skimpole

Just to be clear, all the male roles in The Barefoot Contessa are supporting?

Actor Jacques Tati, Mr. Hulot's Holiday Fred Astaire, The Band Wagon Chishu Ryu, Tokyo story Yves Montand, The Wages of Fear Charles Boyer, The Earrings of Madame De Runner-ups: William Holden (Stalag 13), James Stewart (The Naked Spur), Richard Widwark (Pickup on South Street), James Mason (Julius Caesar), Burt Lancaster (From Here to Eternity), Edmond O'Brien (The Bigamist), Arturo de Cordova (El), Actress Danielle Darrieux, The Earrings of Madame De.. Cyd Charisse, The Band Wagon Marilyn Monroe, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Chieko Higashiyama, Tokyo Story Jane Russell, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Runner-ups: Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday), Harriet Andersson (Summer with Monika), Ida Lupino, Joan Fontaine (The Bigamist), Michiyo Kogure, Ayako Wakao (A Geisha), Lauren Bacall (How to Marry a Millionaire) Supporting Actor Charles Vanel, The Wages of Fear Jack Buchanan, The Band Wagon Oscar Levant, The Band Wagon Vittorio de Sica, The Earrings of Madame De Marlon Brando, Julius Caesar Runner-ups: Eitaro Ozawa (Ugetsu), Robert Ryan (The Naked Spur), Frank Sinatra (From Here to Eternity), Charles Coburn (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), William Powell (How to Marry a Millionaire), Robert Strauss (Stalag 13), Charles Laughton (Young Bess) Supporting Actress Nanette Fabray, The Band Wagon Setsuko Hara, Tokyo Story Thelma Ritter, Pickup on South Street Ann Miller, Kiss me Kate Kinuyo Tanaka, Ugetsu Runner-ups: Mitsuko Mito (Ugetsu), Not seen: The Robe, The Moon is Blue, Mogambo, Torch Song, Hondo.

I have edited my 1947/1948 choices and my 1951/1952 choices because for some strange reason the years of Roberto Rossellini movies tends to be unduly complicated. Apparently Germany Year Zero and Europa'51 were copyrighted in the first year but actually released in the second, which is the year I've now put them in. With that in mind Journey to Italy/Voyage to Italy was filmed in 1953 but released in 1954, so I'm assuming 1954 should be the actual date. Anyone who disagrees should let me know.

Comparing the poll of the forties winners with the actual oscars Supporting Actress Darwell (2nd) defeated 7-2 Astor no votes Wright 1 vote, defeated 4-1 six way tie for 2nd Paxinou winner 3-2 Barrymore 1 vote four way tie for 3rd Revere no votes Baxter tied for winner 2-2 Holm winner 2-1 over seven other candidates Trevor winner 4-2 McCambridge tied for winner 2-2-2 Supporting Actor Brennan tied for winner 3-3 Crisp no votes Heflin no votes Coburn, winner 3-2-2 (one should note the most popular alternative was moved the year before) Fitzgerald no votes (1 vote for Best Actor though) Dunn 1 vote defeated 2-1 nine way tie for 2nd Russell 1 vote two way tie for 3rd Gwenn 1 vote defeated 4-1 five way for 2nd Huston winner 4-1 Jagger no votes Actress Rogers no votes Fontaine no votes Garson (2nd) defeated 5-2 Jones 1 vote defeated 2-2- six way for 3rd Bergman (2nd) defeated 5-4 Crawford (2nd) defeated 3-2 De Havilland (1) no votes Young no votes Wyman no votes De Havilland (2) winner 6-1 Actor Stewart 1 vote defeated 3-2 six way tie for 3rd Cooper 1 vote defeated 5-3 two way tie for 3rd Cagney (2nd) defeated 6-2 (note winner was nominated for next year) Lukas no votes Crosby no votes Milland winner 3-1 March 1 vote defeated 3-2-four way tie for 3rd Colman 1 vote defeated 2-2-2 three way tie for 4th Olivier, no votes Crawford (2nd) defeated 3-2

Glenn Kenny on Like Someone in Love: http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2016/07/hollywood-to-tehran-to-tokyo-the-journey-of-like-someone-in-love.html

I can imagine giving von Sydow an actor nomination for The Emigrants, and if I ever saw Heaven Can Wait I might give Julie Christie a nomination. I can conceive upgrading Meryl Streep in The Deer Hunter and Karen Black in Five Easy Pieces to actress. But otherwise, there's not much to work with. Likewise for the sixties, I could see giving Mitchum an actor nomination for The Sundowners, but again, not much to work with.

Here's one movie that TCM should show: Sight and Sound 2012 top 100 movies.

I don't think the strategic importance of the character to the plot can be what decides the issue. Otherwise Claudius and Hamlet's father would also be leads, as would the murder victim in every murder mystery.

Is Eva Marie-Saint lead or supporting for North by Northwest? The case for supporting is that she's the last major character to appear, and she basically appears in four scenes (the train, Chicago/the auction, the Mount Rushmore restaurant and the climax).

While I suppose it's not a perfect ending, let alone the most perfect ending, I personally like in Absolute Beginners when Eddie O'Connell takes off Patsy Kensit's wedding ring from her horrible marriage to James Fox as they're about to have sex for the first time. It's an ending that should be better known.

Actor Gene Kelly, Singin' in the Rain Takashi Shimura, Ikiru Carlo Battisti, Umberto D Gary Cooper, High Noon Charles Chaplin, Limelight Runner-ups: Georges Poujouly (Forbidden Games), Michael MacLiammoir, Orson Welles (Othello), Burt Lancaster (The Crimson Pirate), Robert Walker (My Son John), Robert Mitchum, (The Lusty Men), Alec Guinness (The Lavender Hill Mob), Kirk Douglas (The Bad and the Beautiful), John Wayne (The Quiet Man), Spencer Tracy (Pat and Mike) Actress Simone Signoret, Casque D'Or Kinuyo Tanaka, The Life of Oharu Debbie Reynolds, Singin' in the Rain Ingrid Bergman, Europa 51 Helen Hayes, My Son John Runner-ups: Susan Hayward (The Lusty Men), Judy Holliday (The Marrying Kind), Brigitte Fossey (Forbidden Games), Claire Bloom (Limelight), Katherine Hepburn (Pat and Mike), Anna Magnani (The Golden Coach) Supporting Actor Donald O'Connor, Singin' in the Rain 1951 movie nominated in 1952: Stanley Holloway, The Lavender Hill Mob Arthur Kennedy, The Lusty Men Victor McLagen, The Quiet Man Dick Powell, The Bad and the Beautiful Substitute for Holloway: Buster Keaton, Limelight Supporting Actress Maria Pia-Casillo, Umberto D Jean Hagen, Singin' in the Rain Madeleine Renaud, Le Plaisir Danielle Darrieux, Le Plaisir Gloria Grahame, The Bad and the Beautiful Runner-up: Cyd Charisse (Singin' in the Rain), Marie Windsor, (The Narrow Margin) Not seen: Ivanhoe, Five Fingers, Come Back Little Sheba, Sudden Fear, The Star, The Member of the Wedding, With a Song in My Heart, My Cousin Rachel A rather weak year for best supporting actor. It says something that after O'Connor my four choices come from movies that I couldn't quite give a nomination for Best Actor.

Is Arthur Kennedy lead or supporting for The Lusty Men? Arguably here and Mitchum are co-leads.

From Like Someone in Love:

That is weird. Looking at last year's BAFTA eligibility rules, the deadline for theatrical release isn't December 31, as one might expect, or December 25, (so that they have a week in the theatres), but February 12 of this year. But movies which open after January 1 are eligible if they are "screened" for BAFTA voters by December 17. I don't know what the rules were in 1959, but that might explain the oddity. The rules for 2007 awards give a similar deadline for February 8.

I wanted to comment more on Kathryn Beaumont, my runner-up choice for best actress. Several of my nominees, and two of my future winners, are actually voices. What I especially like about Alice in Wonderland is that it's incredibly inventive, doesn't efface the original source (unlike Pinocchio), and doesn't have a didactic or simple-minded moral. It's also admirable that in a corpus of usually passive uninteresting heroines, Alice/Beaumont shows considerable sang-froid confronting the strange, often selfish and occasionally sinister entities that she meets.

Godrey Cheshire's essay on Certified Copy for the Criterion Collection. In Tuscany in June 2009, roughly forty years after the beginning of his filmmaking career, Abbas Kiarostami started shooting his first dramatic feature made outside Iran, a film, moreover, performed in English, French, and Italian, rather than his native Farsi. The same month in Iran, the Ahmadinejad regime brutally suppressed massive protests by the so-called Green Movement over presidential elections that many suspected had been stolen. While the near simultaneity of Iran’s leading director decamping and its regime cracking down was clearly coincidental, its symbolism is undeniable. Certified Copy (2010), Kiarostami’s Tuscan excursion, is a nonpolitical film only if you find no political meaning in its loudest unspoken implication: “I can’t work in Iran anymore.” Doubtless Kiarostami could still work in his native land if he was determined to, but since conditions for filmmakers there have grown more difficult in recent years, he has less reason to put himself through that now than ever. I’ve often heard Iranian directors say that the hardships of working in Iran are worth it because their art is so deeply rooted in their culture; world audiences, they feel, value their films in large part for their Iranian-ness. For Iran’s most celebrated director, however, a brand name in Western art houses since the 1990s, maintaining an identification with Iran is evidently not as much of a concern anymore; as an auteur, he now belongs to the world. But perhaps more crucially, this move can be understood in the context of a career that has been remarkable for its continual adventurousness. Every Kiarostami film represents a leap in a new direction, often a very risky one. Viewed from that angle, a film made outside Iran, in foreign languages, was perhaps a creative dare he couldn’t resist. But what kind of film would it be: a Kiarostami film that just happened to have foreign backdrops or a Western art film that just happened to be directed by Kiarostami? Judging from the reviews when Certified Copy premiered at the Cannes Film Festival eleven months after its shooting commenced, the consensus on the above question was definitely that the latter was the case. And this may explain why there were notes of reservation, surprise, and sometimes even disdain among the general acclamation. To be sure, the film is recognizably Kiarostamian in many particulars, such as its use of long takes of extended conversations in automobiles and alleyways. But as a type of film, with its desultory chronicling of an implicitly romantic but also querulous and cryptic encounter between two very attractive middle-class intellectuals—an English writer and a French antiques dealer—who discuss art and life and their own peculiar travails against the irrepressibly picturesque stones and vistas of Tuscany, Certified Copy looks not only like a European art film but also like a specific subgenre of that form that was proudly exported, especially by France and Italy, from the fifties through the seventies. No wonder some reviewers were restrained in their praise. Critics exist to supply definitions of artists, and the standard definition of Kiarostami has had far more to do with his cerebral Iranian-ness (however that is described) than with an affinity or kinship with any genus of European art cinema, especially one now effectively outmoded. For audiences, on the other hand, that correspondence was no handicap at all; quite the contrary, by all evidence. Certified Copy became an art-house hit across the West, Kiarostami’s highest-grossing film ever. And if audiences in America, say, were drawn to it by trailers promising a certain kind of Juliette Binoche film rather than any kind of Kiarostami film, what of it? When the box-office results were in, it was clear that Kiarostami had made another nervy leap and landed on his feet. With the advantage of some extra hindsight, it’s possible to add that those initial critical reactions had it only half-right: hidden beneath the alluring surface of a movie that confidently revives the conventions of a certain kind of European art cinema, there’s a quintessential Kiarostami film, one of the most deeply personal he has made. In interviews, both Binoche and Kiarostami, who became friends in the nineties, have traced the film’s genesis to a conversation they had in Tehran, when he first told her the film’s story, which he said had actually happened to him. Binoche: “He said, ‘Do you believe me?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘It’s not true!’ I burst out laughing . . . To this day, I’m sure he lived this story. Just as I’m sure he didn’t.” For his part, Kiarostami was no doubt being both evasive and truthful in saying that the story began to evolve as he told it to Binoche and watched her reactions; the actress’s vulnerability and sensitivity, “what I knew of her soul,” became part of his subject. Like many Kiarostami fictions, Certified Copy opens with the matter-of-fact air of a documentary. The camera stares deadpan at a table that stands before an antique stone mantelpiece and contains two microphones, a bottle of water, and a copy of a book titled Copia conforme. At length, an Italian man comes in and sets up for the event that is to follow, a lecture before a small crowd in a hall in the town of Arezzo. Running late, the lecturer arrives. James Miller (William Shimell), a handsome, dapper English scholar, apologizes and thanks the crowd for their interest in his book, which he ruefully notes has been more appreciatively received in Italy than in England. From what we can tell of the book by his comments, it challenges conventional thinking about artworks by asserting the value of copies in relation to originals. But we hear no more than the opening of Miller’s lecture because our attention is diverted to a woman in the audience, who scribbles something on a piece of paper and hands it to the author’s translator, then follows her teenage son out of the hall and to a restaurant. The interrupted lecture is typical of Kiarostami, whose films follow narrative pathways full of detours, diversions, and interruptions, some felicitous, others more jarring. The same is true of the emotional itineraries of his characters, as we are reminded when Miller, the following day, visits the antiques shop of the woman seen earlier (played by Binoche, she is never named but referred to only as Elle, or “She”). He has only a few hours before he must leave Arezzo. She would like to show him her shop, but he prefers the outdoors, so she offers him an excursion to the nearby town of Lucignano, famous as a site for weddings. From the first, their conversation evinces an odd mix of attraction and antipathy. She seems dressed and primed to seduce, and has bought six copies of his book, but is also testy, cross, and quick to disagree with him. Cool and a bit distant, Miller remains polite but doesn’t refrain from verbally sparring with her. Once they’re in Lucignano, however, his greatest displeasure comes not from her but from the sight of young married couples, whose happiness he dismisses as an illusion sure to be cruelly burst in time. Then, when the couple stop in a trattoria for coffee, something strange happens. After Miller steps outside to take a cell phone call, She begins a conversation with the woman running the café, who mistakes the two foreigners for a married couple and begins to offer comments and advice about the wisdom and necessity of marriage. In a shot where the woman leans over to whisper something (we never learn what) to She, and completely blocks the camera’s view of her, it may be said that the film goes through the looking glass. We become aware of this shift moments later, when the two main characters resume their conversation, and now speak to each other as a couple who have been married fifteen years. For the rest of the film, they maintain this relationship, as they wander through the town, dredging up old differences and disappointments, before ultimately finding their way to the hotel where they spent their wedding night and now make a touching but unsuccessful attempt at re-forming their original bond. The first effect of this startling coup de cinéma is to take us out of the fiction by reminding us that it is a fiction. Once this happens, we are less able to relate to the two characters as people we might encounter in life than as artifices created by an artist whose motives can only be called opaque. I once described Kiarostami’s work as “a cinema of questions,” and the central twist in Certified Copy leaves us with many to ask. Which half of the film is “true”? Are these characters playacting in one or the other? Or could it be that the halves are competing falsehoods, or equally true in parallel universes? And how does this connect to all the talk about copies and originals, art and marriage? In discussing the influence of poetry on his work, Kiarostami has often spoken of leaving gaps or elisions in his stories in order to invite or oblige the viewer to consciously participate in the creation of meaning. Certified Copy certainly qualifies as a variation on this technique; ultimately, we must determine what “happens” (or doesn’t) in the film, which means that our intentions regarding the characters (do we want them to be strangers or spouses, flirtatious or alienated?) are at least as important as Kiarostami’s. As for what he intends, both cinematically and personally, some of that may be discerned by pondering the two films that Certified Copy arguably has the most significant relationship to: Roberto Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy (1953) and Kiarostami’s own The Report (1977). When Iran’s postrevolutionary cinema started getting international attention in the late 1980s, many critics saw it as owing a debt to Italian neorealism. While some of the parallels (shooting on location, using nonactors) can be attributed to exigencies of history and budget, others (social themes, a strong moral sense) no doubt represent actual lines of influence. Others still (the blending of documentary and fiction, the concern for physical environment) specifically link Kiarostami to Rossellini. But Voyage to Italy does not belong to the neorealist phase of Rossellini’s work. It is the third of four films he made with Ingrid Bergman, and was shot when their relationship was disintegrating, a fact that has led many to sense an autobiographical subtext in its story of an English couple (the husband is played by George Sanders) whose marriage comes to the brink of unraveling as they motor through Southern Italy. Both the matter and the manner of Rossellini’s film resemble those of Kiarostami’s. The “thin” story line about unhappily married foreigners in Italy. The chilly husband and sensuous but unmoored wife. The difficulty in communication. The road trip that leads to the contemplation of various artworks. The emphasis on moments, gestures, and textures of place over plot. There’s even a religious emblem near the climax of each film (a processional in Rossellini’s, a church in Kiarostami’s) that seems to change the story’s emotional flow. In some senses, it may even be said that Kiarostami has made a “copy” of Voyage to Italy in Certified Copy. If so, could James Miller’s defense of copies be intended as a drolly proleptic assertion that the new film shouldn’t necessarily be considered inferior to its celebrated model? Perhaps. But there’s also a sense, given the way Kiarostami’s films often meditate on cinema itself (an element he’s most responsible for introducing to Iranian film), that he’s concerned not just with what Voyage to Italy contains but also with what it represents. Initially derided in Italy, Rossellini’s film was later taken up by Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and other French critics, thereby becoming a foundational text in the nouvelle vague’s formulation of auteurist cinema. In retrospect, it seems clear that what made the film such a model for young critics aspiring to be filmmakers was both its idiosyncratic emphasis on style over storytelling and the feeling of great personal meaning in Rossellini’s account of the torturous relations of men and women (a combination that pointed toward such later masterworks as Antonioni’s L’avventura [1960], Godard’s Contempt [1963], and Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage [1973]). It is this tradition in which Kiarostami situates himself in transitioning from Iran to Europe. Yet it’s also one to which he already belongs. Prior to Iran’s 1979 revolution, Kiarostami made a number of shorts and two features. The second of these features, The Report, which has rarely been seen outside Iran (the present regime declined to distribute it due to its adult themes and proscribed content, including images of the last shah), is an acidic drama about the collapse of a marriage, and Kiarostami has stated that it was based on the events leading to his own divorce. (Asked why he didn’t leave Iran during the revolution, he once said, “Because there was a revolution going on in my own home.”) The film’s main characters are a fashionable middle-class Tehrani couple with a young son. While Kiarostami’s account of their growing antagonism and estrangement apportions blame to both sides, his portrait of the husband, a vain, foppish, and self-centered bureaucrat, is especially damning. When I asked Kiarostami if this young man was meant to represent a certain type of Iranian, he said that the characterization was a broadside aimed at no one but himself. At other times, he told me emphatically that he would never make another film about marriage in Iran, since content restrictions in the Islamic Republic effectively bar a realistic depiction of adult intimacies. Given the chance to work outside Iran, it’s little wonder that he returned to that very subject. Effectively a companion piece to The Report (which is also included in this release), Certified Copy broods on marriage from the embittered perspective of a wounded survivor (Kiarostami has never remarried). Its divided story very precisely and poetically renders the contradiction at the heart of that perspective: marriage is essential, yet it is also impossible. In this sense, both halves of the narrative are true. The two people are strangers as well as a couple married for fifteen years. They will always be locked in this pose of thwarted intimacy; nothing can bridge the chasm that both connects and separates them. As for who gets the blame for the standoff, She is certainly difficult, mercurial, and challenging. Yet She is also given credit for trying to restore the feeling that originally drew them together. When She ducks into the aforementioned church, it’s to remove her bra, a gesture that movingly unites the sensual and the spiritual. And it’s She who literally tries to return them to their marriage bed. It is he who refuses the gesture, as if unable or unwilling to break through the shell of his intellectual’s ego. The last shot of the film, where James Miller stares into a mirror at his own haggard face, not only tells us where the lion’s share of the blame belongs but also sums up the candid self-incrimination that makes Certified Copy such a remarkable instance of confessional cinema, cleverly cloaked in the raiment of a classic modernist European art film.

This is horrifying news: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/04/abbas-kiarostami-palme-dor-winning-iranian-film-maker-dies

I will agree that some of the pagentry and cinematography are good. Anderson is an underrated director. I actually adore Around the World in 80 days, and Operation Crossbow has a certain toughness. But there's only so much you can say about him. Yes, I recognized Werner's character is based on Teilhard. But in retrospect that dates it fairly badly. While not the biggest fan of Preminger or The Cardinal, that movie does benefit from the fact that we don't have to accept the protagonist uncritically, whereas Quinn is clearly a fantasy figure. And clearly Preminger is a better director than Anderson, who has his own soap opera elements (the journalist and his wife being an obvious problem.)

It's weeks in the future, but I'm going to suggest that all the actors in Advise and Consent are supporting.

I saw three movies this week. I watched The Shoes of the Fisherman because the National Board of Review declared it to be the best movie of 1968. Sadly, illegal drugs were not responsible for this judgement. Middlebrow taste in 1968 was just that bad. It's a "serious" movie about Catholicism that shows not the slightest insight or genuine interest in its subject. (Such is why is Quinn's character Catholic when most Christians in the Soviet Union were Orthodox?) It's striking that there was a major famine in China several years before the fictional one in the film took place, and China did not respond by launching world war three. And within a decade a pope did come from the Eastern bloc and while undoubtedly charismatic, wasn't remotely like the fantasy pope Quinn played. Dheepan is a much better movie, and Kalieaswari Srinivasan's performance is particularly noteworthy. IT's certainly a much more intelligent movie about a serious social problem, with a much more clever conceit. (The Tamil refugee family living in Paris are not actually a family.) The movie may have, in Stuart Klawans' words, "the phoniest epilogue since Taxi Driver" but it also has one of the best erotic moments of the year. About Elly is the first film of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi. Is it of the same quality of A Separation> Not quite: the early scenes showing middle class Iranians maybe, but once the title character goes missing, the arguments and the conflicts are just a bit contrived. But otherwise, it is of a very high standard.

Actor Robert Walker, Strangers on a Train Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire Gene Kelly, An American in Paris Kirk Douglas, Ace in the Hole Van Heflin, The Prowler Runner-ups: Farley Granger (Strangers on a Train), Raj Kapoor (Awaara), Humphrey Bogart (The African Queen), Masayuki Mori (The Idiot), Francesco Golisano (Miracle in Milan), Robert Ryan (On Dangerous Ground), Fred Astaire (Royal Wedding) Actress Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire Kathryn Beaumont, Alice in Wonderland Patricia Walters, The River Setsuko Hara, Early Summer Anna Magnani, Belissima Runner-Ups: Nargis (Awaara), Anita Bjork (Miss Julie), Ida Lupino (On Dangerous Ground), Katherine Hepburn (The African Queen), Leslie Caron (An American in Paris), Ava Gardner (Pandora and the Flying Dutchman) Supporting Actor Ichiro Sagai, Early Summer Sterling Holloway, Alice in Wonderland Adolphe Menjou, The Tall Target Richard Loo, The Steel Helmet Oscar Levant, An American in Paris Runner-ups: Toshiro Mifune (The Idiot), Karl Malden (A Streetcar Named Desire) Supporting Actress Setsuko Hara, The Idiot Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire Moira Shearer, The Tales of Hoffmann Chieko Higashiyama, Early Summer Laura Elliott/Kasey Rogers, Strangers on a Train Runner-Up: Radha Burnier (The River) Not seen: Decision before Dawn, Quo Vadis, Detective Story, Bright Victory, Death of a Salesman, The Blue Veil, The Mating Season

It's better known as A Page of Madness: TCM has shown it before. It's well worth watching, it's very different from other silent movies, one of the first great Japanese movies in fact.

1948 Rope The Red Shoes The Bicycle Thieves Red River Unfaithfully Yours The Lady from Shanghai Easter Parade Good Sam A Hen in the Wind L’Amore 1949 Late Spring Jour de Fete The Reckless Moment The Fallen Idol* On the Town The Heiress The Small Back Room Stray Dog White Hot The Set-Up 1950 Sunset Blvd. All About Eve The Flowers of Saint Francis La Ronde Orpheus The Third Man* In a Lonely Place The Asphalt Jungle Rashomon Los Olividados 1951 Alice in Wonderland The River Miracle in Milan Diary of a Country Priest Strangers on a Train Tales of Hoffmann Early Summer An American in Paris Ace in the Hole Europa’51

I didn't start making contributions to this thread until 1937 came up. So I thought I would include my Academy Award nominations before that time. That would mean including nominations before 1930, which is when the thread started. It would mean that the first six awards wouldn't match the chronological years. It would mean the number of nominations would fluctuate as they did in the first few years of the Awards. (Which is annoying because the quality of movies noticeably increased in the three years the Academy reduced the acting nominations to three.) It would mean the best supporting oscars wouldn't appear until 1936, when the Academy started giving them out. (Except for one exception in 1932-1933) It would mean that the nominations would appear far too late to be included in the discussion of those years. 1927-1928 Actor James Murray, The Crowd Charles Chaplin, The Circus Buster Keaton, Steamboat Bill, Jr. Actress Maria Falconetti, The Passion of Joan of Arc Marion Davies, The Patsy Gloria Swanson, Sadie Thompson 1928-1929 Actor Buster Keaton, The Cameraman George Bancroft, The Docks of New York Erich von Stroheim, The Wedding March Semyon Svashenko, Arsenal Pierre Alcover, L'Argent Actress Louise Brooks, Pandora’s Box Lillian Gish, The Wind Gloria Swanson, Queen Kelly Anny Ondra, Blackmail Marion Davies, Show People Bessie Love, The Broadway Melody 1929-1930 Actor Emil Jannings, The Blue Angel Lew Ayres, All Quiet on the Western Front Maurice Chevalier, The Love Parade Daniel Haynes, Hallelujah! Wallace Beery, The Big House Actress Louise Brooks, The Diary of a Lost Girl Greta Garbo, The Kiss Marlene Dietrich, The Blue Angel Jeanette MacDonald, The Love Parade Nina Mae McKinney, Hallelujah! Emiko Yagumo, That Night's Wife 1930-1931 Actor Peter Lorre, M Charles Chaplin, City Lights Bela Lugosi, Dracula Groucho Marx, Animal Crackers Jack Buchanan, Monte Carlo Actress Marlene Dietrich, Morocco Mary Astor, Other Men's Women Lya Lys, L'Age D'Or Jeanette MacDonald, Monte Carlo Sylvia Sidney, City Streets 1931-1932 Actor Maurice Chevalier, One Hour With You James Cagney, Blonde Crazy Robert Williams, Platinum Blonde Actress Jeanette MacDonald, One Hour with you Jean Harlow, Red Headed Woman Marlene Dietrich, Shanghai Express 1932-1933 Actor Groucho Marx, Duck Soup Spencer Tracy, Me and My Gal, Man's Castle Maurice Chevalier, Love Me tonight Actress Miriam Hopkins, Trouble in Paradise Katherine Hepburn, Little Women Jeanette MacDonald, Love me Tonight Supporting Actor: Chico Marx, Duck Soup Supporting Actress: Margaret Dumont, Duck Soup 1934 Actor William Powell, The Thin Man W.C. Fields, It's a Gift Anton Walbrook, Masquerade Actress Myrna Loy, The Thin Man Ruan Lingyu, The Goddess Maureen O'Sullivan, Tarzan and His Mate Marlene Dietrich, The Scarlet Empress 1935 Actor Fred Astaire, Top Hat Groucho Marx, A Night at the Opera Robert Donat, The 39 Steps Gary Cooper, Peter Ibbetson, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer Charles Laughton, Ruggles of Red Cap, Mutiny on the Bounty Actress Ginger Rogers, Top Hat Katharine Hepburn, Sylvia Scarlett Francoise Rosay, Carnival in Flanders Madeleine Carroll, The 39 Steps Ann Harding, Peter Ibbetson Edna May Oliver, David Copperfield 1936 Charles Chaplin, Modern Times William Powell, After the Thin Man, My Man Godfrey, Libeled Lady Walter Huston, Dodsworth Fred Astaire, Swing Time Sacha Guitry, The Story of a Cheat Carole Lombard, My Man Godfrey Myrna Loy, After the Thin Man, Libeled Lady Ginger Rogers, Swing Time Ruth Chatterton, Dodsworth Choka Iida, The Only Son Supporting Actor Victor Moore, Swing Time James Stewart, After the Thin Man Walter Brennan, Come and Get It Jules Berry, The Crime of Monsieur Lange Lionel Stander, Mr, Deeds Goes to Town Supporting Actress Paulette Goddard, Modern Times Mary Astor, Dodsworth Helen Broderick, Swing Time Yoshiko Tsubouchi, The Only Son Myrna Loy, The Great Ziegfeld 1937 Supporting Actor Edward Everett Horton, Angel, Shall We Dance Ralph Bellamy, The Awful Truth George Burns, A Damsel in Distress Thomas Mitchell, Make way for Tomorrow Pinto Colvig, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Supporting Actress Gracie Allen, A Damsel in Distress Lucille La Verne, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Andrea Leeds, Stage Door Barbara Read, Make way for Tomorrow Margaret Dumont, A Day at the Races 1938 Supporting Actor Marcel Diallo, Grand Illusion Claude Rains, The Adventures of Robin Hood Mikhail Troyanovsky, The Childhood of Maxim Gorky Pierre Fresnay, Grand Illusion Erich von Stroheim, Grand Illusion Supporting Actress Olivia De Havailand, The Adventures of Robin Hood Dita Parlo, Grand Illusion May Robson, Bringing up Baby May Whitty, The Lady Vanishes Ann Miller, You Can't Take it with You * The first actress to get four nominations is Jeanette MacDonald. This is clearly the result that Ernest Lubitsch was one of the first directors to successfully adapt to sound, to be reasonably prolific, to have female characters and to employ the same ones. * Which also explains why Marlene Dietrich is the second actress to get four nominations. * The Academy Awards originally granted oscars to actors for collective work, not just in one film. I'm inclined to use that in the future. But just to make sure, it's the first movie that is being honored. * 1936 was the one year where the best supporting actress was easier to come up with than the best supporting actor.

How about The Great Escape? I have always considered McQueen, Attenborough and Garner as the leads, and everyone else supporting. Sound right? I have McQueen as the lead, and the others are supporting. Attenborough is on the line, Garner is definitely supporting.