In the Supporting Actress Smackdown series we take a particular Oscar vintage and explore it with a panel of artists and journalists. This time we're talking 1957
THE ACTRESSES & CHARACTERS
In 1957 Oscar voters were in the mood for fresh faces. Four rising stars (Hope Lange, Carolyn Jones, Miyoshi Umeki, and Diane Varsi) were honored along with one Old Hollywood mainstay, the Bride of Frankenstein herself (Elsa Lanchester). The shortlisted characters were a counter culture partygoer, an exasperated nurse, a Japanese newlywed, and two 18 year-old besties in a small town with both love and grief on their minds.
THE PANELISTS
Here to talk about these performances and movies are filmmaker Q Allan Brocka, theater and film critic Kenji Fujishima, Be Kind Reward's Izzy, film critic Kimberly Pierce, writer/ director/ archivist Brett Wood and your host Nathaniel R. Let's begin...
1957
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST
The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page...
Carolyn Jones as "The Existentialist" in The Bachelor Party
Synopsis: A promiscuous Greenwich Village woman meets a young married man having a quarter life crisis at a swinging party.
Stats: Then 27 yrs old, 13th (credited) film, 7th billed. First and only nomination. 6 minutes of screen time (or 6% of the running time)
Q Allan Brocka: A scene stealer for sure… but she only had two scenes to steal. ♥♥♥
Kenji Fujishima: As far as I can tell, Carolyn Jones scored a nomination as "The Existentialist" for playing easily the most interesting female character in The Bachelor Party: the most self-possessed, liberated, and unconventional. Jones adds an aura of mystery that actively fights against screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's middle-class conventionality, in which Charlie's (Don Murray) decision to ditch her in favor of returning to his soul-killing middle-class life with wife Helen (Patricia Smith) is painted as an unironic triumph. For this writer, at least, the Existentialist was too good for him anyway. ♥♥♥
Izzy: What a surprising screenplay for a film called The Bachelor Party! I suppose one should expect the unexpected from Chayefsky. Carolyn Jones might have the shortest screen time of the women on this list and seems to exist more as a plot device or a symbol than as a real person (her character is referred to simply and delightfully as 'The Existentialist'), but she makes every moment count. I like how alien she feels to Charlie—burdened only by trivial run-ins with her landlord and picking out whichever man she desires. She is clear and confident, perhaps to the point of narcissism, and her speech runs like a current, constant and rhythmic, playful and responsive only to its own whims. I'm sad to say that I don't know much about Carolyn Jones beyond her iconic turn as Morticia Addams, but this performance made me excited to check out her work. ♥♥♥
Kimberly Pierce: Carolyn Jones' performance overall is pretty short in the scope of The Bachelor Party, but Jones is doing very interesting work. She easily captures the struggles this woman is undoubtedly experiencing; however, she’s limited by the script. Ultimately, her character doesn’t even have a name. Though, this isn’t to knock Jones’ performance. I do believe that if she'd had a little more screen time to develop this fascinating woman, the award could have been hers. ♥♥
Brett Wood: With just a few appearances, Jones manages to steal the film — remarkable considering the brevity of her scenes and the caliber of the supporting cast. Playing a common ‘50s stereotype — the beatnik — she could have gone for the easy laugh, but instead, Jones endows “The Existentialist” with a fiery intensity that startles both her scene partner and the audience. With her jagged bangs and stream-of-consciousness dialogue she feels like an alien presence in the film’s working-class Manhattan milieu. And at that moment when she suddenly exposes her emotional hunger — revealing it to Don Murray like an open wound — it is both unexpected and deeply moving. ♥♥♥♥
Nathaniel R: In a middling field of nominees this was the slam-dunk winner for me in a completely original role. While much great acting rests on revealing interior depth, that's not always the case in supporting parts where sometimes the skill is more in conveying possibilities of character. "The Existentialist" remains unknowable but Jones is so ultra specific, and so perfectly cast and styled with her enormous eyes and pixie cut, that she leaves a huge impression. And in this kind of role, isn't that the primary ask? After all four movies hers was the single character I couldn't stop thinking about. ♥♥♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: "Loved it, loved it, loved it. Such effortless ranting, those huge eyes, the mood change, the trouble and traumas we have to imagine by ourselves. " - Jacob M (Reader average: ♥♥¾)
Actress earns 21¾ ❤s
Elsa Lanchester as "Miss Plimsoll" in Witness for the Prosecution
Synopsis: A personal health care nurse tries to keep her stubborn just-out-of-the-hospital client alive while he takes on another intense criminal trial.
Stats: Then 55 yrs old, 39th film, 4th billed. Her second (and final) nomination. 14 minutes of screentime (or 12% of the running time)
Q Allan Brocka: A bit broad but welcome comic relief. I would have liked to see more of her journey from a rule stickler to the "who gives a $#!&" approach to nursing. ♥♥♥
Kenji Fujishima: It's an unenviable task to have to play most of your scenes off a magnetically hammy Charles Laughton, especially in the type of role that's usually considered thankless. But not only does Elsa Lanchester (Laughton's wife) hold her own as private nurse Miss Plimsoll; she steals scenes from him and crafts a memorable characterization. The juicy screenplay—director Billy Wilder, Larry Marcus, and Harry Kurnitz's adaptation of a popular Agatha Christie play—deserves some credit for Lanchester's success. But the role would not have been half as memorable without her ebulliently exasperated yet empathetic conviction. ♥♥♥♥
Izzy: Undergirded by her insane chemistry with Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester delivers a wonderful supporting performance. The contrast of her perky disposition with his drooping scowl creates such a playful push and pull, drawn out masterfully by Billy Wilder, who captured the knowing, needling undertones that happen only between two people who've known each other for years. I can't say that she particularly stands out within this fantastic cast of actors, but she rounds out the ensemble very nicely and probably has the best material to work with in this category. ♥♥♥
Kimberly Pierce: One of my all-time favorite films. Watching it through once again, Elsa Lanchester's nomination does feel like a bit of a surprise. Like the Carolyn Jones role, this is a fairly small part. That being said, it is an utterly dynamic character part and Lanchester is amazing in it. However, when evaluating the nominees up against each other, Lanchester fades a bit into the background, likely receiving a nomination on her name and previous work than fully for this movie. ♥♥♥
Brett Wood: A wonderful character actress, Lanchester remained Oscar-less probably because she was seldom cast in the kind of flashy roles that Academy voters tend to reward. She is a delight to watch in Witness, as she is in any of her other performances: the curse of being a consummate professional. So while I appreciate the gesture of the nomination, it wouldn’t say much for her career if this were her win. With such a sterling reputation as an actress and memoirist, is a gold-plated statuette really necessary? ♥♥♥
Nathaniel R: A favourite insult directed at great actors getting nominated too easily is that they could do it 'in their sleep'. This might well be true of Lanchester's frankly awesome chemistry with Laughton -- her husband, who she made 12 pictures with and may have occassionally shared a bed with ;) -- but what a funny and perfectly-pitched nap this was! Just the way she held a syringe made me laugh out loud. Not remotely challenging but so what?! ♥♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: "All stiff blustery control and exasperation. She is a delightful component in this Agatha Christie murder mystery" -Joel6 (Reader average: ♥♥♥)
Actress earns 22 ❤s
Hope Lange as "Selena Cross" in Peyton Place
Synopsis: A poor girl, about to graduate high school in a gossipy small town, is raped by her stepfather. And that's just the first of her tragedies!
Stats: Then 24 yrs old, 3rd film, 7th billed ("with" Hope Lange). First (and only) nomination. 39 minutes of screen time (or 25% of the running time).
Q Allan Brocka: Certainly the meatiest role of the bunch. Her face as her doctor outs her rape in public is so perfectly complex and layered. It’s the most powerful moment in the entire film. ♥♥♥
Kenji Fujishima: Historically, having more than one cast member from the same film nominated in the same category has cancelled out both their chances for winning an Oscar. So it was with Hope Lange and Diane Varsi in Peyton Place. Based on sheer amount of screen time, Lange—playing Selena Cross, the victim of her drunken stepfather Lucas's (Arthur Kennedy) sexual abuse—is a more legit contender for the Supporting Actress category than the more prominent Varsi. Lange capably conveys Selena's teary-eyed desperation in trying to keep her incestuous past under wraps from the rest of the eponymous town's gossipy brethren. ♥♥♥
Izzy: Lange has the more challenging role of the two nominees from Peyton Place in this category. It requires extreme sensitivity and emotional intelligence to tamp down some of the more melodramatic elements of the screenplay into a believable package. But she overcorrects, and instead of falling in the trap of becoming overly emotional, she barely shows any emotion at all. It baffled me, that an actress would play a scene in which her friend moves away and a scene in which her darkest secret is revealed to the entire town with the exact same tenor of emotion. ♥♥
Kimberly Pierce: If the nominations had turned out differently I could easily see Lange as one to potentially upset. In fact, I wonder if this result would have even been different had Lange and Varsi not both received nominations. Lange is incredibly strong as Selena, a role which takes her through a tremendous amount of complex and meaty character material. Lange gives an incredibly nuanced performance for such a young actress. As a character, Selena is easy to root for and is very much the underdog and the heart of the movie. ♥♥♥♥
Brett Wood: As Selena, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks (as the locomotive sound effects occasionally remind us), Lange had to endure the greatest indignities of any character in this already sordid exposé of a small-town’s dirty secrets. She accomplishes the tearful breakdowns precisely on cue. But it’s hard not to feel disappointed by Lange’s everyday scenes, where she conveys little of the pain and disappointment of a girl coming to terms with the fact that she will not rise as high as her upwardly mobile classmates. Selena was meant to be positive and optimistic in spite of her social hardships, but another actress might have found a way to suggest cracks in her cheerful facade. ♥♥♥
Nathaniel R: She's gifted with the most traditionally Oscar-bound role in this lineup since the role is chalk-full of sympathy-inducing high drama: poverty, innocent love, long-suffering, violent victimization. She's really quite strong within her scenes of emotional paralysis but more nuance or variety in the other scenes would have helped gone along way towards making this role soar. ♥♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: "I have always had a real fondness for Hope Lange —she does a professional job as the ingenue from the wrong side of the tracks" - Robert K (Reader average: ♥♥♥¼)
Actress earns 21¼ ❤s
Miyoshi Umeki as "Katsumi" in Sayonara
Synopsis: A Japanese woman marries an airforce man against the military's wishes and then fears dissappointing him.
Stats: Then 28 yrs old, 2nd film, 6th billed. First (and only) nomination. 17 minutes of screentime (or 12% of the running time.)
Q Allan Brocka: As problematic as the role may seem, I’m not giving any shade to the only woman of Asian descent to EVER win an acting Oscar. Ever. Miyoshi Umeki’s Katsumi overflows with sweetness and I found myself wanting to hear her story over anyone else in the film. I wished the writer had fleshed her out more and given her the opportunity to provide more context to her tragic demise. Hell, this entire story should have been told from her perspective. ♥♥♥♥♥
Kenji Fujishima: Thankfully there's more to Miyoshi Umeki's performance in this well-intentioned but dated romantic melodrama than just her landmark Oscar win. Though she's playing a standard-issue submissive Japanese housewife, Umeki and costar Red Buttons (who also won an Oscar) are so convincing together as a couple in love that they enliven a film that otherwise might have drooped from Marlon Brando's aw-shucks Method mumbling in the lead role. Umeki's performance in Flower Drum Song five years later offers a fuller showcase of her talents, but her innate radiance still shines through beautifully in Sayonara. ♥♥♥♥
Izzy: There are some uncomfortable moments in this film that perpetuate stereotypes of Asian women, but I can't help but be astounded by what Miyoshi Umeki accomplishes in Sayonara. Of course, she remains the sole Asian woman to have won an acting Academy Award, a feat made more impressive by the fact that she primarily speaks her native language in the film (typically another difficult barrier to overcome). She has such a welcoming and warm spirit that allows the audience to understand why Captain Kelly would fall for her, even if we can't understand all of her dialogue. The fight over eye surgery is devastating. We don't get too much insight into Katsumi's inner life, which is a shame because I'd love to see Umeki take on more complex work. Still, I have to give credit to an actress who expresses both the light and dark in a small, yet poignant performance. ♥♥♥♥
Kimberly Pierce: Sayonara took me a little time to warm up to during my watch of the film, particularly as it relates to Umeki's performance. The actress is particularly understated and takes a back seat to the more dynamic performances of Brando and Red Buttons. However, by the second act it becomes clear that she is very much the heart of Sayonara. Despite her restrained performance, she’s magnetic and often pulls focus in her own quiet way. In this group of strong ladies, it is Umeki who stands out with the most intricate and I would argue powerful performance. ♥♥♥♥♥
Brett Wood: She deserved the Oscar not so much for the accomplishment of expressing heartfelt emotion while portraying a woman culturally forbidden to show her feelings, but for the greater achievement of tuning out Marlon Brando’s condescending, painfully artificial performance as an Air Force pilot. At one time, the romantic fable of victorious GIs poaching Japanese women was apparently considered progressive, but the male characters are, across-the-board, so boorish and unappealing. Her story is more tragedy than romance, as she gives up her career and trades one form of oppression for another. ♥♥♥
Nathaniel R: Umeki's role is problematic (the totally subservient Asian wife) but thankfully the performance isn't. She ably serves the film's (limited) vision throughout while also elevating it with sweet innocence and a genuine sense of romantic devotion and endearing shyness. I absolutely bought that she and her husband were in love and that she was often overwhelmed by the circumstances she'd found herself in and the other American she has to keep talking to. Sadly the film doesn't ask even half enough of her. ♥♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: "If only this film had allowed this character to be a central part of the story, rather than a symbol." - Brian R (Reader average: ♥♥½)
Actress earns 26½ ❤s
Diane Varsi as "Allison MacKenzie" in Peyton Place
Synopsis: A valedictorian of a small-town high school dreams of becoming a writer and falling in love. She also fights with her secretive mother.
Stats: Then 19 yrs old, debut film, 8th billed (but the lead). 1st (and only) nomination. 57 minutes of screentime (or 37% of the running time.)
Q Allan Brocka: This was really a lead role pretending to be supporting, while Lana Turner was a supporting role pretending to be a lead. Categorization aside, Varsi does what she can with it, but the character is the least interesting of the bunch for me. ♥♥
Kenji Fujishima: Even in as large an ensemble as Peyton Place's, Diane Varsi being slotted in the Supporting Actress Oscar category feels like an especially egregious case of category fraud. In many ways, Peyton Place is Allison MacKenzie's coming-of-age story (she is our voiceover narrator, after all), and Varsi does a startling job conveying both the character's innocence and her innate sense of maturity beyond her years. Considering how Varsi more or less walked away from Hollywood not too long after this debut performance, maybe she brought more of herself to the role than anyone realized at the time. ♥♥♥♥♥
Izzy: Although the film tracks several storylines, as narrator Varsi feels like the lead. Varsi plays the docile good girl with a very low energy, almost too wide-eyed and innocent to the point that the viewer loses the sense of frustration and ambition that should fuel Allison's eventual rebellion against her mother. As a consequence, I found her transformation in the latter half hard to buy. I'm sure it's difficult to share the screen with Lana Turner, whose main quality as an actress is that she oozes magnetism. But it seems Varsi was not up to the task. ♥
Kimberly Pierce: Newcomer Diane Varsi steps in as the other half of the Peyton Place split in a fine debut. While her character gets plenty of screentime she doesn't actually have much to do. As such, the character is left feeling like a standard 1950s sitcom teenager until the last half of the movie. This isn't to say that it's a bad performance . While Selena is the heart of the movie, Allison is the entry point for the audience and Varsi brings home a heck of a performance in what could have been a thankless part. ♥♥♥
Brett Wood: In a community swirling with melodrama and scandal, it was essential that the central character, through whose eyes we witness Peyton Place, be plain and neutral. Those are qualities no actor wants to put on (the equivalent of a beige tweed suit), but Varsi embraced the challenge. She fully embodies the plain-Jane character of good girl Allison MacKenzie, trying to figure out who she is, physically awkward, unnoticed and unheard, while being overshadowed by so much scenery-chewing, oxygen-sucking, capital-D Drama. ♥♥♥♥
Nathaniel R: This feels so foreign to type for this actressexual but of the 'teen' cast of this particular high school movie, best in show is easily the boy: Russ Tamblyn. But we're not here to talk about Tamblyn (even though I really want to!) but his onscreen sort-of girlfriend. Varsi hits authentic marks in her petulance with Turner and there's a neat amount of mystery in her scenes with Tamblyn as to what she actually feels for him (though that might be the happy accident of an untrained novice rather than an intended feature of the work). Beyond that it's a stiff performance. ♥♥
Reader Write-Ins: "Throughout the film, she makes daring, glorious acting choices, blessed with the film's most compelling character arc" - Joseph J (Reader average: ♥♥⅓)
Actress earns 19⅓ ❤s
Miyoshi Umeki won the Oscar and repeats that win here. What's unusual (for the Smackdown) is a virtual three-way tie for runner up status with Lange, Lanchester, and Jones all bunched up within a fraction of a hearts distance. Technically Lanchester is the runner up but by just a ¼ of a heart over Jones.
THE FULL PODCAST CONVERSATION
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NEXT UP: The 1991 Oscar race will be discussed on July 28th. Watch The Prince of Tides, Cape Fear, Rambling Rose, Fried Green Tomatoes, and The Fisher King before then to maximize your enjoyment of the next Smackdown. [All Previous Smackdowns]