1951 Oscar Shouldabeens

[Kellens101]

Best Picture: A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Director: Elia Kazan for A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Actor: Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Actress: Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Supporting Actor: Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train
Best Supporting Actress: Kim Hunter in A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Original Screenplay: Ace in the Hole
Best Adapted Screenplay: Strangers on a Train
Best Score: A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Art Direction: An American in Paris
Best Costume Design: An American in Paris
Best Editing: Strangers on a Train
Best Cinematography: A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Sound: A Streetcar Named Desire
Best Foreign Film:???

[ksrymy]

BEST PICTURE
01. Ace in the Hole (dir. Billy Wilder)
02. The Day the Earth Stood Still (dir. Robert Wise)
03. The Steel Helmet (dir. Samuel Fuller)
04. Strangers on a Train (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
05. A Streetcar Named Desire (dir. Elia Kazan)
06. The Idiot (dir. Akira Kurosawa)
07. Early Summer (dir. Yasujiro Ozu)
08. The Lavender Hill Mob (dir. Charles Crichton)
09. Summer Interlude (dir. Ingmar Bergman)
10. Awaara (dir Raj Kapoor)

BEST DIRECTOR
01. Billy Wilder, Ace in the Hole
02. Robert Wise, The Day the Earth Stood Still
03. Samuel Fuller, The Steel Helmet
04. Alfred Hitchcock, Strangers on a Train
05. Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST ACTOR
01. Robert Walker, Strangers on a Train
02. Claude Laydu, Diary of a Country Priest
03. Michael Redgrave, The Browning Version
04. Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire
05. Alastair Sim, Scrooge

BEST ACTRESS
01. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
02. Maj-Britt Nilsson, Summer Interlude
03. Setsuko Hara, Repast
04. Anna Magnani, Bellissima
05. Setsuko Hara, Early Summer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
01. Prithviraj Kapoor, Awaara
02. Mario Cabré, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
03. Karl Malden, A Streetcar Named Desire
04. Zachary Scott, The Secret of Convict Lake
05. Horace McMahon, Detective Story

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
01. Jan Sterling, Ace in the Hole
02. Lee Grant, Detective Story
03. Hope Emerson, Westward the Women
04. Nina Foch, An American in Paris
05. Ann Dvorak, The Secret of Convict Lake

BEST SCREENPLAY
01. Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, Walter Newman)
02. Strangers on a Train (Raymond Chandler, Whitfield Cook, Czenzi Ormonde, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith)
03. Early Summer (Kogo Noda, Yasujiro Ozu)
04. A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams, Oscar Saul, based on the play by Tennessee Williams)
05. The Lavender Hill Mob (T. E. B. Clarke)

FILM EDITING
01. Strangers on a Train (William H. Ziegler)
02. The Steel Helmet (Philip Cahn)
03. Awaara (G. G. Mayekar)
04. Diary of a Country Priest (Paulette Robert)
05. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Ralph Kemplen, Clive Donner)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
01. The River (Claude Renoir)
02. The Tales of Hoffmann (Christopher Challis)
03. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Jack Cardiff)
04. The Idiot (Toshio Ubukata)
05. Summer Interlude (Gunnar Fischer)

BEST ART DIRECTION
01. The Tales of Hoffmann (Hein Heckroth, Arthur Lawson)
02. Awaara (M. R. Achrekar, K. Damodar)
03. An American in Paris (E. Preston Ames, Cedric Gibbons, Edwin B. Willis)
04. The Steel Helmet (Theobold Holsopple, Clarence Steensen)
05. The Idiot (Takashi Matsuyama, Genzô Komiya, Shohei Sekine, Ushitarô Shimada)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
01. The Tales of Hoffmann (Ivy Baker, Hein Heckroth)
02. Awaara (Madame Chorosch, Om Prakash Mehra)
03. Show Boat (Walter Plunkett)
04. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Beatrice Dawson)
05. Quo Vadis (Herschel McCoy)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
01. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Bernard Herrmann)
02. Awaara (original score by Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal, Shankarsingh Raghuwanshi, original songs by Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal, Shankarsingh Raghuwanshi, Shailendra)
03. The Red Badge of Courage (Bronisław Kaper)
04. A Streetcar Named Desire (Alex North)
05. A Place in the Sun (Franz Waxman)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
01. Awaara, ("Awaara Hoon," music by Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal, Shankarsingh Raghuwanshi, lyrics by Shailendra, performed by Mukesh)
02. The Lemon Drop Kid ("Silver Bells," music by Jay Livingston, lyrics by Ray Evans, performed by Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell)
03. Royal Wedding ("I Left My Hat in Haiti," music by Burton Lane, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, performed by Fred Astaire)
04. Royal Wedding ("How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life," music by Burton Lane, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, performed by Fred Astaire and Jane Powell)
05. The Strip ("A Kiss to Build a Dream On," music by Harry Ruby, lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Oscar Hammerstein II, performed by Kay Brown)

BEST SOUND
01. The Steel Helmet (William H. Lynch)
02. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Harry M. Leonard, Arthur von Kirbach)
03. Fixed Bayonets! (Eugene Grossman, Harry M. Leonard)
04. The Man in the White Suit (Arthur Bradburn, Stephen Dalby)
05. The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (Eugene Grossman; Roger Heman, Sr.)

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
01. The Tales of Hoffmann (Connie Reeve)
02. Quo Vadis (Sydney Guilaroff, Joan Johnstone, Charles E. Parker)
03. Awaara (Marie Ginetta, Madhav Pai)
04. Royal Wedding (Sydney Guilaroff, William Tuttle)
05. A Place in the Sun (Wally Westmore, Charles Gemora)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
01. When Worlds Collide (Tim Baar, Harry Barndollar, Farciot Edouart, Gordon Jennings, Paul K. Lerpae, Dick Webb, Barney Wolff)
02. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fred Sersen)
03. The Man in the White Suit (Sydney Pearson, Geoffrey Dickinson)
04. Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (Harry Barndollar, George Blackwell, Peter Ellenshaw, Arthur Rhoades, Cliff Richardson)
05. Quo Vadis (A. Arnold Gillespie, Peter Ellenshaw, Tom Howard, Donald Jahraus)

FINAL TALLY
8 nominations: Awaara (2 wins)
7 nominations: A Streetcar Named Desire (1 win)
5 nominations: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1 win), The Steel Helmet (1 win), Strangers on a Train (2 wins)
4 nominations: Ace in the Hole (4 wins), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, The Tales of Hoffmann (3 wins)
3 nominations: Early Summer, The Idiot, Quo Vadis, Royal Wedding, Summer Interlude
2 nominations: An American in Paris, Detective Story, Diary of a Country Priest, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, A Place in the Sun, The Secret of Convict Lake
1 nomination: Bellissima, The Browning Version, Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N., The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel, Fixed Bayonets!, The Lemon Drop Kid, The Red Badge of Courage, Repast, The River (1 win), Scrooge, Show Boat, The Strip, Westward the Women, When Worlds Collide (1 win)

[Jim20]

PICTURE
The African Queen
**An American in Paris**
A Place in the Sun
Rashomon
A Streetcar Named Desire

ACTOR
**Humphrey Bogart, The African Queen**
Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire
Montgomery Clift, A Place in the Sun
Kirk Douglas, Ace in the Hole
Alastair Sim, A Christmas Carol

ACTRESS
Joan Fontaine, September Affair
Katherine Hepburn, The African Queen
Machiko Kyo, Rashomon
**Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire**
Eleanor Parker, Detective Story

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Richard Benedict, Ace in the Hole
Karl Malden, A Streetcar Named Desire
Kevin McCarthy, Death of a Salesman
Peter Ustinov, Quo Vadis?
**Robert Walker, Strangers on a Train**

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Lee Grant, Detective Story
Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire
Thelma Ritter, The Mating Season
**Jan Sterling, Ace in the Hole**
Shelly Winters, A Place in the Sun

DIRECTOR
Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire
**Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon**
Vinccente Minnelli, An American in Paris
George Stevens, A Place in the Sun
Billy Wilder, Ace in the Hole

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Ace in the Hole
Along the Great Divide
**An American in Paris**
David and Bathsheba
Go for Broke!

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The African Queen
Detective Story
**A Place in the Sun**
Rashomon
A Streetcar Named Desire

[Uri]

Sorry – I still don’t get it. I know my Oscar history. And politics. Quite well. Why does all this stuff have anything to do with the way we, in our pathetic need to make thing right in retrospect, rewrite awards history?

[Big Magilla]

Also, back then wasn't there the understanding that if an actor's name was featured below the marquee, so to speak, they were automatically considered a supporting player in the film?

Basically, yes, but it was still up to teh studio. The most famous example of this is Cleopatra (1963) for which Fox inadverantly listed all the acotrs as leads therefore nullifying Roddy McDowall's shot at an expected supporting actor bid.

[flipp525]

Also, back then wasn't there the understanding that if an actor's name was featured below the marquee, so to speak, they were automatically considered a supporting player in the film?

Foxx and Blanchett's positioning in the supporting categories was blatant studio Oscar-whoring that kept more deserving performances (in the case of Blanchett, Emily Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada or Catherine O'Hara in For Your Consideration) from being properly acknowledged. With that said, though, I loved Blanchett's work in Notes and I'm glad that she was nominated for it at all.

Shelley Winters' nomination in lead for A Place in the Sun doesn't bother me as much as some. Her character casts a lingering shadow over the entire movie, even after she's departed. And she's certainly a co-lead for the time that she is on-screen.



Edited By flipp525 on 1173124454

[Big Magilla]

Comparing Thelma Ritter's supporting Oscar nomination for The Mating Season to Jamie Foxx's in Collateral and Cate Blanchett's in Notes on a Scandal is patently unfair. The rule that was in force at the time was that the studios got to say which category performers were eligible in. Nowadays the HFPA, SAG and BAFTA continue that tradition, but AMPAS now allows voters the right to decide for themselves whether a performance is lead or supporting.

One can argue that such supporting winners as Jane Darwell, Donald Crisp, Charles Coburn, Barry Fitzgerald, Ethel Barrymore and Edmund Gwenn who came before Ritter were either the leads or co-leads of their films and were nominated in the wrong category - in the case of Fitzgerald he was nominated in both causing one of Oscar's biggest blunders.

Had Ritter been billed over Gene Tierney and John Lund as one can argue she should've been and then nominated in support, Uri's argument would carry more weight. As it stands I wrestle more with Shelley Winters' nomination in the lead category. Winters was billed over the title along with Clift and Taylor in A Place in the Sun but had considerably less screen time than her two co-stars.

[Reza]

I just wonder. Pretend you don’t know who the actors were, where they’d been placed on the celebrity ladder of the time, what the order of the billing was and so on – just watching the onscreen unfolding of the story line and the characters. The story begins with Ritter’s character, follows her, all the other ones are seen as relating to her (including the nominal, romantic, young stars – Tierney in particular is quite negligible in it). She is the protagonist – technically (she has the most screen time) and thematically. I’m fascinated by Magilla’s enlightening and perceptive description of how Ritter evolved as a star along 1951, and I fully understand why she was pushed as supporting in this one and as lead in The Model and the Marriage Broker, but I see no more logic in following these distinctions than in accepting the cynical relegation of Foxx in Collateral or Blanchet in Scandal to supporting nowadays in order to milk just a little bit more out of the Oscars’ tits.

You are absolutely right as technically Ritter is the lead.

As I could not fit her into my best actress lineup (it would have meant bumping off one of the stars on my list which I did not want to do), she easily replaced Francois Rosay (September Affair) and also won my award in the bargain.

If the Academy can play dirty, so can I. Only in this case Ritter gets to win unlike how she was treated by the Academy in real life.

Peter O'Toole anyone???

[Uri]

I just wonder. Pretend you don’t know who the actors were, where they’d been placed on the celebrity ladder of the time, what the order of the billing was and so on – just watching the onscreen unfolding of the story line and the characters. The story begins with Ritter’s character, follows her, all the other ones are seen as relating to her (including the nominal, romantic, young stars – Tierney in particular is quite negligible in it). She is the protagonist – technically (she has the most screen time) and thematically. I’m fascinated by Magilla’s enlightening and perceptive description of how Ritter evolved as a star along 1951, and I fully understand why she was pushed as supporting in this one and as lead in The Model and the Marriage Broker, but I see no more logic in following these distinctions than in accepting the cynical relegation of Foxx in Collateral or Blanchet in Scandal to supporting nowadays in order to milk just a little bit more out of the Oscars’ tits.

[Reza]

Supporting ofcourse!

Gene Tierney and John Lund are the leads. Although Ritter leads a superb list of supporting players that include Miriam Hopkins, Jan Sterling, Larry Keating, Cora Witherspoon and Ellen Corby.

[Uri]

Though I know the answer, still, as a part of my ongoing campaign to recognize her as a lead actress in Season, I must ask – on what category did you include Ritter?

[Reza]

Ritter finally gets my award, having caught up with The Mating Season at last.

[Penelope]

oops!

[Big Magilla]

Didn't we already debate the Eleanor Parker lead vs. supporting thing a few posts down?

Anyway, it was a weak year for lead actresses with only Vivien Leigh and Katharine Hepburn really outstanding. The others, including supporting player Shelley Winters, were fill-ins. Jeanne Crain in People Will Talk, Joan Fontaine in September Affair and Irene Dunne in The Mudlark all had meatier roles than Jane Wyman, but Eleanor Parker was riveting in her brief appearance.

Lead actor was another story. Brando, Clift and Bogart were all at the top of their game. Arthur Kennedy gave a very natural performance as a blind man in Bright Victory and Fredirc March was winnign kudos for playing a role he turned down on the stage. Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train, Alastiar Sim in A Christmas Carol and Michael Redgrave in The Browning Version were all better IMO than Douglas in any of his 1951 roles. I never cared much for the overly cynical Ace in the Hole/The Big Carnival, muich preferring the similarly themed Fourteen Hours with Richard Basehart, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes and Agnes Moorehead all in peak form and the young Jeffrey Hunter and Grace Kelly nicely building their resumes in minor roles.

An American in Paris has one of the best composite scores ever put together for a film, and it has an ingratiating lead performacne by Gene Kelly with good supporting work by Georges Guetary (in a role intended for Maurice Chevalier) and Nina Foch, but it was not in the same league as A Streetcar Named Desire, A Place in the Sun, The African Queen or Strangers on a Train and should not have won.

[Penelope]

Just finished watching Detective Story on DVD. How did the miscast Eleanor Parker get nominated, and why in the Lead category when she's barely in the movie? (The wonderful Lee Grant--nominated in the Supporting category--seemingly has more screen time.) Was Kirk Douglas passed over because he was competing with himself (Ace in the Hole/The Big Carnival, Along the Great Divide)? And, gosh, Craig Hill was sexy--whatever happened to him?