Clips from West Side Story, The Misfits and Mothra
Academy Awards 1961
Best Picture: West Side Story beats
"Fanny", "The Guns of Navarone", "The Hustler"
and "Judgment at Nuremberg"
Directing: Robert Wise and Jerome
Robbins - West Side Story beats Federico
Fellini for "La Dolce Vita", Stanley Kramer for
"Judgment at Nuremberg", J. Lee Thompson for
"The Guns of Navarone" and Robert Rossen for
"The Hustler"
Best Supporting Actor: George Chakiris - West
Side Story beats Montgomery Clift in "Judgment
at Nuremberg", Peter Falk in "Pocketful of
Miracles", Jackie Gleason in "The Hustler" and
George C. Scott in "The Hustler"
Best Supporting Actress: Rita Moreno - West Side
Story beats Fay Bainter in "The Children's
Hour", Judy Garland in "Judgment at Nuremberg",
Lotte Lenya in "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone"
and Una Merkel in "Summer and Smoke".
Best Actress: Sophia Loren - Two Women (Italian).
Mother and
Daughter raped during World War 2. Beats Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at
Tiffany's", Piper Laurie in "The Hustler",
Geraldine Page in "Summer and Smoke" and Natalie
Wood in "Splendor in the Grass"
Best Actor: Maximilian Schell - Judgment at
Nuremberg, first movie to bring footage of the
Holocaust to the masses, beats
Charles Boyer in "Fanny", Paul Newman in "The
Hustler", Spencer Tracy in "Judgment at
Nuremberg" and Stuart Whitman in "The Mark".
Best Foreign Language Film: Through a Glass Darkly directed by Ingmar
Bergman, Sweden
Top Box Office 1961
Blue Hawaii
Elvis Presley's
first movie since returning from the army. His
biggest box-office success setting the tone for
his last 16 years.
The Guns of Navarone
Action Adventure
beating the Nazis.
New Movies 1961
The Absent-Minded Professor
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
The Alamo
Breakfast at Tiffany's
King of Kings
Exodus
The Parent Trap
Swiss Family Robinson
Come September
The World of Suzie Wong
La Dolce Vita
El Cid
The Errand Boy (Jerry Lewis)
The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis)
Flower Drum Song
Pocketful of Miracles
Splendor in the Grass
Two Rode Together
In Italy 1961, a total Solar Eclipse was captured
on the set of the movie Barabbas while filming the crucifixion scene. Taken by photographer Augusto Di
Giovanni.
George Washington Vanderbilt
III is found dead at the base of a San Francisco skyscraper.
Jeff Chandler, dies from blood poisoning during
botched spinal surgery. He was 42.
Ernest Hemingway, suicide.
commits suicide with a 12 gauge shotgun.
Not only was he suffering from high blood pressure,
alcoholism, heart disease, liver
failure, skin infections, depression and insomnia;
he had recently spent a year in the
hospital receiving electric shocks
treatments for depression. He was 62.
Gail Russell, suicide by alcohol induced heart attack.
Found in her Brentwood apartment surrounded by
liquor
bottles. She was 36.
Good
Movies 1961
The Misfits Starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark
Gable, Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach. Burned
out cowboys rounding up wild horses to sell for
a pittance for dog food does not set well with
the blonde free spirit. The last movie by Gable
and Monroe.
Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour with
Shirley Maclaine and Audrey Hepburn
addresses a lesbian relationship leading
the way to more freedom in the movies.
The Hustler. Paul Newman, Jackie
Gleason and George C. Scott give stunning
performances but get no awards.
B Movies 1961
Reptilicus - Danish movie filmed twice in English and Danish. Miners find a dragon's tail which regenerates to reek havoc in Amsterdam.
The Pit and the Pendulum Roger Corman and Vince Price team
up for the second, and most acclaimed of the ten
stylistic Edgar Allen Poe series.
Atlantis, the Lost Continent Geroge Pal's worst movie with lots of footage
taken from Quo Vadis and the Naked Jungle.
Mothra
Toho Studios, gives us the first
of ten starring the friendly monster (non larval
stage).
