Friday, December 21, 2012

Best Screenplays: 1950s

Best Adapted Screenplay:

1950: All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Oscar winner: All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

1951: The Browning Version (Terence Rattigan)
Oscar winner: A Place in the Sun (Michael Wilson and Harry Brown)
Was this nominated?: No

1952: High Noon (Carl Foreman)
Oscar winner: The Bad and the Beautiful (Charles Schnee)
Was this nominated?: Yes

1953: The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot and Jérôme Géronimi)
Oscar winner: From Here to Eternity (Daniel Taradash)
Was this nominated?: No

1954: Rear Window (John Michael Keyes)
Oscar winner: The Country Girl (George Seaton)
Was this nominated?: Yes

1955: The Night of the Hunter (James Agee)
Oscar winner: Marty (Paddy Chayefsky)
Was this nominated?: No

1956: Giant (Fred Guiol and Ivan Moffat)
Oscar winner: Around the World in 80 Days (James Poe, John Farrow, and S.J. Perelman)
Was this nominated?: Yes

1957: 12 Angry Men (Reginald Rose)
Oscar winner: The Bridge on the River Kwai (Pierre Boulle, Carl Foreman, and Michael Wilson)
Was this nominated?: Yes

1958: Vertigo (Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor)
Oscar winner: Gigi (Alan Jay Lerner)
Was this nominated?: No

1959: Anatomy of a Murder (Wendell Mayes)
Oscar winner: Room at the Top (Neil Paterson)
Was this nominated?: Yes

Best Original Screenplay:

1950: Sunset Blvd. (Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D.M. Marshman, Jr.)
Oscar winner: Sunset Blvd. (Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D.M. Marshman, Jr.)

1951: Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, and Walter Newman)
Oscar winner: An American in Paris (Alan Jay Lerner)
Was this nominated?: Yes

1952: Umberto D. (Cesare Zavattini)
Oscar winner: The Lavender Hill Mob (T.E.B. Clarke)
Was this nominated?: Yes (in 1956)

1953: Pickup on South Street (Dwight Taylor and Samuel Fuller)
Oscar winner: Titanic (Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, and Richard Breen)
Was this nominated?: No

1954: On the Waterfront (Budd Schulberg)
Oscar winner: On the Waterfront (Budd Schulberg)

1955: Smiles of a Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman)
Oscar winner: Interrupted Melody (William Ludwig and Sonya Levien)
Was this nominated?: No

1956: The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse)
Oscar winner: The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse)

1957: The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman)
Oscar winner: Designing Woman (George Wells)
Was this nominated?: No

1958: The Hidden Fortress (Ryûzô Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Akira Kurosawa)
Oscar winner: The Defiant Ones (Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith)
Was this nominated?: No

1959: The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut and Marcel Moussy)
Oscar winner: Pillow Talk (Russell Rouse, Clarence Green, Stanley Shapiro, and Maurice Richlin)
Was this nominated?: Yes

Note: From 1950-1955, the Oscar winners listed in the Adapted Screenplay category are from the Best Screenplay category. Best Adapted Screenplay was introduced in 1956.

Updated: 7/24/14

8 comments:

  1. I'm surprised to see some of the winners here, and which scripts weren't nominated.

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    1. The ones that weren't nominated always surprise me too.

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  2. The Seventh Seal wasn't even nominated? Oh, Jesus, these people :) Can't believe Vertigo didn't win, it's such a brilliant script.

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    1. Haha. Actually, The Seventh Seal wasn't nominated in ANY category! Vertigo deserved more attention, for sure.

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  3. So many great classics from the 50s. I still need to watch Anatomy of a Murder, Giant,High Noon, and The Defiant Ones.

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    1. Love this decade. Ooh, those are some interesting films you have left. High Noon is my favorite of those. I'd probably put The Defiant Ones at the bottom, with Anatomy of a Murder and Giant somewhere in the middle.

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  4. Did you just not like Room at the Top? I'm meaning to read the book this year and haven't seen the film. Anatomy of a Murder was pretty good though.

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    1. I liked it, but didn't love it. Off the top of my head, I'd rank its screenplay 4th, behind Anatomy of a Murder, Rio Bravo, ans Some Like It Hot.

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