Best Picture and Director 1967

[Big Magilla]

The race at the time was considered a toss-up between Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. In the Heat of the Night was a surprise winner despite its having won the New York Film Critics and Golden Globe-Drama awards. The only thing it was the front-runner for was Best Actor for Rod Steiger.

Mike Nichols' DGA award presented a strong case for The Graduate. I think The Graduate would have won over Bonnie and Clyde. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was no more a contender for Best Picture than any of Stanley Kramer's previous films. Doctor Dolittle was nominated only because of Fox's heavy lobbying influence.

In Cold Blood was the most prestigious of the non-nominated films and would probably have benefitted from the absence of In the Heat of the Night.

It is possible that Spencer Tracy might have won a posthumous Best Actor Oscar with Steiger not in the race, especially considering that Katharine Hepburn won for one of her weakest nominated performances. The thinking at the time, though, as Hepburn herself thought, was that she won for both of them. I'm inclined to think that was probably the reason she won over favorites Edith Evans and Faye Dunaway. Anne Bancroft had too recently won to have been a serious threat to either of them.

Between Beatty, Hoffman, and Newman, it would probably come down to Newman who had already been passed over several times. His co-star George Kennedy won in support, so his film was indeed popular enough to put him over the finish line.

Editing and Sound would have gone to The Dirty Dozen. Adapted screenplay would have been a toss-up between In Cold Blood and The Graduate. I give a slight edge to In Cold Blood which was one of those books everyone read when everyone read books. The film was as faithful an adaptation as anyone might have wanted but with The Graduate winning Best Picture and Director, it would have been a nail-biter right down to the opening of the envelope.

[Sabin]

danfrank wrote
I will say that it’s pretty shocking that Bonnie and Clyde wasn’t nominated for its editing given how lauded that particular aspect of the film has been. I wonder if that says something about its overall popularity, and that perhaps The Graduate would have been the Best Picture beneficiary if In the Heat of the Night were out of the running. This was just before the Oscars started to get edgier in their choices, and The Graduate was certainly edgy in its time. My best guess is that it would have prevailed, though.

It’s worth noting that The Graduate wasn’t nominated for Best Film Editing either, and was likely farther away from getting a nomination than B&C (comedies usually are). Both B&C and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? both had ten nominations and both were nominated in all four acting categories (B&C twice in one). The Graduate was up for a very respectable seven — as was In the Heat of the Night.

[danfrank]

I was a kid and didn’t start watching the Oscars (at least with any real consciousness) until 2 years later, so I have no sense of what the buzz was at the time. I will say that it’s pretty shocking that Bonnie and Clyde wasn’t nominated for its editing given how lauded that particular aspect of the film has been. I wonder if that says something about its overall popularity, and that perhaps The Graduate would have been the Best Picture beneficiary if In the Heat of the Night were out of the running. This was just before the Oscars started to get edgier in their choices, and The Graduate was certainly edgy in its time. My best guess is that it would have prevailed, though.

[mlrg]

Unlike the other years you proposed this exercise, I wasn’t born yet, so I can only guess without knowing the general feeling at the time.

I would say Spencer Tracy takes best actor and best picture is between The Graduate and Guess Who’s Coming to dinner, but I tend to think The Graduate might have won.

[Sabin]

I'm bored at work, that means... what would've won Best Picture if In the Heat of the Night was never made. But also what this means for Best Actor.

As documented in Mark Harris' excellent "Pictures at a Revolution," the 1967 was a fascinating, combustable Oscar race. It seems to me that In the Heat of the Night seems like it won by being the most acceptable choice everyone could agree on. It likely would have won the top award today with our ranked ballot.

But what would've won if In the Heat of the Night wasn't made? Or something went wrong in production and it just became some generic suspense thriller that wasn't taken seriously by anyone?

I think it's pretty easy to imagine what the revised Oscar race would've looked like. The most likely inclusion would have been In Cold Blood considering it was picked up nominations for directing, writing, cinematography, and score. So, we're looking at Bonnie and Clyde, Doctor Dolittle, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, and In Cold Blood. There are seven spots that open up throughout. A big question becomes which film takes In the Heat of the Night's Best Film Editing nomination. The other two Best Picture nominees that have a nomination in that category are Doctor Dolittle and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? The America Cinema Editors Guild nominated Beach Red, Bonnie and Clyde, The Dirty Dozen, Doctor Dolittle, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, and In the Heat of the Night. So, there's reason to believe the Academy will follow suit. That bodes well for Bonnie and Clyde.

But we also have to take a moment to look at what the awards season even looks like without In the Heat of the Night, which in retrospect had a pretty strong run throughout. It won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Picture and Actor, National Society of Film Critics for Actor and Cinematography, and it won Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture: Drama, Actor: Drama, and Screenplay. Strangely, the WGA went with Bonnie and Clyde instead because their categories were only Best Written American Drama or Comedy back then. But that's a hefty pull.

The Golden Globes are tricky. Aside from In the Heat of the Night (which had seven nominations!), none of the nominees won any awards so this really changes the race. Both Bonnie and Clyde and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? had six nominations. The Graduate picked up six nominations not including Best New Star Male and Female. So, what type of mood are the HFP in? Revolutionary with Bonnie and Clyde or conservative with Guess who's Coming to Dinner? And do they both lose to The Graduate for Screenplay? If I had to guess, I'd say Bonnie and Clyde wins Best Motion Picture: Drama, Spencer Tracy wins Best Actor, and Best Screenplay goes to The Graduate.

These shifts set up a Best Picture race that feels largely between Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? with Spencer Tracy moves to the lead for Best Actor. Without In the Heat of the Night, do the Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate camps split resulting in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? This might be a real possibility considering that the Academy went for it for Best Original Screenplay over Bonnie and Clyde.

A revised Oscar tally might look like The Dirty Dozen picking up Best Sound followed by Best Film Editing. Best Adapted Screenplay becomes a race between The Graduate and In Cold Blood. This race might be tricky and depend on whether or not voters truly think of The Graduate as a Mike Nichols film or as a Charles Webb adaptation. Comedy doesn't have a strong track record in this category, Truman Capote is such a name, and it would be a way to honor (previous winner, admittedly) Richard Brooks. Best Actor, Actress, and Picture could very conceivably go to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? in a nail-biter as voters look to Best Original Screenplay as a bellwether for how the night will go.

But I'd love to know the thoughts of the people who were, y'know, there.

[Heksagon]

Tough choice, with two excellent films, that have both aged remarkably well, to choose from. I hardly need say which ones they are, just that my votes will narrowly go to Bonnie & Clyde.

I can't really add to anything that has been already said about Bonnie and The Graduate, but I could say a few words about In the Heat of the Night. In a way, it's a good film, but to me at least, it's hopelessly dated, and suffers from the same heavy-handedness as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Both In the Heat and Guess Who? are films made for white audiences, meant to give positive images of educated and middle class black people, and contrast that with negative images of whites, who are usually portrayed as either uneducated and unsophisticated or - in case of educated whites - as prejudiced and phony. Although In the Heat does manage to pull off this premise in a way that is less heavy-handed than Guess Who?, I still have problems with the limited premise.

Now, I certainly don't object with the fact that filmmakers of this period were making films that aimed to change the way in which Whites looked at racial relations at the time. However, it's a different thing to make propaganda than it is to make art, and propaganda that was made for an audience in the 60s easily feels out of place nowadays.

The main problem with In the Heat is that Sidney Poitier is the only black actor with more than a few lines, although the film is supposedly set in a region where blacks would have formed a substantial part of the population. This reminder that the film is made by White filmmakers, for White audiences, destroys any possibility of approaching racial segregation as a genuinely social issue. (This is also the one thing that Guess Who? actually does better than In the Heat, as Poitier isn't the only significant black actor in the movie)

Other issues that I have with the film are cartoon-like characters and the rather comic and underdeveloped relationship between Steiger and Poitier's characters. One minute Steiger is begging for Poitier's help, the next minute he's yelling him to get lost, then a few minutes later he's very polite with him again. Similarly, in some moments Steiger's sheriff is acting like a good professional, who is honestly committed to his job of catching murderers - and who is willing to set aside his racial prejudices for that end - but on other occasions he's acting like a corrupt redneck, who just wants to wipe a difficult case under the carpet as easily as possible - and who would rather not make his position more difficult by relying on help from a black officer. I just didn't follow what was happening there.

Yeah, and at the end, Steiger and Poitier were getting along well. I just wasn't convinced. I got the feeling that the next time that there's a black man accused of whatever crime in Steiger's office, the black man won't be wearing a suit and a tie, and he would better not think about returning any slap in the face...

I wasn't impressed by the crime plot either. Ok, I get the theory: a cheap/simple suspense plot creates dramatic tension, which makes it easier for the audience to relate to the social/personal issues of the characters. Only that the suspense plot is so bland, the action scenes so lame and the characters so comic book-like that, for me at least, there wasn't really any sense of drama there.

When I started writing this down, I realised that I had actually forgotten who the murderer was. How's that for a forgettable story. To refresh my memory I watched to film again, and it didn't actually improve my opinion of the film. The first half of the film is fairly strong, but during the second half I just seemed to lose interest. The film doesn't get anywhere and the premise is irrelevant for modern audiences.

[bizarre]

lol, FilmFan clearly isn't a fan of film

[bizarre]

Best Picture:

* Branded to Kill
Japanese Summer: Double Suicide
Land in Anguish
Scattered Clouds
Wavelength


Best Director:

Jancsó Miklós … The Red and the White
Nagisa Ōshima … Band of Ninja
Nagisa Ōshima … Japanese Summer: Double Suicide
Glauber Rocha … Land in Anguish
* Seijun Suzuki … Branded to Kill

[Reza]

Voted for In the Heat of the Night and Mike Nichols.

My picks for 1967:

Best Picture
1. In the Heat of the Night
2. The Graduate
3. Bonnie and Clyde
4. Persona
5. In Cold Blood

The 6th Spot: Point Blank

Best Director
1. Mike Nichols, The Graduate
2. Arthur Penn, Bonnie and Clyde
3. Ingmar Bergman, Persona
4. Norman Jewison, In the Heat of the Night
5. Richard Brooks, In Cold Blood

The 6th Spot: John Boorman, Point Blank

[FilmFan720]

In all seriousness, I voted Bonnie and Clyde and Arthur Penn. Everyone else has already spoken my honest feelings about all of the contenders.

[Reza]

For anyone who hasn't quite caught on, take a look at the date.

It becomes obvious once you start reading the raves about Dr Dolittle.

[Big Magilla]

For anyone who hasn't quite caught on, take a look at the date.

[Reza]

I won't actually vote, as I have never seen The Graduate, but I thought I would chime in here anyways.

First off the list is Bonnie and Clyde, which is the perfect example of all style and no substance. It turns these vile human beings into "heroes," without every justifying a moment of the unnecessary bloodshed they enact. The performances range from dull to over-the-top (Estelle Parsons may be the worst performance ever to win an Oscar) and any moment where they aren't robbing a bank is just as dull as dirt. I haven't seen the film in years, but isn't there actually a film where they all sit in a field and Bonnie sings a song about how they are all going to die and become famous? It might be the most tasteless film ever to pick up a Best Picture nod (and certainly to garner a Best Director nod). I cannot believe anyone here would vote for it.

In Cold Blood takes a second-rate novel and turns it into a second rate film.

In the Heat of the Night is certainly less exploitative than the previous two films, but not by a whole lot. It features an overly simplified view of racism, where the almighty Black Man comes to the hateful South and manages to solve their dastardly crime. I agree with BJ that the crime itself is interesting enough to watch, but all of the racial overtones surrounding it are childish, superficial and boring.

Luckily, we have a much more nuanced look at racism in this year's nominees: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Here, Poitier gets a much more complex character to tackle, one who isn't afraid to question what it means to be a black man in a world controlled by white men. The acting is superb (I'll never understand why Katharine Houghton never became a major star), although the film has unfairly been remembered merely as the last Tracy-Hepburn film. As compared to In the Heat of the Night, it is a much more intricate examination of a very difficult subject (and a perfect time capsule of what 1960s culture was really like), and like all of Stanley Kramer's films, it gives us fabulous debates through humor, wit and intelligence. I would not hesitate a moment to vote for it in both categories.

But I won't vote for it here, because there is one film left that I have to vote for. I am shocked to see how down on Doctor Dolittle everyone here seems to be. The film is a magical journey to a strange world, done with as much grace, humor and creativity as the other great Hollywood children's films like The Wizard of Oz or Mary Poppins. Rex Harrison is at his best at the center of the film (and that score he is given is perfect), taking us through a fast-paced adventure with a showman quality that he never matched anywhere else. That storm scene is riveting, the Pushmi-Pullyu is one of cinema's great creatures and by the time Dolittle starts riding the giant snail the film has soared to great heights. The great thing about Doctor Dolittle, though, is that it is much more than a childhood adventure film. Through it all, Richard Fleischer also manages to make us consider how we treat animals, how we treat artists and creative souls, and most importantly, it may be the only film I can think of that makes the valid, and necessary, argument that science and creativity aren't opposing forces, but instead are fused together in the brain. It is a magical film, and the kind of film that the Academy Awards were invented to award.

My votes go to Doctor Doliitle and, since I can't vote Fleischer, Stanley Kramer.

But I should probably make myself sit through The Graduate.

It took me till the start of the third paragraph to catch on. Prior to that I was simply aghast.

But he is spot on about Estelle Parsons. One of the most annoying performances ever to win an Oscar.

[Greg]

FilmFan, Rex Reed just called. He wants his writing style back.

[Mister Tee]

I won't actually vote, as I have never seen The Graduate, but I thought I would chime in here anyways.

First off the list is Bonnie and Clyde, which is the perfect example of all style and no substance. It turns these vile human beings into "heroes," without every justifying a moment of the unnecessary bloodshed they enact. The performances range from dull to over-the-top (Estelle Parsons may be the worst performance ever to win an Oscar) and any moment where they aren't robbing a bank is just as dull as dirt. I haven't seen the film in years, but isn't there actually a film where they all sit in a field and Bonnie sings a song about how they are all going to die and become famous? It might be the most tasteless film ever to pick up a Best Picture nod (and certainly to garner a Best Director nod). I cannot believe anyone here would vote for it.

In Cold Blood takes a second-rate novel and turns it into a second rate film.

In the Heat of the Night is certainly less exploitative than the previous two films, but not by a whole lot. It features an overly simplified view of racism, where the almighty Black Man comes to the hateful South and manages to solve their dastardly crime. I agree with BJ that the crime itself is interesting enough to watch, but all of the racial overtones surrounding it are childish, superficial and boring.

Luckily, we have a much more nuanced look at racism in this year's nominees: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Here, Poitier gets a much more complex character to tackle, one who isn't afraid to question what it means to be a black man in a world controlled by white men. The acting is superb (I'll never understand why Katharine Houghton never became a major star), although the film has unfairly been remembered merely as the last Tracy-Hepburn film. As compared to In the Heat of the Night, it is a much more intricate examination of a very difficult subject (and a perfect time capsule of what 1960s culture was really like), and like all of Stanley Kramer's films, it gives us fabulous debates through humor, wit and intelligence. I would not hesitate a moment to vote for it in both categories.

But I won't vote for it here, because there is one film left that I have to vote for. I am shocked to see how down on Doctor Dolittle everyone here seems to be. The film is a magical journey to a strange world, done with as much grace, humor and creativity as the other great Hollywood children's films like The Wizard of Oz or Mary Poppins. Rex Harrison is at his best at the center of the film (and that score he is given is perfect), taking us through a fast-paced adventure with a showman quality that he never matched anywhere else. That storm scene is riveting, the Pushmi-Pullyu is one of cinema's great creatures and by the time Dolittle starts riding the giant snail the film has soared to great heights. The great thing about Doctor Dolittle, though, is that it is much more than a childhood adventure film. Through it all, Richard Fleischer also manages to make us consider how we treat animals, how we treat artists and creative souls, and most importantly, it may be the only film I can think of that makes the valid, and necessary, argument that science and creativity aren't opposing forces, but instead are fused together in the brain. It is a magical film, and the kind of film that the Academy Awards were invented to award.

My votes go to Doctor Doliitle and, since I can't vote Fleischer, Stanley Kramer.

But I should probably make myself sit through The Graduate.

It took me till the start of the third paragraph to catch on. Prior to that I was simply aghast.