1960 Alternate Oscars

Best Picture of 1960 (Poll Closed)

• ✔ The Apartment  18.92%  (14 votes)  
   
• L’Avventura  4.05%  (3 votes)  
   
• ★ Breathless  9.46%  (7 votes)  
   
• La Dolce Vita  18.92%  (14 votes)  
   
• Elmer Gantry  0%  (0 votes)  
   
• Inherit The Wind  1.35%  (1 votes)  
   
• The Magnificent Seven  6.76%  (5 votes)  
   
• Rocco and His Brothers  10.81%  (8 votes)  
   
• Psycho  28.38%  (21 votes)  
   
• Spartacus  1.35%  (1 votes)  
   

 

Total Votes: 74

 

Best Actor of 1960

Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless)

✔ Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry)

Jack Lemmon (The Apartment)

★ Anthony Perkins (Psycho)

Spencer Tracy (Inherit the Wind)

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Best Actress of 1960

Deborah Kerr (The Sundowners)

★ Shirley MacLaine (The Apartment)

Melina Mercouri (Never On Sunday)

Jean Simmons (Elmer Gantry and Spartacus)

Monica Vitti (L’Avventura)

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Best Director of 1960 (Poll Closed)

• Michelangelo Antonioni (L'Avventura)  10.14%  (7 votes)  
   
• Federico Fellini (La Dolce Vita)  15.94%  (11 votes)  
   
• ★ Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless)  20.29%  (14 votes)  
   
• Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho)  31.88%  (22 votes)  
   
• ✔ Billy Wilder (The Apartment)  21.74%  (15 votes)  
   

 

Total Votes: 69

 

Best Supporting Actor of 1960

★ Fred MacMurray (The Apartment)

John Mills (Tunes of Glory)

Renato Salvatori (Rocco and His Brothers)

✔ Peter Ustinov (Spartacus)

Eli Wallach (The Magnificent Seven)

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Best Supporting Actress of 1960

Annie Girardot (Rocco and His Brothers)

Wendy Hiller (Sons and Lovers)

Glynis Johns (The Sundowners)

✔ Shirley Jones (Elmer Gantry)

★ Janet Leigh (Psycho)

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Special Award

Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond (The Apartment) (original screenplay)

Joseph Stephano, from the novel by Robert Bloch (Psycho) (adapted screenplay)

George Tomasini (Psycho) (film editing)

"Mrs. Bates" (Psycho) (mother of the year award)

Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven) (score)

Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholz, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn (The Magnificent Seven) (most magnificent seven)

Jazz on a Summer's Day (documentary feature)

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My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ.

Roger Ebert called Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless the greatest movie debut by a director since Orson Welles's Citizen Kane and went so far as to say, "Modern movies begin here."

Thus, Godard's nod for best director.

1959 Alternate Oscars

Best Picture of 1959

Anatomy of a Murder

✔ Ben-Hur

Floating Weeds

★ The 400 Blows

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Imitation of Life

North by Northwest

Pillow Talk

Rio Bravo

Some Like It Hot

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Best Actor of 1959

Cary Grant (North by Northwest)

✔ Charlton Heston (Ben-Hur)

Rock Hudson (Pillow Talk)

★ Jack Lemmon (Some Like It Hot)

John Wayne (Rio Bravo)

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Best Actress of 1959

Doris Day (Pillow Talk)

Audrey Hepburn (The Nun's Story)

★ Marilyn Monroe (Some Like It Hot)

✔ Simone Signoret (Room at the To)

Lana Turner (Imitation of Life)

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Best Director of 1959

Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo)

Alfred Hitchcock (North by Northwest)

★ François Truffaut (The 400 Blows)

Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot)

✔ William Wyler (Ben-Hur)

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Best Supporting Actor of 1959

Stephen Boyd (Ben-Hur)

Walter Brennan (Rio Bravo)

Dean Martin (Rio Bravo)

★ James Mason (North by Northwest)

Tony Randall (Pillow Talk)

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Best Supporting Actress of 1959

★ Angie Dickinson (Rio Bravo)

Susan Kohner (Imitation of Life)

Juanita Moore (Imitation of Life)

Lee Remick (Anatomy of a Murder)

Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest)

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Special Award

Ernest Lehman (North by Northwest) (original screenplay)

Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, from the story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan (Some Like It Hot) (adapted screenplay)

chariot race (Ben-Hur) (best action sequence)

Plan 9 from Outer Space (best worst-ever movie)

Saul Bass (lifetime achievement) (titles design)

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My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔.

That's some competition for best director, huh. Five of the greatest directors of all time, each turning in what might be the best movie of his career.

At one time or another, I've had three different movies — Some Like It Hot, Rio Bravo and finally North By Northwest — in the top slot. The Academy's choice, Ben-Hur, was no slouch either. A terrific epic, Ben-Hur features what I think is the best action sequence ever, the chariot race.



Vote well and live.

1958 Alternate Oscars

Best Picture of 1958

Ashes and Diamonds

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Elevator to the Gallows

✔ Gigi

The Hidden Fortress

Horror of Dracula

The Horse's Mouth

ƒ Mon Oncle

Touch of Evil

★ Vertigo

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Best Actor of 1958

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (Horror of Dracula)

★ Alec Guinness (The Horse's Mouth)

Paul Newman (The Long, Hot Summer and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)

James Stewart (Vertigo)

Jacques Tati (Mon Oncle)

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Best Actress of 1958

✔ Susan Hayward (I Want to Live!)

Shirley MacLaine (Some Came Running)

★ Kim Novak (Vertigo and Bell Book and Candle)

Rosalind Russell (Auntie Mame)

Elizabeth Taylor (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)

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Best Director of 1958

★ Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo)

✔ Vincente Minnelli (Gigi and Some Came Running)

Jacques Tati (Mon Oncle)

Andrzej Wajda (Ashes and Diamonds)

Orson Welles (Touch of Evil)

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Best Supporting Actor of 1958

Joseph Calleia (Touch of Evil)

Maurice Chevalier (Gigi)

✔ Burl Ives (The Big Country and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)

✱ David Niven (Separate Tables)

★ Orson Welles (Touch of Evil)

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Best Supporting Actress of 1958

Barbara Bel Geddes (Vertigo)

★ Hermione Gingold (Gigi and Bell Book and Candle)

✔ Wendy Hiller (Separate Tables)

Janet Leigh (Touch of Evil)

Kay Walsh (The Horse's Mouth)

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Special Award

Orson Welles, from the novel Badge Of Evil by Whit Masterson (Touch of Evil) (adapted screenplay)

Robert Burks (Vertigo) (cinematography)

Henri Schmitt (Mon Oncle) (set design)

Ray Harryhausen (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) (special effects)

Hammer Studios (artistic achievement) (horror films)

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My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.

Vertigo famously topped Sight & Sound magazine's 2012 list of the best movies of all-time, which is okay by me even if I don't think it's Alfred Hitchcock's best movie (Rear Window, North By Northwest) or the best movie of 1958 (Mon Oncle, Touch of Evil) or the best movie set in San Francisco (The Maltese Falcon, Bullitt) or ...

You get the picture.

And yet, Vertigo is the only serious contender from 1958 that I've ever felt the urge to watch twice. Several times, in fact.

As I've written before, Vertigo is ostensibly a murder mystery, but it's really a stalker movie with the viewer thrust into a queasy complicity with a control freak. You could legitimately complain that Hitchcock's normally-reliable suspense angle doesn't work, but that's beside the point. What you're really watching is an abusive relationship from the inside out with a sugar coating of murder on top.

Vertigo isn't North By Northwest; Vertigo is Sleeping With the Enemy. You can practically feel the crazy dripping from every scene.

Still, it's a bitter cup of tea. For a more upbeat — and offbeat — brew, perhaps you'd be willing to try another of my favorites, Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle.

Admittedly, Tati is himself an acquired taste, but one well worth acquiring, I'd say. He made the gentlest of gentle comedies, with low-key pleasures akin to watching your dog warm her belly in the sun on a nice Spring day. And I like doggies and warm Spring days.

What's Mon Oncle about? It's about taking your own sweet time in a world that's increasingly obsessed with hurrying through one moment to get to the next moment that needs to be hurried through. In terms of philosophy and spirit, Mon Oncle would make a good double feature with Bruce Brown's surfing classic, The Endless Summer.

Roger Ebert took time to write this in his review of Mon Oncle for his Great Movies series and it captures why I am so enamored of Tati and his Zen-like approach to comedy:

There's also a supporting cast of dogs, who are seen in the first shot and the last, and hurry on their doggy business in between. They don't have an important role in the plot; they're just there, checking things out, marking their territory. I learn from the elegant Web site Tativille.com that Tati found the dogs in the pound, and didn't train them but simply observed and encouraged them. "At the end of the film, we had to get rid of them," Tati wrote. He refused to send them back to the pound, and had an inspiration: He took out an ad in the paper describing them as movie stars, and they all found good homes. There is a lot of Tati in that serendipitous story.

Yes, indeed.



Hey, and lastly, allow me to mention my personal favorite from 1958, the little-seen, under-appreciated Alec Guinness comedy The Horse's Mouth, the story of a crazy painter who wreaks havoc in the pursuit of his artistic vision. If you've ever wondered what the Monkey is like in real life, this is the movie to see. Why, I even look like Alec Guinness! if I must say so myself, which I must, being the only one here.



Note: David Niven (Separate Tables) won for best actor in what is very clearly a supporting performance — I have put him in the supporting actor category where he belongs.

1957 Alternate Oscars

Best Picture of 1957

✔ The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Cranes Are Flying

A Face in the Crowd

ƒ Nights of Cabiria

Paths of Glory

★ The Seventh Seal

Sweet Smell of Success

12 Angry Men

Wild Strawberries

Witness for the Prosecution

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Best Actor of 1957

★ Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell of Success)

Andy Griffith (A Face in the Crowd)

✔ Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution)

Victor Sjöström (Wild Strawberries)

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Best Actress of 1957

Marlene Dietrich (Witness for the Prosecution)

Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and An Affair to Remember)

★ Giulietta Masina (Nights of Cabiria)

Tatyana Samoylova (The Cranes Are Flying)

✔ Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces of Eve)

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Best Director of 1957

★ Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries)

Stanley Kubrick (Paths of Glory)

✔ David Lean (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men)

Billy Wilder (Witness for the Prosecution, Love in the Afternoon and The Spirit of St. Louis)

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Best Supporting Actor of 1957

Gunnar Björnstrand (The Seventh Seal)

✔ Red Buttons (Sayonara)

Sessue Hayakawa (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

★ Burt Lancaster (Sweet Smell of Success)

Tyrone Power (Witness for the Prosecution)

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Best Supporting Actress of 1957

Bibi Andersson (The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries)

Kay Kendall (Les Girls)

★ Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution)

Ingrid Thulin (Wild Strawberries)

✔ Miyoshi Umeki (Sayonara)

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Special Award

Bugs Bunny (lifetime achievement)

What's Opera Doc? (short subject-cartoon)

"Jailhouse Rock" (Jailhouse Rock) music and lyrics by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller (song)

James Wong Howe (Sweet Smell of Success) (cinematography)

Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, from the novella by Ernest Lehman (Sweet Smell Of Success) (adapted screenplay)

Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries) (original screenplay)

Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Ed Begley, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Jack Klugman, George Voskovec, Robert Webber, Edward Binns and Joseph Sweeney (12 Angry Men) (best ensemble cast)

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My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ.

Alternate Oscar guru Erik Beck of the Boston Becks (who somewhere along the line became Erik Beck of the San Diego Becks — that's some move!) considers 1957 rather than 1939 the best year for movies. He makes a good case.

I originally had eleven movies in my top ten which is a bit of problem if you're at all familiar with the concept of math. I suppose I could have made an exception and nominated all eleven this year, but that would have required me to noodle together a whole new template on Photoshop and who's got time for that?

Eight picks were carved in stone from the get-go: the Academy's choice for best picture, The Bridge on the River Kwai; and my own pick, of course, The Seventh Seal; along with Fellini's Nights of Cabiria; Kubrick's anti-war classic, Paths of Glory; Sweet Smell of Success, maybe the most cynical picture of the decade; 12 Angry Men, starring a dozen really pissed-off dudes; Bergman's second great movie of the year, Wild Strawberries; and Billy Wilder's courtroom classic, Witness for the Prosecution.

On the chopping block? The Cranes Are Flying, the first great movie to come out of the Soviet Union since Stalin destroyed the Russian film industry; A Face in the Crowd, about a populist blowhard who rises to fame and fortune stoking the fears and prejudices of white, rural America; and Throne of Blood, Akira Kurosawa's samurai take on Shakespeare's Macbeth.

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, Throne of Blood wound up the odd man out. It's the lowest rated of the bunch on the Internet Movie Database (8.1, mind you, which is terrific) and, well, we've already nominated a lot of Kurosawa movies with more to come. If you really, really wanted to vote for it, my apologies.

Speaking of math, there really should be ten nominees for best actor this year: Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Andy Griffith, Alec Guinness, William Holden, Charles Laughton, Robert Mitchum, Victor Sjöström and Max von Sydow. Eleven, if you consider Burt Lancaster in Sweet Smell of Success a lead.

It's a great year for actors. I went with the five who I thought gave the best performance of their careers in 1957.