1948-1957: Oscar’s Third Decade – A Look Back

On The Waterfront was my favorite movie from this decade – and definitely the best poster yet

The 1950s’s Oscars – and 1950s pop culture in general – gets a pretty bad rap as white-washed, conformist and undaring. A lot of Oscar history books tend to throw out phrases like “Worst Collection of Best Picture nominees ever” (for 1956 from The Academy Awards Handbook) or “Least Deserving Best Picture Winner of All Time (For The Greatest Show on Earth from multiple sources including Alternate Oscars and The Official Razzie Movie Guide). However, I enjoyed this 10-pack of films much more than the previous decade of Oscar winners (even if none could match Casablanca). I felt that the movies began to “speed up,” by which I mean directors added more cuts and edits to make the movie feel faster as opposed to the relatively static filming styles of earlier times). Movies started to have a more modern look and feel as the science behind movie making advanced in this time period.

The third decade of Oscars also had a much more eclectic “something for everyone” nature to their themes and styles than what came in the previous decade. Most Best pictures from 1938-1947 were divided into the dual themes of either World War II or social ills and most (except for the extravagant Gone With the Wind) were middle-to-low-budget affairs, due to World War II cutbacks and the nature of the stories (a movie about alcoholism, for example, doesn’t need elaborate sets of shots of epic grandeur). From 1948-1957, the themes, styles and budgets of the Best Picture winners are all over the place. We start with a sparse recreation of a classic stage play, then move back to social ills with All the King’s Men, but on a larger scope than your Lost Weekends and Gentleman’s Agreements. Then we hit some lavish, big-budget, all color extravaganzas before heading to the smaller personal stories of On the Waterfront and Marty before going bigger than ever before in shooting style and budget with Around the World in 80 Days and the Bridge on the River Kwai.

 

	Corrupt Authority /Society	Small Scale	Epic/Big Budg	World War II	Social Ills	Sex	Modern Times	Gross
1948: Hamlet	X	X				X		$3.25M (17)
1949: All the Kings Men	X				X	X	X	$3.5M (10)
1950: All About Eve						X	X	$3.6M (7)
1951: An American in Paris			X				X	$4.5M (6)
1952: The Greatest Show on Earth			X				X	$14M (1)
1953: From Here to Eternity	X		X	X	X	X	X	$12.5M (2)
1954: On the Waterfront	X	X			X		X	$4.5M (14)
1955: Marty		X					X	$2M
1956: Around the World in 80 Days			X					$23M (2)
1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai	X		X	X			X	$17.1M (1)

 

A few interesting common themes do emerge. In almost every one of these movies – even the seemingly incongruous Hamlet – there is a corrupt society or authority figure. Whereas the World War II era of movies showed a decided trust in leadership, the McCarthy Red Scare and perhaps other factors clearly altered the public’s faith in those who were supposed to guide them.

Did the public’s fear of Communism lead to so many Best Pictures about corrupt or broken authority and leadership?

Movies also began to look back on World War II with a more introspective, less rah-rah perspective then presented during the actual time of the War. Both Best Pictures dealing with World War II in this decade have bullying, corrupt and foolish leadership (Interestingly, From Here to Eternity was released at the tail end of the Korean War, a war considerably less popular and triumphant than World War II). Did the passage of time allow those who lived through the war to reconsider it, as appeared to happen in the 1920s and30s with movies dealing with World War I? Did the greater ambiguities and indecisive outcome of the Korean War change the public’s overall perception of war?

Alec Guinness deluded Colonel Nicholson is a huge departure from the dignified leaders of the 40s

Another interesting note is the overall alignment between commercial and Oscar success. Between 1948 and 1957, 7 out of the 10 winners were in the top ten for their respective year’s box office and two were the number one movie for the year. Compare that to the past decade’s winners, when no Best Picture winners made their year’s top ten .There is a not altogether unfair assumption that today’s Oscar’s are out of touch with popular appeal, but that certainly did not appear to be the case in the late 40’s and 50s.

Here’s how the collective themes of the third decade stack up to the last ten Best Picture winners.

	Corrupt Authority /Society	Small Scale	Epic/ Big Budg	World War II	Social Ills	Sex	Modern Times	Gross
2004: Million Dollar Baby		X					X	$216M
2005: Crash	X				X	X	X	$98M
2006: The Departed	X?						X	$90M
2007: No Country for Old Men							X	$171M
2008: Slumdog Millionaire	X?						X	$378M
2009: The Hurt Locker		X					X	$49M
2010: The King’s Speech								$414M
2011: The Artist		X						$133M
2012: Argo								$232M
2013: 12 Years a Slave	X							$187M

 

Period pieces are generally considered good Oscar bait and while this is true for technical categories like Art Direction (aka sets) and Costumes, this assumption clearly holds no water the 1940s-50 Best Picture winners or in today’s winners. In fact, even though the last four Best Picture winners could be considered period pieces under a rather broad definition (a movie set 30 or more years in the past where the look, dress and actions of the characters purposefully reflect the given time period), none of those movies really represent the haughty Merchant Ivory type fair that people really think of when describing a period piece (Calling Argo a period piece for example seems strange but it technically fits the definition).

Those sideburns are definitely period piece

Strangely, despite our increased distrust of big government, few Best Pictures of the last yen years represent a broken society or authority. (12 Years a Slave and Crash being the obvious exceptions. Slumdog Millionaire is a strange case in that the broken society is what ultimately provides the hero the keys to success. ) In fact, Kings Speech and Argo present government leaders and agencies working hard for the common good.

SEX! SEX! SEX! It’s on everybody’s minds in the 50s

Another interesting note: While we typically think of the 60s as the advent of the sexual revolution and increasing depictions of sexuality on the screen, a surprising number of the 1950s Best Pictures deal with sexuality in some form, usually with at least a hint of scandal to them (dating back to Hamlet, where Olivier intentionally gave emphasis to Hamlet’s obsession with his mother’s sex life). Several of the Best Picture winners had affairs between unmarried people or extramarital affairs. Meanwhile, one could argue the last decade’s collection of Best Picture winners are among the least sexy – and sexless – collection of movies ever assembled.

…well, maybe not hers

1948 Hamlet

“This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.” – Narrator, dumbing down the plot of Hamlet

Hamlet, 1948’s Best Picture, is an unusual case among Oscar winners. Although many Best Pictures are adaptions of plays or books, Hamlet is the only one that is an adaptation of a classic renowned piece of literature you are most likely required to read in high school (there’s never been a Dickens adaption that won Best Picture, for example) (I suppose All Quiet on the Western Front now falls into the required high school reading list, but it was a relatively new book when it was made into a movie). Also because it’s Shakespeare, Hamlet is one of the most “play-ish” movies to ever win Best Picture although director Laurence Olivier employs many of the popular noir film techniques of the day to spruce things up.

Since I assume everyone’s read Hamlet, I will give only a brief synopsis of the plot. Hamlet (Olivier), the prince of Denmark is depressed following his father’s death and the subsequent remarriage of his mother, Gertrude (Eileen Herlie) to his father’s brother, Claudius (Basil Sydney). Hamlet’s father’s ghost reveals to his son that Claudius, in fact, murdered the king and charges Hamlet with getting revenge. Hamlet, in a quandary about the situation, opts to feign madness in order to ferret out the truth, leaving a trail of havoc and death in his wake, mostly focused on his on-and-off again girlfriend Ophelia (Jean Simmons) and her father, Polonius (Felix Aylmer), the king’s pompous advisor.

I’m 82% sure Olivier dyed his hair for the role, and if so, it looks TERRIBLE

So anyway, if you can remember Hamlet from high school or college English, you probably know what you are getting into here. Of note to English majors, is Olivier’s decision to cut three major characters – Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Fortenbras – from the story as part of an overall slimming down of the story. The actual play runs four hours (!) (Kenneth Branaugh made a full version of it in the 1990s) and this movie clocks in at a trim(ish) 2.5. As noted, Olivier is also greatly influenced by the popular noir style of the time, with lots of shadows and low angles.

Olivier transforms many of the soliloquies from spoken words into overdubbed thoughts, with mixed results. Sometimes this effect is unintentionally laughable, especially when the actor is trying too hard to react to what they are thinking.

Olivier also focuses a lot on the relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet. While the exact nature of their relationship is one that has captivated lit majors for centuries, Olivier definitely has an opinion on it, including highlighting sequences where Hamlet is obsessed with Gertrude and Claudius getting it on and even having the mother and son give VERY tender kisses at a couple different times in the movie.

A cool shot with Claudius in the foreground and Hamlet in the back, as if haunting the King’s thoughts

Olivier’s Hamlet is considered a pinnacle of acting achievement, but the truth is it has not aged well. I found much of Olivier’s performance to be pretty hammy and very emotive. Today’s audiences are more attuned to a natural performer like Daniel Day Lewis, I think. I actually thought Simmon’s Ophelia gave a better performance as the batty Ophelia. Also, for whatever, reason, Olivier delivers the very famous “To Be or Not To Be” speech in a half repose, so that he looks utterly bored while reciting the single most famous speech in the history of English literature.

This is a fine production of Hamlet, but it’s not exceptionally notable or blows away other Hamlets. As noted, I liked the direction and sets a lot – the big empty castles are marvelous, the tracking shots that follow the characters up different flights of stairs or show different characters doing different things simultaneously are cool. But I think the reason there’s never been another Shakespeare movie to win Best Picture or very few adaptions of English Lit’s classical cannon have won is that these classical stories are so ingrained in our conscious they don’t have any surprises to offer us. They give us what we expect. Hamlet is a good production of Hamlet but it’s not going to blow you away.

Trivia: Laurence Olivier is one of only two directors to direct himself to the Best Actor award (the other was Roberto Benigni for Life is Beautiful in 1998).

 

Other notable movies in 1948: Johnny Belinda*, The Red Shoes*#, The Snake Pit*, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre*, Red River, Easter Parade, Key Largo

* Best Picture Nominee

#Top Grossing movie of the year