Best Actress at the dawn of the Age of Television: An Alternative Oscar History

by Cláudio Alves

From 1950 to 1955, only one performer won the Best Actress Oscar from an original screenplay rather than a stage-to-screen adaptation. She was Audrey Hepburn, who took the prize for 1953's ROMAN HOLIDAY, at the 26th Academy Awards.

While most of the world was rebuilding from the brink of ruin, the USA, whose territories the war barely touched, transitioned from WWII into a period of booming prosperity. As discussed in my last alternative Oscar history post, this led to a rise in conservatism and the dreaded Blacklist. But as the 50s dawned on Hollywood, another existential threat rose to challenge the big screen. I’m, of course, talking about TV, that essential symbol of midcentury domesticity. If in 1950 the appliance was still a novelty, things changed quickly. Five years later, nearly 60% of American households held court around those all-too-tempting goggle-boxes. For the film industry, this was catastrophic, as it posed unprecedented competition.

People could now get what they used to get from cinemas from the comfort of their own homes. It’s not unlike the crisis caused by the rise of streaming platforms in our day and age. Only, back then, the American movie industry responded through an arms race for new forms of spectacle, technological innovations that the television’s small screen couldn’t hope to replicate. CinemaScope and other versions of widescreen filmmaking became standardized over the square-ish-ness of the Academy ratio. Genres like the Biblical epic surged in popularity, as did other marks of lavish opulence, musicals and the like. But also films that tested the Code’s limits, from Tennessee Williams’ adaptations to the gamine-lite (dis)pleasures of The Moon Is Blue. 

But how did this reflect on the Best Actress race, both that of our actual Oscar History and the one dictated by my personal preference? And what about the rest of the world? Believe it or not, Hollywood isn’t the end-all-be-all of cinema…

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Best Actress in WWII: An Alternative History

by Cláudio Alves

Greer Garson earned herself five consecutive Oscar nominations during WWII. For BLOSSMONS IN THE DUST (1941), MRS. MINIVER (1942), MADAME CURIE (1944), MRS. PARKINGTON (1944), and THE VALLEY OF DECISION (1945). She won the Best Actress trophy in 1942 for William Wyler's first Best Picture champion.

TIFF is almost upon us, so my Alternative Oscar History series will have to take a break. In the meantime, in this last post for a while, let’s look at the period between 1940 and 1945, the war Oscars and the actressing they should’ve honored.

After all, these are my picks, not the Academy’s, so don’t expect an avalanche of Greer Garson in the incoming ballots. The English star found an American home at MGM in the late 30s, just as WWII was breaking out in Europe with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, and was AMPAS’ most beloved star with five nominations and a victory to her name. In this, she edged out Bette Davis’ four nods in the same time span. Then again, though it’s impossible to talk about Hollywood in WWII without acknowledging Davis’ work in initiatives like the Hollywood Canteen, her relationship with the Academy was a rocky one. Famously, she became its first female president in January 1941, before resigning in March. I promise I won’t hold that against her in my votes. It might actually help her case, considering how little I tend to agree with Oscar’s choices…

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Almost There: Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz"

by Cláudio Alves

On a stressful day such as this, cinema can be a comfort. The movies are often prized for their escapist properties, so why not escape into their celluloid dreams once one's civil duty's done? I propose a trip to Oz before the first Wicked movie redefines what future generations will picture when they think of that magical land with emerald cities and yellow brick roads. But we're not here to talk fairytale architecture, good or bad witches. Instead, our focus shall be on the little girl who adventures into that world, swept by a Kansas tornado, from sepia-toned monochrome into three-strip Technicolor. It's time to talk about Judy Garland's Dorothy, a performance on the cusp of an Oscar nomination once upon a time. She was almost there…

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Tribeca 2022: David Lynch is The Man Behind the Curtain in "Lynch / Oz"

by Jason Adams

Like many of you I have deeply embedded childhood memories of watching The Wizard of Oz on television as a child. And probably also like many of you the film was presented to me as a generational hand-off, a passing of the cinematic baton. My mom was a lifelong fan, and now twas my turn to become the latest Friend of Dorothy (if she only knew). That yellow brick road stretches in one ear and out the other across eighty entire years of movie-lovers, mother to son to son to daughter and on to every Auntie Em adjacent, with something in there for everybody. I can trace my love of Horror Movies right to it – how many nightmares have those short-jacketed cater-waiter flying monkeys stormed through? Others, probably you, can trace your love of the Movie Musical from sepia-toned Kansas where Judy first regaled us of rainbows...

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Judy Garland @ 100: "I Could Go On Singing"

Team Experience revisited nine Judy Garland movies for her Centennial. Here's Nick Taylor on her final film.

Judy’s last film was always going to be an event. Released six years before her death to positive reviews but poor box office, I Could Go On Singing plays like a morbid echo of her final months. But for all the film’s metatextual readings into Garland’s life and career, this isn’t a self-conscious reckoning or farewell from a beloved star to her audience. Her regular talk of staging yet another comeback, even after her brief and very publically heralded casting in Valley of the Dolls before being canned by the studio, gives I Could Go On Singing an aura of lost time and unrealized potential heavier than the film’s bittersweet ending implies. I Could Go On Singing leaves Garland as alone as she’s ever been but still singing with all her heart, and it’s a shame she never got to strut it for the camera again...

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