The Year's Best

U.S. film critics, enjoying their annual late-December pastime of picking the screen's best of the year, seemed to agree that the two best movies of 1950 were Paramount's Sunset Boulevard and 20th Century-Fox's All About Eve. The National Board of Review put Sunset Boulevard first, voted Gloria Swanson, in her sensational screen comeback, the year's best actress. The New York Film Critics put All About Eve first, singled out Scripter-Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz as best director and Star Bette Davis as best actress. By citing Gregory Peck as best actor (for his playing in Twelve O'Clock High), they gave an unprecedented clean sweep to one studio: Darryl F. Zanuck's 20th Century-Fox.

As best director, the National Board named Scripter-Director John Huston (for MGM's The Asphalt Jungle), and as best actor, Alec Guinness (for his eight-ply role in the British Kind Hearts and Coronets). The best foreign movie, according to the board, was The Titan, a Swiss-photographed art film, re-edited by craftsmen in the U.S., starring the works of Michelangelo. The New York Critics gave the foreign-film laurels to the Pagnol-Renoir-Rossellini omnibus Ways of Love.

As usual, the ticket-buying public paid very little attention to the critics. Only one of the National Board of Review's ten best (Twelve O'Clock High) turned up among the top ten in Variety's list of 1950's biggest box-office grossers. The public's favorites, in order of popularity: Samson and Delilah, Battleground, King Solomon's Mines, Cheaper by the Dozen, Annie Get Your Gun, Cinderella, Father of the Bride, Sands of I wo Jima, Broken Arrow, Twelve O'Clock High.

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