Best Supporting Actress 1951

1927/28 through 1997
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Best Supporting Actress 1951

Joan Blondell - The Blue Veil
0
No votes
Mildred Dunnock - Death of a Salesman
1
4%
Lee Grant - Detective Story
2
8%
Kim Hunter - A Streetcar Named Desire
15
63%
Thelma Ritter - The Mating Season
6
25%
 
Total votes: 24

Mister Tee
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 1951

Post by Mister Tee »

Lo these many years later, I've managed to access (crappy) YouTube copies of Death of a Salesman and The Blue Veil, so I can put a cap on my decade-past comments and make a choice.

The Death of a Salesman film is hugely inferior to the 1966 television version -- the flashbacks are awkwardly managed, and melodramatic aspects are highlighted. I think this might be one of those pieces that's just too theatrical to truly work as a movie (the '66 version was basically theatre-for-TV). Dunnock is decent enough, but it's not as fitting a preservation of her career role as that '66 version was.

Joan Blondell does as much singing as she does acting in The Blue Veil. The film's structure only gives her a short segment, and she doesn't even dominate it -- her one potentially big scene, a kitchen confrontation, is written and shot in such a way as to highlight Wyman far more. (Wyman is very good in the film, by the way; I'd say it's her second-most impressive nominated performance, after Johnny Belinda.)

So, these two don't really enter into my thinking about the category. Since, as I said in 2010, I find Grant's work both too small in size and too borderline-hammy, I'm left deciding between Kim Hunter and the great Thelma Ritter. This is one of Ritter's most deserving nominations -- though quite clearly a lead, whatever the studio pretended. Hunter's is more clearly a supporting role, and really the definition of a supporting character who enables and enhances the work of the more flamboyant leads.

Since I've long since voted for Ritter in her great 1953 role, I'll give it to Hunter, here. But I could argue it either way.
bizarre
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 1951

Post by bizarre »

I have only seen Hunter and Ritter. Hunter never struck me as a particularly talented actress - not in the slightest, really - but her deer-in-the-headlights, cottonmouthed awkwardness is utilised well here as markers of a kind of hopelessly controlling amour fou. It's canny casting and one of the cleverer things this overrated, indulgent film does.

Ritter is lovely, warm and sad, but she's a definite co-lead with Gene Tierney and I nominate her in that category. But I'd probably give her the edge over Hunter here as a voter.

My picks for this year:
1. Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire
2. Rina Morelli, The Forbidden Christ
3. Akiko Tamura, Boyhood
4. Yukiko Shimazaki, Repast
5. Miriam Hopkins, The Mating Season
Big Magilla
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Post by Big Magilla »

Facetsdvd.com has Death of a Salesman for rental. They have a free trial membership for new members that might be worth checking out.
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Post by Mister Tee »

Big Magilla wrote:Ritter wasn't carpetbagging. It was Fox that billed her below the three then better known stars and Fox that selected the category.
Immaterial to my decision, just as it was for Tatum O'Neal in '73 -- whether the placement was via studio or star, it was designed to put a lead performance into unfair competition with genuine supporting performances.

I don't have the money to spend on far-flung DVD outlets. I searched Netflix for both films -- Blue Veil and Salesman -- as well as others that have eluded me all these years, but no dice.
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Post by ITALIANO »

It's interesting that Death of a Salesman seems to be easier to find in foreign countries (Italy, Greece) than in the US.

Is Arthur Miller's play the absolute masterpiece we were taught it is (especially in Italy, partly because of the legendary first edition directed in Rome by Luchino Visconti, with the great Paolo Stoppa as Willy Loman)? Maybe not, maybe by today's standards it can look dated - though as a bitter reflection on America and its dreams it's not like in more recent times we have seen anything much more biting on the stage as far as I know.
But we are talking about the movie here, and while a bit softened, and with a wrong leading actor, the movie of Salesman was, for those years, something that Hollywood didn't exactly produce every day. For all its flaws, it preserves Miller's attack on the myth of success and - and back then this didnt always happen - his original tragic ending. In the context of the American cinema of the early 50s it's not something one can quickly dismiss.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Ritter wasn't carpetbagging. It was Fox that billed her below the three then better known stars and Fox that selected the category.

Death of a Salesman was/is available on DVD briefly. It can still be found at certain rental sites though since it's now an out-of-print title, sales copies go at a premium.

Dunnock's performance is almost identical to the one she gave in the TV version opposite Lee J. Cobb, though I belive she has more scenes in the film than the truncated TV production.

The Blue Veil is available from various bootleggers at reasonable prices, but they all have the same print copied from an old homemade copy of a VHS tape of a long ago showing on a local Los Angeles channel with a brief scene between Jane Wyman and Richard Carlson missing.
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Post by Mister Tee »

I can discuss but can't vote here, since, like Damien, I've been unable to find The Blue Veil or Death of a Salesman in 45 years of Oscar-scavenging. It would be dishonest to cast a ballot in ignorance of 40% of the nominees.

I actually saw one scene from the Salesman movie on a bizarre Nightline Stanley Kramer hosted in the early 80s -- he had comedians who'd appeared in his Mad Mad World re-enacting scenes from his famous dramas. So, I saw Fredric March being fired, followed by Jonathan Winters undergoing the same humiliation. Nothing, unfortunately, with Mildred Dunnock.

I did see Dunnock's full performance in the highly praised 1966 TV production (its existence, and the later Hoffman version, may have something to do with the unavailability of the '51 effort). I thought she was pretty terrific in that, but of course have no idea if the film version was in the same ballpark. My opinion of Salesman has varied over the years. I adored it when I first read it -- at age 13 -- and a year later loved the TV version. But subsequent readings have reduced my opinion substantially, though not nearly so far down as Damien's. It's definitely got some melodramatic creak, and I want to wham Biff one for his "The man didn't know who he was" sanctimony near the end. But the play captures, perhaps better than any other, the way family arguments spring up stubbornly even in the midst of attempted reconciliation, and for that it deserves commendation. (I put Inge firmly further down the ladder)

To the three nominees I have seen: Lee Grant had a hammy streak, one on full display in Detective Story. If she's to win at all, it should be later on.

Kim Hunter is splendid in the role that always seems to be overlooked in Streetcar but is essential to a strong production.

Ritter is clearly the lead in Mating Season, and strolls off with the movie. Were I voting here, I'd heavily waver between her and Hunter...and probably end up choosing Hunter, based on two facts: 1) Ritter's carpetbagging and 2) the fact she has an even more win-worthy effort coming up shortly.
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Post by Cinemanolis »

Damien wrote:The Blue Veil and Death Of A Salesman are hard to track down, and I haven't seen either. I did once send somebody a video of Make Way For Tomorrow and he was going to reciprocate with Salesman, but I never received it.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls"? For me actually and rightfully so, since it's about 10 years since Damien send me "Make Way for Tomorrow". Part of the (looong) delay is that in the first couple of years of the 00's i lost contact with this board and when i was back "onboard" my VHS copy was damaged. However i now have it digitally. So Damien please pm me your address and your long delayed copy will arrive.

P.S. And many thanks for introducing me to "Make Way for Tomorrow", one of my favourite films.
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Post by ITALIANO »

Joan Blondell had been (and would be) a reliable actress in American cinema for many years, so nobody can complain that she was nominated even for one of her less famous performances. She's good as always as this typical show business type and absent mother, but certainly not Oscar-worthy.

Lee Grant doesn't have much to do in Detective Story, but she does it well, though every single mooment of her shy shoplifter role has Method written over it in capital letters. It's a nice acting turn in a quiet, sensitively written role, not an awesome one.

As for Salesman, not many people seem to have seen this first film version of what is one of the classics of American theatre - and which at least for this reason is of a certain historical importance. I've always wondered why. Back then, the movie must have been generally liked or at least respected, considering how many Oscar nominations it got; today it's almost completely forgotten. I'm not sure that it has only to do with the fact that it's far from perfect (and definitely, compared with that OTHER film version of a great American play which came out that same year, much less involving): the direction, despite all those flashbacks carefully integrated into the present-time scenes, isn't as good or as committed as the original material deserved, and Fredric March - a very good actor, usually - is too strong, too powerful to be really believable as what is essentially a loser (a typical example of fatal miscasting). Still, Arthur Miller's vision is basically there, and this alone makes Death of a Salesman far more profound and pessimistic than most American movies of the period (and, in the McCarthy era, I'd say courageously so). There are other good things in it, including a truly edgy, shattering at times even, performance - no, not Mildred Dunnock's, Kevin McCarthy's as Biff, the best Biff I've ever seen, a multi-layered portrayal of a complex, frustrated, young but not very young American man, a performance which really should have led to a more important career than the one McCarthy actually had. One should see this movie just for his presence in it. But we are here for Dunnock - and she's perfectly cast, of course, even too predictably cast, and as it sometimes happens when a praised stage performance is done again by the same actor in a movie, most of the energy is lost.

We all love Thelma Ritter, and she's the only real reason today to see a nice but forgettable comedy like The Mating Season (not exacly of Billy Wilder-caliber, let's face it). Compared with the other actors, especially with Miriam Hopkins already in her "camp" period, Ritter is a true delight, but really the movie is only so-so and objectively she's the absolute lead in it (the Italian title translates as Mother of the Groom, which is Ritter's role). Don't worry, I said that I will vote for her and I will, but it's still not her turn.

Because there's Kim Hunter as the definitive Stella - she won and she deserved to win.




Edited By ITALIANO on 1275067843
Damien
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Post by Damien »

The Blue Veil and Death Of A Salesman are hard to track down, and I haven't seen either. I did once send somebody a video of Make Way For Tomorrow and he was going to reciprocate with Salesman, but I never received it. It's cool, because I think Miller's play is the most ludicrously over-rated, embarrassingly over-written nonsense from the canon of 20th century American theatre. Attention Must Be Paid! indeed -- Fuck you, Linda Loman. The guy was even more heavy-handed than William Inge. Joan Blondell was always wonderful -- and was my late father's favorite actress -- but from what Big and Reza say, I guess she should have gotten her nomination for either A Tree Grows In Brooklyn or Opening Night.

Lee Grant is very very bad in the kind of scenery chewing performance that pretty much defined the less-talented, less-original followers of Stanislavsky and his disciples. A terrible performance.

Kim Hunter is perfect in Streetcar, and one can't quibble with her win, other than to point out that Stella is not as fleshed-out a character as the other leads and that she's more reflexive than pro-active than Stanley, Blanche and Mitch.

But Thelma Ritter had her greatest role in The Mating Season. Her usual wry sarcasm modulated by the sadness that envelopes her character. She's wonderful and gets my vote.

My Own Top 5:
1. Nana Bryant in Bright Victory
2. Thelma Ritter in The Mating Season
3. Donna Corcoran in Angels In The Outfield
4. Jayne Meadows in David And Bathsheba
5. Jean Casto in St. Benny The Dip




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Post by Reza »

Kim Hunter, Lee Grant and Thelma Ritter deserved their nods. Blondell finally got her Oscar nod but, as usual with the Academy, for the wrong film. Have never seen Dunnock's performance.

Voted for Ritter.

My top 5:

Thelma Ritter, The Mating Season
Kim Hunter. A Streetcar Named Desire
Jan Sterling, Ace in the Hole
Ava Gardner, Show Boat
Shelley Winters, A Place in the Sun
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Post by Big Magilla »

I have no argument against Kim Hunter's win for her definitive Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire, a triumph in any year, but my vote goes to Thelma Ritter for what I feel was her quintessential role as the mother of newly wed John Lund who poses as a maid in her daughter-in-law Gene Tierney's home in The Mating Season. Ritter was really the lead but she was fourth billed beneath Tierney and Lund who were billed over the title and Miriam Hopkins billed just below the title as Tierney's snooty mother.

Joan Blondell gave so many wonderful performances before the category existed and in several years thereafter but this wasn't one of them. Her brassy stage star in The Blue Veil is basically an extended cameo in a film that belongs lock, stock and barrel to its star, Jane Wyman.

Mildred Dunnock was the definitive Linda in Death of a Saesman opposite whoever happened to be playing Willy Loman but it's not really a great performance - certainly worthy of a nomination, but not a win.

Lee Grant impressed me when I first saw her recreate her Broadway role as the shoplifter in Detective Story but she's done so much better work since that the nomination here is surely enough as well.

Missing in action: Jan Sterling in Ace in the Hole and Nina Foch in An American in Paris.




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