1973 Best Adapted Screenplay

Time now to begin the next screenplay category, in this case, Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published for 1973.

And the Nominees are:

• The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, based on his novel
• The Last Detail by Robert Towne, based on the novel by Darryl Ponicsan
• The Paper Chase by James Bridges, based on the novel by John Jay Osborn, Jr.
• Paper Moon by Alvin Sargent based on the novel Addie Pray by Joe David Brown
• Serpico by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler, based on the non-fiction book by8 Peter Maas

As you might be able to tell, I've already talked about most of these, and won't go over them again until the category write-up. So next up is Paper Moon, followed by Serpico.

1973 Best Original Screenplay: My Choice

Once again, we come to the point where we need to look back over the category and discuss the winner, whether they deserved it, and who did if they didn't.

Once again, the nominees for Best Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Produced or Published in 1973 were:

• American Graffiti, written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck
• Cries and Whispers, written by Ingmar Bergman
• Save the Tiger, written by Steve Shagan
• The Sting, written by David S. Ward
• A Touch of Class written by Melvin Frank and Jack Rose

The Winner: The Sting

Weighing the Nominees:

American Graffiti in a Nutshell

It's difficult to describe what makes American Graffiti on a screenplay level, but I'll try. It's a combination of a random events plot that's still compelling, as well as a nice snapshot of its time period that doesn't feel dishonest or pandering. While one could call it "60's cars and music: the motion picture", it's not like everything is just window dressing.

The movie has inspired a generation, and made stars out of nearly all its cast (oddly enough, its biggest future star had the smallest role of the main cast). The cars are neat to look at and the soundtrack is killer, but it's not all cars and songs, and it has some real heart. When school King suggests to his longtime girlfriend that while he's away at college they see other people, her reaction is entirely honest. She doesn't throw a scene, she doesn't dump him on the spot, but she's angry, and he's in trouble. The film is full of little honest moments like that.

And yes, the music, and interjections from DJ Wolfman Jack, do sort of underscore the action and provide a bit of hidden commentary, so much so that I wonder if the songs were part of the screenplay. If they were, this alone could put it near the winner's circle.

Cries and Whispers in Red and White

Then there's the reddest of the red, Ingmar Bergman's classic drama, Cries and Whispers, one of the final films not primarily in English to receive a Best Picture nomination for a couple of decades, before the love affair was renewed in the mid-90's. As I said in my initial review, I did appreciate the screenplay, and the performances, and the artistic way it handled topics like grief, love and hate, and made you question reality. While the color motif was probably self-indulgent, that's not a fault on the screenplay level. It's hard to qualify this film against the others, as this film is so different in tone, presentation and theme than any of its competitors. It would be like trying to decide if Shakespeare's Coriolanus matches up with stories by Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce Carol Oates and Flannery O'Connor. While I appreciated what it was doing, it was also kinda hard to watch, and the symbolism sometimes went over my head.

Henry and Hooker scheme together in The Sting

On the other hand, I was gripped by The Sting, a period dramedy that hit every note it was going for, and without any major flaws. In fact, the biggest issue I had with it was the idea that we were supposed to buy Robert Redford as an inexperienced kid, but that's not the screenplay's fault.

I said in my review that movies like this need a good build-up and a great pay-off. And it had both. I don't know what else to say because The Sting is just a complete movie from start to finish. It just plain works. It's pretty rare for that to be the case, so it's very much under consideration for the win right now.

Two Jacks argue in Save the Tiger

I did appreciate the nearly one-man show that is Save the Tiger, and if I had a problem with it at all it was probably the fact that the one visible PTSD moment our character has comes very late in the film and isn't repeated, so it almost seems to come out of nowhere. That being said, the strength of this film was in Lemmon's performance, so I can't say this one is a winner. A deserved nominee, absolutely, but not a winner.

One thing I didn't talk about in my review was the reason for the title. Well, at one point Harry is asked to sign a petition to save the tigers in the rainforests of Africa because their numbers are dwindling. He does sign it, after taking a long look at the poster (which depicts a majestic tiger), possibly wondering if he and the tiger didn't have something in common; both had once been at the top of their game and now both needed someone else to save them.

Jackson and Segal reject the toilet seat in a Touch of Class

Finally, I had a good time watching A Touch of Class, but can't say it was really an Oscar-worthy film. In a stronger year I don't think it would have gotten noticed. It was clever, charming and very funny, with some genuine sadness at the end, but it feels like a number of other romantic dramedies that have come both before and since. Maybe it was that aspect that the Academy latched onto; maybe it reminded them of some older classics like Lover Come Back, That Touch of Mink or The Apartment. I dunno, but it's pretty clearly not winning this.

Honestly, this time the Academy got it right. Some fierce competition from American Graffiti and Cries and Whispers, but they got it right.

My Choice: The Sting

Next up is Adapted Screenplay and then it's time to choose another category.

A Touch of Class

Film: A Touch of Class
Year: 1973
Cast: George Segal, Glenda Jackson, Paul Sorvino, K Callan, Hildegarde Neil, Cec Linder, Lisa Vanderpump, Michael Elwyn, Mary Barclay, Nadim Sawalha
Director: Melvin Frank
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress (Jackson), Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song

Why do married people have affairs? I get the thrill of doing something different, something forbidden, etc. But this film illustrates just how dangerous it can be trying to keep all those secrets from your spouse.

Steve (George Segal) is a successful businessman, married with two children, while Vickie (Glenda Jackson) is a divorcee, also with two children, who works in the fashion industry. The two of them have a very standard "meet cute" which quickly turns into Steve asking Vickie if she'd like a no-strings-attached fling.

This isn't the first time Steve has done this, it turns out, and in fact, he has places he uses in various cities when he travels, and he invites Vickie to one such place, where she's all for the idea of a casual encounter...but not in the rather mean accommodations Steve has provided. Steve is so eager to go through with it that he arranges a trip to Málaga for the two of them, and pretends the entire thing is a business trip to try and discourage his socialite wife (Hildegarde Neil) from coming along.

I must admit, the truly Herculean efforts he goes through to ensure that she doesn't come with him are hilarious to watch. I won't describe them other than to say they involve a number of phone calls, because honestly this movie is worth a watch and I want you to find it as funny as I did. In fact the first half of this movie is one hilarious scene after another in which absolutely nothing goes right for two people who are increasingly putting more and more effort into their casual affair and gradually losing it more and more.

While the movie never gets truly bad, and in fact, like I said, is worth you watching it yourself, I feel like the first half is where its strengths are. In the second half, things take a turn for the solidly dramatic, which ordinarily wouldn't be so bad, except that it's a pretty sudden tonal shift, and not one I'm sure I believed all that much.

Part of the problem is that I felt like Steve and Vickie were wrong for each other, and the more the movie seemed it wanted me to root for their happiness, the more I wanted them to come to their senses and realize this whole thing just isn't working. Steve "falls in love" with Vickie, which never seems like more than infatuation. Their wrongness for each other made the first half work and the second half seem a bit dishonest. It also should be used as a deterrent for anyone considering an affair themselves.

As you see above, the movie scored a number of Oscar nods, including Best Picture. One that it didn't get was Best Actor for George Segal, and I think he was robbed, personally. Not only does he have a truly wonderful sense of comic timing, the perfect facial expression for each moment, and a rapier wit, but he also manages to come off like a sympathetic everyman despite playing a rich guy looking to cheat on his wife. I feel like Segal carried the movie. I would have nominated him before I would have nominated Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino (I know, heresy) or Robert Redford, and if he had been nominated, I would have considered him a real threat to Jack Lemmon.

But Jackson did get nominated, and in fact, she won. I read that her win was a shock; that most predictions went for Ellen Burstyn in The Exorcist or Marsha Mason in Cinderella Liberty. Quite frankly I'm still making up my mind about this category, and as I haven't gotten there yet, I won't elaborate, but I'll say that Jackson's acting style can be summed up in one word; poise. Jackson, an actress I've seen in only two films (and she won an Oscar for both), is statuesque, imperious and deadpan, and it works for her incredibly well. While her range might be in question, what she does with the material here seems exactly what's called for. Matching wits with George Segal, she might not carry the film like he does, but she matches him barb for barb, and is an absolute delight.

As for the film's other nominations, I can't help but feel like it doesn't really belong. It's a romantic dramedy that feels like a dozen others I've seen. While the two leads are splendid, and Michael Elwyn, in a smaller role as Vickie's gay assistant, is so hilarious that I wonder why he didn't have a huge career, the movie itself seems pretty light and inconsequential, especially when compared to its competitors in both categories. I would have given a Best Picture nod to Save the Tiger or Paper Moon in a heartbeat before considering this one. I also don't think it deserved a screenplay nod. What sold this were its two leads.

In many respects, this film reminds me of As Good as it Gets, a film released over 20 years later, featuring two respected actors we know are capable of great performances, but ultimately the film produced is so standard that we wonder why the Oscars seemed to love it; giving it Best Picture and Best Screenplay nods, and winning Best Actress.

It feels like I'm saying it's a good film but it's bad. What I'm really trying to say is that you'll have fun watching it, and the two leads are definitely Oscar-worthy (at least as nominees), but the rest of the film just isn't.

The Sting

Film: The Sting
Year: 1973
Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning, Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan, Harold Gould, John Heffernan, Dana Elcar, Jack Kehoe, Dimitra Arliss, Robert Earl Jones, James Sloyan, Charles Dierkop, Lee Paul, Sally Kirkland
Director: George Roy Hill
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Redford), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song Score, Best Sound

Well, this is it. The film that could be considered "the big one" for 1973. Nominated for ten awards, and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

Did it deserve to? Let's delve into it and see.

For starters, I should mention that this is the exact same trio of two leading men and director as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid back in 1969, which also received Best Picture and Best Director nominations and ended up winning Best Original Screenplay, though in that case it was the great William Goldman who penned it. This screenplay came from David S. Ward, and from what I saw from a brief glance at his filmography, this is his best script. He did Sleepless in Seattle, as well, resulting in his only other nomination, but it seems like a majority of his scripts were screwball comedies like King Ralph and Down Periscope. If you'd never told me the same man wrote this movie, I would never have thought so. Ever.

There's nothing like a good con movie, is there? I confess; I love seeing good (or at least, less bad) people get one over on a really bad guy, and this is exactly what this movie is about. Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) is a small-time grifter who's spent the last few years learning short grab-and-run jobs from his mentor, Luther (Robert Earl Jones, who, yes, is James's father, and the two look and sound so similar it's uncanny), but after successfully conning a man who turned out to be carrying well over a thousand dollars, Luther decides he's taught Hooker all he can, and announces he's retiring. Bad move, Luther, don't you know this is a crime movie?

It turns out the guy they pulled their latest con job on is a carrier for a very powerful crime boss, Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw). And Lonnegan is not the forgiving type. Worst yet, Hooker is being hounded by a corrupt cop, Snyder (Charles Durning), who knows he ripped off Lonnegan and wants a cut for himself. Lonnegan finds out it was Luther who pulled the job, and, well, I mean, we already know Luther was speaking openly of retirement, and we all know what that means. Plus, he was the only black character in a movie from the 70's, so...

Hooker wisely skips town and searches out one of Luther's associates, Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), whom Luther had claimed knew how to teach the "big cons", as opposed to the street grifting that Luther and Hooker routinely engaged in. But Hooker's not all that interested in merely conning people with more money; he wants revenge on Lonnegan, and he'll do it the only way he knows how; by running a massive con on the crime lord that will ruin him. The trick, of course, is to con him so thoroughly that he won't know it until it's far too late, and that he'll be stripped of any resources with which to retaliate.

Henry's got a lot of knowledge, and is connected to some of the bigger names in the business. Together with guys like JJ Singleton (Ray Walston), Kid Twist (Harold Gould) and the Erie Kid (Jack Kehoe), they work together to take Lonnegan for nearly all he's worth. Don't you love those names?

This kind of movie is dependent on an intriguing setup and satisfying payoff, preferably with colorful characters we enjoy watching. And boy, does this movie deliver. I loved literally every second of watching these con men work. From start to finish, I was hooked, trying to see if I could piece together their plan myself before I saw it being put into action, worrying with them when it looked like it was about to go off the rails, and wondering how much of what I was seeing could I take at face value.

On top of that, the charming period setting, enhanced by sets and backdrops that called back to old Hollywood, with period-era costumes that made actors of that era look like Cagney or Bogart, The Sting is as fun to look at as it is to watch.

Movies like this can sometimes feel like they might be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. After all, when your competitors are a Swedish art house film dealing with themes like death and estrangement, a nostalgic but critical look at small-town America in the 60's and one of the most bone-chilling, yet also the most thought-provoking, horror movies in American history, does a movie about a slick con really qualify as best?

The answer is...harder than it sounds. The problem with these movies is that they're all very different from each other, but that doesn't necessarily mean that by subject matter alone is one better or worse than another. The battle for the soul of an innocent girl with a demonic presence, or an existential drama that anthropomorphizes grief, fear, love and hatred might seem more "important" than a con job movie, or watching kids in the 60's drive around in cool cars listening to classic rock, but movies are more than their themes or plots. It's all about the total package.

On a screenplay level, I'll have to think a bit more about it before making my final selection. I loved the plot of this one right down to the ground, but it's got some fierce competition.

Let's also talk about the one nominated performance from this movie; Robert Redford as Johnny Hooker. For one thing, there's no doubt that Hooker is the central character. Newman may get top billing, and a lot of screen time, but he's very much the second lead; the mentor figure. He has no real stakes in this other than not getting caught. The focus is squarely on Hooker outwitting two major big figures that are out for his blood. So does he carry this film?

The answer is yes, sort of, because Redford is incredibly comfortable in his own skin, no matter who he's playing, and he always seems like he's in calm control of everything around him. The problem is that Hooker isn't supposed to be calm and self-possessed. He's supposed to be the inexperienced guy on his first big job, but at 36 and with all the confidence, breezy arrogance and self-assurance that comes with being Hollywood's principle leading man in the prime of your life, I never really felt any of the doubt, second-guessing or panic that a young guy in Hooker's position should feel.

I'm gonna say something about Redford that kinda flies in the face of popular opinion where he's concerned. And no, it's not that I have an issue with his acting; he's a very natural actor. It's that he keep hearing how young and "boyishly good-looking" he is, or was back in this era. I have never, ever felt that about him. He's a very handsome actor, no question. Strikingly handsome, and with none of the obnoxiousness that generally comes with guys who are unbelievably good-looking. This is undeniable. But youthful? No. He looked every inch of his 36 years here, and in fact I wouldn't have trouble believing he was over 40. He's constantly held up as one of those actors who "never age", or at least he was until he hit his late 70's and it couldn't be denied anymore that he was visibly aging, but hell, I won't look as good as he presently does even in my 60's, let alone my 80's. The more the other actors, several of whom looked about his age, called him "kid", the less I believed it.

If they'd cast him in the role of Henry and cast, say, Jeff Bridges as Hooker, it would have worked at least as well, perhaps better, because Bridges was still in his twenties but had enough self-assurance to pull of the scenes where Hooker is supposed to be fooling Lonnegan and his men. But where Redford is concerned, once he drops "character", I get the feeling we're supposed to feel his nervousness that not all will go according to plan, but I didn't, because Redford is so naturally sure of himself.

I don't know if I can hold that against him, but it's making me see why, despite a long and celebrated acting career, Redford has mostly received honors from the Academy, and other awards groups, for his directorial efforts. As an actor, he's almost too smooth, but in a way that makes him easy to like. But then, that likability counts for a lot, as does his easy chemistry with Paul Newman, and it helps us really loathe Lt. Snyder in his confrontational scenes with Hooker.

But what really made this film worthwhile, to me, was watching the con play out. Like I said; solid buildup, solid payoff, and that, more than anything else, is probably what won this film its screenplay award.

I also thought Newman did a great job, which didn't surprise me because he always does. His best scene, bar none, was when he manages to win big in a card game against Lonnegan, despite Lonnegan having fixed the game. He plays up the role of obnoxious bookie, and gets Lonnegan good and steamed, and then manages to out-cheat him, and Lonnegan can't say anything without revealing he cheated as well! I can kinda see why it was Redford and not Newman who got the Oscar nod for this; Newman isn't really being challenged here, and it's not really his story. As for the supporting cast, especially Shaw, Durning, Gould and to a degree, Walston, almost any of them would have made a better Supporting Actor nominee than Vincent Gardenia in Bang the Drum Slowly (see my write-up for that category).

But this vs. the Exorcist as Best Picture? Stay tuned for my category write-up for that one.

Cries and Whispers

Film: Cries and Whispers
Year: 1973
Cast: Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Kari Sylwan, Inga Gill, Erland Josephson, Henning Moritzen, Georg Årlin, Anders Ek
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design

This is, without a doubt, the reddest movie I have ever seen. If anything in this movie is not red, it's white. All the characters wear so much white you'd think they were going to a wedding, except for one scene where Maria (Liv Ullman), hoping to seduce older physician David (Erland Josephson), wears a sultry red dress.

Agnes (Harriet Andersson) is dying slowly of a painful disease that the film doesn't name, but that context clues show is likely uterine cancer. Her sisters, older and frosty Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and younger, more emotional Maria (Liv Ullman) are staying watch over her during the night, as is her devoted maid Anna (Kari Sylwan), doing their best to make her comfortable in her last days. And doing an absolutely terrible job of it, with the exception of Anna, who seems to actually be in love with her mistress, which was likely recipricated (that's them up there on the poster).

This is one messed-up family. Anna has been cheating on her husband with the doctor caring for Agnes (see above) and Karin is an icy bitch "trapped in a loveless marriage" to Joakim (Henning Moritzen), who is at least as cold as she is, so she does what any sensible person could do and slices up her uterus with a shard of glass so that she can never bear him children. As one does.

Agnes, meanwhile, only wants to feel loved as her illness progresses and she realizes she's near the hour. The first half of the film concludes with Agnes's final passing, which seems at least as painful as the symptoms of her illness, at least until it's over, and from there on, we get to really dig into the numerous issues, physical, emotional, psychological and familial, that the others are going through.

Anna has lost probably the only friend she ever had; both remaining sisters either ignore her or treat her with coldness and cruelty, and we learn she also lost her (very young) daughter to another illness. Anna's insecurities about her sisters and Karin's seeming hatred of everyone, not least of all herself, come stridently to the forefront, and, well, it's hystrionic in the extreme, to say the least.

All of it plays out against the red background and white costumes; the walls are red, the floor is red, the bedsheets are red, even the book Maria reeds to Agnes is red. Why so much red? Well, according to Ingmar Bergman himself: "Cries and Whispers is an exploration of the soul, and ever since childhood, I have imagined the soul to be a damp membrane in varying shades of red."

Ooookay, then.

What this basically boils down to is a movie rich in symbolism that seems deliberately over-the-top and unreal. I could easily see it being based on a dream, or perhaps nightmare. There are some seemingly gothic horror moments in this film. Karin's self-mutilation, or at least its after-effects, are shown prominently. At one point it almost seems like Karin and Maria have a whole conversation in their minds while frozen in a catatonic state. Eventually Agnes's corpse starts crying and begging to be held, because even though she's dead, she can't get to sleep and needs help crossing over.

There are some dramatic pauses from the living characters, but they ultimately kinda take it in stride, telling her why they can't come hold her and let her pass, with Karin even pointing that the idea is disgusting because she's starting to rot. Of course, none of them point out that, being dead, she shouldn't be speaking to them at all. I do like how Bergman shot these scenes, though; Dead Agnes is never shown speaking, only heard.

Bergman punctuates his scenes of raw emotion with scenes of utter quiet, or scenes where the characters themselves might be quiet, but we the audience can hear ghostly whispers following them throughout the large, empty house. Yeah, I guess I didn't expect the title to be so literal, but damn if that's not pretty spooky. Like I said, moments of gothic horror.

If this had been made by an American director, and filmed in English (hell, if the director was just British), I think critics would have called it "self-indulgent" and "trying too hard to be great art" and they would have been justified. This is not a movie where subtelty rules the day. It's actually why I sometimes have a hard time taking foreign language films seriously; they keep pulling stuff Americans could never get away with and everyone loves it.

Oddly enough, I don't have any issues with the acting in this piece. Sure, it's pretty melodramatic in parts, but it fits the setting and scenario. I was particularly impressed with Ingrid Thulin, who had the thankless task of playing a character that is in no way sympathetic but also not villainous.

I also thought it was a pretty engrossing story, and I did like some of Ingmar Bergman's directorial choices, like the way he would frame wide shots to communicate the character's distance from each other and close-ups when characters are having an emotional catharsis. I feel like if I was just reading this story, it would haunt me, so I strongly support the nomination here. I don't even hate that the film went overboard with its overt red-and-white-themed symbolism. It's just very heavy-handed and I don't feel like Bergman was ever really called out for that.

This was the last foreign language film to be nominated for Best Picture until 1995, though Bergman himself would receive two more Best Director nods (for Face to Face and Fanny and Alexander) and two more Best Original Screenplay nods (for Autumn Sonata and Fanny and Alexander). This might be my first Bergman film, but I'm intrigued enough by what I saw here that I'm looking forward to my next one. Bergman might have been a little crazy. But good crazy.

American Graffiti

Film: American Graffiti
Year: 1973
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul LeMat, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, MacKenzie Phillips, Cindy Williams, Wolfman Jack, Bo Hopkins, Harrison Ford, Suzanne Somers
Director: George Lucas
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Clark), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing

Where was I in '62? Nowhere. But I kinda wish I had been.

Quick, I say the name George Lucas and you say...?

Thought so. But while we all love Star Wars (I mean, really, who doesn't?), I think this might be Lucas's unsung magnum opus. I say unsung, but it was a huge hit and garnered Lucas the first Oscar nominations of his career.

Not bad for a movie that's essentially Happy Days but with more reality ensuing.

Okay, that wasn't fair. But it's also not far off the mark. American Graffiti (by the way, was there much actual graffiti in this movie? I can't say I really noticed it) is a nostalgic look back at the era of a director's youth while also being a fairly frank look at what was really going on in that "more innocent time".

Knowing what would become of George Lucas in the modern age, it's almost like this movie, so unlike anything we associate with him, stands as a tribute to a time when he was sane. Yes, it was at least as troubled a production as Star Wars, but the end result is resoundingly down-to-earth, and a perfect snapshot of its time period. This movie is defined by its cars, its fashion, its cars, its hairstyles, its cars, shots of small-town American shops and diners, its cars and its soundtrack.

The plot could accurately be described as a night of teenagers in the summer of 1962 driving around town, yelling at each other from cars, and listening to the radio, which plays classic hit after classic hit throughout the film, the songs and the frequent interjections from DJ Wolfman Jack (playing himself) acting almost as a sort of Greek chorus.

So what makes this so compelling? Because it's really fascinating to watch. To be frank, I'm not sure. It's not like the nostalgic coming-of-age story had never been done before. But somehow, these kids, their cars, that crazy awesome soundtrack; it all just comes together to make something magical.

The group of teens in this film come from different walks of life but the town is small enough that they all know each other and hang out. The 19-year-old dropout Johnny Milner, who just wants to drag race and cruise for girls and has no intention of growing up (Paul LeMat) and hopeless nerd Terry "Toad" Fields (Charles Martin Smith) are friends, and Johnny only teases Toad lightly. High School "king" Steve Bolander (Ron Howard) and his longtime steady girlfriend Laurie Henderson (Cindy Williams) are that one couple everyone is sure will get married, while Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), her older brother, is Steve's best friend. The two of them are headed off to college in the morning, and this is their last night in town, but suddenly Curt isn't sure he wants to go, and Steve is mostly concerned about being able to see college girls while he's gone but still keep Laurie for when he's back in town. Meanwhile, Toad is elated that Steve has left his prize Chevy Impala in his care while he's gone, and he wastes no time taking it out on the strip to see what girls he can pick up. Of course, sweet ride or no, he's still Toad. He does manage to get an older girl, Debbie (Candy Clark) to take a ride with him, but she's an "experienced" (shall we say) woman of the world while he's an utter naife and soon he's in over his head the more he tries to impress her.

Johnny hears there's a new guy in town, Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford) who heard Johnny is the drag racing king of Modesto, and wants to challenge him. Johnny drives a modified, "pimped-out" 1932 Ford Deuce Coupé while Falfa is cruising in a 1955 Chevrolet One-Fifty Coupé and I can only imagine what the Ford and Chevy fans must have made of their rivalry back when this came out. It's kind of interesting watching Ford play a total jerk. But compounding the situation is that Johnny has unwittingly been saddled with Carol (MacKenzie Phillips), the younger sister of a girl he was hitting on through his car window, and by "younger" I mean 12. This is a pretty squicky situation (after all, what girl lets her preteen sister get in the car of a strange man?) but thankfully Johnny is just as squicked out by it as we are, wanting to get her home or back to her sister before anyone thinks anything funny is going on, with Carol determined to make that as hard for him as possible, because she wants to be out having fun.

Curt, meanwhile, catches a fleeting glance of a blonde woman in a T-Bird (Suzanne Somers), who seemingly mouths the words "I love you" directly to him before turning a corner and disappearing. Curt is determined to find out who she is, but with no car of his own and a habit of doing or saying things that get him kicked out of others' cars, he gets no closer to finding her, and runs afoul of a local gang, the Pharaohs, led by greaser Joe (Bo Hopkins).

As I understand it, this movie was extremely low budget (most of it might have gone into paying for all those cars and royalties for the music) and even filmed somewhat guerilla style, with some of the location shooting happening in areas they weren't allowed to film, and that almost no one wanted to distribute it because it didn't have any stars (yeah, really, all those names you recognize were nobodies back then). And then it became a surprise hit, and racked up five Oscar nods, only to lose all of them.

Well, the Picture, Director, Editing and Screenplay nominations were absolutely earned, and I'm a little surprised it didn't win at least editing, but Candy Clark is the only actor to be nominated here, and her performance is kinda one-note and nothing special at all. You've seen a million other performances like it. I think the real stand-outs here are Paul LeMat, who manages to make his "punk" character relatable and likeable, Charles Martin Smith, who has this nervous energy that adds to Toad's geeky charm, and MacKenzie Phillips, who removes any fear that she's in danger being so young and out so late by almost immediately taking charge of the situation in Johnny's car. Not that he wants to take advantage of her (at all!) but his frequent attempts to take her home, find her sister or at least make sure no one sees her in his car all fail hilariously thanks to her outsmarting him at every turn.

The screenplay nomination, for Lucas, his frequent collaborator Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, who would go on to direct the ill-fated Howard the Duck from the same writers and with lucas as a producer, I can certainly understand, but I also understand why it lost, because this really is a sort of "random events plot" that follows around several small groups of people just sort of...doing stuff. It manages to make it compelling, but how much of that was the acting, the cinematography or the acting? Of course, it's also got all those songs which come on at important moments, and I understand that was part of the script as well, so yeah, the nomination was earned.

I don't know where you were in '62, but if you haven't seen this yet, where have you been?

1973 New Category

And next up is...

...Screenplay!

This is the first time a screenplay category has come up, so I'll explain how I'm going to do them.

Today, we mainly know Screenplay as two categories: Best Story and Screenplay Not Previously Produced or Published and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Or, as they're more often called, Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay.

But these categories have changed a lot, and I mean a lot throughout the years. For example, Best Original Story used to be a different category from Best Screenplay Not Previously Produced or Published, and there was a time when you could be awarded for Best Screenplay and Best Adaptation, among other things.

So, I'm just making "screenplay" the category draw and then doing each category for that year separately, and as always, in alphabetical order.

That being said, Best Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Produced or Published is technically the first category this year, alphabetically, when going by full title, which I will be for each year.

The nominees for this award in 1973 were:

• American Graffiti, written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck
• Cries and Whispers, written by Ingmar Bergman
• Save the Tiger, written by Steve Shagan
• The Sting, written by David S. Ward
• A Touch of Class written by Melvin Frank and Jack Rose

As you might have already figured out, one of these I've already talked about, so I won't bother doing another post on it. I didn't speak directly about the screenplay in the review, but I will in the category write-up.

So, next up is American Graffiti.