Venice film festival flashback to 1953: Golden Lion did not roar

Susan King
·3 min read
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The 80th annual Venice Film Festival launches on the Lido on August 30. This edition features a slew of Oscar hopefuls including Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” David Fincher’s “The Killer,” Yorgas Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” and Michael Mann’s “Ferrari.” They’re all vying for the top prize, the Golden Lion.

Seventy years ago, there were four now-classics in competition: William Wyler’s “Roman Holiday,” for which Audrey Hepburn would win Oscar, John Huston’s “Moulin Rouge,” Samuel Fuller’s “Pickup on South Street” and Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful,” which had recently picked up five Oscars. But the Golden Lion didn’t roar at the 14th edition of the international film festival.

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The jury headed by future Nobel Prize laureate in literature Eugenio Montale just couldn’t decide on the best of the fest because according to the New York Times “the quality of the best entries was too nearly equal to allow such a distinction.”

The festival had opened, noted the New York Times “under considerable fire from sources close to the United States movie industry. They objected to the selections made by the Italian jury picking entries for competition. These sources declared a number of better American productions — including “Julius Caesar” and “Hans Christian Andersen” — were turned down for no apparent reason.

With no Golden Lion winner, they gave out six Silver Lion awards for second place which were given to the film’s directors: Marcel Carne for “Therese Raquin,” Kenji Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu,” Federico Fellini’s “I Vitelloni,” Aleksandr Ptushko’s “Sadko,” Ray Ashley, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin’s “Little Fugitive” and Huston’s “Moulin Rouge.”

Henri Vilbert was named best actor for “Good Lord without Confession” and Lilli Palmer best actress for “The Four Poster.” Fuller was one of four filmmakers earning the Bronze Lion for “Pickup on South Street” and Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu” also took home the Pasinetti Award.

Here’s a look at some of the Golden Lion winners over the decades that went on to either win  or were nominated for other awards. including the Oscars, as well as  critics’ groups honors.

1948: Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet”

1980: Louis Malle’s “Atlantic City” and John Cassavetes’ “Gloria”

1990: Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”

1993: Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Trois couleurs: Bleu.”

1996: Neil Jordan’s “Michael Collins”

2005: Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain”’

2008: Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler”

2010: Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere”

2017: Guillermo del Toro’s “The  Shape of Water”

2018: Alfonso Cuaron’s “ROMA”

2019: Todd Phillips’ “Joker”

2020: Chloe Zhao “ Nomadland”

2022: Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”

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