They Call Him MISTER OSCAR!

Estelle Parsons:
Best Supporting Actress for
Bonnie and Clyde

TUESDAYS WITH OSCAR: 1967

The 40th Academy Awards were descending into total chaos, with the Old Guard fighting furiously against the Young Turks determined to shake up the industry.  Already the Academy Awards started out badly, though through no fault of its own.  The ceremony was delayed two days following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  America was experiencing major turbulence that would not be seen until 2016, and the films reflected the madness all around.

This impending collision is best reflected in the Best Picture nominees. The graphically violent Bonnie and Clyde and the sexually daring The Graduate were fighting with the very politically correct/topical yet tedious (and safe) Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and most scandalously of all, the uber-square and financially ruinous Doctor Dolittle.  Doctor Dolittle was a notorious box-office bomb and generally disliked, but Twentieth Century Fox was determined to recoup some of the losses.  It went out of its way to wine and dine the press and Academy members, who were both essentially bribed in order to score Oscars, leading to nine nominations.

While no actual money for votes were exchanged, the inclusion of Doctor Dolittle and exclusion of such films as Cool Hand Luke, In Cold Blood and The Dirty Dozen caused an uproar among critics, the public, and Academy members.  It seemed as if the Academy members had gone mad, picking something so unrealistic to be selected as the best (a bit like the GOP voters picking Donald Trump and putting him within striking distance of the Presidency...not that the Dems pick of the American Evita is any more logical or good).  Doctor Dolittle's nomination was a sign that the older Academy members, or more precisely the studios that used it to push their product, were losing their grip on power to upstarts determined to shake film. 

The eventual winner was kind of a hybrid, a consensus choice if you will.  In the Heat of the Night was topical and relevant (the issue of race relations set against a murder mystery), while also being less daring than either Bonnie and Clyde or The Graduate.  In short, it was the best of both worlds: current but somewhat standard, and yes, it was a good film.

As always this is just for fun and should not be taken as my final decision. I should like to watch all the nominees and winners before making my final, FINAL choice. Now, on to cataloging the official winners (in bold) and my selections (in red). Also, my substitutions (in green).

THE 1967 ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS   


BEST ORIGINAL SONG

The Eyes of Love: Banning
The Look of Love: Casino Royale
Talk to the Animals: Doctor Dolittle
The Bare Necessities: The Jungle Book
Thoroughly Modern Millie: Thoroughly Modern Millie

At least this choice isn't disastrous.  Out of all the songs from that horror that is Doctor Dolittle, Talk to the Animals is the only one that is actually good. It also is still remembered, which are two things I cannot say about anything else in one of the ghastliest films to be nominated for Best Picture.  Still, I cannot resist a little Dusty Springfield. As such, I would choose another song altogether.

From Casino Royale, The Look of Love, music by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal Davis.

The Look of Love is one of the most romantic songs to come from a Bond film (yes, Casino Royale, technically speaking, is a James Bond film, even if it more spoof than serious.  Then again, I thought Quantum of Solace and Spectre played like Bond spoofs, so there you go).  It also helps to have Dusty Springfield deliver the lyrics in a lush, romantic, dare I say, sexual manner.  Few voices have I found erotic.  Springfield's voice was, and the gentle, cooing of The Look of Love makes this a beautiful song (much more than the hyper and up-tempo Talk to the Animals).  Now, I love The Look of Love, but I still cannot fathom why another song from another film wasn't nominated.

With that, I present my alternate choice for Best Original Song.

From To Sir, With Love, To Sir With Love, music and lyrics by Mark London and Don Black.

The Look of Love: Casino Royale
Talk to the Animals: Doctor Dolittle
The Bare Necessities: The Jungle Book
To Sir With Love: To Sir, With Love
Thoroughly Modern Millie: Thoroughly Modern Millie

It certainly was a big hit in 1967, and Lulu's rendition is still popular to this day.  To Sir With Love inevitably ends up being played at some graduations, but moreover, the song is fitting to the film, a love letter to someone who unexpectedly changed people's lives for the better.  Everyone has at least one teacher, male or female, who was a positive force in their lives and is fondly remembered, our own 'Sir' or 'Ma'am'.  As such, how could the Academy ignore this for the square Talk to the Animals?  I think I answered my own question.

BEST DIRECTOR

Richard Brooks: In Cold Blood
Norman Jewison: In the Heat of the Night
Stanley Kramer: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Arthur Penn: Bonnie and Clyde
Mike Nichols: The Graduate

It's interesting that despite seven nominations, The Graduate earned only one Academy Award, and that was for Mike Nichols' directing.  Part of me thinks it might be a Retroactive Oscar for having lost the year previous for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and part of me thinks that my choice, Arthur Penn, was not going to get it owing to the then-shocking violence of it.  I don't object to Nichols' win, though again I think it a curious choice given the eventual winners in the other categories.  It is a rare time when Best Director and Best Picture don't line up.

Robert Aldrich: The Dirty Dozen
Richard Brooks: In Cold Blood
Sergio Leone: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Arthur Penn: Bonnie and Clyde
Franco Zefferelli: The Taming of the Shrew

I recently watched The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly again and was still highly impressed at what a good job Leone did.  I figure that he wouldn't get nominated because a.) he's a foreigner, b.) it's a low genre, and c.) it's a low level of a low genre (the so-called 'spaghetti Westerns'). 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Carol Channing: Thoroughly Modern Millie
Mildred Natwick: Barefoot in the Park
Estelle Parsons: Bonnie and Clyde
Beah Richards: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Katherine Ross: The Graduate

I can't make much of an argument as to why I'm going for Channing over anyone else save for Richards, who I found not terrible but rather tedious in a tedious film about race relations.  Seriously, who would object to Sidney Poitier as a son-in-law?  My only thoughts on the subject is that, come on, IT'S CAROL CHANNING!  I wonder if Channing Tatum was named after her.  Probably not: unlike Tatum, Miss Carol has actual talent. 

Carol Channing: Thoroughly Modern Millie
Suzy Kendall: To Sir With Love
Mildred Natwick: Barefoot in the Park
Estelle Parsons: Bonnie and Clyde
Katherine Ross: The Graduate

In case I haven't mentioned it, I do a great Carol Channing impression.  The trick is to think 'happy' even if saying the most depressing things.  You have to think 'happy' when you do a Carol Channing impression.  I'd love to see Channing Tatum do a Carol Channing impression: Carol Channing Tatum.  Now THAT'S something I'd pay to see.  Wonder why no one has asked him to do so.  Then again, no one has asked him to act, just do what he does best: take his clothes off.   

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

John Cassavetes: The Dirty Dozen
Gene Hackman: Bonnie and Clyde
Cecil Kellaway: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
George Kennedy: Cool Hand Luke
Michael J. Pollard: Bonnie and Clyde

As great as Pollard was, and as good as Kennedy was (again, Kellaway wasn't horrible, but these parents nowadays...), I'm going with one of my favorite actors of all time, Mr. Gene Hackman. 

Note again that two actors from the same film got nominated in the same category, and once again both lost to someone else.  Again and again, more often than not, when two performers from the same film get nominated, they tend to cancel each other out. 

John Cassavetes: The Dirty Dozen
Gene Hackman: Bonnie and Clyde
George Kennedy: Cool Hand Luke
Lee Van Cleef: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Eli Wallach: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

It's an old question: which one's the bad, and which one's the ugly?  The film makes clear: Eli Wallach is the Ugly, Lee Van Cleef is the Bad. Curiously, the trailer has them reversed, so that does make it confusing.  However, we go with the film.  I am not particularly thrilled that Wallach was the go-to guy for "Mexican" (having played the bandido in The Magnificent Seven), but as an actor, I think the world of Wallach.

BEST ACTRESS

Anne Bancroft: The Graduate
Faye Dunaway: Bonnie and Clyde
Edith Evans: The Whisperers
Audrey Hepburn: Wait Until Dark
Katherine Hepburn: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

There's just no excuse for this win. What exactly did Katherine Hepburn do in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? that was so remarkable?  I imagine it was her last scene, where she looks on Spencer Tracy giving his final speech with tears in her eyes, her head already bobbing slightly.  I think she wasn't acting: she knew he was dying, and as the great love of her life, the emotions are understandable.  Still, I think Bancroft's cold, calculating, lonely, and ultimately done-in Mrs. Robinson was the clear stand-out.

Oh, Kate...you don't like Oscars anyway.  Why don't you give this one back?  

Julie Andrews: Thoroughly Modern Millie
Anne Bancroft: The Graduate
Faye Dunaway: Bonnie and Clyde
Audrey Hepburn: Wait Until Dark
Elizabeth Taylor: The Taming of the Shrew

My dislike of Katherine Hepburn here makes me replace her, but apart from that I see no reason to change my original choice.

BEST ACTOR

Warren Beatty: Bonnie and Clyde
Dustin Hoffman: The Graduate
Paul Newman: Cool Hand Luke
Spencer Tracy: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Rod Steiger: In the Heat of the Night

It's one of his signature roles, one that is remembered even by those who never saw Cool Hand Luke, yet Paul Newman had to lose again, this time to the hollering redneck sheriff of Rod Steiger.  The Academy obviously had a failure to communicate.

Robert Blake: In Cold Blood
Richard Burton: The Taming of the Shrew
Clint Eastwood: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Paul Newman: Cool Hand Luke
Sydney Poitier: To Sir With Love

Despite that, right now I think Blake's killer with a growth of regret in In Cold Blood was worthy of at least a nomination.  Blake's life will forever by tainted by the accusation that he himself committed murder (a charge for which we as found not guilty).  The truth of all that will never be fully known, and Blake will probably be remembered for that and less for In Cold Blood. 

I leave it to people to decide which should be his final legacy.

BEST PICTURE

Bonnie and Clyde
Doctor Dolittle
The Graduate
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
In the Heat of the Night

Seriously, Doctor Dolittle?  In the Heat of the Night isn't a bad film, but I am not convinced it's as well-remembered as Bonnie and Clyde (though people know the 'slap scene').  Bonnie and Clyde was revolutionary: in terms of the violence on the screen, and even talking about impotence.  I think it reflected the growing violence in both Vietnam and American streets, but it might have been too much of a hot potato for the Academy.

Not for me though, which is why I name Bonnie and Clyde my Best Picture of 1967. 

Bonnie and Clyde
Cool Hand Luke
The Dirty Dozen
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
The Taming of the Shrew

That being said, I think we can say that some of the nominated films haven't stood the test of time.  Wonder which ones...

Some not nominated have.  Doctor Dolittle stole the place either Cool Hand Luke or The Dirty Dozen should have taken, but for me, there is another film that stands out.  It has stood the test of time.  It is established as one of the best films of the genre.  It also has one of the most legendary themes in film history, one that is so well-known that people who have never seen the film recognize it and can even whistle along with it.

Ennio Morricone is a genius...and I literally jumped up, let out a whoop, cheering, applauded and pumped my fist in the air when he (FINALLY) won his first competitive Oscar last year for The Hateful Eight.  Everything in this film works together so well, that if you asked people to ask you which one of the two films they recognize or remember, the actual Best Picture winner or this one, they'll almost always go for the latter.

As such and with that, I declare The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly as the Best Picture of 1967.

Next Time, the 1968 Academy Awards.