Schurmy Classics - 1957 Part II: Genre Awards

Schurmy Classics

Part II: Genre Awards

Night of the Demon

Welcome to day two of the 1957 Schurmy Awards. If you missed day one you missed a lot of fun. The technical awards were handed out honouring the best CGI from 1957. Today we are honouring the genre awards. Best Comedy, Best Horror Film, Best Foreign Language Film and many more fun, incredibly specific awards such as Best Performance in a Bad Movie. Now without further ado, I present the second part of Schurmy Classics - 1957.

Part I: Technical Awards

Le Notti Bianche

Best Comedy:

Nominees:

1. Designing Woman
2. Love in the Afternoon
3. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Three different takes on the romantic comedy make up the nominations for this award. In Designing Woman a reporter and fashion designer meet, fall in love, get married and then realize they have nothing in common and then a big mob story gets thrown on top of everything but it all works and Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall are very entertaining in the leading roles. Love in the Afternoon is a classic romantic comedy wherein Audrey Hepburn falls in love with Gary Cooper and it certainly is charming though Billy Wilder would go on to make much stronger comedies only a couple of years later. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? adds a large amount of media satire to its central romance between Tony Randall's advertising agent and Jayne Mansfield's Hollywood starlet and it works like gangbusters. Frank Tashlin's film is a comic marvel, constantly finding new and hilarious ways to create satire and demolish the fourth wall.

Winner - WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER?

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Film:

Nominees:

1. The Incredible Shrinking Man
2. The Seventh Seal
3. Throne of Blood

Science Fiction and Fantasy films both present unreal worlds that are on some level similar to our own and use these worlds to explore aspects of our existence. The Incredible Shrinking Man explores the fears of a nuclear world, a man's place in his own household and the existential nature of existence. The Seventh Seal is a meditation on the very nature of life, death, religion and love and Throne of Blood explores the question of nature vs. freewill and man's ambitions. The latter two have minor fantasy elements (the embodiment of death and a witch respectively) but it is enough to count, which is handy when science fiction hasn't reached a fully mainstream manner yet. Plus it allows The Seventh Seal to pickup another award. Nobody can argue with that.

Winner - THE SEVENTH SEAL

Best Horror Film:

Nominees:

1. The Curse of Frankenstein
2. The Incredible Shrinking Man
3. Night of the Demon

Let's just get something out of the way first. Yes, The Incredible Shrinking Man may not technically be a horror film per se but I'm counting it and there's nothing you can do about it. If it makes you feel any better it isn't winning. Night of the Demon crafts its horror out of the corner of your eye. It makes you uncomfortable knowing the inevitability of your fate. It builds and builds until a fantastic climactic sequence largely based around three characters sitting in a cabin on a train.

Winner - NIGHT OF THE DEMON

Best Western:

Nominees:

1. 3:10 to Yuma
2. Forty Guns
3. The Tin Star

Savvy Schurmy fans may recognize that this is not a normal award. It is replacing the Best Action Film award because of the popularity of the Western film genre in the the 50s and the fact that this is a very similar list to what would be nominated for Best Action Film (maybe sub in Bridge on the River Kwai even though that isn't very actiony or Throne of Blood). The modern action film is still quite a ways away from existing so instead I'll honor a storied genre of Hollywood's past (and still present, kinda). These three westerns are all great films depicting honourable heroes trying their best in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Van Heflin's quest to deliver Glenn Ford to the titular train in 3:10 to Yuma forces him through Ford's gang of criminal followers. Barry Sullivan went against Barbara Stanwyck, her brother and her gang of Forty Guns and in The Tin Star Anthony Perkins' woefully unequipped and inexperienced sheriff trying to calm the blood lust of mob justice with the help of Henry Fonda. While all are great, the Schurmy goes to Forty Guns for the various turns the story takes and the portrait of a strong frontier woman in Barbara Stanwyck's Jessica Drummond.

Winner - FORTY GUNS

Throne of Blood

Best Sequel / Remake / Whatever:

Nominees:

1. An Affair to Remember
2. The Curse of Frankenstein
3. Silk Stockings

Sequel and Remake culture is not a new problem Hollywood has. It is probably worse than it had ever been in the past but it is not unique to modern Hollywood. An Affair to Remember is a remake of Leo McCarey's own film Love Affair, The Curse of Frankenstein is the Hammer Film version of the classic Frankenstein story and Silk Stockings is a musical remake of Ninotchka. Throne of Blood may have qualified as a Japanese take on Macbeth but I decided it was just different enough that I decided not to count it and if you disagree you can make your own awards. The Schurmy has to go to the only truly great film on this list; An Affair to Remember is a phenomenal heart-tugging romance.

Winner - AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER

Best Documentary:

Oscar Winner - Albert Schweitzer

You can consider me a bad cinephile because despite watching 40+ films for this project I neglected to watch even a single documentary. If you perhaps know of any great 1957 documentaries you can send them my way and this award may be up for review in the future. Unlike the Oscars, these documents are editable.

Winner - Not Awarded

Best Animated Film:

Oscar winner - Not Awarded

This wasn't even an Oscar category until a certain ogre demanded the creation of it. I don't even know if there were any animated feature films released in 1957. I'm pretty sure Walt Disney was the only person doing full lengths in the animation department at this time. Similar to the documentary category, if you feel like educating my ignorance I may edit this later.

Winner - Not Awarded

Best Foreign Language Film:

Oscar Winner - Nights of Cabiria

Nominees:

1. Kanal (Poland)
2. Le Notti Bianche (Italy)
3. The Seventh Seal (Sweden)
4. Tokyo Twilight (Japan)
5. Wild Strawberries (Sweden)

Cue the most competitive award so far. A year so strong with foreign films that Akira Kurosawa's Macbeth adaptation didn't even make the cut. Joining Throne of Blood on the acclaimed sidelines are Oscar winner Night of Cabiria and The Cranes Are Flying. Making the top five are the bleak Polish masterpiece about the Warsaw Resistance's ill-fated attempts to merely survive Nazi occupation, Kanal, sensuous Italian romance about the longing of love across time and space and the alluring temptations close to home, Le Notti Bianche, a Swedish epic exploring the nature of life, death, God, faith and love in a post-Crusades, black plague ravaged Europe, The Seventh Seal, a dark look at a fractured Japanese family and how the secrets of the past haunt the present, Tokyo Twilight, and an examination on the nature of aging and a reflection on the life of a Swedish doctor, Wild Strawberries. Now, what makes these movies truly great is just how watchable they are. Those descriptions may make them seem like impressive, but stuffy foreign art house cinema but they are as gritty and lively as film today, especially the winner, The Seventh Seal. In addition to all the stuffy platitudes about it, it also features a dark streak of comedy throughout the entire film. Almost enough comedy to get placed in the comedy section even.

Winner - THE SEVENTH SEAL

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Best Performance in a Bad Movie:

Nominees:

1. Vittorio De Sica - A Farewell to Arms
2. Nigel Patrick - Raintree County
3. Eva Marie Saint - Raintree County

I managed to do a pretty good job avoiding bad movies from 1957 while exploring the year in cinema. This is almost certainly because a lot of the truly awful stuff has been lost to time. I did force myself to sit through A Farewell to Arms and Raintree County though. I will spare you detailed thoughts on the poor quality of these particular pictures but suffice it to say that these are bad movies. Legendary Italian director Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves) is easily the best part of the overlong, stuffy Hemingway adaptation. He actually got an Oscar nomination for his work but he will not be receiving a Schurmy because Nigel Patrick's presence was a gift from God in Raintree County. A film so stuffy and overwrought it makes A Farewell to Arms look like the novel it's based on. But whenever Patrick showed up he brought with him an element of entertainment that was sorely lacking from the film.

Winner - NIGEL PATRICK - RAINTREE COUNTY

Best Voice Over Performance:

As you surely read just a little bit earlier, I did not watch a single animated film from the year (or even see a qualifying performance from a non-animated film).

Winner - Not Awarded

Best Comedic Performance:

Nominees:

1. Lauren Bacall - Designing Woman
2. Gregory Peck - Designing Woman
3. Tony Randall - Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Reviews of Designing Woman have compared Bacall and Peck's on-screen relationship to that of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy's. While I haven't seen a Hepburn-Tracy pairing I can only imagine great things about it with how great Peck and in particular Bacall are here. This movie would not have worked without a strong central pair and they were fantastic. The Schurmy goes to Lauren Bacall simply because she was better, duh.

Winner - LAUREN BACALL - DESIGNING WOMAN

Best Performance in a Foreign Language Film:

Nominees:

1. Ineko Arima - Tokyo Twilight
2. Gunnar Bjornstrand - The Seventh Seal
3. Giulietta Masina - Nights of Cabiria
4. Tatiana Samoilova - The Cranes Are Flying
5. Victor Sjostrom - Wild Strawberries

Just as with the Foreign Language Film Award this award in incredibly competitive. A lot of graet performances just didn't make the extremely tight cut. Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal, Ingrid Thulin in Wild Strawberries, Toshiro Mifune in Throne of Blood, Maria Schell and Marcello Mastroianni in Le Notti Bianche to name a handful. The five nominated performers dominated their movies. Whether they were heartbreaking (Arima and Sjostrom), perfectly serious comic relief (Bjornstrand), eternally optimistic (Masina) or just about everything (Samoilova) they defined their films. Samoilova in particular set the standard for European actresses portraying doomed romances. She is absolutely magnetic in The Cranes Are Flying and is impossible to ignore for this award.

Winner - TATIANA SAMOILOVA - THE CRANES ARE FLYING

Kanal

Best Ensemble Performance:

Nominees:

1. 12 Angry Men - Henry Fonda, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Lee J Cobb, EG Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec, Robert Webber
2. Peyton Place - Lana Turner, Diane Varsi, Hope Lange, Lee Philips, Arthur Kennedy, Lloyd Nolan, Russ Tamblyn, Terry Moore, Barry Coe, Betty Field, Mildred Dunnock
3. The Seventh Seal - Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Bibi Andersson, Inga Landgre, Gunnel Lindblom, Inga Gill, Maud Hansson
4. Sweet Smell of Success - Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Sam Levene, Barabara Nichols, Jeff Donnell, Edith Atwater, Emile Meyer, Joe Frisco
5. Witness for the Prosecution - Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Power, Elsa Lanchester, John Williams, Henry Daniell

12 Actors, One Room. Everybody giving exactly the performance they need to. It wouldn't work if everybody was trying to steal the show. It works because everybody fits their role perfectly.

Winner - 12 ANGRY MEN

Breakthrough Actor:

Nominees:

1. Anthony Franciosa - A Hatful of Rain
2. Andy Griffith - A Face in the Crowd
3. Tony Randall - Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

We all know Andy Griffith as the quintessential wholesome TV dad from The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock but he broke out in the world of film with a role that is the direct opposite of his future television persona. Lonesome Rhodes starts of a wise country bumpkin but as the film starts digging into the depth the character, Griffith really starts to shine. A phenomenal performance from somebody who would go onto become an absolute legend.

Winner - ANDY GRIFFITH - A FACE IN THE CROWD

Breakthrough Actress:

Nominees:

1. Susan Harrison - Sweet Smell of Success
2. Tatiana Samoilova - The Cranes Are Flying
3. Diane Varsi - Peyton Place

Nothing against these women but none reached the successes of the winner of their male equivalent award with none of these women having major careers one could expect would come from these performances. Samoilova's performance made her a Soviet icon and it is incredibly unfortunate that her government restricted her career because she could have become an all time great.

Winner - TATIANA SAMOILOVA - THE CRANES ARE FLYING

Best Directorial Debut:
De-Fault! De-Fault! De-Fault!

But honestly, even if I managed to watch another directorial debut I can't imagine it would manage to top Sidney Lumet's masterpiece. 12 Angry Men is simply put, one of the absolute best debuts ever.

Winner - SIDNEY LUMET - 12 ANGRY MEN

I'm A Man, Damnit Award:

An award for the saddest film of 1957. There were a few candidates but ultimately nothing quite as sad as Yasujiro Ozu's dark portrait of the damage wrought when a family's past secrets come to roost.

Winner - TOKYO TWILIGHT

WTF Masterpiece Award:

An elderly doctor travels across the Swedish countryside to receive an award from a university. Sounds pretty straightforward. Throw in simultaneous trips through memory and dream spaces where the rules of the world are thrown out the window and a hitchhiker who looks identical to a past love and you get the ingredients for a weird movie. It is a testament to Bergman's abilities that he is able to make everything feel normal and straightforward.

Winner - WILD STRAWBERRIES

And that is all for today. Be sure to check back in tomorrow for the final awards. It's all the big one. Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor. All your favourites.

Witness for the Prosecution