I’m almost done with my Retroactive Film Awards. This time around, it’s 1962. This is sort of a nebulous time for movies. It’s far from the auteurs and rebels and what have of the late ‘60s and ‘70s, but the Production Code was beginning to fall apart, and had arguably lost its power. Now, that doesn’t mean we were getting, you know, light musicals and things of that ilk. In 1962, American film was trying to figure itself out, and in the process, we got the films I looked over to give my awards to.

Best Performance: Frank Sinatra, The Manchurian Candidate

I’ve never seen Jonathan Demme’s remake of The Manchurian Candidate, but it would be hard pressed to be better than the original. This is a taut political thriller, yes, but also a weird movie. The characters are disoriented often, and so in turn the audience is as well. Laurence Harvey and particularly Angela Lansbury get the showy roles, but Sinatra, to me, gives the best performance. He’s the lead, and he doesn’t get the “hooks” that some others get as characters. Bennett Marco is off. He knows he’s off. He knows he didn’t return from the Korean War the same as he was before he left. Is it PTSD? Is it something more sinister? Marco has so much to unpack, and he does it with humor, pathos, intensity, and much more.

Best Movie: Lawrence of Arabia

The top three movies in the box office for 1962 is reflective of the in-flux nature of the film landscape at the time. In first, we have The Longest Day, an old-school war movie made in the days of war being viewed as simple. In third, there’s The Music Man, a classic musical. Then, in between, there’s Lawrence of Arabia. It’s an epic film from David Lean. The movie is lush, contemplative, and sweeping like epics of yore, but with a thorniness to the characters. It’s not tidy like movies of the past. Also, people play ethnicities clearly not their own. The film won Best Picture at the Oscars, and that stands the test of time.