There was very little suspense at the 1964 Oscars.

From the day it opened on Broadway in March, 1956, My Fair Lady was a cultural phenomenon. It spawned two best selling cast recordings, the Original Broadway Cast recording in mono  and the 1959 London Cast recording with the same stars, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, sounding even more glorious in stereophonic sound.

When Jack Warner bought the film rights he envisioned a dream cast of Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn and James Cagney. Grant and Cagney demurred in favor of original stars Harrison and Stanley Holloway, but he got Audrey much to his later chagrin. As far as he was concerned, Julie Andrews who had become a household name with Broadway’s My Fair Lady and Camelot was nobody as far as the movies were concerned. Before My Fair Lady hit the screens on Christmas Day, 1964, Julie had made three films – Mary Poppins, The Americanization of Emily and The Sound of Music. Mary, which opened in August 1964, and Emily, which opened in October, had made Julie as big a screen star as Audrey. The Sound of Music, which opened in March, 1965, a month before the 1964 Oscars, made her the biggest star on the planet next to The Beatles.

Early Oscar speculation was that My Fair Lady would win Best Picture, Actor (Harrison) and Director (George Cukor) and that Julie would win Best Actress. The big surprise when the nominations were announced in late February, 1965, was that Audrey, who was obviously not going to win over Julie, was not even nominated. As a further embarrassment to Warner, Disney’s Mary Poppins beat it in the nominations – 13 to 12. Not only that, but it had to share second place with Becket, which had also been nominated for 12.

Rounding out the Best Picture nominees were Zorba the Greek with 7 nominations and Dr. Strangelove with 3. The Best Director line-up matched Best Picture down the line with George Cukor nominated for My Fair Lady; Robert Stevenson for Mary Poppins; Peter Glenville for Becket; Michael Cacoyannis for Zorba the Greek and Robert Stevenson for Mary Poppins. All except Cacoyannis had been nominated by the Directors Guild. John Huston was their fifth nominee for The Night of the Iguana.

Among the film that would have been considered for the other five slots had the Academy gone to ten that year would have been The Night of the Iguana; The Chalk Garden; Seven Days in May; The Best Man; The Unsinkable Molly Brown; The World of Henry of Henry Orient and Topkapi. It was a very rich year for movies.

With its DGA nod, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, let’s assume The Night of the Iguana would have been one of them . Let’s further assume that The Chalk Garden, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and The World of Henry Orient, all of which also received Golden Globe nods, would have been likely nominees as well.

In the battle for the tenth slot, I suspect that Topkapi, for which Peter Ustinov won a surprise second Supporting Actor Oscar, would have been the likeliest choice.