1954

On the Waterfront (Director: Elia Kazan)

Nominees: The Seven Samurai, Rear Window, La Strada, Sansho the Bailiff, Sound of the Mountain, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, Godzilla, Johnny Guitar, Wuthering Heights, Vera Cruz, Huis-Clos (No Exit), Gabrielle, Boot Polish, A Story from Chikamatsu

Oscars pick: On the Waterfront

Nominees: The Cain Mutiny, The Country Girl, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Three Coins in the Fountain

On the Waterfront -the final collaboration between Kazan and Brando- is the pinnacle of both men’s careers. Visually it is a thing of beauty. The gloomy, gray skylines highlight the sorrow and the struggles revealed in the story. The acting was multifaceted and nurtured by Kazan’s deft coaching, Brando gives the performance of a lifetime. Waterfront is a tale of redemption that is soaked in blood and tears and regret. Even the score (by Leonard Bernstein) is often a mournful cry. All of it, every ounce of sweat that went into making this film was molded into something transcendent.

The story is about corruption on the New York docks and of a young punch drunk ex-fighter who has it easy because he’s aligned with this group of thugs who hold the power. He follows orders, keeps quiet and only wakes up when he realizes that he had a hand in causing unbearable hurt to someone he’s falling in love with. Kazan said that the heart of the film, what made it work, was that relationship - and I agree. Eva Marie Saint as Edie has never been more beautiful, never more perfect, and her chemistry with Brando is palpable - their scenes are the soul of the picture.

The performances are seamless, it goes beyond mere acting - it is real, flesh and blood. It’s method acting done better than it has ever been done. The scene in the park, when Terry picks up Edie’s glove and puts it on his own hand. He’s found a way to keep her there, talking with him, but there’s also something sweet, even intimate in it. He has a part of her. Their scene in the bar is another touching moment. When Edie tells Terry that she knows that he’d help her (find her brother’s killers) if he could and then gently places her hand on his arm, the expression that washes over Malloy’s face is devastating. It’s subtle but it’s there - all the guilt and the anguish and desperation. He so wants to be clean of this stain, so that he can just be with her. Love her.

Of course, there’s the famous taxicab sequence between the brothers (I could have been a contender). That speech, the acting, there’s so much loss in it and it has become one of filmdom's enduring moments. You can examine this movie frame by frame and discover treasures like this throughout. It’s simply amazing: brilliantly acted, written, directed, scored -- and one can't say enough about the poetic realism in Boris Kaufman's Oscar-winning cinematography.

There are a lot of great, great movies. But if you ask me to name my all-time favorite film, I'll answer with On the Waterfront. Even if that question's impossible to truly answer, I think every film freak should have a #1 and that's mine. So this year's Felix was a given.

Also very near and dear to my heart is Kurosawa's classic, The Seven Samurai. In addition, there's Hitchcock's Rear Window, Mizoguchi's gut-wrenching Sansho the Bailiff,  and Fellini's La Strada, each incomparable masterworks that stood just a breath behind my winner. 

I'm also nominating Godzilla. As well as the first part of Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy, Musashi Miyamoto, which starred Toshiro Mifune. It will win the best foreign language film award in 1955.

Johnny Guitar and most remarkably Rear Window, did not receive nominations. Both are better than the decent but unremarkable Three Coins or even Country Girl.  The Academy did nominate some top-notch movies, among them The Cain Mutiny, A Star is Born and the entertaining Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And they gave La Strada a Foreign film Oscar. In addition to that, they got it right when they picked On the Waterfront as its best picture. Not bad work for the folks in Hollywood.

Best Actress: Giulietta Masina, La Strada
Honorable Mentions: Dorothy Dandridge, Carmen Jones * Maria Schell, The Last Bridge * Judy Garland, A Star is Born * Setsuko Hara, Sound of the Mountain * Eva Marie Saint, On The Waterfront * Michèle Morgan, Obsession * Silvana Mangano, The Gold of Naples 

Best Actor: Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront (pictured top)
Honorable Mentions: * Anthony Quinn, La Strada * James Stewart, Rear Window * Ray Milland, Dial M For Murder * Jean Gabin, Touchez Pas Au Grisbi * James Mason, A Star is Born

Supporting Actor: Lee J. Cobb, On the Waterfront

Supporting Actress: Kinuyo Tanaka, Sansho the Bailiff

Special Award - Best Ensemble: The Seven Samurai
Takashi Shmura, Yoshio Inaba, Daisuke Katō, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Isao Kimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Bokuzen Hidari, Kamatari Fujiwara, Keiko Tsushima, Kokuten Kōdō, Yoshio Kosugi, etc




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