All About Eve beats both of them.  As for the winners, I don't agree with any of them.  Jose Ferrer wins for what is basically a theatrical performance, Judy Holliday wins for a light romantic comedy over much better competition, George Sanders and Josephine Hull are fine based on stature but there were better performances in their categories.  Things could have gone a lot better this year, which is why I watch all these movies almost 70 years after the fact.

You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

Best Picture

5. King Solomon's Mines is a standard action/adventure film.  It’s set in Africa and filmed on location so it has some good locales and some fun set pieces but it’s also kind of campy.  There is one scene where a giant spider crawls on Deborah Kerr and it’s supposed to be a moment of suspense but it turns into comedy because the spider looks almost intentionally fake.  Like, they had to try hard to make it look so bad.  It’s not a bad film but it is an odd choice for this category.

4. Born Yesterday is a cute little romantic comedy but not a film that really deserved a Best Picture nomination.  This is one of those nominations that makes me jealous.  Okay, comedies CAN get nominated but how come they pick this one and movies like Some Like It Hot or A Fish Called Wanda didn’t get nominated?  Anyway, Judy Holliday is a ditsy blonde dating a corrupt goon.  He takes her with him to Washington D.C. in a quest to buy off some politicians.  He doesn’t like how dumb she is though so he hires William Holden as a tutor.  She gets too smart though because she starts to see how shady her boyfriend is and she falls for Holden.  It’s a cute romantic comedy, just not a Best Picture winner.

3. Father Of The Bride is a movie that if you haven’t seen you’ve probably seen the remake.  Both follow the exact same story line.  Spencer Tracy’s daughter is getting married and he has to deal with all the hassles.  It’s too expensive, it’s a pain to plan a wedding and he’s losing his little girl.  It’s a wonderful film, a little too small to win Best Picture but I’m glad it’s here.

2. All About Eve is the 2nd best movie about fading fame from 1950.  Bette Davis stars as Margo Channing, a famous Broadway actress turning 40.  After a performance one night, Eve Harrington is brought into her dressing room.  Eve claims to be her biggest fan and tells her a sad story about her life.  The two become friends and Eve becomes her assistant.  Tensions mount when Bette suspects Eve of trying to take her place on the stage.  Eventually Eve arranges to become her understudy and facilitates a performance in front of critics.  Now everyone loves Eve and is starting to turn cold on Margo.  It’s a really good film but it was up against a much better film.

1. Sunset Boulevard is the best movie of 1950 to focus on fading fame.  William Holden, star of two Best Picture nominees, plays a screenwriter in debt.  One day he is trying to avoid the people coming to repossess his car and he ducks into Norma Desmond's garage.  She was a huge star in the silent film era but hasn't worked in years.  She pays Holden to help her with a script she is working on but he eventually becomes kind of her live-in confidant.  She starts becoming obsessed with him though and resenting any time he spends without her.  It's directed by Billy Wilder and told in flashback, spoiler alert, William Holden dies and he tells us the story of what happened.  It's one of the best films ever made by one of my favorite directors.

All About Eve would be a fine winner if it weren't for Sunset Boulevard.  That's the superior film and seeing as how they cover the same subject matter it's a real shame that the Academy thought All About Eve was better.  You can rationalize the decision as Billy Wilder already won for The Lost Weekend and Joseph L. Mankiewicz never had a movie win the big prize, he won Best Director the year before this but his movie lost Best Picture, but it's not a very sensible rationalization.  Both movies are told in flashback, both are Hollywood stories and both are movies about fading actresses.  One is unquestionably better and that's Sunset Boulevard.  It's not that All About Eve is a bad film, it's a very good film but it's always been tainted in my eyes because every time I watch it I keep thinking about how much better a movie Sunset Boulevard is.

Oscar Winner: All About Eve

My Vote: Sunset Boulevard

GABBY Winner: Sunset Boulevard

Best Actor

5. Louis Calhern plays Oliver Wendell Holmes in the very dull biopic The Magnificent Yankee.  He created the role on Broadway and got the part in the film which became the only starring role for the respected character actor.  Speaking of being a character actor, Calhern was fantastic this year in The Asphalt Jungle as a banker who finances a heist and tries to keep the loot.  If he was nominated for that he would be a contender for a vote but he got nominated for the classy picture and there's no way I can vote for him.

4. Jose Ferrer won the Oscar for playing the title character in Cyrano De Bergerac.  This is a very old story about a man with a big nose who is in love with a woman who will not have him.  She is in love with a very handsome man who is not too bright.  So Cyrano writes poetry to the girl and has the guy recite it to her.  She falls in love with his words but the other guy's body.  It's a story that has been done forever, which is why I can't vote for it.  Ferrer is very good in the role but the film is very theatrical.  It looks at times like they just used sets from the play and filmed them.  He makes a very good Cyrano, but is he the best to play the role in the 50 plus years it has been performed?

3. Spencer Tracy won 2 Oscars, back to back no less, in the 1930s so it's hard to vote for him to get a 3rd, especially since the two performances he won for weren't that great.  He wins for Captains Courageous, which by his own account he was miscast in, and Boys Town, which is good but kind of dull and not really worthy of a 2nd Oscar.  It's a shame because if he hadn't have won back then he would win this category easily as he is absolutely wonderful in Father Of The Bride.  He plays Stanley Banks, a man whose daughter is getting married.  He has to deal with all the hassles of preparing a wedding and the stress of losing his little girl to another man.  Tracy had a natural easiness to him that he developed later in his career and he turned in some really great performances but who is gonna vote for a guy to have a 3rd Oscar when he didn't really deserve the first 2?

2. William Holden earned his first Oscar nomination for playing screenwriter Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard.  He's out of work and out of money and a chance meeting with a fading actress gets him into some Hollywood intrigue.  Holden also narrates the film and his naturally smooth voice helps the movie with its tone and mood.

1. James Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey.  He is an alcoholic who sees a 6'3" invisible rabbit but this movie is a comedy.  Stewart has a difficult task with this role.  If he plays it differently we may start to feel sad for Elwood or hope he gets help.  Since Stewart is so sweet and honest, we see Harvey just as he sees him and the story becomes less about one man's struggle with a possible mental illness and more about the whimsy and magic of one man's imagination.  In real life, you would shun Elwood but because of Stewart's performance you embrace him.

This is a pretty solid category.  The people I can't vote for are Calhern (his movie is too dull), Ferrer (the role has been played too many times) and Tracy (he's won twice).  Even though I'm tossing them out quickly, there performances are still good and worthy of a nomination.  Of the remaining two, Stewart has already won so that's a point in Holden's favor.  Holden will go on to win in 1953 but I don't like to take future wins into account when I'm voting.  Stewart's win came 10 years ago but came with an asterisk.  I feel that he won for The Philadelphia Story because he really should have won for Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.  A win here is a legitimate win for an actor who really should have more than 1 Oscar.  I mean, Gary Cooper and Sean Penn, hell, even Spencer Tracy all got 2 and Jimmy only got 1 and it was a makeup win from the year before.  The other reason I'm voting for him is because he was my favorite performance of the bunch but the main reason is because Holden really shouldn't have won this one.  Let me explain.  Gloria Swanson isn't going to win (she should have but I'll get to that in a second), Erich Von Stroheim isn't going to win, Billy Wilder isn't going to win Best Director.  Those 3 need to get honored first before we start giving wins to William Holden.  He's really good in the film but if he won an Oscar and they snubbed Gloria that would only add to the injustice that was Best Actress of 1950.  As for Ferrer winning this category, it wasn't the greatest decision but it wasn't the worst.  Stewart, Tracy and Holden all ended up with wins so there is no Oscar crime committed but he will probably end up in the lower rankings of Best Actor winners.

Oscar Winner: Jose Ferrer

My Vote: James Stewart

GABBY Winner: James Stewart

Best Actress

5. Anne Baxter plays Eve Harrington, the young ingenue who becomes a star in All About Eve.  I'm probably gonna mention this a few times but this might be the strongest Best Actress lineup in Academy Awards history.  That makes the decision they made all the more egregious.  Anne Baxter being in the 5th spot doesn't mean her performance is bad, it just means this category is strong and someone had to go here.  Baxter won recently for The Razor's Edge so it's easy not to vote for her.  Her performance in this film is very strong.  She plays a young woman who befriends an actress and then slowly starts to arrange her own success which comes at the hands of her friend's career.  You learn later in the film that she may not have been who she said she was in the first place and Baxter does a good job of keeping her true feelings just under the surface of what she's saying.

4. Judy Holliday won the Oscar for playing ditsy Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday.  It's rare that a comedic performance wins an Oscar, even rarer in the lead categories, so it's hard for me to argue with this decision.  After binge watching all of these films I can safely say that her performance is not really Oscar worthy.  She is funny, she is charming, she is beautiful but she was also a relative newcomer to film so we hadn't seen a lot of range from her yet, this may have just been perfect casting.  I was wondering while watching the film if this character was fresh in 1950.  Now it has become a cliché, the ditsy blonde who hides her true smarts behind her beauty and airhead personality.  Maybe audiences back then had never seen this before but that can't be right.  The dumb blonde character is almost as old as Thespis himself.

3. Bette Davis just like Spencer Tracy, also won 2 Oscars when she was younger and started delivering knockout performances later in her life.  Because of that she has to be far better than her competition in order for her to win a 3rd.  Her performance as Margo Channing in All About Eve would get my vote in a weaker year and it would be hard for her to lost if she didn't already have 2 on her mantle.  This is really the first Bette Davis performance I unabashedly love.  I don't think she was really meant to be a Hollywood star until now.  She had a beauty to her but she was by no means a knockout so when she was playing characters that men fawned over incessantly it never made much sense to me.  Now that she's older she doesn't have to play the young woman in peril she can play the tough as nails old broad that she was perfect for.

2. Eleanor Parker plays a woman sent to prison in Caged.  This is a women in prison film but it's not an exploitative film like...pretty much any other movie set in a women's prison.  This is a gritty film noir set behind bars with a cast full of ladies.  Parker stars as a naive young woman who is sent to jail for being an accessory to robbery.  Her and her husband were caught, he was killed and she was sent to prison.  During her physical she finds out that she's pregnant.  At the beginning of the film she is very meek but as the movie progresses she turns into a hardened criminal.  She transforms from an innocent girl who you hope will get out of jail to a woman you know is gonna end up back in the joint.  Parker is really really good in the role.  She absolutely nails both sides of her character.  I would love to give her the win but unfortunately for her this category has an indisputable winner.

1. Gloria Swanson is simply iconic as fading film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.  She is absolute perfection.  She's just the right amount of crazy and tragic.  You get the sense that she is not crazy just because she's crazy, she's crazy because her life has been really rough.  She was a huge star, everyone knew her name and now she plays poker once a week with a bunch of other has beens.  That life is bound to drive you a little wacko.

This is a slam dunk for Gloria Swanson.  You can talk about Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton never winning all you want.  You can say Judy Garland should have won over Grace Kelly.  This to me is the worst Oscar decision of all time.  Gloria Swanson delivers the performance of a lifetime, not to mention the comeback angle.  She herself was a silent film star whose career was in decline.  This movie brought her back from obscurity and they give the Oscar to Judy Holliday, the young beautiful new starlet.  There's a tragic irony in that decision.  Swanson is far and away the best in this category and this is one of the best Best Actress lineups ever.  You have Gloria and Bette (there could have possibly been a vote split between the two of them now that I think about it), Eleanor Parker, Anne Baxter and Judy Holliday is a great nominee just a bad winner.  Seeing as how Sunset Boulevard was getting screwed in most categories it makes sense but this is the category it should have won, hands down.

Oscar Winner: Judy Holliday

My Vote: Gloria Swanson

GABBY Winner: Gloria Swanson

Best Supporting Actor

5. Jeff Chandler plays a Native American named Cochise in Broken Arrow.  Chandler himself was not a Native American but a Jew born in Brooklyn.  I guess people saw this as an acting stretch back in the day seeing as how many people got nominated for playing different races, now it's just racist.  It's a shame too because the movie's not bad and Cochise is a strong character, it just shouldn't have been played by a white dude.

4. Edmund Gwenn plays the title role in Mister 880 but, unlike his win in this category in 1947, he is a supporting part.  Burt Lancaster stars as an FBI man trying to track down a counterfeiter.  This guy has been alluding authorities for years because he only makes fake $1 bills and he only makes just enough to get by for himself and he's been very careful.  Turns out the man they are looking for is a kindly old man who everyone in town likes, that's Gwenn.  He's very good in the film.  He's so likable that you kind of want him to get away even though he's the guy our hero is tracking down.  He's not doing it to harm anyone and he also only does it when he really needs to.  It's a good performance in a good film but he just won so he moves to the back of the line.

3. George Sanders is an actor, like Gregory Peck and Richard Burton, who had a great baritone voice that gave his performances more gravitas.  Words that come out of his mouth seem important, even if they are not.  In All About Eve he plays respected theater critic Addison DeWitt who pretty much propels the plot of the film.  When Eve becomes Margo's understudy, Addison is in the audience and give her a good review.  He then does an interview with her that gets her more recognition and bad mouths Margo.  Later in the film he confronts Eve when he discovers that she is not who she says she is.  He still has an attitude of being in the business while being above the business.  It's a really great role and due to his smooth voice every line of dialogue he has is wonderful to listen to.

2. Sam Jaffe plays a recently released convict with a fool proof plan for a heist in The Asphalt Jungle.  He came up with the plan in prison and now that he's out he's trying to organize a crew to get the job done.  It's a really great character role, he's shifty and evil but also kind of lovable.  This is a film where the antagonists are the leads so even though the movie is about the bad guys you need someone to root for and Jaffe is so charismatic in his role that you kind of want him to get away with it.

1. Erich Von Stroheim plays the mysterious butler to Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.  He has an incredible presence.  His large frame, bald head and cold dark eyes strike an intimidating figure.  Every time they cut to this guy you're wondering what he's up to.  Then you find out his back story and it turns out the reason he would do anything for Norma is because he is her ex-husband and the man who discovered her so he feels a sort of responsibility for her predicament.  It is one of those great roles the requires an actor who can deliver and Von Stroheim simply nails it.

George Sanders wins the Oscar here which is not a bad decision by any means.  I would have picked Jaffe or Von Stroheim over him but he's a solid choice.  The only two who shouldn't win here are Gwenn (he's won before while the others haven't) and Chandler (he's a white dude playing a Native American).  The other three are really a no lose situation.  Seeing as how Gloria Swanson didn't win it wouldn't make much sense if Erich Von Stroheim won and she didn't so the Sanders choice is good in that regard too.  He also had a more respected career than Sam Jaffe so it makes sense in that way too.  If you're asking me who had the best performance it would be Von Stroheim then Jaffe then Sanders.  If you're asking me who deserved an Oscar more it would be Sanders, Von Stroheim then Jaffe.

Oscar Winner: George Sanders

My Vote: Erich Von Stroheim

GABBY Winner: Orson Welles for The Third Man

Best Supporting Actress

5. Celeste Holm just won an Oscar for Gentleman's Agreement so there's no way she should win a 2nd for All About Eve.  She plays a friend of Bette Davis who accidentally ends up coordinating her downfall when Eve goes on for stage for her one night.  She's quite good in the film but it's not 2nd Oscar level good and there's no way she should win over Bette and Anne from the same film.

4. Nancy Olson plays a script supervisor for a Hollywood studio in Sunset Boulevard.  She meets William Holden and they work on a script together late at night which sparks a jealousy in Norma Desmond.  Then she becomes a love interest for Holden.  I like her in the film but there is no way she should win for this.  She has the least showy role in the ensemble and it would be a travesty if she won an Oscar and Holden, Swanson and Von Stroheim walked away empty handed.  If there was a sweep and they all won then it would make sense but her alone simply doesn't compute.

3. Thelma Ritter doesn't have a whole lot of screen time in All About Eve but she makes an impression simply because she's Thelma Ritter and she always does.  She got 6 nominations in this category, more than any other actress, and she never won.  This isn't her strongest performance by any means.  She plays Bette Davis's maid and she makes some wise cracks.  A win here would only be a good thing so she got one during her career.  This was also her first nomination after playing bit parts for a few years most notably in Miracle On 34th Street and an uncredited role in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's last film, A Letter To Three Wives.

2. Josephine Hull plays Elwood P. Dowd's sister who has had enough of his invisible rabbit in Harvey.  She's very funny in the role in that Margaret Dumont way where she's playing the frustrated older woman who doesn't seem to know that the joke is on her.  Her best scene is when she is trying to get Elwood committed but gets committed herself when she tells the psychiatrist that she feels like she sees the rabbit herself.

1. Hope Emerson is the reason this category exists.  In Caged she plays the warden of a female prison and the first time you see her on screen you instantly take notice.  She's a larger woman with an intense face.  She wasn't going to get many lead roles as Hollywood is clamoring to make movies about older women with gruff voices but when the right part comes along that is perfect for her she is brilliant.  This reminds me of Louise Fletcher, she was not the greatest actress but she is perfect playing Nurse Ratched.  The same can be said here.  Who knows if Hope Emerson had much range as an actress but she could play the hell out of a tough prison warden.

The vote is between Hull and Emerson.  Ritter and Holm cancel each other out Olson is good but not the strongest part of her film.  Hull and Emerson both deliver good performances and stand out in their films.  Hull won the Oscar and that makes perfect sense as she had the more distinguished career but I could not take my eyes of Emerson in her film.  She is unapologetically evil but not in a mustache twirling way.  She's paid to do a job and she's doing it the way she feels it needs to be done.  She's as hardened as the criminals she watches.  She doesn't see individual faces at this point, she sees a bunch of cattle that needs to be caged.

Oscar Winner: Josephine Hull

My Vote: Hope Emerson

GABBY Winner: Hope Emerson

Best Director
Joseph L. Mankiewicz wins his 2nd Oscar for All About Eve after his win last year.  This decision stings worst than Best Picture because not only is he up against Billy Wilder for Sunset Boulevard but also John Huston for The Asphalt Jungle and The Third Man's Carol Reed.  The 5th nominee was George Cukor for Born Yesterday which is the obvious weak link.  Huston, Wilder and Reed provide us movies with all killer, no filler.  They are exciting pictures with no dead spots.  All About Eve is good but compared to these films it is laughable that it was victorious.

Best Screenplay/Story And Screenplay/Motion Picture Story
All about Eve wins Best Screenplay which I can only assumes means 'Best Adapted Screenplay' as it beat out The Asphalt Jungle, Born Yesterday, Broken Arrow and Father Of The Bride, all of which were based on material from another medium.  I agree with this win, the dialogue is the best part of the film.  Finally, Sunset Boulevard wins something as it takes home Best Story and Screenplay for Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman, Jr..  Its competition was good with Caged, Adam's Rib, The Men and No Way Out filling out the category.  They are all good films but nowhere in the same league as Sunset Boulevard.  Panic In The Streets wins Best Motion Picture Story, I have no idea what this category means.

Best Short Subject - Cartoons
I usually don't comment on this category but the winner was Gerald McBoing-Boing which is what my grandmother used to call me when I was making too much noise.

Best Scoring of a Dramatic of Comedy Picture/Scoring of a Musical Picture
Sunset Boulevard gets another win as it rightfully wins for its wonderful score by Franz Waxman.  The very catchy score to The Third Man didn't get a nomination.  Annie Get Your Gun wins the musical category which is fine except for the fact that it was nominated against Walt Disney's Cinderella.

Best Original Song
Did you know that 'Mona Lisa' the beautiful Nat King Cole song was originally from the film Captain Carey?  I did not either until now.  It's the best choice in the category, runner up being 'Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo' from Cinderella.  I always like when I discover that a song I've known forever is actually from some obscure movie I've never heard of.

Best Sound Recording
Defying my theory that musicals always win this category, Cinderella loses to All About Eve.  Wait, my theory never said anything about animated films so my theory still stands.  Musicals always win this category.

Best Art Direction (Black And White)/Art Direction (Color)
Thankfully the All About Eve sweep didn't extend to this category as Sunset Boulevard picks up its 3rd win for its incredible set decoration.  Samson And Delilah wins a fairly weak category for the color films beating Annie Get Your Gun and Destination Moon.  No King Solomon's Mines?

Best Cinematography (Black And White)/Cinematography (Color)
I'm surprised that The Third Man won the black and white category.  Not because its not deserving but because it is deserving but up against All About Eve.  They made the right choice as you could print out screenshots of this film and frame them as art.  The same could be said for Sunset Boulevard which also got nominated.  In the color category, oh, here's King Solomon's Mines.  It gets a Best Picture nomination and only 2 others, here and for Best Film Editing.  It's probably the best choice in this category, The Flame And The Arrow, Annie Get Your Gun, Broken Arrow and Samson And Delilah are very colorful films but the actual camera work is nothing too exciting.

Best Costume Design (Black And White)/Costume Design (Color)
Edith Head wins both categories for All About Eve in the black and white and Samson And Delilah in the color.

Best Film Editing
King Solomon's Mines wins which is a laughable decision.  It was up against Sunset Boulevard and The Third Man which are incredibly paced.  The editing in Sunset Boulevard is particularly impressive because of the flashback angle and how it weaves the story between timelines.  Hell, Annie Get Your Gun (which was also nominated for some reason) would be a better winner.

Best Special Effects
Kind of a toss up in this category as Destination Moon beats Samson And Delilah.  Both have pretty impressive effects for the time.

Up Next
1937