Best Picture 1962

Okay, fuck it. Writing this after I have already watched them all and one of these is not like the other. Sing that to make it more effective. But not like they do in the film I am referencing. Oops, I spoiled the one I meant.

1962 Best Picture

Lawrence of Arabia

I mean, it's Lawrence of Arabia. Any casual movie fan has heard or seen or knows this film. They know both Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif. They know the iconic score. They know the mind blowingly awesome scenes where O'Toole blows out a match only for it to be a sun rising. Sharif has one of the greatest introductions on film ever as he emerges from a mirage and then shoots another Bedouin and insults Peter O'Toole. This film has so many amazing and unbelievable moments in its almost four hours of run time. My beef with the film is that it is so long. There are so many shots that linger and most of them are of the establishing shot variety. The camera lingers too long on a pair riding on camels or of a sunset or on a train or whatever. Also, the film loses its steam because O'Toole's Lawrence loses his. The end has Lawrence questioning his actions and it honestly betrays his earlier persona. This needs so much investigation that Lawrence's life begs for a miniseries. It begs for a more nuanced and detailed look at his life, but O'Toole certainly does his best to make his Lawrence seem less mythical and more human. My point really is that towards the end we start to lose why we were so enamored with Lawrence in the first place. Understandable as his job and impact keeps going. Fantastic work from O'Toole and an iconic performance that is among the best ever. David Lean is the master of epic film making and the epic shots of the landscape are incredible. This is one of the best looking films ever and it has a great story to boot. They really don't make films like this anymore and probably never will. I fully understand why this film won Best Picture this year because of the difficulties in getting it made and finished. It is one of those brilliant pieces of film making that should be studied forever. Lawrence of Arabia is one of the best films ever made even with the few flaws.

The Longest Day

Wow! Why have I been sleeping on this one all this time? Honestly probably one of the greatest war films I have ever seen. It's up there with all the classics easily. This film shows the events before, during, and after the D-Day invasion. One of the best things about the film to me is that everyone speaks their own languages. Actual German actors speaking German. Actual French actors speaking French. British and Americans doing their thing. No annoying British person speaking English with a bad German accent. And the other cool thing is that all of the specific languages were filmed/directed by native directors, which I bet makes a difference most people don't even notice. The film has a ton of star power, mostly in cameos, but big names nonetheless. John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton (taking refuge from filming Cleopatra), Rod Steiger, Sean Connery, Robert Mitchum, and my new guy Tom Tryon from The Cardinal, among many other recognizable names. But the film doesn't rely on them to move the action. The invasion does that easily on it's own and a lot of the actors we follow are no name guys so it makes it easier to connect to them. Another big thing I liked is that this is not some cartoon version of events. We see paratroopers getting killed in the air or jumping into burning buildings. There are realities of war shown that only don't go far enough because this is Hollywood in 1962. I'm sure if they could, there would have been some brutality like Saving Private Ryan. But there were still times I was saying Holy Shit! out loud to myself while watching. It's beautifully shot in black and white and the three hours went by incredibly fast it was so well paced. The major complaints I saw online were that it wasn't perfectly accurate, which of course not. It's a film in the early 60s that is telling a story to grip audiences. Of course there is going to be inaccuracies. The other complaint was about how some of the actors were much older than their real life counterparts. Which yeah, kinda sucks to see John Wayne at 54 playing a guy who was like 27, but I never for a moment felt that he didn't fit the character. I didn't think of him as young, just a grizzled vet and it works. Maybe this is how older vets felt about things, much how I feel watching modern military films where they can't even wear a uniform properly. But beyond all that it's a fantastic film in a year where there are upper echelon Oscar and film classics. In a weaker year this easily wins Best Picture. It could have won big in 1963 because it was so weak. Definitely one to watch if you like war films and even if you don't just to see what a day in hell looks like.

The Music Man

I gotta be honest. This is one of the most boring films I have encountered for this project. I do not say that lightly and I am sure that this statement upsets some fans of this film. Ok, whatever, but I have an expectation when it comes to a Best Picture nominated musical. For one, you can't be mind numbingly boring. Two, you have to have catchy songs (and no, I don't like Shipoopi). I can't remember a single song from this film besides the aforementioned one and I just watched it! I am a fan of Robert Preston, though, because he brings a huge amount of energy to the film and is the best part of this film. He's great, though his character is kinda shitty. It's a colorful film with decent sets and although I intensely dislike the songs, they have okay performances attached to them. But honestly, it is boring and I can try to come up with different platitudes or whatever but it's not happening. Maybe this is what happens when you use Iowa as your location for a musical The story is that Preston is a con man who goes from town to town pretending to be a band director and riles up the town to pay him for instruments and then he leaves without delivering. But the town librarian played by an Oscar winner from the year prior, Shirley Jones, falls in love with him after Preston helps her younger brother out, a young Ron Howard. Preston then gets called out by some guy from another town and a mob gets him, but they relent when the kids start playing instruments poorly. It sounds like it could be a pretty interesting musical but it just flat out wasn't. I think this is just one of those times where a film doesn't click at all with me. The only saving grace is Preston and thank God for him!

Mutiny on the Bounty

This is one of those films that has had a whole bunch of different versions throughout the years and has been an Oscar player for a couple of them. I feel like most people should know this story, but if not, it's about a mutiny on a ship called the Bounty. Wild, right? But for real, Captain Bligh is an overbearing ship captain who angers and upsets his crew with his callous punishments for even the smallest of things. The aristocratic Lieutenant Fletcher, Marlon Brando, leads the mutiny. It's not really a true to life version of events and is mostly dramatized, not that the actual events weren't dramatic enough. There's a lot of spectacle to the film. They built an almost exact replica of the Bounty (which crazily enough, I've been on and seen in person when it was docked in Florida for decades), so you get all these scenes on the ship that are cool to see. And then obviously you get the beautiful scenes in Tahiti where the ship stopped before the mutiny. Beautiful women shaking their hips and luscious scenery and deep blues from the ocean. The film looks great and is a good story overall with Trevor Howard as Bligh and one of my recent faves, Richard Harris, as one of the ship mates. The film itself was a box office bomb and apparently was hell to work on according to most of the cast and crew specifically because of Brando being a huge egotistical douche bag. That seems to be the big takeaway from this film which is it somehow got made despite Brando messing with every aspect from not working with the other actors, going off script, disappearing to other places during filming, to telling the writers and the director how to do their job. An utter mess that was a box office flop that somehow gets nominated for Best Picture was a harbinger for other films in this category for the rest of the 60s. I enjoyed the film and feel like most people will, but whether it is a legit Best Picture film, I'm not so sure. I feel like Billy Budd is almost a better film of this type from this same year. Doesn't really matter as this film was never going to win with the other amazing films in the category and at least it's not a bad, undeserving film.

To Kill A Mockingbird

This is one of those perfect films. Find a flaw because I sure can't. In almost any other year this would be sweeping the Oscars, yet it went up against some really great films including another all time classic. I am still undecided on which should win, but I feel like TKAM is the quintessential American film. Does it not dive deep enough into the small town racism and hatred and all that? Yeah, probably, but it for sure touches on the problems of black folks in rural Alabama with the limitations of a film in the 60s. The white savior angle that some trot out rings so hollow to me because Atticus Finch is simply doing what's right because it is what's right. Not because it makes him look better or because it's some trope. The film feels authentic and has such amazingly natural acting. I mostly despise child actors, yet I love Scout, Jem, and Dill. They are all fantastic in their roles and actually elevate the film for me. Gregory Peck delivers one of the greatest acting performances of all time that ranks up their with any actor and is legit a top Oscar moment. The film is mostly faithful to the book and while some characters are eliminated, it doesn't feel that the film lacks anything. It's one of those films that you sit down to watch and get completely engrossed in. I was impressed with how well the film is paced because I read that there were some scenes taken out that slowed the film down so that seems like a good decision. It flows so well and has a lot to say about not only small towns in the 30s but America in the 60s. Brock Peters, who plays Tom Robinson, is pretty great in his role as the accused black man and it warms my heart to know that both he and Peck became good life long friends and Peters delivered Peck's eulogy. Peck also was life long friends with Mary Badham and it just shows that Peck was a great man and the film had such a profound effect on those who made it and those who watched it. I also have to mention that this is Robert Duvall's film debut as Boo Radley and his introduction is one of the best in film. So tender and sweet and it just starts us down the amazing career that he had. To Kill A Mockingbird is one of the greatest books ever written, so naturally it makes sense that it has one of the greatest performances ever acted in one of the greatest films ever made. I love this film so much and if you haven't seen it, you are not of this earth.

 

Well, this is a pretty awesome group of BP nominees. The Music Man sucks. Hard. I'm sure there is some Inside Oscar stuff where someone gave money to voters to put it on the ballot or something. I dislike it and this may be that film I reference as worst when I do all my publicity interview when I'm done with the project (okay, I'm not that delusional). Mutiny on the Bounty is interesting because it was a box office flop and is still here. Either star power or peeps were again bribing people to vote for it. I enjoyed it, but apparently it was a mess and you'd think maybe that would prevent it from getting love, but here we are. I will have opportunity to compare the earlier one that got nominated, so I am excited for that. The Longest Day is fucking great. Totally surprised me. I love the  having Germans speak German and be directed by a German. Same for the French. It's just so authentic for an early 60s film. If made today, it would be amazing with what they could show. Just so good, but went up against Hall of Fame films, basically. To Kill a Mockingbird could be in the running for greatest American film of all time. I think it's perfect and is just simply a culmination of things going right. Lawrence of Arabia has been considered either the best British film of all time or has been in the top three. I looked it up and it makes sense. An epic that defies the lengthy run time to where you need to finish watching it if you ever catch it on TCM at 3:13pm and there are still 3 hours to go. I stick with the win instead of giving it to Atticus Finch. Both are equally great and should have tied.

Oscar Winner: Lawrence of Arabia
My Winner:  Lawrence of Arabia
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Longest Day
Mutiny on the Bounty
The Music Man