1974's Oscar Nominees

1974 was also the year of Airport '75, so probably the best year for disaster movies ever. The idea of an Airport movie getting a Best Picture nomination may seem crazy, but as some may remember, the original one of 1970 did just that. And Helen Hayes won Best Supporting Actress for her role in it.

but the '70 Airport is really a Grand Hotel melo riff, w/ the disaster saved for what, the last 30 mins?

Burt Lancaster: "I don`t know why Airport (1970) was nominated for any Oscars - it`s the biggest piece of junk ever."

Been wanting to watch The Conversation again, it's been well over a decade since I have seen it. The Sugarland Express and California Split I saw a few years ago along with Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. But Cockfighter is probably my all time favorite film from 1974 with Warren Oates (love). I think I need to purchase that one if it is available. I watched some bootleg copy of it for years.

but the '70 Airport is really a Grand Hotel melo riff, w/ the disaster saved for what, the last 30 mins?

True. And consequently, Airport '75 is the more entertaining movie. In 1970 Helen Hayes beat out Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces) for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but Karen Black got her revenge by flying the motherfucking plane in Airport '75.

I was able to get a VHS copy of Cockfighter when Toronto's Sam the Record Man went under. Thought it was quite good the one time I watched it, with Oates very restrained. If there's a good print somewhere, Criterion or Olive should look into releasing it.

Never would have guessed: very available right now.

Cockfighter is still banned in the UK on the grounds of animal cruelty

the documentary on that dvd is really excellent, btw

if i remember correctly the law on cruelty to animals in films pre-dates any other UK censorship legislation

My grandfather's two favorite movies in the world were Patton and Cockfighter; the former because he served under him in WWII, the latter because he grew up in West Virginia and, well into my teenage years, raised roosters for cockfighting.

Am I really the only one who thinks the Conversation is the best movie on this list by a pretty wide margin?

not by a wide margin, but it's got my vote

The Conversation is the most overrated

Agreed tbh

It drags a bit.

Just looked at the wiki for the awards that year..how the fuck did Ingrid Bergman win for Murder On The Orient Express?

sentiment

Was she considered a surprise winner? I know that prognostication wasn't anywhere near the same insidious level it's been over the last couple decades, but I'm wondering what the buzzline was on that race and I don't have my copy of Inside Oscar handy.

It's a terrible part and she's terrible at it although she's partly supposed to be I guess. I'm just baffled that it would even garner a nomination tbh.

I've never seen Anastasia, so it was either a first or second "apology Oscar" for how shittily they treated her during her Rossellini period.

I think in her speech she apologized to Valentina Cortesa for beating her.

LOL that between her and Astaire, they used up their sentimental vote on her.

Well, and Art Carney.

yeah I thought Cortese was the frontrunner.

Lots of actors competing for worst-ever work in Murder.

Carney is real good in H&T, it wasnt his fault that Jack and Al split the youth vote.

Murder is kinda campy fun, as I recall... a real great MAD parody tho.

a MAD parody at Finnegans Wake length.

Sort of surprised Shire didn't get swept up in the G2 groundswell.

Wow. I don't think I've ever seen straight 1-heart ratings before: http://stinkylulu.blogspot.com/2006/11/supporting-actress-smackdown-1974.html

yes, btwn Nixon's fall and the absence of Oscar blogs, the world was a better place then.

Ken's remark:

Ken Sez: Once the moral climate thawed out a bit, Hollywood never seemed to stop apologizing to Ingrid Bergman for the Rossellini era tar and feather treatment. But the Oscar for Orient Express was carrying it entirely too far. Even the actress herself seemed needled by the award. In a prickly acceptance speech, she virtually re-gifted it to Valentina Cortese - a clumsy gesture that can hardly have endeared her to the other three nominees, sweeping them implicitly, as it did, into her "I am not worthy" club.

Maybe Madeline Kahn should have won? (For Young Frankenstein, though.) I can't think of an important supporting actress from my own favourites. I'm surprised in a way that De Niro managed to avoid vote-splitting with Gazzo and Strasberg for Supporting Actor.

The Conversation never drags! Not for a second.

Bergman's speech never registered as prickly to me. Though it did seem that she was about to actually give the award to Cortese (the word "therefore") before simply offering her apology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky5sW4no_cg

Hah, at a different MB I used to attend, someone counts this very win as the moment he gave up on Oscars.

Ingrid Bergman's nomination was, for me, an "I never even gave it a thought when I watched the movie" stunner. People seriously think that "I raise brown babies" monologue was Oscar territory? I found it borderline laughable. When people started predicting her to win...when she actually DID win...well, in tandem with the previous year's unforgivable lead acting pair, it made me re-evaluate my entire attitude toward the Oscars -- where, prior, I'd thought the voters were going to flirt with bad taste but somehow rescue themselves in the end, now I had the feeling that, year after year, they would find ever-more inventive ways of disappointing me. Of course on the odd great Oscar night ('77, '83) I've been able to briefly recapture the earlier enthusiasm, but the innocence was gone after this.

Ah, yes, the lost innocence of self-administered industry awards, RIP America.

I'm surprised in a way that De Niro managed to avoid vote-splitting with Gazzo and Strasberg for Supporting Actor.

One of those three is a gigantic role and a reincarnation of Brando. The other two are very much background players, no?

I lost my reverse-Oscar-innocence when Crash won. Never again, I thought, would they be able to top this.

de niro got 'he stole the film' hosannas like kael's

Even if the Jaws theme had existed then, I think Ingrid would have gotten a pass...Starry-eyed sigh for Katherine Ross.

I agree De Niro had a much larger role--larger than some Best Actor winners, I'm sure--and was also already earmarked as a major new actor. But I would have thought the other guys would have gotten some votes anyway (they're both fantastic, I think), and Strasberg carried lots of mystique into that vote.

I was never innocent. I mean, I watched Rain Man win.

That Gazzo got nominated over Cazale seems very NAGL now.

Eric H. in 1988 thought Rain Man was an excellent driver.

I'd argue for a parallel with the '72 Supporting Actor category--Pacino replacing De Niro as having the bigger and more substantive role--but I know you guys will say Joel Grey should have won easy regardless.

(Agree totally about Cazale.)

I'm fine with Grey beating Pacino in a head-to-head in either category. Pacino didn't really bloom in the role until the second one imo.

I guess I'll save that talk until 2015 when I poll 1972.

Strasberg is incredible in G2, i guess i've just become inured to prime de Niro over the years

I find his first scene especially memorable. This little old guy sitting quietly in a small bungalow, watching college football as his wife attends to him. And how quietly he says "Sit down, Michael," just barely looking up from the TV screen.

yeah, the slow reveal from elderly mentor to baddest of the bad is beautifully done

decent recreation of a North Miami or North Miami Beach neighborhood too.

isnt he watching baseball?

He's watching Cabaret.

I voted for The Conversation. The first two Godfathers go together for me--one without the other feels incomplete. I'm guessing Chinatown will win this handily; The Conversation picked a bad year to be a brilliant movie.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The Godfather Part II, Francis Ford Coppola, Gray Frederickson, Fred Roos (Paramount)	6
The Towering Inferno, Irwin Allen (20th Century Fox/Warner Bros.)	5

I <3 you ILX.