Supporting Actress Smackdown - 1976

The Year is...

1976
And the Smackdowners for the 49th Annual Academy Awards are...

ALEX of Alex in Movieland
BRAD of Criticlasm & Oh, Well, Just This Once...
MATT of MattLand888
STACIA of She Blogged By Night
with
yours truly, STINKYLULU.

And this month, Alex in Movieland has graced us with a brilliant clipreel.
Click image to be routed to video.

1976's Supporting Actresses are...
(Each Smackdowner's comments are arranged according to ascending levels of love. Click on the nominee's name/film to see StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Sunday review.)

Jane Alexander in All the President's Men

STACIA Memo to Jane: the dowdy, disheveled look while refusing to blink does not automatically equal good performance. Alexander is stone-faced, exudes false emotion, and one is never convinced she's really scared. Irritated, but not scared.
ALEX Allow me to doubt a performance based on deep breaths and nodding. She’s not bad, but I like my cameos when they’re loud, bold or naughty.
MATT Except for Testament and her recent television work, Jane Alexander’s performances are dreary; she hasn’t smiled on screen since 1970, and her emotional spectrum ranges from careworn to woebegone. Admittedly, her cheerlessness serves the character here, but the role’s little more than a cameo.
STINKYLULU Alexander delivers an admirable bit of actressing that uses emotion and empathy to mark an essential node in a plot overstuffed with intricate detail. Adept, memorable work in a basically unremarkable role.
BRAD Subtle performance mostly accomplished with looks and slight mouth movements. Extremely skilled, but I'm not sure if it was nom worthy, as it still feels slight.

TOTAL: 8s

Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver

ALEX The performance doesn’t have enough heart, nor contrast. Jodie’s a natural and a nice presence, but there’s no fire to it. The role required a better grip.
STINKYLULU Foster layers just enough idiosyncracy (and not too much intelligence) into the role, transforming the screenplay’s hollow holograph into a plausibly human person.
BRAD A performance that I could've had a little more of. Flashes of the girl come through, just when you're forgetting how young she is. Unsettling, honest, and impressive.
MATT Jodie Foster gives a remarkably accomplished performance as Iris, a twelve-year-old hooker. Foster not only exists as the film’s icon of sexuality, but also digs inside the role and unearths toughness, quirkiness, and vulnerability—all with believability rare for a child actress.
STACIA Jodie easily mixes naivete with world-weary intelligence. She is strong, determined, and compelling. Like Travis we're captivated by her youthful spirit; we want to know everything about her, how she got here and why she won't go home.

TOTAL: 18s

Lee Grant in Voyage of the Damned

BRAD Grant must have been nominated for displaying one of the few emotional moments in a film about dread. Not helped by having a scene partner like Lynne Frederick, who is as full of life as a Resusci-Annie.
ALEX Grant’s robotic reading of “THERE ARE THINGS I HAVE TO DO” reminded me of Kathy Griffin imitating Paula Abdul. To me, it doesn’t feel tragic or deep, just uncomfortably bad.
STINKYLULU Grant illuminates Lili's psychology with an often electrifying vivacity while, at the same time, providing only a bare sketch of the character. A confoundingly “partial” performance.
STACIA Grant practically disappears in this all-star cast full of scenery gorging costars. Her dim, stereotypical performance is brightened only by some Oscar-nominated hair shearing, yet even that is upstaged by a desperate Dunaway.
MATT This torpid all-star ship-flick almost capsizes Lee Grant’s performance—by pairing her with a histrionic Sam Wanamaker and giving her an inadvertently hilarious haircutting scene with Faye Dunaway that’s prescient of Mommie Dearest. Grant stays afloat by imbuing her role with emotional honesty and alertness (though she seems to be playing herself).

TOTAL: 8s

Piper Laurie in Carrie

ALEX In order to succeed, the role requires no hesitation. And it works, as I saw both the monster and the loving mother. Her last big speech is delivered perfectly and the unexpected orgasm while touching death is a nice bonus.
BRAD Does what Dunaway pushed too far in Mommie Dearest, pushing the character almost to farce and humor but just stopping short, due to incredible fierce groundedness. Add to that playing off of Spacek and it's just thrilling.
MATT Scary and campy is a combination difficult to pull off, but Piper Laurie works miracles as Carrie’s crazy mother. Laurie’s commitment to the role is remarkable; her vocal ingenuity and power are impressive, and she lets you see in her eyes the demons swirling in Margaret White’s head. A rousing success.
STACIA Laurie's performance holds the entire film together. Over the top, campy, and effective. Only Piper could have portrayed this walking nightmare of a mother with enough earnest emotion to make it believable.
STINKYLULU Laurie crafts a haunting portrayal of an utterly human monster, mixing malevolence and vulnerability to create a vision of heartbreaking horror. Simply marvelous.

TOTAL: 24s

Beatrice Straight in Network

MATT The nadir of supporting actressness. Saddled with Chayefsky’s hyperarticulate gobbledygook and a ridiculous character trajectory, Beatrice Straight makes the clichéd role of a scorned wife insufferable and unconvincing. Listening to her demand “allegiance” from her husband and intone “I hurt badly!” in her highfalutin’ accent made me cringe. Simply awful.
ALEX Straight risks by playing it hard and it pays off, also managing to keep it real and humane. Her face is so expressive and that haunting voice gives a heartbreaking edge. Five minutes more and it would’ve been magic.
STINKYLULU Straight's deft work contributes a blast of emotional clarity within a narrative mostly characterized by manipulation, hype and deception. The role’s brevity is transcended by Straight’s humanity, clarity and dexterity within it.
STACIA In a thankless peripheral character role as the wronged wife in a movie that satirizes such notions, Straight retains dignity and believability. She dutifully glides through anger and grief, emerging as the necessarily accepting ex in a single brief scene..
BRAD Full, complex riveting work in a very short amount of screen time. I like it a lot, and it completely fulfills one of Lulu's SA criteria, which is wanting to see more of her than you did. The strongest acting in the film for me.

TOTAL: 16s

Oscar chose...
Beatrice Straight
in Network

But the SMACKDOWN
sees things somewhat differently...

PIPER LAURIE is the
Best Supporting Actress of 1976!
(We liked it, Piper, we liked it.)

BUT, lovely reader, what do YOU think?
Please share your thoughts in comments.