Best Supporting Actress 1960

1927/28 through 1997
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Best Supporting Actress 1960

Glynis Johns - The Sundowners
1
4%
Shirley Jones - Elmer Gantry
6
21%
Shirley Knight - The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
3
11%
Janet Leigh - Psycho
17
61%
Mary Ure - Sons and Lovers
1
4%
 
Total votes: 28

bizarre
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 1960

Post by bizarre »

I have only seen Janet Leigh from this lineup, but I can't imagine anyone besting her performance here. She's more than just a catalyst for the action: just through her cadences, her darting glances and the brittleness of her body language she provides a rich history of where this woman has been, who she is and where should could have gone had her life not been so brutally cut short, while retaining an air of mystery that anyone familiar with Leigh's filmography beforehand wouldn't have been remiss to think she lacked as an actress. It's truly a marvelous turn, and she wins for me this year, as well.

My picks:
1. Janet Leigh, Psycho
2. Birgitta Valberg, The Virgin Spring
3. Eileen Fulton, Girl of the Night
4. Maxine Audley, Peeping Tom
5. Isuzu Yamada, Evening Stream
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Post by Cinemanolis »

Eve Arden , Dark at the Top of the Stairs
Wendy Hiller, Sons and Lovers
Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry
Angela Lansbury, Dark at the Top of the Stairs
Janet Leigh, Psycho
Jo Van Fleet, Wild River
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Post by Hustler »

I´m going with Jones
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Post by Mister Tee »

Another year where I don't have an overwhelming favorite. 1962 can't get here soon enough.

I've always had a soft spot for Glynis Johns -- used to watch her 60s TV sitcom; adored her in A Little Night Music; very much enjoyed her late-career comic trurn in The Ref. But I find the Sundowners, overall, insufferably arch, and she's all too in tune with that general tenor.

Shirley Knight is a good actress who's managed a long if not stellar career. She's good enough in Dark at the Top of the Stairs, but the material drags her and everyone else down. I also have to dissent from Magilla's enthusiasm for Arden, an actress I've long liked. The material she's handed is so thuddingly obvious I can barely stand to listen to her. Which is true of the film itself, for the most part. (Is it really that hard to find? I seem to recall seeing it on TNT or TCM sometime in the late 80s/early 90s, and of course one viewing was plenty, so I've never really looked for it again)

Wendy Hiller is of course the standout of Sons and Lovers, but slotting her in support would have been carpetbagging of the worst sort. Not only should she have been nominated as lead actress, I'd have voted for her over the actual nominees. As for Ure...there's nothing wrong with her work, but my (somewhat fading) impression was that the part was rather small -- too small to consider here.

I waver a bit on Shirley Jones -- not as to whether she deserved to win (answer: no), but as to whether it's an acceptable minor piece of work or a truly bad performance. Clearly she won for the contrast to her Rodgers & Hammerstein heroines; the question is, was that contrast achieved at least honestly, through competent if uninspired acting, or was it a case of laughably blatant miscasting --putting a girl scout in sexy lingerie and calling it acting? How I answer that question depends on the darkness of my mood. For today, let's provisionally grant her membership in the first category.

Which leaves Janet Leigh. I'm not sure I'm quite as high on her work as Damien is -- but, then, it's almost impossible to objectively rate a performance that's been seen and commented on to such a vast extent, in a film that's almost beyond legend. It is, though, without doubt a serious, concentrated piece of work in a major American classic, and, having no strong feelings about any of the competitors, I'll cast my vote her way -- as I presume many will.
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Post by Big Magilla »

ITALIANO wrote:Nobody remembers it now, but there's a subplot which Shirley Knight's character is an important element of, and it's about a young Jewish man. I can't even remember the name of the actor who plays him, but he was very good, though he quickly vanished from sight after this movie.

His name was Lee Kinsolving, and yes, he was very good but made only one more movie, The Explosive Generation with William Shatner and Patty McCormack, after which he could only get TV work and soon gave up acting to run a Manhattan bar where he met and had affairs with people like Tuesday Weld and Candice Bergen. He was only 36 when he died in 1974.

The entire cast of this film was good including Frank Overton as Eve Arden's long-suffering husband and Robert Eyer, a very good child actor who also disappeared.

Both Kinsolving and Knight were nominated for Golden Globes, Delbert Mann for the DGA and Arden and Max Steiner's score for the long defunct Laurel Awards.

Arden's character is the one that has stayed with me, a vile, bigoted woman who not only hated Jews, but Catholics as well, and yet one who was not totally unsympathetic. Eileen Heckart won a Tony nomination in the part on Broadway in support of Teresa Wright and Pat Hingle. Timmy Everett who originated the role of Sammy Goldstein also had a brief career - best known on screen for The Music Man, he died in 1977 at 38.

It seems the role not only brought early death to the character but to the actors who played him as well.

The film, which rarely gets shown on TV these days has not had an official home video release and is only available on DVD in bootleg versions, though the Warner Archive should eventually get around to releasing it. Such a shame for such a very good movie with such an exceptional cast, albeit from a playwright (William Inge) who is no longer as highly regarded as he once was.




Edited By Big Magilla on 1277822426
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Post by Big Magilla »

Reza wrote:Was Saturday Night and Sunday Morning eligible at the 1960 Oscars as Rachel Roberts deserved a mention?
No, and neither was Victim or Peeping Tom.
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Post by ITALIANO »

This is a good, dignified year. Five young or at least not old actresses in truly supporting roles, all giving not only good performances, but also performances of more or less the same level - which makes it a difficult choice.

Mary Ure played D. H. Lawrence's protorypical liberated woman. Of course only a few years later we would have been allowed to see clearly (some might say even too clearly), rather than just been told, what exactly "been liberated" meant, at least on a personal-relationship level; but while not explicitly sexual, the performance is intelligent and good. (Wendy Hiller was definitely - and rightly, I think - promoted as a lead; she should have been nominated, too - but Ure's is THE supporting performance in the movie).

Glynis Johns gave a likable, warm, witty performance in The Sundowners. I wouldn't say that her role was especially tough or even that worthy of her skills, but she is a talented actress and I'm glad that she was nominated at least once.

It's true that Shirley Jones won, as it often happens, for basically playing against type - for not playing a Shirley Jones character. Plus, the movie was popular and respected, her role was showy and kind-of daring for those times, and she handled it reasonably well. Not a winner for me, but the Academy has honored far worst performances.

Janet Leigh will easily win here - after all, probably more has been written about Psycho and her performance in it than about any other movie and performance in the history of cinema (well, the shower scene is certainly a part of her performance, and a memorable part I'd say). And it's true that her contribution to the movie, and to its lasting power, is very important - we do care about the very believable, human, flawed character she creates, we share her doubts and understand her confusion, and when (big spoiler now!) she's suddenly killed it's even more shocking for exactly those reasons. And Hitchocock must be credited for having got such a subtle performance from an actress who before had been pleasant, interesting even, but never this impressive.

She will win, as she probably should. Iconic, for once, is the right word, and it gives her an undeniable advantage over the other four nominess. So I will pick one from a little.seen movie - Shirley Knight for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. I know - this is probably just another uninaginative film version of a conventional Inge play. I'd be sure of this if I had seen the movie recently - but I only saw it as a child. Still, it has stayed for me since then, and for mainly one reason: it was the first time I was ever confronted with anti-Semitism. Nobody remembers it now, but there's a subplot which Shirley Knight's character is an important element of, and it's about a young Jewish man. I can't even remember the name of the actor who plays him, but he was very good, though he quickly vanished from sight after this movie. Anyway, one might say that if a child, like I was, found this subplot so moving, so unforgettable even, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was very profound - but I'm quite sure that it had a sort of poetic quality. The rest of the movie was about grown-ups that I didn't really care for, but Shirley Knight's love story with the Jewish boy, and its sad development, told me things that I never knew could exist, and that later in my life I decided - not always successfully - to fight against. And Knight had the kind of face, pale and sensitive (and the talent) that could have make her a big star; it didn't happen, for many reasons, but she was good here, perfect for this role - and she'd be good again in other, even less famous movies, afterwards.
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Post by Reza »

Yes Shirley Jones as a prostitute was the surprise factor of the year and she does act the part out with great gusto.

Why do I feel that prim Janet Leigh got her nod because she appeared so casually and naturally in that scene on the bed opposite John Gavin wearing a slip and a bra? And ofcourse the fact that a major star gets to die so soon into the film........the shock factor helped. Although I do agree with Damien that she does convey an assortment of emotions and makes the character real in that short span of time.

It's been a very long time since I watched both The Sundowners and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs so can't really recall both Shirley Knight (or the two other ladies from the latter film) or Glynis Johns.

Mary Ure was a lovely presencer in Sons and Lovers but anyone who should have been nominated for this film was Wendy Hiller.

Here I vote for Shirley Jones.

My top 5:

Wendy Hiller, Sons and Lovers
Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry
Janet Leigh, Psycho
Jo Van Fleet, Wild River
Sylvia Syms, Victim

Was Saturday Night and Sunday Morning eligible at the 1960 Oscars as Rachel Roberts deserved a mention?
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Post by Damien »

Janet Leigh towers above all the others in a great, multi-latered performance. The mixture of arrogance and self-awareness she conveys while committing the crime, her obvious fascination in interacting with Norman Bates and her ultimate terror and realization of her fate are all beautifully realized.

None of the other nominees is particularly memorable, but Glynis Johns, an actress I generally like, is downright annoying in a silly role in an excruciatingly dull movie.

Shirley Jones isn't even as memorable as Jean Simmons or Patti Page in Elmer Gantry, but hers was such a non-Shirley Jones role that the Academy apparently thought it was impressive acting when, in fact, it was merely competent.

Mary Ure and Shirley Knight -- both perfectly okay.

My Own Top 5:
1. Janet Leigh in Psycho
2. Aline MacMahon in Cimarron
3. Maxine Audley in Peeping Tom
4. Sylvia Syms in Victim
5. Brigitta Petersson in The Virgin Spring
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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Post by Big Magilla »

They got it half right this year. They nominated supporting actress performances from the five films that contained them. The problem was that they nominated the wrong performance from two of them.

Wendy Hiller gave the performance of her career as Dean Stockwell's smothering mother in Sons and Lovers but her fellow actors nominated Mary Ure as the married woman with whom Stockwell has his first affair instead.

The only thing that could possibly make sense of this is that Hiller was promoted for lead and thus out of the running, but Ure's performance is not remotely as good as those of the films peerless principals: Stockwell, Hiller and Trevor Howard as his course coal miner father, a surprise nominee for Best Actor.

Eve Arden as Dorothy McGuire's bigoted, opinionated sister in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs gave the best of that film's many fine performances and should have gotten the slot that went to the film's ingenue, Shirley Knight. Angela Lansbury as Robert Preston's on again-off again mistress was almost as good as Arden and like Arden, was overlooked as well.

The three remaining nominees very much deserved their nominations.

Janet Leigh's performance in Psyco is so iconic no explanation is necessary.

Glyns Johns, a lovely presence on screen since the age of 15 was at her best as the middle-aged innkeeper who makes no bones about her love of the company of men in The Sundowners.

The best of the nominees, though, was the Oscar winner, Shirley Jones. It wasn't just that her role of the vengeful prostitute in Elmer Gantry was such a 180 degree turn from the sweet young things we were used to seeing her play, but that she actually seemed to love playing it. No actress, or actor for that matter, ever seemed to relish spewing their most famous line from their film more than she did:

"Oh, he gave me special instructions back of the pulpit Christmas Eve. He got to howlin' "Repent! Repent!" and I got to moanin' "Save me! Save me!" and the first thing I know he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man's footsteps!"
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