Best Supporting Actress 1956

1927/28 through 1997

Best Supporting Actress 1956

Mildred Dunnock - Baby Doll
2
7%
Eileen Heckart - The Bad Seed
12
40%
Dorothy Malone - Written on the Wind
13
43%
Mercedes McCambridge - Giant
0
No votes
Patty McCormack - The Bad Seed
3
10%
 
Total votes: 30

Mister Tee
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Post by Mister Tee »

Agreed on the general high-histrionic level of the nominees this year: some very good actresses giving performances they wouldn't highlight on their resumes, and some lesser lights doing overall more memorable work.

McCambridge is clearly the most disposable of the group, because her role is pretty disposable -- she's gone from the film before she's made much impression.

I view Dunnock as the emotional founadtion of Death of a Salesman -- at least the the famed TV version -- but my memory of her in Baby Doll is of her wearing a fright wig and running around like a lunatic.

I had a bizarre first encounter with the film of The Bad Seed. I was visiting my college roomate in Ohio; we were scheduled to fly back to school on an 8AM flight, so, when we saw The Bad Seed scheduled for broadcast in the 2-5AM slot, we decided we'd stay up all night to watch it. I'd been familiar with the play from working on it in drama classes when I was a kid, but I was unprepared for the clunky staginess and hysterically-broad acting ("I want that medal!") of the film version. There also seemed to be an inordinate number of commercials, especially as we headed toward dawn, so an up-too-late punchiness started to set in as the climax approached. When the tacked-on "evil girl must be punished " coda arrived, followed by the jaw-dropping curtain call-cum-spanking, I honestly felt I was hallucinating. After that, I've never been able to take the film remotely seriously.

Heckart is a good actress, but I think her performance is hopelessly compromised by the flat-line direction. The film doesn't even bother to conceal the theatrical origins of her scene: swoop-in entrance, ten-minute ramble, exit to applause. It might work on stage, but here it feels 100% false. I also think Heckart seems more like she's imitating our idea of a drunk, rather than showing us the inner torment of someone drowning herself in alcohol. Put it this way: Anne Baxter did a better drunk ten years earlier (though I don't think that performance wa so hot, either).

I take the point that McCormack was refreshing antidote to the mostly sweet girls of the time (though Mary Tilford had preceded her by two decades). But she, too, suffers from the film's creakiness. Her Rhoda is so sickeningly sweet, and then so sociopathic, that it all feels like melodramatic construct rather than a character.

Which brings us to Oscar winner Dorothy Malone. I first saw Written on the Wind in high school, and, I have to say, Malone made quite the impression at the time; she certainly stood out, and I viewed her as a solid Oscar choice. Since then I've of course noted how broad the performance is, and, further, have come to realize that Malone's entire career doesn't justify major awards. Like Italiano, I could easily vote "No Choice" here -- certainly there's no nominee on the level of other winners I've chosen this decade. But, pushed to a selection...I guess I'd go with my teenage impression and vote for Malone.
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Post by ITALIANO »

Only gays were allowed to decide the nominees for Best Supporting Actress in 1956. Well, or so it seems when you look at the chosen five and the roles they played: a crazy aunt, a butch spinster, an alcoholic grieving mother, a sweet-looking 8-year-old serial killer, and a blonde nymphomaniac. It had, of course, less to do with homosexuality than with misogyny - that typical 50s fear of women as seen by the American movies of the period; women, from the very young to the very old, are all unreliable if not downright dangerous.

This is also the kind of year when I really don't know whom I should vote for. Not because they are exactly bad - they aren't, and they give powerful, if not really subtle, performances. It's just that the one I'd pick today might not be the one I'll pick tomorrow.

The one I would never pick is Mercedes McCambridge. Her role in Giant is good, on paper; but it's too short and one-note for her to make something interesting with it.

Mildred Dunnock went from the world of Arthur Miller to another nomination for the completely different world of Tennessee Williams. This certainly shows how versatile (and admired) she was, and she's an actress I like; but all I remember about her in Baby Doll is a white wig and bulging eyes - not enough, honestly.

And then there are the three big ones. Our queens of melodrama. The screen seems too small to contain their emotions, their actions and, especialy in Eileen Heckart's case, their arm-waving. The two movies can't be compared - Written on the Wind may be soap opera, but it's soap opera as directed by Douglas Sirk; The Bad Seed is just another filmed play - even worse, a softened filmed play.

Dorothy Malone was lucky to get the kind of character any young and beautiful actress of the period would have killed for; she perfectly fits Sirk's unique, hot universe. There's little which suggests a great acting talent in her performance, but she's perfect for the part, and movies are also about having the right face (and personality) for the right role.

Eileen Heckart has only two scenes in The Bad Seed, but what two scenes they are. As written, it's the kind of role which on stage leads (or used to lead) to one guaranteed applause every 30 seconds; the problem is, of course, that the camera is usually closer to the actors than an audience in a theatre is. Still, amidst all the shouting, the tears, the alcohol, the desperate hugs, the self-pity on display, I can't deny that the actress is good enough to let us see the human being behind the showy hystrionics, and is, at times, if not moving at least affecting. Not easy, in that context.

Patty McCormack has the role of her life in the same movie. It's easy to find her ridiculous today; but back then, after years, decades even, of cute children a la Shirley Temple or Margaret O'Brian, she must have been quite shocking (which can explain the awful, reassuring ending of the film). She belongs to camp, but camp can be entertaining, and, intentional or not, one must have some kind of talent to pull it off. She's still one of the very few reasons why her movie isn't forgotten as it should be.

So, whom will I vote for? Pressing the "null vote" button is tempting, but I won't be coward and, since I guess it's between Malone and McCormack, will go with Heckart this time.




Edited By ITALIANO on 1276618359
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Post by Big Magilla »

In 1956 it paid to be over-the-top if you wanted an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress.

Dorothy Malone who won as Robert Stack's nymphomaniac sister in Written on the Wind was probably the most flamboyant but Patty McCormack as the eight year old murderess and Eileeen Heckart as the mother of the drowned boy in The Bad Seed and Mildred Dunnock as Carroll Baker's aunt in Baby Doll weren't far behind.

Only Mercedes McCambridge as Rock Hudson' sister in Giant provided a somewhat restrained performance. Had Oscar nominated Marjorie Main instead for her variation on Ma Kettle in Friendly Persuasion as the Globes did, it would have been a race between five over-the-top performances.

Missing from the line-up were two of the year's best: Helen Hayes as the dowager empress in Anastasia and Vera Miles as Henry Fonda's put-upon wife in The Wrong Man, both of whom would have been better choices than Dunnock and McCambridge IMO. Hayes, I know was subbmitted as lead despite the size of her role. Miles may have been as well.

Malone wasn't a bad choice among the nominees but I would have preferred to see either Heckart or McCormack win.

I'm casting my vote here for McCormack who was far from a one-note child actress though that's probably how most people think of her.

She had a memorable role as cousin Ingeborg in the waning days of TV's long running (I Remember) Mama and she originated the role of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker on Playhouse 90 opposite Teresa Wright. She's still acting today.
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