Kate, Barbra, and Oscar Part 2: The Diva

Anne Marie with the second half of the two-part post on the Best Actress tie for 1968. Part One is here if you missed it.

The audience of the 41st Academy Awards roared its approval when Ingrid Bergman announced that Hollywood newcomer Barbra Streisand had tied Katharine Hepburn for Best Actress in a Leading Role. But though Streisand has since achieved immense popularity and icon status, this win is still questioned by some. After all, Hepburn was a giant among giants, giving the performance of her career in The Lion in Winter alongside a stellar cast with a sizzling script. Barbra was certainly the best part of an otherwise unremarkable musical. As a highly fictionalized version of famous vaudevillian Fanny Brice, Stresiand packed a ton of charm, chatter, charisma, and chutzpah into one role. But is that enough to warrant an Academy Award?

Actually, yes it is...

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Kate, Barbra, and Oscar Part 1: The Queen

As a bit of context for the impending Supporting Smackdown (get your votes in), we'll be celebrating 1968 daily at Noon for the rest of the month. Here's Anne Marie on a favorite Oscar moment.

It was the night of April 14th, 1969. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was packed with stars for the 41st Academy Awards. When it came time to award the Oscar for Best Actress, presenter Ingrid Bergman stuttered with shock as she announced that two women had tied. Her surprise was understandable; there had been no tie in the acting branch for over thirty years. Barbra Streisand, only 26 years old, tripped over her sparkling sailor suit as she approached the podium to accept her Oscar for Funny Girl. Katharine Hepburn was characteristically absent for her historic third win, so the director of The Lion In Winter accepted on her behalf. This joint win was more than just a peculiar footnote in Oscar history. This was a rare case of the Academy getting it exactly right twice with one award.

As has been extensively documented here at The Film Experience, the Academy is often maddeningly predictable in its awards-giving. However, at its best an Oscar can be a celebration of an explosive newcomer on the cusp of an incredible career (e.g. Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind) or a salute to a seasoned veteran for a risky performance at her artistic peak (e.g. Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire). In 1969, both happened: Katharine Hepburn won for the second time in a row for a virtuosic, against-type performance as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion In Winter, and Barbra Streisand won for her instantly-iconic turn as Fanny Brice in her very first film, Funny Girl. While these two women can share that Oscar win, they certainly cannot be confined together to a single blog post. If you'll forgive my fangirl squeals of excitement, I'll start with Hepburn.

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Exclamatory Titles

We're celebrating the 1968 film year sporadically as countdown to the Smackdown! 

The first time I consciously remember obsessing over exact typography in a film title was in 1995 when David Fincher's Se7en emerged and then again when Moulin Rouge! hit in 2001. With the latter I got angry every time I saw someone type that title without the exclamation point. Bazmark movies require their specific punctuation. (See also: Romeo + Juliet. It's just not the same at all with an ampersand!) 

Surveying 1968's film releases recently I couldn't help but wonder if that era, a seminal time for the world and the cinema, and that year specifically was the peak of exclamatory film titles? No less than four major films released that year asked you to shout their titles rather than politely sound them out.

BOOM! with Liz & Dick. Which also wins our Best Tagline of '68 for "together they devour life"
OLIVER! the only exclamation point film title to ever win the Best Picture prize (though not the only nominee obviously)
BANDOLERO! with Jimmy Stewart, Dean Martin & Raquel Welch. The exclamation point wasn't exclamatory enough so they had to add all caps in the tagline "a NEW kind of western"
STAR! with Julie Andrews ! as Gertrud Lawrence

Are you fussy about people using exactly correct titles? I am. I mean if you say Moulin Rouge without the exclamation point it's just a dusty Jose Ferrer biopic, don'cha know.

The only excuse for ditching the exclamation point is when you're just not feeling it.

♪ ...or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong... ♫

(Geraldine is such a cocktease.)

Reader Ranking: Smackdown '68

I'm glad you all seem to be enjoying the newly revived Supporting Actress Smackdown feature. So far we've covered 1952 and 1980 and we've added your rankings as part of the determining factor on who wins! The Year of the Month (awkward title!) for October is "1968". Send me your email ballot before October 28th with "1968" as the subject line, ranking only the supporting actress nominees you've seen with a grade from 1 to 5 hearts as we do for each... If you haven't yet seen them get to renting! Some of these are must-sees, I promise, and not just for these nominated women.

We'll be talking about Faces and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter both of which I've never seen. The other three supporting actress nominees are from films I am gaga crazy for so I'm excited to revisit Rosemary's Baby, Rachel Rachel and Funny Girl. Join me!

REQUESTS? What do you think would improve the Smackdown? And any favorites from 1968? I recently revisited 2001: A Space Odyssey and we're always down for The Planet of the Apes (and so is TV's Mad Men) but what else? Last month I ran out of time to talk about extra films for 1980 but that won't stop me from asking again. Which off-Smackdown '68 films are you most interested in? 

poll by twiigs.com

Best Shot: Butch & Sundance & Their Girl

It figures. I try to throw a curveball in our often actress-centric blogging by choosing a guy's guy movie, a buddy Western for Hit Me With Your Best Shot and the most frequent face that pops up in your choices is the momentary it girl of the late 60s Katharine Ross. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) she plays the school teacher Etta Place, essentially "the girl" of the narrative (and not much more complex a role than that) and twice over, too, since she's shacked up with The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) but also in 'what if?' love with Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) as evidenced in the Oscar-winning "Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head" interlude early in the film. Redford & Newman? Lucky girl.

Which leads me to this very scientific poll for TFE readers (as suggested by forever1267 in the comments). Butch and Sundance are a pair in the movie but unlike Katharine Ross you can only have one. Make your choice based on '69 only!  

poll by twiigs.com

Now that that's out of our systems, let's choose a best shot. And good God (God = Conrad L Hall) there was much to choose from)

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