Thelma Ritter in Pickup on South Street (1953) - Supporting Actress Sundays

I am not much of a contrarian by nature. Truly. But given my spoilerish track record on some of the most beloved Supporting Actress performances (exhibit 1, 2), I'm not sure y'all will believe me. As I compose these profiles, I try to tune into my clearest instincts, to not endeavor to sway or convince anyone else but to convey what I honestly think I think about this or that performance. And occasionally that means I end up going against the grain of conventional wisdom about an especially revered performance by a particularly beloved performer, which is precisely what happened this week with...

...Thelma Ritter in Pickup on South Street (1953)
approximately 15 minutes and 43 seconds
6 scenes
roughly 20% of film's total running time

Thelma Ritter plays Moe, a woman who hustles her living at the far edges of New York's underground economy, peddling -- alternately -- cheap men's neckwear and, more lucratively, what she calls "information."
Although she makes her living "selling secrets" in Cold War America, Ritter's Moe balks when called a "stool pigeon," emphasizing her status an enterprising entrepreneur, finding her own way toward success within American capitalism.
The symbol of Moe's success is her "kitty" -- a wad of bills she's saving toward the purchase of a legitimate funeral plot, a proud gesture in defense of the feared ignominy of her anonymous burial as a pauper in New York City's "Potter's Field."
Ritter's Moe is pivotal to Samuel Fuller's elegantly efficient noir narrative - when Skip (the charismatically opaque Richard Widmark) picks a particular pocket and lands in the sights of both the cops and the communists, Ritter's Moe is the one to whom they turn for the "information" she peddles, and so becomes essential to both the narrative and emotional architecture of this enthralling film.
Ritter begins her characterization as the narrative does, with a glib simplicity: Moe's a hustler and she's looking to get on. As the narrative complicates, so does Ritter's work as Moe. When the "muffin" Candy (an appropriately delicious Jean Peters) begins to demonstrate more than a simply mercenary interest in Skip, Ritter's Moe too begins to doubt the economics of her own self-interest. Perhaps the information on Skip's whereabouts is more valuable than she might have originally assessed?
Yet, as Moe privately determines that Skips means more to her than money, Ritter allows Moe's zesty bravado deflate just a little. It's as though, absent the thrill of the dollar chase, Moe's not certain what she's living for...
These first two beats -- Moe's (1) the happy hustler who (2) encounters something of an identity crisis -- sets the stage for a final death scene that might just be Thelma Ritter's most glorious five minutes of the actress's deservedly esteemed career.
When Ritter's Moe finds herself not at the shadowy invisible edges of New York's underworld but instead within its glaring spotlight, Thelma Ritter delivers on of the greater death arias I can think of in American cinema. Captured with adoring reverence by director Fuller, Ritter uses a simple monologue to the depth of Moe's sacrifice as she chooses to surrender to death rather than peddle the data of Skip's whereabouts. In this scene, Ritter shows us both "Moe the human calculator" (ever tallying the relative value of the commodities she has to peddle) as well as "Moe the human being" (who operates according to a different, less precise arithmetic). It's a beautiful scene -- warm and moving and memorable -- conveying an unforeseen depth to both the character and the actress.
And right there is the rub. For the first 2/3 of her performance, Ritter only shows us the mercenary Moe, with only a glimmer (in the coffee shop scene) of the human soul beneath the hustler's patter. Then, in the last 1/3 of the performance, Ritter reveals a whole 'nother Moe -- the patter suddenly textured and nuanced with revelatory depth. And, normally, I love watching the surface peel back to reveal the unanticipated depth. So believe me when I say I was surprised to discover, after re-viewing the performance for timing and screencapping, what I felt to be a disconnected break between the first 2/3 of Ritter's performance and the last scene. It's as though Ritter trouped through the first few scenes drawing from her standard bag of character actor tricks only to discover, much later, that Moe was not merely a type but a richly reasoned characterization. The problem? This is what the audience should see, but the actor might be expected to see more, to lay the foundation for the culminating reveal with a little more sophistication. Indeed, Moe's first scene in the station provides nearly the entire subtextual foundation for the final scene, yet Ritter opts for a superficial patter and banter that emphasizes the Moe's short term motives at the expense of the character's actual motivations. Put another way, it's as though Ritter skimped on the house and then, at the last minute, splurged on the furniture. Admittedly, this is a fine line I'm parsing here, and one that I acknowledge will get me in trouble with impassioned fans of this performance. But, as I mentioned just recently, one must remain true to one's self, especially in matters of faith, politics and actressexuality. So, in sum: love Ritter, love that death scene, but remain ambivalent about the performance.

Geraldine Page in Hondo (1953) - Supporting Actress Sundays

There is a small handful of actresses of whom I remain inordinately fond, even as I find most of their performances vaguely disappointing or mildly distasteful. For an actressexual like me, that can create some awkward situations: I hate to be the crabby pooper always spoiling everyone else's lovefest. Nonetheless, one must remain true to one's self, especially in matters of faith, politics and actressexuality. Which is why it's always such a pleasure to discover that rare performance by such an actress, one that I don't hate at all, one that I actually sorta love. Which is precisely what happened this week with...

...Geraldine Page in Hondo(1953).

approximately 36 minutes and 27 seconds
23 scenes
roughly 44% of film's total running time

Geraldine Page plays Angie Lowe, a rancher's wife on a homestead in the remote New Mexico territory.
A self-described "plain" woman accustomed to fending for herself, Page's Lowe is uncertain what to make of the rangy stranger ambling her way. Turns out, the stranger is Hondo (John Wayne in the kind of performance for which celebrity impressionists exist), a man the isolated woman will come to know well over the next 80 or so minutes.
Page's Angie agrees to let Hondo use a horse that's not yet trained and, as Hondo "breaks" the animal, she assesses the man with a wary but avid delight.
In these early scenes, Page's Angie is constantly announcing the fact of her husband, who -- she repeatedly says -- will be back any minute, or any day, or any week now. Page's handling of Angie's conspicuous fibs is uncomplicated, allowing just the whiff of untruth to linger in the air as the character continues to do or say whatever else she needs to.
Yet, as Page's Angie becomes better acquainted with Hondo, she becomes ever more smitten with the confident, competent cowboy. Here, too, Page registers Angie's shift in emotional attention in the simplest terms. Angie's mounting interest in Hondo's is marked by Page's increasingly shy smiles, and these lingering, intent looks are some of the only evidence of this grown woman's amplifying crush on Wayne's Hondo.
Page's work in the role of Angie is rife with gestures of comparably uncomplicated clarity. Page's Angie likes Hondo, enjoys having him around, trusts him with her land and her son -- but she's also careful not to get her hopes up that the pleasure will last. After all, she is married and her husband will be back any whatever now...
At about midpoint in the film, as Hondo leaves Angie alone on the homestead, several questions emerge: will Angie and her son be safe amidst the Apache uprisings? will Hondo find out the truth about Angie's husband? and, perhaps most essentially (as this film is an utterly conventional romance, albeit with black-limbed "Injuns" as the main obstacle), will Hondo and Angie ever be able to get together?
The resolutions of these boilerplate dilemmas are, in and of themselves, less than interesting, which perhaps why I so admire Page's unpretentious yet complex rendering of Angie.
Page invests Angie with a subtle depth and dimension that is both haunting and humane. In her hands, Angie becomes an articulated human instead of merely a type. Note, for example, how Page's Angie registers the news of the circumstance of her husband's death. With a measured, contemplative turn, she says, "Ed wasn't the type to die well." Page holds this moment simply, allowing Angie a kind of sadness while also crafting a kind of mystery with her reaction, a mystery that permits the possibility of something unspoken mattering as much or more than that which is said. (Indeed, Page maneuvers the dimensions of subtext with such artful, uncomplicated ease in this role that it's hard to reconcile her work in Hondo with the self-consciously neurotic frippery that would mark most of her more celebrated performances.)
In this cardboard cutout of a character, Page delivers what is easily my favorite among her many accomplished performances. Solid, subtle and empathetic, Page's Angie elevates this generic puddle of a film with a humane integrity that is by turns surprising and surprisingly effective. And while this performance/nomination might legitimately be accused of "category fraud," it might just as well be a case of an actress sneaking from the edges to steal center stage.

To Dos Day

___ Item 1: FORGIVE MY DISTRACTION.
It's that time of the academented calendar so things is crazy. But making things worse is my "connectivity" at home has been experiencing all kinds of random interruptions. So, please, forgive me for my slacky-ness as I try to stay on top of things and also get caught up...

___ Item 2: PAGING RITTER.
This past Sunday's 1953 Supporting Actress Smackdown proved to be one of the more controversially divided ones yet, with Thelma Ritter's revered performance in Pickup on South Street being "passed over" -- much to the chagrin of many. But perhaps the most shocking bit for me was how much I liked the performance of Geraldine Page in, of all things, Hondo. I hope that I'll get both profiles up on Wednesday (tomorrow); so, please do check back. (When I'll get to Isabelle Huppert in 8 Women, however? That's anyone's guess.)

___ Item 3: SMUG OFF.
Have you ever been SMUGGED?

___ Item 4: GOT MILK?
Don't miss Stale Popcorn's comments on a film that, in some important ways, changed StinkyLulu's cinematic life: 1984's The Times of Harvey Milk. Glenn's reactions vividly remind me of my own when I first saw the film - oh, about 2 decades ago. Indeed, as he notes in his commentary, the more things change...

___ Item 5: SAVE THE DATE!
In last week's To Dos Day, invited y'all to offer suggestions for a supporting actress performance by an actress who passed in 1999 (the year of our next Smackdown) for which I might offer a profile as a fitting memorial. (I had identified at least 12 very interesting performers/performances that I was curious about.) However, your response -- both in comments and over email -- indicated an almost immediate consensus: MADELINE KAHN! And who can argue with that. So, I decided to call for Madeline Kahn Appreciation Day on Thursday, May 29, 2008. On that day -- which isn't her birthday or anything, just a regular day -- all bloggers are invited to offer their appreciations of the life and work of Madeline Kahn (1942-1999). I'll lead things off with a Supporting Actress Profile of a brilliant, non-nominated Madeline Kahn performances and will look forward to collating everyone else's links here. So, lovelies, save the date and spend the next month savoring the marvelousness that is Madeline Kahn.

___ Item 6: TALK GAY TO ME.
For reasons I won't go into right now, I'm thinking a lot about the idea of "gay film" - what is it? why is it? why do we need it? So, I'm wondering -- if you value independent queer cinema, what do you value about it? What are the criteria you use when approaching queer cinema that are subtly or drastically different than another sort of film? Spill your thoughts in comments...

Have at it, lovelies!

Supporting Actress Smackdown - 1953

The Year is...

1953

And the Smackdowners for the 26th Annual Academy Awards are...

ADAM WALDOWSKI of The Oscar Completist
KEN of Canadian Ken
SLAYTON of The Glorious Diatribe
with
yours truly, STINKYLULU.

1953'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.)

Grace Kelly in Mogambo

ADAMWhen you look as good as Grace Kelly, it never hurts to prove you're more than just a pretty face. You needn't necessarily deglamorize to be taken seriously, but when you're costarring in trash like Mogambo? A bad British accent and fueling the flames of melodrama shouldn't get awards buzz.
STINKYLULUKelly offers an occasionally electrifying vulnerability to the role of Linda, amplifying the character’s elemental struggle between instinct and etiquette. Yet, the performance remains strangely subservient, all defensive postures with few hints of what actually drives Linda to take the risks she does.
SLAYTON It’s apparent from the get-go that Kelly’s Linda isn’t the demure waif that she so desperately tries to portray – she’ll fall back onto the façade of femininity around men but she’ll snarl like a lioness if a rival tries to invade her territory. As for the performance? Typically sharp.
KEN An aristocratic dish of strawberries and cream. Whose fleeting pins-and-needles-smile easily out-maneuvers Gardner’s silk-wrapped sledge-hammer. It’s easy scoring points as whore-with-a-heart-of-gold. But Kelly – as the prim young matron tentatively exploring an unexpected yen for the wild side – susses out richer rewards.

TOTAL: 11s

Geraldine Page in Hondo

SLAYTON Although the character Angie is completely defined by her relationship with Hondo, she emerges as the most fully inhabited portrayal in the film. Her initial sexual excitement with John Wayne’s rugged visitor is especially well delivered. A refreshingly human presence in a film full of genteel superficialities.
KEN Minus the vocal embroidery of her later glory years, less glamorous than even Betsy Blair, the 50’s Plain-Jane poster girl, Page opts for a no-nonsense approach – spare, quietly admirable. It works. And she finds new life in the oldest line of all, "I love you", spunkily propelling it at Wayne like David with his slingshot.
ADAM Here is the quintessential leading role placed in supporting. Category placement aside, Page has such star quality and charm it's difficult to believe it's her screen debut. Standing up against western landscapes and John Wayne would be a challenge to some. For Page, it's just one of eight Oscar nominations.
STINKYLULU Easily my favorite Page performance yet, exceeding both my expectations and those of the role. With unpretentious complexity, Page's performance as Angie invests the film with a depth and dimension that is both haunting and humane.

TOTAL: 15s

Marjorie Rambeau in Torch Song

STINKYLULURambeau’s performance is mostly a mélange of familiar bits – “clever” line readings, "idiosyncratic" tics, and muggish eyerolls – all of which, in sum, seem less like humanizing detail and more like shoddy craftsmanship.
ADAMMajorie Rambeau, in only three scenes, hits her punchlines too hard. She's amusing and maneuvers through a fairly warm scene near the end. It's a fine, but brief performance. That's all.
KENThe picture’s a club-footed semi-musical with Crawford in full Gorgon mode. Rambeau is Ma – blowzy, tippling family skeleton in the star’s closet. A few perfunctory nibbles at the script. Then one "big" scene played Ethel Bowerymore style. Peignoir, pearls and beer-bottle. But, alas, (as she says about the pretzels), not enough salt to make a cat thirsty.
SLAYTON The lovely Ms. Rambeau breaks the mildly offensive monotony of this picture with a brief but indelible characterization. In her two scenes, she offers some hilarious facial expressions and some excellent line readings – it’s almost (almost) enough to make us forget about the other hour and fifteen minutes.

TOTAL: 8s

Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity

SLAYTONReed’s performance is merely an egoless line reading: we’re not aware she has a backstory until one is revealed through dialogue. When not inane, she’s incongruous – in a ludicrous bit of speechmaking she talks of her “plan” as though it was one of world domination rather than one of self-sustained living.
KENInitially she projects a pragmatic, low-key sexiness – bruised cynicism, steely optimism, nicely mixed. But the picture (utterly bereft of period atmosphere) is a big hot-air balloon, its humorless banality and self-importance eventually swallowing up Reed’s performance. Her emotional outburst near the end seems her least genuine moment.
STINKYLULUCrafting an empathetic portrait of a possibly despicable character, Reed maneuvers the cliché's of the role with savvy precision. Reed’s Alma is neither a victim of her circumstances, nor a hard-hearted hellion, but always already a bit of both. Adept, intelligent, necessary work - essential to this curious film.
ADAM Not only does Reed stand out among a brilliant ensemble--she has such chemistry with Clift and understanding of Alma that the film owes much of its greatness to her complex performance. With a film as great as From Here to Eternity, that speaks volumes. I could rave all day, but that final scene on the boat is enough for a win.

TOTAL: 11s

Thelma Ritter in Pickup on South Street

KEN The loveable stool-pigeon character doesn’t make much sense. Plus the Runyonesque dialogue she’s given tends to compromise Ritter’s natural style. Like Judge Judy forced to conduct cases in Runyonspeak. But she sheds the excess baggage for an impressive final scene – resigned, weary ("an old clock runnin’ down") and very affecting.
STINKYLULURitter delivers delicious wit and sympathetic verve in the role of Moe, and the actress's signature grit is almost enough to distract from the schticky sentiment of the role. But, even with Ritter's alacrity (and the admiring devotion of Samuel Fuller's camera), Moe remains more a somewhat precious plot-device than an actual character.
ADAM Ritter, no stranger to scene-stealing, is little more than serviceable here. While she includes some clever mannerisms, Moe lacks the three-dimensional feel superior Ritter characters embody. Still, her final scene packs a punch.
SLAYTON Ms. Ritter is a drug, and I’m addicted: With this sublime performance, Ritter slowly husks away the character’s outward layers to reveal the scarred, weary human being behind the shield of pragmatism and pluckiness. A brilliant feat of acting – Funny, sad, wry, elegiac, beautiful.

TOTAL: 14s

Oscar chose...
Donna Reed
in From Here To Eternity
But the SMACKDOWN dissents and, by a single heart, "category-fraud" be darned, anoints...
Geraldine Page in Hondo
as
Best Supporting Actress of 1953!

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