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)