1974's Oscar Nominees

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.

Definitely college football. Baseball comes into the scene here.

Now that I think about it, how in the world was Huston overlooked for Supporting Actor? That would seem to be a lock, both on the merits and in terms of narrative. My five would have been the three GF II guys, plus Cazale, plus Huston. I'd be fine replacing Gazzo with Allen Garfield in The Conversation ("C'mon, Harry, show and tell"), and, in the best of all possible worlds, finding room for Polanski somewhere.

Best Director

this poll was made for clemenza
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 26, 2013 9:54 AM (Yesterday)

I'm just getting warmed up--I'll be moving on to art direction very shortly. I know Polanski was up for best director, but he probably makes a more indelible impression in Chinatown than 97% of the people who have ever won Supporting Actor. Is Beatrice Straight's part in Network that much longer in terms of screen time?

No question he was overlooked.

Polanski's in Chinatown roughly 37 seconds, so yeah, Straight's part is longer.

Huston, that is

xpost

Huston, otoh, I def would've nominated and I guess likely awarded.

John P. Ryan, It's Alive
Gena Rowlands, A Woman Under the Influence
Gerrit Graham, Phantom of the Paradise
Edith Massey, Female Trouble

Er, I guess I meant to type him in but my fingers wouldn't obey.

I realize you can't realistically nominate someone for a brief cameo (even less likely when it's someone who's not primarily an actor). Straight's performance ran five minutes and 40 seconds according to Wikipedia. I've seen Network two or three times and don't remember much beyond the fact she's upset and arguing with Holden. Polanski's scene is arguably the best 37 seconds in a phenomenal film. Anyway, no room at the inn that particular year.

I'll grant the context of Network makes it sort of hard to see women at all, but damn, you have to be actively not looking at them to think that Straight, Marlene Warfield and (in a limited role that gets quoted here every other week) Conchata Ferrell don't make a huge impression.

(in a limited role that gets quoted here every other week) Conchata Ferrell

this has sailed by me.

That's because you're crusty but benign.

nearly hairless and malignant

Straight gets the most overwrought abandoned-wife speech in history, far worse than what I heard from my upstairs neighbor two weeks ago.

		LOUISE
		(stands)
	Then say it!  Don't keep telling me
	you're obsessed, you're infatuated
	-- say you're in love with her!
		MAX
	I'm in love with her.
		LOUISE
		(erupts)
	Then get out, go to a hotel, go
	anywhere you want, go live with
	her, but don't come back!  Because
	after twenty-five years of building
	a home and raising a family and all
	the senseless pain we've inflicted
	on each other, I'll be damned if I'll
	just stand here and let you tell me
	you love somebody else!
	Because this isn't just some con-
	vention weekend with your secretary,
	is it? Or some broad you picked up
	after three belts of booze.  This
	is your great winter romance, isn't
	it?, your last roar of passion be-
	fore you sink into your emeritus
	years.  Is that what's left for me?
	Is that my share?  She gets the great
	winter passion, and I get the dotage?
	Am I supposed to sit at home knitting
	and purling till you slink back like
	a penitent drunk?  I'm your wife,
	damn it!  If you can't work up a
	winter passion for me, then the
	least I require is respect and
	allegiance!  I'm hurt!  Don't you
	understand that?  I'm hurt badly!

vs.

	You're a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh?
	You know what happens to nosy fellows?
	Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay.
	They lose their noses.