Best Screenplay 1961

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What were the best original and adapted screenplays of 1961?

Ballad of a Soldier (Valentin Ezhov and Grigori Chukhrai)
3
8%
General Della Rovere (Sergio Amidei, Diego Fabbri and Indro Montanelli)
2
5%
La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Brunello Rondi)
9
23%
Lover Come Back (Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning)
0
No votes
Splendor in the Grass (William Inge)
3
8%
Breakfast at Tiffany's (George Axelrod)
4
10%
The Guns of Navarone (Carl Foreman)
0
No votes
The Hustler (Robert Rossen and Sidney Carroll)
11
28%
Judgment at Nuremburg (Abby Mann)
5
13%
West Side Story (Ernest Lehman)
2
5%
 
Total votes: 39

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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by ITALIANO »

dws1982 wrote:
ITALIANO wrote:Interesting that Grigoriy Chukhray, its writer-director, after such a promising and internationally praised effort, never did anything remotely relevant.
He was a favorite of Nikita Khrushchev, who gave him more leeway and resources than he might otherwise have had
I didnt know this. Still, really, Ballad of a Soldier and the movie he made before - his first one, called The Forty-first - are the only ones who received a strong international recognition. (The one he made right after Ballad of a Soldier, Clear Skies, was shown in several of countries, including Italy, but seems to have vanished without a trace).
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by dws1982 »

ITALIANO wrote:Interesting that Grigoriy Chukhray, its writer-director, after such a promising and internationally praised effort, never did anything remotely relevant.
He was a favorite of Nikita Khrushchev, who gave him more leeway and resources than he might otherwise have had. I'm guessing that once Khrushchev was out of power, his career took a pretty serious downward turn.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by ITALIANO »

The Original BJ wrote:As it stands, at least I can't necessarily predict with any certainty which Italian movie Italiano will vote for.
Yeah well, I like to think that I am quite objective in my choices, and that 8 1/2 IS a better script than How the West Was Won, but then I guess only Americans are allowed to be nationalistic :) ... Anyway - let's end the suspense: La Dolce Vita. It has always been a challenge for Italian artists - creating the definitive portray of contemporary society, yet giving it a timeless meaning. This has led to some masterpieces - in literature (Dante's The Divine Comedy) and in painting (Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel), and several disappointing attempts. I'd say that La Dolce Vita belongs to the few masterpieces - it's a movie of such scope, such richness of themes (and some flaws, too, maybe) that when I watch it, I never feel that it's "overlong" - or rather, I love the fact that it's overlong - such a movie could only be overlong. And I wouldn't cut any scenes out of it. Plus, while deeply Italian, intellectually very Italian I mean, it succeeds in being universal at the same time - the fact that it's set in Rome definitely helps. I've been to several other important cities - even in the US - but no city has the depth of Rome. This isn't necessarily a good thing, I'm not being patriotic for once - depth can actually be a burden, and there are many more efficient capitals in the world. But Rome is THE place where one can have the most complete idea of mankind, of humanity - though not necessarily a positive one. It was, of course, more at the centre of the world in the early 60s than it is now - but even back then, let's face it, it was decadent, lazily sexual, and labyrinthine - and La Dolce Vita perfectly captures all this. Visually, certainly - but you can feel the hand of Ennio Flaiano in the writing - and his piercing yet sonehow compassionate look at us people as, basically, confused little ants. General Della Rovere is also, of course, a great movie AND a great script (though maybe a bit slow in its first hour - but triumphant in its second part), and a memorable character study (I'd add that Vittorio De Sica's role is one of, say, the ten best parts for an actor in the history of cinema) - but it can only be in second place here. Bronze medal to Ballad of a Soldier - which is a nice display of Russian lyricism. (Interesting that Grigoriy Chukhray, its writer-director, after such a promising and internationally praised effort, never did anything remotely relevant). Splendor is the Grass is the best of the (two) American nominees - a bt too floridly written but not as terrible as other winners in this category in the same period.

It's between The Hustler and Judgement at Nuremberg in Adapted. The Hustler would be the logical choice - complex, unforgettable characters and generally brilliant dialogue (too brilliant? One can always feel the presence of a writer behind it - but then when the writing is so good, who cares?). Still, after LOTS of thinking, I've picked Judgement at Nuremberg. I simply admire this screenplay - which is I think even better than the movie itself. The amount of research - and back then it's not like this subject was as fashionable as it is today - clearly behind it, the ability of conveying all the several issues in an organic, and even entertaining piece of writing, the right combination of history and human elements, the difficult but in this case successful balance between the serious and the commercial... For those times, this is an absolutely important script - again, maybe more an important script than an important movie. If only more so-called "holocaust movies" had been so rigorous...
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by Heksagon »

Two years ago, I lamented not being able to vote for The Hustler in either Best Picture of Director, and having missed the Acting votes, but I will now get my chance with the Adapted Screenplay category. West Side Story is the better film overall, but only because the visuals and the music make up for the weaker parts in its screenplay.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by The Original BJ »

How often does Oscar have a majority subtitled lineup in a major category? Are Original Screenplay '61 & '62 the only cases? (I haven't done a thorough check.)

Of course, it could have been very cool to have had nominations for Breathless and L'Avventura in place of the American entries, making it a full foreign language slate! As it stands, at least I can't necessarily predict with any certainty which Italian movie Italiano will vote for.

I went into Lover Come Back knowing the Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies were always essentially a different version of the same formula...but by the time the story kicked into gear, with Rock pretending to be someone else so he could dupe Doris into dating him, I thought, this isn't just formula, this is the same damn PLOT as Pillow Talk! And though I certainly wouldn't hold up the earlier film as any kind of romantic comedy classic (more on that in a couple weeks), I found it quite a bit funnier and more charming than this incarnation, which struck me as pretty silly at times.

Of the era's American screenplay winners that boxed out more worthy foreign films, I certainly agree that Splendor in the Grass is a more deserving candidate than say, an outrageous choice like How the West Was Won. William Inge is at least a writer of note, the depiction of young love here is quite sensitively realized, and the script offers a pretty authentic-feeling portrait of a setting -- the 1920s Midwest -- not often captured on film. That being said, certain portions of the film -- like the fairly reductive psychology -- don't work as well, and at times the melodrama tips into histrionics.

I can see the argument Mister Tee makes about Ballad of a Soldier -- by the conclusion of the film, I didn't feel like it had put forth any hugely fresh idea about war and the toll it takes on individuals. But what I did love about the movie were the complexities within individual beats -- like the scene where Alyosha goes back up stairs to take the soap from the soldier's girl now living with another man -- that illustrate the compromises people are willing to take during times of great national upheaval. And from a sheer storytelling standpoint, I found the culmination of the film's events -- with our hero racing to make it home with enough time to see his mother -- quite gripping. While watching the movie, I realized too that although I'd seen Soviet montage classics from the silent era, and contemporary Russian films, I don't know if I'd ever seen a Soviet film from the Cold War era before. So that may have contributed to my feeling that I wasn't just watching the same old thing, either in setting or style. Not my winner, but I'm thrilled it was singled out for a nomination.

I have one minor structural issue with General Della Rovere. If you were to describe the movie, you'd probably say it's a story about a thief during WWII who's asked to impersonate a resistance leader in order to gather information for the Nazis; in fact, this is how most online reviews I glanced at characterized the movie. However, this doesn't actually happen until over an hour into the film, and for me, there was just a bit too much repetitive exposition in the first portion of the movie. This isn't to say there aren't strong scenes in the first half, but I felt like the plot didn't really take off until the prison sequences, at which point it became a very fascinating account of one man's transformation from a self-serving crook to someone deeply sympathetic to the people around him who are suffering and, in some cases, giving their lives for a noble cause. The film's slow start doesn't at all prevent me from finding it an impressive writing achievement...but it does prevent me from granting it my vote.

Besides, I simply adore La Dolce Vita, and find it to be one of the most transporting movies in the history of film. There are just so many memorable sequences in the film -- the arrival of the Christ statue at the opening, the nighttime fountain excursion with Anita Ekberg, the children recounting their vision of the Virgin Mary, Mastroianni's night out with his father, the shocking tragedy of the film's final reel, the creature on the beach at the conclusion. And while I certainly see the argument that the movie's strengths are more directorial -- in fact, most of those scenes I just cited are pretty clearly image-driven -- I find the movie's rambunctious episodic structure, its brilliant scattering of insight throughout the vignettes, and its balance of tone between delight and despair to be supremely impressive writing achievements as well. I'm glad the other subtitled efforts have received some support here -- certainly the writers did a good job picking out interesting scripts to fill out this field -- but for me La Dolce Vita just runs away with this prize.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by Mister Tee »

On the adapted side, my alternates would be The Innocents, Purple Noon, and two movies -- Whistle Down the Wind and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – that may or may not have been eligible that year.

It seems odd the one best picture candidate not to repeat in this category would be Fanny, not The Guns of Navarone, given the latter’s relatively trivial genre. But it’s a reminder of just how genuinely popular Navarone was, as both best-selling book and top-grossing film of the year. I like the movie more than some, but as a writing candidate it’s a bit of a joke.

West Side Story is a cherished part of my childhood – my parents loved the stage show, we played the cast album incessantly, and, when the movie came to my neighborhood, kids my age loved it so much we played Jets and Sharks in the playground. But, judging strictly in the area of screenplay, 1) t’s not terribly different from the stage version, 2) it’s a musical, memorable more for songs and dancing than dialogue, and 3) some of the dialogue is frankly a bit cheesy. I still have enormous affection for the film, but can’t vote for it here. (And I’m on the BJ side re: the adjustments – I think the Cool/Krupke switch is a bad idea, and, for me, I Feel Pretty works better in Act II.)

Stanley Kramer’s films are what they are, but Judgment at Nuremberg would have to rank at or near the top of his range. The courtroom scenes in particular are pretty gripping, acted extremely well by a solid cast. But there’s still, in the end, Kramer’s smug certainty about right and wrong – the last half hour is filled with scenes of Tracy telling everyone else how wrong they are for not matching his exact moral outlook. This, to me, is antithetical to a true work of art -- which tries to understand even the worst behavior – and it’s why I can’t consider voting for Nuremeberg, despite it’s being a decent film.

I’ve never read Capote’s novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, so I can’t rate the film in comparison to its source. All I can say is, what’s up on the screen is for the most part (doing the courtesy of pretending those Mickey Rooney scenes don’t exist) wonderful – at heart a romance, but one with a great deal of nuance and bite, and wonderful dialogue. It’d be easy to cast a vote here.

Except for the fact The Hustler is on the ballot, and it’s the class of this field – for me, the year’s best film. The story is rich and vivid, and the dialogue is often terrific – it manages the tang of noir, but also achieves striking realism (notably in the early morning coffee shop scene between Newman and Laurie). And the hotel bar encounter between Newman and Scott is one of the great actor-on-actor scenes in any movie of the 60s. My un-hesitant choice.

It’s clear that, back in this era, if you asked people what an original screenplay was, the answer would be, it’s what those foreigners write. From 1959 through 1965, there were at least two foreign-language nominees in the category each year (while, under adapted, Sundays and Cybele was the sole subtitled effort to score). The category also, partly in result, often featured no best picture nominees – from the first year of the two-category split, 1957, through 1972, 9 times there was no best picture contender on the original list (and only twice were there as many as two on the slate). After that, for whatever reason, things changed – from 1972 right through today, there’s only been one year (1980) without a best picture representative under original, and it was not uncommon to find three or four.

1961 was the high water mark for foreign films in the category, with three nominees – and another, Breathless, most definitely deserved consideration.

Okay, small concession: if I have to pick a Doris Day movie to sit through again, Lover Come Back would be my choice. Yes, it’s the same old “will she hop in the sack or not?” plot, but the VIP subplot I find halfway amusing (I have fond memories of Tony Randall shouting “I can hold my candy!”). Clearly I’m not voting for it, but I don’t shrink at the thought of it.

Based on reactions here, I may need to look at Ballad of a Soldier again. When I saw it (a decade or two back), I thought it another of those movies art house audiences swooned for in the period because they were so “sensitive” – maybe especially so because, given the cold war (when schoolkids like me were taught a view of Russians just this side of Orcs), the sweet love story seemed a palliative to world tensions. I just didn’t find it a terribly deep effort; sensitivity alone doesn’t travel far with me. But I’m open to another look someday.

Of the movies that won screenplay Oscars in this era simply because they were the American option, Splendor in the Grass is probably the best. Like Inge’s other work in the era – his play adaptations – it’s a bit too down-on-the-farm-Freud, but it has more going for it, is less creaky than such as Dark at the Top of the Stairs. The lead characters’ lust for one another is palpable, and the story goes interesting directions. (Even pausing to chronicle the arrival of pizza in America.) A respectable winner, though hardly the best choice.

As I’ve noted here before, I find La Dolce Vita, for all its moments of brilliance, a problematic film: way too long, and lacking in enough structural coherence to justify the over-indulgence. I didn’t vote for Fellini under directing, an area where his achievement was impressive enough to offset some of my issues, so I’m certainly not inclined to vote for his writing, to me the source of the film’s shortcomings.

So I’ll go with General Della Rovere here – a fascinating character study about a man asked to impersonate someone of far greater stature who somehow grows into that stature as a result. There are many pitfalls in a story like that – you can imagine an American version over-exalting the central character. But the Italian warts-and-all style of the era turns out to be perfectly suited to the story: it’s a bit heroic, but also ironic, comic, and at all times real. My pick.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by FilmFan720 »

I can't vote in Original.

For Adapted, I voted for The Hustler, for much of the same reasoning as everyone else here. It stands pretty clearly out of the pack, in terms of form, dialogue, structure and such wonderfully vivid characters.

I will, though, for a moment defend Ernest Lehman's contributions to the film of West Side Story. It is easy to give so much of that film's credit to Wise and Robbins, as it is such a visual feast and a perfect melding of the Broadway and the Hollywood, but Lehman's script makes some pretty crucial decisions that make it such a strong adaptation (and many would argue a superior version to the Broadway): he swaps Cool and Krupke, he moves I Feel Pretty, he takes Tony out of the quintet, he figures out a way to even lessen the language of the play without it feeling cheap and he adds the Sharks into America. Plus, you also have to imagine that the screenwriter would have at least have had some input on the expanding of the material and the way that it moves around New York so brilliantly. It should be noted that many of these choices he made have been echoed in various stage productions afterwards. I know there have been disputes through the years of who is responsible for what in the final film, but Lehman's screenplay should at least be in the conversation of nominees for the year.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by CalWilliam »

I can't, unfortunately, vote in Original.

Poor Ernest Lehman. He was responsible of a bunch of iconic films that didn't turn to earn him individual recognition, so I'm really looking forward to know what's going to happen in the Original 1959 poll, between that amazing competition with his probably most unforgettable work, but here it's impossible to vote for West Side Story. And by the way, in terms of screenplay, I prefer his non-nominated The Sound of Music to this one.

I suppose The Guns of Navarone is solid, but I can't remember a single scene, honestly. I haven't seen it in four years or so, and I tend to think forgetting a film completely has something to do with its writing.

I don't know if Breakfast at Tiffany's is better than it seems. It certainly works, and one can feel its charming quality, but it lacks a deeper character development caused in my opinion by, as BJ pointed out, that episodic narrative (definitely not Mad Men territory). It's a film I like to rewatch, but not for the way the story is displayed. I also consider The Hustler an episodic narrative, but more successful. There's more complexity, more subtlety, and a clearer sense of what needs to be told, with ambition and intelligence, but in the end I do believe in Judgment at Nuremberg as the best nominated effort here, and the most fascinating film as well.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by Big Magilla »

1961 was in the midst of one of the great eras of screenwriting.

Original

Lover Come Back is the one Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedy that is actually funny without straining to be. It's an also-ran, however, in this company.

William Inge's Oscar winning script for Splendor in the Grass was a worthy winner, but the three foreign entries are stronger.

General Della Rovere is a fine, searing, ironic Rossellini masterpiece and its writing is certainly strong, but its greatest strength is in Vittorio De Sica's performance.

La Dolce Vita is one of the greatest films ever made, and certainly its screenplay contributes to that, although it is the direction, cinematography and Mastroianni's performance that are the standouts for me. It would be my choice here as well if it were not for Ballad of a Soldier which is all the more remarkable for having been made under the thumb of the Soviet dictatorship. It gets my vote.

Adapted

Among the missing I'd give props to Julius Epstein's adaptation of Pagnol's Fanny trilogy and S.N. Behrman and Joshua Logan's book for the Broadway musical as well as Harold Rome's lyrics which had to be incorporated into the screenplay as Logan wanted to make a non-musical of it, retaining Rome's score sans lyrics as background music only.

Other omissions would have to include One, Two, Three, Rocco and His Brothers, Purple Noon and The Innocents. All of them were stronger and more complex than The Guns of Navarone and required a lot more work than Ernest Lehman had to do in adapting West Side Story.

On the strong side, I'd also cite Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun but here again is a case of an adaptation that was essentially the play as written for the stage.

I've never read Walter Trevis' The Hustler so I have no way of knowing how much of the great dialogue was taken from the book vs. having been written for the film or how much of the incentive for Paul Newman and Piper Laurie's searing performances was on the page. I did read Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and can tell you that George Axelrod's screenplay was far stronger (at least to me) than the novella.

The best choice here, though, is the one Oscar voters made. I did see the original TV version of Abby Mann's Judgment at Nuremberg which included the trial scenes except for the graphic concentration camp footage which was added for the film, but what sets it apart is the finely crafted scenes of Spencer Tracy and Marlene Dietrich outside the courtroom which were not in Mann's original TV play. It gets my vote.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by Precious Doll »

Original: La Dolce Vita over a good line-up overall

Adapted: The Hustler with Breakfast at Tiffany's my only close running nominee

Omissions: The Children's Hour, The Innocents &The Misfits.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by The Original BJ »

The Adapted Screenplay field is basically the one we've covered in the Best Picture poll (with the addition of one film that should have been a Best Picture nominee), but as usual, it's still worth covering strictly in writer terms.

The Guns of Navarone is the clear weakest in my book. It's possible that by the time I got to it, after seeing decades worth of action films that followed, there was just no way it wouldn't seem quaint. But I can't say I found it terribly interesting as drama, or even all that suspenseful as a piece of adventure. And certainly in terms of areas we typically think of as writer-centric -- great dialogue, complex characters -- it falls well short of its competition.

Ernest Lehman sure did get plenty of nominations for writing adapted screenplays that were essentially fully written by other people before he showed up, didn't he? West Side Story is my favorite movie in this category, but as with so many musical adaptations, it's hard for me to consider it a work of great screenwriting. Just based on the strength of the original show, the film still has probably the sturdiest script of any movie musical this decade, but given that the movie's one major structural change -- swapping the placement of "Cool" and "Officer Krupke" -- strikes me as a pretty clear downgrade, I can't rate it too highly on this roster.

Judgment at Nuremberg essentially filled the Becket/Lion in Winter role this year, as the more script-driven movie that prevailed here after voters decided this was a category the big musical could afford to lose. And I don't think it's a terrible choice -- a lot of the movie's central questions, about how much personal responsibility individuals had for such a mammoth atrocity as the Holocaust, are handled with a reasonable amount of complexity, and there are some pretty solidly written monologues throughout. But I can't endorse the choice either -- ultimately, there's just a bit too much sledgehammer moralizing, and too many moments when the script shows strain in its attempts at great impact. It's a script that definitely has compelling moments, but isn't always as graceful with them as it could be.

For me, the remaining two scripts are the clear standouts of the lineup. I could easily see the case for The Hustler as the winner. Any number of exchanges between Newman/Scott and Newman/Laurie are hugely memorable, sharply written scenes. ("So why go to college?" "Got nothing else to do on Tuesdays and Thursdays." "What do you do on the other days?" "I drink.") The character of Fast Eddie is a rich creation, full of impish charm but also wells of deep pain, and I think it's very impressive that the movie manages to incorporate moments of great tragedy while also remaining optimistic about the protagonist and his future. And the script is full of great little details that capture the milieu of smoke-filled New York pool halls with a crackling sense of realism. You'd have to imagine this came pretty close to being the victor.

But I'm going to indulge my inner Damienite and pick Breakfast at Tiffany's, one of the great romantic comedies of all time, with an utterly winning script. Holly Golightly is one of the cinema's most iconic characters, and though my understanding is that she's been somewhat desexualized from the character as written in Capote's novel, her movie incarnation remains a wonderfully charming and very moving portrait of cosmopolitan life, full of grace but also possessing discontent over the realities of modern existence. Her character's journey, from essentially a kept woman to someone finally willing to embrace the possibilities of real love, is full of heart and humor, sprinkled with delightful dialogue and wonderful throwaway moments, and is consistently engaging despite a fairly episodic narrative line. George Axelrod's two great screenwriting achievements came back to back -- we didn't get a chance to consider him at all in the '62 race, but it's nice to have the chance to heartily endorse him here.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by dws1982 »

Ballad of a Soldier, General Della Rovere and La Dolce Vita are three great, great, great movies. Tough to beat a lineup that has those three films in it. Out of the three, I might go for General Della Rovere--a movie that has unjustly faded into obscurity--but all three would be among the best ever cited in this category. And anyway, I'm not voting, since I haven't seen the Doris Day vehicle.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1961

Post by ksrymy »

This may be the easiest poll we've had yet. It's hard to top Fellini and "The Hustler."
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Best Screenplay 1961

Post by Kellens101 »

What were the best screenplays of 1961? Sorry everyone for the long delay.
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