Best Supporting Actor 1974

[Reza]

My picks for 1974:

1. Robert De Niro, The Godfather Part II
2. John Huston, Chinatown
3. John Cazale, The Godfather, Part II
4. Fred Astaire, The Towering Inferno
5. John Gielgud, Murder on the Orient Express

The 6th Spot: Lee Strasberg, The Godfather Part II

[ITALIANO]

As her long awaited memoirs are about to be published, Valentina Cortese is now very popular in the talk-show circuit, wearing her trademark scarves and being treated as a queen or as a national monument by tv hosts and interviewers - after all, how many Italians can say that they have known both Garbo and Dietrich? She's one of the few local actresses who really had a Hollywood career, so she's asked lots of - not necessarily intelligent - questions about the stars she met or worked with, and of course those she found most attractive. And she keeps repeating that "the one I would have actually married was Fred Astaire: elegant, serious, profound, and a much better actor than some may think". By coincidence, they were both Oscar-nominated only once, in the same year, and famously lost. Cortese is right: Astaire gave a number of pleasant performances in his long career - but I'm sure that she wasn't referring to The Towering Inferno, where he doesn't have much to do except looking worried. Had he won, it would be remembered today as a Helen-Hayes-in-Airport kind of victory, which isn't exactly a good thing. Sometimes no Oscar is better - for an actor's reputation - than a wrong Oscar.

I don't know if Jeff Bridges has already won one of our Oscars in the Best Actor category - if he hasn't, he'll definitely end up Oscarless here, which is a bit unfair but understandable because his best, most interesting performances weren't Oscar-nominated. I voted for him for what I think is even today among his best work - The Last Picture Show - but while still young and not exactly a mature actor, even his turn in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot isn't completely negligible.

The Godfather saga is full of legendary actor giving - at least in the first two movies - legendary performances. It's true that one can probably find better potential nominees in Part 2 - better than Michael V. Gazzo, I mean, who still creates a quite believable human being in the movie. But Lee Strasberg and Robert De Niro are definitely deserving; Strasberg has one of the best characters in sight, and my pick, the young, intense, unpredictable De Niro - so different from the mechanical and sometimes mannered actor he'd become later in his life - is just memorable, in a way that young actors rarely are anymore.

[Big Magilla]

Fred Astaire was viewed as the overwhelming favorite, on the presumption the triple-split ballot was invariably fatal. And, after the grisly results a year prior, there was no reason to doubt the Academy's grotesque sentimentality. Thank god they showed decent taste here, because Astaire's "performance" was a walk-through nothing -- had a Fred Smith given the same performance, the nomination would have been an all-time "Huh?"
.

Well, no, he was the favorite because he was Fred Astaire. He won the Golden Globe over a field of actors that did not include anyone from Godfather II. The competition consisted of John Huston in Chinatown; Eddie Albert in The Longest Yardand both Bruce Dern and Sam Waterston in The Great Gatsby. Charles Boyer had won the New York Film Critics Award for Stavisky which was not released in L.A. in time for consideration, and Holger Lowenadler had won the National Board of Review and National Society of Film Critics Awards for Lacombe, Lucien. A year later Astaire won the BAFTA over Burgess Meredith in The Day of the Locust;Jack Warden in Shampoo and Martin Balsam in Taking Pelham One Two Three. The only actor from Godfather II to receive a nomination frm either the Globes or BAFTA was the film's star, Al Pacino.

As for actors and performance, I can't see anyone else except maybe Boyer bringing as much to the part as Astaire did. Indeed, if William Holden and Astaire had switched roles in the film, I don't think it would have worked. Was it great acting? No, but it was the right fit for the right actor at the time. If Jack Palance, Brando's replacement on Broadway, had played Stanley Kowalski in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire would we still care about the film sixty years later? If anyone other than Meryl Streep had played The Iron Lady would they have even gotten an Oscar nomination, much less the win? The Oscars went crazy for the Godfather II unlike any other awards organization at the time. It was Chinatown, another Paramount film that was the presumptive favorite, and I dare say, the right choice, at the time.

[Precious Doll]

Interesting reading that Fred Astaire was the favorite, I'd wondered about that given his legendary status, though like everyone else in the film he just performs the standard disaster movie shlock.

My choices:

1. Robert De Niro for The Godfather Part 2
2. John Cazale for The Godfather Part 2
3. Arno Juerging for Flesh For Frankenstein
4. Garrett Graham for Phantom of the Paradise
5. Warren Oates for Badlands

[Bruce_Lavigne]

I'll echo the consensus that Huston was robbed, and toss a word of support to Allan Garfield, whose performance in The Conversation is highly underrated IMO. Not sure if he'd be among my personal nominees (the already-mentioned Gielgud and Feldman are on my radar as well, and I fall squarely into the camp that holds Cazale as not only the standout supporting actor in Godfather II but of the whole year), but he deserves to have a mention thrown his way, I think.

As for the nominees, while neither Gazzo nor Strasberg is as negligible in Godfather II as they're sometimes made out to be, they're certainly not quite award-worthy. And nothing from The Towering Inferno stands out in any particularly positive way. Bridges is characteristically very good in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, but like most of his nominated performances, it has me scratching my head every time I hear somebody say that Crazy Heart was not the best chance to give him his Oscar.

De Niro is the clear standout of the group. His Mean Streets and Bang the Drum Slowly performances from the previous year seem to have put him into the public consciousness as an already fully-formed talent, yet here he improves on both, creating a character that not only seamlessly comes across as the young man Marlon Brando's iconic Vito from the first film must have once been, but adds a tender protectiveness and quiet but fierce ambition that would have characterized the young immigrant/family man looking to make his way in the world. I still hold Cazale's work from the same film in slightly higher esteem, but with him not nominated, De Niro is the clear choice.

[Mister Tee]

1974 was a strong year, and both lead acting categories were teeming with solid entrants (and that's with candidates like Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfuss and Goldie Hawn left out). But both supporting slates were super-thin: the female side relied on a year-old foreign performance for respectability, and this group was utterly dependent on one film. Imagine if Godfather II had, like its predecessor, been delayed till Spring. God knows what weak performance might have won here.

Though I'd expected Huston to be nominated as adjunct to the best picture run, I don't think his omission is unforgivable -- he did mostly the standard Huston thing. Sam Waterston was widely singled out as the sole redeeming factor in Gatbsy, so a nod for him wouldn't have been a shocker. For myself, I'd have considered Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein, but, most of all, John Cazale, who may not be quite as dominant as his latter day reputation would claim, but certainly rates the slot above Michael Gazzo.

The Jeff Bridges nod came out of complete nowhere for me. I'd never bothered to see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, till much later, on HBO. I presume (SPOILER ALERT) it was the graphic final scene, along with general category apathy, that got him the slot. In a decent year he'd have got nowhere.

Fred Astaire was viewed as the overwhelming favorite, on the presumption the triple-split ballot was invariably fatal. And, after the grisly results a year prior, there was no reason to doubt the Academy's grotesque sentimentality. Thank god they showed decent taste here, because Astaire's "performance" was a walk-through nothing -- had a Fred Smith given the same performance, the nomination would have been an all-time "Huh?"

Of the Godfather boys...Gazzo's mention came from the blue, but he was certainly memorable in the film. When word first broke on the film, Strasberg was actually the one touted -- mostly because he was, like Houseman the year before, a long-time behind the scenes player suddenly bursting forth. He, too, was certainly worthy. But Robert DeNiro, who the critics had already fallen behind a year earlier, was the standout, and the clear choice if one of the three was to win. I salute that choice, and echo it.

[Big Magilla]

De Niro mertisa nomination but he was much better in the previous year's Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets either of which should habve gotten him a Best Actor nod in a very weak yer for lead actors, so he does not get a vote from me here.

Jeff Bridges' nomination must have been for being the first guy to wear a dress in a Clint Eastwood movie. There really isn;t anything notwworthy about the performance.

Stragberg barelymertisa nod; Gazzonot at al. And, yes, John Huston, should have bene nominated for Chinatown which I just watched last night for the umpteenth time.

The major omission here is Holger Lowenadler in Lacombe, Lucien.

The award, though, belongs to Fred Astaire, then enjoying a career resurgence with the realease of That's Entertainment. His performance in The Twering Inferno is sweet if hardly earth-shattering, but his failue to win is a head-scratcher in liught of the weak competition and the fact this category often honors the oldest nomine, even when they are much less a legend than Astaire. It is especially grating this year in light of other nostaglia category wins by Art Carney and Ingrid Bergman.

[Sabin]

The omission I'm truly baffled by is John Huston's for Chinatown. I find it impossible to believe that more voters were impressed by Gazzo and Strasberg than John Huston's Noah Cross. Revisionist history suggests that John Cazale gave the best supporting performance in perhaps all of the Godfather films, the one that we now agree haunts all the films. Just as DeNiro created the modern day "Johnny Boy", Cazale created the "Fredo" figure. But Huston's performance seems designed for a nom if not a win. Was it the uncomfortable nature of his character or was it the actors choosing other actors over a working director?

I haven't seen The Towering Inferno or Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, so I can't vote here. Not a lot of overlap with the Golden Globes who cited Astaire and that's it! They chose Eddie Albert for The Longest Yard, Bruce Dern and Sam Waterston for The Great Gatsby (a film I understood to be a flop), and John Huston.

[mlrg]

Robert De Niro - The Godfather: Part II

[MovieFan]

I feel a little bad that Jeff Bridges will never win one of these polls lol. He's one of the most consistent american actors, even more so than De Niro, but I just cant vote for him over De Niro's masterpiece of a performance here.

My personal line up:
1) Robert De Niro- The Godfather Part 2
2) John Cazale- The Godfather Part 2
3) John Huston- Chinatown
4) Jeff Bridges- Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
5) Gene Hackman- Young Frankenstein (guilty pleasure)

[ksrymy]

This is a subpar year. Nothing as great as we've seen in the previous three or four years in this category.

I still need to see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot but I've never been big on Jeff Bridges so I don't think this would affect my decision.

Of the remaining four, the only one I would not nominate would be Gazzo. Strasberg gets recognition not only for his legacy in acting but for a deserving performance as well. He brings another dimension to the second Godfather that is refreshing and tense. De Niro is obviously the standout and I do not have a problem with his victory here. His recognition for his two standout films the year before finally ushered him into the spotlight and he landed a stellar role here and gave a performance better than Brando gave two years earlier.

But I'm giving this to Fred Astaire. Even though I've only been here a short time, if you've bothered to read my drivel, you know that I hate swan song nominations, but this is a magical performance much like Geraldine Page's win, and unlike Paul Newman's, in the sense that it may be his best-acted role. Astaire gets to play with his previous stereotypical roles with unease and would have been a marvelous winner in this category.

Massively snubbed was the greatest, most subtle film villain ever: John Huston as Noah Cross in the year's best film Chinatown. He easily should have taken Gazzo's spot. Also snubbed on a grand scale was Harvey Korman's delicious take on the hammy old villains of the West in Blazing Saddles (who, sadly, lost his self-proclaimed shot at the Oscar when he lost the final battle).

My picks
___________________________
1) Harvey Korman - Blazing Saddles
2) John Huston - Chinatown
3) Fred Astaire - The Towering Inferno
4) Marty Feldman - Young Frankenstein
5) Robert De Niro - The Godfather: Part II

6) John Gielgud - Murder on the Orient Express