A lusty bar owner, a vengeful hooker, a teenage wallflower, a doomed secretary, and a sexually liberated suffragette made up the Best Supporting Actress quintet for 1960.
That shortlist found room for two established Hollywood stars (Glynis Johns and Janet Leigh), both overdue for their first nominations, two rising starlets named Shirley (Jones & Knight) and an acclaimed Scottish import (Mary Ure). They all caught Oscar's attention and it didn't hurt that their films were so popular (all but Dark at the Top of the Stairs were major contenders in multiple categories, and Dark surely intended to be, being a prestige transfer from Broadway). This resulted in one of the most homogenous lineups ever -- all blondes (though Glynis was a redhead for her role) and from their early 20s to mid 30s (average age: 29).
Here to talk about these five nominated turns and the movies that housed them (Psycho, The Sundowners, Sons and Lovers, Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and Elmer Gantry) are writer/director Leslye Headland (Russian Doll, Bachelorette), theater and screenwriter Peter Duchan (Dogfight), freelance critic Kyle Turner, and your Film Experience co-hosts Murtada Elfadl and Nathaniel R
1960
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST
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Glynis Johns as "Mrs Firth" in The Sundowners
Synopsis: A flirtatious bar manager in the Outback, becomes close to a visiting family and dates their drover companion who doesn't want to be pinned down.
Stats: Then 37 yrs old, 39th film, 4th billed ("co-starring Glynis Johns"). First and only nomination. 9 minutes of screen time (or 7% of the running time)
Peter Duchan: Huge Glynis Johns fan here. “Mary Poppins” (obvi) but also “Miranda” and “The Card”—and “A Little Night Music” on stage. This performance feels like it doesn’t dip far into her talent well. She’s bright and bubbly and bawdy, using her big eyes to good effect. I hate to dismiss the warmth she’s capable of portraying. But it all feels one-note, even ungrounded, in this outing. She’s good here but she can do so much more when given the opportunity. ♥♥♥
Leslye Headland: Lord this movie was boring. I love that only good stuff is Australian B-roll shot by Nicholas Roeg. Johns is great as usual. Always reliably funny. Always slightly heart-breaking. Always a sly feminist twist. But this is a cameo not supporting. ♥♥
Kyle Turner: I had nightmares of Johns’ screechy, cacophonous Australian “accent”, which really sounds little different from her accent in Mary Poppins, for a couple days. It makes that she was nominated inasmuch as she’s very showy, but it’s both a nothing character and a nothing performance. ♥
Murtada Elfadl: The Sundowners is a dull movie about dull people with dull problems. So I was grateful for Glynis Johns. She comes in loud, talking a mile a minute and gives this dull show a jolt of life. It’s a turn rather than a performance. A very fussy turn. Johns adopts an unnatural affected voice, never relaxes her face and flaps her arms around constantly. Yet she’s the reason I didn't fall asleep. Her and the close ups of the sheep. ♥♥
Nathaniel R: Glynis Johns was certainly worthy of Oscar recognition in her career -- we wish they'd proceed with an Honorary, in point of fact. This role is essentially an extended cameo for comic relief but she almost brings a full character. Watch the way her body language stiffens and calculates with a control that's present in no other scenes when two of her suitors are eyeing each other suspiciously. Or the unexpectedly light way she handles getting dumped, as if its little more than spilt beer to clean up. She reassuringly pats the clumsy baby who spilled it (aka the man who just dumped her). "We've had a lot of fun, no harm done." This woman has been in all of these scenarios before with men just like him; it rolls right off her. ♥♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: "A delightfully fruity performance, bursting through her scenes like a gust of wind while staying as attuned to characterization as her co-stars. " - Nick T (Reader average: ♥♥¾)
Actress earns 13¾ ❤s
Shirley Jones as "Lulu Bains" in Elmer Gantry
Synopsis: A hooker seeks to either reunite with or take vengeance on a preacher she once slept with. She isn't sure which she'll choose just yet.
Stats: Then 26 yrs old, 6th film, 5th billed. Her first and only nomination. 16 minutes of screentime (or 11% of the running time)
Peter Duchan: Good girl plays bad but she still seems kinda good. Very Donna Reed in “From Here to Eternity.” Jones hits all the beats in her scenes but it never feels authentic or lived in to me. The rooms around her feel suspiciously like scenery. I kept thinking about her contract with the studio. It’s not a particularly satisfying performance, despite her presence and competence. The role feels as small as it is in her hands. ♥♥♥
Leslye Headland: The polar opposite of Leigh. Stunt casting that nearly sinks the movie. Her floundering performance drags what was a compelling morally ambiguous narrrative into schlock. I love Jones’ work but she is wildly out of place here. Even her intro is shot like Laurey in Oklahoma only in a brothel. Her win is Hollywood rewarding the “good girl” for play-acting “sex work”. ♥
Kyle Turner: Jones is best when she recognizes that she’s another side of the same coin that Elmer himself is: exploiting human weakness for capital gain. Her role as a sex worker is not so much different in its desire to channel a very human experience and funnel it into a means of business. Desire and faith aren’t so far apart. She’s best when she’s scheming against Elmer, though her reversal as someone who backs away from calling a spade a spade is disappointing. ♥♥♥♥
Murtada Elfadl: Her character might be a cliche whose actions don’t always make sense, but Shirley Jones finds the truth in the small gestures. The way she determinedly brushes her hair, the way she puts on her robe, instead of taking it off, to seduce Elmer. Even in implausible situations, like her scene with Jean Simmons, the conviction and force of her delivery carries us through. Jones is an example of a great actress saving a bad character. ♥♥♥♥
Nathaniel R: My feelings on this performance are as hard to pin down as Lulu's feelings about Elmer Gantry. Jones is dazzlingly irreverent in her first scene -- Jones lets you see that she slips into "performance" mode as often as Gantry himself, which might explain her fixation -- but the performance isn't consistent, usually only selling one emotion at a time. Still, she's good enough that I always wish she were actually deserving of the Oscar she probably sailed to. Her best and most complicated scene is the entrapment scene with Gantry, but even then the emotions aren't so much multi-faceted as multiple. She turns on a dime. ♥♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: "Of course the casting against type helped her win the prize. As for the performance itself she’s saucy, sexy and relishes her spitefulness lacing her scenes with a tough interior manipulation" - James N. (Reader average: ♥♥♥)
Actress earns 18 ❤s
Shirley Knight as "Reenie Flood" in Dark at the Top of the Stairs
Synopsis: A shy young girl experiences love and heartbreak for the first time with a Jewish boy from a neighboring boarding school, all while her parent's marriage is coming undone.
Stats: Then 24 yrs old, 3rd film, 5th billed. First of two nominations. 36 minutes of screen time (or 29% of the running time).
Peter Duchan: Why oh why would the Academy nominate this sniveling performance when Angela Lansbury (dignified, proud) and Eve Arden (prickly, loquacious) both turn in much more persuasive performances in the same film? Not that Knight is untalented. (I quite like her work in “Petulia” and “Sweet Bird of Youth.”) But she’s not given anything interesting to play here. Shy, innocent, somewhat ethereal teenager. Truly the least engaging performance in her film—and in the whole category. ♥♥
Leslye Headland: This film is so dispassionately shot I couldn’t get a good look at this performance to be honest. But my impression is that Knight is sort of lost here. She’s compelling but she doesn’t have much to do beyond being virginal and overwhelmed. Angela Lansbury had an infinitely more interesting role/performance here. ♥♥
Kyle Turner: Knight is given a little bit of a thankless role as the daughter of two sexually frustrated Depression-era parents. She is anxious about her own viability as an object of love and desire until she falls for a Jewish guy, who faces anti-Semintism. She’s a teenager. She is a teenager in a melodrama. The complexities of her situation are less about her and more about her boyfriend, Sam. She’s fine, and yet somehow the least interesting performance in the film. ♥♥
Murtada Elfadl: What magic spell did Shirley Knight cast on Oscar voters to notice her and ignore both Angela Lansbury and Eve Arden in the same film? She’s listless for most of her screen time, and merely serviceable in the big emotional moments. Probably the worst performance in a film that has many good ones. WTF, Academy? ♥
Nathaniel R: Shy and naive doesn't have to read as mentally slow, Shirley! I've enjoyed Knight in other films but though she sells the virginal goodheartedness of Reenie, there's not much to any of her scenes beyond downcast eyes, boy-crush nervousness, and a few childish tears. It's the kind of performance people might say "so pure!" about with patronizing affection, but the themes and events surrounding Reenie's journey call for a more complex characterization. ♥
Reader Write-Ins: "Pretty and soft. I just wanted more from her. Movie resolves so easily by sending her away. Could have been more interesting having her refract some of her parents’ tensions." - Pat (Reader average: ♥♥¼)
Actress earns 10¼ ❤s
Janet Leigh as "Marion Crane" in Psycho
Synopsis: A secretary who impulsively steals money from her boss gets the hell out of town. Filled with guilt, she stops at a remote motel to collect herself.
Stats: Then 33 yrs old, 22nd film, 13th billed but she gets her own title card ("and Janet Leigh as Marion Crane"). First and only nomination. 42 minutes of screentime (or 39% of the running time.)
Peter Duchan: A fascinating performance. She rarely seems all that human but she’s kinda perfect in the role. She’s cold and withdrawn but the camera is right in her face, she can’t escape it. She’s anxious, we’re anxious. I had never seen this movie (but knew all the major plot points) and I absolutely loved it. The photography, the exquisite tension, the score. It’s so terrific. And Leigh’s portion is the highlight. ♥♥♥♥
Leslye Headland: The best kind of movie star performance. All face. Even the rotating post shower-murder single is a glamour shot. It’s just perfection. Leigh takes a blank slate, shades in just enough character work and let’s your psyche do the rest. ♥♥♥♥♥
Kyle Turner: She’s shifty, devious, presented as the object of the gaze, and she dies. It could be argued that it isn’t Janet Leigh who’s punished by murder not even halfway into the film, but maybe the audience for being entranced in the first place. For being a little bit complicit. Perhaps the greatness of the performance is that it’s sort of blank; Leigh must only betray a modicum of interiority, so that she can leave room for the audience to unwittingly identify with her. ♥♥♥♥
Murtada Elfadl: Despite being in unquestionally the best film of the five nominated in this category - perhaps the only good one - I find myself struggling to write about Leigh. Perhaps because the classic film is not about its performances per se but about its mise en scène and the effect it puts on us. Leigh probably secured this nomination with her brilliant reaction shots to Anthony Perkins talking about his mother being his best friend. ♥♥♥
Nathaniel R: The first time I saw Leigh in this movie I thought she was wooden. Oh how young and foolish, I was. Now I can't imagine any better calibration for this role. Her stylized line readings, the stiff posture, the emotional opaqueness around her peculiar impulses (relationship ultimatums, then the money, then the car trade-in whaaa?). It all works to make Marion as mysterious as Norman, minus the body count. This time through I particularly loved the minimalism of her emotional shifts with Norman (despite all the warning signs) paired with the maximalism of her anxiety in the car; she's so inside her own head, that her radar for danger is topsy-turvy. ♥♥♥♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: "So much of Leigh in this film is iconic even long before the shower scene. Without this performance Psycho would not be the same film. Janet Leigh in that car walked so Nicole Kidman at the opera in Birth could run... and many other closeups of actresses in films could also run. Leigh like everything in Psycho is perfect." -Eoin D (Reader average: ♥♥♥♥⅓)
Actress earns 25⅓ ❤s
Mary Ure as "Clara Daws" in Sons and Lovers
Synopsis: A suffragette who wants all the freedom begins a love affair with a moody co-worker only to realize she still loves her husband.
Stats: Then 27 yrs old, 4th film, 4th billed. First and only nomination. 24 minutes of screentime (or 23% of the running time).
Peter Duchan: This one surprised me. I expected something stodgy and put on. Instead, Ure is sexy, mature, confident. And she doesn’t give away the game. She plays her cards close enough to her chest and keeps us curious. I never quite felt I understood her—in a good way. She felt human in her contradictions and stubbornness. ♥♥♥♥
Leslye Headland: Great example of a solid “supporting” performance. This is a beautifully shot and written film that is all about intersecting relationships. So Ure nicely underplays her part: “Eve cowering out of paradise”. She doesn’t pull focus and she doesn’t disappoint. ♥♥♥
Kyle Turner: I, for one, love a movie about sons who want to fuck their mothers. Ure is good, as the femininst worker who encourages Paul to get over himself, maybe seek therapy. She’s good at playing vacant, in terms of addressing how Paul is disappointing in bed even though he ostensibly has more to offer her than her ex husband. But she’s more a tool to solidify just how dysfunctional his relationship with his mother is, and ironically, has little agency in her own right ♥♥♥
Murtada Elfadl: In the fucked-up-about-sex-world of Sons and Lovers; Mary Ure’s Clara Dawes is the lone sane and rational character. She’s forthright, has the courage of her convictions while everyone else is utterly confused. Ure imbues Clara with a calm serenity that gravitates the eye towards her. I found myself nodding at all of Clara’s arguments about why Paul is into her. Not because they made sense but because the performance did. However she's supposed to bring the sex to these unsexy rural folk, and that never quite happens. ♥♥♥
Nathaniel R: Sons and Lovers plays a lot of anguished lip-service to the dangers of romantic love, and the need and difficulty of giving all of yourself to someone else. Ure nails the aspects of Clara that are meant to riff on these questions. She fascinates intermittently but never quite unnerves (which I think she's supposed to?) and her more overtly feminist scenes underwhelm (how does she feel about the other women she marches with or her co-workers?) Is the actress holding back a little or is it the disappointing arc of the role, her complexities reduced by love, that keeps this performance in the very-good but not-quite great range? ♥♥♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: " Wise, weary and aware, Ure gives a caustic performance as the divorced suffragette who clings to a precarious sense of freedom, which, initially seems cold and cynical. Slowly her contradictions, allegiances and muddled humanity reveal a woman who is as vulnerable and confused as the protagonist, sans the mommy issues." - John V (Reader average: ♥♥♥¼)
Actress earns 20¼ ❤s
Shirley Jones won the Oscar with the advantage of a very popular film (which also took Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay) and what was then a traditionally awards-bait style role (hooker with a heart of gold). But the Smackdown disagrees and chooses Janet Leigh with a very comfortable margin of victory...
THE PODCAST CONVERSATION
Download and listen to the companion podcast right here at the bottom of the post, or on iTunes for a more in-depth discussion with our panelists about these five movies and the women who co-starred in them.
Other Smackdowns: 1941, 1943, 1944, 1948, 1952, 1954, 1963, 1964, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1989, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2003, 2016, 2017, and 2018 (prior to those 30+ Smackdowns were hosted @ StinkyLulu's old site)
NEXT UP? The 1957 Oscar race is coming soon. Watch: Peyton Place, Sayonara, Witness for the Prosecution, and The Bachelor Party before then to maximize your fun!