Picturegoer – May 23rd 1959

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Bogarde Triumphs Again

TOP ACTOR – DIRK BOGARDE for The Wind Cannot Read

NEVER has there been such a staggering two-fold success! In both the best-actor and best-actress category, the twenty-eighth PICTUREGOER ANNUAL AWARDS are truly record-breakers. Just take a look at the voting… For the top actor once again is Dirk Bogarde. His performance in The Wind Cannot Read earns him a fifth of all the votes cast. But, also, for A Tale Of Two Cities, he gets second place. And never before has an actor walked off with first AND second places in the history of these Awards. Bogarde won the best-actor category last year for Campbell’s Kingdom.

To say that Virginia McKenna is a runaway top-actress award-winner for Carve Her Name With Pride is an understatement. In fact she collects one-third of all your votes – another record for an actress.

But in the best-singer category, Britain loses to Hollywood Pat Boone is picturegoers’ top choice, for April Love, closely paced by Frank Sinatra (Pal Joey), Elvis Presley (King Creole) and, last year’s winner, Frankie Vaughan (Wonderful Things).

Once again these awards have shown that it’s honestly and genuinely the PERFORMANCE that counts with you.

Among the men, Oscar winner Alec Guinness is third place runner-up to Bogarde for The Bridge On The River Kwai, with Marlon Brando (The Young Lions) and Rock Hudson (A Farewell to Arms) not surprisingly taking fourth and fifth places.

Bergman Nudged Ahead

For days, Ingrid Bergman, Sylvia Syms and Yoko Tani fought it out for second best actress placing. Finally,Bergman nudged ahead with “Indiscreet.” Incidentally, to the many of you who voted for Ingrid in “The End Of The Sixth Happiness”: sorry, the film – released in January, 1959 – wasn’t eligible.

Sylvia (Ice Cold In Alex) and Yoko (The Wind Cannot Read) settle into third and fourth places, and then it is a field day for the Americans.

Doris Day has two places in the top ten for The Pajama Game (which also gains her, the only female, sixth place in the best-singer category) and Teacher’s Pet. It seems she can do no wrong on the screen.

Newcomer Diane Varsi has a nod of approval from you – sixth place for Peyton Place. And you think that apparently, under Hitchcock’s care, Kim Novak is finally becoming an actress worth noticing. Vertigo gets her the ninth rating.

In the best-singer line-up, perhaps the eighth rating of Johnny Mathis is the most remarkable development. Mathis sang just one song, made just one tiny appearance in “A Certain Smile.” Yet obviously his impact was tremendous for you to rate him so highly. If that isn’t a broad hint to some producer, we don’t know what is!

That’s your verdict for another year! Once again, our thanks for making it such a resounding success. You’ve really given the film-makers something to think about. For, remember, in supporting the PICTUREGOER ANNUAL AWARDS you’re contributing something of genuine value to filmdom. Rest assured, your votes will not be ignored!

Bogarde learns the piano – in a month

While Broadway proposes to make a singer of Richard Burton, Hollywood is already going one better. It will make a pianist of Dirk Bogarde, who never played before and can’t even read music. The time allotted: one month.

Most films about piano players rely on fakery. The hands in close-up are somebody else’s, the long shot of flailing arms flogging out those impressive chords is usually of a double someone of the same build, who can wear the star’s clothes and play the piano.

Not in A Magic Flame. In this biopic of pianist-composer- conductor Franz Liszt, the fingers you will see performing the almost incredible gymnastics on the keyboard will be Dirk Bogarde’s, as the camera will show by often including his face in the same non-composite shot.

He has the wounds to prove it. “I broke two nails today,” he told me with a wry smile, ruefully studying his fingertips.

“But his callouses are coming along nicely,” chuckled Victor Aller, ex-concert pianist charged with the “impossible” task of drumming into Bogarde ten years of practising in 180 hours.

They toil at it six hours a day. “I demonstrate the piece to him on the piano,” said Aller. “We have thirty of them to do in the picture. Of course, many of them will be just excerpts and there will be many cutaways to other people. But we don’t know where so we have to learn the lot.”

“My trouble,” moaned Bogarde, “is that I can’t stop my left hand trying to do exactly what my right is doing.” Replied Aller: “It is a matter of practice.”

At that moment he sounded like every teacher who has ever rapped a child’s knuckles for a false note.

Then we sat down to hear the music tracks already recorded for A Magic Flame by Cuban prodigy Jorge Bolet, whose playing Bogarde will have to match with action on screen – the unindependent left hand included.