Best Supporting Actress 1967

[bizarre]

I've seen three of these.

Estelle Parsons is a mixed bag here. Her screeching is in service of something greater, yes, but it's still hard to bear. Though she reaches some levels of undeniable tragedy, too, and lends the film its awareness of human consequence when the rest of the performances short out on genuine feeling.

Carol Channing is a lot of fun. But how does one even begin to evaluate a performance like this? What rubric does one use? I enjoyed her, and that's something.

Richards underplays to the point of catatonia. I don't think there's much going on here - she scales it back, but the results are not interesting or particularly creative.

My nominees:

1. Magda Vášáryová, Marketa Lazarová
2. Avis Bunnage, The Whisperers
3. Estelle Parsons, Bonnie and Clyde
4. Vivien Merchant, Accident
5. Agathe Natanson, Oscar

[Cinemanolis]

MY TOP 5

Glenda Jackson - Marat/Sade
Estelle Parsons - Bonnie and Clyde
Mildred Natwick - Barefoot In the Park
Marjorie Rhodes - The Family Way
Beah Richards - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

[Bruce_Lavigne]

When I feel like I'm faced with two performances of more or less equal quality, I'll ask myself who's in the better movie and use that as a tiebreaker. For this year, I consider Parsons and Natwick to be on equal footing in terms of skillful displays of acting, so I err on the side of the one who's excellent in a groundbreaking American classic as opposed to the one who's excellent in a mild Neil Simon adaptation.

[ITALIANO]

I usually try to vote based on the performance alone (otherwise I would have never picked, for example, Lotte Lenya or even Mildred Natwick), and I actually find it almost heroic, and certainly pleasant, when a good performance belongs to an otherwise terrible movie (in a few years a typical case will take place - a very effective turn by an actress who appears in just the final portion of a dreadful film). But I can't deny that, at least on an unconscious level but sometimes VERY consciously, the movie's quality certainly influences our judgement of the performances in it.

[Uri]

I hear you, Tee. And I'm totally with you, when it comes to the '97 lineup. But that was my point – unlike Basinger's serviceable performance, which was benefited by the acclaims her film was getting and the guilt Academy members were feeling when they were showering all those awards on Titanic knowing they shouldn't, Parsons' win stands firmly on its own merits – I called it important for being a significant ingredient of a significant film, but it was one because of the way it was acted by Parsons. So yes, for successfully contributing to a major work, one does gets extra credit, but merely not getting in the way of one, as is the case with Ross or Basinger is not enough.



Edited By Uri on 1280171508

[Big Magilla]

Good performances in crappy films are rare. Quite often it's the lousy acting that make them crappy.

Barefoot in the Park is not a crappy film. Try watching Mary, Mary or any of a number of other Broadway successes of the day that were turned into crappy movies. Barefoot is a solid three star movie. A great work of art? No, but it's highly enjoyable thanks in large measure to Natwick.

My rule of thumb is that when a veteran, particularly a veteran who has never won let alone never even been nominated, turns in a performance that is on a par with the newcomer, I veer on the side of the veteran. That was the case for me this year in choosing between Natwick and Marjorie Rhodes in The Family Way. Rhodes was a veteran, too, of course, but her work in earlier British films was largely unknown to me.

Estelle Parsons is excellent in Bonnie and Clyde but is it the character or the performance that is really so exceptional?

In the supporting actor category I was initially torn between Gene Hackman in Bonnie and Clyde and George Kennedy in Cool Hand Luke. Here I thought the largely unknown Hackman turned in a faultless performance while Kennedy, good as he was, seemed to be trying just a tad too much to please. Here the Academy went with the veteran over the newcomer in the direct opposite of what they did in the supporting actress category.

Neither win was a bad one and both Kennedy and Parsons were more deserving than the misplaced sentimental win accorded Katharine Hepburn in the lead actress category at the expense of Edith Evans' truly great work in The Whisperers.

[Mister Tee]

That a performance might seem more worth honoring because it's in a more significant film -- the point several folks have invoked in the past 24 hours -- is of course completely defensible. My decision to vote for Natwick comes from finding her performance truly exceptional, while I have some issues with Parsons', even while liking it overall. (Like Italiano, I think she may be even better in her '68 nomination) If I found the two roughly equal, I might tilt Parsons given the immensely greater stature her film has.

But it's a fine line, isn't it? The same stature gap, I'd argue, exists between LA Confidential and In and Out, yet I consider Basinger's win for the former -- to me, solely based on a desire to give her film something major in the face of the Titanic onslaught -- one of the worst choices of the 90s, where I'd have cheered a win by Joan Cusack instead. (I know: alot of people would have voted for Julianne Moore over either, which probably helped Basinger's cause)

How important is the surrounding film to our ultimate rating of a performance? Alot of us -- and all the critics' groups -- thought Morgan Freeman was 1987's best supporting actor, yet his film, Street Smart, was so crappy Pauline Kael wrote that Freeman doing such work in those surroundings was like sustaining King Lear inside Gidget Goes Hawaiian. How do the lines get drawn? Is it strictly case-by-case, or do we have prevailing standards?

[ITALIANO]

I'm glad to see that my "kind invitation" is getting the interesting responses I was hoping for.

[Uri]

I never vote without commenting here, so I'll have to echo what's already been said here: Chaning is annoyingly grotesque, Richards is unchallengingly noble, Ross is beautifully bland (or is it blandly beautiful), Natwick is pitch perfect in a zero weight turn, Parsons is pitch perfect in a heavy weight one – I vote for Parsons.

Now, I have nothing further to say about the first two.

Ross was perfectly cast is a film that draws a lot of its remarkable impact from having its other two leads being so inspiringly miscast. She looks like a relic from the Doris Day/Robert Redford rumored intended version. Yes, her being this wholesome, perfect embodiment of the American (wet) dream certainly works within the framework of The Graduate, but it is also an indication of it's being a product of a pre feminist era, in which a woman must be a (sexual) boundary breaker to be allowed to be distinctive, and Ross is everything but that.

I know I'm dangerously at risk here, revealing my inner Magilla, but as a child I was totally enamored with Natwick when I first saw her in The Snoop Sisters. And She never failed me ever since – she's always a delight and I'd love her to have an Oscar. But unfortunately, despite her faultless turn, awarding her for Barefoot feels rather wrong, not only because of the frivolousness of the material she was dealing with, but because she was faced with another performance which was, if not necessarily better, then definitely a more important one.

And Parsons WAS good, very good. And by relegating her part to comic relief or claiming she was just being carried along the general admiration for her film and its entire cast, one might miss on the significant of her character as a counter point of reference in that film. And she manage to convey every bit of the confusion, anger, excitement, jealousy, envy and lost this woman is going through. A really fine acting and a truly worthy winner.

[Reza]

I don't dislike Katharine Ross. I just find her incredibly bland in The Graduate as I do in most films. She was perfect casting for The Stepford Wives because her dull personality perfectly fits the role.


Grant gives one of her best performances as the dead man's wife in In the Heat of the Night and Harris is touching as a neurotic invalid in Reflections in a Golden Eye so, for the time being anyway, they are my fill-in choices.

Yes Ross was a bland actress but very pretty in her hey day. I like her in The Graduate but thought she was much better in Voyage of the Damned for which she won a Golden Globe but was passed over for an Oscar nomination in favor of her co-star in the same film - Lee Grant.

It's amusing to see how Grant re-cycled her Heat performance and took it to such an over-the-top level in Voyage......same mannerisms and facial tics and managed to win an Oscar nomination. The overacted scene with the scissors, no doubt, helped her win the nod. But then she was on a roll having won the award the previous year for Shampoo. Probably the Academy's way of compensating her for the blacklist she had to endure through most of the 1950s and 1960s.

I would like to know some news related to her. Is she acting nowadays?

Ross or Grant?

[Hustler]

I don't dislike Katharine Ross. I just find her incredibly bland in The Graduate as I do in most films. She was perfect casting for The Stepford Wives because her dull personality perfectly fits the role.


Grant gives one of her best performances as the dead man's wife in In the Heat of the Night and Harris is touching as a neurotic invalid in Reflections in a Golden Eye so, for the time being anyway, they are my fill-in choices.

Yes Ross was a bland actress but very pretty in her hey day. I like her in The Graduate but thought she was much better in Voyage of the Damned for which she won a Golden Globe but was passed over for an Oscar nomination in favor of her co-star in the same film - Lee Grant.

It's amusing to see how Grant re-cycled her Heat performance and took it to such an over-the-top level in Voyage......same mannerisms and facial tics and managed to win an Oscar nomination. The overacted scene with the scissors, no doubt, helped her win the nod. But then she was on a roll having won the award the previous year for Shampoo. Probably the Academy's way of compensating her for the blacklist she had to endure through most of the 1950s and 1960s.

I would like to know some news related to her. Is she acting nowadays?

[FilmFan720]

I forgot about Katherine Ross in Voyage of the Damned...I also would have probably nominated her for that too.

[Damien]

Beah Richards (or Beach Richards as the poll states...does that sound like a bad porno name to anyone else?)

Maybe that's why no one is voting for her.

She did star in a porno movie, "Beach Richards Blanket Bingo"



Edited By Damien on 1280128823

[Reza]

I don't dislike Katharine Ross. I just find her incredibly bland in The Graduate as I do in most films. She was perfect casting for The Stepford Wives because her dull personality perfectly fits the role.


Grant gives one of her best performances as the dead man's wife in In the Heat of the Night and Harris is touching as a neurotic invalid in Reflections in a Golden Eye so, for the time being anyway, they are my fill-in choices.

Yes Ross was a bland actress but very pretty in her hey day. I like her in The Graduate but thought she was much better in Voyage of the Damned for which she won a Golden Globe but was passed over for an Oscar nomination in favor of her co-star in the same film - Lee Grant.

It's amusing to see how Grant re-cycled her Heat performance and took it to such an over-the-top level in Voyage......same mannerisms and facial tics and managed to win an Oscar nomination. The overacted scene with the scissors, no doubt, helped her win the nod. But then she was on a roll having won the award the previous year for Shampoo. Probably the Academy's way of compensating her for the blacklist she had to endure through most of the 1950s and 1960s.



Edited By Reza on 1280125038

[Big Magilla]

This is the year I have the hardest time settling on the top five in this category. Beyond Natwick, Parsons and Rhodes, there is no one that I really, really like.

I don't hate Carol Channing in Thoroughly Modern Millie as much as some do. I think she's fun for about a minute and a half, but Beatrice Lillie is probably better until her character becomes just plain ridiculous.

I don't dislike Katharine Ross. I just find her incredibly bland in The Graduate as I do in most films. She was perfect casting for The Stepford Wives because her dull personality perfectly fits the role.

As I've said before, the most interesting supporting actress in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is, to me, Isabel Sanford, not Beah Richards, but the really great comedy work of the year was done by Natwick and Rhodes.

Jo Van Fleet gives a marvelous five minute performance as Paul Newman's mother in Cool Hand Luke and there was some talk at the time of a nomination for her, but the role really isn't substantial enough to merit strong consideration.

Gladys Cooper is the stand-out in the all-star cast of The Happiest Millionaire, her Hollywood swan song, deliciously acerbic in her counter-duet with Geraldine Page, but it's an even less substantial role than she had in the superior My Fair Lady.

Susan Hayward was a gas in Valley of the Dolls and quite good in The Honey Pot but neither performance compares to her best work in the 1950s.

That leaves me for the moment with Lee Grant and Julie Harris.

Grant gives one of her best performances as the dead man's wife in In the Heat of the Night and Harris is touching as a neurotic invalid in Reflections in a Golden Eye so, for the time being anyway, they are my fill-in choices.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1280146466