AWARDS 1958

1958
Gigi
André Previn won for the score for the movie. Gigi, a young girl raised by two veteran Parisian courtesans to be the mistress of wealthy young Gaston When Gaston falls in love with Gigi and asks her to be his wife, Jeans is appalled: never has anyone in their family ever stooped to anything so bourgeois as marriage! Weaving in and out of the story is Maurice Chevalier as an aging boulevardier who, years earlier, had been in love with Gingold's character. Chevalier gets most of the best tunes, including Thank Heaven for Little Girls, I'm Glad I'm Not Young Any More, and his matchless duet with Gingold, I Remember it Well. Caron's best number (dubbed by Betty Wand) is The Night They Invented Champagne while Jordan gets the honor of introducing the title song. Filmed on location in Paris, Gigi won several Oscars, including Best Picture


Auntie Mame starred Rosalind Russell, who was nominated for best actress. the flamboyant, devil-may-care aunt of young, impressionable Patrick Dennis. Left in Mame's care when his millionaire father drops dead, young Patrick is quickly indoctrinated into his aunt's philosophy that "Life is a banquet--and some poor suckers are starving to death." Social-climbing executor Dwight Babcock does his best to raise Patrick as a stuffy American aristocrat, but Mame battles Babcock to allow the boy to be as free-spirited as she is.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor were both nominated for their roles in this movie. The fifth Tennessee Williams play to reach the screen, wealthy Mississippi plantation owner Big Daddy Pollitt, unaware that he's dying of cancer and disturbed by the strained and childless marriage of his favored alcoholic son Brick and his other son, Gooper, whose wife is about to bring forth another in the endless line of little "no-neck monsters," celebrates his sixty-fifth birthday with his family. Brick's wife, Maggie, beautiful and desirable, tries unsuccessfully to coax her husband away from the bottle, while alternately enticing him and taunting him about his obsession with his deceased best friend and the guilt about their relationship.


Great quotes:
Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt: You know what I feel like? I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof.
Brick Pollitt: Then jump off the roof, Maggie. Jump off it. Cats jump off roofs and land uninjured. Do it. Jump.
Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt: Jump where? Into what?

Susan Hayward, I Want to Live! is a favorite of a friend in KS. She adores Susan Hayward. This drama is adapted from the true story of Barbara Graham, a woman sentenced to die in the mid-1950s after she allegedly committed a murder during a robbery. Graham pleaded innocent until the day she died in the San Quentin gas chamber.

Old Man and the Sea with Spencer Tracy, who plays an elderly Cuban fisherman, no longer as strong as he once was, takes to the water in hopes of catching a huge marlin and must deal with bad weather, sharks, and other dangers as he does battle with the mighty fish.
Bell, Book, and Candle. Stars Kim Novak and James Stewart. A modern-day witch likes her neighbor but despises his fiancee, so she enchants him to love her instead... only to fall in love with him for real

The Big Country. Stars Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, and Carol Baker. Retired, wealthy sea Captain Jame McKay (Gregory Peck) arrives in the vast expanse of the West to marry fiancee Pat Terrill (Carroll Baker). McKay is a man whose values & approach to life are a mystery to the ranchers & ranch foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) takes an immediate dislike to him. Pat is spoiled, selfish & controlled by her wealthy father, Major Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford).

The Blob. Stars Steve McQueen in a color about a red blob this is his first starring role, Steve McQueen plays a typical oversexed, car-lovin' high schooler who can't get anyone to believe his story about a huge meteor, which crashes to earth and begins exuding a pink, gooey substance. Affixing itself to the body of an old man.

Houseboat starring Cary Grant and Sophie Loren. Tom Winston, a widower, is trying to understand and raise three precocious children alone. He gets a little unexpected help from Cinzia, when the children decide she is be the new maid. She is actually an Italian socialite who is trying to get away from her overprotective father. Not to be confused with Father Goose (1964)

The Match Maker. Stars Shirley Booth, Shirley MacLaine, and Tony Perkins. It's 1884 in Yonkers, New York. Dolly Gallagher-Levi is a Jane-of-all-Trades, but her latest and most lucrative venture is as a matchmaker, setting men up with women with the intention of matrimony. This job is ironic as she was previously married herself, not enjoying the experience. Her latest client is older penny-pinching retail store owner, Horace Vandergelder, who works his two young meek clerks, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, to the bone. As Horace won't give them a day off, Cornelius and Barnaby plot to close the store and sneak into New York for the day, their mission to meet and kiss a girl. Remade in 1997.

Onionhead starring Andy Griffith. The Ship's Cook who has the Coast Guard in a Stew!

Vertigo with Kim Novak and James Stewart. In the opening scene, a criminal climbs up the rungs of the ladder on a dark San Francisco night. A police officer and John "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart), a detective, are hot on his trail. They chase the fugitive across the top of buildings. The criminal jumps between two buildings, making it across. The police officer follows, but Scottie can't get his footing. He slips. Scottie hangs on to the gutter as his fear of heights kicks in. The police officer tries to grab Scottie's hand, but falls to his death. Scottie witnesses this and dangles helplessly . from the gutter. And yes, this is the second film in a year for the combo of Kim Novak and James Stewart.

The Young Lions. The destiny of three soldiers during World War II. The German officer Christian Diestl approves less and less of the war. Jewish-American Noah Ackerman deals with anti-Semitism at home and in the army while entertainer Michael Whiteacre transforms from playboy to hero. Stars Dean Martin, Marlon Brando, and Clift Montgomery.
Damn Yankees. Tab Hunter plays a ball player who makes a deal with the devil, played by Ray Walston.


South Pacific, musical starring Mitzi Gaynor. It is 1943 and the United States Navy has established several bases in the Solomon Islands, in preparation for an invasion towards New Guinea and the Central Pacific. On one such island lives a French planter named Emile de Becque, whom the Navy wishes to employ as a scout to nearby Japanese held islands. To accomplish this task, de Becque is approached by a US Navy nurse named Nellie Forbush. Amidst an outstanding musical score, and breathtaking scenery, the drama of "South Pacific" unfolds

Boris Karloff is re-invented and makes several horror films in the mid to late 50’s. Other horror movies include The Fly and Fiend Without a Face. Teens loved them. Songs were written about them. Tag lines from the movies were used by teens across the nation.

Beware of the Blob~~Perhaps Old Trunks should say, "Beware of the Blog"

Beware of The Blob, it creeps
And leaps and glides and slides
Across the floor
Right through the door
And all around the wall
A splotch, a blotch
Be careful of The Blob

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