skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Back in January, I posted a list of my favorite performances by an actress in the 1960s, and a couple of weeks ago, Mary Field challenged me to come up with a similar list of actors. Ms. Field has posted her own list of the top ten greatest acting performances here. Nothing so ambitious for me — I can barely narrow down the top ten performances of any given year — but here is a short chronological list of my personal faves from between 1960 and 1969.
Jack Lemmon (The Apartment) — his finest non-drag performance, maybe his finest, period. And in one of my all-time favorite movies, too.
"Mrs. MacDougall, I think it is only fair to warn you that you are now alone with a notorious sexpot."
James Cagney (One, Two, Three) — not one of Billy Wilder's better-known comedies, but Cagney's performance is finger-snapping good and Katie-Bar-The-Door quotes him every time we go to a baseball game.
"You know what the first thing is I'm going to do? I'm going to lead the workers down there in revolt!
"Put your pants on, Spartacus!"
Tony Randall (Lover Come Back) — My favorite Tony Randall performance, here playing a millionaire CEO living in the shadow of his late father.
"You don't realize how completely he dominated me ever since I was a little boy. Just once I spoke back to him. He cut a switch from a tree and gave me such a whipping, in front of this girl. It was a shattering experience."
"Pete, all kids get whippings."
"But I was twenty five! The girl was my fiancée!"
Robert Preston (The Music Man) — True story: in law school, my pals and I learned all the words to "Marian the Librarian" and sang it to a girl. Named Marian. Who was an undergraduate librarian. Sometimes life just serves it up to you on a platter.
"Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays."
Steve McQueen (The Great Escape) — technically, my favorite performance here is by Steve McQueen's motorcycle, but he's the one riding it, so ...
"Are all American officers so ill-mannered?"
"Yeah, about 99 percent."
The entire cast of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb — you know, a friend once confessed she watched this movie and didn't understand why it was supposed to be a comedy. We're not friends anymore.
"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks."
The Beatles (A Hard Day's Night) — if you have to ask, I can't tell you.
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, yeah. The lads frequently sit around the telly and watch her for a giggle. One time, we actually sat down and wrote these letters saying how gear she was and all that rubbish."
"She's a trendsetter. It's her profession."
"She's a drag. A well known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things."
Michael Dunn (TV's The Wild, Wild West) — maybe the greatest television villain ever. My favorite, anyway.
"I thought you were dead."
"Oh, no, Mr. West! I'm afraid I shall never die. Death is too ordinary. The humiliation would kill me."
Charlie Brown (TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas) — reaching deep for pathos, comedy and blistering insight into the emptiness of our consumer-driven culture, this round-headed kid really brought it.
"How about cats? If you're afraid of cats, you have ailurophasia."
"Well, sort of, but I'm not sure."
Paul Newman (Harper) — I like Paul Newman. I like his movies, I like his pizza, I like his salad dressing. I like everything there is to like about Paul Newman. Except Paul Newman. How do you account for that? I kid. But I do like Paul Newman.
"What do you do this kind of crummy work for, anyway?"
"What, are you trying to be funny? I do it because I believe in the United Nations and Southeast Asia, and — you think it's funny if your life depends on what goes through the Panama Canal? What about the English pound? I'll tell you something — as long as there's a Siberia, you'll find Lew Harper on the job."
"Are you putting me on?"
"Jeez, I don't think so. "
Lee Marvin (The Dirty Dozen) — Katie-Bar-The-Door once gave me this movie as a Valentine's Day present. No wonder I love her!
"I owe you an apology, colonel. I always thought that you were a cold, unimaginative, tight-lipped officer. But you're really quite emotional, aren't you?"
Zero Mostel (The Producers) — probably one of the three most quoted movies when my pals Muleboy and Bellotoot get together.
"Oh my God!"
"You mean 'oops,' don't you? Just say 'oops' and get out! "
Hal 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey) — saw this in the theater as a kid in 1968, and I say, while a lot of computers turned in fine work in the 1960s, particularly the Robot on Lost in Space, the Hal 9000 topped them all.
"I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid."
Saw this yesterday with Mister Muleboy at the AFI-Silver. In case you've never seen it, it's based on the true story of the mass escape of British prisoners from a German POW camp during World War II. A couple of Hollywood's biggest stars, James Garner and Steve McQueen, were shoehorned into the story—and thank God for studio interference. Garner is merely great while McQueen gives the most exciting performance of his career. His love affair with a motorcycle is justly legendary.
5 stars out of 5.
Also starring Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, James Donald, David McCallum, Gordon Jackson, Hannes Messemer, Angus Lennie, Nigel Stock. Produced and directed by John Sturges. Elmer Bernstein wrote the iconic score.
[SPOILERS] I don't know how many times I've seen this movie, but I never fail to watch white-knuckled thinking this time McQueen is going to make it over that fence.
Bonus Trivia: Donald Pleasence, who plays the nerdy, half-blind forger, was in real life an RAF officer who was shot down and spent the war in a POW camp. Also, thanks to the miracle of film editing, one of the German soldiers chasing Steve McQueen on a motorcycle is Steve McQueen.
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)
Posts
