ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Tennessee Williams hated this adaptation of his play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof so much that he went up to people standing in line for it and said, “This movie will set the industry back 50 years. Go home!” Our episode won’t do that, but we agree with him on the movie. It’s been awhile since we had a flick where the Hays Code made it completely pointless to even try, but rarely with such incredibly good looking people as Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1958 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Sidney Poitier makes his Screen Test of Time debut in this message movie, co-starring Tony Curtis, that's actually good. Two escaped chain gang convicts, one Black and one white, have to learn to work together to escape the law. Sounds like a simple, cheesy premise, but a nuanced story and incredible performances make this better than more recent movies with similar setups.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1958 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Defiant Ones (1958)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Split score alert! David and Suzan both hate and love the same things about Gigi, most of which boils down to Maurice Chevalier (the former) and everything else (the latter), but that doesn’t mean they weigh each equally. Ernst Lubitsch may be dead at this point in film history, but his influence is alive and kicking in old Maurice.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1958 (Won)

Additional audio from Gigi (1958)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

The final film of 1957, Witness for the Prosecution has it all: Murder! Intrigue! Humor! Marlene Dietrich! So it’s more than appropriate that this episode has it all: The cast of Westworld! The Sonic the Hedgehog, Pikachu, and Spider-Man films of the last few years! A first ever for the Screen Test of Time end of year choice! Enjoy this Thanksgiving Day release stuffed full of way too many things.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1957 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

The Hayes Code relaxed restrictions on certain issues related to sex the year before Peyton Place was released, and the filmmakers took that ball and ran with it. A melodrama that would go on to be a television soap opera, every plot point is as over-the-top and ridiculous as it possibly can be.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1957 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Peyton Place (1957)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Sometimes, our hosts' predictions from the previous week turn out to be wrong. It's rare that it's in this way, though... Sayonara stars Marlon Brando and Miiko Taka in a romantic drama about American soldiers falling in love with Japanese women in post-WWII Japan. Yes, it’s still problematic, but not in the way Suzan and David were anticipating.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1957 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Sayonara (1957)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

The winner of the 1957 nominees,The Bridge on the River Kwai stars Alec Guiness, in what David calls “the role he was born to play” (please don’t get mad at us, Star Wars fans…), and William Holden (also arguably in the role he was born to play). It’s long, and ambitious, and cost a lot of money to make, which hasn’t necessarily been the mark of a movie that stands the Screen Test of Time. Will this one be more of the same, or will your hosts finally enjoy a big, bold, and expensive movie?

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1957 (Won)

Additional audio from The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

The curse of great poster, bad movie is well and truly over! (Well, at least so-bad-it’s-great poster…) Henry Ford leads a phenomenal cast of, well, twelve angry men in this tense, bottle episode of a movie, and meditation on the potential failings and virtues of trial by jury.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1957 (Nominated)

Additional audio from 12 Angry Men (1957)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Gary Cooper plays a father and husband in a Quaker family during the American Civil War, when his community is faced with the question of whether or not they will stay pacifists and out of the war or confront injustice with violence.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1956 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Friendly Persuasion (1956)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

The Ten Commandments is Cecil B. DeMille’s apotheosis, and we mean that both as a compliment and an insult.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1956 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Ten Commandments (1956)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

The winner of 1956, Around the World in 80 Days, features cameos from just about everyone who was alive at the time in Hollywood… which is probably why this hour too long, frequently racist mess got enough votes to take home the statue.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1956 (Won)

Additional audio from Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

James Dean’s last movie, Giant is a sprawling Texas epic also starring Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, and it’s damn good. Not perfect. But damn good.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1956 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Giant (1956)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Well, this was painful. The King and I is a disaster of racist stereotypes, colonialist tropes, and yellow face casting, with, unfortunately, some really talented people involved in making it happen. Just agonizing.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1956 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The King and I (1956)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

And we're back after a brief hiatus with the final nominee of 1955, the lesser known (for a reason) Tennessee Williams penned The Rose Tattoo, starring Anna Magnani and Burt Lancaster. Listen, there are more absurd romances out there, but somehow this one manages to be both less believable and less compelling. But in a year of nominees this bad, could this be the Best Picture among a field of duds? Find out!

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1955 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Rose Tattoo (1955)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Kim Novak and William Holden star in Picnic, the CinemaScope adaptation of the William Inge play about (what else) a picnic in a small midwestern town. Which sounds super boring but is actually kind of weird and… good?

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1955 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Picnic (1955)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing; Jennifer Jones in yellow-face is anything but.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1955 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Mister Roberts was the last movie William Powell ever did, and he’s great in it. Unfortunately, he’s not in it very much. Henry Fonda, Jimmy Cagney, and Jack Lemmon all co-star in this US Navy dramedy that had three directors before all was said and done, and the way the tone ricochets all over the place like a pinball launched from a shotgun, it shows!

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1955 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Mister Roberts (1955)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Marty was a one act play that was probably pretty good… So good, in fact, that Hollywood thought it was a great idea to make it into a movie, add a bunch of extraneous stuff, make it nearly twice as long, and ruin it.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1955 (Won)

Additional audio from Marty (1955)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Bing Crosby plays an abusive, manipulative alcoholic stage actor trying to make a comeback, and Grace Kelly his long suffering, salt of the earth wife, and yet it’s William Holden as the show’s director who is the least believable character in The Country Girl.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1954 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Country Girl (1954)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

In which Elia Kazan uses Marlon Brando to try to not only justify snitching on his friends and colleagues to the House Un-American Activities Committee, but convince his audience it was heroic. We’re not buying it.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1954 (Won)

Additional audio from On the Waterfront (1954)

(Explicit language, as always)