1962 Alternate Oscars

1962 ranks with 1939, 1946 and 1959 as one of the greatest years in movie history ...

My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated 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 ✱.

1962 Alternate Oscars

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

Another great year for movies.

By the way, if you've never seen Lawrence of Arabia, don't let its reputation as a classic dissuade you — it's one of the most rootin'est tootin'est popcorn shootin'est movies of all time, a great Saturday night flick (assuming your Saturday night starts around eight and ends at midnight).

Too many times people hear the word "classic" and they think "funeral home." And sometimes they're right.

In my opinion, movies should always make you feel something — laughter, sadness, fear, joy, anger, exhilaration, euphoria — but they should never feel like work. You can experience those emotions, big and small, in all sorts of ways, and not just in the obvious, cookie-cutter way you might expect. But you absolutely should feel something.

That's my promise here at the Monkey — you watch my picks for best picture, you will know where your time and your money went.

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1962)

"Oh, Mr. Buñuel! I had a nice idea for a movie for you."

"Yes?"

"Yeah. A group of people attend a very formal dinner party and at the end of dinner when they try to leave the room, they can't."

"Why not?"

"They just can't seem to exit the door."

"But why?"

"Well, momento. When they're forced to stay together, the veneer of civilization quickly fades away and what they're left with is who they really are—animals."

"But I don't get it. Why don't they just walk out of the room?"

"All I'm saying is just think about it. Who knows—maybe when you're shaving one day, it'll tickle your fancy."

—Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) to Luis Buñuel (Adrien de Van) in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.

Maybe there was something in the water that year, but 1962 was a great one for movies. And not just any movies, but a group of movies that taken separately or together represent the most jaundiced view of humanity ever to sell a sackful of tickets. Lawrence of Arabia, The Manchurian Candidate, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lolita, Ride the High Country and even The Music Man with its con-man hero, consistently showed human beings at their greedy, violent, lying worst with very little hope that as a species, we'll ever evolve into anything better.

The bleakest—and funniest—of the year's films was Luis Buñuel's black comedy The Exterminating Angel, about a group of aristocrats who attend a dinner party then for reasons straight out of the Twilight Zone find themselves unable to leave. Buñuel isn't just saying that civilization is a thin veneer easily cracked apart in stressful times, he's saying that civilization is an illusion we have faith in only because we're habituated to the inhuman behavior of ourselves and our fellow inmates in the asylum of life, a fact we only occasionally notice when circumstances are so out of the ordinary that they throw our actions into stark relief.

Or to put it another way, we're just big animals with clothes on.

Too harsh? Well, maybe, but then maybe you didn't read the day's headlines. Which day's? Any day's.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Lawrence Of Arabia (prod. Sam Spiegel)
nominees: To Kill A Mockingbird (prod. Alan J. Pakula); The Longest Day (prod. Darryl F. Zanuck); The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (prod. Willis Goldbeck and John Ford); The Manchurian Candidate (prod. George Axelrod and John Frankenheimer); Ride The High Country (prod. Richard E. Lyons); What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (prod. Robert Aldrich)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: The Music Man (prod. Morton DaCosta)
nominees: Gypsy (prod. Mervyn LeRoy); Lolita (prod. James B. Harris)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel) (prod. Gustavo Alatriste)
nominees: L'eclisse (prod. Raymond Hakim and Robert Hakim); Jules et Jim (prod. François Truffaut); Sanma no aji (An Autumn Afternoon) (prod. Shizuo Yamanouchi); Seppuku (Harakiri) (prod. Tatsuo Hosoya); Il sorpasso (The Easy Life) (prod. Mario Cecchi Gori); Tsubaki Sanjûrô (Sanjuro) (prod. Ryûzô Kikushima and Tomoyuki Tanaka); Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (Vivre Sa Vie) (prod. Pierre Braunberger)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Peter O'Toole (Lawrence Of Arabia)
nominees: Kirk Douglas (Lonely Are the Brave); Burt Lancaster (Birdman of Alcatraz); Jack Lemmon (Days of Wine and Roses); Joel McCrea (Ride the High Country); Robert Mitchum (Cape Fear); Tatsuya Nakadai (Seppuku a.k.a Harakiri); Gregory Peck (To Kill A Mockingbird); Randolph Scott (Ride the High Country); Frank Sinatra (The Manchurian Candidate)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Robert Preston (The Music Man)
nominees: Dirk Bogarde (The Password Is Courage); James Mason (Lolita); Toshirô Mifune (Tsubaki Sanjûrô a.k.a. Sanjuro)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Jeanne Moreau (Jules et Jim)
nominees: Anne Bancroft (The Miracle Worker); Bette Davis (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?); Katharine Hepburn (Long Day's Journey Into Night); Geraldine Page (Sweet Bird of Youth)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Shelley Winters (Lolita)
nominees: Shirley Jones (The Music Man); Corinne Marchand (Cléo de 5 à 7 a.k.a. Cleo From 5 To 7); Rosalind Russell (Gypsy); Natalie Wood (Gypsy)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: David Lean (Lawrence Of Arabia)
nominees: Robert Aldrich (What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?); John Ford (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance); John Frankenheimer (Birdman of Alcatraz and The Manchurian Candidate); Masaki Kobayashi (Seppuku a.k.a Harakiri); Robert Mulligan (To Kill A Mockingbird); Yasujirô Ozu (Sanma no aji a.k.a. An Autumn Afternoon); Sam Peckinpah (Ride The High Country); François Truffaut (Jules et Jim)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Luis Buñuel (El ángel exterminador a.k.a. The Exterminating Angel)
nominees: Morton DaCosta (The Music Man); Mervyn LeRoy (Gypsy); Stanley Kubrick (Lolita); Akira Kurosawa (Tsubaki Sanjûrô a.k.a. Sanjuro); Dino Risi (Il sorpasso a.k.a. The Easy Life)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Omar Sharif (Lawrence Of Arabia)
nominees: Ed Begley (Sweet Bird of Youth); Victor Buono (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?); Khigh Dhiegh (The Manchurian Candidate); Paul Ford (The Music Man); Laurence Harvey (The Manchurian Candidate); Lee Marvin (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance); Robert Ryan (Billy Budd); Peter Sellers (Lolita); Telly Savalas (Birdman of Alcatraz); John Wayne (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Angela Lansbury (The Manchurian Candidate)
nominees: Mary Badham (To Kill A Mockingbird); Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker); Hermione Gingold (The Music Man); Mariette Hartley (Ride The High Country); Janet Leigh (The Manchurian Candidate)

SCREENPLAY
winner: George Axelrod, from the novel by Richard Condon (The Manchurian Candidate)
nominees: Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson, from the writings of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence Of Arabia); James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck, from the story by Dorothy M. Johnson (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance); Horton Foote, from the novel by Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Anne V. Coates (Lawrence Of Arabia) (Film Editing); Freddie Young (Lawrence Of Arabia) (Cinematography); Maurice Jarre (Lawrence Of Arabia) (Score); La Jetée (Short)