As the 96th edition of the Academy Awards ceremony approaches this Sunday, 10 April 2024, I –always a perennial latecomer—saw a film at the only surviving cinema here in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro called Joia (Jewel), which I would award even today all the TOP Academy awards.

How strange that although nominated for Oscars in all categories, the film failed to win in 1958 an Academy Award!

So retroactively I would like to award the film the ‘Harold’ award in all categories!

Only “Witness for the Prosecution” by Billy (“Some Like it Hot”) Wilder based on Agatha Christie´s short story was made in 1957!

I don´t know how I missed her but I had never seen a film with the inimitable Marlene Dietrich, my loss.

Despite all her successors, Marlene still commands the whole screen with her words, actions and eternal sexiness

Charles Laughton, is the British defense attorney recovering from a recent heart attack, who will not obey doctors and nurses orders out of his love for a good murder case in court and the accused, Tyrone (’The Eddy Duchin story”) Power, are/were old “friends “from other movies.

And who today is writing, producing and directing such tightly -edited and superbly acted movies with good laughs and a decent plot these days as Billy Wilder?

If you can find it on Netflix or YouTube, don’t miss this cinematic treat!

And for those in Copacabana seeking to go to an old-fashioned movie house, try the Joia, which is the closest Brazilian equivalent to the old Paris movie theater on West 58th street in my native city of New York City—which Marlene Dietrich inaugurated in 1948!