Not since CASABLANCA won the Best Picture Oscar on March 2, 1944, a mere 65 years ago, has the Academy nominated ten films in its top category.  Last week’s announcement of Oscar’s return to ten Best Picture contenders has aroused much discussion, which must have been the overall intention, actually getting people to talk about the telecast (aside from simply complaining about how hopelessly bad it is).  I think this is just the kind of stunt that may be a shot in the arm for the tired old Oscars, something that isn’t wearily familiar.  The best moments of last February’s Oscars were the surprising appearances of five former Oscar winners presenting each of the acting awards, a never-before brainstorm that worked beautifully.  Perhaps next year’s show will also be able to benefit from a novelty (at least for the TV-age Oscars), that of ten best-pic nominees.  But won’t that also bog the show down, with five more movies to pay attention to?  

For those who think that ten nominees will pollute the system, all I can say is, “Are you kidding me?”  The Oscars have only marginally been about rewarding the year’s best.  They were (and are) first and foremost a promotional device, and then a self-congratulatory means for the industry to decide each year how it would like to represent itself to the world (often as a vessel of high-minded values, sensitivities, and diversity).  It would take a lot more than five additional nominees to alter the “integrity” of a glamorous party festooned with gold trinkets. 

Many feel that this all stems from the omission of THE DARK KNIGHT from the most recent slate of Best Picture selections, since it was last year’s one blockbuster which actually went into the race’s run-up with some momentum.  (I thought it was just about the most unpleasurable summer movie I have ever seen, aside from Heath Ledger’s great performance, and was glad to see it snubbed.)  But do people really choose not to watch the Oscars when something like THE DARK KNIGHT isn’t included?  You either are an Oscar watcher or you aren’t.  Anyway, the impulse behind the change is to include more movies seen by the general public, instead of making Oscar night a telethon for independent movies.  But, seriously, when was the last time you thought to yourself, “Oh God, if only they could nominate five MORE movies!”  I usually can’t come up with five.  Yes, if this were 1939, a year in which they conceivably could have nominated 25 movies, or perhaps 1941, 1946, 1950, 1962, but they don’t make ten great movies a year nowadays and haven’t for decades!  So, what can we look forward to next year?  Nominations for STAR TREK and THE HANGOVER?  But is this really any more ludicrous than Best Picture of the Year going to FORREST GUMP, CRASH , TITANIC or MILLION DOLLAR BABY?  And SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE ain’t exactly ON THE WATERFRONT.  Is this really a process that can be ”tainted”?   

So, now we will have five decoy nominees sneaking in among the “real” nominees.  Add five blockbusters, fine, but be careful you don’t end up merely with five more movies nobody saw.  Then what?  On to 15? 

Then came word that Best Song will only be awarded if there are any songs deemed good enough to warrant having nominees at all, making Best Song an occasional award.  Why beat a dead horse?  This award should have been dropped entirely somewhere around 1970.  It was a category first instituted in 1934 when the Academy realized that Broadway’s greatest composers were also doing great work in Hollywood, adding to the Great American Songbook, something that went on for the next twenty years or so.  It was an award that stemmed from the phenomenal output of songs from original movie musicals, a genre that died by the end of the fifties.  Yet the award crept on.  Yes, there have been some great Oscar-winning tunes in the last forty years, just not enough of them to warrant a Best Song category at this late date.  Put it out of its misery.  And then we never have to hear another one of them sung on the telecast!!!

And what’s this about presenting honorary Oscars in November?  Movie legends will not be given their moment on the main broadcast?  Can this be true?  Is this to make room for those clips from the additional picture nominees?

Go ahead, Academy, do what you feel you must to give a dead awards show a jolt, even if the odds are heavily against next year’s winner being another CASABLANCA.

Earlier this week (June 22nd) marked the 40th anniversary of Judy Garland’s death at age 47.  She has been gone nearly as long as she lived, yet I guess such things don’t much matter when you’re immortal.  I have written about the great Garland in two previous books.  Her dazzling performance in THE PIRATE (1948) was one of my 100 GREAT FILM PERFORMANCES YOU SHOULD REMEMBER, and THE HARVEY GIRLS (1946) became one of five original movie musicals that I wrote about in SCREEN SAVERS, with particular emphasis on Judy’s marvelous work in the role that was the prototype–her irresistibly funny mix of spunk and insecurity and repressed erotic longing–for her remaining vehicles at MGM.  On this blog, I have already called EVERYBODY SING (1938) my favorite of her pre-OZ pictures, and no one needs any help from me in finding their way to MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944) or A STAR IS BORN (1954).  So, what other Garland moments should be recalled on this anniversary?

How about her gorgeous renditions of “But Not for Me” and “Embraceable You” in GIRL CRAZY (1943), or the poignancy she brought to ”Friendly Star” in the underrated SUMMER STOCK (1950)?  All the concert scenes in I COULD GO ON SINGING (1963) come as close as possible to capturing the excitement of being at “Judy at Carnegie Hall.”  Thanks to Garland’s innate artistry, her vocal of “Look for the Silver Lining” is the hands-down highlight of the bloated TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1946).  Similarly, she stops the enjoyably terrible ZIEGFELD GIRL (1941) dead in its tracks with the simplicity and perfection of her version of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,” rendering her co-stars, an overacting Lana Turner and a zombified Hedy Lamarr, little more than mannequins beside her talent.  And “How About You?” with Mickey Rooney, from BABES ON BROADWAY (1941), may be the spirited duo’s most charming and relaxed number of them all. 

So, if this is a week to be reminded of Judy, as if we ever need a reminder, there is so very much to savor.  Dig in.

This weekend (June 20th) marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Errol Flynn, the sound era’s master swashbuckler and the definitive Robin Hood in the 1938 classic THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, a wondrous and ageless film, the quintessential Hollywood adventure. Flynn, irresistibly dashing and handsome, was perfectly matched to the role, a perfect showcase for his ease and humor and charming light touch.  Who looked better in green tights than Flynn?  No wonder Olivia de Havilland’s Maid Marian couldn’t resist him.  Their on-screen romance is one of the more affecting of Hollywood’s Golden Age, gentle and intimate, especially in their radiant scene in her room and at her window (their “balcony” scene).  It is especially nice to have an actress as wonderful as de Havilland as Marian, instead of some vacant starlet.  Her talent brings out the best in Flynn, and she also makes a deeply felt transition to Robin’s side, against villains Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone, two legendary and sophisticated bad guys for the price of one!

The movie, in rapturous Technicolor, is a storybook come to life, a glorious pageant, and studio-system craftsmanship at its peak.  With its prankish, playful tone, there is nothing dated or campy here.  Funny, touching, and rousing, it is blessed with an amazing supporting cast of beloved character actors, like Eugene Pallette, Una O’Connor, and Alan Hale.  Has fighting evil ever been this much fun?  Or set so thrillingly to an Erich Wolfgang Korngold score?

A far less well-known Flynn film to be on the look-out for is the 1944 WWII picture UNCERTAIN GLORY, directed by Raoul Walsh and co-starring Paul Lukas.  Set in France, it is a tense and absorbing drama of courage and sacrifice.  The two leads have a “Les Miserables” sort of relationship.  The film is pure war propaganda, but it’s entertaining and not too shameless, with Flynn in his appealing bad-boy mode.

Flynn died at 50, fifty years ago, though hard living made him look so much older.  But at least he gets to be Robin Hood forever.

June 19th marks the 90th birthday of Louis Jourdan.  I can’t imagine that Jourdan has ever been anyone’s favorite actor or biggest film-star crush, but I do think he was a better actor than most people realize.  A later generation probably knows him only for his role in the James Bond franchise, memorably uttering the title character’s name in OCTOPUSSY (1983).  But his most famous and enduring role is as Gaston in the multi-Oscar-winning MGM musical GIGI (1958).  Despite its many assets, both musical and visual, GIGI, set in 1900 Paris, is a highly overrated work, though Jourdan’s performance is just about impeccable.  Gaston, heir to a sugar fortune, enjoys a playful relationship with the teenage Gigi (Leslie Caron), like that of a favorite uncle and his tomboy niece.  Soon after seeing her in an evening gown, he wants to make her his courtesan.  The film has taken a creepy turn from which it never recovers.  Jourdan does, however, a nice job with the title tune, which has songwriters Lerner and Loewe stealing from themselves, turning Jourdan’s soliloquy into a none-too-subtle rehash of their “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”  In 1960, Jourdan was reteamed with GIGI co-star Maurice Chevalier in the horrifying CAN-CAN, a complete travesty in which Jourdan comes up smelling like a rose, light and charming amid the wreckage.

THE SWAN (1956) contains my favorite Jourdan performance, possibly his finest.  A romantic comedy set among fictional European royalty in 1910, the film stars Grace Kelly as a princess, shortly before she became a real-life princess.  Alec Guinness is her cousin, a crown prince in search of a bride.  As Kelly’s family pushes her and Guinness together, it soon becomes apparent that Kelly and Jourdan, as her brothers’ lowly tutor, have fallen in love.  This wide-screen treasure becomes a tingling love triangle, superbly acted by its trio of stars:  Kelly has never been so warm and luminous; Guinness is a subtle and sublime comic master; and Jourdan surpassed himself in his display of sharp intelligence and intimate feeling.  Directed by Charles Vidor, this underrated sparkler is one of the best American films of 1956, a witty fairy tale with overtones of bittersweet emotion.

Jourdan had been Hollywood’s handsome new European of the late 1940s in THE PARADINE CASE (1947), LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (1948), and MADAME BOVARY (1949), but didn’t get to do much “acting” until the 50s.  Though the glossy soap THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN (1954) is an utter mediocrity, or worse, I rather like Jourdan’s easygoing performance as a prince, despite his being foolish enough to bother romantically with the irritating Maggie McNamara.  He also appeared in at least three camp classics:  JULIE (1956), in which he terrorized Doris Day; THE BEST OF EVERYTHING (1959); and THE VIPS (1963), in a remarkably sexless love triangle, actually getting in between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton!  

Happy Birthday, Mr. Jourdan.  I hope somebody somewhere is watching THE SWAN right now.

This exceptional and beautifully shot L.A. film noir was inventively crafted by Otto Preminger, making it one of the director’s finest achievements.  Fascinating for its flawed relationships, unsympathetic characters, and shocking violence, ANGEL FACE stars a just-right Robert Mitchum as an ambulance driver with a blonde girlfriend (Mona Freeman) and the dream of opening his own garage for race cars.  Then he meets Jean Simmons, and before you can say “double indemnity” he’s a goner.  His yearning to feel free makes him vacillate between the well-planned life set before him and the thrills of being with the rich, strange, and beautiful Simmons.  In true noir fashion, the corruptible male is vulnerable to the machinations of a femme fatale.  She’s a manipulator; he’s a chump.  They’re both louses and they belong together.  Simmons makes Mitchum the family chauffeur, but, however selfishly, this is truly a two-sided love story. 

The marvelous Simmons is at her best here, this time playing a cool and delicate conniver.  Like Gene Tierney in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945), she is obsessed with her father (Herbert Marshall) and amoral about murder, a kitten made of steel.  Simmons is remarkably assured and complex, so concentrated that her performance quickly becomes mesmerizing.  Unlike Tierney’s hyper-intense and somewhat campy performance, Simmons is disturbed and obsessive in a believable way, not coming off as a villainess though she surely is scary.  She also comes to feel guilt over her actions, even aches to confess.  This all leads to one of the more jaw-dropping climaxes in all of film noir.

As a slick lawyer, Leon Ames plays just about the same role he played in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946).  Though Mitchum is one of my favorite actors, this cynical and unusually credible noir belongs to Simmons.  (She likes him from the moment he slaps her.)  Hers is a masterly portrait of self-absorption.  Now 80, Simmons was one of the brightest lights of 1950s Hollywood, leaving behind a string of superb performances, including those in THE ACTRESS (1953), THE BIG COUNTRY (1958), and ELMER GANTRY (1960).  I’ve written about THE ACTRESS in my second book and about THE BIG COUNTRY in SCREEN SAVERS, and I hope someday to write at length about the psychologically turbulent ANGEL FACE.