1957--The Year in Review

Another remarkable year for movies. Ingmar Bergman makes a splash with TWO masterpieces (how was he able to do it??), while Fellini, Kurosawa (also with two), Kalatozov, Wajda, Malle and Ozu contribute essential works. David Lean became the big winner this year, as far as the Oscars go, and his popular tale of WWII heroism cannot be denied respect. But it's a very different war movie--Stanley Kubrick's true breakthrough as a visionary of ultimate import--that resonates above all, at least in my estimation, with his recounting of WWI futility and injustice. It's simply the most exciting movie of the year; Paths of Glory goes by in a flash--in a way I've never seen a movie do since--and is totally a punch in the gut when it's all over (and made with an incredibly though imperceptibly low budget). In the acting races, it's mostly triumph of foreign output, with old-timer Sjostrom (a former silent filmmaker in both Sweden and America) and newcomers Giulietta Masina (Fellini's bonafide muse) and Sweden's Ingrid Thulin out front. Even so, it's a completely lucrative year for Hollywood, with great westerns, horror, noir, sci-fi, musical, and war movies dotting the screens. Otherwise, as far as the US output goes, it was New York's newcomer Sidney Lumet who provided the movie that most Americans return to again and again--a tribute to the US justice system, one that realizes its faults and merits, with twelve very deeply nuanced and well-performed characters (it was so painfully difficult to choose amongst them for the supporting actor prize). Meanwhile, a transplanted British director delivers a gorgeously scathing indictment of US entertainment journalism. As for the short films, Mexico's Alejandro Jodorowsky arrives on the scene with a vibrantly colored bit of dark whimsy, while Chuck Jones provides perhaps the crown jewel of the Warner Brothers team's rich output. Elvis Presley makes further marks on the film landscape, as do nuclear-driven sci-fi and Hammer horror. 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: PATHS OF GLORY (US, Stanley Kubrick)
(2nd: Wild Strawberries (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman), followed by:
12 Angry Men (US, Sidney Lumet)
The Seventh Seal (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman)
Sweet Smell of Success (US, Alexander Mackendrick)
Nights of Cabiria (Italy, Federico Fellini)
A Face in the Crowd (US, Elia Kazan)
Throne of Blood (Japan, Akira Kurosawa)
Funny Face (US, Stanley Donen)
The Cranes are Flying (USSR, Mikhail Kalatozov)
On the Bowery (US, Lionel Rogosin)
Kanal (Poland, Andrzej Wajda)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (UK/US, David Lean)
Witness for the Prosecution (US, Billy Wilder)
Night of the Demon (UK, Jacques Tourneur)
Crime of Passion (US, Gerd Oswald)
The Tall T (US, Budd Boetticher)
The Tin Star (US, Anthony Mann)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (US, Jack Arnold)
Elevator to the Gallows (France, Louis Malle)
Men in War (US, Anthony Mann)
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (US, John Huston)
The Tarnished Angels (US, Douglas Sirk)
Tokyo Twilight (Japan, Yasujiro Ozu)
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (US, Frank Tashlin)
3:10 to Yuma (US, Delmer Daves)
An Affair to Remember (US, Leo McCarey)
Love in the Afternoon (US, Billy Wilder)
Peyton Place (US, Mark Robson)
Gunfight at the OK Corral (US, John Sturges)
Fear Strikes Out (US, Robert Mulligan)
The Curse of Frankenstein (UK, Terence Fisher)
Old Yeller (US, Robert Stevenson)
Forty Guns (US, Samuel Fuller)
The Strange One (US, Jack Garfein)
A Hatful of Rain (US, Fred Zinnemann)
Enemy From Space (UK, Val Guest)
The Lower Depths (Japan, Akira Kurosawa)
The Prince and the Showgirl (US/UK, Laurence Olivier)
The Bachelor Party (US, Delbert Mann);
Desk Set (US, Walter Lang)
Man of a Thousand Faces (US, Joseph Pevney)
The Spirit of St. Louis (US, Billy Wilder)
Il Grido (Italy, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Run of the Arrow (US, Samuel Fuller)
The Pajama Game (US, Stanley Donen)
Zero Hour (US, Hall Bartlett)
Sayonara (US, Joshua Logan)
Silk Stockings (US, Rouben Mamoulian)
The Three Faces of Eve (US, Nunnally Johnson)
Not of This Earth (US, Roger Corman)
The Amazing Colossal Man (US, Burt I. Gordon)
The Pride and the Passion (US, Stanley Kramer)
20 Million Miles to Earth (US, Nathan Juran)
Jailhouse Rock (US, Richard Thorpe)
The Delinquents (US, Robert Altman)
The Monster That Challenged the World (US, Arnold Laven)
I Was a Teenage Werewolf (US, Gene Fowler Jr.))

ACTOR:  Andy Griffith, A FACE IN THE CROWD (2nd: Victor Sjöstrom, Wild Strawberries, followed by: Burt Lancaster, Sweet Smell of Success; Henry Fonda, 12 Angry Men; Kirk Douglas, Paths of Glory; Tony Curtis, Sweet Smell of Success; Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai; Charles Laughton, Witness for the Prosecution; Toshiro Mifune, Throne of Blood; Ben Gazzara, The Strange One) 
 

ACTRESS: Giulietta Masina, NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (2nd: Tatiana Samoilova, The Cranes Are Flying, followed by: Audrey Hepburn, Funny Face; Joanne Woodward, The Three Faces of Eve; Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution; Deborah Kerr, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison; Jeanne Moreau, Elevator to the Gallows; Patricia Neal, A Face in the Crowd; Isuzu Yamada, Throne of Blood; Barbara Stanwyck, Forty Guns)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Lee J. Cobb, 12 ANGRY MEN (2nd: George Macready, Paths of Glory, followed by: Ed Begley, 12 Angry Men; Bengt Ekerot, The Seventh Seal; Timothy Carey, Paths of Glory; Aldo Ray, Men in War; Sessue Hayakawa, The Bridge on the River Kwai; Red Buttons, Sayonara; Adolphe Menjou, Paths of Glory; Karl Malden, Fear Strikes Out) 

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Ingrid Thulin, WILD STRAWBERRIES (2nd: Elsa Lanchester, Witness for the Prosecution, followed by: Miyoshi Umeki, Sayonara; Kay Thompson, Funny Face; Carol Haney, The Pajama Game; Isuzu Yamada, Tokyo Twilight; Ineko Arema, Tokyo Twilight; Carolyn Jones, The Bachelor Party; Diane Varsi, Peyton Place; Hope Lange, Peyton Place) 

DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick, PATHS OF GLORY (2nd: Ingmar Bergman, Wild Strawberries, followed by: Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal; Mikhail Kalatozov, The Cranes are Flying; Sidney Lumet, 12 Angry Men; Alexander Mackendrick, Sweet Smell of Success; Akira Kurosawa, Throne of Blood; Elia Kazan, A Face in the Crowd; Federico Fellini, Nights of Cabiria; Andrzej Wajda, Kanal)

NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FILM: WILD STRAWBERRIES (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman), followed by: The Seventh Seal (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman); Nights of Cabiria (Italy, Federico Fellini); Throne of Blood (Japan, Akira Kurosawa); The Cranes are Flying (USSR, Mikhail Kalatozov); Kanal (Poland, Andrzej Wajda); Elevator to the Gallows (France, Louis Malle); Tokyo Twilight (Japan, Yasujiro Ozu); The Lower Depths (Japan, Akira Kurosawa); Il Grido (Italy, Michelangelo Antonioni))



ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Ingmar Bergman, THE SEVENTH SEAL (2nd: Ingmar Bergman, Wild Strawberries, followed by: Budd Schulberg, A Face in the Crowd; Jerry Stefan Stawinski, Kanal; Joel Kane, Dudley Nichols, and Barney Slater, The Tin Star; John Lee Mahin and John Huston, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison)



ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (2nd: Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson, Paths of Glory, followed by: Reginald Rose, 12 Angry Men; Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, The Bridge on the River Kwai; Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, and Pier Paulo Pasolini, Nights of Cabiria; Burt Kennedy, The Tall T)



LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: LA CRAVATE (Mexico, Alejandro Jodorowsky) (2nd: Les Mistons (France, François Truffaut), followed by: 8×8: A Chess Sonata in Eight Movements (France, Jean Cocteau and Hans Richter)

ANIMATED SHORT FILM: WHAT'S OPERA, DOC? (Chuck Jones) (2nd: Ali Baba Bunny (Chuck Jones), followed by: Birds Anonymous (Friz Freleng); A Chairy Tale (Canada, Norman McLaren); Three Little Bops (Friz Freleng); Let's All Go to the Lobby (director unknown))

 

BLACK-AND-WHITE CINEMATOGRAPHY: James Wong Howe, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (2nd: Sergei Urusevsky, The Cranes are Flying, followed by: Gunnar Fischer, The Seventh Seal; Asaichi Nakai, Throne of Blood; Georg Krause, Paths of Glory; Gunnar Fischer, Wild Strawberries)



COLOR CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ray June, FUNNY FACE (2nd: Jack Hildyard, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, followed by: Oswald Morris, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison; William H. Mellor, Peyton Place; Milton Krasner, An Affair to Remember; Jack Asher, The Curse of Frankenstein)  

BLACK-AND-WHITE ART DIRECTION: SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, Throne of Blood, Paths of Glory, Love in the Afternoon, Witness for the Prosecution

COLOR ART DIRECTION: FUNNY FACE, Desk Set, Raintree Country, Silk Stockings, Les Girls

BLACK-AND-WHITE COSTUME DESIGN: THRONE OF BLOOD, The Seventh Seal, Paths of Glory, Love in the Afternoon, Sweet Smell of Success

COLOR COSTUME DESIGN: FUNNY FACE, Les Girls, Raintree Country, Peyton Place, The Prince and the Showgirl

FILM EDITING: PATHS OF GLORY, 12 Angry Men, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Witness for the Prosecution, 3:10 to Yuma
 
SOUND: PATHS OF GLORY, Witness for the Prosecution, A Face in the Crowd, Funny Face, Gunfight at the OK Corral



ORIGINAL SCORE: Malcolm Arnold, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (2nd: Nino Rota, Nights of Cabiria, followed by: Franz Waxman, Peyton Place; Elmer Bernstein, Sweet Smell of Success; Miles Davis, Elevator to the Gallows; Masaru Sato, Throne of Blood) 

ADAPTED OR MUSICAL SCORE: Adolph Deutsch, FUNNY FACE (2nd: Ray Heindorf and Howard Jackson, The Pajama Game, followed by: Andre Previn and Conrad Salinger, Silk Stockings; Jeff Alexander, Jailhouse Rock; Saul Chaplin and Adolph Deutsch, Les Girls)



ORIGINAL SONG: "All the Way" from THE JOKER IS WILD (Music by James Van Heusen, lyrics by Sammy Cahn) (2nd: "It's Not for Me to Say" from Lizzie (Music by Robert Allen, lyrics by Al Stillman), followed by: "Jailhouse Rock" from Jailhouse Rock (Music and lyrics by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller); "Teddy Bear" from Loving You (Music and lyrics by Kal Mann and Bernie Lowe); "Tammy" from Tammy and the Bachelor (Music and lyrics by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston); "Treat Me Nice" from Jailhouse Rock (Music and lyrics by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller); "Think Pink" from Funny Face (Music by Roger Edens, lyrics by Leonard Gershe))

SPECIAL EFFECTS: THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Enemy Below

MAKEUP: THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, The Seventh Seal, Man of a Thousand Faces