#01 - Best Actor in a Supporting Role, 1960

In this episode of the Best Whatever Whenever Podcast, Jim and Mark dive deep into the Oscar nominees for Best Actor in a Supporting Role from 1960. With the haunted wheel of fortune spinning its magic, they explore performances from Hugh Griffith in Ben Hur, Ed Wynn in The Diary of Anne Frank, Arthur O'Connell and George C. Scott in Anatomy of a Murder, and Robert Vaughn in The Young Philadelphians, all while questioning the choices made by the Academy. Expect lively debates on controversial performances, and the varying degrees of acting prowess displayed in these classic films. From humorous tangents to insightful critiques, this episode promises a fun ride through film history.

00:00 - Introduction to the episode

00:50 - Overview of the nominees

02:30 - Discussion on Hugh Griffith's performance

05:30 - Ed Wynn's role in The Diary of Anne Frank

17:45 - Insights into Anatomy of a Murder

25:14 - Silver Screen Showdown trivia segment

38:10 - The Young Philadelphians

48:35 - What else should have been nominated?

58:35 - Spinning the wheel for next time

Transcript:

Mark: Hello and welcome to Best Whatever. Whenever, the film podcast where we let a haunted wheel of fortune control our lives.

Jim: It picks a random Oscar category in year. We watch every nominee, question our life choices and argue about what should have won.

Mark: It's a trip through film history with added rants and tangents.

Jim: I'm Jim.

Mark: And I'm Mark.

Jim: And last time, the year that we generated was 1960 and the category was Best Actor in a supporting role. So.

Jim: The nominees were Hugh Griffith for Ben Hur, Arthur o' Connell and George C. Scott for Anatomy of a Murder. Robert Vaughan for the Young Philadelphians and Ed Wynn for the Diary of Anne Frank. And we talked about whether we might actually kind of not reveal the winner when we were discussing how to do this. and it seemed appealing at first because it meant there'd be a big reveal at the end, but also would make the conversation quite hard because we would know because.

Mark: Hey,

Jim: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because yeah. And also this is all kind of public domain and it's been, in this case, you know, it's been 45. How. 65. 65 years since 1960. So you've had a chance. It's not a spoiler. everyone knows who when. We'll come to ones where everyone's going to know who's, who's won when we do some different categories. So we might as well just be upfront about it.

Mark: Yeah. And plus you get the nice bit where we could talk about why he shouldn't have won.

Jim: Why should or should depending on your, choices.

Mark: Yeah, but point of view in this.

Jim: Case also the other thing is that the Academy website lists them with winner first. So unless I kind of randomly decided a new order for them, you'd probably usually know who the winner is. So. So the winner this time was Hugh Griffith for Ben Hur. and we, I aren't gonna shy away from controversy on this podcast, but I wasn't expecting to get into this kind of controversy this early because it turns out the winner, it also happens to be the only guy who did his performance in blackface and. Holy. Yeah, that was.

Mark: Yeah, I know it was a bit, you know, different times. Different.

Jim: Very different times.

Mark: But it was. But, but also he was, he wasn't the only, dark skinned actor in the film.

Jim: No, no, there were, there were plenty who appeared more authentic. but yeah, he was. Hugh Griffith is a Welsh guy playing an Arab sheikh. Yes, he plays the, the sheikh who Owns the horses that Ben Hur, Judah Ben Hur drives in the chariot race. The famous chariot race.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And it's. It's kind of a fun role. I mean, as much there's. It's not.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It's not a film with a lot of humour in it.

Mark: Fun in it. No, no.

Jim: Much of the humour comes m. From.

Mark: Kind of the comic.

Jim: That character.

Mark: Yeah. It's kind of the comic relief. It's a bit like the. The guy that Indiana Jones meets in wherever they meet. Somewhere in Africa.

Jim: Also played by a Welsh John. Reese Davis.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yes. It's. What's going on? Perhaps it's something.

Jim: Why would.

Mark: Something to do with the accent. What is it? Can Welsh people render the Arabic tongue that much more.

Jim: Not based on what we've seen from Hugh Griffith. No, he did. It did slip into Welsh a few times. So.

Mark: Yeah, I think it was a couple. Yeah. Too many. Look, you's and boyos, they kind of, you know, took them six months in post production. They didn't want to do another three weeks cutting out all of the. There's tidy and things. I mean he.

Jim: I. I did think that he had fun with it and I thought it was pretty good. Because the acting in Ben Hur.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is Variable.

Mark: Earnest. Yes.

Jim: Some people are really, really into it and some.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: We're cashing a paycheck.

Mark: The. Well, the thing is that the. The. All of the. The baddies. All the Romans were British actors.

Jim: Yes.

Mark: Because that. To give them a bit of,

Jim: It's.

Mark: It's.

Jim: It's upper class, isn't it? That's the thing. They're the aristocrats. That's. That's the point. That's literally why they cast. Or they had at least. And them speak in English accents. And the. The Judeans were All in Speaking in American accents or something.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Something near to. If they weren't Americans.

Mark: Yeah. Because. Yeah. Because the seat. He's.

00:05:00

Mark: He's the kind of the comic relief. He's. He's like the comic relief. Like Ed Wynn is the comic relief in Diary of Anne Frank, which.

Jim: Which I felt very out of place. Felt very out of place.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: I mean let's. We'll come back to Hugh Griffith, but moving on to Ed Wynn Yeah. Diary. Anne Frank.

Mark: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I. As a. As a film I enjoyed, I thought it was very good.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And I haven't seen it.

Mark: What I found very interesting as I was. No. And Watching, It. I was thinking, oh yeah. Audrey Hepburn. Would have, would have been a shoe in for this. And apparently Otto Frank.

Jim: Yeah, Otto Frank. Yeah. Her, her dad.

Mark: Father. No, her dad asked her, wrote to her, wrote to Audrey Hepburn, said, would you play it?

Jim: Yeah, she felt she was too old.

Mark: Fair play to her.

Jim: Which I think was fair.

Mark: And also possibly had, had, didn't have enough range. I think she really, I don't know.

Jim: I think she could have done it as well as Millie Perkins did.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: yeah. Who was also too old for it, but still. Yeah, you know, she's a 13 year old girl. It's super hard to find really young actors and they just didn't care as much. This is the, this is pre Grease you know, they, they hadn't quite gone as far as casting 30 year olds in teenage roles but, but they still were just like, it doesn't matter. People just suspend their disbelief. It's fine. So. But yeah, I thought, I thought she did a good job.

Mark: Cassandra Dee was up for a, Yeah, yeah. But Sandra Day, speaking of Grease Sandra D. Was up for a acting award this year. The m. 1960s.

Jim: Oh, is she?

Mark: Yeah, I think so. In the Best actress or something. Right, yeah.

Jim: So,

Mark: yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so she was good. Richard good. Amazing to see Richard beyond Richard Bemer M. Yeah.

Jim: Very young. Richard Bamer. He's not, he's not like. I, I think I've only seen him in Twin Peaks and West side Story and he's not, he's kind of a bit of a background personality. Even if he's the lead, in my opinion. Like he's not, I don't think he's.

Mark: Yes, he's a whole bunch of really.

Jim: Sure. But he's, he's, he's a supporting actor usually. And, and so as a supporting actor in this, he was fine. yeah, yeah, it was.

Mark: Did he get nominated for west side World where we get to.

Jim: I can't imagine he's been nominated for.

Mark: Anything in 1965 or whatever.

Jim: Josh Shakira's 1:1 Best Supporting Actor in. In the west side Story.

Mark: Yeah. So he wouldn't have got it so. Right.

Jim: I mean he would have presumably had he been nominated, Bama would have been for best Actor because Tony is a lead role even as Richard Bamer played him. Yeah, so yeah. yeah, but yeah, Ed Wynn was the kind of the one who joined halfway through the film because the the Anne Frank's family and the other family that they went into the attic with at the beginning of their exile essentially, or their Hiding. They were together for a couple of years, I think, before this other dentist. I think who Dussel was, at least the name that Anne Frank gave him. It was a pseudonym they gave him. But, yeah, right. He's, he was played by Ed Wynn who was previously, in his youth, a vaudeville clown. Essentially. He was a fool character actor.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Didn't. Hadn't done a lot of serious acting work until a few years before this, and then kind of was convinced to try and do some serious acting. it's very. It was hard. I mean, it's not like I've seen a lot of Ed Wynn doing comedy, but it was still hard to take him seriously.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Partly because it's the Mad Hatter voice.

Mark: Exactly. As soon as he came on.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: On the screen, I was thinking, wait a minute, that's the Mad Hatter.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And I'm thinking, I recognise his face from the Madhouse. I'm thinking that's the, Is that the, the doorman of the, the Emerald City? Or is it the Mad Hatter? And it turns out it's the Mad Hatter. And then, of course, it isn't the face of the Mad Hatter, because the Mad Hatter was a cartoon in Disney's Alice In Wonderland. And he did the voice. Yeah. And I think the cartoon version of him is sort of based. It is based on Edwin's face.

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Mark: And he looks just like it, though. Yeah.

Jim: I thought he felt out of place. I did. I thought there was already some humour. I thought Millie Perkins as Anne Frank did a good job of bringing in some humour into it. Not comedy, but like.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Some humorous touches. I mean. Yeah, sure. You needed that character. He's in the, he's in the diary. It's an important role.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Ah, I, I, he, I don't think he felt right as a part of that ensemble. And, and he, and he. No, I certainly. I didn't think he stood out as.

Mark: A good actor in it. As a, A nomination for supporting actor.

Jim: No, no.

00:10:00

Mark: I mean, he was a supporting actor. There were several other supporting actors in there. Maybe he got the best lines. I don't know. I mean, he turns, up halfway through the film. How do you. The others.

Jim: I don't know. I mean, Luja Lu Jacoby was, was good. He was reprising his role from the, the stage play version and Shelley Winters, I think. One.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Best Supporting Actress.

Mark: She won Best Supporting Actress. Yeah. Because of that role. Yes. Yeah.

Jim: So, yeah. And they were both very good. Yeah. I don't Know why, why Ed Wynn would have got nominated over Lu Jakoby Because I think he was probably better. Had more to do.

Mark: There's another link with Audrey Hepburn. The cat played the cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Jim: Oh really?

Mark: Same cat? Yeah.

Jim: So if she had played if she had played Anne Frank, there would have been a bit of an on set reunion there when she did Breakfast Tiffany's here. Yeah. Okay.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: So, yeah, I, I agree.

Mark: Oh, you're actually orange. I thought you were black and white.

Jim: Yeah, I agree that. I didn't think that Ed Wynn really deserved a nomination. Particularly. I don't necessarily agree with you about Hugh Griffith. I, I didn't think he was fantastic.

Mark: Really. Well over. What's his name who played Ben Hurs erstwhile kind of brother in name.

Jim: Oh, Stephen Boyd.

Mark: Masala. Yeah.

Jim: No, I didn't, I didn't think Stephen Boyd was particularly good, to be honest. I think it's a difficult role. It's a difficult role to play because Yeah, I think his motivation, that character's motivation.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is a bit unrealistic there isn't it as written. There just isn't much to go on. I think I heard that Gore Vidal, when he was writing the script essentially kind of to, to give him motivation to do some of the nasty things he did to Judah Ben Hur wanted to make them former lovers and suggested that to William Wyler. Supposedly this is. There's differing stories on this from Gore Vidal and William Wyler and Stephen Boyd. But. But supposedly William Wyler told Stephen Boyd about that. Like ah. Suggested it as part of his character but didn't tell Charlton Hest. And I think you can kind of see it personally in the scene where they reunite where he comes back into.

Mark: Judea and they throw the spears.

Jim: It's pretty homoerotic that, that reunion.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And. And it does add some aspects of the motivation. If he's, if he is kind of feeling as like a spurned lover who has been moved on from and is not being acknowledged or you know, that kind of thing, you can kind of get more, you know, the, the old love, hate, two sides of the same coin thing.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Means.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There's more reason, absent that being.

Mark: Yeah. Actually because it's.

Jim: Because there's out loud in the script. It does give him. It does make it basically really difficult for him to then reasonably portray what his motivation is for treating the family the way he being an.

Mark: The conquering.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Being and the occupying force.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And just, you know, that's the. That's the entire raison d' tre. In fact, when you. When we kind of watched all. Watched all across all these. This. It's sort of about occupying forces. Ah. Hide and all that. There's lots of that. So, yeah, there's a class.

Jim: A lot of class stuff, isn't there? There's. There's. Yeah. but I think. Yeah. So in terms of Stephen Boyd vs Hugh Griffiths for Ben Hur, I didn't think that Stephen Boyd was great. I thought, he's fine.

Mark: Jack Hawkins didn't get a looking.

Jim: Yeah, he was pretty good for that because he was.

Mark: Yeah. You know, playing, Quintus.

Jim: Yes.

Mark: he was kind of.

Jim: Yeah. I mean, like, you kind of. It's a bit of the Olivia Coleman problem, isn't it, with, We've talked offline about that. She's so good, Olivia Coleman, in. In so many different roles that for her to stand out enough to. To win an award means she has to be extra good. Jack Hawkins was always great, and that was always. Basically his performance, the. The one he gave in Ben Hur. Yeah, he was always like that.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So it didn't.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: It didn't make you think, oh, with.

Mark: The heart of gold.

Jim: He was just Jack Hawkins.

Mark: It's always like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Ah, but, yeah, he was. He was good. I don't know. I think. I think he.

Mark: In a way that was.

Jim: I, just brought something a bit different to what the others did. It's one of those kind of, you know, biblical epic things where it's just the acting isn't

00:15:00

Jim: really what you're there for. You know, you're not. That's, not why the film did well.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. It's not a point of acting. Did I pause to look at the acting? Yeah, yeah.

Jim: There's, you know, there's the chariots stuff, man. Exactly.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There's that, like, acres and acres of Jerusalem that they built in real life in kind of one to one ratio. And the months that they spent on the chariot race and the incredible coordination by Yakima Kanutt and his son doing the stunts and, like, just so much stuff going on that, it doesn't matter that the acting's a bit shaky in places and.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: So I don't think Hugh Griffith stood out as a bad actor. I just thought he was, Out of all of them, I think he was one of the best things in it, one of the most enjoyable.

Mark: Ones to watch because he was the third. The third army. Because there Were the. The Judeans the occupying Romans and then there were the Arabs.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: and he was you know, kind of like the. So he owned the horses and he was saying, yeah, let's team up and see to the occupying forces.

Jim: And so, yeah, he was kind of working both sides.

Mark: Yes, he was the, Yeah, he was the kind of the light relief, the comic relief as. As much as Ed Wynn was. And in the similar vein, as much as Arthur o' Connell was in Anatomy of a Murder. Yeah, because he was the, you know, the, The. The drunk former lawyer that worked with James Stewart and was kind of, you know, he was, Yeah, he was basically always drunk and useless and kind of the comic relief. But I mean, the thing is, he was made good.

Jim: He was drunk at the beginning, but he was supposed to have basically been off the source the whole film pretty much. He was like. Yeah, that was kind of. The thing is, he. He did. He enjoyed the being part of the case and working with James Stewart so much that he didn't drink and then stopped drinking by the end. So. Yeah, he still kind of was playing it a bit drunk, I thought. And I just. Yeah, he also, to me. Yeah, he felt like a young man trying to play an old man. He wasn't. He's a pretty. He was pretty old, you know, he was the age of the character.

Mark: Yeah, he was playing the age. He was.

Jim: He just looked like he was, you know, had pretty poor ageing makeup and was trying to.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Act a bit older.

Mark: I wonder if they aged, him down a bit. You know, there was. Because there was a bit of that went on in Young Philadelphians as well.

Jim: There was a tonne of it in Young Philadelphians. Yes. Because they. Because, like. Because Paul Newman's mum was actually.

Mark: Ages had to pass. Yeah.

Jim: But she was what, six. Six years younger than him or something like that. Paul Newman. And she was the same. They just kept the same actress. And Brian Keith, for that matter. He stayed the same. But. Yeah, yeah, it didn't matter as much for him.

Mark: And then just.

Jim: Or he did. Maybe they did it better with him. But. Yeah, no, that was. That was a bit crazy. Yeah. The Arthur o' Connell, in Anatomy of a Murder. I, That I. Again, I didn't really think he did anything particularly special.

Mark: No.

Jim: If he wasn't in the film Relief at all, I don't think it would have made that much difference.

Mark: It wouldn't have made it. Well, he wasn't in for a lot.

Jim: Of it because he headed off to Canada or whatever. Yeah. But yeah.

Mark: To him driving in a car at, breakneck speed.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Somewhere, you know, in the dark, without a licence and all of that stuff. And we kind of didn't miss him whilst he was.

Jim: But it was gone for me. It wasn't just that the character wasn't that important to the plot. He just didn't. I didn't really think it would have mattered if he wasn't there as the. That actor, particularly.

Mark: No.

Jim: I felt that could have been played by anyone. That's. I think part of the Hugh Griffith thing is the character was this jovial character in a. In a kind of very serious place. I think Hugh Griffith did that very well. I think it would have been different with someone else playing that character. With Ed Wynn I think anyone could have stood in for him and probably improved it with. With Arthur o' Connell. It really just doesn't matter who played that character. I just didn't think he did.

Mark: Yeah. Ah.

Jim: Amazingly well. Particularly so that. Those were the ones that I wasn't super impressed with. Those two. Arthur o' Connell and Ed Wynn George C Scott in Anatomy of a Murder as, Dancer. Clarence Dancer, the, The. Essentially the da, the prosecutor. He was excellent. Yeah, he was flown in. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Really? Yeah.

Jim: Claude Dancer. That's it. Yeah. He. I think he did stand out that.

Mark: Yeah. More than Ben Gazara.

Jim: Yeah, there

00:20:00

Jim: was.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I don't know. I thought Ben Gazzara did. Did well. I. I would rather have seen Ben Gazzara Nominated.

Mark: Got nominated. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: He did a better job.

Mark: So. Yeah. It's interesting that they.

Jim: In fact. Which was a much more nuanced role because he had to be. He had to be trying to convince different people of different things convincingly. you know, he had to play a role in the courtroom that he wasn't playing when he was just seen with his wife or. Or with Jimmy Stewart, so.

Mark: Or when. With James Stewart. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: So I thought. Yeah, I thought he did a much better job. The other person in Anatomy of a Murder, who I thought absolutely should have had the nomination over, Arthur o' Connell was the judge.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Who. Yeah, he was great.

Mark: Yeah. yes.

Jim: In fact, this is the only, film he was ever in. The only. This is his only acting.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: Because Joseph Welch, he was a. He was previously a lawyer judge. He was an actual lawyer up front. He was, in the McCarthy hearings. He was the guy who said to McCarthy, have you no decency left? That was like the beginning of the end of the McCarthy era. Was Joseph Welch defending his client by basically saying, look after. After all this time, have you no decency? And. Yeah, that was that guy.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: And he was asked to do this, at, ah, this role as the judge. And he did it on the condition that his wife also got a part, so she's one of the jurors. And, this was it. This was his. His one acting role. And then he died a couple of years later. He was great. I really enjoyed his.

Mark: Yeah, he added a, level of authentic, a layer of authenticity to the courtroom, that James Stewart kind of didn't.

Jim: Oh, I think, you know, you've got to give Jimmy Stewart similarly.

Mark: Yeah, we love it.

Jim: He's just a humble country lawyer, but he's.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, he's a humble country banker. He's a humble country. Yeah, yeah. From crop sprayers. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: I mean, to be fair.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Also in this, he has to do a lot more and different stuff than he has to do in many of his films. You know, he. He is a. An actor who plays that same character a lot. This was different because he was, you know, playing jazz and smoking and, you know, he was much more kind of cool and more Philip Mo and could believably do things not necessarily the fully right way. You know, he's. This wasn't Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He's not the guy you can rely on to. To always do the right thing. He's like, when Lee Remick flirts with him, it's like. Well, he might go for that.

Mark: Yeah. You know, but, he checks himself at the last minute.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, Yeah, I think he did well in this. But yeah, I think George. George Scott is his kind of main foil, if you don't count the other lawyer who's also.

Mark: I, know. It was odd, wasn't it, that they were that guy we all. George C. Scott in. And there's another one at one point, Jimmy Stewart says. Yeah, hang on a minute. That's. We're playing. I'm being. I'll be played by a tag team here.

Jim: Well, Brooks. Brooks west, who played the other lawyer. Ah, he's also married, to someone else in the cast because he was, Eve Arden's husband, who was Jimmy Stewart's secretary. So. Yeah, who was also great. She was fantastic.

Mark: Well, there you go. But, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, she was great. Yeah, that was really. It was. It did have a kind of Philip. Philip Marlowe, Humphrey Bogart kind of edge to it, which is Quite, quite nice. You know it would, it could have been a Bogart thing except Bogart's not a lawyer, he's just a detective. So there was a lot of detective stuff and a lot of wise cracking, smart ass, type of stuff. And the fact that I loved it when he came in from fishing and he wrapped up the fish, put it in the fridge and there were like a hundred other.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, fish in the full.

Mark: Absolutely full of fishing paper wrapped up fish.

Jim: For the part of the show where we take a break from over analysing films to humiliate each other with vintage.

Mark: Movie trivia, it's Silver Screen Showdown which is basically a version of Trivial Pursuits which we have neatly packed in inappropriate boxes which are wrong in every dimension. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of cards and we're going to take one out. We ought to have a.

Jim: We've got. What we've got is the silver screen edition of Trivial Pursuit from the, from the 80s, mid-80s. So we are going to each ask the other one all of the questions on an

00:25:00

Jim: individual card that we pick at random, which I just did and.

Mark: Right. I'm just going to pick one up. Round up there is.

Jim: See how we do and we'll kind of keep a running tally of how we do to see which of us is better at old movie trivia, which I, I'm not expecting to do that the other one but you know, get us an opportunity for you to play along at home, see if you know any of these as well.

Mark: Oh, some of mine are good.

Jim: So yeah, the categories incidentally on Silver Screen Trivia, I don't know because normally I'm I know the Trivial Pursuit categories. They're like, you know, art, literature and entertainment and all these things. So the categories in Silver Screen Trivial Pursuit are settings, titles, off screen, on screen production and portrayals. So who knows if any of that will matter.

Mark: Yeah. And they've, they've abbreviated those to three letters which would cause a lot of laughter at Christmas if you ask for the title category.

Jim: Yes.

Mark: Shortened to three letters. Yeah.

Jim: So yeah, I'm going to go first, I'm going to ask you the settings question. So when what continent's shores yielded the perfect wave in Bruce Brown's the Endless Summer? See this I think is a very easy question to start with because it immediately narrows it down to only the continents. Whereas some of these questions there's going to be like it could be from any film prior to about 1984 but you know, you've immediately got a one in five, chance of answering this. Correct.

Mark: End of summer continent. Got to be Australia.

Jim: It's Africa, so.

Mark: Oh yeah. Wow. Okay, well where is, where was that set?

Jim: I don't know.

Mark: I've just got a true card.

Jim: Right. I didn't research this.

Mark: I didn't know that you could. Didn't know you could surf around Africa. Well, all the surfers will be going. Yeah, of course you can. Yeah, surf here, there and everywhere. Yeah, yeah. I've been to two beaches in Africa. Neither of which you could surf on.

Jim: Right.

Mark: one of them had a a sunken oil tanker in the harbour and that caused that sort of stop the waves coming in one for one. Yeah.

Jim: Right, well.

Mark: Right, go on then.

Jim: okay, so this is titles. I'll do all of yours and then.

Mark: You do all of mine. Okay.

Jim: Yeah, so all six. Okay, so what 1947 David Lean film depicted Pip's dashed expectations of gaining a fortune.

Mark: Oh, well that is Great Expectations.

Jim: It is. Yes, of course.

Mark: Because that's got them the really fabulous shot where Pip is running down the street and he's. Or running down the lane towards the house I think as a young boy. And he's hugging the right hand side of the frame and there's no running room in order that we can't see what's happening. And there's a jump scare because he runs straight into the arms of whoever it is that grabs him. Yeah, right, that's. Yeah, there you go. Yeah.

Jim: So,

Jim: What 1978 film did John Travolta claim as his worst? Remember this is the worst prior to the 80s. So it's definitely not Battlefield Earth.

Mark: Right, okay. Oh, oh, okay. Worse. So 1978. Well really, where can I. Grease

Jim: I like Grease was 1980 but it's. It's moment by moment.

Mark: Oh no, I don't know that at all.

Jim: There you go.

Mark: That's obviously disappeared. I'm sure Grease was 1978.

Jim: Okay, now the next one.

Mark: Cause. Cause it might, it might be 1977.

Jim: Might be, yeah. So yeah, the next one is a bit of a gimme in my opinion because this is a thing about reading every question on a Trivial Pursuit card is sometimes they like to give a card a theme that are all bit themed.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And so the on screen question is what was Philip Pirit's nickname in Great Expectations?

Mark: David Lee. No, Pip.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, of course.

Mark: Right. Oh, because they're not working. They're not. They're not. Yeah, they're not.

Jim: Because when you play Trivial Normal rules, you don't play. You don't read all the questions on a card.

Mark: You don't really know. It's a bit like horoscopes. Never read people.

Jim: Yeah. You don't read all the other one.

Mark: Or two horoscopes, don't read all the others. And they're all exactly the same. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: So, yeah. what 1965 epic of Russia had its promotion begin with? Not since Gone with the Wind has.

Mark: A motion picture tackled civil war in so much detail. No, that must be what, 1965. So Russian. so it must be Dr. Zhivago. Not since Gone with the Wind has

00:30:00

Mark: so much love happened in so much snow.

Jim: You don't have to complete the. No, the phrase, you just have to name the film. Yeah. What, 19. Yes, that's right. I was waiting for you to talk.

Mark: Yourself out of the phrase.

Jim: Doesn't say.

Mark: Yeah, right. Yeah.

Jim: I haven't got. Like I said, it's just trip of suitcard. They don't give explanations.

Mark: It's just very odd. Not with hearing that you don't know what the end of the thing is. Ye.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: And finally. Okay, whose son, Tarek played 8 year old Yuri Zhivago in Dr. Zhivago?

Mark: Yul Brynner.

Jim: It was Omar Sharifs.

Mark: Oh, really?

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: Which makes a lot sense.

Mark: How. How marvellous. Yeah, yeah, it does, doesn't it? Yeah, I was somehow the Yuri lured me away.

Jim: Yeah, it was. So you got three out of six, which is. That's pretty good. Oh, it's not bad.

Mark: Not bad. Yeah, that's my usual 50%. Lovely. All right. All right then. Okay. In return then, the. The first one is a setting one what town was torn to shreds in the day of the Locust?

Jim: Oh, I haven't got a clue. So I will guess. I mean, I just, It's a madness to just guess. A random town. El Paso, Texas.

Mark: Nope.

Jim: Hollywood was it right then?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Okay.

Mark: What 1957 film was Jack Lemmon's only western?

Jim: Trying to picture Jack Lemon in a. In a cowboy hat.

Mark: Yeah, and it's. Yeah, yeah. Well, obviously M. You're on the right track. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. More than you know, actually, but yeah. Yeah.

Jim: I do not know. I can't. I can't think of it. I can't think of a late 50s Western that might have had Jack Lemon in it. Can't think of it.

Mark: No, no. Well, there were. There was. There was only one.

Jim: There was. Yes.

Mark: Called Cowboy. Ah.

Jim: well, there you go. I, I, I'm not aware of that film, so that would have. No, been a random.

Mark: Yeah. Okay, so off screen, what star of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane confided? I love to play assume.

Jim: Joan Crawford.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Yes, it was. Yeah. Okay, on screen, what colour were the alien's eyes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

Jim: Oh, blimey, M. Gosh. You only see them right at the end.

Mark: Yeah. Unless you saw the special edition when you go on the ship. Yeah.

Jim: Oh, yeah, yeah. They cut that bit out, didn't they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's been so long, you realise.

Mark: They'Re just children dressed up as aliens. Yeah. Okay. What colour were the eyes of the aliens?

Jim: Can't picture them, so I'm gonna say green.

Mark: No, they were blue.

Jim: Yeah. Okay.

Mark: Yeah. Why not? Yeah, yeah. What 1978 musical included in its cast? The Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, Alice Cooper and Earth, Wind and Fire.

Jim: Wow, that sounds awesome. Tommy. Was it? Is it Tommy?

Mark: No, no, no, it was, it was Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart.

Jim: Oh, of course it fucking was. Yes.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So much more sense.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Which was a Robert Stigwood production, so I think they were all Stigwood artists, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, yeah. So the other one would have been, Steve Martin, who played the, he played Maxwell Edison majoring in medicine when they did a version of Maxwell Silver Hammer in it, which he kind of spoke. Sang the stinkiest film ever, apart from the Earth Wind Fire version of whatever they did. Got to get you into my life. Can't remember. Yeah, so it was. Yes. Don't ever watch it. I've got the album. I've never listened to it. okay, and on that, in that kind of, thematic region, what Former girlfriend of Paul McCartney played Annie in 1966's Alfie.

Jim: Wow. Jesus Christ. Didn't go out with Silver Black, did he?

Mark: No. Wrote several songs for her, Went on tour with her. Yeah, yeah, I know this one without even looking at it.

Jim: Yeah, of course you do.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. She was an actor, naturally. Obvs. Yeah.

Jim: Oh, he, he did. I think he did go out with the woman who was in the Royal Family, whose name I can't bring to mind.

Mark: Really.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, not the mum in the Royle Family. She was, she was friends with the Beatles when she was.

Mark: Oh, right, oh, okay, right. yeah, not the, not, not, Her Majesty's.

Jim: No, no, not that. The

00:35:00

Jim: Royal Family with a Y. The Carolina.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. They've both got Y's with an E.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: R, O, Y, L, E. Yeah. now, I. I, Linda McCartney. That's not former girlfriend. Unless you count being a wife as being a former girlfriend. That's not how that works.

Mark: Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah. No, he left her for Linda.

Jim: Right.

Mark: Jane Asher.

Jim: Okay. Didn't know they were a thing.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. in fact, he lived in the. Ash's house. and Jane, Ash's brother was a third of Peter, Paul and Mary, the kind of vocal group. he was. Peter still alive, I think, still producing stuff. I've got a feeling he's just produced Paul McCartney and Barbra Streisand's new duet.

Jim: Right. You've won. You've won this week. It's three. One. but I feel like you had a bit of an advantage. Not because the ones about the Beatles were on the card that you were asking me, so that didn't help you at all. But the. The having kind of multiple questions on essentially the same films helps a little bit.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I'm disappointed in myself, for only getting one. But, you know, I'm.

Mark: I'm very pleased.

Jim: I'm not surprised you're pleased. Yeah. So, but it's, you know, it's very early days. There's time to. To call those points back, so.

Mark: And also, we. We can't award ourselves, bonus points for knowing the answer because we're just. The other one. We'll just have to believe that they m. Haven't put the back of the card.

Jim: No, we can't.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: No. Passing it over. No. So, yeah, no. Well, more of that next time.

Mark: Last one in the category was Young Philadelphians, which is. Is called A Courtroom Draw, A legal drama. And it kind of.

Jim: I mean, there was about five minutes of some courtroom stuff at the end.

Mark: There were some. You know, it was about lawyers.

Jim: It was a melodrama. It was a very, very soapy melodrama. It was about a tax lawyer. Yeah, kind of.

Mark: And. And the other. And the other. The McCarthy link is that, Trumbo wrote the script.

Jim: Yeah. Dalton Trumbo.

Mark: Yeah. Paul Newman and Robert Vaughn didn't know that he had. And they approached him and. To make changes to the script because they thought it was shit.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: So. And he said. He kind of went, no, no, I'm working on other things. So there was a script writer that would turn up to the studio and pretend to be the scriptwriter, but he was. It was actually Trumbo I think it was all right. I mean, it's just. I think it was trying to be a film making a very heartfelt commentary on the society of the. The era. And I don't agree with miserably. Right.

Jim: I think it was a film that was trying to be a thirst trap for Paul Newman fans. I think they were just trying to put Paul Newman in as many situations where you could go, fuck, he's gorgeous, as you. As they possibly could. They were. They were like, putting him in a tuxedo and, like, sweaty on a construction site and, like, in an army uniform and like. Oh, it was. It was like the Village People. But all of them are Paul Newman and.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And,

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was kind of. It was a contractual obligation that he had to make this.

Jim: Yeah, he's not. He's not a fan of the film. He didn't really want to do it and he didn't. But, I mean, I don't think you'd know that from his performance. I thought he was really good. His mum thinks he was really good. It's her favourite film. But, Yeah, yeah, but, yeah, I thought he was good. And in fact, I thought he was so good that it made it difficult to judge other people next to him.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Because.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Yeah, because I thought that Brian Keith, who played his dad, was not great, mostly because he was required to do an Irish accent he couldn't quite do for all of the film or most of the film.

Mark: Yeah. Yes.

Jim: They didn't decide to have him lose his Irish accent over the course of the 30 years or so that we watched him, because that would have been easy. There would have been a reason for that, that he could. That, In, like. He only had then to do the Irish accent for the first, like, 20 minutes of the film and then he's like, no.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I've been in America so long now, I. You can barely remember what it.

Mark: I've got rid of it.

Jim: It was like. Yeah, so.

Mark: No, but I know I no longer. I'm no longer, an Irish policeman. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was that kind of. Yeah. New York Irish policeman type accent, which is always terrible.

Jim: Yeah. The ridiculous ageing makeup on, On his mum, Diane Brewster, who. Yeah. Six

00:40:00

Jim: years younger than Paul Newman. Made sense in the opening scenes. Made less and less sense as we progressed through the film.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But, no, I. Yeah, I don't. I mean, yes, it was about class and society and stuff, but they didn't really have a great deal to say about it. And it was more just a, soapy melodrama about, you know.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Life. Life on the other side of the girl thing.

Mark: Tries to. Yeah, yeah. But it was.

Jim: He's basically the kind of.

Mark: Were they on the outside of the trap?

Jim: Well, in a way, because the basic idea is early on in the film, his mum gets married to a, A, ah, society man who then leaves her on her on their wedding.

Mark: Surprising cameo early Adam. Hang on a minute.

Jim: His first credited role.

Mark: Bloody Batman.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So, wow. yeah, he leaves, And it's kind. It's very much implied that he's gay and he can't be in this marriage. And he goes off and either gets into an accident or kills himself, but dies in a car off the cliff. So the kid who will grow up to be Paul Newman has the name of the society man but isn't actually his son because the. The. Turns out the widow ran off having been dumped on her wedding night for an assignation with Brian Keith. So they don't have any money, essentially. They don't have connections other than the cyclical fact of his name, essentially. And, and people, yeah. Believing that he is the son of the rich person.

Mark: Yeah. Because his. Adam West's, mother.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: So the grandmother of Paul Newman, says if you drop the Lawrence name.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: then I will make sure you never want for anything.

Jim: Yeah. And she goes the other way.

Mark: Yeah. She's. Instead of saying, yeah, I'll just take all the money.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And. And you know, live the life of, you know, with. With O'Reilly. Life with Mike Flanagan.

Jim: Flanagan, yeah.

Mark: Instead of doing that, she said, no, no, I. He's got to have the Lawrence name. M. Because.

Jim: Yeah. Ah, she basically values that over everything. She thinks it will open doors for him, which it kind of does a little bit, but doesn't like he still struggles. He still has to, you know, work much harder than kind of.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: And. Yeah, yeah. Ah, like.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: I thought there were some good bits in it. I thought it was way too long, as most of these were, to be honest. These were a lot of long films.

Mark: They were, weren't they? Yeah, I mean, they were kind of long. They had intermissions.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark: you know. Yeah.

Jim: But it also featured Billy Burke, the brilliant Billy Burke, who was Glinda originally.

Mark: That was.

Jim: She was excellent wizard was Glinda. Oh, yeah. But she is now playing an eccentric old lady with a. With a little dog. That was another thirst trap. Paul Newman in a suit with a dog.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There's, there's just lot. There's lots for fans of young Paul Newman in this film. So. Yeah, but yeah, I, I was kind of saying that I, I thought that he made it difficult to compare other people to. And obviously Robert Vaughan's character as essentially his best friend who loses an arm in the war, is an alcoholic and everything goes badly for him. All of his scenes basically are with Paul Newman. They're all up against Paul Newman and. And yeah, so he comes across as overacting because Paul, yeah, is so naturally charismatic and just genuine in what he does. He doesn't look like he's acting at all. And Chet's character, yeah, is. Is a much more manic and drunk and bedevilled by problems character. So everything he does seems a bit overactive. But actually, I think he did a good job. I think he was pretty good.

Mark: Yeah. Robert Vaughan, wasn't this his, his kind of biggest role today?

Jim: Yeah, I don't think he'd done anything huge by this point.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: So, yeah, I think, I think it was a valid nomination and I think he did pretty well. He definitely did it differently to other. How other actors would have done and possibly better depending on the actor. But, yeah, I think he did. I think he did a good job. And it was, as a film, I quite enjoyed it, but it was very soapy and melodramatic and over the top.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But I did enjoy the whole.

Mark: It was, yeah.

Jim: Kind of relationship between.

Mark: It was. No. Kind of Paul and.

Jim: And the lady.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. But it was all kind of very, very edited and sped up. They're going to elope. So it's all a bit. It's a Wonderful Life ish, really, because, you know, they're going to elope.

00:45:00

Mark: Her, father talks him out of it by offering him a place at the firm.

Jim: I mean, the thing that. That was a bit college, as is often the case with. I mean, this isn't really a rom com, but that kind of scenario. Yeah, it's kind. It was a bit of a misunderstanding and she was, she was massively overreacting to what actually happened.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because all that happened was.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Her dad quite seemingly genuinely was saying, like, okay, welcome to the family. at the moment, you can't support my daughter in the manner to which she's become accustomed. But if you just put off the wedding by like six months, I'll put you in a position where you, you know, come and join the firm, work for me. You can do your. Do your exam, do your law exams and Stuff like that. And then you'll be in a great position to get married. Just don't go, don't head off tonight and do it, but be in a better position. And he's like, that actually makes a lot of sense. And she's like, I knew you didn't want to marry me and goes off to London and marries someone else. It's like, fuck off. Yeah. That's a total overreaction. That shouldn't be how this goes.

Mark: I know, but there was. But there is a moment when Paul Newman's character realises that, her father wants her to marry into Carter, isn't it? Who gets killed in the war.

Jim: Well, she does marry him, but I don't. That wasn't the impression I got from the dad. No. I mean, it's. You know, he was. He was not unhappy that that happened. It's another society thing.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But I think he seemed like he really liked, whatever Paul Newman's character name was. Can't remember.

Mark: Well, particularly because he gave. He actually did give him a job.

Jim: Yeah, yeah. Didn't he?

Mark: And he ended up working and then.

Jim: Yeah, was annoyed by when he lost him because he turned out to be an actually better lawyer than him and, you know, could have made his firm lots of money. So, yeah, there's stuff in there to enjoy. I quite, quite, liked it.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And, yeah, I didn't think, for that, Robert Vaughan got. No.

Mark: Yeah. Oh, no, it wasn't. But, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, of. But. But, you know, when you. When you. When you're up against other stuff that could have. Because I'm. I'm. I was thinking, is this the same year as Some Like It Hot?

Jim: It is so the same. Yeah.

Mark: Speaking of Jack Lemmon.

Jim: Yeah. Just a little note on years, this being our first episode, I think it's worth mentioning. You'll probably have noticed by now, but the one thing that makes Oscar questions quite difficult to write in quizzes is that some people think Best Actor 1960 means the best actor of films that came out in 1960. And some people mean it, the correct way, the way we're doing it, which is the award, that was given out during. In the ceremony award in 1960. So all of these films are 1959 films. They were all released in the US in 1959. That made them eligible for the 1960 Oscars. And so this is the 1960 award. So to be very clear throughout this podcast, we will be going purely by the year of the ceremony that gave out those awards. And so, yeah, yeah. Some Like it all was also a 1959 film and therefore was eligible for this, award. But in terms of supporting actors, unless you consider either one of Jack Lemmon or Tony Curtis the lead and the other one the supporting actor, which I don't know.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: If you reason. I mean, I don't know if you. If you reasonably could. That those categories are delineated by Oscar voters is. I think m. It's certainly true now. I think it was still true at the time is that you could vote for people in any category essentially. Like it in a.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Ah, for the acting. Yeah, acting categories. You can vote for someone as a lead or a supporting actor, which is some. Why we sometimes get some weird, choices in those. And if they are nominated in both the lead and the supporting actor category, then it's basically whichever has the greater percentage of the votes in those categories. So if they get like 20% of the vote in lead actor and 22% of the vote in supporting actor, they go into supporting actor. so.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So often what the studios will do is, campaign for a specific award so as not to split the vote. Because if it's not really clear in like, that case, Some Like It Hot, where you're not, you know, is there is one of them the lead and one of them sporting actor, or are they both leads? then that is, you know, it's. It might be confusing and some people might vote and therefore you. They don't reach that level together. So, I mean, it is possible that that is what happened. And. And some people voted for one of those two as a supporting actor, but also some people voted for them as the lead, and that's why they didn't get enough votes in supporting actor to get a nomination to be possibly.

Mark: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: but equally as

00:50:00

Jim: mate, it's possible that they just were both considered leads, and that doesn't count. Which would make the supporting actor, I guess,

Mark: Joey Brown.

Jim: Joe Brown. Joey Brown. That's right. Joey Brown.

Mark: Joe Brown. Which. Who did. Yes, he was kids. Yeah. Nobody's perfect.

Jim: Absolutely. Great line at the end.

Mark: And there he is there. And then he's right in with Ed Wynn and Hugh Griffith as the comic relief. Sure.

Jim: But I don't. He did. He had. He had even less to do.

Mark: Gonna have Ed Wynn

Jim: I think. I. I mean, I would rather see him here than Arthur o' Connell personally, but I think.

Mark: There you go.

Jim: I tell you who I would like to have seen nominated who. Who didn't get a look in because this also 1959 is the year that north by Northwest came out and James, James Mason.

Mark: Yes, James Mason could have been Best.

Jim: Supporting Actor could have been nominated at.

Mark: Least him and Jack Hawkins. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: I mean Jack Hawkins, arguably Martin Landau maybe as well. But, but certainly, certainly James Mason.

Mark: Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, exactly, yeah.

Jim: But also for me, the judge.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: the Josephine Welsh. Yeah, I thought he should have.

Mark: Oh yeah, that would have been great.

Jim: Would have been interesting to see like three nominees from. From Anatomy of a Murder going.

Mark: I know it's very odd, isn't it that there were, that they thought that there was sufficient numbers. A numbers of actors and B.

Jim: Wealth.

Mark: Strength, size of performance.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: To nominate. To put two actors forward for the, for that category.

Jim: And those two as well.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because

Mark: Yeah, Joseph Welsh. Yeah.

Jim: Won a Golden Globe for his. Or no, he was nominated for Golden Globe. he was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best Newcomer which again it ah, was because it's his only film role. But he's pretty old, you're right. So yeah, he's probably up against some, some 40 year old whipper snappers.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So he got, he was nominated for other awards but he didn't get a nomination for this. And yeah, I, I thought that would have been a good one, but there you go. So yeah, in terms of. Of these five, who should have won in your opinion? That's really the, the kind of the last question.

Mark: Yeah. Oh, I. Yes, well but then yeah, in terms of, of, of strength, size, professional aspects of performance, probably George C. Scott.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: As, as the lawyer. Because it was. He was Yeah, he was kind of villainous enough, but I think it was. It's back to our old friend, the good performance TR a strange place in a. You know, not necessarily a bad film, but trapped in a strange film. Because why was he brought in? Why wasn't he? I think it's the opposition, the prosecution.

Jim: I don't know the case in enough detail, but it's entirely possible that this was just because it's based on a real case. It's based very closely on a real case.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So yeah, probably that's what happened in reality.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: but yeah, I He did offer something completely different to Brooks west as well though. He was. Yeah, they both By having them both incisive and insightful, they were able to approach it in different ways and question people in different ways. But also they gave Jimmy Stewart the opportunity to be the underdog. Whereas if it was just Jimmy Stewart versus Brooks west, then. Yeah, yeah, then it would have been a fair fight and it wouldn't be that impressive that he won because he's a good lawyer. So him against both Brooks west and this fancy lawyer from Lansing who's been brought specially into the Upper Peninsula to, To do this case, you know, that means he was, he was fighting against the odds. So there's that. But. But yeah, he brought something different to it. He was, he was really solid where he needed to be, but also was.

Mark: Able to, I was going to say.

Jim: He have a bit of a smirk where it was. He needed as well. Not a lot, you know, there wasn't a lot of cracking a smile, but there is a couple of times where it, where it happened and it was, it added something. So. Yeah, that's good.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, he lent, lent weight to the prosecution because otherwise, because we all sided with Jimmy Stewart because he's the hero and Ben Gazara, you know, was just a bit of a con, man. And then if Jimmy Stewart kind of went, oh yeah, well that's all right, we'll just do that, then will plead insanity.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: If, if somebody wasn't there in a kind of McCarthy back to McCarthy in a kind of the way that the judge, ruptured the McCarthy trials, we need someone to, to stop Jimmy Stewart steamrollering through the defence.

Jim: And I think as well. And he did it, he brought

00:55:00

Jim: a believable outsider energy to it as well. Because while there were different energies and different types of character in the courtroom and in the. The whole thing, basically they all were believably from the same place. They were all kind of. Of the same. Yeah, they had the same kind of country feeling to them, rural feeling. Even the judge who was brought in from out of the area was like, yeah, you know, initially sceptical of the, of the Upper Peninsula, but. But quickly accustomed to it. Whereas George C. Scott immediately just. He was brought in from the big city and he was a totally different kind of character to everyone else. And yeah, it, it gave you something else to pay attention to. Even people like the army doctor who was, played by Orson Bean. He was. He, was also kind of shipped in, but felt kind of quite. He reminded me of like Samantha's husband, one of the, one of Samantha's husbands in Bewitched. He was like that kind of like quite young, like an advertising executive rather than a doctor, but he was that kind of character. But, yeah, he didn't have that same sense of, oh, this guy, this guy means business. It was. Which is what you get from the George he's got role and his performance.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I thought he. I agree. He would be my choice. he did a great job.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Incidentally, just before.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: moving off this. First of all, I think it's worth mentioning how great Lee Remick was in Anatomy of a Murder. because we haven't. We haven't said how she was.

Mark: She was. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: and also Ed Wynn. We've. We've dismissed him quite a lot. His. He's the dad of Keenan. Wynn

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Which I wasn't aware of, but there you go.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: They say the Academy built a secret wheel to settle tide votes forged from old recycled would haves and the broken dreams of runners up.

Mark: It worked for a while, but then someone spun it backwards during a screening of Plan 9 from outer space. And now it's possessed by the souls of Hollywood stars.

Jim: That's where we come in every episode, we spin the cursed relic and it picks a random year and category.

Mark: We obey because once we didn't. And Bohemian Rhapsody won Best Editing.

Jim: Yeah. So it's time to put down that croissant and spin a wheel powered by cigarettes and ennui.

Mark: She silently judges you if you're put off by subtitles. Yes. It's Roulette Binoche.

Jim: And the winner is the year 1958. The category best Foreign Language Film. So not much. We're not going for much further back in time. It's got one from 1960 to 1958.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The nominees are, So that if you fancy. You can. You can watch along with us. You can watch these before we talk about them next time. the Knights of Cabiria.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: From Italy. The Devil Came at Night From West Germany. Gates of Paris from France. Mother India From India. And Nine Lives From Norway. So I. I haven't seen any of those.

Mark: Nice.

Jim: So this will be interesting.

Mark: Nope.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: No, I'd seen. I'd seen all Cabiria is Fellini.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark: Being Italy.

Jim: This. This time I'd seen Ben Hur and Anatomy of Murder. Hadn't seen Young Philadelphians and Diary of Anne Frank before, so. So, yeah, we will.

Mark: I'd seen Diary Van Frank and Ben Hur. yeah. Yeah. So this time it's going to be a voyage of discovery.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: Yeah. It's just quite a good way of going back and looking at, you know, all the films that we should have looked at.

Jim: Was a good idea we had.

Mark: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, if you're going to look at films, if you're going to look at films, you should look at the ones that won. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. Absolutely.

Mark: Yeah. Because that would be. How else would you judge? Yeah. Well, turns out lots of ways. So before we get played off by loud music, there's just time to remind you. You can find show notes and links to our social media on our website@bwwpod.com.

Jim: New episodes come out on the second and fourth Friday of every month. But if you support us on, patreon at patreon.com slash BWWpod you get episodes a whole week early ad free and rated 18 for strong language and mild peril

Mark: All music is by the outbursts and was used with permission.

00:59:46