Best Actor 1968

[Mister Tee]

It's possible the vote total here is low because some films aren't widely available -- The Fixer most notably, but maybe Charly as well.

But I'd say it's also possible we're not back to full strength yet, and some people who would vote haven't because they haven't yet figured their path back to the board and/or posting.

Which is to say...as interested as I am getting to the memorable 1969 race, I wonder if we ought to delay that another day or two, to allow this race to be fully adjudicated.

Just a suggestion.

[ITALIANO]

Charly is quite irritating - shot and edited in that typically fashionable 60s style that lasted, as the French say, l'espace d'un matin and that today looks especially annoying. Cliff Robertson's performance is on the same level - all effects and no "truth". The worst of these five, definitely, and the worst of the Best Actor winners I've seen.

The Fixer is also VERY 60s, so it has also dated badly - but it's a more dignified effort (based on a good novel, by the way) and at least it gave a sometimes very good, always interesting actor like Alan Bates a place in Oscar history. His nomination wasn't undeserved; a win would be.

I'm not much into musicals and Oliver! is no exception. But it's not badly made and Ron Moody's admittedly softened Fagin, in these circumstances, is an acceptable compromise.

Alan Arkin's low key performance in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is, well, probably a bit TOO low key by my standards - but his approach to the role, so unsentimental, so subtle, is certainly the proof of an unconventional talent.

Still, those like me who haven't voted for Peter O'Toole before - and probably won't afterwards - have the perfect chance here. His King Henry, by turns proud, sarcastic, hurt, and always very human, trascends the limits of a material that, yes, while intelligent and even effective isn't exactly Shakespeare. Even more than Katharine Hepburn, O'Toole gives the movie its heart, and while I'm glad that she won this year, I still think that forgetting O'Toole was deeply unfair.

[Reza]

Have never been able to find The Fixer so Alan Bates' performance has eluded me all these years.

My picks for 1968:

Peter O'Toole, The Lion in Winter
Alan Arkin, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Burt Lancaster, The Swimmer
Walter Matthau, The Odd Couple
Ron Moody, Oliver

The 6th Spot: Tony Curtis, The Boston Strangler

[Mister Tee]

Tee, you do know that Ron Moody played Fagin on the London stage three years before Oliver! hit Broadway and that Clive Revill's performance was patterned on his, right?

I probably vaguely knew it. The point is, that was the show's conception of Fagin -- a more light-hearted one than Dickens had in mind.

[Big Magilla]

Tee, you do know that Ron Moody played Fagin on the London stage three years before Oliver! hit Broadway and that Clive Revill's performance was patterned on his, right?

[Mister Tee]

I don't quite get the enthusiasm for Tony Curtis. Not that his performance wasn't solid, but that it amounts to just one monologue.

However pedestrian the film may be, however the reputation of its writer may have declined, Walter Matthau's Oscar Madison is pretty much the definitive role of his career, and would have fit well here

I didn't see most of this year's contenders till well after the Oscars --it was my senior year in high school, I was busy with friends, plus alot of the films were only available on a reserved-seating roadshow basis. So, I went into the Oscars mostly blind. I was basically shocked when Cliff Robertson won over critics' winner Arkin and two-time loser O'Toole. When I saw Charly, in college, I initially thought he did a decent enough job. But then I saw some more of his films, and realized he always came off a little...er...slow. So, no go from me.

I imagine for some this will be an irresistible opportunity to grant Peter O'Toole an Oscar during his heroic period. He had the bad luck to compete with equally iconic Peck in '62, and revisionst favorite Peter Sellers in '64, and his later mentions are for slightly goofball performances, so I imagine many will consider this the perfect time to X in his name. The problem for me is, I really don't much like The Lion in Winter, or O'Toole's performance. A recent re-viewing -- which I pretty much had to force myself through -- confirmed it amounted to alot of declaiming and thrashing around (not my favored acting style) in the service of a silly but played-straight script. I voted for O'Toole in Becket, and will be citing him again, so I'll pass here.

I see what you're saying, Uri, about the cuddly quality of Ron Moody's Fagin, but I think that goes to the very concept of making Oliver! into a family musical. Moody's performance is fairly indistinguishable from what Clive Revill did on stage -- the creators obviously felt that, if they kept the murder of Nancy and the overall brutality of Bill Sikes, they had to somehow soften up the material to make it palatable to 1962 Broadway musical lovers, and Fagin & company was the spot they chose. Moody is fine within the concept, but not special enough to merit an out-of-the-blue Oscar.

I wa actually rooting for Alan Bates that night in 1969, partly because he was a favorite of mine from Georgy Girl, but also because his was the only film I'd seen. I haven't watched The Fixer since college, and god knows my opinion might have changed. But I found it a powerful film -- grueling but leading toward final uplift -- and Bates' work had that practically-one-man-show quality that has snagged many an actor a nomination. He's my runner-up.

But I go with Alan Arkin, and this based on a viewing only a few months ago. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is indifferently directed, but having Carson McCullers' words and solid actors at the forefront can carry a film quite a ways. Arkin could be a broad actor, but in this period he turned out work of touching subtlety (Damien mentioned his chaming Popi. from 1969). Playing a mute is of course Oscar bait, but Arkin's eyes and manner do more than most could to convey the inner pain and patience of this remarkable character. It's just a lovely piece of work, and gets my enthusiastic vote.

[Uri]

First I'd like to add Burt Lanchester in The Swimmer to the mix. A very good performance in an interesting film.

Against all odds (I'm a sucker for British monarchy, Hepburn, '60s O'Toole, bitchery at large etc.), I'm not the biggest fan of The Lion in Winter – its smartass anachronism is not really as sophisticated as it pretend to be. So while I enjoyed it to a certain degree and I'm not in any way immune to the charismatic turns of both its stars, I can't really bestow any of them with my top honor.

Next are the two Jews. Being vaguely familiar with Russian culture and spirit, I tend to find the way it's usually filtered through the British sensitivity to be rather timid, and while I don't have a very clear recollection of The Fixer, I think it was not an exception to this rule and Bates' angry young man persona not really right. Fagin is tricky – it's a very vivid, powerful creation whose anti-Semitic shades can not and should not be avoided if properly interpreted. Yet in Oliver! it is somehow watered down. The way Fagin is depicted here is more entertaining and less menacing for this to be really taken seriously.

Robertson is extremely sincere and highly committed in Charlie yet there is no way for me to avoid the fact that this is one of the worst, if not the worst winning performances ever. A totally miscalculated turn in a rather impossible role.

That leaves me with Arkin, who's fine and pleasantly understated.

[Big Magilla]

I think these were all good choices, though one can make a case for some of thsoe who were out incuding Tony Curtis in The Boston Strangler; Anthony Quinn in The Shoes of the Fisherman and Steve McQueen in Bullitt.

I'm glad Alan Bates received at least one nomiantion and The Fixer gives him one of his best roles, but the film itself is relentlessly grim,making it a bit of a chore to sit through.

Ron Moody is perfectly delightful as the musical Fagin in Oliver, pure unadulturated at its best.

Cliff Robertson, who won, milked the fact that two of his previous TV plays (The Hustler; Days of Wine and RSoses) were filmed with other actors so he bought the rights to Flowers for Algernon determined that this one wouldn't get away. He's good in it, but the plot is a bit obvious and formulaic.

Alan Arkin has never been better than as the deaf mute who brings joy to others but can't find happiness himself in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and would have been a great choice, but I have to go with Peter O'Toole whose Henry II in The Lion in Winter is even better than his original take on the character in Becket.