The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards Updated At Long Last

Our long national nightmare is over! The sock monkey who types this blog finally got around to bringing the Katie-Bar-the-Door Awards up to date — we now have nominees and winners for the entire Oscar era, from 1927 all the way through 2024 ... and one big winner for 2025.

And what are the Katie-Bar-the-Door Awards? Not so much alternate Oscars as alternate Golden Globe awards, I have chosen movies, actors, directors and writers I think Hollywood should have honored over the years in the categories of drama, comedy/musical (broadly defined) and (in the best picture category) foreign language.

Other than the immortal Erik Beck, who does that? Well, what can I tell you — the Monkey is a full-service old-school blog!

Check out the nominees and winners by decade:

1927-39

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

And I'll be writing again soon ... next up, three to see starring Norma Shearer!

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1970)

The editor of my other internet gig, Sharpologist, has asked for a new post so I'll be working on that. Which means this is the last of the Katie Award posts for a while.

Beginning this weekend, I'll start promoting Monty's March Madness Greatest Actress Tournament. As I mentioned the other day, I'll be hosting the Silent Era/1930s bracket—32 actresses competing for a shot at the Final Four. Long-shot entrant Irene Dunne won the whole thing last year and she'll be defending her title right here at the Monkey. But she's got some tough competition, including Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck, Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow.

Voting starts March 5.

Meanwhile, enjoy this iconic scene from Five Easy Pieces:



PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Five Easy Pieces (prod. Bob Rafelson and Richard Wechsler)
nominees: Airport (prod. Ross Hunter); The Boys in the Band (prod. Mart Crowley); Colossus: The Forbin Project (prod. Stanley Chase); Little Big Man (prod. Stuart Millar); Patton (prod. Frank McCarthy); Ryan's Daughter (prod. Anthony Havelock-Allan); Tora! Tora! Tora! (prod. Richard Fleischer and Elmo Williams)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: M*A*S*H (prod. Ingo Preminger)
nominees: The Ballad of Cable Hogue (prod Sam Peckinpah); Gimme Shelter (prod. Porter Bibb and Ronald Schneider); Kelly's Heroes (prod. Sidney Beckerman and Gabriel Katzka); Let It Be (prod. Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans); Scrooge (prod Robert H. Solo); The Twelve Chairs (prod. Ronald H. Gilbert and Michael Hertzberg); Woodstock (prod. Bob Maurice)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Il conformista (The Conformist) (prod. Maurizio Lodi-Fè)
nominees: Le Cercle Rouge (prod. Robert Dorfmann); Le boucher (prod. André Génovès); Domicile conjugal (Bed & Board) (prod. Marcel Berbert and François Truffaut); L'enfant sauvage (The Wild Child) (prod. Néstor Almendros); Il giardino dei Finzi Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) (prod. Arthur Cohn, Gianni Hecht Lucari and Artur Brauner); Le genou de Claire (Claire's Knee) (prod. Pierre Cottrell and Barbet Schroeder); El topo (prod. Mick Gochanour, Juan López Moctezuma, Moshe Rosemberg and Saúl Rosemberg); Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion) (prod. Marina Cicogna and Daniele Senatore); Tristana (prod. Luis Buñuel and Robert Dorfmann)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: George C. Scott (Patton)
nominees: Melvyn Douglas (I Never Sang for My Father); Ben Gazzara (Husbands); Dustin Hoffman (Little Big Man); James Earl Jones (The Great White Hope); Jack Nicholson (Five Easy Pieces); Fernando Rey (Tristana); Jean-Louis Trintignant (Il conformista a.k.a. The Conformist)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Alan Arkin (Catch-22)
nominees: Clint Eastwood (Two Mules for Sister Sara and Kelly's Heroes); Albert Finney (Scrooge); Elliott Gould (M*A*S*H); Jack Lemmon (The Out of Towners); Jason Robards (The Ballad Of Cable Hogue); Donald Sutherland (M*A*S*H); Gene Wilder (Start the Revolution Without Me)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Glenda Jackson (Women In Love)
nominees: Catherine Deneuve (Tristana); Sarah Miles (Ryan's Daughter); Tuesday Weld (I Walk The Line)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Carrie Snodgress (Diary Of A Mad Housewife)
nominees: Julie Andrews (Darling Lili); Sandy Dennis (The Out of Towners); Glenda Jackson (The Music Lovers); Shirley MacLaine (Two Mules for Sister Sara)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Bernardo Bertolucci (Il Conformista a.k.a. The Conformist)
nominees: Vittorio de Sica (Il giardino dei Finzi Contini a.k.a The Garden of the Finzi-Continis); David Lean (Ryan's Daughter); Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Cercle Rouge); Arthur Penn (Little Big Man); Bob Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces); Eric Rohmer (Le genou de Claire a.k.a. Claire's Knee); Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Robert Altman (M*A*S*H)
nominees: Mel Brooks (The Twelve Chairs); Ronald Neame (Scrooge); Mike Nichols (Catch-22); Sam Peckinpah (The Ballad of Cable Hogue); François Truffaut (Domicile conjugal a.k.a. Bed & Board)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Chief Dan George (Little Big Man)
nominees: Robert Duvall (M*A*S*H); Gene Hackman (I Never Sang For My Father); Frank Langella (Diary of a Mad Housewife and The Twelve Chairs); Karl Malden (Patton); Telly Savalas (Kelly's Heroes); Orson Welles (Catch-22)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces)
nominees: Helen Hayes (Airport); Sally Kellerman (M*A*S*H); Lois Smith (Five Easy Pieces); Lee Grant (The Landlord); Stella Stevens (The Ballad of Cable Hogue)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) (screenplay), from a story by Bob Rafelson and Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) (Five Easy Pieces)
nominees: Bernardo Bertolucci, from the novel by Alberto Moravia (Il Conformista a.k.a. The Conformist); Ring Lardner, Jr., from the novel by Richard Hooker (M*A*S*H); Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North, based on factual material by Ladislas Farago and Omar N. Bradley (Patton)

SPECIAL AWARDS
"Suicide Is Painless" (M*A*S*H) music by Johnny Mandel; lyrics by Michael Altman (Song); Jerry Goldsmith (Patton) (Score); The Beatles (Let It Be) (Original Song Score); Woodstock (Documentary Feature)

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1969)

Some stray thoughts for future essays about a few of the Katie winners of 1969:

The Wild Bunch
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 in their youth 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.

The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie
Just because someone is bright and pretty and charismatic doesn't mean she's not also an idiot. Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith in an Oscar-winning turn) is a beloved teacher in the Dead Poets Society mold, but what to me often seems lost in reviews and recollections of the part is that Miss Brodie is also a self-righteous nincompoop, prone to pronouncements such as "Whoever has opened the window has opened it too wide. Six inches is perfectly adequate—more is vulgar."

She no doubt makes similar pronouncements to her married lover.

For Miss Jean Brodie, teaching isn't so much about preparing her students for the world as it is about creating a classroom full of Jean Brodie clones, little girls who demand nothing of her but to worship the ground she walks on. As for Brodie, she worships Italian poets and Italian painters—and Italian fascists, too—and even if those arrayed against her are a stiff-necked and detestable lot, it seems unlikely to me that anyone could (or would) write a story in the 1960s about a character who tells you how admirable Mussolini is without assuming that you understand the character is more than a bit cracked. That's something to remember—the enemy of your enemy is just as likely to turn out to be your enemy as your friend, so don't assume that just because you don't like the headmistress (Celia Johnson) that Miss Brodie isn't also (if differently) wrong-headed.

As I said in my post about Chimes at Midnight, "A fool who is unaware he is a fool is a ripe subject for comedy." Jean Brodie is just such a fool. That she's also a sympathetic one, you can credit Maggie Smith for that.

[If you're interested in a more in-depth look at The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, FlickChick wrote a nice review of it only yesterday over at A Person in the Dark. Click here to read it.]

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
I probably don't need to tell you that Sean Connery was the definitive James Bond. The first four Bond films, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and even Thunderball are all classics, never bettered.

But the dirty little secret about Sean Connery is that by You Only Live Twice, the Bond film immediately preceding this one, he was phoning it in, and he was no better in Diamonds Are Forever, the film after this one.

And I'll tell you something else. Despite his rugged good looks, Connery really was not a very good romantic lead, not in a classic sense anyway. He was best when he was aloof, amused, snarky or, as he was in roles such as The Untouchables, wounded, brooding and angry. Romance requires a combination of hope and vulnerability, a rare quality in gods, which may explain why good-looking leading men such as George Clooney and Brad Pitt are inexplicably not great romantic leading men.

This is heresy to say, but for this one movie, where Bond genuinely falls in love, George Lazenby was probably better suited to the role than Connery.

Crikey, I can't believe I just said that out loud. True, though.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: The Wild Bunch (prod. Phil Feldman)
nominees: Easy Rider (prod. Peter Fonda); Medium Cool (prod. Tully Friedman, Haskell Wexler and Jerrold Wexler); Midnight Cowboy (prod. Jerome Hellman); On Her Majesty's Secret Service (prod. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman); They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (prod. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (prod. John Foreman)
nominees: The Italian Job (prod. Michael Deeley); Oh! What a Lovely War (prod. Richard Attenborough and Brian Duffy); The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (prod. Robert Fryer); Support Your Local Sheriff! (prod. William Bowers); Take The Money and Run (prod. Charles H. Joffe)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Z (prod. Jacques Perrin and Ahmed Rachedi)
nominees: L'armée des ombres (Army of Shadows) (prod. Jacques Dorfmann); Le chagrin et la pitié (The Sorrow and the Pity) (prod. André Harris and Alain de Sedouy); Ma nuit chez Maud (My Night at Maud's) (prod. Pierre Cottrell and Barbet Schroeder)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: William Holden (The Wild Bunch)
nominees: Peter Fonda (Easy Rider); Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy); Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy); John Wayne (True Grit)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: James Garner (Support Your Local Sheriff)
nominees: Woody Allen (Take the Money and Run); Michael Caine (The Italian Job); Dustin Hoffman (John and Mary); Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); Robert Redford (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Shirley Knight (The Rain People)
nominees: Genevieve Bujold (Anne of the Thousand Days); Jane Fonda (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?); Liv Ullmann (En Passion a.k.a. The Passion of Anna)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Maggie Smith (The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie)
nominees: Mia Farrow (John and Mary); Shirley MacLaine (Sweet Charity); Liza Minnelli (The Sterile Cuckoo); Katharine Ross (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); Barbara Streisand (Hello, Dolly!)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch)
nominees: Costa-Gavras (Z); Jean-Pierre Melville (L'armée des ombres a.k.a. Army of Shadows); Marcel Ophüls (Le chagrin et la pitié a.k.a. The Sorrow and the Pity); Sydney Pollack (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?); John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy); Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
nominees: Woody Allen (Take the Money and Run); Richard Attenborough (Oh! What a Lovely War); Ronald Neame (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Jack Nicholson (Easy Rider)
nominees: Red Buttons (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?); John Mills (Oh! What a Lovely War); Robert Ryan (The Wild Bunch); Gig Young (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Diana Rigg (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
nominees: Bibi Andersson (En Passion a.k.a. The Passion of Anna); Dyan Cannon (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice); Pamela Franklin (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie); Celia Johnson (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie); Simone Signoret (L'armée des ombres a.k.a. Army of Shadows); Suzannah York (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Walon Green and Sam Peckinpah, story by Walon Green and Roy N. Sickner (The Wild Bunch)
nominees: William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); Jorge Semprún, from a novel by Vasilis Vasilikos (Z)

SPECIAL AWARDS
"Rain Drops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) music by Burt Bacharach; lyrics by Hal David (Score); Louis Lombardo (The Wild Bunch) (Film Editing); Le chagrin et la pitié a.k.a. The Sorrow and the Pity (Documentary Feature)

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1968)

Question: Is anybody other than me enjoying this daily edition of the Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards?

I ask because come Friday I can either keep going with the 1970s, or I can stop and begin promoting Monty's March Madness Best Actress Tournament—the Monkey is hosting the Silent Era/1930s bracket (with voting to begin on March 5).

Either way, you will get a daily dose of your favorite stars' photos. They'll just either have names like Jane Fonda, Gene Hackman and Al Pacino, or Mary Pickford, Carole Lombard and Irene Dunne.

It's up to you.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: 2001: A Space Odyssey (prod. Stanley Kubrick)
nominees: Faces (prod. Maurice McEndree and John Cassavetes); The Lion in Winter (prod. Martin Poll); Night of the Living Dead (prod. Karl Hardman and Russell Streiner); Planet of the Apes (Arthur P. Jacobs); Rosemary's Baby (prod. William Castle); Targets (prod. Peter Bogdanovich)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: The Producers (prod. Sidney Glazier)
nominees: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (prod. Albert R. Broccoli); The Odd Couple (prod. Howard W. Koch); Oliver! (prod. John Woolf); Pretty Poison (prod. Marshall Backlar and Joel Black); Yellow Submarine (prod. Al Brodax)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: C'era una volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West) (prod. Fulvio Morsella)
nominees: Baisers volés (Stolen Kisses) (prod. Marcel Berbert and François Truffaut); Il grande silenzio (The Great Silence) (prod. Adelphia Compagnia Cinematografica and Les Films Corona); Skammen (Shame) (prod. Lars-Owe Carlberg)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Steve McQueen (Bullitt)
nominees: Tony Curtis (The Boston Strangler); Charlton Heston (Planet of the Apes and Will Penny); Peter O’Toole (The Lion in Winter); Cliff Robertson (Charly); Max von Sydow (Skammen a.k.a. Shame)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Zero Mostel (The Producers)
nominees: Dean Jones (The Love Bug); Jack Lemmon (The Odd Couple); Walter Matthau (The Odd Couple); Ron Moody (Oliver!); Peter Sellers (The Party)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter)
nominees: Claudia Cardinale (C'era una volta il West a.k.a. Once Upon a Time in the West); Julie Christie (Petulia); Mia Farrow (Rosemary's Baby); Gena Rowland (Faces); Liv Ullmann (Skammen a.k.a. Shame); Joanne Woodward (Rachel, Rachel)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Tuesday Weld (Pretty Poison)
nominees: Julie Andrews (Star!); Jane Fonda (Barbarella); Sally Ann Howes (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang); Barbara Streisand (Funny Girl)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey)
nominees: Ingmar Bergman (Skammen a.k.a. Shame); John Cassavetes (Faces); Sergio Leone (C'era una volta il West a.k.a. Once Upon a Time in the West); Roman Polanski (Rosemary's Baby); George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Mel Brooks (The Producers)
nominees: Carol Reed (Oliver!)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Henry Fonda (C'era una volta il West a.k.a. Once Upon a Time in the West)
nominees: Jack Albertson (The Subject Was Roses); Anthony Hopkins (The Lion in Winter); Boris Karloff (Targets); Kenneth Mars (The Producers); Roddy McDowell (Planet of the Apes); Oliver Reed (Oliver!); Jason Robards (C'era una volta il West a.k.a. Once Upon a Time in the West); Gene Wilder (The Producers)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Ruth Gordon (Rosemary's Baby)
nominees: Lynn Carlin (Faces); Kim Hunter (Planet of the Apes); Sondra Locke (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter); Estelle Parsons (Rachel, Rachel); Delphine Seyrig (Baisers volés a.k.a. Stolen Kisses); Estelle Winwood (The Producers)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Sergio Leone and Sergio Donati (screenplay), from a story by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci and Sergio Leone, English translation by Mickey Knox (C'era una volta il West a.k.a. Once Upon a Time in the West)
nominees: John Cassavetes (Faces); James Goldman, from his play (The Lion in Winter); Neil Simon, from his play (The Odd Couple); Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, from the novel by Pierre Boulle (Planet of the Apes); Mel Brooks (The Producers); Roman Polanski, from the novel by Ira Levin (Rosemary's Baby); Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)

SPECIAL AWARDS
"Springtime for Hitler" (The Producers) music and lyrics by Mel Brooks (Song); Ennio Morricone (C'era una volta il West a.k.a. Once Upon a Time in the West) (score); Claudio Maielli, Elio Pacella and Fausto Ancillai (C'era una volta il West a.k.a. Once Upon a Time in the West) (Sound); Anthony Masters, Harry Lange and Ernest Archer (2001: A Space Odyssey) (Art Direction-Set Decoration); Ray Lovejoy (2001: A Space Odyssey) (Film Editing); Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey) (Special Effects); William A. Fraker (Bullitt) (Cinematography); John Chambers (Planet of the Apes) (Make-up); Morton Haack (Planet of the Apes) (Costumes); Yellow Submarine (Animated Feature); Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (Animated Short)