Sweet 16: Garson v. de Havilland, Tierney v. Russell

The top four seeds in the 1940s bracket all advanced to the Sweet 16 of the 2016 Favorite Classic Movie Actress Tournament. In fact, come to think of it, they were the four finalists in this bracket last year. You have until Saturday to cast your vote.

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

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.

March Madness Is Coming Once Again

The 2015 Favorite Classic Movie Actress Tournament starts up again in March. I'll be hosting the 1960s bracket this year.

Details to follow ...

The Sunshine Award

I've been meaning to mention that Andrew D. of "1001 Movies I (Apparently) Must See Before I Die" has bestowed upon the Monkey the "Sunshine" Award. An appropriately-themed accolade, don't you think, considering the prevalence of Seasonal Affective Disorder at this time of year.

These are the award's rules:

1. Include the Sunshine Award in a post or on your blog
2. Link to the person who nominated you.
3. Answer 10 questions about yourself (you may use these or come up with your own)
4. Nominate 10 bloggers.
5. Link your nominees on your blog and comment on their blog to let them know they are nominated.

Andrew D. selected the Monkey for this award for the most refreshing reason ever: "I literally don't know ANY other bloggers." If only everyone were as honest.

Okay, so parts one and two, taken care of. But parts three and four—"10 questions ... 10 bloggers." Ten? Jeepers. Screw ten. I'm too old for ten. How about three? And not three questions, but three of my favorite musical moments from the movies. Maybe not the three favorites, but three of them.

(1) "Cheek to Cheek" (Top Hat). I've said it before, but I'll say it again: When I watch Astaire and Rogers dance, I reconsider the possibility that maybe there is a heaven after all.



(2) "I Should Have Known Better" (A Hard Day's Night). The Beatles and Richard Lester invent the music video.



(3) "Kindle My Heart" (A Little Princess). More a reimagining of the Shirley Temple movie than an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved children's book, A Little Princess is the story of a rich girl suddenly thrown into poverty, but what it's about is the power of storytelling to transmute despair into hope. In this scene, director Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) ups the ante, showing how filmmaking can bypass the frontal lobes and tell stories directly to the heart.



And who gets the Monkey's Sunshine shout-out? Olivia de Havilland, the pig from Babe and Nick Charles's beleaguered liver.

Have at it, boys and girls.

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1949)

Usually billed as a film noir, The Big Steal—the story of a guy chasing a guy chasing a girl chasing a guy who stole some money, with Jane Greer as the girl and Robert Mitchum as the man in the middle—is actually a screwball road picture, romantic comedy and wry commentary on the Ugly American (this time in Mexico), all rolled into 71 taut minutes.

Known at the time as the first film Mitchum made after his infamous marijuana bust (filming was interrupted for two months while he served his prison sentence), The Big Steal is really Jane Greer's picture. She's funny, she's smart, she's tender, she's tough, and she and Mitchum are very, very good together. Out of the Past made Greer a film noir legend, deservedly so, but The Big Steal is actually a better showcase for her talent.

That she also flew down to Mexico on forty-eight hours notice out of loyalty to Mitchum when no other actress would work with him only deepens my affection for this underrated actress.

She and Mitchum crack wise with each other throughout the film and the chemistry between them is palpable. Greer's best scene, though, is across from the foreman of a road repair crew (Pascual García Peña) as she tries to talk him into letting them pass. She tells him that she and Mitchum are eloping, and that her father, chasing them with a shotgun (really William Bendix, the first "guy" in the equation), wants her to marry a short, ugly man. She prefers the big, pretty one—"¿Verdad que es grande y hermoso, no?"

And the foreman looks at Mitchum, shrugs and says with a laugh, "Grande, sí. ¿Pero hermoso?"—which is to say, "Big, yes, but pretty?"

The film was directed by Don Siegel, who had cut his teeth putting together the Paris montage sequence in Casablanca, and who would later direct such classics as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Dirty Harry. His biggest achievement here, aside from some great car chases, was working around Mitchum's absence. Because co-star William Bendix had a prior commitment, he and Mitchum appear in only one scene together, the film's first. Thereafter, Siegel had to make due with stunt doubles, rear screen projection and careful editing.

That Bendix and Mitchum stage a convincing fist fight later in the movie without being in the same room together is a minor miracle.

Also look for Ramon Novarro as the Mexican police inspector. Fans of silent film may remember him as the title character in the 1925 verison of Ben-Hur. Like so many, his star fell when the talkies came in.

Despite the commercial and critical success of The Big Steal, there was no follow-up film for Greer. Indeed, it's a measure of the studio's desperation that she'd been cast at all. RKO owner Howard Hughes had vowed to wreck Greer's career after she refused to sleep with him, and wreck it he did. It took Greer three years to get out of her contract with the studio, by which time the public had largely forgotten her.

Finally free of RKO, she made a handful of films in the early 1950s, including Man of a Thousand Faces and a remake of The Prisoner of Zenda. After she nearly died from an infection suffered while filming Run for the Sun in the jungles of Mexico, Greer went into semi-retirement, playing occasional supporting roles, most memorably in Against All Odds, a loose remake of Out of the Past.

[SPOILERS]

The ending of The Big Steal underscores for me the degree to which we watch movies rather than listen to them. If you watch the last scene, letting it flow over you, and with the expectations of the genre firmly established in your mind, you assume that Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer are going to pair off permanently at the end, get married, have ten kids. Nice.

On the other hand, if you listen to the words they are speaking, it's clear he's leaving town in the morning and she's staying put. And that makes sense. He's a lieutenant in the army, she has an important job in Mexico. If you read the scene on the printed page, you'd see it as a lament for the life they aren't going to have together.

But if you put the images together with the words they are speaking, it becomes clear that they are negotiating a one-night stand. Which is exactly as it should be—they are attractive, single people who have just finished a life-and-death adventure together, but who, let's face it, have little else in common. Why not?

That director Don Siegel contrived to say this in a way that passed muster with the censors during the era of the Production Code is a tribute to his ingenuity and his craft. He let your eyes tell you one thing, your ears another, and if you're really paying attention, you can decode his intentions. It's subtle, something the censors never were. It's one of those times when the lament "they don't make 'em like they used to" is fully justified.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: The Third Man (prod. Carol Reed)
nominees: All The King's Men (prod. Robert Rossen); Battleground (prod. Dore Schary); The Heiress (prod. William Wyler); A Letter to Three Wives (prod. Sol C. Siegel); The Set-Up (prod. Richard Goldstone); She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (prod. Merian C. Cooper and John Ford); They Live By Night (prod. John Houseman); Twelve O'Clock High (prod. Darryl F. Zanuck); White Heat (prod. Louis F. Edelman)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Kind Hearts and Coronets (prod. Michael Balcon)
nominees: Adam's Rib (prod. Lawrence Weingarten); I Was A Male War Bride (prod. Sol C. Siegel); On The Town (prod. Arthur Freed); Whisky Galore! (prod. Michael Balcon)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Banshun (Late Spring) (prod. Shôchiku Film)
nominees: Jour de fête (prod. Fred Orain and André Paulvé); Nora inu (Stray Dog) (prod. Sôjirô Motoki); Riso amaro (Bitter Rice) (prod. Dino De Laurentiis)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Kirk Douglas (Champion)
nominees: James Cagney (White Heat); Joseph Cotten (The Third Man); Broderick Crawford (All The King's Men); Toshiro Mifune (Nora inu a.k.a. Stray Dog); Gregory Peck (Twelve O'Clock High); Robert Ryan (The Set-Up); Chishu Ryu (Banshun a.k.a. Late Spring); John Wayne (She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Sands Of Iwo Jima)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Gene Kelly (On The Town)
nominees: Cary Grant (I Was A Male War Bride); Danny Kaye (The Inspector General); Robert Mitchum (The Big Steal and Holiday Affair); Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets); Basil Radford (Whisky Galore!); Jacques Tati (Jour de fête); Spencer Tracy (Adam's Rib)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Olivia de Havilland (The Heiress)
nominees: Jeanne Crain (Pinky); Joan Crawford (Flamingo Road); Linda Darnell (A Letter To Three Wives); Setsuko Hara (Banshun a.k.a. Late Spring); Alida Valli (The Third Man)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Jane Greer (The Big Steal)
nominees: Joan Greenwood (Kind Hearts and Coronets and Whisky Galore!); Katharine Hepburn (Adam's Rib); Ann Sheridan (I Was A Male War Bride)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Carol Reed (The Third Man)
nominees: John Ford (She Wore A Yellow Ribbon); Akira Kurosawa (Nora inu a.k.a. Stray Dog); Yasujiro Ozu (Banshun a.k.a. Late Spring); Raoul Walsh (White Heat); William Wyler (The Heiress)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets)
nominees: George Cukor (Adam's Rib); Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly (On The Town); Howard Hawks (I Was A Male War Bride); Alexander Mackendrick (Whisky Galore!)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Alec Guinness (Kind Hearts and Coronets)
nominees: Paul Douglas (A Letter to Three Wives); Juano Hernandez (Intruder in the Dust); Trevor Howard (The Third Man); Victor McLaglen (She Wore A Yellow Ribbon); Ramon Novarro (The Big Steal); Ralph Richardson (The Heiress); David Wayne (Adam's Rib); Orson Welles (The Third Man); James Whitmore (Battleground)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Mercedes McCambridge (All The King's Men)
nominees: Judy Holliday (Adam's Rib); Ann Miller (On the Town); Elizabeth Patterson (Intruder in the Dust); Margaret Wycherly (White Heat)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Graham Greene (The Third Man)
nominees: Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin (Adam's Rib); Robert Rossen, from the novel by Robert Penn Warren (All The King's Men); Robert Pirosh (Battleground); Ruth Goetz and Augustus Goetz, from their play suggested by the novel Washington Square by Henry James (The Heiress); Robert Hamer and John Dighton, from the novel by Roy Horniman (Kind Hearts and Coronets)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Ray Harryhausen, Linwood G. Dunn, Willis H. O'Brien, Harold E. Stein, Herb Willis and Bert Willis (Mighty Joe Young) (Special Effects); Anton Karas (The Third Man) (Score); Robert Krasker (The Third Man) (Cinematography)

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1948)

A long, long time ago, I promised myself that if anyone ever came up to me and said, "Can you stake a fellow American to a meal," I'd give him twenty bucks. But no one ever has, and anyway, $20 doesn't go nearly as far as it used to.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (prod. Henry Blanke)
nominees: The Fallen Idol (prod. Carol Reed); Force Of Evil (prod. Bob Roberts); Fort Apache (prod. Merian C. Cooper and John Ford); Key Largo (prod. Jerry Wald); The Lady From Shanghai (prod. Orson Welles); Letter From An Unknown Woman (prod. John Houseman); The Naked City (prod. Mark Hellinger); Red River (prod. Howard Hawks)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: The Red Shoes (prod. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)
nominees: Easter Parade (prod. Arthur Freed); A Foreign Affair (prod. Charles Brackett); Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (prod. Melvin Frank and Norman Panama); Unfaithfully Yours (prod. Preston Sturges)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) (prod. Giuseppe Amato and Vittorio De Sica)
nominees: Germania anno zero (Germany Year Zero) (prod. Roberto Rossellini and Salvo D'Angelo); La terra trema (The Earth Trembles) (prod. Salvo D'Angelo); Xiao cheng zhi chun (Spring in a Small Town) (prod. Wenhua Film Company); Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel) (prod. Sôjirô Motoki)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Humphrey Bogart (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre)
nominees: Montgomery Clift (The Search and Red River); John Garfield (Force of Evil); Alec Guinness (Oliver Twist); Laurence Olivier (Hamlet); Edward G. Robinson (Key Largo); Takashi Shimura (Yoidore tenshi a.k.a. Drunken Angel); James Stewart (Call Northside 777); John Wayne (Red River)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Rex Harrison (Unfaithfully Yours)
nominees: Fred Astaire (Easter Parade); Cary Grant (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House); Bob Hope (The Paleface); Anton Walbrook (The Red Shoes); Clifton Webb (Sitting Pretty)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Olivia de Havilland (The Snake Pit)
nominees: Irene Dunne (I Remember Mama); Joan Fontaine (Letter From An Unknown Woman); Rita Hayworth (The Lady From Shanghai); Jennifer Jones (Portrait Of Jennie); Barbara Stanwyck (Sorry, Wrong Number); Jane Wyman (Johnny Belinda)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Marlene Dietrich (A Foreign Affair)
nominees: Linda Darnell (Unfaithfully Yours); Judy Garland (Easter Parade); Myrna Loy (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House); Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: John Huston (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre)
nominees: Vittorio De Sica (Ladri di biciclette a.k.a. Bicycle Thieves); John Ford (Fort Apache); Howard Hawks (Red River); Akira Kurosawa (Yoidore tenshi a.k.a. Drunken Angel); Max Ophüls (Letter From An Unknown Woman); Orson Welles (The Lady From Shanghai)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes)
nominees: Preston Sturges (Unfaithfully Yours); Billy Wilder (A Foreign Affair)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Walter Huston (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre)
nominees: Lionel Barrymore (Key Largo); Charles Bickford (Johnny Belinda); Melvyn Douglas (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House); Thomas Gomez (Key Largo and Force Of Evil); Tim Holt (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre); Everett Sloane (The Lady From Shanghai)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Claire Trevor (Key Largo)
nominees: Ethel Barrymore (Portrait Of Jennie); Agnes Moorhead (Johnny Belinda); Jean Simmons (Hamlet); Marie Windsor (Force Of Evil)

SCREENPLAY
winner: John Huston, based on the novel by B. Traven (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre)
nominees: Graham Greene, from his short story "The Basement Room" (The Fallen Idol); Howard Koch, from the novel by Stefan Zweig (Letter From An Unknown Woman); Borden Chase and Charles Schnee, from the short story by Borden Chase (Red River); Preston Sturges (Unfaithfully Yours)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Charles Lawton, Jr. (The Lady From Shanghai) (Cinematography)

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1940)

That pop-pop-popping sound you've been hearing all morning is people's heads exploding as they scroll down the page and see that the Three Stooges have won an award for best actor in a comedy.

The Three Stooges?! What the what?!

And yet the fact is, the Stooges are the best known comedy team in the history of film, still popular (or passionately unpopular) after all these years and I think they are long overdue for some critical recognition.

Did you know they once got an Oscar nomination? They did—or their work did anyway—for the 1934 two-reeler Men in Black. And in 2002, Punch Drunks was selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry. 1940 represents the team at their peak, with arguably the two finest shorts of their career, You Nazty Spy!—a pointed satire of Hitler that beat Chaplin's The Great Dictator into theaters by ten months—and A Plumbing We Will Go, with Curly's attempts to fix a leaky shower serving as the funniest demonstration of the worthlessness of good intentions ever committed to film.

As for Joan Fontaine, the first (I think) living recipient of a Katie-Bar-The-Door Award and my pick for the year's best actress in a drama, she might be the most one-note actress ever to create an indelible screen image. She played submissive, cringing doormats better than anybody—in not only Rebecca, but also Suspicion, Letter From An Unknown Woman, and in a supporting role in The Women—but she couldn't do much else, and I often wonder whether her primary talent was for getting cast in parts perfectly suited to her limited gifts. If so, she's still ahead of me, and I imagine she'll be around feuding with her sister long after I'm gone.

Speaking of her ongoing feud with Olivia de Havilland, I don't know about you, but I find it strangely comforting that they're still at it, like knowing that the sun will come up in the morning. They've been fighting longer than the Cleveland Indians have gone without a World Series title, if that means anything to you, since Franklin Roosevelt was president and there were 48 stars on the flag. Think of all the people who were born, lived, grew old and died during the time that Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland haven't been speaking to each other. That's constancy, man, a strange sort of fidelity more enduring than most marriages.

Just because you're related to somebody doesn't mean you have to like them, I guess.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: The Grapes Of Wrath (prod. Darryl F. Zanuck)
nominees: Foreign Correspondent (prod. Walter Wanger); The Letter (prod. William Wyler); Rebecca (prod. David O. Selznick); The Thief Of Bagdad (prod. Alexander Korda)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: The Philadelphia Story (prod. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
nominees: The Great Dictator (prod. Charles Chaplin); His Girl Friday (prod. Howard Hawks); Pinocchio (prod. Walt Disney); The Shop Around The Corner (prod. Ernst Lubitsch)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Ahí está el detalle (You're Missing The Point) (prod. Jesús Grovas)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Henry Fonda (The Grapes Of Wrath)
nominees: Gary Cooper (The Westerner); Errol Flynn (The Sea Hawk); Raymond Massey (Abe Lincoln In Illinois); Laurence Olivier (Rebecca); Conrad Veidt (The Thief Of Bagdad)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: The Three Stooges (You Nazty Spy!; A Plumbing We Will Go; Nutty But Nice; How High Is Up?; From Nurse To Worse; No Census, No Feeling; Cookoo Cavaliers; and Boobs In Arms)
nominees: Charles Chaplin (The Great Dictator); Brian Donlevy (The Great McGinty); W.C. Fields (The Bank Dick); Cary Grant (His Girl Friday and My Favorite Wife); William Powell (I Love You Again); James Stewart (The Philadelphia Story and The Shop Around The Corner)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Joan Fontaine (Rebecca)
nominees: Bette Davis (All This, And Heaven Too and The Letter); Vivien Leigh (Waterloo Bridge)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Rosalind Russell (His Girl Friday)
nominees: Irene Dunne (My Favorite Wife); Katharine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story); Ann Sheridan (Torrid Zone); Margaret Sullavan (The Shop Around The Corner)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath)
nominees: Michael Curtiz (The Sea Hawk); Alfred Hitchcock (Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent); William Wyler (The Westerner and The Letter)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: George Cukor (The Philadelphia Story)
nominees: Charles Chaplin (The Great Dictator); Howard Hawks (His Girl Friday); Ernst Lubitsch (The Shop Around The Corner); Preston Sturges (The Great McGinty and Christmas in July)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Cary Grant (The Philadelphia Story)
nominees: Ralph Bellamy (His Girl Friday); Walter Brennan (The Westerner); Jack Oakie (The Great Dictator); George Sanders (Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent); John Carradine (The Grapes of Wrath)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Judith Anderson (Rebecca)
nominees: Jane Dorwell (The Grapes Of Wrath); Ruth Hussey (The Philadelphia Story); Gail Patrick (My Favorite Wife); Virginia Weidler (The Philadelphia Story)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Nunnally Johnson, from the novel by John Steinbeck (The Grapes Of Wrath)
nominees: Charles Chaplin (The Great Dictator); Donald Ogden Stewart, from the play by Philip Barry (The Philadelphia Story); Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison (screenplay), Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan (adaptation), from the novel by Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca); Samuel Raphelson, from a play by Miklós László (The Shop Around The Corner)

SPECIAL AWARDS
George Barnes (Rebecca) (Cinematography); Lodge Cunningham (His Girl Friday) (Sound); "When You Wish Upon A Star" (Pinocchio) music by Leigh Harline; lyrics by Ned Washington (Song)