Best Supporting Actor 1963

[Mister Tee]

Well, I'll confirm one thing Italiano said -- this has been going way too fast (especially with the Big Night taking up most of our energy). Here I am only getting to it a week on.

But I'll dispute his other contention, and say that I, perhaps alone, find Melvyn Douglas an insufferably sanctimonious bore in Hud. I'm perfectly fond of him as an actor in general -- and will heartily endorse his second award down the pike -- but I find his character dreary (enough that many audiences at the time were rooting on the vile Hud) and the performance drab.

Not that there's a lot else on display. Nick Adams was adequate in the mediocrity Twilight of Honor. John Huston seemed like a breakthrough at the time, simply because it wasn't known he could act at all, but he just did what we came to know as the standard Huston. And Bobby Darin was another in that long line of "entertainers showing dramatic chops" -- though in a cliched role, and a not particularly interesting film. (One of the rare duds singled out by the writers' branch)

Lacking alternative, I go for Hugh Griffith's funny work in Tom Jones. But I could just as easily abstain.

[ITALIANO]

I think we are going a bit too fast with these threads, but at least there's little to say on this one: Melvyn Douglas is the standout in a list of nominees which looks as if it was conceived just to make him win even more easily.

[Reza]

Quick question. It's Sunday. I always post on Sunday. Should I post or should we stall until we're done talking about the recent Awards?

Best to wait a couple of days. Tuesday may be a good day to post 1964.

[ksrymy]

Quick question. It's Sunday. I always post on Sunday. Should I post or should we stall until we're done talking about the recent Awards?

[Precious Doll]

My best performance of 1963 are:

1. Walter Matthau in Charade
2. Jorgen Lindstrom in The Silence
3. Melvyn Douglas in Hud
4. Brandon De Wilde in Hud
5. Paul Lynde in Bye Bye Birdie

[Big Magilla]

Bobby Darin plays a nut job and Nick Adams a dumb hick, both in undercooked films. Captain Newman, M.D. is the more popular, It was actually a big hit and Darin manages to hold his own against a big name cast headed by Gregory Peck and Tony Curtis, but it's not a very good movie. Adams more or less plays the Ben Gazzara role in Anatomy of a Murder in its poor cousin, Twilight of Honor. That film, however, was more notable for Richard Chamberlanin's big screen debut as a young lawyer and Claude Rains' last role as his mentor. Darin and Adams are both OK, but but not really award-worthy and were basically fill-ins.

The big scandal of the year was that Roddy McDowall wasn't nominated for Cleopatra because Fox listed the entire cast as leads and was therefore ineligible to compete in the supporting category. Although he was probably the best thing in that dreadful film, he wasn't really award worthy either. Brandon de Wilde as Paul Newman's impressionable nbephew in Hud and Burgess Meredith as the old, sickly pastor of a rundown parish who acts as Tom Tryon's first mentor in The Cardinal were robbed.

De Wilde at least got to accept co-star Melvyn Douglas' Oscar. In the days before Marlon Brando ruined it all by sending that starlet pretending to be an American Indian to refuse his Oscar for The Godfather one of the more interesting aspects of the Oscar show was seeing who the winners who couldn't be there designated as their stand-in. de Wilde, whose parents didn't even tell him about his own nomination for Shane ten years earlier was a welcome presence in his only Oscar appearance.

Douglas had a long career in Hollywood, first as leading man to a number of big female stars in the 1930s, then as the other man to an equally impressive number of big strs in the 1940s. and was married to former actress (She and Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas who lost her Congressional seat to Tricky Dick in 1950. It ws Melvyn Douglas who gave that epithet to Richard Nixon after he accused his wife of being soft on communism.

In the 1950s Douglas was outstanding in a number of TV shows, most notably Judgment at Nuremberg in the role Richard Widnark played on screen. He was also Paul Muni's Broadway replacement in Inherit the Wind opposite Ed Begley and won a Tony for The Best Man in the role Hnery Fonda would later play on screen.

It was a shock to see the suave, sophisticated Douglas back on screen as a weathered old man in 1962's Billy Budd in which he was wonderful in a small role. It was gratifying to see him in a major role as moralistic the old rancher in Hud. His role was actually larger than that of Patricia Neal who won the lead actress Oscar playing his housekeeper.

Douglas' win was no easy feat. He was up against two very strong nominees. Hugh Griffith never had a better role than that of the lusty old squire in Tom Jones and John Huston, who had previously only acted in bit parts, mostly in his own films, was a revelation as the wily old Cardiinal in Otto Preminger's film of that name. Still, Douglas was the favorite and a deserved winner of the first of his two Oscars.

[MovieFan]

Douglas gave one of my favorite supporting performances.

[Reza]

This is a no brainer. Not only is Melvyn Douglas superb as the crusty father clashing with his shifty and ruthless son played by Paul Newman but it was also an award given to an extremely underrated actor who spent most of his career playing arm candy to a list of who's who of Hollywood's leading ladies. He played effortlessly in comedies and dramas opposite Garbo, Ann Harding, Irene Dunne, Kate Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Margaret Sullavan, Jean Arthur, Luise Rainer, Sylvia Sidney, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young and Merle Oberon.

My picks for 1963:

1. Melvyn Douglas, Hud
2. Brandon De Wilde, Hud
3. John Huston, The Cardinal
4. Hugh Griffith, Tom Jones
5. Burgess Meredith, The Cardinal

The 6th Spot: Walter Matthau, Charade

[ksrymy]

I can't vote as I haven't seen Adams or Darin.

My picks
_____________
1.) Melvyn Douglas - Hud
2.) Walter Matthau - Charade
3.) John Huston - The Cardinal
4.) Burgess Meredith - The Cardinal
5.) Brandon de Wilde - Hud

6.) Hugh Griffith - Tom Jones