Best Supporting Actor 1953

[Mister Tee]

We discussed Strauss a while back. An annoying performance; I guess the worst ever nominted from a Wilder movie.

Eddie Albert, for me, does what Damien felt Dean Jagger did in Twelve O'Clock High -- he hangs around while a good movie goes on around him, but I never feel he does much of anything to contribute.

I've never been much a fan of Shane -- not when I first saw it in high school, not as an adult. Brandon DeWilde feels whiny to me. Jack Palance is an effective enough villain, but a standard one; he has nowhere near the panache of, say, Widmark in Kiss of Death.

I've already described how great a role From Here to Eternity played in the development of my movie-loving gene. Frank Sinatra's peformance was one of the many things in it I swooned over at the ge of 13. (I have some old jottings on Oscar winners, and next to this one I wrote "Possibly the best of all supporting acting"). Needless to say, I'll pull back some from that youngster's hyperbole. The role was a breakthrough for Sinatra, but not because he found a new persona. (As Johnny Fontane says in The Godfather, the reason he wants the role is because it fits him like a glove -- he only has to be himself) But playing such a sympathetic role, in such a powerful movie, was bound to revitalize the career of a crooner, and Sinatra made the most of it. It's not what I thought back in the 60s, but it's easily the pick of this crop.

[The Original BJ]

Not the best lineup.

When I saw Stalag 17 a number of years ago, I assumed that who-I-know-now-as Otto Preminger was the film's supporting actor nominee. His performance is the kind of commanding, witty villain that has often been nominated in the Supporting Actor category. It wasn't until fairly recently, when comments about Robert Strauss were posted on this board in another thread, that I realized my mistake. I can't blame myself too much, though, for assuming that Strauss's silly, grating shenanigans wouldn't have placed him anywhere near Oscar consideration.

I think Roman Holiday is a rather delightful movie, and I guess Eddie Albert is pleasant enough in his role, but the role isn't much of a challenge, and you have to assume enthusiasm for his film got him this nomination more than affection for his individual work.

Shane's reputation as one of popular cinema's classics has always baffled me. I first saw the film in elementary school, after we had read the novel in class, and even at nine years old I found the thing silly. I revisited the movie in college, and liked it even less. I love many westerns, and don't share Damien's disdain for George Stevens...but I just find the whole affair pretty thin, and don't see the depth in it that many obviously do.

As for the nominated performances, I can't say I'm much more enthusiastic about them. I think Brandon de Wilde is terrific a decade on in Hud, but here he was basically a shrill child, made to seem even more awkward by some really clumsy reaction shots. Jack Palance is definitely the superior of the two, bringing at least some authority to his role, but it's a stock villain through and through.

Obviously, that leaves Frank Sinatra, who gets my vote without any hesitation. He brought to his Maggio the charm and coolness that had characterized his persona as a singer -- I don't actually think this role is as against-type as some do -- but he used those qualities only as a jumping off point for a rich characterization that ultimately becomes very heartbreaking and tragic. And I agree with ksrymy -- his last scene in the movie just slays me every time. He's the only acceptable choice, by me.

[ITALIANO]

I wouldn't say that Frank Sinatra's turn in From Here to Eternity was such a great artistic achievement; a nice, sympathetic performance, certainly, and he was a famous singer finally proving that he could "act" after a series of unimpressive movies. Plus, he was in the "big" dramatic movie of the year.

This is why he won back then. And this is why I'm voting for him today: there's no alternative. Eddie Albert is pleasant in Roman Holiday, and it's great to see how obviously excited he was at being in this important movie, made by an important director, with at least an important co-star - and, probably the main reason, at spending a period in the glorious, sunny Rome of the early-50s. But his isn't the greatest role ever.

Jack Palance doesn't really have much to do - except being menacing - in Shane, and Brandon de Wilde - while admittedly a believable child by American cinema standards - is honest and endearing, but an Oscar for him would probably be too much.

And I won't even spend too many words about Robert Strauss's dreadful, irritating performance in Stalag 17...

So, yes, even I voted for Frank Sinatra.

[Big Magilla]

Sinatra will no doubt win his one, and deservedly so, but I voted for de Wilde, the best child actor of his day, a fine teenage actor a decade later and a one was sadly gone too soon early in the decade after that.

The less said about Robert Struass' buffoonery in Stalag 17 the better. I'm fine with Eddie Albert's sidekick nomination for Roman Holiday, but I thought Van Heflin, not Jck Palance, should have gotten teh second nomination in this category for Shane. The year's best menacing performance was not Plance's, but Jay Robinson's as Caligula in The Robe.

[Reza]

Strauss is the comic relief in Stalag 17 and was in the original Broadway production of the play. His nomination is a head scratcher. The other nominees are all good. Some, like Eddie Albert (also the comic relief), got swept in along with the nominations for the film. Sinatra is clearly the standout in a film full of wonderful performances.

My picks for 1953:

1. Frank Sinatra, From Here to Eternity
2. Lee Marvin, The Big Heat
3. Brandon de Wilde, Shane
4. Van Heflin, Shane
5. Jack Palance, Shane


The 6th Spot: Eddie Albert, Roman Holiday

[ksrymy]

I, like everyone else here, will immediately dismiss Strauss on the grounds that it is probably the worst, most useless nomination ever. It's an embarrassing role that got swept up with the claim for the film. So many better people could have filled his spot.

Next to go, for me, is probably Jack Palance. Did he just carry over acclaim from 1952's nomination or what?

Eddie Albert is next. I do love Roman Holiday but he is hardly the film's standout.

So it's between the young Mr. de Wilde and the man whose career was revived by this role Mr. Sinatra. Both are fantastic every time they come on screen. de Wilde is tender, soft, and touching but Sinatra is as well. de Wilde is the scene stealer in Shane but Sinatra is the scene stealer in From Here to Eternity.

What it ultimately boils down to, for me at least, is that de Wilde's role does not reach Anna Paquin-level child acting tour-de-forceness. Sinatra is probably the best thing about From Here to Eternity and he is the only actor in that film who deserved an Oscar as Thelma Ritter was far better than Donna Reed and Clift was leagues better in I Confess than he was in Eternity in the same year. Sinatra's Maggio is fantastic because it doesn't rely on Frank Sinatra's persona at all to carry itself (despite the Italian-ness). It was a beautiful change-of-pace and, I'll admit it, I cry every time during his last words in the film. A very well-deserved Oscar by any standards.

My Picks
________________________________________
1. Frank Sinatra - From Here to Eternity
2. John Gielgud - Julius Caesar
3. Lee Marvin - The Big Heat
4. Brandon de Wilde - Shane
5. Karl Malden - I Confess