I don't about you, but sometimes I see a remake of a movie and end up wishing I could combine elements of both it and the original. The 1952 version of The Prisoner of Zenda, which TCM broadcast again last night, is just such a movie. I like it, and I like the original 1937 version, too (and I especially like the book they're both based on). But I like Ronald Colman and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. from the '37 version better while I prefer Deborah Kerr and Jane Greer from the '52 version.
Mind you, there's nothing wrong with, respectively, Stewart Granger, James Mason, Madeleine Carroll and Mary Astor. They're great. I just think in these particular roles, the other pairings are better.
Now if only somebody could whip out their computer and cut and paste the two films together, we might really have something.
With the conclusion of Round Three, all four number one seeds have advanced to the semi-finals of the 1950s bracket. As last year's winner of the 1950s bracket, Doris Day gets to choose her opponent, takes one look at Oscar-winners Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, and opts for Deborah Kerr.
Monty, who is the creator and primary host of the Favorite Classic Movie Actress Tournament, tells me that this is the third time in four years that Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly have squared off against each other, with Ms. Kelly winning the first two—perhaps three's the charm for Ms. Hepburn.
He also tells me that Grace Kelly's win over Lana Turner was her 20th in tourney competition, more than any other actress. And yet the top prize has continued to elude her. Is this the year?
The match-ups (vote below):
Doris Day
Birth Name: Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff
Born: April 3, 1924
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio
Height: 5' 7"
Film Debut: Romance on the High Seas (1948)
Final Film: The Doris Day Show (1968-1973) (TV series)
Oscars: 1 nominations, 0 wins
Three To See: Love Me or Leave Me; Pillow Talk; Lover Come Back
versus
Deborah Kerr
Birth Name: Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer
Birth Date: September 30, 1921
Birthplace: Helensburgh, Scotland
Height: 5' 6"
Film Debut: Major Barbara (1941)
Final Film: Hold That Dream (1986) (TV movie)
Academy Awards: 6 nominations, 0 wins
Three To See: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; From Here To Eternity; Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Audrey Hepburn
Birth Name: Audrey Kathleen Ruston
Birth Date: May 4, 1929
Birthplace: Ixelles, Belgium
Height: 5' 7"
Film Debut: One Wild Oat (1951)
Final Film: Always (1989)
Academy Awards: 5 nominations, 1 win (Roman Holiday)
Three To See: Sabrina; Breakfast at Tiffany's; Charade
versus
Grace Kelly
Birth Name: Grace Patricia Kelly
Birth Date: November 13, 1929
Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Height: 5' 6½"
Film Debut: Believe It Or Not (1950) (TV series)
Final Film: High Society
Academy Awards: 2 nominations, 1 win (The Country Girl)
Three To See: Rear Window; To Catch A Thief; High Society
Voting continues until Friday evening.
As always, follow the links to vote in the other brackets:
While as many as 98 votes have been cast (in the Joan Crawford-Marlene Dietrich contest), none of the Round Two races here at the Monkey is closer than ten votes. Meanwhile, each of the other host sites have some real barnburners going (if burning a barn is your idea of a good time).
In the 1940s bracket, Vivien Leigh leads Gene Tierney by a single vote, 28-27; and Olivia de Havilland leads Katharine Hepburn, 30-28.
In the 1950s bracket, Audrey Hepburn leads Deborah Kerr, 40-32.
And in the 1960s bracket, Susannah York leads Julie Christie, 26-23, and Catherine Denueve leads Lee Remick, 28-24.
It's fun to vote here at the Monkey, but don't forget to vote in these other tight races.
"The high-priced actors like Cary Grant back at the studios got all the lights. So ours was lit with cigarettes."—Robert Mitchum on film noir
PICTURE (Drama) winner:Out of the Past (prod. Warren Duff) nominees:Black Narcissus (prod. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger); Body and Soul (prod. Bob Roberts); Brighton Rock (prod. Roy Boulting); Crossfire (prod. Adrian Scott); Gentleman's Agreement (prod. Darryl F. Zanuck); Nightmare Alley (prod. George Jessel); Odd Man Out (prod. Carol Reed)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical) winner:Miracle On 34th Street (prod. William Perlberg) nominees:The Bishop's Wife (prod. Samuel Goldwyn); The Ghost And Mrs. Muir (prod. Fred Kohlmar); Monsieur Verdoux (prod. Charles Chaplin)
PICTURE (Foreign Language) winner:Quai des Orfèvres (prod. Roger De Venloo and Louis Wipf) nominees:Nagaya shinshiroku (The Record Of A Tenement Gentleman) (prod. Shochiku Films); La Perla (prod. Óscar Dancigers)
ACTOR (Drama) winner: Robert Mitchum (Out of the Past) nominees: John Garfield (Body and Soul); Robert Montgomery (Ride the Pink Horse); James Mason (Odd Man Out); Gregory Peck (Gentleman's Agreement); Tyrone Power (Nightmare Alley)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Edmund Gwenn (Miracle On 34th Street) nominees: James Baskett (Song of the South); Charles Chaplin (Monsieur Verdoux); Cary Grant (The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer and The Bishop's Wife); Rex Harrison (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir); Harold Lloyd (The Sin of Harold Diddlebock); William Powell (Life With Father and The Senator Was Indiscreet)
ACTRESS (Drama) winner: Deborah Kerr (Black Narcissus) nominees: Joan Crawford (Possessed and Daisy Kenyon); Jane Greer (Out of the Past); Susan Hayward (Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman); Dorothy McGuire (Gentleman's Agreement)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical) winner: Gene Tierney (The Ghost And Mrs. Muir) nominees: Irene Dunne (Life With Father); Gale Storm (It Happened On 5th Avenue); Loretta Young (The Bishop's Wife)
DIRECTOR (Drama) winner: Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past) nominees: Henri-Georges Clouzot (Quai des Orfèvres); Edward Dmytryk (Crossfire); Edmund Goulding (Nightmare Alley); Yasujirô Ozu (Nagaya shinshiroku a.k.a. The Record Of A Tenement Gentleman); Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Black Narcissus); Carol Reed (Odd Man Out)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: George Seaton (Miracle On 34th Street) nominees: Charles Chaplin (Monsieur Verdoux); Joseph L. Mankiewicz (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir)
SUPPORTING ACTOR winner: Richard Widmark (Kiss of Death) nominees: Kirk Douglas (Out of the Past); William Frawley (Miracle On 34th Street); James Gleason (The Bishop's Wife); Porter Hall (Miracle On 34th Street); Gene Lockhart (Miracle On 34th Street); Robert Ryan (Crossfire); Monty Woolley (The Bishop's Wife)
SCREENPLAY winner: Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes) from his novel Build My Gallows High (Out of the Past) nominees: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, from the novel by Rumer Godden (Black Narcissus); George Seaton, from a story by Valentine Davies (Miracle on 34th Street); Charles Chaplin, from an idea by Orson Welles (Monsieur Verdoux)
SPECIAL AWARDS Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus) (Cinematography)
The best film of 1943 was The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a brilliant comedy of manners from England's Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that gently and wittily took Britain's military leaders to task—pretty daring considering that Britain was at the time still locked in a death struggle with Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill responded by trying (unsuccessfully) to suppress the film and it was a big hit in its home country. When it arrived in America two years later, Hollywood showed the prime minister how it's done—straightening out the film's flashback chronology and so chopping it up as to render it an incomprehensible mess and a box office flop, promptly forgotten.
Fortunately, it has been restored to its full glory, and features Deborah Kerr in not one but three star-making roles.
Over here, Hollywood produced a trio of outstanding films—The Ox-Bow Incident, Wild Bill Wellman's tense story of a mob determined to mete out its own brand of justice; Shadow of a Doubt, Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant tale of a serial killer come home to visit his family; and I Walked With A Zombie, a voodoo-infused retelling of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre from the master of atmospheric horror, Val Lewton.
I tried on all three of them for the top prize in drama, finally opting for The Ox-Bow Incident. Not only is it a gripping story with terrific performances all around, it's also a prime example of America grappling (albeit indirectly) with the question of why we were fighting the war—merely to survive at any cost or to preserve our higher ideals as well? It's an uncompromising film from beginning to end, a real achievement with a war on and the Production Code in effect. It's also entertaining, a tribute to Wellman, actors Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews, and author-producer Lamar Trotti. A real must-see.
PICTURE (Drama) winner:The Ox-Bow Incident (prod. Lamar Trotti) nominees:I Walked With A Zombie (prod. Val Lewton); Sahara (prod. Harry Joe Brown); Shadow Of A Doubt (prod. Jack H. Skirball); So Proudly We Hail! (prod. Mark Sandrich); The Song of Bernadette (prod. William Perlberg)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical) winner:The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (prod. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) nominees:Cabin In The Sky (prod. Arthur Freed); Heaven Can Wait (prod. Ernst Lubitsch); The More The Merrier (George Stevens)
PICTURE (Foreign Language) winner:Vredens dag (Day of Wrath) (prod. Carl Theodor Dreyer and Tage Nielsen)
ACTOR (Drama) winner: Joseph Cotten (Shadow Of A Doubt) nominees: Humphrey Bogart (Sahara); Henry Fonda (The Ox-Bow Incident); Paul Lukas (Watch on the Rhine); Mickey Rooney (The Human Comedy)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Joel McCrea (The More The Merrier) nominees: Don Ameche (Heaven Can Wait); Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson (Cabin in the Sky); Roger Livesey (The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp)
ACTRESS (Drama) winner: Teresa Wright (Shadow Of A Doubt) nominees: Anne Baxter (Five Graves To Cairo); Ingrid Bergman (For Whom The Bell Tolls); Jennifer Jones (The Song Of Bernadette); Ida Lupino (The Hard Way)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical) winner: Deborah Kerr (The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp) nominees: Jean Arthur (The More The Merrier); Gene Tierney (Heaven Can Wait); Ethel Waters (Cabin In The Sky)
DIRECTOR (Drama) winner: William A. Wellman (The Ox-Bow Incident) nominees: Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vredens dag a.k.a. Day of Wrath); Alfred Hitchcock (Shadow Of A Doubt); Jacques Tourneur (I Walked With A Zombie)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp) nominees: Ernst Lubitsch (Heaven Can Wait); Vincente Minnelli (Cabin in the Sky); George Stevens (The More The Merrier)
SUPPORTING ACTOR winner: Charles Coburn (The More The Merrier) nominees: Dana Andrews (The Ox-Bow Incident); Rex Ingram (Cabin in the Sky and Sahara); Erich von Stroheim (Five Graves to Cairo); Anton Walbrook (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS winner: Lena Horne (Cabin In The Sky and Stormy Weather) nominees: Jean Brooks (The Seventh Victim); Jane Darwell (The Ox-Bow Incident); Veronica Lake (So Proudly We Hail!); Katina Paxinou (For Whom The Bell Tolls)
SCREENPLAY winner: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp) nominees: Lamar Trotti, from the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark (The Ox-Bow Incident); Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson and Alma Reville, from a story by Gordon McDonell (Shadow of a Doubt)
SPECIAL AWARDS "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe" (Cabin in the Sky) music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by E.Y. Harburg (Song)
One of my favorite fellow bloggers, Rachel at The Girl with the White Parasol, has come up with a New Years "meme"—12 questions, including a New Years resolution. Since I'm back in town after a long Christmas trip, perhaps this will help me edge back into the blogging habit.
1. What is your all-time favorite Grace Kelly costume? Whatever she was wearing as she makes her first appearance in Rear Window. Red lips, wetly parted, mostly. Humina. 2. What classic film would you nominate for a remake? To me there are two kinds of movies that should be remade: one with a good idea not fully realized (i.e., the first two versions of The Maltese Falcon before John Huston and Humphrey Bogart got hold of it and finally did it right), or a hardy perennial every generation should leave its stamp on—Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare.
Perchance that will suggest something to you. 3. Name your favorite femme fatale. That's easy, Jane Greer, the only femme fatale in movie history I'd let shoot me. 4. Name the best movie with the word "heaven" in its title. Best? Can't say. Favorite? Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, which I wrote about here. 5. Describe the worst performance by a child actor that you’ve ever seen (since Laura gave me the idea). Whoever the kids were in the Cary Grant-Sophia Loren comedy Houseboat. Utterly charmless, throughly annoying. And I like kids. 6. Who gets your vote for most tragic movie monster? Frankenstein's monster, who I wrote about here. 7. What is the one Western that you would recommend to anybody? Rio Bravo, I think. If you don't like Westerns and you see this one and don't like it either, you can safely skip all the rest. Right, Stumpy? 8. Who is your ideal movie-viewing partner? Why, Katie-Bar-The-Door, of course. But let's face it—she's my favorite everything partner. 9. Has a film ever made you want to change your life? If so, what was the film? There are definitely films that have changed my life, which isn't quite the same as saying they made me want to change my life. Here is the story of one of them. 10. Think of one performer that you truly love. Now think of one scene/movie/performance of theirs that is too uncomfortable for you to watch. Every great star makes at least one true stinker—Cary Grant in The Pride and the Passion, for example—and lots of them hung on long after they should have hung it up (think of Joan Crawford in Trog).
But uncomfortable?
I'm sure I'm forgetting something obvious. Katie-Bar-The-Door will read this and immediately chime in with "What about ...?" When she does, I'll post an addendum. 11. On the flip side, think of one really good scene/performance/movie from a performer that you truly loathe. Well, I was never particularly a fan of Norma Shearer, but I wound up giving her a Katie-Bar-The-Door award for the comedy Private Lives. Because, frankly, she deserved it. 12. And finally, since it will be New Year's soon, do you have any movie or blogging-related resolutions for 2012? To keep my eyes on the prize, i.e., finishing the "Silent Oscars" series.
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
While as many as 98 votes have been cast (in the Joan Crawford-Marlene Dietrich contest), none of the Round Two races here at the Monkey is closer than ten votes. Meanwhile, each of the other host sites have some real barnburners going (if burning a barn is your idea of a good time).
In the 1950s bracket, Audrey Hepburn leads Deborah Kerr, 40-32.
It's fun to vote here at the Monkey, but don't forget to vote in these other tight races.
"The high-priced actors like Cary Grant back at the studios got all the lights. So ours was lit with cigarettes."—Robert Mitchum on film noir
The best film of 1943 was The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a brilliant comedy of manners from England's Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that gently and wittily took Britain's military leaders to task—pretty daring considering that Britain was at the time still locked in a death struggle with Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill responded by trying (unsuccessfully) to suppress the film and it was a big hit in its home country. When it arrived in America two years later, Hollywood showed the prime minister how it's done—straightening out the film's flashback chronology and so chopping it up as to render it an incomprehensible mess and a box office flop, promptly forgotten.
I tried on all three of them for the top prize in drama, finally opting for The Ox-Bow Incident. Not only is it a gripping story with terrific performances all around, it's also a prime example of America grappling (albeit indirectly) with the question of why we were fighting the war—merely to survive at any cost or to preserve our higher ideals as well? It's an uncompromising film from beginning to end, a real achievement with a war on and the Production Code in effect. It's also entertaining, a tribute to Wellman, actors Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews, and author-producer Lamar Trotti. A real must-see.
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