"Awards are like haemorrhoids, sooner or later every asshole gets one"  

Billy Wilder

Despite his apparent disdain for glitzy ceremonies involving insincere pats on the back and interminably long and emotional speeches, Billy Wilder was no stranger to awards.  Two of his films feature in our pick of the best award-winning movies in TCM’s March season And The Winner Is...

The films featured in the TCM season are:

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The Fortune Cookie (1966)

Irma La Douce (1963)

Network (1976)

Coming Home (1978)

Women in Love (1969)

The Fortune Cookie (1966) – TCM PREMIERE - 1st March at 9pm

Wilder’s dream team, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, star in this hilarious comedy about a sports TV cameraman (Lemmon) who accidentally gets injured whilst filming a game of American football.  Matthau plays his brother-in-law, a lawyer who’s intent on persuading Lemmon to fake his injuries in order to claim millions on the insurance. It’s peppered with the razor-sharp witty one-liners you’d expect from a Wilder/IAL Diamond collaboration and they are delivered with charm and ease by the two exceptionally charismatic actors.

And the nominations were:

Walter Matthau (Best Actor) – WINNER

The Best Actor category included Robert Shaw (A Man For All Seasons), James Mason (Georgy Girl), Mako (The Sand Pebbles) and George Segal (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

Best Art Direction-Set Direction – LOSER

The winner was French film, Un Homme et Une Femme

Best Cinematography – LOSER

The winner was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Best Original Screenplay – LOSER

The winner was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Interesting fact about that year’s Oscar® ceremony:

British actors Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave were the first sisters in 25 years to be nominated in the same category – Best Actress

Irma La Douce (1963) – TCM PREMIERE – 2nd March at 9pm

Wilder and Diamond took Alexandre Breffort’s Broadway musical and turned it into a screenplay – applying their own touch of stardust along the way, and making the radical decision that it shouldn’t contain any songs.  Set in Paris, the story centres around an officious gendarme (Lemmon) who falls in love with a prostitute, played by Shirley MacLaine.  Rumour has it that Wilder was keen to reunite Lemmon and Monroe and would have cast Marilyn in the role of Irma, had her untimely death not put paid to this. MacLaine effortlessly puts the sweet into Irma in much the same way that she put the sweet into the effusively charming Charity.

And the nominations were:

Shirley MacLaine (Best Actress) – LOSER

Patricia Neal picked up the prize for Hud whilst Natalie Wood (Love With a Proper Stranger), Leslie Caron (The L-Shaped Room) and Rachel Roberts (This Sporting Life) were the other contenders

Best Music, Scoring of music, Adaptation or Treatment - WINNER

Andre Previn saw off competition including Maurice Jarre

Best Cinematography – LOSER

Joseph La Shelle watched from his seat as Cleopatra picked up the gong.  Interestingly the hugely innovative cinematography – Cinerama - used in How The West Was Won was also overlooked.

Interesting fact about that year’s Oscar® ceremony:

Jack Lemmon was the host.

Network (1976) – TCM PREMIERE – 3rd March at 9pm

In Network, the multi-Oscar nominated Sidney Lumet deftly directs this searing insight into the complex values and principles at play in broadcast media – and in particular television news - with a behind-the-scenes expose of politics and power struggles.  At the heart of the action there’s an extraordinary performance by Peter Finch who paints a  painful portrait of a veteran anchorman who has been forced to the brink of meltdown.   This was to be his last role and the OscarÒ he won was posthumously presented  Written by Paddy Chayefsky, the cast also featured William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight.

And the nominations were:

Peter Finch (Best Actor) – WINNER

Finch was up against fellow cast member William Holden, Robert DeNiro, Giancarlo Giannini and Sly Stallone in this category.

Faye Dunaway (Best Actress) - WINNER

Liv Ullman, Sissy Spacek, Marie-Christine Barrault and Talia Shire were the actresses who went home empty-handed

Ned Beatty (Best Supporting Actor) – LOSER

Jason Robards (All The President’s Men) picked up the bronze statuette leaving Beatty, Laurence Olivier (Marathon Man), Burgess Meredith and Burt Young (Rocky) to commiserate with one another

Beatrice Straight (Best Supporting Actress) – WINNER

Straight saw off competition from Jodie Foster (Taxi Driver), Piper Laurie (Carrie), Jane Alexander (All The President’s Men) and Lee Grant (The Voyage of the Damned)

Sidney Lumet (Best Director) – LOSER

Hang your head in shame Academy! As well as denying Lumet, they also overlooked Ingmar Bergman, Alan J Pakula and Lina Wertmuller (incidentally the first woman ever to be nominated in this category) in favour of John G Avildsen for Rocky.

Best Picture – LOSER

See above as Rocky rode roughshod over the competition but incidentally Network was the first film since A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) where three of the cast won Best Actor awards.

Paddy Chayefsky (Best original writing, screenplay) - WINNER

Best Cinematography – LOSER

Best Film Editing - LOSER

Interesting fact about that year’s Oscar® ceremony:

1977 was the year that the Academy left film lovers dumfounded as Rocky beat Network, All The President’s Men and Taxi Driver to Best Picture...

Coming Home (1978) – TCM PREMIERE – 5th March at 9pm

Coming Home is a story inspired by a meeting between the paralysed Vietnam vet, Ron Kovic - who was immortalised in Born on the Fourth of July by Tom Cruise just over a decade after this movie was made – and Jane Fonda.  The film’s journey to the screen was a tortuous one, not only because of the involvement of ‘Hanoi’ Jane Fonda but also because John Schlesinger, her first choice, turned down the chance to direct.  Nevertheless with Hal Ashby on board, Fonda in a lead role and two outstanding performances by Jon Voight and Bruce Dern it proved to be a touching account of how war leaves indelible scars on ordinary lives.

And the nominations were:

Peter Finch (Best Actor) – WINNER

Relative newcomer Voight picked up the award ahead of Laurence Olivier (The Boys From Brazil), Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait), Robert DeNiro (The Deer Hunter) and Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story).

Jane Fonda (Best Actress) - WINNER

Despite being ostracized for her political beliefs Fonda proved to be a winner and the actresses who missed out included Jill Clayburgh (An Unmarried Woman), Ingrid Bergman (Hostsonaten), Geraldine Page (Interiors), Ellen Burstyn (Same Time, Next Year).

Bruce Dern (Best Supporting Actor) – LOSER

This was DeNiro’s year and he picked up the gong for The Deer Hunter.  Other losers in the category were Richard Farnsworth, John Hurt and Jack Warden.

Penelope Milford (Best Supporting Actress) – LOSER

Maggie Smith beat Milford and Meryl Streep (The Deer Hunter) plus Dyan Cannon and Maureen Stapleton to the prestigious award.

Hal Ashby (Best Director) – LOSER

This went to Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter) whilst Woody Allen, Warren Beatty and Alan Parker all went home emptyhanded.

Best Picture – LOSER

Again, it was The Deer Hunter which emerged triumphant – the other nominees being Interiors, An Unmarried Woman, Heaven Can Wait and Midnight Express.

Nancy Dowd, Waldo Salt, Robert C Jones (Best original writing, screenplay) - WINNER

Best Film Editing - LOSER

Interesting fact about that year’s Oscar® ceremony:

This year proved to be the battle of the Vietnam movies as Coming Home took on the Deer Hunter.

Women in Love (1969) – TCM PREMIERE – 7th March at 9pm

It seems fitting that controversial author, DH (Lady Chatterley’s Lover) Lawrence’s, classic novel Women In Love was brought to the screen by English cinema’s ‘enfant terrible’ Ken Russell and starred the notorious hellraiser Oliver Reed.  The story idea is an exploration of love and relationships, set in the 1920s. Two friends, played by Reed and Alan Bates fall in love with two sisters Gudrun (Glenda Jackson) and Ursula (Jennie Linden) Brangwen with very different consequences. The film is probably best known for a nude wrestling scene between the male leads, which rumour has it, was OIiver Reed’s.  

And the nominations were:

Glenda Jackson (Best Actress) - WINNER

Jackson was up against stiff opposition this year.  The other nominees were Ali MacGraw (Love Story), Sarah Miles (Ryan’s Daughter), Carrie Snodgrass (Diary of a Mad Housewife) and Jane Alexander (The Great White Hope).

Ken Russell (Best Director) – LOSER

To date this is Ken’s only Oscar® nomination and he missed out to Franklin J Schaffner for Patton.  Other nominees included Federico Fellini (Fellini – Satyricon), Robert Altman (MASH) and Arthur Hiller (Love Story)

Larry Kramer (Best writing, screenplay from another medium) - LOSER

Best Cinematography - LOSER

Interesting fact about that year’s Oscar® ceremony:

Two honorary awards were handed out that year, one to the actress Lilian Gish and the other to Orson Welles who wasn’t there to collect his.
 

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