The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1969)

Some stray thoughts for future essays about a few of the Katie winners of 1969:

The Wild Bunch
I don't know anybody over the age of fifty who isn't a little startled, dismayed and embarrassed to realize that the upward trajectory of the life that they so took for granted in their youth has nosed over and is now on a permanent downward spiral toward the grave. For Pike Bishop (William Holden), the aging leader of a gang of Old West desperados, it's not just that he no longer understands the world that has changed around him; it's the realization that even if he did understand it, he no longer has the energy, stamina or reflexes to do anything about it.

But as Dylan Thomas pointed out, there's more than one way to grow old: you can go quietly into the night, or you can rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Pike chooses to rage. And oh how he rages.

The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie
Just because someone is bright and pretty and charismatic doesn't mean she's not also an idiot. Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith in an Oscar-winning turn) is a beloved teacher in the Dead Poets Society mold, but what to me often seems lost in reviews and recollections of the part is that Miss Brodie is also a self-righteous nincompoop, prone to pronouncements such as "Whoever has opened the window has opened it too wide. Six inches is perfectly adequate—more is vulgar."

She no doubt makes similar pronouncements to her married lover.

For Miss Jean Brodie, teaching isn't so much about preparing her students for the world as it is about creating a classroom full of Jean Brodie clones, little girls who demand nothing of her but to worship the ground she walks on. As for Brodie, she worships Italian poets and Italian painters—and Italian fascists, too—and even if those arrayed against her are a stiff-necked and detestable lot, it seems unlikely to me that anyone could (or would) write a story in the 1960s about a character who tells you how admirable Mussolini is without assuming that you understand the character is more than a bit cracked. That's something to remember—the enemy of your enemy is just as likely to turn out to be your enemy as your friend, so don't assume that just because you don't like the headmistress (Celia Johnson) that Miss Brodie isn't also (if differently) wrong-headed.

As I said in my post about Chimes at Midnight, "A fool who is unaware he is a fool is a ripe subject for comedy." Jean Brodie is just such a fool. That she's also a sympathetic one, you can credit Maggie Smith for that.

[If you're interested in a more in-depth look at The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, FlickChick wrote a nice review of it only yesterday over at A Person in the Dark. Click here to read it.]

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
I probably don't need to tell you that Sean Connery was the definitive James Bond. The first four Bond films, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and even Thunderball are all classics, never bettered.

But the dirty little secret about Sean Connery is that by You Only Live Twice, the Bond film immediately preceding this one, he was phoning it in, and he was no better in Diamonds Are Forever, the film after this one.

And I'll tell you something else. Despite his rugged good looks, Connery really was not a very good romantic lead, not in a classic sense anyway. He was best when he was aloof, amused, snarky or, as he was in roles such as The Untouchables, wounded, brooding and angry. Romance requires a combination of hope and vulnerability, a rare quality in gods, which may explain why good-looking leading men such as George Clooney and Brad Pitt are inexplicably not great romantic leading men.

This is heresy to say, but for this one movie, where Bond genuinely falls in love, George Lazenby was probably better suited to the role than Connery.

Crikey, I can't believe I just said that out loud. True, though.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: The Wild Bunch (prod. Phil Feldman)
nominees: Easy Rider (prod. Peter Fonda); Medium Cool (prod. Tully Friedman, Haskell Wexler and Jerrold Wexler); Midnight Cowboy (prod. Jerome Hellman); On Her Majesty's Secret Service (prod. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman); They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (prod. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (prod. John Foreman)
nominees: The Italian Job (prod. Michael Deeley); Oh! What a Lovely War (prod. Richard Attenborough and Brian Duffy); The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (prod. Robert Fryer); Support Your Local Sheriff! (prod. William Bowers); Take The Money and Run (prod. Charles H. Joffe)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Z (prod. Jacques Perrin and Ahmed Rachedi)
nominees: L'armée des ombres (Army of Shadows) (prod. Jacques Dorfmann); Le chagrin et la pitié (The Sorrow and the Pity) (prod. André Harris and Alain de Sedouy); Ma nuit chez Maud (My Night at Maud's) (prod. Pierre Cottrell and Barbet Schroeder)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: William Holden (The Wild Bunch)
nominees: Peter Fonda (Easy Rider); Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy); Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy); John Wayne (True Grit)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: James Garner (Support Your Local Sheriff)
nominees: Woody Allen (Take the Money and Run); Michael Caine (The Italian Job); Dustin Hoffman (John and Mary); Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); Robert Redford (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Shirley Knight (The Rain People)
nominees: Genevieve Bujold (Anne of the Thousand Days); Jane Fonda (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?); Liv Ullmann (En Passion a.k.a. The Passion of Anna)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Maggie Smith (The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie)
nominees: Mia Farrow (John and Mary); Shirley MacLaine (Sweet Charity); Liza Minnelli (The Sterile Cuckoo); Katharine Ross (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); Barbara Streisand (Hello, Dolly!)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch)
nominees: Costa-Gavras (Z); Jean-Pierre Melville (L'armée des ombres a.k.a. Army of Shadows); Marcel Ophüls (Le chagrin et la pitié a.k.a. The Sorrow and the Pity); Sydney Pollack (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?); John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy); Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
nominees: Woody Allen (Take the Money and Run); Richard Attenborough (Oh! What a Lovely War); Ronald Neame (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Jack Nicholson (Easy Rider)
nominees: Red Buttons (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?); John Mills (Oh! What a Lovely War); Robert Ryan (The Wild Bunch); Gig Young (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Diana Rigg (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
nominees: Bibi Andersson (En Passion a.k.a. The Passion of Anna); Dyan Cannon (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice); Pamela Franklin (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie); Celia Johnson (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie); Simone Signoret (L'armée des ombres a.k.a. Army of Shadows); Suzannah York (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Walon Green and Sam Peckinpah, story by Walon Green and Roy N. Sickner (The Wild Bunch)
nominees: William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); Jorge Semprún, from a novel by Vasilis Vasilikos (Z)

SPECIAL AWARDS
"Rain Drops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) music by Burt Bacharach; lyrics by Hal David (Score); Louis Lombardo (The Wild Bunch) (Film Editing); Le chagrin et la pitié a.k.a. The Sorrow and the Pity (Documentary Feature)