After Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (1961), Robert Wise’s The Haunting is the best haunted house story ever filmed. But is the house really haunted or is everything taking place inside the head of sexless, neurotic spinster Julie Harris?
The stage-trained Harris (East of Eden, The Member of the Wedding) delivers a phenomenal tour de force, creating a woman in whose mind sexual repression and sexual desire co-inhabit with ferocious animosity. The result, of course, is death, mayhem, plus a frightening supernatural appearance.
Claire Bloom provides first-rate support as Harriss’ lesbian – sort-of – friend. Spooks aside, The Haunting, an adaptation (by Nelson Gidding) of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, is a solid morality tale: No sex = lots of dangerous neuroses. (See The Innocents for that same lesson.) From the director of The Sound of Music, who would believe it?
Best Film
Barren Lives / Vidas Secas – dir. & Scr.: Nélson Pereira dos Santos;
Charade – Dir.: Stanley Donen; Scr.: Peter Stone
8½ – Dir.: Federico Fellini; Scr.: Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano & Brunello Rondi
From Russia with Love – Dir.: Terence Young;
The Haunting – Dir.: Robert Wise; Scr.: Nelson Gidding
Hud – Dir.: Martin Ritt; Scr.: Irving Ravetch & Harriet Frank Jr.
The Leopard / Il gattopardo – Dir.: Luchino Visconti; Scr.: Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Enrico Medioli, Massimo Franciosa & Luchino Visconti
The Organizer / I compagni – Dir.: Mario Monicelli; Scr.: Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli & Mario Monicelli
The Prize – Dir.: Mark Robson; Scr.: Ernest Lehman
The Servant – Dir.: Joseph Losey; Scr.: Harold Pinter
This Sporting Life – Dir.: Lindsay Anderson
Best Actor
Dirk Bogarde, The Servant
Melvyn Douglas, Hud
Cary Grant, Charade
Richard Harris, This Sporting Life
Burt Lancaster, The Leopard
Steve McQueen, Love with the Proper Stranger
Best Actress
Claire Bloom & Julie Harris, The Haunting
Judy Garland A Child Is Waiting & I Could Go on Singing
Audrey Hepburn, Charade
Shirley MacLaine, Irma la Douce
Maria Ribeiro, Barren Lives
Geraldine Page, Toys in the Attic
Simone Signoret, The Day and the Hour / Le Jour et l’heure
Best Supporting Actor
Edgar Buchanan – Move Over, Darling
Lou Jacobi – Irma la Douce
Folco Lulli – The Organizer
Walter Matthau – Charade
Claude Rains – Twilight of Honor
Bruce Ritchey – A Child Is Waiting
Robert Shaw – From Russia with Love
David Tomlinson – Tom Jones
Best Supporting Actress
Julie Christie, Billy Liar
Diane Cilento & Joyce Redman, Tom Jones
Lotte Lenya, From Russia with Love
Patricia Neal, Hud
Rachel Roberts, This Sporting Life
Margaret Rutherford, The V.I.P.s
Ethel Merman, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
Sarah Miles, The Servant
Elvira Tonelli, The Organizer
Best Cinematography
David Boulton, The Haunting
Henri Decaë, The Day and the Hour
Gianni Di Venanzo, 8½ & Hands Over the City / Le mani sulla città
Ernest Haller, Lilies of the Field
James Wong Howe, Hud
Arthur Ibbetson, Murder at the Gallop
Jan Lindeström, Raven’s End / Kvarteret korpen
Giuseppe Rotunno, The Organizer
Leon Shamroy, The Cardinal
Haskell Wexler, America, America
Best Original Score
Charade – Henry Mancini
Contempt / Le Mépris – Georges Delerue
8½ – Nino Rota
The Leopard – Nino Rota
That Cat / Az prijde kocour – Svatopluk Havelka