"Canadian Ken" Reflects on 1942... (CouldaShouldaWoulda Wednesday)

Yeah yeah -- 1942 was MAY's Month of Supporting Actress Sunday...

Mere days ago, a fascinating email arrived to StinkyLulu's inbox -- a message that the Pan-American email gremlins had kept to themselves for weeks. (Most likely so they could snag the netflix copies for their greedy gremlin selves.) The email came from Ken, an old-school (ie. blogless) film aficionado in Toronto. A font of film wisdom, Ken's email schooled Lulu with all kinds of thoughts about variously overlooked performances from both
1942 and 1958. (O'course, Ken endeared himself immediately to Lulu when he revealed that he shared many of StinkyLu's less-than-popular feelings about (a) Moorehead's Ambersons performance and (b) the delights of Dame May.)

But, really, Ken's perspective on the Snubbees from the Class of 1942 is worth sharing all on its own. So -- with permission from Ken & some minor html/edits/links -- StinkyLulu offers you, lovely reader...

Canadian Ken's Snubbed Supporting Actresses of 1942:

Who should have been nominated?

•#1- Dame May Whitty in Mrs. Miniver (see also).

It's fine fine work from a dependable and charismatic pro.
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#2- Nancy Coleman in Warner Brothers' King's Row.

King's Row was perhaps the year's most uneven epic, boasting some of 1942's best and worst performances...but, best of all, Nancy Coleman - a beautiful Warner starlet who also happened to be one heck of an actress. She brings dimension and complexity to a role that would have been zip in the hands of, say, Susan Peters. Coleman drifted out of films far too soon, but she left behind a couple of memorable '40s performances - and King's Row certainly contains one of them.
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#3 - Susan Hayward in I Married a Witch.

I've always thought the early '40s were Hayward's best period. She looked amazing, often superbly cast as jealous co-eds and scheming vixens. She was gormless Judy Canova's country club nemesis in Sis Hopkins and a society bitch supreme in The Hairy Ape. And I Married a Witch is certainly one of her finest '40s hours. Veronica Lake has to summon up a supernatural storm to wreck Hayward's society wedding. And Hayward meets it head-on with hilarious and scary fireworks of her own. She achieved leading lady stardom in the '50s. But I think the '40s gave us Hayward's most enjoyable combinations of artistry and oomph.
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#4- Elizabeth Patterson - also in I Married a Witch.

Patterson later gained TV immortality as The Ricardos' neighbour Mrs. Trumble - ever-willing to babysit Little Ricky. But in the '30s and '40s she easily outacted more famous biddies like Beulah Bondi in picture after picture. I Married a Witch contains one of her polished gems of razor-sharp dithering.
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#5 - and the winner-
Anne Baxter as Lucy in The Magnificent Ambersons.

The performance that should be revered. An utterly fresh and original spin on the ingenue - smart, skeptical and supportive at the same time - and all in a way that actually seems real. Yes, the writing's excellent - but Baxter's delivery constantly makes good lines better. And as a rich, warm, playful inventive and fully realized performance it's seldom been bettered.

Wow, huh. That Ken sure knows his Class of '42. (And to top it all off, Ken even offers a special honorable mention to the "droll, vivacious" Diana Lynn in The Major and the Minor. "Has precociousness ever seemed quite so palatable?" he asks.) StinkyLulu's just peeved as all getout to have resisted an early impulse to check out I Married A Witch for 1942's CouldaShouldaWouldas... Live & learn. (And put more must-see movies on the list...)

Thanks, Ken, for adding so much to the ongoing, obsessive fun of Supporting Actress Sunday. Here's hoping that your excellent suggestions regarding the overlooked ladies of each year keep on coming... (And that goes for you too, lovely reader. If you have suggestions/reminders for StinkyLulu, regarding Supporting Actress Sundays -- or whutevah -- drop Lulu a line...)

Supporting Actress Smackdown - 1942

For this 2nd Smackdown, StinkyLulu's just giddy to be joined again by the prodigiously productive Nick (of Nick's Flick Picks) AND the indefagitably industrious Nathaniel (of The Film Experience). And puddle jumping to join the stateside obsessives, StinkyLu's thrilled to welcome to Tim of Mainly Movies to this merry troupe of Smackdowners.

The Year is 1942...
Do yourself the pleasure of consulting Nathaniel's fantabulous clipreel of 1942's Supporting Performances. Once again, Nathaniel has endeavored to construct this edifying montage for the benefit of the Smackdown. Pause to be in appropriately reverent awe. (And while there, consider casting yourself as the wealthy patron and Nathaniel as the gorgeous & talented starving artist...by offering your bits to TheFilmExperience endowment drive.)

And 1942's Supporting Actresses are...
(An aside about format: Each Smackdowners comments are listed according to ascending love levels -- StinkyLulu is all about love, after all -- & a wrap-up from each of the Smackdowners arrives at the end. Clicking on the nominee's name/film will link to StinkyLulu's previously posted Supporting Actress Sunday review.)

Gladys Cooper in Now, Voyager

Tim Sez
"I prefer my monster mothers Lansbury-esque, but Cooper has the sense to be more flatly obstructive than showily formidable. Without grandstanding, she’s a memorable obstacle, even if the character’s lack of self-knowledge keeps limiting her attempts at subtlety."
Nathaniel Sez
"Old Hollywood's favorite tyrannical bitch. Her fury hardly goes unexpressed here but she implies that it's just the tip of her iceberg. Love the discombobulation and shades of self-pity when she can't figure a way around her daughter's new life force."
StinkyLulu Sez
"Embodiment of acid-tongued evil. She can bully a whole room of people -- while bed-ridden & in another room. Cooper's routine is at full-force here & it remains a thrill to behold. Just love the giddiness of that moment when she alights on the idea to throw herself down the stair."
Nick Sez
"Perennially cast as a brittle old bone, Cooper plows that terrain to nimble perfection here, finding the fire and the fear underneath her monstrous controlling mama. Not exactly a revelatory character, but in perfect service to the film."

Agnes Moorehead in The Magnificent Ambersons

StinkyLulu Sez
"Moorehead's a genius & force of nature besides. Indisputably. But something about this performance just seems off-key. The actorly grace that glimmers here&there seems to be eviscerated by the editing crimes &/or trampled under the bootheels of Welles' rampant auteurism. A brilliant failure."
Tim Sez
"Moorehead’s is one of the few perfs ever nominated in this category that both properly supports her movie and owns it. There’s a well of marginalised sadness in Fanny that she fills in every scene, however shrill her defensive façade."
Nick Sez
"Bravely, floridly ingenious at limning jealousy, officiousness, ritual good cheer, and almost total despair. So potent, in fact, she supplies an id to the entire cast: a rattling cage of longing that is both heartbreaking and genuinely scary."
Nathaniel Sez
"On chewing scenery: Usually I want actors to spit the damn stuff out. But there's something so shadowy and twisted in her hysterics that I feel like she's a part of the gothic mansion itself. It's not scenery-chewing...it's cannibalism."

Susan Peters in Random Harvest.

Tim Sez
"One good scene – her exit – and it’s handled with winning modesty, but the character is a chirpy sideshow otherwise, seeming to exist purely so that Ronald Colman can not marry her. Lively and sympathetic, but that’s it."
StinkyLulu Sez
"Auspicious work that transcends the idiocy of the role. But -- even with a gulpingly human final scene -- the part remains merely a device."
Nathaniel Sez
"She first appears as a flighty teenager with an inappropriately forceful crush. Hated her. But she transforms into a levelheaded good soul even as the crush crushes her. Too bad her career was over before it began."
Nick Sez
"The part is limited, but Peters still does a credible job playing Kitty's ardent desire both for Ronald Colman's character and for the whole idea of being married, and she manages her key moments with confidence and subtle, creative detail."

Dame May Whitty in Mrs. Miniver

Tim Sez

"In a movie full of typecast stars doing solid jobs, Whitty’s Denchian grande dame has the hokiest arc to follow and knows it. Perfectly professional, but lacks real shading and surprise for my money."

Nick Sez

"Like fellow Dames Cooper, Smith, and Dench, she often got hired to reprise a very familiar persona: in her case, a carping, dusty, dry-witted aristocrat. I liked her big scene at the flower-contest, but this is a boring nod."

Nathaniel Sez

"The B plot is all about her flower show. I wanted the camera on Greer Garson for all 134 minutes! But I ended up relishing Whitty. When she's called upon to reveal the woman underneath the social status she's deliciously funny/moving"

StinkyLulu Sez

"Dame May's is a broad performance, to be sure. Yet, in its execution, Whitty's subtle dexterity -- hitting notes both comic and poignant -- makes this an uncommonly affecting performance. "

Teresa Wright in Mrs. Miniver

Nathaniel Sez
"How many actresses have been honored for playing ideal girlfriends or wives? Probably too many. She does glow, it's true and she's not a bad actress but the film seems to coast on her youthful beauty as characterization."
StinkyLulu Sez
"What's not to love about Teresa Wright, in this role or any other. And, here, she reaches beyond the role with welcome intelligence, deftly dodging preciosity, sentimentality & maudlin mopiness in a role rife with such pitfalls. If only the narrative respected her character as much as Wright did."
Tim Sez
"Wright’s saintly war bride isn’t much more of a role than Whitty’s, but she graces it with an evangelical sweetness that does the trick. The speeches are rigged, the close-ups milked, but her anxious silences speak louder than Garson’s."
Nick Sez
"Wright, to me, is as immediately likable as Irene Dunne or top-flight Meg Ryan; I enjoy and respect the intelligence, modulation, and quiet ardor she always infuses in her nice gals. Finds a real person in a plot-device character."

Oscar awarded Teresa Wright...

But the SMACKDOWN gives it to:
Agnes Moorehead!

Oh give a smile, Nessie. The Smackdowners love you...

And now some "Final Thoughts" from our intrepid SMACKDOWNERS:

Nathaniel Sez: "In keeping with Oscar's tradition, they gave the prize to the performance I found least impressive (Teresa's). It's almost like they check with me first and then vote in the opposite direction. Yes, it's all about me. Even before I was alive."

StinkyLulu Sez: "It's a curious field. A pair of disapproving dowagers. A twin set of ingenious ingenues. With the one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others -- an alternately spineless & spirited spinster -- off to the side by herself. And though I loved (or loved hating) this collection of really good performances, this is one contest where I really don't have a strong preference. Each actress maneuvers the limitations of the role with intelligence, skill and charisma. And because LaMoorehead brings out the contrarian in me, I might just cast my vote for Dame May. Just to mix things up."

Nick Sez: "A good vintage, this. I'm the first to fess up I'm grading on a steep curve: a three-heart rating doesn't denote average work, but a basic standard of quality that an Oscar-nominated performance should hit. Which is to say, I think Peters and Wright are solid nominees, and Cooper's even better. But Moorehead's work, to me, is one of the best, most interesting performances ever logged in this category. Even in a relatively quiet scene like the one where she combs her nephew for gossip while scolding him for eating like a pig -- revealing both her fragile and impossible romantic hopes and her frustration with The Whole Damn Thing -- Moorehead distinguishes herself, she fruitfully pushes her fellow actor, and she immeasurably deepens the whole film."

Tim Sez: "Moorehead towers over this otherwise middling contest for her career-best work, and because it's impossible to imagine Ambersons without her; her co-nominees are fairly effective in severely constricted roles. AMPAS picked the better of their home-front ingenues, I think, but still only the third-best performance; and Wright is much more interesting in Shadow of a Doubt the following year. Haven't seen Pride of the Yankees so I can't assess whether this was a Jessica-Lange-in-Tootsie-ish consolation prize; if so, there have been worse, and at least the unstretched Whitty didn't walk off with it. As for snubs, I rate Dolores Costello in Amberson at least as much as Cooper and Wright, but really, who's touching Moorehead here, ever? A mere nomination in this company seems like insult by faint praise."

So, lovely reader, what do you think of the Supporting Actresses of 1942? Are the Smackdowners on the ball? Or off the beam? Be sure to vote (see poll at right). And please do continue the Smackdown in comments.

Look for the next Smackdown on June 25.
And don't forget to cast your vote here to decide which year of nominees the June Smackdown will assess. (Voting will close when the winner is announced on Wednesday, May 31.) If you would like to join the fun/insanity/obsessiveness of a future smack down, just email StinkyLulu...

EDITED TO ADD (May 31, 2006):

Agnes Moorehead in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942) - Supporting Actress Sundays

There's something about StinkyLulu that you might not yet know, lovely reader. (Deep breath.) StinkyLulu doesn't really enjoy going against the grain -- proposing dissenting perspectives when consensus seems near at hand. (Especially when that emerging collective sensibility includes voices for which Lulu has much admiration & affection.) Truly, Lulu would much rather be part of a big happy family of filmfreaks & not make a stink. And yet, right there is the rub. Lulu can be a Stinky sometimes. (Especially when called to express a sincere & considered opinion -- indeed, Lulu could so totally be that one holdout juror that makes a mistrial.) It's not necessarily arrogance or egotism -- it's just who StinkyLulu is. In a different situation, Lulu might bite that Stinky little tongue, but as it's Supporting Actress Sundays... Anyway. With little further ado, it's time to make the announcement that Lulu's been vamping all this time:

StinkyLulu sorta hated Agnes Moorehead's performance in The Magnificent Ambersons.

G'head. Boo. Throw fruit. Click away. Do what you need to do. Lu wont' take it personal.

Ambersons itself is legendary, even notorious for its fractured brilliance. Ostensibly the tale of a neo-aristocratic family's decline amidst the social/economic upheavals of the industrial revolution, Welles' film becomes nearly Greek in its tragic scale, with the hubris of the story's putative protagonist instigating not only his own but his entire family's decline. A chorus of townspeople narrate the exposition & an omniscient narrator (Welles' own lugubrious baritone) intones: "Everyone waited for the day that George Amberson Minafer would get his comeuppance."

Agnes Moorehead plays Fanny Minafer, the unmarried aunt/sister/daughter/friend in the constellation of characters that inhabits the narrative of Georgie's comeuppance. Moorehead's Fanny (!) embodies the monstrosity of Victorian spinsterhood, the delicacy of girlishness ossified into a horror of unrealized womanhood. It's a shocking, brave & bold performance -- yet, also, nearly incoherent as it appears in the versions of the film that survive today. This incoherence in Moorehead's performance tracks two clumsy paths, one abundantly clear & one hidden between the scenes.

First, the palpably formidable Moorehead seems curiously cast as the flibbertigibbet here. Just listen to the voice. The power of Moorehead's sonorous gong of voice annoyingly channeled into affected chirps & breathless, lilting cascades. (Yes, that's the character, but.) And while Welles clearly loved filming Moorehead's improbably angled face (its beauty & severity stunning in abrupt turns), Welles' camera & lights swoop & circle & buzz even Moorehead's simplest scenes. So much technical tapdancing -- vocally & cinematically -- happens around & during Fanny. (Think of that stupidly overdone scene with her & George, the one where Fanny chatters manically in George's face, while they both rush through 3 or so rooms, all in close-up & in profile & in a single take.) Through it all, the clarity and coherence of Moorehead's performance gets lost amidst the apparatus of so many bells and whistles.

"It's nobody but old Fanny so I'll kick her."

Only in the famous "boiler scene" (above) is Moorehead/Fanny truly allowed to hold the screen. (And this scene alone warrants the Oscar nod, even the prize perhaps.) But it also suggests how the film's Studio-mandated edits (nearly one-third of the movie was cut at the behest of Studio execs) mangled Moorehead's performance. Between the frames of this film, it seems that Welles might well have staged Fanny as Lady to Georgie's Macbeth. Together, their misguided aspirations stunt and deform them both with strange synergy. Many of the known missing scenes (as below) feature Fanny centrally. But where Robert Wise's edits retained as protagonist contract-player Tim Holt's constipated Georgie, the changes to Moorehead's performance effectively relegate her to 3rd female when there's plenty to suggest Fanny might/well/should have been the dramatic female lead.

Production still capturing a crucial lost Fanny scene -- via Ambersons.com.

The biggest loss, it seems, among the storied tragedies of Welles' production is perhaps Agnes Moorehead's performance. Hers is clearly a great performance edited to shreds. Sadly, though, the tatters that remain of Moorehead's work -- garish incoherence, overwrought technique, filmic miscasting -- overwhelm the glimpses of genuine genius buried beneath. Certainly, and for decades, film freaks especially have correctly caught the whiff of greatness here. But. (And, golly, it hurts Lulu's heart to say this -- it's wierd how much.) But such greatness is glimpsed and not contained within the performance actually conveyed by the surviving prints of this film. Lulu can sense the amazingness, feel it, almost taste it -- but it's just not there to StinkyLulu's simple eyes. Sorry. (But Lulu'll keep coming back to see if the beloved greatness of Moorehead's Fanny appears in future viewings -- that's a promise.)

Dame May Whitty & Teresa Wright in MRS. MINIVER (1942) - Supporting Actress Sundays

Welcome, lovely reader, to the first double-whammy edition of Supporting Actress Sundays, wherein Lulu's agonna be looking at two nominated Supporting Actresses from the same film. In tandem -- in the same post -- try not to have your mind blown...

The Supporting Actresses for this Sunday are:

Dame May Whitty and Teresa Wright in 1942's Best Picture Mrs. Miniver.

Mrs. Miniver is one of those movies -- the kind that Lulu's long known should be seen but could never quite get around to actually seeing. And, really, Lulu even knew a little something about the flick: Like -- Mrs. Miniver became the defining role of Greer Garson's career, that it was a beloved touchstone for women on the "home front" in WWII, and that 30-40-50-60 years later it still seemed to exist with a kind of "glow" around it. So, when it came time to hunker down & do Supporting Actress Sunday duty, StinkyLulu wasn't expecting much from this cinematic sacred cow -- just another super sentimental piece of patriotic pablum from the "Buy Your War Bonds" school of Hollywood filmmaking.

But boy sirree bob -- was Lulu in for a surprise.

Mrs. Miniver tells the story of Kay Miniver (Garson), the upwardly mobile British wife and mother whose life (& escalating shopping problem) is transformed when war comes to the British countryside in the early years of World War II. Mrs. Miniver reveals her true mettle as she (a) sees her eldest son to war; (b) sends her husband off to join a makeshift navy; (c) reads British literature to her children in a cozy, well-appointed bomb shelter; (d) captures a fugitive Nazi pilot in her kitchen; and (e) greets guests in a bomb ravaged parlor. Through all of the above, Mrs. Miniver -- via Garson's truly exceptional performance -- becomes the emblem for a new Britain, a kind of domestic war hero. The film makes the significance of this transformation manifest when a rose named for Garson's Mrs. Miniver wins -- in a symbolic upset -- a local flower competition. The rose becomes the film's metaphor for the plucky English spirit shared by all Britons in war-time, a spirit that traverses the social heirarchy (ie. obsession with cultivation and breeding) of English aristocratic society.

But what of the Supporting Actresses?

Well, Dame May Whitty (at right, above) plays the elitist old biddy, Lady Beldon, who just happens to the be the grandmother of the sweet young thing Carol Beldon played by Teresa Wright (at center), who ends up hitching up with Mrs. Miniver's impetuous son/soldier-to-be, Vin (Richard Ney, at left).

In the movie's first half, both Wright and Whitty offer what seem to be brilliantly precise stock characterizations of -- in turn -- the spirited ingenue and the domineering dowager. Indeed, for much of the film, Lulu considered Teresa Wright and Dame May Whitty to be deserving (if safe) nominees in a year with few female supporting performances. Each actress hit the notes -- comic, serious, romantic -- pristinely, channeling their considerable charisma through the characters (not over the top of them). Yet, as director William Wyler expertly winds this movie along its episodic way through the trials and travails besetting these characters, something more substantial starts to happen. Each of these women -- Teresa Wright, Greer Garson, May Whitty -- become archetypes of, respectively, the War Bride, the War Mother, and the War Widow. And, amazingly, rather than flattening the characters, each actress seizes this opportunity to grab the reins of the role, enriching her performance in ways that simply yanked tears from StinkyLulu's dryly cynical eyes.

Teresa Wright turns on this power in a short scene opposite Garson, where -- fresh back from her honeymoon with Garson's son -- the two Mrs. Minivers do an emotional reality check and, with an anguished passion that knocked Lulu back a little, Wright emphatically demands the right to experience joy with her new husband for "there'll be a lifetime for tears." Meanwhile, Dame May Whitty shows the kindly pots of sweetness hiding under the gnarled burls of her crusty dameness, while never sacrificing the humor that crucially informs the role. And in an extraordinary brief sequence atop the dais at the flower show, Whitty offers an emotional quick-change tour-de-force, displaying such a range of emotions -- well, Lulu stopped counting at 12.

In the first acts of Mrs. Miniver, Dame May Whitty and Teresa Wright give very professional, nearly palpable personas to their seemingly stock characters. Yet, as the plot deepens, they each provide an emotional depth and clarity that -- while plotted by the script -- are just that little bit beyond the call of duty. There is, simply, no reason why either actress had to be so good in these cookie cutter roles. But they were. And that's why this double whammy of Supporting Actresses both deserved the trophy. (That Teresa Wright took it home prolly results from her also being nominated in Best Actress that year, as well as Best Supporting the year before. That surplus of Oscar goodwill -- combined with a final act gotcha twist in Mrs. Miniver -- virtually assured Miss Wright of 1942's prize.)

.....

So -- four down & one to go for 1942. Be sure to tune in next Sunday, lovely reader, when StinkyLulu will comment on the final nominee for 1942, Agnes Moorehead in The Magnificent Ambersons.

Then, StinkyLulu will welcome the likes of TheFilmExperience & Nick'sFlickPicks & MainlyMovies for the 1942 Edition of The Supporting Actress Smackdown.
Be there.

(And, please, do be sure to vote for June's Supporting Actress Sunday roster. Lulu really does need your guidance, lovely reader. Without it Lulu'd be inclined to try to do them all & then Lulu's head would explode & that would just be unfortunate.)

Gladys Cooper in NOW, VOYAGER (1942) - Supporting Actress Sundays (Mother's Day Edition)

In homage to Mother's Day, My New Plaid Pants recently gave a quick rundown of the worst mothers in movies. Which got Lulu to thinkin' -- Oscar's Supporting Actress category does seem to hold a special place at the table for truly monstrous mothers. Not just messy mamas like Holly Hunter in Thirteen (2003), Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights (1997), or Eileen Heckart in The Bad Seed (1956). No, truly monstrous mothers whose voracious need for control over their offspring take things to a whole 'nother level of horror. StinkyLulu's thinking of nominated mothers like Anne Ramsey in 1987's Throw Momma From The Train; Piper Laurie in 1976's Carrie; and Angela Lansbury in 1962's The Manchurian Candidate. (Just to name a few of the most brilliantly garish.)

But among the many monstrous mothers to which Oscar has nodded (but never rewarded) in the Supporting Actress category, Gladys Cooper's nominated performance in Now, Voyager is just possibly the grandmama of all Oscar's monstrous mothers.

please note: above pic of Gladys is not from Now, Voyager

"My daughter Charlotte is no more ill than a molting canary."

Gladys Cooper plays Mrs. Henry Windle Vale, the domineering dowager mother of Charlotte Vale, a painfully nervous spinster in desperate need of a good pluck (played with arch genius by Bette Davis). Cooper's performance is simple: she's a steely aristocratic tyrant who wields her acid-tongued dis/approval as a sword. Of course, if you just tipped the bird over, she'd likely shatter into a billion bits but, somehow, her genteelly vicious bullying cows everyone into submission. The thrill of Now, Voyager is watching Charlotte's self-actualization in spite of this maternal tyranny. So, Gladys Cooper's job in the role is fairly forthright: be a bitch on (literally) wheels. Yet, here (as in 1958's Separate Tables in which she played essentially the same role), Gladys Cooper's able to lend a simple, undistracting, humanizing complexity to this monster in Victorian lace. Simply put, Cooper allows us to see that Mrs. Vale is desperately afraid that Charlotte ("My old age child.") will blossom into personhood & leave her. So -- using the swingbat of social convention to beat & bully the "gehrl" -- Gladys Cooper's Mrs. Vale keeps her "devoted daughter" on a short leash, a choke-chain that nearly hobbles Charlotte into neurotic spinsterhood.

Cooper's performance provides an elegant reminder of what great supporting work requires. Cooper gives us the cardboard cutout that the story needs (here, the shrill shreik of a Freudian nightmare mother) yet is also able to color & shadow the performance just enough that it doesn't descend into sheer caricature. Gladys Cooper offers a teensy glimpse into the character's vulnerability but doesn't overplay the hand. No scene-chewing "redeeming moment" here. At this point in her career, Cooper knew she was a contract player contracted only to play well her part. Yet, as she did, Gladys Cooper created a brilliantly brutal monster mother.

A testament to Cooper's performance comes in StinkyLulu's favorite scene in the flick. (No, it's not the giddy thrill of the heart-stopping argument between Charlotte & Mrs. Vale -- though that's a goody.) No it's the scene where Charlotte greets her assembled family -- each of whom is shocked to see the gorgeously transformed Charlotte yet also appalled to see Charlotte's hostessing defy the conventions of her mother's home. It's really Bette Davis' scene, though she plays every moment opposite the absent presence of Gladys Cooper. The very idea of Gladys Cooper's Mrs Vale is enough to be Bette Davis' scene partner. Strangely, the effectiveness of this scene is one of Cooper's greatest contributions to the film -- and she's not even in the scene.

So, lovely reader, even though most of Gladys Cooper's work on film looks, sounds & feels like this performance, don't let that stop you from appreciating the artistry of one of Oscar's greatest monster mothers. (Plus it'll make most of you grateful for the mother/s you got.) And even if you got stuck with a meanie mommy? Just play the Monstrous Mother Smackdown game! Who would win in a grudgematch? Mrs. Vale or Mrs. Voorhees? Charlotte's mother or Carrie's?

It's a whole new era of Mother's Day fun...

Susan Peters in RANDOM HARVEST (1942) - Supporting Actress Sundays

StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Sundays for May kicks off a month of Sundays devoted to 1942 with the surprisingly weird work of Susan Peters in the Greer Garson/Ronald Colman romantic epic, Random Harvest

Random Harvest is one of those many movies that could carry the tagline: "Fate bought them together, but would Fate also keep them apart?" Basically, Ronald Colman's a WWI officer shellshocked into amnesia. He's stuck -- no clue as to who he is -- at an asylum in a manufacturing town somewhere in England. Amidst the excitement over Armistice, Colman wanders into town & encounters a music hall singer/actress headlining there (Greer Garson). For reasons known only to the artisans who craft romantic boilerplates, Garson decides to keep the obviously dazed-&-confused Colman on as kind of a manpet. For additionally obscure reasons, they flee from the town to the countryside where -- surprise! -- they fall madly in love, marry & make a baby. All while bantering in the plummiest English accents ever; they're both just "terribly heppy." Then, of course, in a fit of goodprovider-ness, Colman ventures off to the city where he gets run over & wakes up -- what?! -- remembering who he is but with no idea of where he's been for the last three years. Turns out -- you don't say! -- he's heir to a business fortune & his daddy just died leaving him all kinds of money, houses, & servants. But -- sniff -- what about Greer? Will he ever remember her? Ohhh, l'amour, l'amour.

(If you want to see how things turn out,
check out this loving reconstruction of Random Harvest as an English fotonovela.)

Susan Peters -- as Kitty, Colman's fifteen year old step-niece -- arrives to the scene at precisely the moment when Colman re-enters his fancypants life (& forgets all about Greer).

Susan Peters as Kitty: "I have intentions."

Kitty falls immediately in swoon for her tragic & romantic step-uncle. And they develop a devoted relationship over what turns out to be twelve years -- a photo on Colman's mantle charts Kitty's maturation from school girl to college graduate to young woman.

Finally, when 12 years have passed -- Kitty's all grown up and sophisticated; Colman's a workaholic with no interest in romance. But that won't stop Kitty. She reminds him of her unrelenting love for him in creepy molestuous tones ("It's not fair. You've spoiled me for other men, you know.") and -- whaddayaknow -- Colman asks Kitty to marry him. They prepare for the enormously British wedding. Somehow collies are involved. And while selecting hymns for the service, Colman has -- ohno! -- a flashback to his marriage to Greer.

The scene that follows probably's what snagged Susan Peters her only nomination:
Wordlessly -- in close-up & seemingly in a single take -- Peters looks into the eyes of her beloved but troubled fiancé. Her face clouds. She sees that the man she loves does not love her. Her lingering smile becomes an anguished grimace. The radiance that moments before conveyed confident rapture crumbles as a clay mask into a mess of confusion and fear. Wordlessly and in about 30 seconds. And what's even better: Susan Peters' nostrils flare at the moment when she understands the truth in her beloved's eyes. It's a glorious, delicious moment of movie acting. To be sure, when those nostrils flared, a star was born! And Lulu became a Susan Peters fan...

Alas. Susan Peters' rising star didn't quite last. Indeed, when starting on the Supporting Actresses of 1942, StinkyLulu had no inkling who Susan Peters might be, let alone how extraordinary, tragic, and short her career would turn out to be. (See, Peters was paralyzed from the waist down in a freak hunting accident just a few years after Random Harvest. Confined to wheelchair & suffering a variety of chronic ailments, Peters worked only occasionally on stage and screen over the next few years, receiving consistent praise but gaining little career momentum. [BTW: If any lovely readers out there in inter-web-land have an idea how Lulu might get a hold of a copy of what is Peters' lost great performance -- the wheelchair-bound tyrant in 1948's The Sign of the Ram, do tell. Lulu'd forever be in your debt.] Nonetheless, Susan Peters' acting career faltered and, in 1952, at the age of 31, Susan Peters died.)

While an early career Supporting Actress Oscar nomination almost inevitably works against career longevity, Peters' work in Random Harvest suggests unusual promise (at least for excellent matriarch work on Big'80s tv). But the grace comes in that her deservedly nominated performance as Kitty in Random Harvest inspires remembrance of her unfortunately truncated career. In a movie nearly overwrought with the lugubrious, mannered melancholy of serious romance, Susan Peters offers an unexpectedly bright (and imperfect) gem of a performance.

Who said Supporting Actress Sundays weren't full of surprises?