Even the Academy shocks us once in a while ... here are our favorite examples

By Tom Keogh
Special to MSN Movies

Every once in a while it happens: an audible gasp from the audience at an Academy Awards ceremony. Popped eyes and/or raised eyebrows. Visible delight in the crowd. And all because an Oscar that everyone expected to go home with one party, in fact, is going home with another.

Yes, there are such surprising moments during the Oscars, but they are few and far between. Received wisdom from awards pundits and popular momentum favoring one nominee over others often seem to dictate the outcome of big races long before they finish. Ordinary mortals are left with nothing to do at home but watch anticipated winners become actual winners.

Except, that is, when Academy voters throw us (and themselves) a curve.

There are delightful examples of Oscar surprises sprinkled throughout history. Of course, there have been many, many stunning upsets as well (last year's "Crash" over "Brokeback Mountain" for Best Picture, for instance). But let's not dwell on the negative. Instead, let's celebrate the good occasions when the Academy offered the unexpected.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, 1992
Within a "Masterpiece Theatre" crowd of great British actresses (Joan Plowright for "Enchanted April," Vanessa Redgrave for "Howards End," Miranda Richardson for "Damage") and one great Aussie (Judy Davis for "Husbands and Wives"), Brooklyn-born Marisa Tomei stood out big-time for her brassy but extraordinarily cute Mona Lisa Vito in the hit comedy "My Cousin Vinny." Tomei was the dark horse amid such regal company; a likely explanation for her win is that voters spread their art house allegiances too thin over the foreign dramatists. Still, Tomei blew a lot of minds by taking the prize for her smart, leggy performance as a Jersey girl who knows her front- and rear-wheel drives.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role, 1974
An awful lot of Oscar surprises occur in the two awards categories for actresses. Why? No idea. But there are a few on this list, including Ingrid Bergman's win for a supporting role in the Agatha Christie-based ensemble mystery, "Murder on the Orient Express." It's not that Bergman was considered undeserving, but she'd already won two previous statuettes as Best Actress in a Leading Role (in 1944 for "Gaslight," and 1957 for "Anastasia") and garnered four other Oscar nominations. She was terrific in "Murder," a glossy studio production that might have been a Golden Age feature three decades prior. Hopes ran high, however, for Madeline Kahn's knowing, Marlene Dietrich send-up in Mel Brooks' broad farce, "Blazing Saddles." But Bergman had her own preference, which she acknowledged in a gracious but been-there-done-that acceptance speech. "It's always nice to win an Oscar," she said, "but ... Valentina Cortese gave the most beautiful performance (in "Day for Night"), which all we actresses recognize."

Best Picture, 1951
Songwriter and musicals producer Arthur Freed picked up the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Academy party on March 20, 1952, then came back to the dais to collect a surprise Best Picture Oscar for Vincente Minnelli's ahead-of-its-time, Gene Kelly vehicle, "An American in Paris." A distinct lack of joy was felt in the audience's response: 1951, after all, was the year of some heavy-going (in some cases epochal) dramas: Elia Kazan's "A Streetcar Named Desire"; George Stevens' "A Place in the Sun"; Anatole Litvak's "Decision Before Dawn"; and, Mervyn LeRoy's "Quo Vadis." How, sniffed The New York Times' Bosley Crowther the following day, did such a "frivolous musical picture" like "An American in Paris" overtake more "powerful and pregnant" tragedies? Crowther's sentiment reflected a lot of what was said and felt Oscar night. But fans of Vincente Minnelli's innovative and exciting film certainly have nothing to apologize for today.

Best Picture, 1998
What an unlikely scenario. Three of the five Best Picture nominees were set around World War II, including Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" and Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful." Of those, Spielberg's and Malick's were combat movies, but very different from one another. The other two nominees, John Madden's "Shakespeare in Love" and Shekhar Kapur's "Elizabeth," both featured Queen Elizabeth I, albeit at different ages (Judi Dench starred in "Shakespeare" and Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth.") A victory for Spielberg and "Ryan" was seen in the firmament but, in the end -- much to the amazement and delight of many people -- the stirring and romantic "Shakespeare" took Best Picture, while Spielberg got Best Director in a split vote. A strong campaign by Miramax for Madden's work was cited by some as the reason for the upset, but Hollywood observers have often commented that Academy voters were simply enchanted by "Shakespeare"'s Elizabethan tale of love and showbiz.

Best Cinematographer, 1935
A loud response followed an announcement that the first and only write-in candidate to win in Oscar history, cinematographer Hal Mohr, would take home the prize for his work on William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Mohr reportedly was relaxing at home with his wife when the Academy called him with the news. He got dressed and joined the festivities.

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