Movies of 1961

Clips from West Side Story, The Misfits and Mothra

Academy Awards 1961

Best Picture: West Side Story beats  "Fanny", "The Guns of Navarone", "The Hustler" and "Judgment at Nuremberg"

Directing: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins - West Side Story beats Federico Fellini for "La Dolce Vita", Stanley Kramer for "Judgment at Nuremberg", J. Lee Thompson for "The Guns of Navarone" and Robert Rossen for "The Hustler"

Best Supporting Actor: George Chakiris - West Side Story beats Montgomery Clift in "Judgment at Nuremberg", Peter Falk in "Pocketful of Miracles", Jackie Gleason in "The Hustler" and George C. Scott in "The Hustler"

Best Supporting Actress: Rita Moreno - West Side Story beats Fay Bainter in "The Children's Hour", Judy Garland in "Judgment at Nuremberg", Lotte Lenya in "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" and Una Merkel in "Summer and Smoke".

Best Actress: Sophia Loren - Two Women (Italian). Mother and Daughter raped during World War 2. Beats Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Piper Laurie in "The Hustler", Geraldine Page in "Summer and Smoke" and Natalie Wood in "Splendor in the Grass"
 

Best Actor: Maximilian Schell - Judgment at Nuremberg, first movie to bring footage of the Holocaust to the masses, beats Charles Boyer in "Fanny", Paul Newman in "The Hustler", Spencer Tracy in "Judgment at Nuremberg" and Stuart Whitman in "The Mark".

Best Foreign Language Film: Through a Glass Darkly directed by Ingmar Bergman, Sweden

Top Box Office 1961

Blue Hawaii

Elvis Presley's first movie since returning from the army. His biggest box-office success setting the tone for his last 16 years.

The Guns of Navarone

Action Adventure beating the Nazis.

New Movies 1961

The Absent-Minded Professor
One Hundred and One Dalmatians

The Alamo

Breakfast at Tiffany's

King of Kings

Exodus
The Parent Trap
Swiss Family Robinson
Come September
The World of Suzie Wong
La Dolce Vita
El Cid
The Errand Boy (Jerry Lewis)
The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis)
Flower Drum Song
Pocketful of Miracles
Splendor in the Grass
Two Rode Together

Babes in Toyland
The Young Ones

More on each new movie of 1961 at Wikipedia

Entertainment News 1961

In Italy 1961, a total Solar Eclipse was captured on the set of the movie Barabbas while filming the crucifixion scene. Taken by photographer Augusto Di Giovanni.

George Washington Vanderbilt III is found dead at the base of a San Francisco skyscraper.

Jeff Chandler, dies from blood poisoning during  botched spinal surgery. He was 42.
 

Ernest Hemingway, suicide. commits suicide with a 12 gauge shotgun. Not only was he suffering from  high blood pressure, alcoholism, heart disease, liver failure, skin infections, depression and insomnia; he had recently spent a year in the hospital receiving electric shocks treatments for depression. He was 62.
 

Gail Russell, suicide by alcohol induced heart attack. Found in her Brentwood apartment surrounded by liquor bottles. She was 36.

Good Movies 1961

The Misfits Starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach. Burned out cowboys rounding up wild horses to sell for a pittance for dog food does not set well with the blonde free spirit. The last movie by Gable and Monroe.

Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour  with Shirley Maclaine and Audrey Hepburn addresses a lesbian relationship leading the way to more freedom in the movies.

The Hustler. Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason and George C. Scott give stunning performances but get no awards.

B Movies 1961

Reptilicus - Danish movie filmed twice in English and Danish. Miners find a dragon's tail which regenerates to reek havoc in Amsterdam.

The Pit and the Pendulum Roger Corman and Vince Price team up for the second, and most acclaimed of the ten stylistic Edgar Allen Poe series.

Atlantis, the Lost Continent Geroge Pal's worst movie with lots of footage taken from Quo Vadis and the Naked Jungle.

Mothra

Toho Studios, gives us the first of ten starring the friendly monster (non larval stage).