4 Days Until Oscar. Come Low or High Trivia
Wednesday, February 22, 2017 at 11:24AM 
Today's magic number is four. Since we have no brilliant angle on the number four, a random collection of Fab Four situations after the jump...
4 Nominations This Year
The only films with four nominations this year are Fences and Hell Or High Water.
4th Nomination This Year
Michelle Williams and Nicole Kidman both reach their fourth nomination simultaneously in Supporting Actress (which we've just discussed in detail). But there's more. Producer Jeremy Kleiner is on his fourth consecutive Best Picture nomination: 12 Years a Slave (2013), Selma (2014), The Big Short (2015), and Moonlight (2016). He won for the first of those nominations. Obviously this type of consecutive record will become more doable now in the expanded Best Picture era but it's still quite impressive! (His producing partner Dede Gardner has the same four consecutive nods and a win but she was also nominated once previously for Tree of Life (2011).
4th Annual Oscars
The fourth annual Academy Awards were held in November at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. There were only 9 categories that year. This was before they added Supporting Acting, Costume Design, Editing, Original Score, or what have you. The best picture winner was Cimarron, the first western to ever take the prize. It... well, it does not hold up. Yikes! The best actress winner was Marie Dressler for Min and Bill which is awesome. Please see that if you never have. But here's a must note item. One record set this very year will likely be broken on Sunday. As previously noted Norman Taurog won Best Director for Skippy. He has remained the youngest Best Director winner for 80+ years now. If Damien Chazelle wins (as he is expected to) this record will finally be broken.
All 4 Acting Categories?
Here are the only 15 films that were nominated in all of the acting categories. Two interesting notes: Nominations in every acting category, do not help with Best Picture wins -- only 2 of these films achieved them despite obviously huge support from the Academy's largest branch of voters; If there are nominations in every single acting category, the women are far far more likely to win. (* denotes winners)
the nominated cast of the one of the best comedies ever made MY MAN GODFREY (1936) talking to director Gregory La Cava
1936 My Man Godfrey Lombard, Powell, Brady, Auer
This was the first year of the supporting awards so no films before 1936 could have achieved this feat
1942 Mrs Miniver* Garson*, Pidgeon, Whitty, Wright*, Travers
1943 For Whom the Bell Tolls Bergman, Cooper, Paxinou*, Tamiroff
1948 Johnny Belinda Wyman*, Ayres, Moorehead, Bickford
1950 Sunset Boulevard Swanson, Holden, Olson, von Stroheim
1951 A Streetcar Named Desire Leigh*, Brando, Hunter*, Malden*
1953 From Here to Eternity* Kerr, Clift, Lancaster, Reed*, Sinatra*
1966 Who's Afraid to Virginia Woolf Taylor*, Burton, Dennis*, Segal
1967 Bonnie & Clyde Dunaway, Beatty, Parsons*, Hackman, Pollard
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Hepburn*, Tracy, Richards, Kellaway
1976 Network Dunaway*, Finch*, Holden, Straight*, Beatty
1978 Coming Home Fonda*, Voight*, Milford, Dern
1981 Reds Keaton, Beatty, Stapleton*, Nicholson
2012 Silver Linings Playbook Lawrence*, Cooper, Weaver, De Niro
2013 American Hustle Adams, Bale, Lawrence, Cooper
Bonnie & Clyde received 5 acting nominations, but strangely Estelle Parsons was the only winner for supporting actress.
Isn't it nutty that Brando didn't win for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)? This will never stop being insane.
It's fun to wonder how 13 of those 15 films would have done in the modern era of Screen Actors Guild and a plethora of "ensemble" prizes from critics groups. The only two films to achieve all four acting category nominations since the SAG "outstanding performance by a cast" began in 1995 are Silver Linings Playbook (which was nominated, losing to Argo) and American Hustle (which won). Coincidentally David O. Russell is the only director to appear twice on this list (though it should be noted that some of the others had other films with 4 acting nominations, but not at least one in each category)
The Actual Fab Four
Did you know The Beatles were Oscar winners? Paul, John, George, and Ringo won Best Original Song Score for Let It Be (1970). Paul McCartney was nominated two times after that in Best Original Song as well for Vanilla Sky (2001), and Live and Let Die (1974)
Four in the Title
If you don't count Star Wars (which was only referred to as Episode IV after its many sequels made that "episode" part important) four is NOT a lucky number for Oscar. There have been aberrations like a costume nomination for The Four Musketeers (1974), a cinematography nod for The Four Feathers (1939), a sleeper Best Picture nod for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and two documentaries 4 Little Girls (1997), Citizenfour (2014). But most films with four in the title are met with zero nominations even if they're from famous directors, submitted for foreign film, make a ton of money, or are movie star vehicles. Consider... (though in most cases its good that they didn't)... Four's a Crowd (1938), Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962), Four Friends (1981), 1984 (1984), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Rocky IV (1985), The Gang of Four (1989), Four Rooms (1995), Lilya 4-Ever (2002), The Four Feathers (2002), Fantastic Four (2005), Four Brothers (2005), The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005), Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Four Christmases (2008), Four Lions (2010), I am Number Four (2011), This is 40 (2012), 47 Ronin (2013), and Fantastic Four (2015)
Reader Comments (36)
Cimarron is such a lousy picture, still not the worst Oscar winner that would be Around the World in 80 Days but this is hard on its heels. A shame too since the Edna Ferber book is highly enjoyable.
Marie Dressler is so great in Min and Bill.
That's a great picture of the cast of My Man Godfrey, all were so wonderful in that wacky farce.
You say you have no brilliant angle on 4 and then BAM that Chazelle stat coinciding with the 4th annual oscars. This is why I love this site. Your research is regularly astounding.
@Joel6, that is pretty dead on re: Cimarron and ATWIED. Two other lousy BP winners of yore (to make it 4 and thus fit this thread's theme) are The Great Ziegfield and The Broadway Melody (the latter is watchable but super-creaky nowadays).
There should be an asterisk next to Wright's name; she also won for Mrs. Miniver.
90s Best Actress winners stuck at 4 acting nods.
2/4: Jodie Foster
1/4: Emma Thompson
1/4: Holly Hunter
1/4: Frances McDormand
Hunter and McDormand return with leading lady vehicles this year.
I can't not think of Roseanne's mom when I see Estelle Parsons
• So I guess the unattainable record to achieve is six nominations in all four acting categories. And at least two of those nods would be category fraud, since they would be leads pushed to supporting...
• My barber is located at the Biltmore. Every time I visit that magnificent lobby, I think Oscar.
• if you've seen the movie, that still of Pine screams DILF.
My Man Godfrey also holds one weird record. It was nominated in all 4 acting categories, Best Director and Best Screenplay, yet was NOT nominated for Best Picture (in a field of 10 even!). BTW Lombard, Auer and Brady should all have won.
Rob - I LOVE Broadway Melody. It's an utterly fascinating period piece, and a charming example of a whole different era of musicals. Cavalcade, the winner from 1932/33 would be a better choice of a 30s dud. I agree about The Great Ziegfeld, but you can extract a great half hour or so, mostly Ray Bolger, Fanny Brice, the Wedding Cake set piece and a couple of musical numbers, but the other 2 hrs creep by like a slowly deflating zeppelin.
I love these so. I wish you could do them every day!
Swanson, Brando, Kerr, Beatty, Holden, Beatty, Adams -- so often the best of the gang of four (or five) doesn't get the award!
I can stand parts of The Great Ziegfeld and Broadway Melody so I want to propose another 30s dud, The Life of Emile Zola. I have NEVER been able to get through that thing. It must be me since I don't see it listed as one of the worst Best Pic winners of all time.
PS The Greatest Show On Earth is far worse than Around The World in 80 Days in my opinion.
That pic of KST is everything today.
Nat: Especially since Kirk Douglas in Ace in the Hole wasn't even nominated. I honestly prefer Brando's first win being On the Waterfront (the moment where Kazan transformed from a very good stage director being given a camera to an actual filmmaker), but, of the field he was against in 51, 54 should have been his second win.
Paul Outlaw: Network was probably very close (Marathon Man wasn't THAT liked as a movie, even at the time, so Olivier's nod was probably kind of a shock) to getting six nominations across four categories with no fraud. (Finch: Lead. Holden: Lead. Dunaway: Lead. Beatty: Supporting. Straight: Supporting. Duvall: Missed, but was being pressed as Supporting.)
San FranCinema: Holden as the best actor in NETWORK? No, sorry. Beatrice Straight, dude. If Network could only win ONE acting statue, I'd back her before anyone else there.
Am I reading that right? After My Man Godfrey (the first to do all 4), Sunset Blvd and American Hustle are the only ones to walk away empty handed? Weird.
Also - hot take: Holden should have beat Finch.
That quartet of acting nominations for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner are just laughable! As much as I love Beah Richards, she isn't given much to do (Isabel Sanford would have been a more worthy candidate). I had to look up who Cecil Kellaway was; talk about riding the wave of a very popular Best Picture! If Sidney had campaigned as a supporting actor (yes, category fraud) and made it into the final five, he might have overtaken George Kennedy.
And the fact that Robert Duvall wasn't amongst Network's acting nominees is criminal. Ned Beatty? Really?
@Volvagia - I really need to rewatch Network and re-evaluate Straight's work... I was much younger, knew about its nominations and spent the entire film assuming that Marlene Warfield (the revolutionary) was surely Beatrice Straight... then she appeared and I got confused...
I hear you, @ken s. There are parts of Broadway Melody that are fun but it doesn't work so much as a musical the way we think of musicals today. I found The Great Ziegfield really rather torturous (it was way, WAY overlong for one thing), but there were a few good brief moments along the way - esp. Fanny Brice. I remember really looking forward to Cavalcade and being quite disappointed. It was clunky and cornball (esp. the big Titanic reveal - remember that?) Movies were very different back then, that's for sure.
Volvagia: I literally just watched Straight's big Network scene on YouTube a few minutes ago, and I can't say that I disagree with you. There's simply no way to reduce what she does with literally so little -- an entire biography packed in her moment, not a bit of which goes to waste. Even when she isn't speaking, she's saying volumes.
I would bet money that Chicago came close to having nominations in all four acting categories.
NewMoonSun: I agree that honoring Cecil Kellaway for his role in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was one of those goofy coattail noms like Gladys Cooper in My Fair Lady, Jackie Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook, or Rachel McAdams in Spoltlight -- a non-challenging role that got swept along in the tide of nominations for a popular film. When it happens it's always baffling.
Duvall's miss seems strange.
Robert Duvall's non-nomination can partially be attributed to his competing performance in The Seven-Percent Solution, which probably siphoned off some votes.
Duvall's miss is a crime.
Once again I find myself rising to the challenge of defending Around the World in Eighty Days. Has anyone actually watched it recently? Brilliant visualisation of the novel, David Niven perfect as Phileas Fogg, Cantinflas equally fine as Passepartout, great design, great costumes, screenplay brimming with wit, photography as epic as you need it to be. The only criticism I can come up with is that there are moments that perhaps go on a bit too long (e.g. the bullfight). It's my favourite Best Picture winner of the 1950s, and I'll happily retire to a desert island and watch it on my own while the sun sets if I have to!
Anyway, back to the present...
Duvall is excellent in Network, but the 1976 Supporting Actor field was stacked. For me, Carl Weathers not getting nominated for Rocky - especially when two of his fellow cast members got in - is a bigger omission. William Goldman has said that Weathers made Rocky, and I think he's right. Hal Holbrook in All the President's Men, Harvey Keitel in Taxi Driver, Zero Mostel in The Front - put those three with Duvall and Weathers and you've got a category as strong as the actual nominees.
But I'm guessing Network was close to six nominees, and I bet The Godfather Part II wasn't far off either (thanks to a probabe near-miss Supporting Actor nomination for John Cazale, who, for my money, should've won). Chicago probably just missed making all four acting categories with Gere.
The My Man Godfrey stat is amazing. Acting nominations in every category, Director, Screenplay nominated too - but no Best Picture nomination. I hear it meets They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Hud and Thelma & Louise once a week to play bridge.
Edward L - The African Queen, The Miracle Worker, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, Interiors, Silkwood and Foxcatcher have also been known to stop by for the duplicate bridge tournaments.
ken s.: Yes - with Bullets Over Broadway serving the drinks!
Wow, I want to watch 'My Man Godfrey,' 'Hud,' 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?,' and 'Thelma & Louise' back-to-back now.
With Leaving Las Vegas pushing the dessert cart
Paul Outlaw: In order to get 6 acting noms you don't necessarily need category fraud. You just need one hell of a cast! Just look at Payton Place. It got only 5, one for Lana Turner and then 2 in each supporting category! And all 4 (Lange, Varsi, Kennedy and Tamblyn) were indeed SUPPORTING players.
NewMoonSon: Poitier's problem in 1967 was simply that he was eligible for 3 very strong films; 2 that got a lot of Oscar attention (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night) and then the very popular To Sir, with Love. He obviously split his votes. His male co-stars in the first two were nominated: Spencer Tracy and Rod Steiger, who won the gold.
A real feat in my opinion is getting 3 supporting actor o actress nominations in the same film. And it was achieved 3 times. Once it was the ladies of Tom Jones. And then, curiously enough, it was the Godfather's bad guys, twice... 3 of them in Godfather I and another 3 in Godfather II.
Tom Jones:
Diane Cilento, Edith Evans and Joyce Redman.
The Godfather:
James Caan, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino (all defeated by Joel Grey in Cabaret).
Godfather II:
Robert DeNiro (WINNER), Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg.
@Edward, I just watched AROUND THE WORLD for the first time and sorry to say I think it deserves its lousy reputation. I'm glad I saw it though, because it was so overblown and underwhelming at the same time (in my humble opinion), but it has to be seen to be believed. My favorite part of it was a DVD extra of a long interview with Elizabeth Taylor about Mike Todd -- what a strange opportunistic marriage they had.
@Volvagia - ok you're right Holden is not the best in show in NETWORK (that's Dunaway and Finch for sure) but I'm NOT a supporter of Straight's win. I hate when tiny parts get the award (Dame Judi Dench, another case in point). It feels like a waste of an award.
Chris Pine could use those sexy hands to pick up a future Oscar
Kristin Scott Thomas is FAB in 4 funerals. Her only bafta win strangely.
Marcos: On the Waterfront managed three suppirting actor nominations too: Cobb, Malden and Steiger.
San FranCinema: Thanks for your comments on Around the World... I can't say fairer than a fresh opinion. We can agree to differ!
But just re: tiny parts winning supporting Oscars: I don't think that any role is too small to win a supporting Oscar if it is effective support - but I do think some roles are too large to win supporting Oscars, and that's leading roles!
Edward L: Right! How could I forget, especially considering that I gave a talk about the film a few months ago!
And how could we forget East of Eden and Detective Story serving tea?
@Paranoid - me too! It's so weird to see her in other roles when that's your first big impression of her.
On Network. Imo Holden is best in show! such a controlled, self aware, wry performance. He really is way betta than the hammy OTT Finch, whose win I suspect is the Academy's way o making up for his loss in his much betta perf in Sunday, Bloody Sunday 5 yrs earlier.
Dunaway gives the 2nd best perf as the chilly, ruthless, success driven cold hearted boss who will stop at nothing for the ratings! Somehow I get the feeling tt she is actually NOT acting at all. Lol