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Today is Frank Sinatra's 100th birthday. I'll skip the usual eight thousand word essay and instead simply suggest some stocking stuffers for that special someone in your life who might be ready to discover Ol' Blue Eyes but has no idea where to start:
The Capitol Years Box Set
(A terrific 3 cd collection from Sinatra's peak years, 1953-1961. 75 classic songs. A must for anyone with ears.)
Songs For Swingin' Lovers! (Unwilling to spring for more than one cd? This is best of the finger-snappin' Sinatra records, including such standards as "You Make Me Feel So Young" "Too Marvelous For Words" and what I consider the single best recording of his career, "I've Got You Under My Skin.")
Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely (Prefer your Sinatra sitting alone in a bar at 3 in the morning? This is the one to get, my favorite Sinatra album, featuring the classic suicide song "One For My Baby.")
Sinatra: Best Of The Best (Okay, so you really, really, really only want all the good stuff and you don't want to spend a lot for it. This has everything from "I've Got The World On A String" to "New York New York" and all the other hits in between. It's like $10. Go for it and feel good, you cheap bastard!)
From Here To Eternity (Sinatra was also an Oscar-winning actor. The best picture of 1953, From Here To Eternity is the story of love in the surf in the final days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.)
The Manchurian Candidate (My favorite Sinatra picture, here he unravels the mystery of a brainwashed American hero doing the bidding of evil Commies.)
On The Town (And one more makes lucky seven, this is a movie from Sinatra's early teen heartthrob period.)
(What is this? Read here.)
Best Performance in a Movie That Involves Running Away From No Fewer Than Two Explosions
How many explosions were there in the first Die Hard movie—well, let's see, there was one on the roof, and one in the elevator and—well, that's two right there. So I'm going with Bruce Willis in Die Hard, which is not just a great action picture, but a great picture, period.
Best Musician Trying To Cross Over Into Acting
If singers count as musicians, it'd be either Will Smith or Frank Sinatra, and since I've already gone with Smith in an answer, let's say Sinatra in From Here To Eternity, The Man with the Golden Arm and The Manchurian Candidate.
If, on the other hand, an actual musical instrument must be played, then I'm going with a personal favorite, pianist Oscar Levant, who was hilarious in Humoresque and An American in Paris. "I'm a concert pianist. That's a pretentious way of saying I'm ... unemployed at the moment." I can dig it, Oscar. It works the same for writers, too.
Best Performance as an Aging Character Who Wants to Prove He or She's Still Got It
There are a lot of good ones to choose from—Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, Bette Davis in All About Eve, John Wayne in The Shootist, Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, and that's just off the top of my head—but I'm going with William Holden in The Wild Bunch. As I wrote a year ago, "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 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."
Best Performance Involving a Single Manly Tear
That's easy—the native American in the that late-1960s public service ad lamenting the casual littering of the American landscape. Really, people used to throw their trash out the car window without a second thought. This one ad did more to change attitudes than probably all the other ads and speeches on the subject combined.
And no, I have no evidence to support that. Just my personal impression.
Best Performance Where You Have to Age Citizen-Kane-Style Over Years and Years
Another easy one—Orson Welles in Citizen Kane! Sometimes they just softball it in there for you.
Tomorrow: dogs, gays, boats, sandals and parents.
I've seen The War of the Worlds many times since I was a kid, and I think what I like most about it, aside from the sound effects, is that everybody seems knocked out that Gene Barry is a "scientist." Like "scientist" was a handy jack-of-all-trades profession that made him an expert in astronomy, biology, geology, fishing and forest fires.
That, and the only woman on the entire west coast is a scientist freak—did her thesis on scientists! Not science, mind you, scientists. Is that even a subject?
Anyway, every time I see The War of the Worlds, I think, "Why didn't I become a scientist?"
PICTURE (Drama)
winner: From Here To Eternity (prod. Buddy Adler)
nominees: The Big Heat (prod. Robert Arthur); The Naked Spur (prod. William H. Wright); Pickup on South Street (prod. Jules Schermer); Shane (prod. George Stevens); Stalag 17 (prod. Billy Wilder); The War of the Worlds (prod. George Pal)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Roman Holiday (prod. William Wyler)
nominees: The Band Wagon (prod. Arthur Freed); Genevieve (prod. Henry Cornelius); Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (prod. Sol C. Siegel)
PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Tôkyô monogatari (Tokyo Story) (prod. Takeshi Yamamoto)
nominees: El (prod. Óscar Dancigers); I Vitelloni (prod. Jacques Bar, Mario De Vecchi and Lorenzo Pegoraro); Madame de... (The Earrings Of Madame de...) (prod. Ralph Baum); Le salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) (prod. Raymond Borderie and Henri-Georges Clouzot); Ugetso Monogatari (prod. Masaichi Nagata); Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot's Holiday) (prod. Fred Orain and Jacques Tati)
ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Montgomery Clift (From Here To Eternity)
nominees: Charles Boyer (Madame de... a.k.a. The Earrings of Madame de...); William Holden (Stalag 17); Alan Ladd (Shane); Burt Lancaster (From Here To Eternity); Yves Montand (Le salaire de la peur a.k.a. The Wages of Fear); Vincent Price (House of Wax); Chisu Ryu (Tôkyô monogatari a.k.a. Tokyo Story); James Stewart (The Naked Spur); Richard Widmark (Pickup on South Street)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Jacques Tati (Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot a.k.a. Mr. Hulot's Holiday)
nominees: Fred Astaire (The Band Wagon); Howard Keel (Kiss Me Kate); Gregory Peck (Roman Holiday)
ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Gloria Grahame (The Big Heat)
nominees: Danielle Darrieux (Madame de... a.k.a. The Earrings of Madame de...); Chieko Higashiyama (Tôkyô monogatari a.k.a. Tokyo Story); Deborah Kerr (From Here To Eternity); Evelyn Keyes (99 River Street); Jean Peters (Pickup on South Street)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Jane Russell (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)
nominees: Leslie Caron (Lili); Kathryn Grayson (Kiss Me Kate); Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday); Marilyn Monroe (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)
DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Yasujirô Ozu (Tôkyô monogatari a.k.a. Tokyo Story)
nominees: Luis Buñuel (El); Henri-Georges Clouzot (Le salaire de la peur a.k.a.The Wages of Fear); Federico Fellini (I Vitelloni); Samuel Fuller (Pickup on South Street); Anthony Mann (The Naked Spur); Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetso Monogatari); Max Ophüls (Madame de... a.k.a. The Earrings of Madame de...); George Stevens (Shane); Billy Wilder (Stalag 17); Fred Zinnemann (From Here To Eternity)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: William Wyler (Roman Holiday)
nominees: Henry Cornelius (Genevieve); Howard Hawks (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes); Vincente Minnelli (The Band Wagon); Jacques Tati (Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot a.k.a. Mr. Hulot's Holiday)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Frank Sinatra (From Here To Eternity)
nominees: Eddie Albert (Roman Holiday); Charles Coburn (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes); Van Heflin (Shane); Lee Marvin (The Big Heat); Robert Ryan (The Naked Spur); Jack Palance (Shane); Robert Strauss (Stalag 17); Brandon de Wilde (Shane)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Thelma Ritter (Pickup On South Street)
nominees: Jean Arthur (Shane); Nanette Fabray (The Band Wagon); Setsuko Hara (Tôkyô monogatari a.k.a. Tokyo Story); Kay Kendall (Genevieve); Geraldine Page (Hondo); Donna Reed (From Here To Eternity)
SCREENPLAY
winner: Daniel Taradash, from the novel by James Jones (From Here To Eternity)
nominees: Marcel Achard, Max Ophüls and Annette Wademant, from the novel by Louise de Vilmorin (Madame de... a.k.a. The Earrings of Madame de...); Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton, from a story by Dalton Trumbo (Roman Holiday); A.B. Guthrie, Jr, additional dialogue by Jack Sher, from the novel by Jack Shaefer (Shane); Billy Wilder and Edwin Blum, from the play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski (Stalag 17); Kôgo Noda and Yasujirô Ozu (Tôkyô monogatari a.k.a. Tokyo Story)
SPECIAL AWARDS
Gordon Jennings (The War of the Worlds) (Special Effects); Loren L. Ryder (The War of the Worlds) (Sound); Duck Amuck (Animated Short)
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