1961: West Side Story

The fire escape imagery has become iconic and forever linked with West Side Story

I’ve just kissed a girl named Maria,
And suddenly I’ve found
How wonderful a sound
Can be!
Maria! – Tony, West Side Story

West Side Story, 1961’s Best Picture, is a much-loved, but fairly ridiculous movie. I mean that in a nice way because I really did enjoy watching this movie and hummed several of the songs for days afterwards, but, alas, this is a movie that has not aged very well. The fully bonefied love-child of the Hollywood Musical and the Socially Conscious picture (thus making it the very perfect Best Picture winner of its time), West Side Story, a modernized retelling of Romeo and Juliette blended with troubled youth hysteria and Broadway glitz, seems like it might have been shocking by the standards of 1961. But today, watching tough guys pirouette through the streets in menacing fashion all feels rather silly.

Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood), the modern day Romeo and Juliet, sing “Tonight” on the aforementioned fire escape

In a hardscrabble patch of contemporary New York City, the Jets, a teen gang of nogoodniks run the streets but are facing encroachment from a Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks. Tony (Richard Beymer) is a Jets founder who has left the gang for the upward mobile career path of candy store clerk, but is implored by current leader Riff (Russ Tamblyn) to help set the terms for a “rumble” to establish supremacy between the Jets and Sharks. At the local youth center dance (a neutral ground the gangs use for the negotiations), Tony immediately falls in love with Maria (Natalie Wood), the sister of Sharks’ leader Bernardo (George Chakiris). Awkward. Overcome with love, Maria makes Tony promise to stop the rumble all together, but when Tony tries, a simple fist fight turns into a knife fight and both Riff and Bernardo are killed (Bernardo by Tony, in fact. Doubly Awkward.). Tony and Maria decide to run away together but are separated first. When Tony believes Maria has been killed, he walks through the streets demanding the Sharks kill him. He finally finds Maria alive but is shot as he runs to her and dies. Maria chides both sides for their endless cycle of violence and both gangs carry off Tony’s body.

A lot of fun has been poked at West Side Story over the years. Anytime gangs snap their fingers in menacing form or have impressively choreographed tough guy walks (even Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video pays homage to the knife fight), those parodies are springing from West Side Story. The fight scenes are some of the most ridiculous, choreographed nonsense ever put on celluloid. But there are also a lot of affecting parts to West Side Story. The central love story between Tony and Maria in particular is moving, and their all-encompassing young love captures the same manic enrapture of Shakespeare’s inspirational lovers.

Bernardo and the Sharks in one of their “tough guy” choreographed dance routines.

The movie’s songs are pretty stupendous and several – “I Feel Pretty”, “Maria”, “In America” – have become standards and the movie provides appropriate dance numbers to match. Natalie Wood is a very good actress most of the time, but her Puerto Rican accent borders on embarrassing in parts. Neither Wood nor Beymer sang their own songs in this movie, and even though it was standard Hollywood practice at the time (and will show up again in a future Best Picture) it still feels like something of a cheat.

The movie’s central theme is muddled between a plea for racial tolerance and a plea to “fix” troubled youth and often both are explained with dialogue that’s a little too on-the-nose. In one groaner of an exchange a shopkeeper asks the Jets: “When do you kids stop? You make this world lousy!” to which a Jet replies “We didn’t make (the world), Doc.” In fact, the Jets have a whole song about how the buck for their problems keeps getting passed around. Later, when Maria is verbally berating both Jets and Sharks she screams “All of you! You all killed him! And my brother, and Riff. Not with bullets, or guns, with hate,” which certainly doesn’t lack or subtlety.

I don’t mean to tear West Side Story down because I really did like it for the most part, but there is a very square quality to this movie. It’s essentially the guy who thinks he’s the coolest in the room but everything has moved on and now he just seems over-the-hill. See it for the romance and the songs, but be warned you’re also getting some unintentional comedy.

Other Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actor (George Chakiris)*; Best Supporting Actress (Rita Moreno); Art Direction*; Cinematography; Costume Design; Director (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins); Editing; Original Score; Sound

Other Notable Movies of 1961: Fanny*; The Guns of Navarone*; The Hustler*; Judgment at Nuremburg*; The Parent Trap; The Absent Minded Professor; El Cid; La Dolce Vita; 101 Dalmatians; Splendor in the Grass; Breakfast at Tiffany’s; The Misfits

*Best Picture Nominee

Box Office: $43 Million (#1 for the year)

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

1949: All the King’s Men

Now that’s a tag line!

“I don’t need money. People gives me things because they believe in me.” – WIllie Stark (Broderick Crawford) on the merits of the political system, All the King’s Men.

The Academy Awards closed out the 1940s by celebrating a scathing indictment of America’s political system run amuck.

All the King’s Men, 1949’s Best Picture is a terrific movie featuring some really great performances, especially Broderick Crawford as a scheming politician who morphs from well-meaning do-gooder to all-powerful dictator, Breaking Bad style, over the course of two hours. Unlike a lot of the social ill movies that had previously won Best Picture, All the King’s Men doesn’t offer any sort of answer to fix the problem. In fact, the villain, the corrupt politician, is the main character of the movie, an early anti-hero who is captivating in just how easily he wins over the people despite his wicked ways.

Best Actor Winner Broderick Crawford as hick politician-turned-near-dictator Willie Stark

All the King’s Men is loosely based on the life of noted Louisiana politician Huey Long (or as a snooty English major would say, All the King’s Men is a roman à clef). Crawford pays Willie Stark, a self-described hick, who we’re lead to believe is an “honest man” because about 30 different people describe him that way in the first 15 minutes of the film. Stark is being pushed around in his campaign to become county treasure of a small rural town controlled by a yokel machine (Having worked around rural politics for a number of years, I found these early scenes to be eerily truthful). Stark is championed by Jack Bender, a newspaper reporter suffering from liberal guilt due to his own financially successful family. Stark loses his election, but when his cause cèlèbre – the faulty construction of a local schoolhouse – proves prescient, he is catapulted into state politics.

At first Stark is used as a pawn in the electoral machine, a way to split the vote between the rural sect to get an urban punk elected. But when Stark starts using inflammatory speeches and playing to his constituents’ emotions, he wins over the crowds. Once he’s elected governor, anything goes. Stark hires Bender as a hatchet man to keep dirt on both friends and enemies he needs to control. Increasingly power hungry, arrogant and womanizing, Stark seems unstoppable in his quest for power.

Stark at the height of power

All the King’s Men offers a lot of interesting insight into the American political landscape, not just of the 1940s but even as it carries over into today’s world. Foremost is its examination of the cult of personality that plays into any popular election. Stark doesn’t win the election because he’s the best educated – he actually picks up steam when he stops spouting “facts and figures” and just uses emotional rhetoric. His natural charisma is what wins him over with voters and keeps him popular even as his various corrupt deeds are revealed. The system Willie has to work with is also shown to be broken. Yes, Willie has to bribe and blackmail, but the movie also suggests that’s the only way to get anything done (not unlike the moral quandaries that faced Jeremy Renner’s sympathetic mayor in last year’s American Hustle).

I liked this movie because it didn’t force feed its message in ways other “social ill” movies like The Lost Weekend did and there’s no easy answer to the problem like The Lost Weekend provides. The system as a whole is filled with flaws and taken advantage of by corrupt men. Willie is a great complex character too. He isn’t just an innocent babe in the woods whose naivety leads to his folly. He’s always shown to have a streak of ambition in him, but he loses all control once he gains power. He also does do a lot of good while in office – building highways and hospitals – even if his motives aren’t necessary pure and the deals he cuts to get the jobs done are far from ethical.

My only complaint about All the King’s Men was its ending. Without giving it away, I will say it was rather abrupt and I really felt like it needed an extra five minutes to give some closure to the characters who weren’t Willie. But overall, All the King’s Men remains an exciting political thriller and fascinating character study of modern politics.

Other Oscars Won: Broderick Crawford (Best Actor), Mercedes McCambridge (Best Supporting Actress)

Other Notable Movies of 1949: Battleground*, The Heiress*, A Letter to Three Wives*,Twelve O’Clock High*, Samson and Delilah#, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Bicycle Thief, White Heat, Under Capricorn, Adam’s Rib

*Best Picture Nominee

#Top Grossing Movie of the Year