AWARDS 1953

1953
*From Here to Eternity wins and the lead players, Montgomery Clift and Deborah Kerr are nominated. It follows the tensions within an American military unit in Hawaii during the weeks before the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Winner of eight Academy Awards including Best Picture and two for supporting roles by Frank Sinatra.


Audrey Hepburn wins best actress for Roman Holiday. Princess Anne embarks on a highly publicized tour of European capitals. When she and her royal entourage arrive in Rome, she begins to rebel against her restricted, regimented schedule. One night Anne sneaks out of her room, hops into the back of a delivery truck and escapes her luxurious confinement. However, a sedative she was forced to take earlier starts to take effect, and the princess is soon fast asleep on a public bench. She is found by Joe Bradley, played by Gregory Peck, an American newspaper reporter stationed in Rome. He takes her back to his apartment. The next morning Joe dashes off to cover the Princess Anne press conference, unaware that she is sleeping on his couch!


Another movies nominated were:

Julius Caesar Marlon Brando, nominated.

The Robe, Richard Burton, nominated. Marcellus is a tribune in the time of Christ. He is in charge of the group that is assigned to crucify Jesus. Drunk, he wins Jesus' homespun robe after the crucifixion. He is tormented by nightmares and delusions after the event. Hoping to find a way to live with what he has done, and still not believing in Jesus, he returns to Palestine to try and learn what he can of the man he killed.


Shane, Brandon de Wilde and Jack Palance, nominated. Alan Ladd plays Shane. Shane rides into a conflict between cattleman Ryker and a bunch of settlers, like the Starretts, whose land Ryker wants. When Shane beats up Ryker's man Chris, Ryker tries to buy him. Then Shane and Joe take on the whole Ryker crew. Ryker sends to Cheyenne for truly evil gunslinger Wilson. We wonder about Shane's relation to Joe's wife Marian. Shane must clear out all the guns from the valley before he can ride off with Joey hollering "Shane ... Shane ... Come Back!"


Stalag 17: William Holden wins best actor, Now realizing that Price has figured prominently in the death of the Americans that have attempted escape, Sefton plots revenge, and, after exposing Price's true identity to his fellow POWs, he maneuvers to force Price to make an unauthorized exit from the barracks. To the guards manning the tower, Price's exit looks like an American escape attempt, and they shoot him, much to the dismay of Stalag Commandant Von Scherbach played by Otto Preminger.


The House of Wax. A sculptor of wax figures for a museum is horrified when his partner proposes setting fire to the unpopular museum in order to collect the insurance money. As the wax figures melt amid the blaze, the two men have a fight. The sculptor is knocked out in the scuffle and left to "perish" among the flames. He resurfaces many years later for the launch of his own wax museum. The opening coincides with the sudden disappearance of some dead bodies from the city morgue. Movie stars Vincent Price, Carolyn Jones, and Phyllis Kirk. This was the first 3D movie at the Avalon Theater in Thief River Falls. I saw it with my parents and it was truly a horror picture to me. The movie was remade in 2005. Cast included Paris Hilton.


Titanic. Unhappily married and uncomfortable with life among the British upper crust, Julia Sturges takes her two children and boards the Titanic for America. Her husband Richard also arranges passage on the doomed luxury liner in order to let him have custody of their two children. Their problems soon seem minor when the ship hits an iceberg. Starred Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Wagner. Remade in 1997 and won eleven awards. This movie has a different twist: on its epic journey a poor artist named Jack Dawson and a rich girl Rose DeWitt Bukator fall in love, until one night, their fairytale love for one another turns into a struggle for survival on a ship about to founder to the bottom of the North Atlantic. Rose leaves her fiancée Caledon Hockley for this poor artist, but when the Titanic collides with the Iceberg on April 14th, 1912, and then when the ship sinks on April 15th, 1912 at 2:20 in the morning, Jack dies and Rose survives and 84 years later Rose tells the story about her life on Titanic to her grand daughter and friends on the Keldysh and explains the first sight of Jack that falls into love, then into a fight for survival. When Rose gets saved by one lifeboat that comes back, they take her to the Carpathia with the 6 saved with Rose and the 700 people saved in the lifeboats. The Carpathia Immigration Officer asks Rose what her name is and she loved Jack so much she says her name is not Rose DeWitt Bukator, but her name is Rose Dawson. She seen Cal looking for her, but he doesn't see her, and they never ended up together, her mom, Cal, and friends of the family has know choice but to think that she died on the Titanic. But in the crash of 1929, Cal is married, but then he put a pistol in his mouth and committed suicide.


So Big. Stars Jane Wyman. Dirk is the only child they have and after a few years Pervus dies. With a young child and only the farm, Selina begins her quest to grow high quality vegetables. She wants more for Dirk and guides his life until he graduates from college as an Architect. As her vegetable label prospers, she sees Paula control Dirk's life as he moves away from creating and into sales, which is not where he wants to go. This is a remake from 1932.


Abbott and Costello movies continue as well as the Bowery Boys and Red Skelton round out the year with 446 movies produced.

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