Editors Note: Nathaniel is running behind on the Cinematography Special - but don't miss yesterday's installment or Tim's huge ongoing post at Antagony & Ecstasy so we'll resume tomorrow night. In the meantime enjoy Eric's look back at the Globes in '77, since its our Year of the Month.
Peter O'Toole with Globe winners Jane Fonda (Julia), Richard Burton (Equus), and Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl)
Globe/Oscar comparisons are always fun to see because though the groups have different sensibilities, inevitable industry hype influences both. Yet the Globes are rarely revisited outside of their years since Oscar is the one people obsess on when they look back, "the one that matters" as it were. Let's correct that as we gaze at 1977...
As always with the Globes, the awards are divided between Comedy and Drama categories, so we have ten nominess for Globes with only five slots for Oscars. For Best Actor, the five final Oscar nominees looked like this:
Woody Allen, Annie Hall
Richard Burton, Equus
Richard Dreyfus, The Goodbye Girl
Marcello Mastrioanni, A Special Day
John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever
All of these men were also nominated for Golden Globes. The five gents nominated for Globes who didn’t score the Oscar nod were:
(Comedy or Musical)
Mel Brooks, High Anxiety
Robert De Niro, New York, New York
(Drama)
Al Pacino, Bobby Deerfield
Gregory Peck, Macarthur
Henry Winkler, Heroes
Looking at those ten performances, it seems like the Academy picked well. In retrospect, it’s surprising to imagine Henry Winkler in the race for any lead film acting award. Don’t get me wrong: his acting as The Fonz on Happy Days is miraculous when you consider Winkler was a short (5’6” !) Jewish nerd who convinced a nation that he was THE epicenter of cool in that role. He won the Globe for Comedy TV Actor (tying with Ron Howard) this very night. It was fun to watch his resurgence as a character actor via Arrested Development. Nobody talks about New York, New York these days, a bit surprising since it’s a big-budget Scorsese picture and one his key collaborations with De Niro, but the film is exciting and agonizing in equal measure.
Ultimately, Dreyfus won the Comedy Globe and Burton the Drama Globe, and the two were in a horserace for the Oscar that season. The Goodbye Girl has not, to put it kindly, aged well, and put into historic cinematic terms, it remains preposterous that Richard Burton, one of the greats, never won an Oscar in his lifetime but it wasn't to be that year. The film version of Equus was clumsy and heavy-handed and you can understand why a lot of people didn’t feel compelled to vote for Burton for that particular film when The Goodbye Girl was such a hit in 1977.
The Best Actress Oscar race was stronger:
Anne Bancroft, The Turning Point
Jane Fonda, Julia
Diane Keaton, Annie Hall
Shirley MacLaine, The Turning Point
Marsha Mason, The Goodbye Girl
And these were the women who received Globe nods that year who didn’t make the Oscar cut:
Gena Rowlands in "Opening Night." 1977 was super stacked with worthy leading ladies
(Comedy or Musical)
Sally Field, Smokey and the Bandit
Liza Minnelli, New York New York
Lily Tomlin, The Late Show
(Drama)
Diane Keaton, Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Kathleen Quinlan, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Gena Rowlands, Opening Night
Interestingly, Shirley MacLaine did NOT make the Globe Actress list at all, so perhaps her Oscar nomination was a mild surprise.
Goodbye Girl was a huge moment in Marsha Mason & Richard Dreyfus's careers
Keaton and Mason actually tied to win the Comedy Globe, and Fonda won in Drama. Keaton famously won the Oscar, a win that's very well regarded historically. Keaton’s performance in Looking for Mr. Goodbar surely would have snared her an Oscar nomination itslef if Annie Hall wasn’t blocking it: they are two colossally different characters and few actors could have soared as high in comedy and tragedy as she does in those two roles. And she did it back to back. Keaton’s poor choices in films and roles these past two decades have unfortunately diminished her reputation, which is a bummer because when she’s at the peak of her powers in a complex role, she's unbeatable.
Finally, let's look at Best Picture
Oscar's Best Picture
Annie Hall
The Goodbye Girl
Julia
Star Wars
The Turning Point
All of them were nominated at the Globes. These were the Globe nominees that didn’t make the cut:
Should they have been Oscar nominated? And instead of what...?
(Comedy or Musical)
High Anxiety
New York New York
Saturday Night Fever
(Drama)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
In hindsight, it feels shocking that Close Encounters didn’t get in over either The Goodbye Girl or The Turning Point, as its classic status has held strong, even grown, and nobody talks much about either of the others. Even Saturday Night Fever remains more relevant today, as much as it’s a total product of its time.
What are your thoughts on the differences between Oscar and the Globes in this particular year?