What the Nominees Were: America, America; Cleopatra; How The West Was Won; Lillies of the Field; Tom Jones
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: America produced Charade, Shock Corridor and The Great Escape. Overseas there was Kurosawa’s High and Low, Godard’s experiment in color Contempt and Fellini’s greatest film 8 ½.
What Did Win: Tom Jones
How It’s Aged: It’s a fun movie. Lawrence of Arabia’s editing had hints of the New Wave, but this movie embraced it fully: Suddenly we have jump cuts, metanarratives, and a general air of sexual frankness that the Academy hadn’t recognized before. But, as with any daring movie, it quickly dated, becoming a time capsule of a particular moment where the rules were slipping but not let loose.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writers: Hideo Oguni, Ryûzô Kikushima, Eijirô Hisaita, and Kurosawa, based on the novel “King’s Ransom” by Ed McBain.
Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyôko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Isao Kimura, Kenjiro Ishiyama
The Story: A Tokyo shoe company executive, in the middle of a takeover deal, gets a phone call that his son has been kidnapped—then his son walks into the room. It turns out that the kidnappers have accidentally grabbed his chauffeur’s son instead, but they insist that the executive pay up anyway. After the fateful decision is made, the movie becomes a gritty thriller as the police swing into action to do their part.
How It’s Aged: It’s a fun movie. Lawrence of Arabia’s editing had hints of the New Wave, but this movie embraced it fully: Suddenly we have jump cuts, metanarratives, and a general air of sexual frankness that the Academy hadn’t recognized before. But, as with any daring movie, it quickly dated, becoming a time capsule of a particular moment where the rules were slipping but not let loose.
What Should’ve Won: High and Low
How Hard Was the Decision: Very hard. My favorite American film of the year is definitely The Great Escape, but it’s a little too lightweight to win, and I didn’t want to do two epics-with-not-a-woman-in-sight in a row. So I decided I had to invoke, for the first time, “The Parasite Rule” (which states that a foreign film of particular greatness can sometimes, when all the stars align, win Best Picture). Even then, I had to choose between this and 8 ½, but High and Low has always been my favorite of the two, and it seemed appropriate for our first foreign film to be an adaptation of an American novel.
How Hard Was the Decision: Very hard. My favorite American film of the year is definitely The Great Escape, but it’s a little too lightweight to win, and I didn’t want to do two epics-with-not-a-woman-in-sight in a row. So I decided I had to invoke, for the first time, “The Parasite Rule” (which states that a foreign film of particular greatness can sometimes, when all the stars align, win Best Picture). Even then, I had to choose between this and 8 ½, but High and Low has always been my favorite of the two, and it seemed appropriate for our first foreign film to be an adaptation of an American novel.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writers: Hideo Oguni, Ryûzô Kikushima, Eijirô Hisaita, and Kurosawa, based on the novel “King’s Ransom” by Ed McBain.
Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyôko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Isao Kimura, Kenjiro Ishiyama
The Story: A Tokyo shoe company executive, in the middle of a takeover deal, gets a phone call that his son has been kidnapped—then his son walks into the room. It turns out that the kidnappers have accidentally grabbed his chauffeur’s son instead, but they insist that the executive pay up anyway. After the fateful decision is made, the movie becomes a gritty thriller as the police swing into action to do their part.
Any Nominations or Wins: The Golden Globes nominated it for Foreign Film but the Academy didn’t recognize it at all. 
Why It Didn’t Win: Given the make-up of the Academy at this time, it’s pretty ludicrous for me to imagine this movie could have been the first to pull a Parasite, but we can certainly say that the Academy should have recognized its greatness, and in a year with no strong American contenders, I’ve decided to pull that trigger for the first time.
Why It’s Great:
- This is one of the most conceptually audacious movies ever made: it is all about dualities of high and low in every possible way: rich vs. poor, a mansion on a hill vs. a slum in a pit, high-quality shoes vs. low-cost knock-offs, high-minded moral decisions vs. lowly police work. Kurosawa’s brilliant idea was to mirror these dualities by splitting his movie, right down the center, into two different styles: the first half (the moral conundrum) is very “high-art”: all on a tripod, very still, much like the classical Japanese cinema that Kurosawa had always resisted. Then, once the decision is made, we are abruptly slammed down into the chaotic “low-art” of Kurosawa at his gritty best.
- Only in the justly-famous final scene do the two worlds finally come together, as the high-minded businessman and the lowly criminal finally come face to face, but each can only see the other as a reflection of himself. Money may have changed hands, but the line between high and low (or Heaven and Hell, as the title could also be translated) can never truly be crossed.
- I was such a fan of this movie that I tried to track down the source material, an American pulp novel called “King’s Ransom” by Ed McBain, one of his “87th Precinct” police procedurals. It was long out of print and I couldn’t find it, but I did find other “87th” novels and started reading those. They quickly became great favorites of mine, so I’m eternally grateful. When I finally did land a copy of “King’s Ransom” years later, I was surprised to see that the first half was more loyally adapted than the second half. I shouldn’t have been surprised: moral conundrums are more universal than the particulars of police work.
- Moral dilemmas that revolve around money are very compelling in real life, but it’s almost impossible to portray them onscreen. We all have a vague sense that it would be a bummer to lose a lot of money, but if you’re going to show someone agonizing over giving up their fortune for a human life, the audience is going to be disgusted—unless you create a very specific, very compelling need for that money on that day. First Kurosawa gets us to strongly root for Mifune to use his money for a one-time-only opportunity to pull off a daring takeover of his shoe company, saving it from greedy opportunists who want to drive it into the ground, then he gets hit with the dilemma. Amazingly, we agonize along with him.
- This movie is much better than Spike Lee’s recent remake titled Highest 2 Lowest. For one thing, the millionaire in Kurosawa’s version really does get financially ruined, whereas in the remake he was just temporarily inconvenienced. Real consequences are always better.
Ah, 1963: An actual ad in “Sports Illustrated” that feels like a fake ad in “Mad Magazine.” Hey kids, like this profile of Joe Namath? Just wait until you meet Che Guevara!
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