This was a great year for wonderful movies. It was not a great year for the Oscars, probably because good films split the votes and mediocre nominees won, except for Best Picture winner, Gigi, which remains a joyous musical to this day.
Your day at the movies could feature every possible genre: Gigi, Cat on A Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant One, The Big Country, Vertigo, Auntie Mame, Some Came Running, Separate Tables, A Night To Remember, Indiscrete, the Long Hot Summer, The Old Man and the Sea, South Pacifc, Damn Yankees, The Big Country, Bell Book and Candle, Run Silent Run Deep, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, I Want To Live, The Brothers Karamazov, King Creole, The Last Hurrah, Teacher’s Pet, Thunder Road.
Mon Oncle in French and Bonjour Tristesse from a French novel.
Gigi – Best Picture – Written for the film by Lerner & Lowe and not put on Broadway until 1973.
David Niven – Best Actor, Separate Tables – Nominees Tony Curtis & Sidney Poitier (The Defiant Ones, Paul Newman (Cat on A Hot Tin Roof), and spencer Tracy (The Old Man and the Sea).
Susan Hayward – Best Actress, I Want To Live – This is one of those winners that though the role was good, the nominees must have split things because they were such a hard choice: Deborah Kerr (Separate Tables), Shirley Maclaine (Some Came Running), Rosalind Russell (Auntie Mame) and Elizabeth Taylor (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
Burl Ives – Supporting Actor, The Big Country
Wendy Hiller – Supporting Actress, Separate Tables
My absolutely favorite Elvis Presley film. It is a shame he was never allowed to grow as an actor, but he turned in one major role in a movie based on the book, “A Stone For Danny Fisher.”
