Was 1963 a good year, or a bad year for movies?

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