THE CONTENDER: 10 (1979)
Number of Nominations: 2 – Original Score (Henry Mancini); Original Song (“Song from 10 (It’s Easy To Say)”, music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Robert Wells)
Number of Wins: 0
Throughout film history, there have been a handful of brand-name filmmakers. These are directors who routinely received an ownership credit above the title and whose names meant something to audiences. You immediately had a pretty good idea of what sort of movie to expect when you saw these names. Alfred Hitchcock. Stanley Kubrick. Federico Fellini. John Carpenter. And, from the mid-1970s to the early 90s, Blake Edwards.
The possessory credit didn’t start appearing on posters for Edwards’ movies until 1975’s The Return Of The Pink Panther. Prior to that, Edwards had dabbled in a variety of genres, from the exquisite cool jazz noir of TV’s Peter Gunn to the issue-oriented drama of Days Of Wine And Roses to the throwback western Wild Rovers. But he had always excelled in comedy, whether it was the bittersweet variety of Breakfast At Tiffany’s or his broad, slapstick collaborations with Peter Sellers. So, from 1975 on, he focused almost exclusively on that genre, occasionally with ill-advised attempts to keep the Pink Panther franchise going but also with semi-autobiographical dramedies like That’s Life!, his remake of The Man Who Loved Women, and 10.
10 was a bona fide cultural phenomenon in its day. It was the 7th highest-grossing film of 1979, turned Dudley Moore into a Hollywood leading man, and made Bo Derek (and her culturally appropriating cornrow hairstyle) an internationally recognized celebrity. But, like a lot of Edwards’ movies, it has not had a lasting impact.
At first glance, one might assume this is simply because the movie hasn’t aged well. After all, Edwards’ filmography is dotted with elements that today would be considered problematic at best. If you’ve got a problem with white actors tackling other ethnicities, you’re not gonna have a good time with Blake Edwards. So if you don’t know anything about 10 other than what you see on the DVD case, it’s not unreasonable to expect that the movie’s depiction of sexual politics and feminism will be impossibly dated by 2019 standards.
Perhaps surprisingly, that’s not actually the case. Yes, this is a movie about a rich, straight, white man bumbling his way through a mid-life crisis. In fact, if Dudley Moore’s character is meant to be Edwards’ surrogate, it’s fair to assume there was more than a little wish fulfillment going on. George Webber is almost impossibly successful. He’s an internationally famous songwriter, a playwright, and the winner of 4 Academy Awards…all by the age of 42.
Despite his success, he still struggles with depression, drinks too much, argues with both his on-again/off-again girlfriend/muse Samantha Taylor (played by Edwards’ own wife, Julie Andrews) and his songwriting partner Hugh (Robert Webber), and is terrified by the specter of his own mortality. He lives vicariously through his neighbor’s swinging lifestyle, spying on him and his neverending parade of nude women through a telescope. (Incidentally, that neighbor is played by Return Of The Living Dead‘s Don Calfa, sporting a gloriously long head of hippie hair.)
George thinks he’s found the answer to his dissatisfaction when he randomly sees Bo Derek in the car next to his at a traffic stop. She is, as George later puts it, “a vision”, on her way to be married to sentient Ken doll and future Flash Gordon Sam J. Jones. Unable to get her out of his head, George finds out that her name is Jenny and eventually tracks her down to Mexico, where the newlyweds are honeymooning.
So yeah, he essentially turns into a bit of a stalker but no, none of this behavior comes across as creepy. Part of this is because Edwards turns this stretch of the film into a showcase for some of his broadest physical comedy. Every time George gets a little closer to his dream girl, he pays for it in pain or some other humiliation. Dudley Moore was an expert physical comedian and Blake Edwards was second to none at filming bits like these.
But Moore’s performance also helps keep our sympathies from turning against George. Even when his judgment isn’t clouded by booze and painkillers (which isn’t often), it’s clear that he’s going after this woman blindly with absolutely no idea what he’s going to do if or when he finds her. He repeatedly tries reaching out to Sam, desperately wanting her to “save him” from himself. But the movie is smart enough to recognize that isn’t her job. George pushes her too far and Sam rightly tells him to piss off. If they’re going to have a future together, it’s going to take work.
Eventually, George and Jenny do end up alone together, after a somewhat convoluted rescue (involving a shark, of course, since Jaws was still fresh in everyone’s mind) lands Jenny’s husband in the hospital. But here too, the reality of the situation fails to live up to George’s fantasy. He has idealized her so much that he can’t accept the fact that an encounter that’s momentous to him is really no big deal to her. He loses respect for her in that moment but significantly, he also loses a lot of respect for himself as he recognizes his own hypocrisy. If someone were to remake 10 today (note to filmmakers: please don’t), I’m sure this sequence would be handled much differently. But these are equally valid character choices, especially for 1979 but even today. George’s dream girl isn’t just a blank slate. She has her own wants, desires, thoughts and moral compass. And, when he really starts to think about it, George realizes they don’t align with his own.
Odds are that 10 was too big a commercial hit to register much with Oscar voters. It was nominated for five Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical) and the ever-popular Best New Star of the Year (you know, the category that was discontinued shortly after Pia Zadora won it…Bo Derek lost to Bette Midler, probably a wise choice by the Foreign Press). But at the Academy Awards, the best 10 could muster was a pair of music nominations.
Now, I’m never going to say a bad word against Henry Mancini. He is one of the all-time great composers for film and television with more awards and nominations than most people have had hot dinners. As far as I’m concerned, he’s earned them all. But, let me just suggest that perhaps his work on 10 is not his most memorable. There is a piece of music from 10 that everyone who’s seen the movie remembers. That would be Ravel’s Boléro. Boléro became so associated with the film that, a few years later, Bo Derek would attempt to ride its coattails yet again by making a movie CALLED Bolero (and if you’re a connoisseur of bad cinema, you should definitely see it…it’s jaw-droppingly terrible). But Mancini’s actual score is unobtrusive and altogether forgettable.
As for the song, nobody’s going to argue that music wasn’t an important part of the film. It’s about a songwriter, after all, and Mancini contributed a few original tunes, including the hilarious, intentionally bad “I Have An Ear For Love”. But when Jenny describes George’s work as “elevator music”, it’s hard to disagree. The nominated song, “It’s Easy To Say”, is performed by Moore and Andrews, both in the film and over the end credits. At one point, Moore plays an extended instrumental version of it on the piano that’s better than the later vocal rendition. Moore was an excellent pianist and he pours a lot of character into his performance of the song. But the final version is exactly the kind of nothing song that the Academy uses to pad out the category in weak years.
In the end, 10 won neither award. Original Score went to Georges Delerue’s A Little Romance, a pleasant enough choice but a far cry from my favorite Delerue score. Of the nominated films, I’d likely cast my vote for Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In the original song category, “It’s Easy To Say” lost out to an even more unlikely choice: “It Goes Like It Goes” from Norma Rae. In retrospect, the obvious winner should have been “The Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie. But let’s face it. The actual “best original song” from a motion picture in 1979 wasn’t even nominated. That would be “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian. I’d put that up against “It’s Easy To Say” any day of the week.
10 is available on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital from Warner Home Video.