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Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard surely ranks as one of the greatest movies of all time, and perhaps the greatest movie about the movies themselves.
Sunset Boulevard was perfectly cast with Oscar-nominated performances by William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olson, but the film nearly featured very different performers in the lead roles.
Montgomery Clift had already signed on to play struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis before backing out days before filming started. "It so happens Mr. Clift had had an affair with an older woman in New York," Wilder recalled years later. "And he did not want to make his first picture playing the lead, the story of a man being kept by a very rich woman twice his age. He did not want Hollywood talk."
Fred MacMurray turned down the part, and the studio vetoed Wilder's suggestion of Marlon Brando, who at that point had yet to make a movie. Only then did Wilder reluctantly cast Holden, who despite starring in Golden Boy in 1939 had yet to make his mark in Hollywood. The compromise proved to be fortuitous, providing a breakthrough role for Holden, and introducing Wilder to an actor who would go on to star in four of his films.
The female lead proved even harder to cast. Among the many actresses Wilder approached were Mae West, Norma Shearer, Pola Negri, Greta Garbo and—particularly intriguing to me—Mary Pickford. There are many different stories about what happened next.
"Mr. Brackett and I went to see her at Pickfair, but she was too drunk," Wilder later claimed. "She was not interested." On the other hand, Scott Eyman, one of Pickford's biographers, wrote that she was indeed interested but wanted the script rewritten to emphasize Norma Desmond, a change Wilder was not willing to make. Still others have suggested Pickford simply feared damaging her image.
In any event, fellow director George Cukor soon after suggested Swanson, an inspired choice, it turns out. The performance was so good that Barbara Stanwyck kissed the hem of Swanson's skirt at the premiere.
Would the film have been as good with Pickford (or West or Shearer or Negri or Garbo) in the lead? It would have been different, that's for sure. Swanson was something of a larger-than-life figure herself and if you know her silent work, particularly the six films she did with Cecil B. DeMille, you know Norma Desmond was right in her wheelhouse. As Wilder himself noted years later, "There was a lot of Norma in her, you know."
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)
I'm sure others would point to a different scene, but I think it was this moment with Montgomery Clift in 1951's A Place in the Sun that lifted Elizabeth Taylor to the status of film icon. R.I.P.
Sound Bites As head of the Columbia sound department, John Livadary holds the record for consecutive nominations in the Best Sound category—13 times for 1934 to 1946 releases. One of his nominations came for the musical biopic A Song to Remember (1945), featuring the compositions of what famous composer?
Best Picture, But Not Most Academy Awards The winner of the best Best Picture Oscar usually wins more awards than any other film that year. But 14 times the Best Picture winner didn't at least tie for the most wins. What political drama named Best Picture of 1949 won three Academy Awards while competitor The Heiress won four?
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