99¢ rentals to fill in the Oscar gaps
Monday, October 15, 2018 at 6:00PM UPDATE 10/23 Sadly these deals have all expired and they're back up to $3.99 per film.
While we wait (impatiently) for the major Oscar contenders to show themselves to general audiences, why not check out an older Oscar nominees for kicks and to fill any gaps in your Oscar knowledge. Here are a few that iTunes is offering to rent for just 99¢... naturally I have to share the posters for the ones with exclamatory taglines.
• Sunrise (1927)/ Street Angel (1928) for Janet Gaynor, the very first Best Actress winner and the only Best Actress winner to win for multiple roles simultaneously (they changed the rule thereafter)
• In Old Chicago (1938) Tyrone Powers in a six-time nominated film which won Alice Brady supporting actress
• The Rains Came (1939) starring Myrna Loy and up for six Oscars
• Blood and Sand (1941) this torreador drama starring Tyrone Power won Best Cinematography
• This Above All (1942) a romantic drama starring Joan Fontaine and Tyrone Power received 4 nominations and a win for Art Direction
• The Snake Pit (1948) Olivia de Havilland in an asylum (!) in one of the original 'deglam' roles. Six nominations including Best Picture
• Pinky (1949), a racial drama about a woman who can "pass" as white received 3 acting nominations
• Come to the Stable (1949) a comedy about nuns which was up for an inexplicable 7 Oscars losing all of them -- we recently wrote about it
• The Young Lions (1958) three nominations including cinematography for this Marlon Brando / Montgomery Clift World War II picture.
• The Best of Everything (1959) three nominations including costume design for this Joan Crawford picture that January Jones hated so very much in that one episode of Mad Men
Reader Comments (11)
"The Best of Everything" is first rate camp classic- a must see as retro "Sex in the City"
Joan Crawford is actually really great in a supporting role in "The Best of Everything." I would argue it is one of her finest performances, despite the movie being a little over-the-top.
I watched The Best of Everything recently and was really let down. It’s interesting in the beginning when it’s focused on the women’s careers, but then it goes downhill quickly. Joan is the best part about it, for sure, and they really should’ve fleshed out her role. It felt like such a great wasted opportunity. It does rightfully portray men as scum, but does nothing with it.
In the 30s and 40s the technical categories had 10 or more nominees, so there were many films that had many nominations and maybe won nothing! I'll name just one: The Little Foxes had 9 noms and went home empty-handed.
Great! Saw all the movies in this post!
In Old Chicago - Alice Brady was nominated in two consecutive years playing moms (here and in My Man Godfrey, 1937) - one very different of the other. Two wonderful films and performances.
The Rains Came - Some think that this stole the Oscar of *special effects* that The Wizard of Oz or Gone With The Wind should have won. But its win was deserved. It's a certified precursor of the 1970s disaster movies. The category had seven nominees that year. Tyrone Power plays an indian. He was a leading man for a long time(all his career) with a long contract with the same studio (20th Century Fox) where he had many hits like In Old Chicago, Blood And Sand, This Above All. Critics never took him seriously as actor and he was never nominated to an Academy Award. Died young with only 44 and gourgeous. His last film was the masterpiece Witness For The Prosecution(1957).
The Best of Everything - The atractive cast, soundtrack, the clothes and decorations and Crawford. If the 1950s isn't your thing, forget it.
All decent films except Pinky (so very, very dated with a weak lead performance by Jeanne Crain) and the excruciatingly ghastly Come to the Stable.
Janet Gaynor really deserved that first award though Street Angel is the lesser of her three winning performances but she's so moving in Sunrise. She's equally good in Seventh Heaven.
I love The Rains Came! Myrna is cast slightly against type as a woman of loose morals redeemed by love. The Oscar winning special effects still stand up today.
The Best of Everything is both a sumptuous soap opera and sobering indictment on how prevalent and tolerated sexual harassment was in the work place in the 50's and sixties. Joan Crawford's laser sharp supporting performance is definitely one of the highlights.
This is a precious colection of gems. For those who want to start to understand the Hollywood way of tell a story and how they could say things in a proibitive era. Of all these, to me, BLOOD AND SAND is the most beautiful visually - or maybe the most beautiful of all times in color. And the tragic and sensual story is fully realised by one of my favourite directors, Rouben Mamoulian. Other of his movies that I'd recommend:
CITY STREETS-1931
DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE-1931
LOVE ME TONIGHT-1932
QWEEN CHRISTINA-1933
GOLDEN BOY-1939
THE MARK OF ZORRO-1940
SILK STOCKINGS-1957
Pinky is problematic, but has some great performances.
Omg THE BEST OF EVERYTHING and COME TO THE STABLE are so much fun.
Sunrise is great and Gaynor is great in it. And George O'Brien: woof.
Now I know I need to see The Best of Everything immediately.