1958--The Year in Review

Ultimately, this year, it comes down to two titles that still live large in the hearts of movie lovers. Hitchcock's masterpiece has recently arrived at the top of collective accolades (most specifically, the 2012 Sight and Sound poll), but I prefer the skeezier pleasures of Welles' astoundingly odd and vibrant B-movie, a film that I caught for the first time on late-night TV and was immediately hooked into its bizarre vision of a world literally exploding before our eyes. I adore many of the accomplished films released in its and its closest competitor's wake, but it's generally a period of middling product--a kind of yawn before the following year's landslide of astonishing cinema. Even so, in 1958, we have Wajda (exhibiting Cybulski's superb lead performance, right before he died too early, just like his US twin James Dean), Kurosawa (whose film would provide a kind of template for Star Wars many decades later), Tati (exhilarating as alter ego Mr. Hulot), and the wonderful work of Rosalind Russell, who'd played the exotic Auntie Mame hundreds of times on Broadway before perfectly assaying the character on film. Unsung supporting performers arrive at the top of their field this year, while in the short film categories, live action (and largely experimental) works overtake traditional animation which, in terms of studio product, took a marked downturn, sad to say (though, in an obvious attempt to right past wrongs, Bugs Bunny wins his FIRST Oscar this year). Still, in the short live action film category arrives Roman Polanski with his remarkable, student-made tribute to silent film comedy (it was a big year for Polish cinema, overall). Ray Harryhausen comes out on top for the first time in the effects category. Meanwhile, Jerry Lee Lewis, with an exciting opening number to a obscure cult film, bests all traditional songwriters in the Best Song category. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold. 

PICTURE: TOUCH OF EVIL (US, Orson Welles)
(2nd: Vertigo (US, Alfred Hitchcock), followed by:
Ashes and Diamonds (Poland, Andrzej Wajda)
Some Came Running (US, Vincente Minnelli)
The Hidden Fortress (Japan, Akira Kurosawa)
Mon Oncle (France, Jacques Tati)
Auntie Mame (US, Morton da Costa)
The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (Czechlosovakia, Karel Zeman)
The Horse’s Mouth (UK, Ronald Neame)
Terror in a Texas Town (US, Joseph H. Lewis)
Big Deal on Madonna Street (Italy, Mario Monicelli)
The Magician (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman)
I Want to Live! (US, Robert Wise)
Man of the West (US, Anthony Mann)
The Big Country (US, William Wyler)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (US, Richard Brooks)
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (US, Douglas Sirk)
The Lovers (France, Louis Malle)
A Night to Remember (UK, Roy Ward Baker)
Gigi (US, Vincente Minnelli)
The Defiant Ones (US, Stanley Kramer)
The Old Man and The Sea (US, John Sturges)
Separate Tables (US/UK, Delbert Mann)
The Left-Handed Gun (US, Arthur Penn)
The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (US, Nathan Juran)
I Bury the Living (US, Albert Band)
Horror of Dracula (UK, Terence Fisher)
No Time for Sergeants (US, Mervyn Le Roy)
Damn Yankees (US, Stanley Donen and George Abbott)
Buchanan Rides Alone (US, Budd Boetticher)
Cry Terror! (US, Andrew L. Stone)
Bell Book and Candle (US, Richard Quine)
Indiscreet (US, Stanley Donen)
South Pacific (US, Joshua Logan)
The Blob (US, Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.)
The Fly (US, Kurt Neumann)
Thunder Road (US, Arthur Ripley)
The Last Hurrah (US, John Ford)
Run Silent Run Deep (US, Robert Wise)
King Creole (US, Michael Curtiz)
It! The Terror from Beyond Space (US, Edward L. Cahn)
High School Confidential (US, Jack Arnold)
tom thumb (US, George Pal)

ACTOR: James Stewart, VERTIGO (2nd: Orson Welles, Touch of Evil, followed by: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ashes and Diamonds; Alec Guinness, The Horse’s Mouth; Frank Sinatra, Some Came Running; Richard Boone, I Bury the Living; Sidney Poitier, The Defiant Ones; David Niven, Separate Tables; Andy Griffith, No Time for Sergeants; Spencer Tracy, The Old Man and the Sea) 

ACTRESS: Rosalind Russell, AUNTIE MAME (2nd: Shirley MacLaine, Some Came Running, followed by: Susan Hayward, I Want to Live!; Kim Novak, Vertigo; Elizabeth Taylor, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Jeanne Moreau, The Lovers; Deborah Kerr, Separate Tables; Inger Stevens, Cry Terror!) 

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Joseph Calleia, TOUCH OF EVIL (2nd: Dean Martin, Some Came Running, followed by: Myron McCormick, No Time for Sergeants; Dennis Weaver, Touch of Evil; Burl Ives, The Big Country; Akim Tamiroff, Touch of Evil; Ray Walston, Damn Yankees; Burl Ives, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Arthur Kennedy, Some Came Running)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Wendy Hiller, SEPARATE TABLES (2nd: Gwen Verdon, Damn Yankees, followed by: Marlene Dietrich, Touch of Evil; Hermione Gingold, Gigi; Judith Anderson, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Maureen Stapleton, Lonelyhearts; Barbara Bel Geddes, Vertigo; Coral Browne, Auntie Mame; Angela Lansbury, The Long Hot Summer)

DIRECTOR: Orson Welles, TOUCH OF EVIL (2nd: Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo, followed by: Andrzej Wajda, Ashes and Diamonds; Akira Kurosawa, The Hidden Fortress; Vincente Minnelli, Some Came Running; Jacques Tati, Mon Oncle; Karel Zeman, The Fabulous World of Jules Verne; Morton Da Costa, Auntie Mame)

NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FILM: ASHES AND DIAMONDS (Poland, Andrzej Wajda) (2nd: The Hidden Fortress (Japan, Akira Kurosawa), followed by: Mon Oncle (France, Jacques Tati); The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (Czechlosovakia, Karel Zeman); Big Deal on Madonna Street (Italy, Mario Monicelli); The Magician (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman); The Lovers (France, Louis Malle))

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Jacques Tati, Jacques Lagrange, and Jean L'Hote, MON ONCLE (2nd: Nedric Young and Harold Jacob Smith, The Defiant Ones, followed by: Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Akira Kurosawa, The Hidden Fortress; Louis Garfinkle, I Bury the Living; Ingmar Bergman, The Magician)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:  Orson Welles, TOUCH OF EVIL (2nd: Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor, Vertigo, followed by: Alec Guinness, The Horse's Mouth; Jerzy Andrzejewski and Andrzej Wajda, Ashes and Diamonds; Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, and Mario Monicelli, Big Deal on Madonna Street)

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: TWO MEN AND A WARDROBE (Poland, Roman Polanski) (2nd: Le Chant du Styrène (France, Alain Resnais); A Movie (US, Bruce Conner); Glass (Netherlands, Bert Haanstra); Grand Canyon (US, Walt Disney))



ANIMATED SHORT FILM: FREE RADICALS (UK, Lenny Lye) (2nd: Schwechater (Austria, Peter Kubelka), followed by: Hook, Line and Stinker (Chuck Jones); Knighty Knight Bugs (US, Friz Freling); Paul Bunyan (US, Les Clark and Walt Disney)



BLACK-AND-WHITE CINEMATOGRAPHY: Russell Metty, TOUCH OF EVIL (2nd: Ichio Yamazaki, The Hidden Fortress, followed by: Geoffrey Unsworth, A Night to Remember; Lionel Lindon, I Want to Live!; Jerzy Wojcik, Ashes and Diamonds)



COLOR CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Burks, VERTIGO (2nd: William H. Daniels, Some Came Running, followed by: Jean Bourgoin, Mon Oncle; Franz Planer, The Big Country; Harry Stradling, Jr., Auntie Mame)

BLACK-AND-WHITE ART DIRECTION: A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, The Hidden Fortress, Touch of Evil, Separate Tables, King Creole

COLOR ART DIRECTION: VERTIGO, Gigi, Mon Oncle, Auntie Mame, Bell Book and Candle

BLACK-AND-WHITE COSTUME DESIGN: I WANT TO LIVE!, A Night to Remember, Ashes and Diamonds, The Hidden Fortress, The Magician 

COLOR COSTUME DESIGN: GIGI, Auntie Mame, Some Came Running, The Buccaneer, Damn Yankees

FILM EDITING: TOUCH OF EVIL, Vertigo, I Want to Live!, The Defiant Ones, The Hidden Fortress 

SOUND: VERTIGO, South Pacific, Damn Yankees, I Want to Live!, The Defiant Ones



ORIGINAL SCORE: Bernard Herrmann, VERTIGO (2nd: Henry Mancini, Touch of Evil, followed by: Jerome Moross, The Big Country; Bernard Herrmann, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad; Dimitri Tiomkin, The Old Man and the Sea) 


 
ADAPTED OR MUSICAL SCORE: Ray Heindorf, DAMN YANKEES (2nd: Andre Previn, Gigi, followed by: Alfred Newman and Ken Darby, South Pacific)



ORIGINAL SONG: "High School Confidential" from HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (Music and lyrics by Jerry Lee Lewis) (2nd: "I Remember It Well" from Gigi (Music by Frederic Loewe, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner), followed by: "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" from Gigi (Music by Frederic Loewe, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner); "Almost in Your Arms" from Houseboat (Music and lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans); "Teacher's Pet" from Teacher's Pet (Music and lyrics by Joe Lubin))
  


SPECIAL EFFECTS: THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, The Fabulous World of Jules Verne, A Night to Remember, tom thumb

MAKEUP: THE FLY, Auntie Mame, Touch of Evil

Films #139 and #140: Catalog (1961) AND per-mu-ta-tion (1966)

Animator John Whitney Sr., one of the fathers of modern computer animation, built a one-of-a-kind animation contraption in the late 50s after messing around with parts from a World War II anti-aircraft plane's gun director. After a bit of tweaking, the machine stood at twelve feet and could produce dazzling images, if operated correctly. According to Wikipedia, "Design templates were placed on three different layers of rotating tables and photographed by multiple-axis rotating cameras. Color was added during optical printing." So this film Catalog is merely that: a stunning demo reel designed to test the limits of this massive device (and imagine the additional effort put into optically coloring the original black-and-white footage!!).

John Whitney Jr., now also a filmmaker (along with his two brothers), offers here a technical explanation of how his father's machine worked:

I don't know how many simultaneous motions can be happening at once. There must be at least five ways just to operate the shutter. The input shaft on the camera rotates at 180 rpm, which results in a photographing speed of 8 fps. [normal speed is 24 frames per second--JDT] That cycle time is constant, not variable, but we never shoot that fast. It takes about nine seconds to make one revolution. During this nine-second cycle the tables are spinning on their own axes while simultaneously revolving around another axis while moving horizontally across the range of the camera, which may itself be turning or zooming up and down. During this operation we can have the shutter open all the time, or just at the end for a second or two, or at the beginning, or for half of the time if we want to do slit-scanning.

Slit-scan is the special effect used by Douglas Trumbull to arrive at the famed Stargate sequence at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trumbull and Kubrick both were inspired greatly by the effects Whitney came up with in Catalog. In fact, as you watch the piece, you'll be aware of yourself falling into the same sort of abstracting trance the Stargate sequence produces for Kubrick. Like many of Whitney's subsequent works (which you can locate on You Tube if you search for this film), it's a magical, meditative movie, backed by Gyorgy Ligeti-like music (which furthers the 2001 connection), and produces purely color-, musical- and geometry-based emotions (the film is an early version of John Whitney Sr.'s 1966 film per-mu-ta-tion). Both movies are landmarks not only of animated and experimental cinema, but also of television (where would 70s TV graphics be without it?), abstract art, and the merging of technology and human expression. Whitney was a genius of bold feelings and of knowing how things work. Check it out. PS: Trivia note: Whitney also produced the spiragraph-like drawings adorning Saul Bass's credits sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo).

REMEMBER, VIEWERS: this is 1961 and 1966 here. My recommendation: start both movies at the same time and watch them both on one screen. The violin score on Catalog and the percussion score on per-mu-ta-tion work together absolutely perfectly--enough to make me think that both movies were designed to be seen simultaneously. I will never, now, see either without the other.



and in 1966, now start...: per-mu-ta-tion



NOTE, ONCE AGAIN: For a REALLY unique viewing experience, run both films concurrently, on top of each other. That's my steadfast recommendation. The neat thing is: it makes every viewing experience different, because (now, at least) we have control over which movie stops and starts and when each movie does so. This could potentially make for an infinite number of versions for simultaneous viewings of Catalog and per-mu-ta-tion.