By RM
wednesday, february 18, 2026 at 9:14:00 p.m. est
Funny you mentioned that-I was just thinking, why didn't that win best score for 1963? (It was nominated.) [N.S.: Addison won, due to Tom Jones' coattails. But why did Tom Jones won?]
Now that I looked up the Oscar nominees for that year...
Best picture:
Tom Jones-A piece of garbage. It was so awful the director actually re-edited it when it was released to home video, removing the obnoxious slapstick scenes-don't know if the original version was ever made available. [N.S.: Never saw it.]
Cleopatra-Unwatchable, with two dead-fish "megastars." [Taylor and Burton.] [N.S.: Never saw it.]
America, America-Unwatchable. Kazan's career was already over. [N.S.: Never saw it.]
How the West was Won-Put me to sleep; no doubt it looked better in the movies in Cinerama, but still...
Lilies of the Field-Are they kidding? Sanctimonious drivel; the constant repetition of the "Amen" song was enough to drive a sane person up the wall. [N.S.: Saw it on TV over 50 years ago. Have seen scenes and a condensed version at youtube. I enjoyed very much the comic by-play between Sidney Poitier and Lilia Skala--"I ain't buildin' no shapel!," mocking her German accent. And Jerry's score was stunning. At the time, he was with Elmer one of the two hottest composers in pictures. But of course, Poitier received an affirmative action Oscar.]
Shows that the Oscars were always a farce. Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World should have won Best Picture. Hud should have been nominated. Lord of the Flies, a masterpiece, as was Losey's The Servant. The Birds, for crying out loud! (There's your top five-well, MY five!) High and Low wasn't even nominated for Best Foreign Film! [N.S.: High and Low is a top 50 masterpiece!]
Also great that year-The Haunting, The Great Escape (score should have been nominated), Jason and the Argonauts (Bernard Herrmann's incredible score should have been nominated- it's only a "weak year" for music if you go by the Academy's choices!), Sunday in New York, The List of Adrian Messenger, X-The Man with X-Ray Eyes (Another great score, by Les Baxter)...
Well, you get the idea. If you're going to rant, might as well rant about movies!
-RM
[N.S.: Mad World was a comedy without laughs. You're always complaining about decadence, yet you promote Joseph Lousy. Yes, Elmer should have been nominated for The Great Escape. As for Jason, someone powerful had imposed an unofficial rule during the early 1940s, "No more nominations for Hermann, while he still breathes!" Cost him several noms.]
By RM
wednesday, february 18, 2026 at 11:46:00 p.m. esr
Something good came of this-if you google search "imdb, (fill-in-the-year) movies," you get the ENTIRE list of movies released that year, WITHOUT the extraneous garbage common to imdb pages! I'm still going through the 1963 list-over 700 titles, and continuing! Information without distractions-right up my alley. Fascinating stuff-though the users' ratings are pretty screwy...
-RM
By RM
thursday, february 19, 2026 at 12:13:00 a.m. est
PS-Chalk up another great score for 1963 with The List of Adrian Messenger-Jerry Goldsmith!
-RM
By Grand Rapids Anonymous
thursday, february 19, 2026 at 12:37:00 a.m. est
Hollywood was cranking out the movies back then--and why not? A lot of great stars to wrap movies around.
Hud was a great one. Would have been my pick.
--GRA
By RM
thursday, february 19, 2026 at 4:25:00 p.m. est
If you're still reading... I got to see Hud at a revival house long ago, and James Wong Howe's cinematography was awesome on the big screen. The landscape was a big part of that movie, and even with a high-quality DVD, the effect just isn't the same on TV.
Reportedly, the studio received letters complaining about Hud being the bad guy (or at least, an anti-hero)- "Hud was right, the old man shoulda sold that farm!" That took the producers aback, and seemed symptomatic of the shift in public morality that would go completely haywire in just a few more years!
-RM
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5 comments:
Regarding Joe "Lousy": Even a Communist can make an entertaining film that doesn't beat you over the head with ideology. Looking at his filmography, it was his early films made here (before he was blacklisted) that were heavy-handed propaganda: BOY WITH GREEN HAIR, THE PROWLER, THE LAWLESS. Besides THE SERVANT (which is Harold Pinter's baby, and hardly a celebration of decadence), I enjoyed his British-made films THE SLEEPING TIGER, THE GYPSY AND THE GENTLEMAN, EVA, THE GO-BETWEEN, and THESE ARE THE DAMNED- I don't think any of those were Red propaganda. He gravitates toward the offbeat, avoids talkiness, and puts a lot of visual style into his films, which is a big plus with me.
By the way, he was supposed to direct Hammer's X THE UNKNOWN in 1957, but got booted for being a Red- possibly by the imported American star, Dean Jagger!
As for MAD MAD WORLD- as I've said, it's pointless to argue matters of taste, so all I can say is that I saw it twice in the movies when it was reissued, and I wasn't the only one laughing- and it made a ton of money during its original release. Comedies often play better with an audience!
But jeepers, just recalling many of the scenes makes me smile- Sid Caesar locked in the store basement, Jonathan Winters wrecking the gas station, Spencer Tracy calmly walking off with the money, Buddy Hackett flying the plane (Voice on radio to Rooney- "Who's flying the plane?" Rooney looks at Buddy, says, "NOBODY'S flying the plane!") And Jim Backus, putting Buddy at the wheel, saying, '"Take over while I mix us a dry martini!" Rooney: "Isn't this dangerous?" Backus (in his Mr. Howell voice): "Nonsense, what could be dangerous about mixing a dry martini?"
Good night,
-RM
Don't want to spend time on a laborious essay, but here's a few thoughts on Communist writers-
HIGH NOON and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS were both penned and produced by Reds, and were, in the authors' minds, allegories about the (so-called) Blacklist. I don't think you could identify that theme by watching either of those, and they're both great movies- certainly the latter has a universal theme that's gotten truer with each passing year, the feeling that people around you are no longer human! HIGH NOON would be ludicrous if you visualized the lone Sheriff as a beleaguered Commie screenwriter facing his enemies with nobody to help him! SPARTACUS was another classic written by a Communist, based on a Commie's novel, and yet without any discernable message, though presumably the underlying idea is the workers (slaves) rising up against the ruling class (management).
Here's an example of something I DIDN'T like: BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, written by the Red duo of Carl (HIGH NOON ) Foreman and Michael Wilson. The first half of the movie was very entertaining, but in Act 2 (I only saw it once, long ago, so correct me if I'm mistaken) everything stops and we get a heavy-handed lecture about the "immorality" of War. THAT'S beat-you-over-the-head propaganda, and totally unrealistic- nobody in the middle of War stops to ponder the right-or-wrong of it, they do what they have to! Foreman's followup, GUNS OF NAVARONE, did the same thing, and it wasn't even as well-made, certainly not as well-directed. Yet everyone loves KWAI- maybe it's the Col. Bogey March!
In short- you can be a Red (or just a flaming Liberal) and still create Art. It's how they do it that counts.
-RM
So a question,RM. Does the director make THE difference in how commie written material is--or is not--presented onscreen as neutral or commie? A leading question,because that's how it would appear to me(with no facts to back up my theory).
--GRA
Tough question. Probably it's how the script is written. Of course, liberal directors usually make liberal movies, and the directors have obvious input into the whole project. Producers too initiate the work- Stanley Kramer was one of the biggest libs in Hollywood, usually producer but sometimes also director, and he certainly controlled the films he made. (Brings us back to MAD MAD WORLD- one of his few films that WASN'T political, and probably his biggest success!)
Sorry if this sounds muddled, but with almost ANY movie, numerous hands are involved- sometimes uncredited- and it's hard to say who's responsible for what, but for politically-slanted projects, there's probably unison between writer, producer, and director.
In the earlier days, when Hollywood was like a factory, messages were less overt- but they DID get slipped in. There was an interesting article about FIVE CAME BACK (1939) in CLASSIC IMAGES a while back, describing its unusually blatant Communist/Socialist undertones (Dalton Trumbo was one of the writers), something I definitely noticed when I saw it! Jarring in an old movie, to say the least!
-RM
Well then there are rewrites that we hear about(during "troubled movie shoots"),with some directors doing the rewriting to fit their vision of the film. You could probably name a few of those,with the original screenwriter having a fit after hearing about his work getting redone.
I think Marilyn Monroe's unfinished film with Dean Martin might fit in that "rewrite" category.
Thanks.
--GRA
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