Stage to screen transfers reached their zenith with the release of 1966’s Oscar front-runners, A Man for All Seasons and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Mike Nichols’ film version of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? led the nominations with 13, while Fred Zinnemann’s film of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons tied for second place with Robert Wise’s The Sand Pebbles from the novel by Richard McKenna.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which was superbly written, brilliantly and acted and sharply photographed in back-and-white, was notable primarily for two things – the heavy use of profanity that almost single-handedly brought an end to the Hollywood Production Code, and the casting of Elizabeth Taylor as a middle-aged hag in a role written with Bette Davis in mind.

A Man for All Seasons was, on its surface, a beautifully filmed opening up of the play about the conflict between chancellor of England, St. Sir Thomas More and his king, Henry VIII, over Henry’s establishment of his own church in order to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. On a deeper level, its profound study of a man of resolute conscience struck a chord with protesters against the then raging Vietnam War.

With wins from the New York Film Critics, the National Board of Review and the Golden Globes as well as Zinnemann’s DGA win, it seemed clear that A Man for All Seasons would win Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Actor (Paul Scofield) while Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? would win Best Acrtess and Supporting Actress (Sandy Dennis) which is how it pretty much how it went. Man ended up with six trophies to Woolf’s five.

The National Society of Film Critics, the new kids in town, gave their inaugural award to Blow-Up which was later Oscar nominated for Best Director and Screenplay.

Oscar’s Best Picture also-rans, in addition to The Sand Pebbles, included Alfie with five nominations and The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming with 4. None of the directors of those films were nominated by the Academy, which in addition to Zinnemann and Nichols went with Blow-Up’s Michelangelo Antonioni; Best Foreign Film winner A Man and a Woman’s Claude Lelouch and The Professionals’ Richard Brooks.

The Directors’ Guild this year expanded their list of finalists to ten. They passed on Antonioni, but included Oscar’s anointed Zinnemann, Nichols, Lelouch and Brooks as well as Alfie’s Lewis Gilbert; The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming’s Norman Jewison; The Sand Pebbles’ Robert Wise; Georgy Girl’s Silvio Narizzano; Born Free’s James Hill and Grand Prix’s John Frankensheimer.

Let’s make it easy on ourselves and assume that had Oscar, as well as the DGA, expanded to ten this year, the nominations would have been the same, with A Man and a Woman; The Professionals; Georgy Girl; Born Free and Grand Prix added to the mix. A case could be made for Blow-Up, but it’s difficult to say which of the highly popular five it would have knocked off the list.