Jennifer Hudson's Oscar Nom, Hitchcock's House Beautiful and More
Question: Having recently seen
Dreamgirls and having been blown away by Jennifer Hudson's performance as Effie, I was surprised that the recent awards nominations have recognized her in the supporting category rather than the lead category. (I felt she was more of the lead than Beyoncé was as Deena.) This reminded me of the Oscar nominations for
All About Eve, when
Anne Baxter refused to be in the supporting category and was nominated as lead actress along with
Bette Davis. Had Jennifer Hudson (and/or her "people") pushed for the lead category, would the nominations have turned out differently? - TVAddict
FlickChick: Whether an actor or actress is considered for a supporting or lead nomination is determined by a film's producers - they submit performers for Academy Award consideration in specific categories. It has been suggested that there would be more integrity if the nominating branch of the Academy decided categories, because that would take studio politicking out of the equation, but that's not the way the rules are set up at the moment. And frankly, no matter how much acclaim Jennifer Hudson is getting for
Dreamgirls, she doesn't have the juice to force anyone to give her her way as far as nominations go.
Having said that, I'm not sure that it's so cut-and-dried that Effie White is a lead and Deena Jones a supporting role; I think it
looks that way because Effie is a big, brassy character with - to use the dreaded actor's phrase - a greater (or perhaps more obvious) arc of change than Deena Jones, but in terms of screen time, I'd say they're about equal.
And honestly, I think Hudson stands a much better chance of getting a supporting-actress Oscar than a best-actress one because of the powerhouse caliber of this year's best-actress nominees:
Meryl Streep (
The Devil Wears Prada),
Helen Mirren (
The Queen),
Penélope Cruz (
Volver),
Kate Winslet (
Little Children) and
Judi Dench (
Notes on a Scandal).
Even the youngsters in the best-actress race are veterans with lots of heavy-duty credits on their CVs, while in the supporting category Hudson is up against
Cate Blanchett (
Notes on a Scandal), true, but she's also facing a child (
Abigail Breslin in
Little Miss Sunshine), and
Babel's
Adriana Barraza and
Rinko Kikuchi, that last a newcomer and someone who's for all intents and purposes unknown in the U.S. That's a much more manageable field for a first-time actress, the formidable Blanchett notwithstanding.
Question: Could you help me with some answers about the VanDamm house in Alfred Hitchcock's
North by Northwest? Was it a full-scale building or just set walls or flats? Also, who was responsible for the design, are there plans available for viewing and were the interiors done on a separate set? - Robbie
FlickChick: The sleekly modern VanDamm house in
North by Northwest (1959), perched in the South Dakota hills atop Mt. Rushmore, was built in Culver City, California... or, more correctly,
parts of the house were built there.
The MGM art department designed a full-size living room, a portion of the bedroom, the Populuxe carport and a small portion of the underside of the house where it hangs off the edge of the hill, anchored by the cantilever beams
Cary Grant climbs up to gain access. Overall, it was designed to look like a Frank Lloyd Wright house, and it did. MGM's construction crews focused on interiors, where the scenes were shot, but also finished some outside portions of the walls so
Hitchcock could do "exteriors" looking in through the windows, or shots that involved outer walls as seen from the inside. Although the walls appear to be limestone - a material Wright used frequently - they're actually plaster, and many were built in breakaway sections to facilitate Hitchcock's famously intricate camera movements.
The exterior long shots of the house combine the physical sets and matte paintings that extend them into a complete structure. The ultramodern design went as far as the set dressing, which included then-popular flokati rugs, pre-Columbian pottery figures, Chinese prints and blond-wood Scandinavian furniture.
Question: I saw the last 10 or so minutes of a movie last night that left me wanting more. It was an older movie with Dustin Hoffman and another actor - I'm not sure who it was, though they were both made up to look like half-wits. They were on an island and at the end the one actor jumped from a high ledge into the ocean with a sack; Hoffman's character watched his friend drift away into the ocean. The closing scene was a voice-over about a prison, I think. Dustin had a big bald spot on his head and very thick glasses as well as some real bad teeth and was "slow." I'd really appreciate it if you can tell me what this movie was, so I can rent it and watch it from beginning to end. - Jacqueline
FlickChick: I'm thinking
Papillon (1973), in which
Dustin Hoffman and
Steve McQueen play prisoners incarcerated in a brutal French penal colony on an island in French Guiana. It was based on Henri Charrière's autobiographical novel, and you should have no trouble renting it.
Question: I'm trying to find the name of a movie that I saw many years ago as a kid. It may be a Hammer film, and it's about a man who has to stay in a haunted house until morning. I can't remember why or what he gets for doing it, but he stays until morning and starts to head out of the house successfully, but at the last moment the gate of the house slams shut behind him, and he's killed by a piece of metal that jams into the back of his neck. I remember thinking he was going to win, all the way up to the last second of the film. I hope this doesn't stump you, and thanks for the help. - Robbie
FlickChick: Depending on whether the film you saw is in black-and-white or color, it's either Italian genre director
Antonio Margheriti's
Danza Macabra/
Castle of Blood (1964) or his own remake,
Nella Stretta Morsa del Ragno/[
i]Web of the Spider (1972). In each, an unfortunate man name Alan Foster meets Edgar Allan Poe in an inn and makes a bet with the master of the macabre that he can spend a whole night in a ghost-haunted, old, dark house. In
Castle of Blood, Poe is played by
Sylvano Tranquilli, Foster is
Georges Rivière, and the ghosts include horror icon
Barbara Steele. In
Web of the Spider,
Klaus Kinski plays Poe,
Anthony Franciosa is Foster, and French starlet
Michèle Mercier takes over Steele's role.
