Best Actor 1953

[Big Magilla]

I'll need to rewatch From Here to Eternity though to see whether I'd give this award to him or Charles Vanel in The Wages of Fear (whom I'm surprised not to see mentioned at all on this post).

That's beacuse as with most of your foreign language choices you have the wrong year for the Academy's consideration. The Wages of Fear was a 1955 release in the U.S. and was overshadowed that year by the enormous success of Clouzot's Diabolique.

[ksrymy]

Bill Holden is one of my all-time favorite actors and Billy Wilder is one of my all-time favorite directors so I obviously enjoyed in Stalag 17. I think Strauss's nomination was unreasonable though. I thought Holden's performance was great and I'm happy that he got an Oscar but it should have been for Sunset Boulevard.

The Robe is just so dreary that I find it impossible to sit through at points. Burton is a fantastic actor but I feel that, had the movie been executed in a better fashion, he would have stood an actual chance here.

I completely agree with Magilla here that Brando was increasing in popularity and that his nomination was there just because he starred in a film and gave a decent performance; however, this is his worst nomination aside from Sayonara. It's hard to consider him a lead when he is introduced halfway through the film (even though it really is Antony's story, not Caesar's).

So that leaves me, like everyone else with the Eternity gentlemen. I've already voted for Lancaster in Elmer Gantry and Atlantic City and there isn't another decent opportunity for me to vote for Clift and he is the standout in the film. I'll vote for him.

I'll need to rewatch From Here to Eternity though to see whether I'd give this award to him or Charles Vanel in The Wages of Fear (whom I'm surprised not to see mentioned at all on this post).

[Mister Tee]

Still, a few years later I saw Otto Preminger's The Cardinal, and it affected me as no other film ever had. As an 8-year-old Catholic boy, I KNEW from this film that i HAD to become a priest and I was looking forward to advocating for civil rights from my pulpit and being tortured by the Klan for my enlightened views and happily offering up my pain and suffering to Jesus, who loved the downtrodden.

This is a doorway into the psyche of a whole lot of Catholic children of the era.

When BJ responded to my post the other day, I started to think more closely about why I'd had such a reaction to From Here to Eternity. Because it's not as if my parents had raised me on pure cinema-pablum. There were no Bergman films, but we were taken to such films as The Miracle Worker, Billy Budd, Captain Newman MD and The Chalk Garden (as well as bigger-profile items like Bridge on the River Kwai). I even saw A Hard Day's Night on Labor Day of '64. So it's not as if I was completely sequestered from serious or modern movies.

But I remember not all that much liking such films when I was a kid. Most dramas were in black and white, and unrelentingly grim (one of the best elements of the breakthrough films of the 60 s and 70s was that even the bummer-est among them had plenty of laughs along the way, not the case with my mid-60s sample). The films were also about Issues that were Important in a very distant, "this will never touch your life" way (Miracle Worker and, on TV, Diary of Anne Frank were good examples of that). And I can't say I found the actors of the period all that engaging, either; most of them seemed a dfferent species from me. I've mentioned before I never warmed up to Kirk Douglas, and Lancaster for a good bit of his career fell into the same, distant category for me (so did Paul Newman, primarily because I didn't see The Hustler till later on -- I identified him at the time with stuff like Exodus or The Prize). I had no connection like I later did to the Hoffman/Nicholson/Pacino generation.

It's possible I was just seeing the wrong films. Certainly if I'd seen To Kill a Mockingbird (which I didn't catch until 1967) in this period, it might have been the film to turn me around (I went into it expecting something punishingly demoralizing like One Potato Two Potato, and was delighted to find it so much more). Along those lines, let me say that I, too, saw The Cardinal, probably in mid-1964 (it was part of the Catholic student trifecta with Lilies of the Field and The Sound of Music), but I didn't have anything like Damien's response. It seemed to me another "adults doing adult things I don't really understand", and kind of trash-novel in its style -- a religious spin on Youngblood Hawke. Plus Tom Tryon (the Disney veteran) didn't bring much to the party.

In all that context, as I say, the pure injustice of how Prewitt was treated in From Here to Eternity rang a direct bell with me that no other film had to that point. And, to roundabout answer your question, Damien, I think that may be why so many of us have voted for him. Lancaster in the same film for me was a representative of that old-style film on which I'd been raised -- someone distant from my experience. Prewitt was, emotionally, me up there on the screen. The films to which I became most attached in the years just following had similar protagonists -- Georgy Girl, Benjamin in The Graduate, both characters in Midnight Cowboy. Since then, of course, I've come to revere many films of very different stripes, though even there I wonder if my bias remains -- wouldn't the Clive Owen character in Children of Men or Giammatti in Sideways, two of my favorite pieces from the 00's, be cut from the same cloth?

In any event, I think it might be this very personal connection some of forge with Clift/Prewitt that makes us choose him so overwhelmingly. Though others, of course, are free to disagree.

[Reza]

I must say I'm very surprised at Clift's runaway victory in this year's poll. Both because I don't think it's a very effective performance and also because I assumed votes would be pretty much evenly divided among Lancaster, Clift and Holden.

I think it's because people find this the only year in which to vote for Clift. Holden's year was 1950 and Lancaster will find his place in the years 1960 or 1981. And it is quite an effecting performance.

[ITALIANO]

Be grateful to your mother for at least trying to take you to an Ingmar Bergman movie.

[Damien]

There are some films about which one can't be fully objective, and for me From Here to Eternity is emphatically one. I saw it when I was 13, a high-school freshman; at that point I was under the impression movies largely consisted of epics, musicals and Disney films. And this movie just knocked me out. It was the first thing I'd ever seen that dealt with not some artificial world and characters a zillion years away from me. These characters seemed to live in the world I saw around me -- the world of petty injustice and disappointment. The film changed my very idea of what movies were about. For a number of years after, I referred to it as my all-time favorite movie. That, of course, changed, but the great first-love affection I have for it will never entirely go away.

It is amazing to me that I could replace the words "From Here to Eternity" with the name of a film we will be discussing further down the line, and have every single word of this entire passage ring true for me.

Not to derail the Actor 1953 thoughts, but I would be interested to know if others have a movie that occupies this space in their film-going hearts.

I didn't have quite this experience because my parents often took me to "adult" films when I was little. For instance, I saw The Apartment at age 5. What I took away from it: I can't wait to grow up and go to office Christmas parties. And I was also 5 when my Mom tried to get me into The Virgin Spring and the lady at the box office booth at the Beekman theatre told her, "Are you crazy, lady, wanting to bring a little boy to a movie like this?"

Still, a few years later I saw Otto Preminger's The Cardinal, and it affected me as no other film ever had. As an 8-year-old Catholic boy, I KNEW from this film that i HAD to become a priest and I was looking forward to advocating for civil rights from my pulpit and being tortured by the Klan for my enlightened views and happily offering up my pain and suffering to Jesus, who loved the downtrodden.

[Damien]

I must say I'm very surprised at Clift's runaway victory in this year's poll. Both because I don't think it's a very effective performance and also because I assumed votes would be pretty much evenly divided among Lancaster, Clift and Holden.

[rudeboy]

Clift, one of my favourite performances in one of my favourite American movies. Those who don’t care for it can suck it

Lancaster is great too, but Monty’s performance is one for the ages. One of the great screen anti-heroes, a triumph of offbeat casting working a treat.

Beyond Virginia Woolf I’ve never much cared for Richard Burton. He’s a little wooden in The Robe, but at least he’s not as out-and-out awful as he is in, say Equus.

Holden is sporadically terrific in Stalag 17, but he does so little for long stretches of the film that I’ve always seen this as a make-up for his loss for Sunset Blvd.

Have never seen Julius Caesar… voted for Clift all the same.

[Sabin]

I haven't seen The Robe or Julius Caesar so I can't vote.

I was at a bar with some friends once and we were watching a friend perform. From Here to Eternity was on silently on a television. One friend turned to watch it. Another did too. And then another. The first friend asked me if I had seen it, and I said I had. He asked who that guy was blowing the trumpet. I said it was Montgomery Clift. He said that he was amazing to watch. Even with the sound off, simply looking at Montgomery Clift was captivating.

I don't have a lot of love for From Here to Eternity as a film, but I do for Clift's performance. I think he does a great job and this is pretty much the only place to honor him unless others are more impressed with his work on Judgment at Nuremberg than I was. I would vote for him here, although I've yet to see I Confess, which I've heard great things about.

[ITALIANO]

I picked Clift - partly because his Prewitt is one of the first anti-heroes of modern American cinema and a very good, very introspective performance, and partly because Montgomery Clift SHOULD have an Oscar, and I'm not sure now if I can vote for him on his fourth and last nod.

It's a generally good group, with probably only Richard Burton not deserving to be here.

[Snick's Guy]

easy choice - Clift all the way

[Reza]

An enthusiastic vote for Montgomery Clift.

My picks for 1953:

Montgomery Clift, From Here to Eternity
William Holden, Stalag 17
Burt Lancaster, From Here to Eternity
Glenn Ford, The Big Heat
Alan Ladd, Shane

[Damien]

I love a 1953 Montgomery Clift performance, but it's in I Confess, not From Here To Eternity. His acting in the Hitchcock is filled with ruefulness and a sense of loss that is hugely affecting, unexpectedly heartbreaking. In the Zinnemann, he is utterly unconvincing as either a Southerner or a boxer, which are as salient traits for his character as is his patented "sensitivity."

Burt Lancaster is much better then his co-nominee. A strong, charismatic performance which captures both his sense of loyalty and his lust, all the more effective because it is one of his least mannered.

I love William Holden as an actor, but I've always had reservations about Stalag 17 (I prefer Hogan's Heroes) and Holden's character. For the "cynical heel" to have been such a successful smooth operator he would of necessity have had to possess at least surface social graces and charms, but both as written and played, his smug self-involvement doesn’t ring true.

Marlon Brando doesn't have all that much to do in Julius Cesar, and James Mason (lead) and John Gielgud (supporting) are a great deal more memorable. But the Friends, Romans, Countrymen speech is wonderful to hear.

I'm voting for Richard Burton. Not only is The Robe an unusually intelligent Biblical epic and much better than its reputation would lead you to believe, but Burton, with his beautiful voice, approaches the material with great conviction and treats his character with the same kind of respect he would if he were playing Shakespeare. It's an extraordinarily compelling performance in a setting where it's not at all expected.

My Own Top 5:

1. Montgomery Clift in I Confess (but not From Here To Eternity)
2. Richard Burton in The Robe
3. James Mason in Julius Caesar and The Story Of Three Loves
4. Vittorio Gassman in The Glass Wall
5. Stephen McNally in Split Second



Edited By Damien on 1301644729

[The Original BJ]

There are some films about which one can't be fully objective, and for me From Here to Eternity is emphatically one. I saw it when I was 13, a high-school freshman; at that point I was under the impression movies largely consisted of epics, musicals and Disney films. And this movie just knocked me out. It was the first thing I'd ever seen that dealt with not some artificial world and characters a zillion years away from me. These characters seemed to live in the world I saw around me -- the world of petty injustice and disappointment. The film changed my very idea of what movies were about. For a number of years after, I referred to it as my all-time favorite movie. That, of course, changed, but the great first-love affection I have for it will never entirely go away.

It is amazing to me that I could replace the words "From Here to Eternity" with the name of a film we will be discussing further down the line, and have every single word of this entire passage ring true for me.

Not to derail the Actor 1953 thoughts, but I would be interested to know if others have a movie that occupies this space in their film-going hearts.

[Mister Tee]

I can't say I deeply love anyone who was left out. Despite my general affection for Lang and noir, I've never held The Big Heat in the esteem I'm supposed to. And, though I think The Band Wagon is generally wonderful, I don't think of it as carried by Astaire's acting prowess.

To the nominees...

Burton's nomination is for me comparable to Heston's in Ben-Hur or Crowe's in Gladiator: more heroic posing than acting, in a genre I'd sooner had never existed.

It's not as if Marlon Brando is less than good in Julius Caesar -- he's quite strong, in a style many Oscar voters probably thought was beyond him. But Antony was never the most interesting role in the play, and either James Mason's Brutus or Gielgud's Cassius was more worthy of citation. We think of Brando's early Oscar history mainly consisting of him getting screwed up till Waterfront. But this is a case where he was treated a bit better than he deserved.

William Holden is excellent in Stalag 17 -- far from a sub-par Oscar choice -- and I can see how voters wishing to atone for bypassing him three years earlier would have fallen in line for him. The hitch is, his character doesn't really dominate; he's just a slightly stronger element of an ensemble piece.

And, of course, he wasn't in From Here to Eternity.

There are some films about which one can't be fully objective, and for me From Here to Eternity is emphatically one. I saw it when I was 13, a high-school freshman; at that point I was under the impression movies largely consisted of epics, musicals and Disney films. And this movie just knocked me out. It was the first thing I'd ever seen that dealt with not some artificial world and characters a zillion years away from me. These characters seemed to live in the world I saw around me -- the world of petty injustice and disappointment. The film changed my very idea of what movies were about. For a number of years after, I referred to it as my all-time favorite movie. That, of course, changed, but the great first-love affection I have for it will never entirely go away.

As Magilla notes, Burt Lancaster won the NY Critics Award. And he was very good in the movie -- considerably better than he'd been up till then, and offering signs of the genuinely fine actor he'd become as he got older. But I think the critics settling on him meant that, though they responded to the film's emotion, they weren't ready to go as far as to plumb its dark heart. Because that resides in Montgomery Clift's extraordinary performance.

At the time of the early 90s Gays in the Military brouhaha, the Times had an article saying, essentially, of course the military was resistant to gays -- hadn't anyone seen From Here to Eternity? By this I think the writer meant not only what was later learned about Clift's private life, but the fact that Prewitt, as played by Clift, stood for simply Being Different, and how poor a fit that was for a conformist entity like the army, how difficult it was always going to be to make room for it.

The casting of Clift as Prewitt was an act of daring that I think elevates the movie to another dimension. I'm sure I've mentioned this before: one night I had the movie playing on TV (for the umpteenth time) but was occupied elsewhere, so I heard the dialogue without looking at the actors. And Prewitt's dialogue, listened to this way, didn't seem like a role Montgomery Clift should be playing. The words he speaks are far better suited to someone like early suggestion Aldo Ray. But the fact that Clift is there instead takes the film away from the perfectly solid but more commonplace war-time film it might have been, and pushes it into the 50s zeitgeist. Clift's Prewitt -- his sensitive, method performance -- can stand alongside Brando's Terry Malloy and Dean's Cal Trask as emblems of the era: the new, non-macho, confused male trying to maneuver his way through a threatening landscape. Aldo Ray, a very decent actor, couldn't have done that.

I think Clift's performance may be my favorite of all of those 50s icons. It's what continues to give From Here to Eternity, half a century later, vast emotional power. And it's easily the best male perfomance of 1953.



Edited By Mister Tee on 1301633536