Picture(s) of the Week, Part 2: The Academy Awards During Hollywood's Golden Age (1950-1969)

Gloria Swanson with José Ferrer, the Best Actor winner for Cyrano de Bergerac (1950), and Judy Holliday, Best Actress for Born Yesterday (1950).

Claire Trevor prepared to give Humphrey Bogart a kiss after presenting him with the Oscar for Best Actor for The African Queen (1951).

Harry Cohn presents Vivien Leigh with the Oscar for Best Actress for her work in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh was unable to attend the ceremony that year, so the award was given to her in London.

Fredric March congratulates Shirley Booth after presenting her with the Oscar for Best Actress for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952).

Gloria Grahame received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).

Cecil B. DeMille poses with his Oscar for Best Picture for The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and the Irving G. Thalberg Award for "consistently high quality of motion picture production."

Audrey Hepburn proudly holds her Oscar for Best Actress for Roman Holiday (1953).

William Holden received the statuette for Best Actor for his performance in Stalag 17 (1953).

Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed won Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress for their performances in From Here to Eternity (1953).

Grace Kelly receives from William Holden the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in The Country Girl (1954).

Marlon Brando holds his award for Best Actor for On the Waterfront (1954).

On the Waterfront also gave Eva Marie Saint the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She was pregnant at the time.

Three winners at the 28th Academy Awards: Jack Lemmon, Best Supporting Actor for Mister Roberts (1955); Jo Van Fleet, Best Supporting Actress for East of Eden (1955); and Ernest Borgnine, Best Actor for Marty (1955).

The recipients of the Best Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor Oscars at the 29th Academy Awards: Dorothy Malone for Written on the Wind (1956) and Anthony Quinn for Lust for Life (1956).

John Wayne presents Joanne Woodward with the Oscar for Best Actress for her work in The Three Faces of Eve (1957).

Three winners at the 31st Academy Awards presentation: Burl Ives, Best Supporting Actor for The Big Country (1958); Susan Hayward, Best Actress for I Want to Live (1958); and David Niven, Best Actor for Separate Tables (1958).

Simone Signoret and Charlton Heston with their awards for Best Actress and Best Actor. She won for Room at the Top (1959) and he for Ben-Hur (1959).

Shelley Winters celebrates her Best Supporting Actress win for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) with presenter Edmond O'Brien.

The winners of the Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress statuettes at the 33rd Academy Awards: Peter Ustinov for Spartacus (1960) and Shirley Jones for Elmer Gantry (1960).

Maximilian Schell receives from Joan Crawford the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).

Winner for West Side Story (1961): George Chakiris for Best Supporting Actor; Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise for Best Director (wise also won for Best Picture); and Rita Moreno for Best Supporting Actress.

The winners in the acting categories at the 35th Academy Awards: Gregory Peck, Best Actor for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962); Patty Duke, Best Supporting Actress for The Miracle Worker (1962); Joan Crawford, accepting for Anne Bancroft, who won Best Actress for The Miracle Worker; and Ed Begley, Best Supporting Actor for Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).

Sidney Poitier poses with his Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Lillies of the Field (1963). He was the first African-American actor to win in that category.

George Cukor, Best Director winner for My Fair Lady (1964), with presenter Joan Crawford.

Julie Andrews hugging the Best Actress Oscar that she received for playing the title role in Mary Poppins (1964).

The winners in the acting categories at the 38th Academy Awards: Lee Marvin, Best Actor for Cat Ballou (1965); Julie Christie, Best Actress for Darling (1965); Shelley Winters, Best Supporting Actress for A Patch of Blue (1965); and Martin Balsam, Best Supporting Actor for A Thousand Clowns (1965).

Elizabeth Taylor with her much-deserved Oscar for Best Actress for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

Fred Zinnemann, winner of Best Director and Best Picture for A Man For All Seasons (1966).

Leslie Caron presents Mike Nichols with the award for Best Director for The Graduate (1967).

Barbra Streisand holds her Oscar for Best Actress for Funny Girl (1968). That year was notable for the first (and so far, only) tie for Best Actress (or any female acting category). Streisand shared the award with Katharine Hepburn for her role in The Lion in Winter (1968).

Barbra Streisand kisses John Wayne after presenting him with the Academy Award for Best Actor for True Grit (1969).

*****************************************
Part 1 of this Oscar-theme "Picture of the Week": The Academy Awards During Hollywood's Golden Age (1929-1949)

Are you looking forward for the Oscars tonight? Do you have any favorites? These are my predictions:

Best Picture: The Revenant
Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant
Best Actress: Brie Larson for Room
Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone for Creed
Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs
Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant

Comments

Golden Couples: Gary Cooper & Patricia Neal

It was April 1948 when director King Vidor spotted 22-year-old Patricia Neal on the Warner Bros. studio lot. A drama graduate from Northwestern University, she had just arrived in Hollywood following a Tony Award-winning performance in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest . Impressed by Patricia's looks, Vidor approached the young actress and asked if she would be interested in doing a screen test for the female lead in his newest film, The Fountainhead (1949). Gary Cooper had already signed as the male protagonist, and the studio was then considering Lauren Bacall and Barbara Stanwyck to play his love interest. Neal liked the script and about two months later, she met with the director for sound and photographic tests. Vidor was enthusiastic about Patricia, but her first audition was a complete disaster. Cooper was apparently watching her from off the set and he was so unimpressed by her performance that he commented, « What's that!? » He ...

Golden Couples: Clark Gable & Jean Harlow

At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony, MGM's hugely successful prison drama The Big House (1930) earned writer Frances Marion an Oscar for Best Writing. Hoping that she would be inspired to repeat that accomplishment, Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro, sent Marion to Chicago, Illinois to research story ideas. While flicking through the pages of The Saturday Evening Post , she found an article revealing that, in a city where people distrusted the police, a small group of leading citizens met in secret to arrange their own justice for criminals. Marion took inspiration from that story and wrote The Secret Six (1931), in which Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone, stars of The Big House , play two mobsters prosecuted by a half a dozen vigilantes. Thalberg was pleased with the leading roles Marion wrote for Beery and Stone, but asked if she could also fill out one of the minor leads for Clark Gable , a tall, dark and handsome 30-year-old actor whom Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had recen...

Golden Couples: Henry Fonda & Barbara Stanwyck

In the mid- and late 1930s, screwball comedy was in vogue and practically every actress in Hollywood tried her hand at it. Barbara Stanwyck never considered herself a naturally funny person or a comedienne per se , but after delivering a heart-wrenching performance in King Vidor's Stella Dallas (1937), she decided she needed a « vacation » from emotional dramas. In her search for a role, she stumbled upon a « champagne comedy » called The Mad Miss Manton (1938), originally intended as a Katharine Hepburn vehicle. Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda as Melsa and Peter in The Mad Miss Manton . Directed by Leigh Jason from a script by Philip G. Epstein, The Mad Miss Manton begins when vivacious Park Avenue socialite Melsa Manton finds a corpse while walking her dogs in the early hours of the morning. She calls the police, but they dismiss the incident — not only because Melsa is a notorious prankster, but also because the body disappears in the meantime. Sarcastic newspaper editor...

Film Friday: «Who Was That Lady?» (1960)

Theatrical release poster Directed by George Sidney , Who Was That Lady? (19 60 ) begins when che mistry p rofessor David Wilson (Tony Curtis) is caught by his wife Ann (Janet Leigh) kissing one of his female st u de nts. To stop her from divo rcing him , he a sk s for hel p from his good friend, television writer Michael Haney (Dean Mart in), who invents a crazy story that Davi d is working undercover with the FBI and kissed the student — a foreign agent — in the line of du ty. To convince Ann, Mi ke tricks Schult z (William Newel l), a prop man at the T V studio, into fabricating an FBI identification card for David and s up plying him with a g un. Ann is so t hrilled by the idea of being married to a secret agent t hat she forgives David. Meanwhile, Mike sets up a date wi th the Coogle sisters, Gloria (Barbara N ichols) and Florence ( Joi Lan sing), and takes David along , telling Ann that the girls are foreign agents. Just as Ann realizes that her h usband ha s...

Christmas in Old Hollywood

The beautiful Elizabeth Taylor with an extremely cute little friend. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall with their son Stephen (early 1950s). Here they are again. What an adorable picture! Paulette Goddard looking rather uncomfortable next to her Christmas tree. Boris Karloff and Ginger Rogers at a Hollywood Christmas party in 1932. The adorable Shirley Temple chatting with Santa. Here she is again with a dolly friend. Look how cute she looks here, modeling a new Christmas dress (1935). The fur-tastic Joan Crawford. Doris Day asking us to "do not disturb until Christmas." Don't worry, Doris, we shall not. Though it's past Christmas now, so I'm sure Doris won't mind if we disturb just a little bit. Priscilla Lane looking sparkling drapped in her garlands. A VERY young Carole Lombard sitting next to her tree (1920s). Jean Harlow looking stunning as always. Janet Leigh looking extra cute unde...

Films I Saw in 2020

For the past four years, I have shared with you a list of all the films I saw throughout 2016 , 2017 , 2018 and 2019 , so I thought I would continue the «tradition» and do it again in 2020. This list includes both classic and «modern» films, which make up a total of 161 titles. About three or four of these were re-watches, but I decided to include them anyway. Let me know how many from these you have seen. As always, films marked with a heart ( ❤ ) are my favorites. Sherlock Jr. (1924) | Starring Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire and Joe Keaton The Crowd (1928) | Starring James Murray, Eleanor Boardman and Bert Roach Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) | Starring Henry Fonda, Alice Brady and Marjorie Weaver Brief Encounter (1945) | Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard and Stanley Holloway The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) | Starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman The Girl He Left Behind (1956) | Starring Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood Gidget (1959) | Starring Sandra Dee, Cliff Robertson an...

Wings of Change: The Story of the First Ever Best Picture Winner

Wings was the first ever film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since then, it has become one of the most influential war dramas, noted for its technical realism and spectacular air-combat sequences. This is the story of how it came to be made. A man and his story The concept for Wings originated from a writer trying to sell one of his stories. In September 1924, Byron Morgan approached Jesse L. Lasky, vice-president of Famous Players-Lasky, a component of Paramount Pictures, proposing that the studio do an aviation film. Morgan suggested an «incident and plot» focused on the failure of the American aerial effort in World War I and the effect that the country's «aviation unpreparedness» would have in upcoming conflicts. Lasky liked the idea, and approved the project under the working title «The Menace.» LEFT: Byron Morgan (1889-1963). RIGHT: Jesse L. Lasky (1880-1958). During his development of the scenario with William Shepherd, a former war correspond...

80 Reasons Why I Love Classic Films (Part II)

I started this blog six years ago as a way to share my passion for classic films and Old Hollywood. I used to watch dozens of classic films every month, and every time I discovered a new star I liked I would go and watch their entire filmography. But somewhere along the way, that passion dimmed down. For instance, I watched 73 classic films in 2016, and only 10 in 2020. The other day, I found this film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. that I had never heard of — the film is Mimi (1935), by the way — and for some reason it made me really excited about Old Hollywood again. It made me really miss the magic of that era and all the wonderful actors and actresses. And it also made me think of all the reasons why I fell in love with classic films in the first place. I came up with 80 reasons, which I thought would be fun to share with you. Most of them are just random little scenes or quirky little quotes, but put them together and they spell Old Hollywood to me. Yesterday I posted part one ; her...

Top 10 Favourite Christmas Films

Christmas has always been a source of inspiration to many artists and writers. Over the years, filmmakers have adapted various Christmas stories into both movies and TV specials, which have become staples during the holiday season all around the world. Even though Christmas is my favourite holiday, I haven't watched a lot of Christmas films. Still, I thought it would be fun to rank my top 10 favourites, based on the ones that I have indeed seen. Here they are. 10. Holiday Affair (1949) Directed by Don Hartman, Holiday Affair tells the story of a young widow (Janet Leigh) torn between a boring attorney (Wendell Corey) and a romantic drifter (Robert Mitchum). She's engaged to marry the boring attorney, but her son (Gordon Gebert) likes the romantic drifter better. Who will she choose? Well, we all know who she will choose. Holiday Affair is not by any means the greatest Christmas film of all time, but it's still a very enjoyable Yule-tide comedy to watch over the holi...

The Sinatra Centennial Blogathon: Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly

In January 1944, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer happened to see a young crooner by the name of Frank Sinatra perform at a benefit concert for The Jewish Home for the Aged in Los Angeles. According to Nancy Sinatra, Frank's eldest daughter, Mayer was so moved by her father's soulful rendition of « Ol' Man River » that he made the decision right then and there to sign Frank to his studio. Sinatra had been on the MGM payroll once before, singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in the Eleanor Powell vehicle Ship Ahoy (1942), although it is very likely that Mayer never bothered to see that film. Now that Frank was «hot,» however, Metro made arrangements to buy half of his contract from RKO, with the final deal being signed in February of that year. Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in Anchors Aweigh Being a contract player at the studio that boasted «more stars than there are in the heavens» gave Frank a sudden perspective regarding his own talents as a film performer. The «g...

Back to Golden Days

Search This Blog