Look, David and Suzan normally don’t side with musical theatre haters, but in the case of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, they’ll make an exception.
Year Eligible: 1954 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
(Explicit language, as always)
The Caine Mutiny can’t make up its mind if it is an excellent film about the stigma of mental illness, especially in the military, or an embarrassingly boring romantic class dramedy. When Humphrey Bogart and José Ferrer are around, it’s the former and at its best.
Year Eligible: 1954 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Caine Mutiny (1954)
(Explicit language, as always)
A picture postcard movie of Rome and Venice, Three Coins in the Fountain answers a question our hosts didn’t even know they had: can a movie devoid of stakes be good?
Year Eligible: 1954 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)
(Explicit language, as always)
Richard Burton stars in what is quite literally Bible fanfiction that is almost so bad it’s good. Almost.
Year Eligible: 1953 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Robe (1953)
(Explicit language, as always)
Possibly the greatest casting of all time in any movie, ever. No one but Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck could have pulled this off. But wow, did they ever.
Year Eligible: 1953 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Roman Holiday (1953)
(Explicit language, as always)
It’s got the most famous kissing scene of all time. It’s got at least 3 different plot lines. It’s got Hawaii, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It’s got Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Donna Read, Burt Lancaster, even Frank Sinatra! Surely the 1953 champion, From Here to Eternity, will easily withstand the screen test of time and hold its Best Picture crown in retrospect… or will it?
Year Eligible: 1953 (Won)
Additional audio from From Here to Eternity (1953)
(Explicit language, as always)
Listen, we weren't so sure about Marlon Brando as Marc Anthony, either, but trust us, it works. Mostly. It mostly works.
Year Eligible: 1953 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Julius Caesar (1953)
(Explicit language, as always)
Despite its reputation as a classic, Shane leaves a lot to be desired as far as our hosts are concerned. Is it because the bad guys fought for the Union? Suzan and David discuss the weird failings of Westerns where the “good” guys fought for the Confederacy, with a detour remembering their confusing experiences learning Civil War history in Georgia and Tennessee schools.
Year Eligible: 1953 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Shane (1953) and The Negotiator (1998)
(Explicit language, as always)
There is a reason that the 2001 Moulin Rouge exists, and it’s because this one from 1952 wasn’t good enough to make the subject closed. Is there anything more egregious than a boring movie about Belle Époque Paris and its artists?
Year Eligible: 1952 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Moulin Rouge (1952)
(Explicit language, as always)
The 1938 Robin Hood did all of this better.
Year Eligible: 1952 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Ivanhoe (1952)
(Explicit language, as always)
Suzan is in heaven this week, because Hollywood has finally figured out how to make a good Western, and even David enjoyed High Noon. Gary Cooper stars as a deputy literally an hour from retirement who is called by a sense of duty to protect the town he’s about to leave, anyway, from a gang he put away before who are headed back to town on the 12:00 train. Cooper is a surprising choice for a Western (and was the fifth choice for the role), but he once you see it, you can’t imagine High Noon with anyone else.
Year Eligible: 1952 (Nominated)
Additional audio from High Noon (1952)
(Explicit language, as always)
The Quiet Man represents a profound shift in Best Picture nominees, but it’s not necessarily a positive one. As Hollywood gets better at film making, stories with pretty abhorrent morals are more easily nestled in well directed, beautifully shot movies… which isn’t a good thing.
Year Eligible: 1952 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Quiet Man (1952)
(Explicit language, as always)
There is no question that Cecil B. DeMille was one of the greatest directors of all time, but giving him a pity Oscar for this nonsensical, barely acted, overstuffed story about a love triangle on the flying trapeze was not the best way to honor the guy.
Year Eligible: 1952 (Won)
Additional audio from The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
(Explicit language, as always)
Maybe it was just too soon, historically, just a few years after the end of the war, to make a movie about how some Germans might have helped the US fight the Nazis in World War II. Or maybe Decision Before Dawn is just straight up boring.
Year Eligible: 1951 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Decision Before Dawn (1951)
(Explicit language, as always)
Okay, so maybe we took a 5 minute diversion to talk about the ludicrous sounding films listed in the filmographies of two of the stars of Quo Vadis, but listen, there just was not that much to say about this three hour long epic of incredible boredom.
Year Eligible: 1951 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Quo Vadis (1951)
(Explicit language, as always)
An American in Paris was the winner of the 1951 nominees for Best Picture, entirely because of the 17 minute, half a million dollar dream ballet at the very end to Gershwin's orchestral composition of the same name. That’s it. There is no other reason.
Year Eligible: 1951 (Won)
Additional audio from An American in Paris (1951)
(Explicit language, as always)
The film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire, is wildly famous for Marlon Brando in a wet t-shirt, but the film is largely the very sad story of a deeply wounded and traumatized woman, played by Vivien Leigh, who only gets further wounded and traumatized during the movie. It’s considered a classic, but is it good enough to justify the emotional toll it exacts from its audience?
Year Eligible: 1951 (Nominated)
Additional audio from A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
(Explicit language, as always)
A master class in why method acting can actually make a performance less believable, A Place in the Sun is a real downer. Montgomery Clift gets typecast as a slack-jawed jerk who chases after yet another rich woman, but the twist is that, unlike in The Heiress, the woman he doesn't really care about and treats abhorrently isn’t the one he’s trying to marry. Elizabeth Taylor is beautiful, charming, and actually pretty good, in a role that makes a lot more sense than the one she had in Father of the Bride.
Year Eligible: 1951 (Nominated)
Additional audio from A Place in the Sun (1951)
(Explicit language, as always)
The final film in the 1950 Best Picture nominees, Born Yesterday start Judy Holliday giving an incredible performance as a ditzy chorus girl whose mobster boyfriend, played by Broderick Crawford, regrets forcing her to get smart. In any other year, Holliday’s performance would have still made this otherwise weirdly paced romantic comedy, with William Holden as the love interest, a serious contender for Best Picture, but the 1950 nominees were dominated by women in uniquely memorable roles. In the last episode for these nominees, will All About Eve stand the Screen Test of Time against Sunset Boulevard?
Year Eligible: 1950 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Born Yesterday (1950)
(Explicit language, as always)
David refers to King Solomon’s Mines as the movie that dares to ask, “What if Trader Horn was in color?” but what it really answers is why the character of Allan Quatermain, who was as popular and well known at the turn of the 20th century as James Bond is today, and played here by Stewart Granger, disappeared entirely from the popular imagination.
Year Eligible: 1950 (Nominated)
Additional audio from King Solomon’s Mines (1950)
(Explicit language, as always)