Best Actor 1952

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Best Actor 1952

Marlon Brando - Viva Zapata!
1
4%
Gary Cooper - High Noon
6
23%
Kirk Douglas - The Bad and the Beautiful
12
46%
Jose Ferrer - Moulin Rouge
2
8%
Alec Guinness - The Lavender Hill Mob
5
19%
 
Total votes: 26

The Original BJ
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Re: Best Actor 1952

Post by The Original BJ »

This is a decent/not great lineup. Of the omitted, I think The Quiet Man features one of John Wayne's better performances, and if Gene Kelly was to receive one acting nomination for his career, it would be hard to argue with Singin' in the Rain. (Haven't seen Olivier's film yet.)

José Ferrer was definitely from the Paul Muni school of biopic hamming -- which is to say, he's overly theatrical from the word go, and for me never goes too deep into embodying the character beyond the superficial. Of course, I'm not sure, given the script, how much more depth anyone could have wrung from the material, given that it's pretty standard artist biopic stuff.

Once you get past the incongruity of Marlon Brando playing a Mexican in Viva Zapata!, it's easy to see why he was cited -- he gets a number of decently moving speeches that the actor performs solidly. But it's not among the most energetic Brando performances -- he's more low-key throughout than in his best roles. Given that there are ample opportunities to reward him for more iconic work, I pass pretty easily here.

It's impressive just how many different eccentric characters Alec Guinness created in the Ealing comedies, and how each one felt so singular. But it's a bit odd that this was the only one to net him an acting nomination, given that he creates a far less dominant character than in some of the others.

Gary Cooper is not a great favorite of mine -- especially in serious dramas, I often find him rather stolid. But I would agree that High Noon is among his stronger dramatic roles, and the movie gets a lot of mileage out of close-ups of his face, as the actor powerfully conveys the increasing urgency of his situation as the film progresses. Not a winner I greatly object to, but not my choice.

I went with Kirk Douglas, who gets the rare opportunity (especially in this era) to play a villainous central role, and who finds both the nastiness and humanity in Jonathan Shields. I can see what the non-fans of Douglas are saying about the actor's intensity levels, and there are times when I'd agree, but I think his character in The Bad and the Beautiful is just a perfect match for Douglas's forceful energy. He also exemplifies a kind of person you still see a lot of in Hollywood, one not without decency but whose self-centered drive causes them to behave in utterly terrible ways.
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Re: Best Actor 1952

Post by Greg »

ksrymy wrote: TAKASHI SHIMURA - IKIRU

It's a damn shame the Academy didn't really start recognizing foreign nominees until Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren came around. This is easily the greatest performance given in the history of Asian cinema. The harrowing performance Shimura gives as an elderly man trying to settle his life and do a final good deed before he dies is haunting, touching, and powerful.
I remember seeing, probably as either a years-old TV rerun or something on the Internet, when Roger Ebert had his show with Gene Siskel and they had a special episode recommending movies for Bill Clinton, just after he was elected President for the first time, to prepare for his job. Among the recommended films were Ikiru, Pixote, and, I believe, 2001: A Spcae Odyssey.
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Re: Best Actor 1952

Post by mojoe92 »

ksrymy wrote:
bizarre wrote:
ksrymy wrote:This is easily the greatest performance given in the history of Asian cinema.
You're an idiot.
Could you take your haughty, superior, cunty attitude elsewhere?


Hello kettle, Im Black
ksrymy
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Re: Best Actor 1952

Post by ksrymy »

bizarre wrote:
ksrymy wrote:This is easily the greatest performance given in the history of Asian cinema.
You're an idiot.
Could you take your haughty, superior, cunty attitude elsewhere?
"Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
bizarre
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Re: Best Actor 1952

Post by bizarre »

ksrymy wrote:This is easily the greatest performance given in the history of Asian cinema.
You're an idiot.
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Re: Best Actor 1952

Post by Big Magilla »

ksrymy wrote:It's a damn shame the Academy didn't really start recognizing foreign nominees until Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren came around. This is easily the greatest performance given in the history of Asian cinema. The harrowing performance Shimura gives as an elderly man trying to settle his life and do a final good deed before he dies is haunting, touching, and powerful.
I don't disagree with the sentiment but Ikiru wasn't Oscar eligible until the film's release in 1956. Toshiro Mifune, on the other hand, was eligible in 1952.
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Re: Best Actor 1952

Post by ksrymy »

I voted for Kirk Douglas for good reason. He is absolutely fantastic in that role whereas, in all its iconicness, I saw nothing special about Gary Cooper in 'High Noon.' José Ferrer was a throwaway vote. A nomination for a good actor at the time who gave a decent performance with nothing electric in it. Marlon Brando was fantastic in his role but I feel Douglas deserves the win by an inch here. The real shame is the snub.

My nominees
____________________________________
Marlon Brando - Viva Zapata!
Gary Cooper - High Noon
Kirk Douglas - The Bad and Beautiful
Gene Kelly - Singin' in the Rain
TAKASHI SHIMURA - IKIRU

It's a damn shame the Academy didn't really start recognizing foreign nominees until Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren came around. This is easily the greatest performance given in the history of Asian cinema. The harrowing performance Shimura gives as an elderly man trying to settle his life and do a final good deed before he dies is haunting, touching, and powerful.
"Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Post by ITALIANO »

Seems like Kirk Douglas will win here - getting the votes, I guess, of those who have seen The Bad and The Beautiful and of those who have more simply seen the Academy Awards a few weeks ago. Not a bad performance, but probably the least interesting of the three he was nominated for.

I will be honest: I'm one of those few left who think that Jose Ferrer was a very good, very versatile actor. But then, only the fact that I still haven't seen one of the nominees that year is preventing me from voting for him for Cyrano de Bergerac. I should get the missing nominee soon from the US, but I'm almost sure that I won't change my mind. So I don't have to pick him here, though he's very good in Moulin Rouge (Marchand is admittedly even better).

High Noon is a classic which is probably more respected today in Europe than it is in the US. And while I'm the first to admit that Gary Cooper wasn't Laurence Olivier, he was a perfect "film animal" - born for the big screen, really. That face, those eyes. So many times we have chosen performances for their "iconic" value, which is a quite respectable reason by the way - so I'll use my "icon" card here. A good performance in a very good movie - my vote goes to Gary Copper.
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Post by Reza »

For me it was an easy choice to vote for Douglas. I liked him best when he played nasty characters.

My picks for 1952:

Kirk Douglas, The Bad and the Beautiful
Gene Kelly, Singin' in the Rain
Robert Ryan, Clash By Night
Laurence Olivier, Carrie
John Wayne, The Quiet Man




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Post by Sabin »

Haven't seen Viva Zapata or Moulin Rouge, so I can't cast a vote. Of the three I've seen, I'd go with Kirk Douglas. Why not? It embodies everything he does well.
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Post by Damien »

Not exactly a stellar line up . . .

Alec Guinness is likable in The Lavender Hill Mob, but his performance is so low-keyed that I can't believe it was nominated. (If they wanted a token Brit, why not Ralph Richardson for Breaking The Sound Barrier?)

I didn't find Brando as charismatic or interesting as usual in Viva Zapata. He was perfectly fine but Ricardo Montalban or Gilbert Roland would probably have been just as effective.

Moulin Rouge is probably my favorite John Huston film other than The Dead, even though it's somewhat inert dramatically. But it's Colette Marchand who steals the show -- Jose Ferrer just seems like Jose Ferrer walking around on his knees.

Cooper's performance in High Noon is lousy -- could a leading man's line readings be any more stiff? But he does have a haunted look on his face -- from his complicated real life romance situation? -- that works well for the picture.

There is one standout in this group, and that's Kirk Douglas. He perfectly captures all the facets of a heel who is not quite the heel he may appear to be. Another memorable troubled artistic soul rendered by Vincente Minnelli.

My Own Top 5:
1. Robert Mitchum in Angel Face (and The Lusty Men and Macao and One Hour To Zero)
2. Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground (and Clash By Night)
3. Dan Dailey in Pride Of St. Louis
4. Gerard Philipe in Fanfan la Tulipe
5. Billy Gray in Talk About A Stranger

(And if Fanfan wasn't a '52 release in L.A., remove Gerard Philipe and add Kirk Douglas in The Bad and The Beautiful.)




Edited By Damien on 1301468508
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Post by Mister Tee »

I can't work up much fervor for any of these performances, though none are bad. Can't say the omittees thrill me, either; Olivier would probably be best, but Carrie isn't quite his gold standard. I just generally think 1952 -- the year of my birth -- was a weak vintage for the sort of films I like.

Moulin Rouge may be the film I like most among those that produced the nominees, but Jose Ferrer's performance is probably my least favorite of the five. He was always something of a ham, but that worked better for Cyrano than it does here.

As I said under 1949, Kirk Douglas has never been an actor who's done much for me. His histrionics just seem very surface-y and obvious to me -- his intensity is too easy to imitiate (or mock). The Bad and the Beautiful is enjoyable enough cheese, but nothing prize-worthy.

Brando's two nominations between Streetcar and Waterfront are generally viewed as minor-league, but I think he's certainly solid in Zapata, and worthy of the nomination. But it would be a true sign of desperation to give him the award for this.

It's tempting to go with Alec Guinness, just to honor all the wonderful Ealing comedies. The problem is, I find The Lavender Hill Mob -- and Guiness' work in it -- falling on the low side of the batch. As Magilla says, The Man in the White Suit this same year, or, even better, The Captain's Paradise, The Ladykillers or the glorious Horse's Mouth would be far more likely to bring me on board. As it is, he'll have to wait for his more Oscar-friendly Lean work to get my vote.

Lacking a strong choice, I invoke the Academy's "Give it to the veteran" principle, and figure why not let Gary Cooper have this one win? High Noon was certainly over-praised in its day, but I think it's been subsequently over-flayed by revisionists -- for me, it's a solid enough film, especially by the degraded standards of the year, and Cooper's central performance is one of his better dramatic efforts. I wouldn't put alot of zeal into defending this choice -- as I say, my general recation to the whole group is ho-hum -- by in the end I find voting for Cooper the easiest solution.
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Best Actor 1952

Post by Big Magilla »

None of these are bad performances but none of them are really award worthy, either.

Brando's method mumbling doesn't seem appropraite for his character. Cooper's performance is said to have been teh resutl of judicious editing, that the actor's peptic ulcer was to blame for his tight-lipped performance.

Douglas is an actor I find hard to like when plyaing good guys, but easy to loathe when playing despicable characters as he does here.

Ferrer always seems to me to be acting with a capital A and Guinness I liked better in the same year's The Man in the White Suit.

Others I would find it easier to vote for: John Wayne in The Quiet Man; Laurence Olivier in Carrie and Ralph Richardson in Breakign the Sound Barrier.

But I like the idea that Gary Cooper asked John Wayne to accept his Oscar for him should he win knowing full well that Wayne considered his film (High Noon) anti-American. Wayne humbly accepted both Coop's request and his Oscar. For that alone, he deserves to win.
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