Elia Kazan: Top Oscar Directors for Actors

Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook

Elia KazanElia Kazan is best remembered today for two things: His association with Marlon Brando during the first half of the 1950s, and the fact that he claimed to be unrepentant about naming names, and ruining careers and lives during the Red-baiting hysteria of the post-World War II years.

Kazan’s 19 feature films are wildly uneven — for every great A Streetcar Named Desire there is a dreadful America, America, plus everything in between. Yet, probably because of his Broadway training, Kazan was definitely an outstanding actors’ director.

Tough-guy Brando, irritating mannerisms and all, remains the best-remembered Kazan star, even though the director coaxed superb performances from a wide range of players, ranging from child actress Peggy Ann Garner, who won a special "juvenile" Oscar for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, to Deborah Kerr, who plays a bored housewife in The Arrangement; from thumb-sucking child-woman Carroll Baker in Baby Doll to Jo Van Fleet’s tough, mature types in both in East of Eden and Wild River.

Patricia Neal, Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd
Patricia Neal, Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd

There were also Joan Blondell and Dorothy McGuire in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; Dorothy McGuire and Gregory Peck Gentlemen’s Agreement; Vivien Leigh and Kim Hunter in A Streetcar Named Desire; Ethel Waters in Pinky; Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, and Barbara Bel Geddes in Panic in the Streets; Eva Marie Saint and Lee J. Cobb in On the Waterfront; Mildred Dunnock in Baby Doll; Patricia Neal in A Face in the Crowd; Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick in Wild River; and Natalie Wood and Zorah Lampert in Splendor in the Grass.

Kazan was nominated for five best direction Oscars: Gentleman’s Agreement, 1947; A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951; On the Waterfront, 1954; East of Eden, 1955; and America, America, 1963.

He won twice, for Gentleman’s Agreement and On the Waterfront.


Next: Elia Kazan’s Oscar Nominated Actors « « | Previous: » » William Wyler’s Oscar Nominated Actors

Share This on Facebook/Twitter:  

Text © 2004-2009 Alternative Film Guide and/or author(s). Not to be reproduced without prior written consent.

Comments

One Response to “Elia Kazan: Top Oscar Directors for Actors”

  1. iris on April 20th, 2009

    Dean should have won for East of Eden.

Leave a Reply

NOTE:

All comments are moderated and may take some time before they are posted. Different views and opinions are welcome, but courtesy is imperative. Rude/crass/bigoted comments and name-calling of any sort will be immediately deleted.

Also, please be aware that the Alternative Film Guide has no contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog and no information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.