Garson, Hepburn, de Havilland, Bergman: Round 3, Part 1

Round Three, Part One. Vote below. Voting continues until you've finished Wednesday's breakfast bagel.

To vote for actresses in the 1930s bracket, click here. To vote for actresses in the 1950s bracket, click here. To vote for actresses in the 1960s bracket, click here

Round Two, Part One: Vote Now!

Round Two starts now and runs until lunchtime Wednesday.

To vote for actresses in the 1930s bracket, click here. To vote for actresses in the 1950s bracket, click here. To vote for actresses in the 1960s bracket, click here

2016 Favorite Classic Movie Actress Tournament: Classy Broads

The "Classy Broads" division of the 1940s bracket. There's nothing like a dame.

Voting begins on March 6.

Alternate Best Actress Of 1944

1944 was a very good year for actresses. The list of those I didn't nominate — Joan Bennett (The Woman In The Window), Claudette Colbert (Since You Went Away), Bette Davis (Mr. Skeffington), Joan Fontaine (Jane Eyre), Elizabeth Taylor (National Velvet), Gene Tierney (Laura) — would make a pretty good slate all by themselves. Can you imagine a lineup that strong coming of today's Hollywood?

Almost Wasn't Wednesday # 1: Casablanca With Ronald Reagan And Ann Sheridan

On January 5, 1942, the Warner Brothers publicity office (in)famously planted an item with the press to the effect that young contract players Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan had been chosen to star in the studio's upcoming production of Casablanca, a wartime romance based on an unproduced stageplay by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The Hollywood Reporter picked up the story and newspapers nationwide passed it along.

And for decades thereafter, movie fans have shuddered at the thought of the classic film that almost wasn't.

Don't worry though. Producer Hal Wallis never actually considered Reagan for the lead (or George Raft either, for that matter, persistent myth to the contrary). Instead, the press release was a common publicity ploy of the time, floating the names of actors in connection with various projects, both to keep the actors' names in front of the public and to create buzz for a forthcoming movie. Warner Brothers could just as easily have said Jack Benny instead of Ronald Reagan—and indeed, another Casablanca publicity release had Benny stopping by the set and appearing in one of the crowd scenes. Probably never happened, but I keep looking for him.

Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder what sort of movie Casablanca might have been with Reagan, Sheridan and Morgan in the lead roles.

Certainly the film would have lost a lot of its international flavor. And no matter what you think of them as actors, Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan were no Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman or Paul Henreid. Reagan and Sheridan made five movies together—Kings Row, The Angels Wash Their Faces, Cowboy From Brooklyn, Juke Girl and Naughty But Nice—and Sheridan and Morgan made four—Thank Your Lucky Stars, Shine On Harvest Moon, Wings for the Eagle and One More Tomorrow. With the exception of Kings Row, there's hardly a decent movie in the bunch.

Anyway, it never happened, not even close. Still, we'll always have the '80s. Here's looking at you, Gipper!

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1956)

Baby Doll, Tennessee Williams's Southern Gothic black comedy about a bankrupt businessman who has promised not to touch his young bride until her twentieth birthday, was easily the most controversial movie of 1956—or any other year ending in 6, I imagine. In the movie's first scene, a scantily clad Carroll Baker is asleep in a crib, sucking her thumb, while her frustrated husband (Karl Malden) watches her through a peephole.

From there, it gets weird.

Time called it "[j]ust possibly the dirtiest American-made motion picture that has ever been legally exhibited," the League of Decency slapped it with its lowest rating—"C" for condemned— and Cardinal Spellman threatened any Catholic who saw it with excommunication.

No wonder it was a hit!

As Kim Morgan of Sunset Gun put it, Baby Doll is "one of the most notoriously erotic mainstream movies ever produced at that time. A movie that's still sexy today, and sexy in that perfectly unhealthy, steamy, creamy and twisted way—the only way that works."

Amen.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: The Searchers (prod. Merian C. Cooper)
nominees: The Bad Seed (prod. Mervyn LeRoy); Forbidden Planet (prod. Nicholas Nayfack); Giant (prod. Henry Ginsburg and George Stevens); Invasion of the Body Snatchers (prod. Walter Wanger); The Killing (prod. James B. Harris); Lust for Life (prod. John Houseman); Written on the Wind (prod. Albert Zugsmith)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Baby Doll (prod. Elia Kazan)
nominees: The Girl Can't Help It (prod. Frank Tashlin); High Society (prod. Sol C. Siegel); The King And I (prod. Charles Brackett); The Rainmaker (prod. Hal B. Wallis)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (A Man Escaped) (prod. Alain Poiré and Jean Thuillier)
nominees: Akasen chitai (Street of Shame) (prod. Masaichi Nagata); Aparajito (prod. Satyajit Ray); Biruma no tategoto (The Burmese Harp) (prod. Masayuki Takaki); Bob le flambeur (prod. Jean-Pierre Melville and Serge Silberman); Gervaise (prod. Agnès Delahaie (as Annie Dorfmann)); Sôshun (Early Spring) (prod. Shôchiku Film)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: John Wayne (The Searchers)
nominees: Kirk Douglas (Lust For Life); Sterling Hayden (The Killing); James Mason (Bigger Than Life); Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Yul Brynner (The King And I)
nominees: Paul Douglas (The Solid Gold Cadillac); Danny Kaye (The Court Jester); Burt Lancaster (The Rainmaker)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Ingrid Bergman (Anastasia)
nominees: Nancy Kelly (The Bad Seed); Dorothy McGuire (Friendly Persuasion); Vera Miles (The Wrong Man); Maria Schell (Gervaise)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Carroll Baker (Baby Doll)
nominees: Katharine Hepburn (The Rainmaker); Judy Holliday (The Solid Gold Cadillac); Deborah Kerr (The King And I); Marilyn Monroe (Bus Stop)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: John Ford (The Searchers)
nominees: Robert Bresson (Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut a.k.a. A Man Escaped); Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers); Douglas Sirk (Written On The Wind); George Stevens (Giant)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le flambeur)
nominees: Elia Kazan (Baby Doll); Walter Lang (The King And I)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Elisha Cook, Jr. (The Killing)
nominees: Richard Basehart (Moby Dick); Ward Bond (The Searchers); James Dean (Giant); Anthony Quinn (Lust for Life); Eli Wallach (Baby Doll)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Dorothy Malone (Written On The Wind)
nominees: Mildred Dunnock (Baby Doll); Helen Hayes (Anastasia); Mercedes McCambridge (Giant); Marie Windsor (The Killing)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Daniel Mainwaring, from the Collier's magazine serial by Jack Finney (Invasion Of The Body Snatchers)
nominees: Auguste Le Breton and Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le flambeur); Robert Bresson, from the memoir by André Devigny (Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut a.k.a. A Man Escaped); Stanley Kubrick (screenplay), Jim Thompson (dialogue), from the novel Clean break by Lionel White (The Killing); Frank S. Nugent, from the novel by Alan Le May (The Searchers); Tennessee Williams, from his one-act plays 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Long Stay Cut Short (Baby Doll)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Winton C. Hoch (The Searchers) (Cinematography); "Love Me Tender" (Love Me Tender) music and lyrics by Elvis Presley and Vera Matson (Song); A. Arnold Gillespie, Irving G. Riles and Wesley C. Miller (Forbidden Planet) (Special Effects)

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1942)

By 1942, war had been raging in Europe for more than two years, and in Asia for more than ten, but you'd never know it from the movies of the era. As far as Hollywood was concerned, the war started when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and not one minute before. Not that Hollywood's myopia was anything unique—their indifference was very much in step with the rest of America's.

Once they discovered the war, though, they discovered it with a vengeance.

Hollywood's war fell into three overlapping phases—the rally-the-troops phase as the country's leaders coaxed Americans from their deeply-ingrained isolationism; the middle phase when films began to examine exactly what we were fighting for; and the final phase, when Hollywood was already anticipating the shape of the post-war world.

Casablanca, the classic romance starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, was very much part of the first phase, which is why I have included it here, rather than in 1943 where I usually think of it belonging (it did, after all, win the Oscar for best picture that year). But in fact, Casablanca actually premiered in November 1942, and more to the point it is the story of one man's journey from personal isolationism to fully-committed patriotism—the essence of a first phase film. As such, it belongs with such titles as Mrs. Miniver, To Be Or Not To Be and Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Still, seeing it here makes my head spin a bit.

For those of you playing along at home, Casablanca would have swept the same Katie awards whether I had placed it in 1942 or 1943. But in case you're wondering, if I had put it in 1943, the winners in 1942 would have been Cat People (picture/drama), Alan Ladd (actor/drama), Greer Garson (actress/drama), Orson Welles (director/drama), Van Heflin (supporting actor) and To Be Or Not To Be (screenplay).

The other awards would, of course, have stayed the same.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Casablanca (prod. Hal B. Wallis)
nominees: Cat People (prod. Val Lewton); In Which We Serve (prod. Noel Coward); The Magnificent Ambersons (prod. Orson Welles); Now, Voyager (prod. Hal B. Wallis); Random Harvest (prod. Sidney Franklin)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: To Be Or Not To Be (prod. Ernst Lubitsch)
nominees: Bambi (prod. Walt Disney); The Palm Beach Story (prod. Buddy G. DeSylva and Paul Jones); Woman of the Year (prod. Joseph L. Mankiewicz); Yankee Doodle Dandy (prod. Hal B. Wallis and Jack B. Warner)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Chichi ariki (There Was a Father) (prod. Shôchiku Film)
nominees: Aniki Bóbó (prod. António Lopes Ribeiro); L’Assassin Habite… au 21 (The Murderer Lives at Number 21) (prod. Alfred Greven)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca)
nominees: Ronald Colman (Random Harvest); Gary Cooper (The Pride Of The Yankees); Joseph Cotten (The Magnificent Ambersons); Alan Ladd (This Gun For Hire and The Glass Key)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: James Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy)
nominees: Jack Benny (To Be Or Not To Be); Joel McCrea (The Palm Beach Story); Spencer Tracy (Woman Of The Year); Monty Woolley (The Man Who Came To Dinner)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca)
nominees: Bette Davis (Now, Voyager); Greer Garson (Mrs. Miniver and Random Harvest); Simone Simon (Cat People)


ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Carole Lombard (To Be Or Not To Be)
nominees: Jean Arthur (The Talk of the Town); Claudette Colbert (The Palm Beach Story); Katharine Hepburn (Woman Of The Year); Veronica Lake (I Married A Witch); Ginger Rogers (The Major And The Minor)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Michael Curtiz (Casablanca)
nominees: Mervyn LeRoy (Random Harvest); Irving Rapper (Now, Voyager); Jacques Tourneur (Cat People); Orson Welles (The Magnificent Ambersons); William Wyler (Mrs. Miniver)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Ernst Lubitsch (To Be Or Not To Be)
nominees: Michael Curtiz (Yankee Doodle Dandy); George Stevens (Woman of the Year and The Talk of the Town); Preston Sturges (The Palm Beach Story); Billy Wilder (The Major and the Minor)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Claude Rains (Casablanca)
nominees: Van Heflin (Johnny Eager); Walter Huston (Yankee Doodle Dandy); Ronald Reagan (Kings Row); Sig Ruman (To Be Or Not To Be); S.Z. Sakall (Casablanca); Henry Travers (Mrs. Miniver); Dooley Wilson (Casablanca); Conrad Veidt (Casablanca)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Agnes Moorehead (The Magnificent Ambersons)
nominees: Mary Astor (The Palm Beach Story); Gladys Cooper (Now, Voyager); Susan Peters (Random Harvest); Mary Wickes (The Man Who Came To Dinner)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, from the play "Everybody Comes To Rick's" by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison (Casablanca)
nominees: Noel Coward (In Which We Serve); Orson Welles, from the novel by Booth Tarkington (The Magnificent Ambersons); Edwin Justus Mayer, story by Melchior Lengyel (To Be Or Not To Be)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Nicholas Musuraca (Cat People) (Cinematography); Albert S. D'Agostino; Al Fields and Darrell Silvera (The Magnificent Ambersons) (Art Direction-Set Decoration)

That's Typing Tuesday #11: The Essential Cary Grant (A Baker's Dozen)

"That's Typing" Tuesday, in which I share unpolished, unpublished writings from my vast store of unpolished, unpublished writings. On Tuesdays.

Several years ago, Mister Muleboy of The Mouth O' The Mule asked me for a list of the essential films by a number of actors—Cagney, Cooper, Wayne, Tracy, etc. And Cary Grant.

Since Grant is a semi-finalist in Monty's best actor tournament (vote here) and is currently romping to a spot in the finals, I thought I'd polish up that old e-mail and share it here. Make of it what you will ...

Okay, Cary Grant.

Cary Grant made too many essential movies to just list them—I'll break them into essential screwball comedies, sophisticated romances and action flicks.

1) Essential Cary Grant Screwball Comedies:
The Awful Truth—The Warriners (Grant and Irene Dunne) are getting divorced even though neither of them really wants to. The movie won an Oscar for director Leo McCarey (of Duck Soup and Going My Way fame), nominations for Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. One of the things I like about Cary Grant is that someone so handsome and charming was willing to make a complete fool of himself on screen. he does a pratfall with a chair that is priceless. He's my pick for best actor of 1937.

Bringing Up Baby—Now regarded by many as the quintessential screwball comedy, it was a box office bomb of such proportions that the studio fired Howard Hawks and Katharine Hepburn both. Great performances by both Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn playing against type—Grant as a Harold Lloyd-like professor and Hepburn as a dizzy socialite.

His Girl Friday—A remake of The Front Page. Starring Rosalind Russell (in her best role). Grant's a newspaper editor, Russell's his ex-wife and top reporter. She's about to leave the paper to marry Ralph Bellamy ("a house with mother in Albany"). Cary Grant schemes ruthlessly to get her back—although it's not always clear whether it's love or the story that he wants. Apparently still holds the record for most dialogue per minute in movie history.

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House—With Myrna Loy and Melvin Douglas. Being a homeowner, I realize now that this is more of a documentary than a comedy but it's a very funny one, the funniest pure comedy Cary Grant made after World War II.

see also: Topper, My Favorite Wife (with Irene Dunne again), Arsenic and Old Lace, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer ("Mello greetings, yookie dookie"), I Was A Male War Bride, Monkey Business (1952), Operation Petticoat, Father Goose.

2) The Essential Cary Grant Sophisticated Romances:
Holiday—My favorite Katharine Hepburn movie. In fact, this may belong more in the list of essential Katharine Hepburn movies than Cary Grant movies. Still. Grant as Johnny Case is engaged to Hepburn's sister who doesn't understand at all Johnny's desire to basically retire at thirty and do something more with his life than make money. Hepburn—a free-spirit who has lived her life under the stultifying thumb of a rich, dull father—understands Johnny's dream all too well. Tender and sweet without being sentimental and cloying, a hidden gem.

The Philadelphia Story—Katharine Hepburn's comeback vehicle and Jimmy Stewart won the Oscar, but Cary Grant steals every scene he's in without trying. For what it's worth, conventional wisdom now regards this as the best performance of his career. Based on a 1930s stage play, dated in places, but a great movie, one of my favorites.

Indiscreet—I was surprised not too long ago by how much more I liked this than I remembered. Ingrid Bergman falls for Cary Grant despite the fact that he's married—or is he? They make a very likeable couple and it's nice to see a woman who's over thirty playing the romantic lead.

see also: Blonde Venus (1933 von Sternberg romance featuring Marlene Dietrich in a gorilla costume), In Name Only (with Carole Lombard, and it wasn't a comedy!) The Talk Of The Town, Mr. Lucky, The Bishop's Wife. Avoid An Affair To Remember, the one where Deborah Kerr was running to meet Cary Grant on top of the Empire State Building and bang! met a taxicab instead. Unfortunately, this soppy, sentimental snoozer is a lousy showcase for both stars, and movie fans who first become acquainted with either Kerr or Grant through it tend to walk away disappointed and wondering what all the fuss is about.

3) The Essential Cary Grant Action Flicks:
Gunga Din—Adventure as lark. A trio of British soldiers (Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) in colonial India battle the vicious Thuggie cult—the same one as in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but to much, much better effect here.

Only Angels Have Wings—Vintage Howard Hawks. About pilots in South America trying to carve out an air mail route back in the days when flying was fraught with constant danger. We're all going to die sooner or later, Hawks seems to be saying, can't we do it with a bit of dignity and grace and laughter and good company? With Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth and, in one of his best supporting performances, Thomas Mitchell.

Notorious—Cary Grant's best serious role. Hitchcock saw something dark underneath the surface of the Cary Grant façade and he exploits it to great effect here. Grant is on the trail of post-war Nazis and he lets the woman he loves (Ingrid Bergman) prostitute herself to help crack their secret. He's a misogynstic, self-pitying cynic, a weak, sadistic one at that. Features a tour de force performance by Claude Rains. Four stars. Highly recommended.

To Catch A Thief—Slick Hitchcock featuring great scenery and Oscar-winning cinematography. With a particularly chilly Grace Kelly, an amusing Jesse Royce Landis and the underrated John Williams (the actor, not the composer).

North by Northwest—Maybe my favorite Hitchcock movie. Enemy spies mistake a callow ad man (Grant) for a government agent and chase him across spectacular landscapes. Hitchcock might be the only director in history who could film a guy standing on the side of a road for five minutes and make it riveting. To me, one of the measures of a great performance is trying to imagine who else could play the role and realizing no one else could. Can't picture this movie with anyone but Cary Grant. Great movie, a must-own classic.

Charade—With Audrey Hepburn. Directed by Stanley Donen (of Singin' in the Rain fame). A lot of comedy, but a very good thriller as well. Walter Matthau in a nice role. Also with James Coburn and George Kennedy. Cary Grant was at the end of his career here and shy about playing opposite a much younger actress, but rather than disguising his discomfort, they play off it to great advantage. The last great film of Grant's career.

see also, Suspicion (A good performance by Grant even if studio executives forced the cop-out ending on Hitchcock), Destination Tokyo.

Note: Cary Grant was nominated for two Oscars, for Penny Serenade and None But The Lonely Heart. A couple of tear-jerker super-soapers designed to show Cary Grant as a "serious" actor. Avoid both until you are in your seeing-everything-Cary-Grant-did for-completion's-sake phase.

worst Cary Grant movie, at least from the star period: The Pride and the Passion. Grant plays a British officer fighting Napoleon in Spain. Frank Sinatra plays a Spanish guerrilla leader. They drag a cannon and Sophia Loren over the mountains of Spain. Sinatra was so disgusted, he walked out half way through and filmed the rest of his scenes in Hollywood. Close-ups of Grant talking to Sinatra were shot over the shoulder of a coat on a hanger. Sinatra doesn't sing, Grant doesn't charm, Loren doesn't do anything: a tremendous waste of talent and a tedious bore. Other bad Cary Grant movies: The Howards of Virginia, Night and Day, Kiss Them For Me (Suzy Parker was so bad that Deborah Kerr dubbed her dialogue).

Trivia: In the movie She Done Him Wrong (1932), Cary Grant was the actor on the receiving end of Mae West's oft-misquoted signature line "Why don't you come up some time and see me?" Grant also co-starred in what I think is West's best movie, I'm No Angel. "It's not the men in your life that counts," she says, "it's the life in your men." Grant is lively indeed.

March Madness, Trivial Pursuits, Favorite Songs And ... A New Poll

Lots of housekeeping to do today, blog-wise, so let's get to it:

1) The semi-final matches of the Silent Era/1930s bracket in All Good Things' best actress March Madness tournament is underway. Match-ups are number six seed Claudette Colbert versus ten seed Irene Dunne and four seed Carole Lombard versus nine seed Myrna Loy. Remember, democracy only works if you vote—and rarely even then—so click on over and do your part.

2) As for my own trivial pursuits, during Turner Classic Movies' 31 Days of Oscar marathon I passed along questions about Oscar history from TCM's monthly Now Playing magazine, 66 questions in all. No surprise, MovieNut14 answered the most questions correctly and wins the first annual Movie Nut Trivia Award, which consists of nothing more than worldwide recognition and a pat on the back. MovieNut14 is a self-described "Female teen living in upstate New York who's obsessed with movies and books." She also writes the blog Defiant Success. Check it out.

The final totals, quiz-wise:

MovieNut14—28
Erik Beck—9
Zoe—8
The Mythical Monkey himself—6
Beelzabub—3
Katie-Bar-The-Door—3
Dave—2
Jason Marshall—2
WhistlingGypsy—2
Ginger Ingenue—1
Mister Muleboy—1
Uncle Tom—1

Not to mention, the questions generated lots of comments, even from those who weren't answering the trivia, which is always fun. Thanks to everyone who participated—and, for that matter, to all those who didn't.

3) The results are in from the latest Monkey poll, "Of the top five songs in movie history, as chosen in 2004 by the American Film Institute, which is your favorite?" The results very nearly mirrored the AFI's list: "Over The Rainbow" (The Wizard Of Oz) was your favorite with 26 votes. "As Time Goes By" (Casablanca), which jumped out to an early 6-0 lead, wound up second with 16 votes. "Singin' In The Rain" (Singin' In The Rain), which was third on the AFI list, finished fourth here with 5 votes. "Moon River" (Breakfast At Tiffany's) tallied 6 votes and "White Christmas" (Holiday Inn) scored but a single vote.

You can listen to all five songs again here.

In case you're interested, Barack Obama, president of these here United States of America, mentioned earlier in the week that his favorite song from a movie is "As Time Goes By" from Casablanca. So said the Washington Post. Perhaps he's a secret reader of the Mythical Monkey. If so, welcome, Mr. President! It's a big tent we pitch here and whatever brings you to the party, here's hoping you stick around.

4) And how about a new poll? Of the four biggest Oscar snubs in history as chosen by EW.com, which overlooked performance most deserved a nomination?

Your choices are:

James Stewart (Vertigo)

Anthony Perkins (Psycho)

Cary Grant (The Philadelphia Story)

Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca)

As usual, cast your vote in the poll at the right hand side of the page.

Have fun.