Beyond Reach These Classics Didn’t Win Oscars - In Fact, They Weren’t Even Nominated

It’s still remembered as the night that Stanley Kubrick cried.

Remember? After his sci-fi classic “2001: A Space Odyssey” won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Picture, the bearded, introverted filmmaker basked in the prolonged applause that broke over the footlights of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Remember?

Well, if you do, then you need to adjust your medication. Stanley Kubrick has never won an Oscar.

Not one of his beautifully crafted films has earned Hollywood gold. In 1968, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to reward Carol Reed’s adaptation of the musical “Oliver!” “2001: A Space Odyssey” wasn’t even nominated.

Yes, the academy honored a pop-song stage play and virtually ignored one of the finest examples of meditative cinema, a film that not only helped define movie special effects as they would develop over the next three decades but a film that, even 28 years later, still holds its own in terms of theme, characterization and pure visual imagination.

Go figure.

Look, it’s an old story. The academy hasn’t even announced its nominees for the “best” films of 1996 (that won’t occur until Tuesday), and people already are positioning themselves to complain about this particular film getting ignored, that filmmaker getting slighted and any number of actors getting insulted.

So instead of getting involved in that predictable controversy before we actually have to, why not do something a little different?

Why not take a look back in history and hold those Oscar folks accountable for some of the, at least in retrospect, biggest goofball plays in movie history?

Let’s take a look at 10 of the greatest films never to have been nominated for an Oscar.

Not films that failed to WIN an Oscar. We’re talking here about films that didn’t even make the final five (or, in the case of some years pre-1945, the final 12).

Let’s begin with:

1930-31: “City Lights”

In only its fourth year of existence, the motion picture academy was already set in its ways. It chose “Cimarron” as Best Picture but would not reward another Western until 1992’s “Unforgiven”; and it ignored Charlie Chaplin’s bittersweet comedy/romance “City Lights,” thus conforming to a long-standing tradition of withholding comedies from Best Picture consideration.

Considering the other films that came up that year, Hollywood might have had reason. The other nominees boasted relative merits - the theatrical adaptations “East Lynne” and “The Front Page,” the Jackie Cooper-Jackie Coogan feature “Skippy” and the African adventure “Trader Horn.” But several films not nominated have endured with even more fame, among them the gang thrillers “Little Caesar” and “The Public Enemy,” Marlene Dietrich in “The Blue Angel,” “The Dawn Patrol” and “Dracula.”

And don’t forget “City Lights.” Even now, some viewers consider this Chaplin silent, which came out four years after the development of sound, to be overly maudlin. But that’s too harsh. The great Chaplin, never one to avoid sentimentality, manages to blend irony into his tale of the Little Tramp’s love for a blind woman. And the final scene is one of the screen’s great moments.

1946: “Children of Paradise”

Here was another tough year. The World War II film “The Best Years of Our Lives,” which even today remains one of the truest studies of the post-war problems faced by veterans and their families, won out over “Henry V,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Razor’s Edge” and “The Yearling.”

Among those not nominated were such classics as “The Big Sleep,” “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “My Darling Clementine” and “The Stranger.”

But Marcel Carne’s “Children of Paradise” is one of those handful of international films that deserves to be called great. A 19th-century period piece, secretly shot in Paris by Carne from 1943 to 1945, “Children of Paradise” is a tale of unrequited passion set in the Parisian theatrical world. Jean-Louis Barrault portrays the mime whose success on stage is matched only by his failure in love.

1952: “Singin’ in the Rain”

In the height of the McCarthy era, a conservative backlash helped win an Oscar for Cecil B. DeMille’s circus extravaganza “The Greatest Show on Earth” over more politically themed films such as Fred Zinnemann’s Western “High Noon” and Carol Reed’s thriller “The Third Man.”

Other nominees included “Ivanhoe,” “Moulin Rouge” and “The Quiet Man.”

Given the spirit of the day, was there ever a better time for Hollywood to lighten up and nominate one of the most lighthearted, entertaining and well-made comedy musicals in Hollywood history?

You’d think so. Essentially a look at Hollywood itself, with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor singing and dancing their way through the transition from silent to talking movies, “Singin’ In the Rain” is as much a joy to watch now as it was 45 years ago.

1955: “The Searchers”

“Around the World in 80 Days” won this year, demonstrating Hollywood’s preference for big-budgeted, big-cast blockbuster-wannabes over tough-minded Westerns that study the cracks in our frontier myths.

This was a year for big movies, with the other nominees being “Friendly Persuasion,” “Giant,” “The King and I” and “The Ten Commandments.” But none of them, including George Stevens’ overrated “Giant,” has the power of John Ford’s “The Searchers.”

Ford, who based this movie on an Alan LeMay novel, virtually invented the modern Western. A faithful chronicler of the myth, which often involved John Wayne fighting for truth and justice, he wasn’t always charitable to Native Americans.

But “The Searchers” is less a study of the classic West than it is one man’s battle with his inner self. And as the Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards, whose rage gets directed at the Indians who kidnapped his young niece (Natalie Wood), Wayne plays against his traditional good-hearted-if-stern self. The academy overlooked this film, as it did Wayne’s performance. But history has not.

1959: “Some Like It Hot”

Cross-dressing has been a staple of comedy since the time of Aristophanes, but mainstream America snickered behind its fingers at Billy Wilder’s transvestite fantasy “Some Like It Hot.”

In another good year for film, the academy bestowed a record 11 Oscars on William Wyler’s epic “Ben-Hur.” The other nominees were hardly also-rans, consisting of “Anatomy of a Murder,” “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “The Nun’s Story” and “Room at the Top.”

That left only the critics to crow about such films as Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows,” Ingmar Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries,” Howard Hawks’ “Rio Bravo,” Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “Suddenly Last Summer” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “North By Northwest.”

In this crush of quality, “Some Like It Hot” got lost, despite Jack Lemmon (nominated for Best Actor) and Tony Curtis dressing like women, a voluptuous Marilyn Monroe displaying her ample assets and director Wilder keeping it all on track.

For those who appreciate the very best in movie comedy, “Some Like It Hot” still generates cinematic heat.

1968: “2001: A Space Odyssey”

Despite what you might think of someone putting a Charles Dickens novel to music (and casting Oliver Reed, of all actors!), you simply have to question the appropriateness of giving an Oscar to “Oliver!” over such films as “Funny Girl,” “The Lion in Winter,” “Rachel, Rachel” and “Romeo and Juliet.”

Even several of the films that failed to win a nomination, among them “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Belle du Jour,” “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “Weekend,” were just as - if not more - deserving.

But to ignore Kubrick’s masterful “2001: A Space Odyssey”? What was Hollywood thinking? As a meditation not only on the origin of man, but also on the very meaning of life itself, “2001” doesn’t necessarily provide any answers. Yet in his carefully paced, visually engaging and occasionally disturbing manner, Kubrick certainly asks the right questions.

1971: “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”

Still another terrific year for film. William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” won out over the likes of “A Clockwork Orange” (this time they couldn’t ignore Kubrick), “Fiddler on the Roof,” “The Last Picture Show” and “Nicholas and Alexandra.”

That shut out such worthy efforts as “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” “Carnal Knowledge,” “The Conformist,” “Straw Dogs” and “Harold and Maude.”

Even in this company, though, John Schlesinger’s “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” stands out. A gentle, heart-wrenching look at relationships, Schlesinger’s film features a bisexual Murray Head rebounding between two lovers - gay Peter Finch and straight Glenda Jackson.

Finch and Jackson both ended up earning well-deserved acting nominations, which says as much for the quality of Schlesinger’s film as anything.

1979: “Manhattan”

Despite his numerous writing nominations, and several wins, Woody Allen has seen only one of his movies take a Best Picture Oscar: 1977’s “Annie Hall.” On that night alone, the academy rejoiced fully in Allen’s comic view of life.

Of course, it helped that Diane Keaton pulled off such an engaging performance, one that earned her an Oscar as well. Whatever, with the exception of 1986’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,” the academy has been much less pleased with Allen’s attempts to blend comedy with drama.

Robert Benton’s emotionally charged and topical “Kramer vs. Kramer” won the Oscar over nominees “All That Jazz,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Breaking Away” and “Norma Rae.” Yet Allen’s “Manhattan” is a match for any of them.

From Gordon Willis’ sumptuous black-and-white cinematography to Mariel Hemingway’s perky (and Oscar-nominated) performance, “Manhattan” is the yin to the “Annie Hall” yang. It’s smart, unsparing and wickedly funny. And the ending says more about the generation gap than a whole library of sociology texts.

1987: “Jean de Florette”/”Manon of the Spring”

Here are 1987’s nominations for Best Picture: “The Last Emperor,” “Broadcast News,” “Fatal Attraction,” “Hope and Glory” and “Moonstruck.” What seems out of place here?

“Fatal Attraction” perhaps? In a year that saw the academy ignore such films as “The Dead,” “Full Metal Jacket,” “Radio Days,” “My Life As a Dog,” “Raising Arizona,” “Ironweed” and “Weeds,” the academy opted for a sexually charged potboiler featuring Michael Douglas and a much-nude Glenn Close.

Even worse, France chose to nominate Louis Malle’s “Au Revoir, Les Enfants” (which lost out to Denmark’s “Babette’s Feast”) for its foreign-language entry over this two-part masterpiece directed by Claude Berri.

Starring Gerard Depardieu in the first film, Emmanuelle Beart in the second, and Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil in both, Berri follows Marcel Pagnol’s moving novel of naivete, treachery, frustration, death, foiled love and ultimate revenge. These two films, in tandem, are what great cinema is all about.

1988: “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”

This was the year of “Rain Man,” Barry Levinson’s study of autism that won Dustin Hoffman his second Best Actor award. Levinson’s film beat out contenders “The Accidental Tourist,” “Dangerous Liaisons,” “Mississippi Burning” and “Working Girl.”

This didn’t leave much room for “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” which despite not even being nominated easily ranked as my choice for film of the year.

Like Anthony Minghella, writer-director of this year’s “The English Patient,” director Philip Kaufman constructed a movie out of a book (by Milan Kundera) that virtually defies simplification. Like Minghella, Kaufman succeeds by sticking with the relationship between his characters - mainly that between Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin.

Blending the explosion of Eastern European politics (primarily the setbacks suffered by Czechoslovakia in 1968) with the individual’s innate drive for self-fulfillment, Kaufman proves once again that while you can’t always get what you want, you can usually get what you need.

Even in Hollywood.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by Charles Waltmire