Vivien Merchant in Alfie (1966) - Supporting Actress Sunday

It's been a month or so since the Smackdown for 1966 but sometimes it takes what it takes. And I'm glad to have had the space to reflect upon this one. I find the film Alfie to be a toughie, especially for my "post-feminist" sensibility. The brief distance of time provided by this several week delay has, however, helped me to reflect on Alfie being (not unlike the great comedies of Moliere) a tragedy told in comic terms, in which the central character's fatal flaw is a source of whimsy only until its giddiness hits a series of devastatingly human limits. For, indeed, this is a character-flaw study. The "what's it all about" in Alfie is always the character "Alfie," with the other characters, especially the women, there to "support" his central character arc along what we might today describe as a sex addict hitting bottom. Yet, among these distinct and formidably charismatic women (including the breathtaking Shelley Winters as an American party dame and the excellent Millicent Martin as a wife with a wild streak) is an actress charged with scoring the darkest paths embedded within the audience's journey of discovery of "what's it all about" with Alfie, the blazingly talented...

...Vivien Merchant in Alfie (1966)
approximately 15 minutes and 53 seconds
10 scenes
roughly 14% of film's total running time

Vivien Merchant plays Lily, a devoted wife whose life is forever changed by her single afternoon tryst with ladies' man Alfie (Michael Caine in an enduring, deservedly legendary performance as the titular callow cad).
When we first see Merchant's Lily, she's a respectably bourgeois English housewife shocked by Alfie's scandalous flirtations with the nurses at the National Health Service hospital, where he shares a room with her recuperating husband. One fateful afternoon, however, a recently released Alfie and Lily cross paths when they both show up to visit the husband, who beseeches Alfie to drive Lily home so she won't have to suffer the complicated train journey. At once mortified and electrified by the suggestion, Lily protests but she's soon cowed by the adamant insistence of both men.
Once in the car, Lily's attitude toward Alfie softens, whether out of politeness or attraction we're not sure.
Once alone together, Alfie's reaction to Lily changes too. Caine's Alfie is startled to discover that Merchant's Lily is a not unattractive woman.
She's also the only "bird" in his company at the moment, and, because he's not really doing anything else, it seems only sensible -- to Alfie, at least -- that he fuck her.
Which he does. In the dirt. Next to a pond. A sexual pitstop. On the way home from visiting her sick husband -- his friend -- in hospital. Yeah. And, fittingly enough, once her dress is buttoned, Merchant's Lily immediately thereafter disappears from the film's (and Alfie's) consciousness, at least until the "consequences" of Alfie and Lily's afternoon assignation manifest.
Merchant's Lily arrives to Alfie's dreary attic flat one rainy afternoon. Lily's pregnant. Alfie's made the arrangements. All that's left for them both is to wait for The Abortionist (a deliriously sleazy Denholm Elliott) to arrive. Lily's quick disappearance and sudden reappearance within the narrative help to underscore how, as a character, Lily functions as a poignant coordinate on the film's (and the audience's) slow journey of "realizing" the truth about Alfie. At first, both to Lily and to us, Alfie seems to be an awesomely skilled playboy (making out with nurses behind privacy curtains and all) but it doesn't take long before he's revealed to be something of a scoundrel (bedding his convalescing friend's wife just because he can). Finally, as Alfie natters idiotically during and after The Abortionist's visit, completely perplexed by the hassle of it all, the depth of Alfie's emotional infantilism becomes clear. It's also during and, especially, after The Abortionist's visit that Merchant makes a series of haunting performance choices that reveal the full scope of Alfie's selfishness.
First, as the two sit on the couch "after" the procedure, Alfie continues his blithe nattering, self-obsessedly gabbing about how it's all good when Merchant's Lily emits the beginnings of a high-pitched howl of animal pain.
Caine's Alfie panics that Lily's making too much noise, that Lily's outburst will cause his landlady to call the cops, etcetera, so he hits her. This somehow stops Lily's wailing, thus permitting Alfie to explain to Lily how he had to slap her, how she just needs to calm down so as not to cause any more problems.
Then Alfie leaves Lily, alone, to miscarry.
When Alfie returns, an hour or so later, everything's "over" and Merchant's Lily is on the couch, utterly spent.
The two confer briefly about the situation and Merchant's Lily makes what is, I think, her first direct request of Alfie -- that he not go into the kitchen.
Of course, Alfie disregards Lily's plea and yanks the curtain open. In a quick flash of a moment, Merchant's Lily registers an expression of utter loathing and contempt, a blistering glance that underscores the extent of Alfie's cluelessly cruel selfishness. In this single moment, Lily realizes the devastating truth that Alfie has no interest in her (her experience, her reality, her existence) whatsoever.
And so, in a gesture of self-protection guised as politesse, Merchant's Lily lifts herself to leave Alfie's apartment -- and Alfie -- behind her forever. And what does Caine's Alfie do? He decides to dress to go as well, nattering as usual, even tossing her a teddy bear he had intended for another of his progeny. Merchant's Lily, already a mother of three, holds the large stuffed bear as though it were a toddler, caressing it absent-mindedly, as Alfie -- oblivious to the potential cruelty of the gesture -- asks her to give it to her son "From his Uncle Alfie."
Merchant's performance as Lily is starkly human, tapping efficiently into the audience's empathy as a way to cue a more critical assessment of the charismatic leading character's choices and their consequences. A truly supporting performance, Merchant's work is vivid and precise, devastating in its moderated clarity. Merchant is careful never to overreach or overplay the character, reigning her persona to be within the scripted obligations of the role, and this might be why it's so easy to so admire her work even as it remains difficult to muster genuine enthusiasm for it. That said, Merchant's performance as the tragic Lily remains an enduring bit of actressing at the edges which fundamentally shapes the feeling of this strange period piece.

Fascinating, challenging work.

Wendy Hiller in A Man for All Seasons (1966)

There's a bit of danger in posting my regular profile of a performance after the Smackdown's already happened. Indeed, sometimes, investing just that little bit more attention to the performance in question (while timing, screencapping, etc) reveals subtly hidden depth and dimension, all too easily missed on a first pass. And then, it's all, "Mayyybe I should have given another heart to this performance, after all. Mayyyyyybe I could even still..." But, by then -- or by now, as the case may be -- it's too late. The moment has passed. The hearts must stand. Another lesson learned on Supporting Actress Sundays. And this Sunday, my able teacher has been...

...Wendy Hiller in A Man for All Seasons (1966)
approximately 15 minutes and 48 seconds
11 scenes
roughly 13% of film's total running time

Wendy Hiller plays Lady Alice, the devoted wife of Sir Thomas More, the English statesman whose steadfast devotion to religious and legal principle, in an era of political treachery and expedience, occasions his doom.
It might be easy to dismiss Hiller's portrayal of Lady Alice More (as I think I may have initially) as a blowsy earth mother, grimacing and growling her way through the role solely to underscore the tension between the character's humble, laboring origins and her more courtly, present social station. (Indeed, I first suspected Hiller's work in the role was mostly interesting as a cleverish take on the Mores as a Tudor version of "nouveau riche.)
As the actress snorts her way through Lady Alice's early dashes of domestic comedy -- ostensibly included to humanize the impossibly ideal Sir Thomas (Paul Scofield, in a deservedly revered performance) -- Hiller's broad facial and vocal flourishes might seem at times ill-fitting to the gravitas of both the role and the film, especially in the film's middle scenes when Lady Alice's impatient, irascible practicality provide the focus of the character.
Yet, amidst all Lady Alice's apparent shortsightedness, Hiller's performance amplifies the essential truth at the core of this garrulous Lady: Alice loves her husband, Thomas. True, she doesn't feel entirely appreciated by him. And, yes, his formidable intelligence -- as well as that of her daughter, groomed by her husband to be his intellectual peer -- does intimidate her.
But Hiller's Lady Alice knows that she knows her husband Sir Thomas better than any human. So, when even she finds herself at her limit in comprehending why her husband would take such a stand against the king, Alice's inner conflict animates the emotional core of the film: the palpably human risk of taking a principled stand against power.
Hiller clearly marks the complex emotional contours of this conflict when she visits her husband, for what is to be the last time, within his damp prison cell. In this bravura scene, Hiller illuminates not only that she is "a lion" (as per Thomas's apt description) but also that she's the sole person capable of instigating an emotional break in her husband's apparently serene, intellectually sanguine edifice of noble self-sacrifice. As Hiller's strength in this sequence amplifies, it becomes devastatingly clear that Lady Alice's unflinching witness -- not the entreaties of his beloved daughter -- holds the potential to cause Thomas to break his conscientious resolve.
When Hiller's Alice bellows to the top of the Tower of London -- declaiming her doubt in both the British crown and in God -- hers is such an elemental shriek that it's almost a surprise that the stone roof doesn't cleave open to permit God's own reprieve. And when the heavens don't open, the moment becomes a devastating confirmation of the human certainty of Thomas impending execution. In this turn, Hiller scores a moment of genuine feeling, an emotionally tectonic shift in the foundation of this intellectual passion play.
With deft clarity (and more than a little bit of actorly stealth), Wendy Hiller thus ably animates the heart of this all-too "heady" a picture. (And in my heart of hearts, she's retroactively earned one, or even two, more Smackdown hearts than she already had...)

Supporting Actress Smackdown - 1966

The Year is...

1966
And the Smackdowners for the 39th Annual Academy Awards are...

BRAD of Criticlasm & Oh, Well, Just This Once...
BROOKE CLOUDBUSTER of Boy on Film
KEITH of In Which Our Hero
MATT of MattLand888
NICK of Nick's Flick Picks
with
yours truly, STINKYLULU.

1966'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.)

Sandy Dennis in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

MATT Initially, Sandy Dennis overdoes her role but reaps major rewards once Honey gets hold of the brandy. Alternately plunging into emotional depths and broad comedy--both with remarkable spontaneity--Dennis suggests a drunken, goofy Ophelia, a hapless, tragicomic pawn in an explosive power match.
STINKYLULU In Honey, Dennis’s Method tic-ishness combines with her insectlike appearance to create extraordinary glimpses of anxious, despairing, elemental vulnerability. It’s feral, terrifying work…and, for me, the most enduring performance in this legendary film..
BRAD Certainly the most interesting of the nominated roles. The strength of her performance comes from not knowing how much she really knows. It's that secret that keeps me interested in the character. She's somewhat in her own world, but aware to all of the emotional subtleties around her.
NICK Indelible, however enervating or occasionally self-indulgent. Dennis keeps Burton and Taylor from gobbling the movie, and she builds the bridge this piece sorely needs between wildest affectation and heartbreaking vulnerability. Long before the finale, we comprehend through her that these ideas can converge, intellectually and emotionally.
KEITH A spectacular performance, by far the pick of this month's crop. Honey is smarter than anyone realizes, but tragically incapable (as who wouldn't be?) of surviving George and Martha's cruelty and depravity. Brilliant comic relief and heartbreaking dramatic moments – Dennis does it all.
BROOKE There is no Oscar winner that treads quite that fine line between madness and genius quite like Sandy Dennis' turn as Honey. Nothing seems out of place with her interpretation of Honey and it becomes a tragic performance that blooms as the film continues; in my mind, Dennis is the peak that no winner before or after has ever reached.

TOTAL: 28s

Wendy Hiller in A Man for All Seasons

BROOKE This film exists to bow down before the Almighty Holy Flawless Thomas More; not his wife Alice. Hiller is not allowed to deploy any of her (considerable) talent in this role and ends up giving a non-performance because she has nothing to work with. A tag-along nomination is the only explanation.
MATT Hiller plays every element allotted the slivery part, but director Zinnemann’s restraint deprives her of audience empathy, and she plays the role crustier than necessary: why would the refined statesman Thomas More have married this hedgehog?
STINKYLULU Hiller’s irascible practicality provides an often worthy counter to Scofield’s stoic idealism. But something in Hiller’s bearing blunts the character’s earthy immediacy, especially as a Lady on the verge of being demoted to being another Lady’s maid. (Would that Hiller could have played Cromwell, though. Just imagine….)
BRAD Workmanlike stagey performance, like most of the film. She does all that can be done in a whimple, and I imagine that she was nominated for the last scene on the stairs. Solid perf, but Susannah York had more to do, and I was a little more interested in her.
NICK A nice surprise, because I’d seen it before and dismissed it. As always, she looks like she drank vinegar for breakfast, but she mixes an evident, unsentimental love for Thomas with an impatient, wifely skepticism that he’s making a show of himself without admitting it. Thank God someone cuts him down to human size, if often only in silence.
KEITH A solid piece of work, capturing Alice More's devotion to her husband, her inability to understand his motivation, and her anger at his intractable nature. But this is a movie filled with very fine acting, and against that backdrop, it's hard for merely solid work to make a strong impression.

TOTAL: 15s

Jocelyne LaGarde in Hawaii

KEITH LaGarde's phonetic performance is a dehumanizing stunt, turning her into a cross between a lifesized prop and a trained parrot. She survives with more dignity than you'd expect, but the stunt leaves no room for spontaneity or creativity. LaGarde gets the lowest score allowed, not because it's bad acting, but because it isn't really acting at all..
NICK Occasionally inert, plowing through space and through phonemes alike. Not an intricate artist. But she can be sly and very affecting, and she gets the audience roundly rooting for her incestuous marriage: no mean feat..
MATT Jocelyne LaGarde flip-flops amusingly between huggy benevolence and queenly ire. But, as a non-native English speaker, this likable nonprofessional suffers from Simone Signoret-itis: her facial expressions and body language don’t correspond to her lines, and LaGarde offers only flashes of spontaneity and depth.
BROOKE A very easy performance to like and get carried away with, but very hard to admire or get behind critically. LaGarde seems to know what to do in front of the camera and how to speak and move fluidly, but the cracks show in her characterization and it becomes easy to tell that this is not a professional job. Good for what it is, though, with some sparkling moments.
STINKYLULU A perplexing nomination that is, nonetheless, the most affecting performance in this vastly overblown film. Although her line readings aren't especially nuanced, LaGarde delivers a vivid consistent characterization – amplified by occasional flashes of startling emotional depth – of one leader’s sincere attempt to embody deeply contradictory ideals.
BRAD I love this performance. I don't know if she's a great actress, but she's the only reason to watch this movie. Who knows if she would've been nominated in a better movie, but in this she's warm, childlike, maternal, wise, and the only reason to see this movie at all. I wouldn't give her an Oscar, but I'm glad she's on film.

TOTAL: 15s

Vivien Merchant in Alfie

BRAD I can't decide if this is a one-note performance, or the role is written to be extremely sad. The most egregious example of the casual destruction of Alfie's world view, she gives a strong performance, though telegraphing pathos a little too much for me. I think I ended up interested in Shelly Winter's perf in some ways more.
MATT The role’s potentially touching: a plain Jane blossoming under a Casanova’s attention, with tragic results. But Merchant isn’t allowed enough close-ups to hold our attention. Her quiet dignity peeps through, and her crying scene is effective, but hers is a wan, numb nomination.
NICK Has two huge, almost unfair advantages: the script insists that we Learn Something Poignant from her character, and anyone would look great next to Julia Foster or Shelley Winters. Still, her economy of gesture is admirable, and her various fragilities are all moving. I love her contemptuous look when Alfie disobeys her and snoops where he shouldn’t.
STINKYLULU Merchant’s wise to play against the film’s Caine-esque style of glib directness, opting for a more oblique approach that aptly conveys the human intensity of Lily’s broken spirit and depressed ambivalence. But, in the morality play Alfie, the character of Lily might as well be named “Human Consequence,” and the film does little to showcase Merchant as anything more than a plot device.
KEITH Merchant is the victim of a script that cares no more for its women than Alfie himself does. She gets the movie's juiciest storyline, though, and has one indelible moment when she caresses a teddy bear as if it were her aborted child. It's a chilling, heartbreaking moment, and the only time that any of Alfie's women feels like a real person.
BROOKE Merchant is astonishing as the most tragic, and interesting, of Alfie's girls. She's playing Lily to a whole other level, some of the other actresses tend to sway towards basic caricatures, but Merchant is just as vivid and detailed in her choices that she becomes as real as the titular character. A great performance where a non-starter could've been.

TOTAL: 17s

Geraldine Page in You're A Big Boy Now

NICK Absolutely not. Purchases her character from the same Big & Tall Store for suffocating clichés (Kooky Harridans on Aisle 9!) where she previously purchased her Repressed Spinster for Summer and Smoke. Striking but arrogant, and quickly unbearable.
STINKYLULU Page invests depth and dimension to a shallow, non-dimensional role. Yet by cloaking her Margery in a jittery caul of defensive self-obsession, Page – perhaps inadvertently – quashes the character’s comic potential, making her presence in the farcical final throwdown utterly incongruous. Unpleasant, unfunny, unfortunate.
BRAD Outlandish, over-the-top farcical performance. A spoof of some roles she's known for – high-strung control freaks. Not funny, sadly, just really big. Chain-smoking – wha? Rover – wha? She's game and plays it to the hilt, but it just doesn't work.
KEITH Handed a stock character – the overbearing, possessive harpy/mother – Page gives a stock performance. She is shrill, unpleasant, and loud, which makes her right at home in this movie. It's so bland and routine a performance that I found myself forgetting it even as it was happening.
BROOKE Page is a talented actress, if perhaps over-technical, and seems incredibly committed to her character. It's a pity that whatever character she is committed to isn't in this movie, and she ends up giving a performance that works against what Coppola is giving her. A different film would have boded well, but this is just a mish-mash of poor choices and even misdirection.
MATT Playing the title character’s Oedipal nag of a mother, Page shrewdly operates on her own (amusingly) hammy wavelength, rather than attuning herself to the film’s awkward Mod whimsy. Too bad Coppola throws her away in the climactic chase sequence.

TOTAL: 10s

Oscar chose...
Sandy Dennis
in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Remarkably, I was unable to locate an image of Sandy Dennis holding her trophy.
The closest thing I could find was the above image --
a fan snapshot of Sandy's goldenboy (image source)

And the SMACKDOWN emphatically concurs...

SANDY DENNIS is the
Best Supporting Actress of 1966!

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