Anatomy of a Murder is a courtroom drama that introduces some of the touchstones of the genre, including the the “I’m just a simple country lawyer” trope, with Jimmy Stewart as said lawyer. With a Duke Ellington score and a surprisingly nuanced approach to imperfect victims, a new decade is definitely on the horizon with this flick.
Year Eligible: 1959 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
(Explicit language, as always)
The 1959 adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank (adapted from the stage play, in turn adapted from the original diary) has a lot to recommend it. Only problem? The lead, and titular character, isn’t one of them.
Year Eligible: 1959 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
(Explicit language, as always)
You know what there’s Room at the Top for? A new Bengal Lancer Episode! As we’re working through our backlog of recorded episodes, some of the topics discussed are old news, but some of them are news so old it’s new again. Enjoy some media recommendations that are not the worst movie of the 1959 nominees.
Year Eligible: 1959 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Room at the Top (1959)
(Explicit language, as always)
If we had a nickel for every time there was a film nominated for Best Picture in 1958 that was based on a play that dealt with the trauma of a man hiding his homosexuality in a post-WWII world, but rewrote the script so the gay character was straight in the film, we’d have 2 nickels. It’s not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Year Eligible: 1958 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Separate Tables (1958)
(Explicit language, as always)
A perfect balance of zany and clever, Auntie Mame is deceptively thoughtful, though not without some glaring failures at the Screen Test of Time.
Year Eligible: 1958 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Auntie Mame (1958)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1958 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1958 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Defiant Ones (1958)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1958 (Won)
Additional audio from Gigi (1958)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1957 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1957 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Peyton Place (1957)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1957 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Sayonara (1957)
(Explicit language, as always)
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?
Year Eligible: 1957 (Won)
Additional audio from The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1957 (Nominated)
Additional audio from 12 Angry Men (1957)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1956 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Friendly Persuasion (1956)
(Explicit language, as always)
The Ten Commandments is Cecil B. DeMille’s apotheosis, and we mean that both as a compliment and an insult.
Year Eligible: 1956 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Ten Commandments (1956)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1956 (Won)
Additional audio from Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1956 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Giant (1956)
(Explicit language, as always)
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.
Year Eligible: 1956 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The King and I (1956)
(Explicit language, as always)
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!
Year Eligible: 1955 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Rose Tattoo (1955)
(Explicit language, as always)
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?
Year Eligible: 1955 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Picnic (1955)
(Explicit language, as always)