Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1959

The Contenders:

Anatomy of a Murder
Ben-Hur (winner)
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Nun’s Story
Room at the Top

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1959

The Contenders:

William Wyler: Ben-Hur (winner)
George Stevens: The Diary of Anne Frank
Fred Zinnemann: The Nun’s Story
Jack Clayton: Room at the Top
Billy Wilder: Some Like it Hot

Hiding Out

Film: The Diary of Anne Frank
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I knew this was going to be rough. The Diary of Anne Frank is a three-hour movie, and I know where we’re getting to at the end. Essentially, this is an exercise in watching a story play out where you’re just waiting for the shoe to drop. You know it’s going to happen, and it’s probably not going to happen until the end, which means all of the close calls and nervous moments are filled with an odd tension, even the ones that are in the middle of the movie and therefore too early in the narrative to be that dangerous.

You probably already know the story, and if you don’t, shame on you. Briefly, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Frank family moves into the attic apartment over a business in Amsterdam. They stay there for two years with the Van Daan family and are eventually joined by a dentist named Albert Dussell (Ed Wynn). The eight people, all essentially fugitives from the German invaders because they are Jewish, are forced to be silent during the day so that they don’t tip off the people working below to their presence. Their only contact with the outside world is a radio and through the meetings with the factory head Kraler (Douglas Spencer) and his assistant Miep Gies (Dodie Heath).