Oscar Winning Best Actors of the '60s: 1962

Winner: GREGORY PECK - To Kill a Mockingbird

other nominees:
____________

Burt Lancaster - Birdman of Alcatraz
Jack Lemmon - Days of Wine and Roses
Marcello Mastroianni - Divorce - Italian Style
Peter O'Toole - Lawrence of Arabia

I recall first seeing To Kill a Mockingbird as a Junior High School student. After being assigned and reading the novel for English class, we were treated to a showing of the film (shown in two installments) in the school auditorium. Viewing classic films based on classic novels was a staple at my school and we saw wonderful adaptations many times in those three years. The only handicap in watching the films was my sensitivity to the emotion the films conveyed. Most of these films involved scenes of death, failure, hopelessness and their musical scores were so lush and emotional. I was prone to tear up at times when the weight of the emotion affected me and this would cause embarrassment on my part and teasing on the part of my fellow classmates. In the case of the adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning book, I know I was wet-eyed a few times and I wanted to see if watching it again would turn the tap on once more. It did not. But, I did feel the slight melancholy I feel when I watch a film narrated by an adult who is telling the story of an incident in their childhood; for some reason it always affects me. And I did feel the warmth and security that glowed from the screen in the presence of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, the father of two children and a respected and wise lawyer in a Southern town.

Peck's presence dominates the film and it is probably his best known role. It, could be, to some, the only movie they think of when they think of the actor. His career was extensive; from his twenties to his old age. Atticus Finch defines Peck like Norman Bates defines Anthony Perkins, Oscar Madison defines Walter Matthau and Rick Blaine defines Bogart. He epitomizes the solid family man, the strong father, the sage who can answer all questions and whose whispers of assurance and love are warmer and more secure than a winter blanket on a cold night. There is one scene in particular when the children spot a rabid mad dog in the street in front of their home and they scream in alarm. The housekeeper spies the incoming trouble and her first thought and ours is to inform Atticus Finch. She does just that and we feel assured that he will solve this problem at once. He does, but he does so with humility and then pure laser-like intent. He is an admirable man on all fronts.

The film recounts the memories of his young daughter Scout and, in particular, the trial of a wrongly accused black man whom Atticus must defend against a charge of attacking a white woman. We know from the glaring hints of over acting from the girl's father that he is responsible for her beating and forcing her to pass blame on the accused. There is no question that Atticus is defending an innocent man in our minds. But, even so, due to Peck's portrayal we know, in our hearts, Atticus would never defend someone he suspected of being guilty unlike the thoughts we have of lawyers in today's world. Atticus is without blemish. He is as glaringly white and clean in his heart as is the suit he constantly wears even to the breakfast table. He is a unbiased man and, as is evident in movies of the 1960s, he is the great white father to the African American community; the protector and savior. This can be seen as a bit prejudicial in an ironic way, but Atticus never seems to be lording over or overbearingly pedantic with the community he protects. His sense of justice is universal to all and will even put himself in danger to defend his beliefs and protection of his charges. This is most evident in a scene where he stands guard outside the jailhouse door where the accused is being held. He sits in a chair on the jailhouse porch reading a book, a symbol of his intelligence and thought, with a rifle leaning against the door. Atticus will protect with his words and composed thoughts of decency than with the force of a gun. This is observed by his children and is a magnificent symbol of humanity for them and for the audience. We would all want a father like Atticus Finch.

Reading some material on the Oscar year of 1962, I learned that Harper Lee thought Peck was so much the embodiment of her real life father, that she gave Peck her father's pocket watch as a gift. He used the watch as a prop as he spoke in the courtroom scenes. He, later, kept it in his hand as he sat at the Academy Award ceremony and had it in his keep to his dying day. He said that the part of Finch was like "putting on an old suit of clothes - just comfortable". Maybe that is why he is so splendid in the role. The definition of the character was easy for him because it was more than just a "role". The role of an everyman, the role wherein an actor almost plays himself can be, I feel the most difficult role to play. In that case, Peck deserved the Academy Award that year.

Oscar Winning Best Actors of the '60s: 1961

Winner: MAXIMILIAN SCHELL - Judgment at Nuremberg

other nominees:

__________

Charles Boyer - Fanny

Paul Newman - The Hustler

Spencer Tracy - Judgment at Nuremberg

Stuart Whitman - The Mark

Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg is one of those big important issue pictures that started to become prevalent in the late 1950s and into the 1960s. It has an all-star cast headed by an aged Spencer Tracy as a judge presiding over the international trial of four German judges that handed down indictments of victims of the Fourth Reich. From reading, I have understood that this was originally a television drama that Kramer transformed into this mammoth 3 hour plus movie. Surprisingly, it has an overture and exit music, but no intermission. It is a static affair filled with histrionics, crying, blustering speechifying and crying for attention supporting roles by Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland. This film, supposedly, began the practice of Academy voters nominating "usual" head-liners in supporting categories. This enraged Hollywood gossip columnists, like Hedda Hopper, who thought it was an insult to allow a "star" to be thought of as a supporting player. Today, of course, it is common place and usually means a sure-fire win in that secondary category for the "star".

The star who, ironically, won the statuette for Best Actor this year was an actor who was not so known by American audiences at the time. Austrian born actor Maximilian Schell plays Hans Rolfe the German lawyer representing four judges who over saw the indictments of victims of the Fourth Reich. Schell had performed this role once before in the 1959 Playhouse 90 television production and was selected by Kramer to reprise his role several years later. Schell does an admirable job and you do pay a lot of attention to him when he is on screen. He poses an impressive figure; bold personality, strident voice and good looking dark features. His role is an odd one to honor in this category only because he plays a man who could be seen as a sort of villain. He is a man who strongly believes in the innocence of the men who allowed many to be sterilized, executed and sent to concentration camps for acts such as fraternizing with Jews and not being able to pass intelligent tests by the German officials. He believes in the duty of men to support the law of a land ... even if that law is unsound. However, Schell's Rolfe is a complex character; an honorable man who does not want his country to be thought of as entirely evil and corrupt; that there is still good there and these men were forced to do their duty whether sound or unsound. The opposing view, voiced by the usual blustering acting of Richard Widmark as the American military Captain in charge of the prosecution, is that evil acts should not be allowed whether they are law or not; evil should be stood up to and challenged. Schell poses a very good defense but ultimately loses, as we know from history and from the confession of guilt by one of his clients, that he admires greatly, played by Burt Lancaster (the winner of the previous year's Best Actor Oscar). He plays a learned renown German judge and professor of law who we find out hated the Fuhrer and all he stood for, yet upheld the edicts this monster and his Nazi officials had enacted into the law of the land.

Why did Schell win the prize? Good question. I found him adequate; he even has a spotlighted full-blown yelling to the rafters speech in the courtroom toward the conclusion ... pure Oscar bait. The film, though, dealt mostly with Spencer Tracy's role as presiding judge and his relationship with a German widow played by Marlene Dietrich. We spend almost the entire film with Tracy and his observations of German post-War life. Tracy was, indeed, nominated for Best Actor, but lost to Schell. And, most of all, I was impressed by Lancaster as the accused German judge. He is a fantastically fascinating character. He is stoic and appears evil and mysterious. As the film progresses you see his true nature and his moral dilemma. And the two powerhouse actors, Lancaster and Tracy, hold court in the final scene. Schell seems more of a supporting player to me and, perhaps, 1961 was a year that, through events or preoccupation with other matters of historical value, it was time for the Academy voters to hand the gold to a foreign actor.

Oscar Winning Best Actors of the '60s: 1960

Winner: BURT LANCASTER - Elmer Gantry

other nominees:

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Trevor Howard - Sons and Lovers

Jack Lemmon - The Apartment

Laurence Olivier - The Entertainer

Spencer Tracy - Inherit the Wind

I've decided to watch, in succession, the Academy Award winning Lead Actors in the decade of the 1960s. Luckily, each of the 10 films I must view are available on dvd and I own them or can access them through the wonders of NetFlix. Starting with Elmer Gantry directed by Richard Brooks and based on the novel by the brilliant Sinclair Lewis, it is evident that the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have always loved those big brassy performances that declare an actor is on the screen in all his glory. Burt Lancaster portrays Elmer Gantry a traveling salesman who, though thrown out of the seminary as a younger man, ironically finds himself in the role of an Evangelist Tent Preacher. Gantry's morals are in question from the outset as we witness his duplicity, his drinking, his lying and his obvious lascivious manner toward the fairer sex. He becomes attracted to a famous evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer, played by Jean Simmons, whom he becomes entangled with in business and eventual romance. Gantry's cynicism and hucksterism is matched by Sister Sharon true beliefs and aim to serve God and help the masses. Her blind faith is in direct contrast to Gantry's earthy snake oil salesman approach. Lancaster is perfect in the role and he is at his most charming and toothy grinned best. His Gantry is all show; over the top thespian acting, bible thumping and going to the extent of using a monkey in his preaching to waylay the criticism of Darwin believing reporters. I can't think of another role of Mr. Lancaster's wherein he nears the perfection of what people think of when they hear his name or when I would see impersonators ape him on television. It is in the style of the few swashbucklers he was in early in his career. I like this performance, but find it hard to believe the public would find truth in this man's preaching. It is so phony, so oily, so grandstanding ... yet people looking for answers and faith and verbal balms to their earthly problems wold believe in most anything, especially anything that they believe God is telling them through a man in a seersucker suit and a silver tongue spitting out authority and fear; reduced to quivering souls ready to open their wallets for salvation.

I, personally, relish Mr. Lancaster's other style of acting. His quiet eccentric character studies in Sweet Smell of Success, From Here to Eternity, Atlantic City and Local Hero. He was a great actor and one I appreciated more so in his later years. As to the film by Mr. Brooks, I found it mediocre and found it very hard to forget the novel it is based on that I had read years ago. Sinclair Lewis' scathing portrayal of Gantry is hard to forget. Mr. Brooks, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay, portrays Gantry in this light, but he softens him and wants the audience to sympathize and actually turns him into a hero, of sorts by the conclusion. I try always to separate a film from its source material. Even if I could put the novel's text aside, I still would find this turnaround of this character a bit uncomfortable and the issues of believing and God as a business are different in the film and harder to stomach. This may be a cost of the time in which the film was released; certain parts of the novel may have been hard to pass by the censors. If this was the case, and not just poor story telling on Mr. Brooks' part, then more is the pity.