Oscar Profile #77: Delbert Mann

Born January 30, 1920 in Lawrence, Kansas, Delbert Mann was the son of educators. After service as a bomber pilot during World War II, he attended Yale Drama School. His friend Fred Coe, a producer at NBC,offered him the chance to direct live drama on TV beginning in 1949.

His television credits beginning in 1950 included such productions as Othello with Torin Thatcher; Middle of the Night with Eva Marie Saint and E.G. Marshall; The Day Lincoln Was Shot narrated by Charles Laughton with Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln, Lillian Gish as Mary Todd Lincoln and Jack Lemmon as John Wilkes Booth; The Petrified Forest with Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart reprising Duke Mantee, the role that made him famous; Our Town with Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint and Frank Sinatra and Marty with Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand.

Burt Lancaster and his producing partner optioned Marty as a tax write-off on the big screen, not having any expectation that audiences would pay to see something they had seen on TV for free the year before. The 1955 film was a huge success, eventually scoring eight Academy Award nominations and for Oscars including Best Picture and Actor Ernest Borgnine as well as one for Mann for his first film.

Mann’s follow-up film, 1957’s The Bachelor Party was not a box office success but did secure a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Carolyn Jones. His next film, 1958’s Desire Under the Elms was nominated for Best Black and White Cinematography and that year’s Separate Tables received seven nominations including Best Picture and two wins for Best Actor David Niven and Best Supporting Actress Wendy Hiller.

The 1959 film version of Middle of the Night earned Fredric March a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor while the 1960 film version of William Inge’s The Dark at the Top of the Stairs earned Golden Globe nominations for Shirley Knight and Lee Kinsolving, an Oscar nod for Knight and a Laurel Award nomination for Eve Arden. Mann himself received his first Directors Guild nomination since his win for Marty five years earlier.

Mann’s 1961 comedy, Lover Come Back received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay and his 1962 comedy That Touch of Mink received three nominations.

His 1963 Air Force drama, A Gathering of Eagles continued his lucky streak with the Academy with a nomination for Best Sound Effects. His 1964 comedy, Dear Heart was nominated for Best Song while his flop 1966 drama, Mister Buddwing was nominated for Best Black and White Art Direction and Costume Design hastening the end to separate technical categories for black and white films. The distinction was abandoned with the 1967 Oscars..

Thereafter Mann worked almost exclusively in TV earning an additional five Best Director nominations from the Directors Guild of America beginning with 1968’s Heidi. His ambitious remake of David Copperfield for which he was also nominated was a 1969 theatrical release in the U.K. and a TV presentation in the U.S.

Subsequent TV films included remakes of Jane Eyre with George C. Scott and Susannah York; All Quiet on the Western Front with Richard Thomas, Ernest Borgnine and Patricia Neal and The Member of the Wedding with Pearl Bailey and Dana Hill, all of which brought him additional nominations from the DGA.

He was given two lifetime achievement awards form the DGA, first in 1997, then again in 2002.

Delbert Mann died November 11, 2007 at the age of 87.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

MARTY (1955)

The expanded big screen adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky’s acclaimed TV play was an immediate if unexpected hit with audiences who were otherwise inundated with loud and colorful widescreen extravaganzas of all sorts. It was the first film in which the advertising budget exceeded the cost of making the film which starred the then little known Ernest Borgnine.

Borgnine had previously played villains, most notably in From Here to Eternity with Burt Lancaster, the co-producer of Marty who cast him in the lead when Rod Steiger turned down the opportunity to repeat his TV role. It made him a star. Mann’s stellar direction made him one of the few directors to win an Oscar for directing his first film.

SEPARATE TABLES (1958)

Mann’s skill with seasoned actors was never better represented than with his adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play which had been presented on stage as two one act plays with a connecting theme. The stage actors played both male and female leads but in the film they are played by two different sets of actors who interact with each other for a more seamless flow.

Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster play the more glamorous couple; Deborah Kerr and David Niven the decidedly homely ones around whom most of the action takes place. Wendy Hiller is the hotel manager and a splendid supporting cast of eccentrics is headed by Gladys Cooper as Kerr’s mother; Cathleen Nesbitt as Cooper’s friend and May Hallat and Felix Aylmer as other old-timers. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton play the young lovers.

Niven and Hiller won Oscars and Kerr was nominated, but Cooper seems to be having the most fun playing one of her bitchiest characters. Amusingly, her name is used for two of the other characters: Nesbitt’s Gladys and Hiller’s Miss Cooper.

THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (1960)

Apparently the DVD is being held hostage by whoever holds the rights to William Inge’s play on which the film is based. Hopefully disputes will be resolved and the film will find a greater audience. Until that day comes, try to find it wherever you can.

This was one of the rare gems of its day, a period drama in which Robert Preston plays a womanizing salesman in 1920s Kansas who finally settles down with loving wife Dorothy McGuire after dismissing on-again, off-again mistress Angela Lansbury. Eve Arden steals the film as McGuire’s bigoted sister, but Shirley Knight as McGuire and Preston’s sensitive daughter is the one who received an Oscar nomination. Lee Kinsolving as the suicidal boy she loves and Richard Eyer as her film loving younger brother are also quite good.

DEAR HEART (1964)

Geraldine Page and Glenn Ford may seem like an odd screen couple and they are, but the annoying, yet endearing character Page plays grows on the laid back Ford as well as the audience. Angela Lansbury and Michael Anderson, Jr. co-star, and Henry Mancini’s score is one of his best. The Oscar nominated title song with lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans is infectious. The film has great filmed in New York locations as well. This is another one long overdue for a DVD release.

DAVID COPPERFIELD (1969)

Told in flashback, Mann’s version of the oft-filmed Dickens classic is one of the best. Little known Robin Phillips has the lead and he’s adequate as are most actors playing the grown David. The joy of any production of David Copperfield is in the casting of the supporting players and here Mann has assembled the best of the British acting aristocracy of the day. First and foremost is Dame Edith Evans as Aunt Betsy, followed by Ralph Richardson and Wendy Hiller as the Micawbers; Ron Moody as Uriah Heep; Michael Redgrave as Dan Peggoty; Laurence Olivier as Mr. Crinkle; Susan Hampshire as Agnes; Pamela Franklin as Dora; Emlyn Williams as Mr. Dick; James Donald and Anna Massey as the Murdstones; Corin Redgrave as Steerforth; Cyril Cusack as Barkis and Megs Jenkins as Nurse Peggoty.