Cedric Gibbons- Art Director, Oscar Creator

An architect and artist before joining the Edison Studios in 1915 Cedric Gibbons then became an art director for producer Sam Goldwyn, retaining his job when Goldwyn's studio merged with Louis Mayer's company to become MGM in 1924. His success in making set designs eventually gave him the opportunity to lead the MGM art department from 1924 to 1956. Considered one of the most influential art production directors in the history of American film his movie settings invoked the Art Deco and streamline modern style, a welcome distraction to Depression-era moviegoers.

Gibbons was one of the original 36 founding members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and at the behest of Louis Mayer, he designed the Academy Awards Oscar statuette in 1927, a trophy for which he himself would be nominated 39 times, winning 11—second only to Walt Disney, who won 26.

Gibbons retired in 1956 with about 1,500 films credited to him. However, he was only hands-on with about 150 films, the other credits were a stipulation of his contract with MGM that dictated he receive credit as art director for every MGM film released in the United States, even though other designers may have done the bulk of the work.

Wins for Art Direction

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929)

The Merry Widow (1934)

Pride and Prejudice (1940)

Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

Gaslight (1944)

The Yearling (1946)

Little Women (1949)

An American in Paris (1951)

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

Julius Caesar (1953)

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1957)

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The Hanging Tree (1959)

When Dr. Frail (Gary Cooper) drifts into Skull Creek, Montana during the gold rush planning to settle in and make some money he immediately runs into sluice thief, Rune (Ben Piazza) who has been shot. After fixing him up, Frail informs Rune that he can repay him by doing chores around the house and going into town to scrounge up customers. Rune, defiant by nature doesn’t take kindly to this or Frail’s threat that he will expose him as a thief if he doesn’t obey.

Rune soon learns that Frail is a contrary man who displays both compassion and vengeance as he sees fit. Frail is a man with a past and it effects those who try to get close to him.

One day a stagecoach containing Sweden-born Elizabeth Mahler (Maria Schell) and her father are robbed. Elizabeth’s father is killed and the horses, spooked by the gunfire cause the coach to go flying off a cliff with Elizabeth stuck inside. After a two day search, she is found by one of the town’s scoundrels Frenchy (Karl Malden) and taken into Dr. Frail’s care.
He arranges for her to be transported to storekeeper Flaunce's  (Karl Swenson) abandoned cabin, which is situated across from his own- something Flaunce’s wife and the town womenfolk frown upon. Rune volunteers to help care for her and three days later, Elizabeth, who has been badly burned by the sun and is temporarily blind, regains consciousness.

During her confinement, she gets to know Frail better and eventually falls in love with the man she cannot see. Her love is intensified once she is cured. Frail, preferring to keep people at a distance, insists that she should go back to Sweden. Elizabeth refuses and instead gets a grubstake from Flaunce for a broach that’s actually worthless. Frail secretly takes on the grubstake thus allowing Elizabeth and Rune to go in on a gold mining project with Frenchy who owns a plot. Though Elizabeth has had a run in with Frenchy before, something that caused Frail to threaten him if he ever came near her again, she is determined to make her own way even if it means playing with fire.
Things come to a head when Ms. Flaunce (Virginia Gregg) discovers the truth behind the grubstake, Frenchy’s advances become downright nasty, and the gold mining plot turns out to be…well, a goldmine.

The Hanging Tree was an interesting film. If anything it showed how far Cooper and movie-making, with most of the studio system defunct at this point, had come. Maybe it's just because I saw Cooper recently in Wings and so I can see a marked difference. Anyhow, Cooper plays his part with ease. Frail is a man with secrets and emotions he'd prefer to tame but you see in small gestures and random acts of kindness. It makes it all that much harder when Rune, played by what I consider to be the typical younger character actor represented in the 50's (this is not a compliment), angrily calls Frail out on things he should obviously be noting himself. That and bad acting usually takes something away from the film but then, besides Cooper, you have Schell's Elizabeth and Malden's Frenchy, who is a particularly sleazy bastard. Both effect Frail by bringing out the best and worst in him. Elizabeth with her innocence and willingness to love and Frenchy who is selfish, lazy and corruptible. Also note that a young George C. Scott graces the screen in a small but no less powerful role as Frails nemesis Dr. George Grubb.

Oscar trivia:

Gary Cooper received five Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning twice for Sergeant York and High Noon. He also received an Honorary Award in 1961 from the Academy which was accepted by his friend Jimmy Stewart.

George C. Scott holds the distinction for being the first person to ever return an Academy Award which he did so after he won the Best Actor nomination for Patton. Scott was also nominated for Best Supporting actor for his role in Anatomy of a Murder.

Karl Malden received and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in A Streetcar Named Desire and was nominated only once more for Best Supporting Actor for his role in On the Waterfront.

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Oscar Party Pack Giveaway {Winner}!

The winner is Tom from Motion Picture Gems!! Tom I have your address and have passed it on. You should receive your package soon.

I would like to thank both Tom and Monty (from All Good Things) for participating in my trivia quiz. You both were close but not quite close enough. However, Tom, you got the most answers correct. Please find the correct answers to the quiz below.

Trivia Quiz:

1. Howard Hawks was nominated for Best Director only once in his career. What was the name and year of the film?


Sergeant York 1941

2. How many times was Cary Grant nominated for Best Actor? What were the names and years of the films?


Penny Serenade 1941

None But the Lonely Heart 1944

3. What are the names of the eight films that Katharine Hepburn was nominated Best Actress for but did not win?

Alice Adams

The Philadelphia Story
Woman of the Year
The African Queen
Summertime
The Rainmaker
Suddenly Last Summer
Long Days Journey Into Night


4. Academy Award-wise, how are Hawks and Grant similar?


Grant and Hawks both received an Honorary Award from the Academy.

5. How many Academy Award Ceremonies did Hepburn attend?


Just once and that was to present her longtime friend Lawrence Weingarten with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

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The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)

As writer Harry Street (Gregory Peck) lays gravely wounded from an African hunting accident he feverishly reflects on what he perceives as his failures at love and writing. Through his delirium he recalls his one true love Cynthia Green (Ava Gardner) who he lost by his obsession for roaming the world in search of stories for his novels. Though she is dead Cynthia continues to haunt Street's thoughts. In spite of one successful novel after another, Street feels he has compromised his talent to ensure the success of his books, making him a failure in his eyes. His neglected wife Helen (Susan Hayward) tends to his wounds, listens to his ranting, endures his talk of lost loves, and tries to restore in him the will to fight his illness until help arrives. Her devotion to him makes him finally realize that he is not a failure. With his realization of a chance for love and happiness with Helen, he regains his will to live. – Review from IMDb

Producer Darryl Zanuck and screenwriter Casey Robinson were huge Hemingway fans. Though most Hemingway adaptations failed onscreen, they were determined to create the ultimate expression Hemingway's work and life with this screenplay. Taking the short story of Kilimanjaro, they also borrowed from Hemingway’s other (often autobiographical) novels to flesh out the character of Harry Street. The end result was reportedly not much to Hemingway’s liking. He reportedly told friend Ava Gardner the only things he liked about it were her and the hyena.


Though the storyline is pretty routine by today’s standards, it stands out as a thought provoking piece namely about waste. Waste of what little time we have reflecting or harping on things we cannot change and waste of potential we don’t live up to fully either out of laziness or fear. Gardner is wonderful in this film and was rightly propelled into stardom because of it.

Oscar trivia:

Gregory Peck was nominated five times in his career for Best Actor for his roles in The Keys of the Kingdom, The Yearling, Gentleman's Agreement, Twelve O'Clock High,  and To Kill a Mockingbird. He won the Best Actor Award for Mockingbird.

Ava Gardner was nomonated only once in her career for Best Actress for her role in Mogambo.

Susan Hayward was noninated five times in her career and won only one Best Actress Award. She was nominated for her roles in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman, My Foolish Heart, With a Song in My Heart, I'll Cry Tomorrow, and won for her role in I Want to Live!.

Director Henry King was actually one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was nominated twice in his career for Best Director for The Song of Bernadette and Wilson.

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Wings (1927)

Jack Powell (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) and David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) are rivals both vying for the attentions of Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston) who really loves David. Jack fails to see that he doesn’t hold Sylvia’s heart but his neighbor Mary Preston (Clara Bow). Both he and David enlist to become combat pilots and though they hate each other at first, they soon become close friends. When they leave for training camp, Jack mistakenly believes Sylvia prefers him; though she reveals her true feelings to David and lets him know about her feelings. Too kindhearted to turn let Jack leave unhappy, she lets him have the locket she was to give to David that holds her picture.

After much ground training, Jack and David are finally sent off to flying camp where they meet the ill-fated Cadet White (Gary Cooper in his first significant role that helped launch him to fame), who is killed in an air crash the same day. Once they are ready, they are shipped off to France to fight the Germans.

Meanwhile, Mary joins the war effort by becoming an ambulance driver. Learning of Jack's reputation as the “Shooting Star” an ace flyer, she finally encounters him while on leave in Paris. However, he is too drunk to recognize her. She manages to get him into a hotel room and to bed for rest, but when two Military Police barge in while she is innocently changing from a borrowed dress back into her uniform in the same room, she is forced to resign and return to America.

The climax of the film begins when David is shot down over enemy lines and presumed dead. However, he survives the crash, steals a German biplane, and heads for the Allied lines. But Jack, bent on avenging his friend by ridding all Germans in sight, spots him and mistaking him for the enemy, shoots him down. When he lands to pick up a souvenir, he becomes realizes what he has done. Before he dies, David forgives Jack, reminding him that he was only doing his duty. When Jack packs up David’s personal effects, he realizes Sylvia’s real feelings. Upon returning home, he visits David’s parents who blame the war, not Jack, for their son's death. Finally, Jack reunites with Mary and proclaims his love for her.

Wings packs a powerful punch! Though graphic, even for it's time, it tells an honest story about the struggles and losses of war. Wellman, not an easy director and one who openly disdained actors, was once part of the French Foreign Legion himself, flying in the Lafayette Escadrille in WWI. Therefore he was able to weave actual war footage into sequences of the film giving us a first hand view of fighter piloting. In fact, Richard Arlen- who was also a pilot in WWI and Buddy Rogers- who learned to fly for the movie, filmed while actually in the air. All this provides for spectacular camera shot angles, crash scenes and death defying acts caught on film. It's no wonder Wings won the very first Oscar!

Oscar Trivia:

The movie Wings holds the distinction not only for winning the very first Best Production (now Best Picture) Academy Award but also for being the only film to win the now retired category of Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production namely for it's stunning aerial themes.

Though Wings was the first picture to win the Academy Award, William Wellman was not nominated for Best Director. Instead, he won a single Academy Award, for the story of A Star Is Born. He was nominated as best director three times, for A Star Is Born, Battleground and The High and Mighty.

Gary Cooper received five Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning twice for Sergeant York and High Noon. He also received an Honorary Award in 1961 from the Academy which was accepted by his friend Jimmy Stewart.

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Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

Edna (Greer Garson) and her adoptive sister Charlotte (Marsha Hunt) are happily set to be married into the upper crust of Wisconsin society. However, their destinies are changed when Edna breaks off her engagement to marry Texan Sam Gladney (Walter Pidgeon) an associate of her father’s who brashly declares he will marry her. When Sam returns a year later for Edna, after opening up his flourmill, Mr. and Mrs. Keats (Kathleen Howard and George Lessey), Charlotte's future in-laws, tell the Kahlys (Fay Holden and Samuel Hinds) that their son Allan (William Henry) cannot marry her because she was a "nameless" foundling. Charlotte is devastated by the news and kills herself.

Two years later, Edna, who has moved to Texas and married Sam, gives birth to a boy and is told that she can have no more children. On Christmas Day, a few years later, tragedy strikes when their son is killed in an accident. Edna hides her grief by becoming a society hostess until Sam and Dr. Max Bresler (Felix Bressart), who attended her at Sammy's birth, try to get her interested in caring for other children. Though reticent at first, she and Sam set up a day nursery for working mothers, which they finance from their own fortune until Sam loses his mill due to the decline of wheat prices.

Selling everything they own, they move to Fort Worth where Sam works as a mill hand while trying to develop a new wheat process. On the day that Edna takes his new process to be notarized, she sees some children in a courtroom and discovers that they are orphans, tagged like cattle, and rejected by prospective adoptive parents because they are illegitimate. She brings two children home; one of them is named Tony who is very ill. With very little money and a lot of help from her friends Zeke and Cleo (Clinton Rosemond and Theresa Harris), she opens a storefront orphanage called the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society and arranges for adoptions for her charges, making certain parents and children are well suited for each other. However, the city councilmen close the home for zoning violations. Determined to keep up the fight, Edna must do so without Sam who passes away. 

She travels throughout Texas, collecting funds until she is able to open a large new home. As the years pass, Edna finds good homes for many children, but realizes that she has additional work to do when she receives a donation from a despondent young woman who is in the same predicament as her sister Charlotte was. Determined to change the law that brands children "illegitimate" and have it removed from birth certificates she fights and wins her battle to have a bill passed in the Texas legislature. But once one battle is over she must fight another, this time she fights for Tony who is wanted by a husband and wife who recently lost their only child. Wanting Tony for herself, Edna must stop and think what’s best for the child she loves so much and eventually gives him away to a loving home where he can have all the attention from a mother and a father.

A story based on the real life of Edna Gladney, Blossoms in the Dust is a real heartwrencher. In my opinion, Greer Garson was the best at eliciting sympathy…and tears. She was a phenomenal actress as TCM will prove tonight by showing the five movies that garnered her the distinction of being the only actress besides Bette Davis to be nominated five times in a row for Best Actress! If you spend the evening with her, then you will also get a healthy dose of Walter Pidgeon, a dynamic and talented player in his own right.

Oscar trivia:

Greer Garson was nominated seven times in her career and holds the distinction of being nominated five times in a row, a distinction she share with Bette Davis. She was nominated for Best actress for her roles in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Blossoms in the Dust, Mrs. Miniver, Madame Curie, Mrs. Parkington, The Valley of Decision, and Sunrise at Campobello. She won her only Oscar for Mrs. Miniver.


Walter Pidgeon garnered two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor for his roles in Mrs. Miniver and Madame Curie.

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Separate Tables (1958)

It’s the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel and tensions run high as the long-term tenants lives are stirred up by the arrival of the beautiful Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth) and the news that Major Pollock (David Niven) is guilty of committing lewd acts in a movie theatre and over-embellishing his war career.

Ann Shankland has arrived to try and win back John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) her ex-husband. Reaping what she has sewn, Ann is tired of being alone in the crowd and worse yet, growing old alone. John who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller), the woman who runs the hotel cannot fight the love he  still has for Ann despite knowing that together they are a volatile combination. It takes the wisdom and courage for Pat to let John go and advise he’s the best man to look after Ann who has become more dependent upon a chemical solution to her problems. Meanwhile, the snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper as a more humane Mrs. Vale) dislikes her daughter Sibyl’s (Deborah Kerr) growing affection towards Major Pollock, advising Sibyl not to act so wanton as other people in the hotel are talking about her. She is relieved when she has evidence that the kindly Major Pollock is not what he appears to be. The news is particularly shocking for her frail daughter who realizes that she loves him very much.

The story is intertwined with other minor characters who contribute much to the story. There is the young unmarried couple Charles and Jean (Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton) who are sleeping together on the sly; the happy-go-lucky Lady Matheson (Cathleen Nesbitt) who’s a bit of a pushover, Mr. Fowler (Felix Aylmer) the former professor who’s a bit of a bore, and Miss Meacham (May Hallatt) who’s a contented spinster with a penchant for gambling. Together they must make the decision of whether Major Pollock should be allowed to stay or asked to go. Alone John must figure out if he and Ann really are better off together.

The major theme of Separate Tables is portrayed heavily through the relationships between Sibyl and Major Pollock, Ann and John. They are among the group of residents of Beauregard Hotel who have run there to escape life. All of them in their own way cannot quite cope with their inadequacies in the real world and find comfort in their small domain despite being so different from one another. Their interactions with one another are poignant and emotional. The scenes between Niven and Kerr are devastatingly heart wrenching. When Niven’s Major Pollock opens up about his past and the reasons why he does what he does in the movie theatres, you have a better understanding of how his loneliness drives him to seek out women in the dark. Kerr’s response to him brings you to tears as does the overall reaction of the other residents of the hotel to his dilemma.

This was David Niven’s first stab at a serious role. Beforehand he had played only supporting roles and mostly as the debonair sophisticate. It was also a wonderful opportunity for Rita Hayworth to flex her dramatic chops and get away from the roles that concentrated only on her beauty. When Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh backed out of the film, Hayworth, who was married to producer James Hill asked for the part. Wonderfully executed, Separate Tables is a thought-provoking and interesting look into the lives of people set apart and how they slowly come to the realization that they truly depend upon one another.

Oscar trivia:

Gladys Cooper was nominated three times in her career for Best Supporting Actress for

Now Voyager, The Song of Bernadette, and My Fair Lady.

Wendy Hiller was nominated twice in her career for Best Supporting Actress for Separate Tables in which she won, and for A Man for All Seasons.

Deborah Kerr was nominated six times in her career for Best Actress for her roles in Edward, My Son, From Here to Eternity, The King and I, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, Separate Tables, and The Sundowners. Though she never won for any of these roles, in 1994 she received the Academy Honorary Award.

David Niven had a sole career nomination for Best Actor and won for his role of Major Pollock in Separate Tables. He was also a co-host of the 30th, 31st and 46th Academy Awards ceremonies and is considered to have one of the most MEMORABLE moments onstage while presenting.

Rita Hayworth: Despite appearing in 61 films over 37 years, including leading roles in successful, classic films like Gilda, she never received an Academy Award nomination.

Burt Lancaster was nominated for the Best Actor award four times in his career for From Here to Eternity, Elmer Gantry, Birdman of Alcatraz, and Atlantic City. He won for his role in Elmer Gantry.

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