Oscar Nominee: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium

Award level: 
Oscar Nominee

The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming looks overly cute now, but really, it was pretty hip for 1966. The cold war was in full deep-freeze when this well-meaning comedy tried to thaw things out a little: a Soviet submarine beaches on the New England coast, sending the locals into a paranoid frenzy. The chief pleasure of the film is Alan Arkin as the sub captain; this was Arkin's first major film role, and he had already mastered his exasperated, slow-burning frown (to say nothing of mastering his Russian dialogue).

The Odd Couple

Neil Simon has a special genius for finding the great hilarity in ordinary people doing everyday things. Like two divorced men who decide to share a New York apartment. That's the premise of The Odd Couple, though there's nothing odd in the casting of two Oscar-winning talents like Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. The two veteran funnymen work together with the precision timing of a vaudeville team, but always with bright spontaneity. Lemmon plays fussy Felix, fastidious to a fault. He proves that cleanliness is nest to insanity.

Paper Moon

Ryan O'Neal teams up with his daughter Tatum in this very bright, very warm and very funny period film for which Tatum won an Oscar in her first film role. Ryan O'Neal plays the smooth-talking con man Moses Pray, driving through depression-era Kansas with a carload of deluxe bibles, a gold tooth behind a convincing smile, and a list of newly widowed prospects for his line. Addie (Tatum O'Neal) is a cigarette-smoking, nine-year-old orphan who hooks up with Moses and manages to show the master con man a trick or two.

My Fair Lady

By George, they've got it! Newly transferred from elements painstakingly restored in 1994, the film version of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady is lavish, loverly and the acclaimed recipient of eight 1964 Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Director (Cukor). Best Actor Oscar winner Rex Harrison reprises his signature stage role of Henry Higgins, the supremely assured phoneticist who wagers that under his tutelage, Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle can pass for a duchess at the Embassy Ball. In one of her best-loved roles, Audrey Hepburn plays Eliza.

Mary Poppins

Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Actress (Julie Andrews), Best Song ("Chim Chim Cher-ee") and Best Visual Effects, Disney's musical masterpiece Mary Poppins has formed an unbreakable bond with audiences of all generations! In her star-making performance, Julie Andrews plays the lovable nanny who flies out of the windy London skies and into the home of a no-nonsense banker and his two mischievous children.

The Last Picture Show

Like Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, and The Graduate, The Last Picture Show is one of the signature films of the "New Hollywood" that emerged in the late 1960s and early '70s. Based on the novel by Larry McMurtry and lovingly directed by Peter Bogdanovich (who cowrote the script with McMurtry), this 1971 drama has been interpreted as an affectionate tribute to classic Hollywood filmmaking and the great directors (such as John Ford) that Bogdanovich so deeply admired.

Lawrence Of Arabia

The dramatic portrait of the famed British officer's journey to the Middle East, Lawrence Of Arabia is one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved films of all time. Assigned to Arabia during World War I, Lawrence courageously unites the warring Arab factions into a strong guerrilla front and leads them to brilliant victories in treacherous desert battlefields, where they eventually defeat the ruling Turkish Empire.

Heaven Can Wait

Heaven Can Wait is a romantic fantasy about Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty), a Los Angeles Rams quarterback who is accidentally summoned to heaven by an overly zealous celestial escort. Pendleton is returned to earth in the body of another man, who is a corporate giant. While practicing to once again play for the Rams, Pendleton must escape attempts on his life while romantically pursuing a beautiful Englishwoman (Julie Christie) who protests the destruction caused to her village by one of his many corporations.

The Hustler

Newman is electrifying as Fast Eddie Felson, an arrogant, amoral hustler who haunts backstreet pool rooms fleecing anyone who'll pick up a cue. Determined to be acclaimed as the best, Eddie seeks out the legendary Minnesota Fats, who's backed by Bert Gordon, a predatory gambler. Eddie can beat the champ, but virtually defeats himself with his low self-image. The love of a lonely woman could turn Eddie's life around, but he won't rest until he beats Minnesota Fats, no matter what price he must pay.

The Graduate

Few films have defined a generation as The Graduate did. The alienation, the nonconformity, the intergenerational romance, the blissful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack--they all served to lob a cultural grenade smack into the middle of 1967 America, ultimately making the film the third most profitable up to that time. Seen from a later perspective, its radical chicness has dimmed a bit, yet it's still a joy to see Dustin Hoffman's bemused Benjamin and Anne Bancroft's deliciously decadent, sardonic Mrs. Robinson.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Oscar Nominee: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium