Geraldine Fitzgerald in Wuthering Heights (1939) - Supporting Actress Sundays

One of the challenges routinely faced by actresses at the edges, especially in genre dramas, is portraying what I've come to think of as a "collateral damage" character -- a figure designed to underscore the fundamentally tragic consequences of the core moral/narrative conceit. Usually, the "collateral damage" character is that gal who knows that little bit too much (think of Thelma Ritter in Pickup on South Street or Sylvia Miles in Farewell, My Lovely) but just as often such a character is the innocent fawn disastrously ensnared in a complicated dramatic web well beyond her, like Penelope Milford in Coming Home or...

...Geraldine Fitzgerald in Wuthering Heights (1939)
approximately 18 minutes and 41 seconds
16 scenes
roughly 18% of film's total running time

Geraldine Fitzgerald plays Isabella Linton, the exuberant young woman who has the misfortune to stumble between the ill-fated lovers at the turgid center of this yarn about romantic destiny.
Fitzgerald's Isabella is the youngest Linton, the wealthy landholding family who hold the lease for most of the properties in the county. When her elder brother Edgar (a prim David Niven delivering perhaps the quintessential performance of the left-behind lover character so necessary for the romantic epic) falls under the spell of the accident prone Cathy (an utterly odd Merle Oberon), Fitzgerald is first enlisted as Cathy's nursemaid/companion, a role she continues even after the two are married.
Only when Cathy's true love/obsession arrives on the scene (Laurence Olivier who opts to "glower" rather than "act" the role of Heathcliff) does Fitzgerald's Isabella show any signs of independent life. Fitzgerald's Isabella falls immediately in swoon with the handsome Heathcliff, insinuating herself into his obsession with Cathy by providing him an alibi escort for such things as fancy dress balls.
In these early scenes, Fitzgerald is refreshing, her energetic intelligence welcome amidst a troupe of stock character actors hammering out their stock characterizations. This energy infuses the young Isabella's unsullied optimism for the possibility of love with a delight and verve.
Indeed, Fitzgerald's Isabella helps to underscore the essential dramatic question of Wuthering Heights: Is true love a many spendored thing? Or is it an utter calamity? Fitzgerald's Isabella swoons with optimism for love's promise while we, on the other hand, know the poor girl's doomed. Fitzgerald does well in these early scenes of the optimistic Isabella, even contributing to several of the the film's few true thrills in her delightful slapfest with Oberon's Cathy.
Fitzgerald does less well in the character's extended later scene, when her spirit has nearly crumbled under the daily humiliations of Heathcliff's lack of genuine feeling for her.
In this scene (which, it should be noted, comprises nearly one-third of the character's total actual screen time), the acuity displayed by Fitzgerald earlier lapses a little. Fitzgerald ably conveys Isabella's devastation at being dismissed by Heathcliff with manic desperation. Her Isabella tenaciously maintains her devotion to Heathcliff, desperately hoping that he might yet see in her the possibility of love. Yet, somehow, Fitzgerald's alacrity -- her manic, even naive desperation -- makes her Isabella seem more obtuse than genuinely tragic.
Geraldine Fitzgerald delivers a vivid, lively performance in the role of Isabella but falls tragically short in her portrayal of an innocent caught in the deadly crossfire of romantic destiny.

Patron Saint of Best Supporting Actressness (William Wyler Blogathon)

StinkyLulu offers the following geekazoid ramblings as my contribution to The William Wyler Blog-a-thon instigated by the kind and generous goatdog. Be sure to check out the half century of Wyler wonderment over at The William Wyler Blogathon HQ. (Thanks, too, to reader Richie-Rich for flagging the oversight that omitted Geraldine Fitzgerald from Wyler's list of supporting actressness, an error that's now been corrected...)

Those of you who already know StinkyLulu also know that, well, I have a little thing about Supporting Actressness. (It's a hobby. It's a research project. It's an obsession. It's all good.) And when I started the Supporting Actress Sundays project about a 18 months ago, I was inclined to think Thelma Ritter -- she of the six Supporting Actress nominations but no trophy -- the "Patron Saint of Actresses at the Edges." That may yet be an apt designation. BUT, when thinking about William Wyler, I hafta wonder: might William Wyler be the "Patron Saint of The Best Supporting Actress"?

Among the sixteen auteurs who've directed more four or more Best Supporting Actress nominated performances, William Wyler leads the pack. As he has for nearly 40 years. With a whopping twelve nominations for Best Supporting Actress emerging from his films. The nominated Supporting Actress performances to be found in William Wyler's films include:

1936 - Bonita Granville, These Three.
1936 - Maria Ouspenskaya, Dodsworth.
1937 - Claire Trevor, Dead End.
1938 - Fay Bainter, Jezebel.
1939 - Geraldine Fitzgerald, Wuthering Heights.
1941 - Patricia Collinge, The Little Foxes.

1941 - Teresa Wright, The Little Foxes.
1942 - May Whitty, Mrs. Miniver.
1942 - Teresa Wright, Mrs. Miniver.
1951 - Lee Grant, Detective Story.
1961 - Fay Bainter, The Children's Hour.
1968 - Kay Medford, Funny Girl.

Wyler's record of twelve remains impressive, possibly untouchable. Only four other directors (Woody Allen, Elia Kazan, Mike Nichols & Martin Scorsese) have come anywhere close, and they're still wrestling in a 4-way tie for 2nd place, with each director counting eight nominated Supporting Actress performances to emerge from their films.

The sure loser, of course, of that 4-way tie for 2nd place in total number of nominated Supporting Actress performances is Elia Kazan. (Kazan, for better or worse, will likely not be directing any more films.) But Kazan will likely hold onto another directorial Supporting Actress record for some time, as the director with the most Best Supporting Actress winners to emerge from his films (Celeste Holm, Gentleman's Agreement - 1947; Kim Hunter, Streetcar Named Desire - 1951; Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront - 1954; Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden - 1955). Only two of Wyler's Supporting Actress nominees took the trophy home (Fay Bainter, Jezebel - 1938; Teresa Wright, Mrs. Miniver - 1942), placing him behind Woody Allen (at three for eight) and even with John Huston (at two for five) and Peter Bogdanovich (at two for four).

So why pronounce William Wyler the patron saint of the Best Supporting Actress category? Why not Elia Kazan, who directed more trophy-winning Best Supporting Actresses? Simply, William Wyler did it all and he did it first. Wyler, too, hit that magic plateau of eight nominations, even surpassing it within the first seven years of the category's existence, between 1936 and 1942. Wyler also pushed beyond the 8-nomination glass ceiling to be the first to direct Supporting Actresses to nominations across four decades. (Scorsese and Nichols have since done that as well, but John Huston sneakily snags this stat-heat by directing one nominated performance per decade for five decades.)

William Wyler's exacting directorial regard for formidable actresses helped to refine, in the category's earliest years, what a contender for Best Supporting Actress might be. Dowagers, damsels, hard knock dames, and even a kid - in Wyler's films we can begin to see the category find its shape. And though I have yet to review all twelve of Wyler's Supporting Actresses for Supporting Actress Sundays, I offer this petition in support of the proposition that William Wyler be appreciated as a Patron Saint of Best Supporting Actressness.

Bonita Granville in These Three (1936) - Supporting Actress Sundays

Oopsie doodle. StinkyLulu didn't expect to be so late with this entry but -- hey -- that's what happens when one ventures to the upper reaches of the Land of Enchantment: some conference hotels don't have internet access. (Imagine. So retro.) Speaking of retro...

'Twasn't that long ago that StinkyLulu and the Smackdowners contemplated another version of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour... Remember, lovely reader, way back in the golden days of July? When Fay Bainter proved quite a contender in 1961's Smackdown? Well, it's Hellman time again. Only this time, it's director William Wyler's 1936 go at the story (albeit sans sapphistry) and from which Oscar selected the first of many (how many is it? 8?) little girls to be nominated in this category...

...Bonita Granville in These Three (1936).

approximately 27 minutes "on" screen
13 scenes (including 5 scenes under 1 minute)
31% of film's total screen time

Granville -- who plays Mary Tilford, the awful little girl whose lies and innuendo nearly ruin the lives of These Three -- was a kid star of the old school. The daughter of actor parents, little Bonita had been acting for more than a decade by the time she (at age 12 or so) took on the part of Mary. Bonita Granville went on to act for most of her life, but it's for her performance here -- as well as her stint as the title character in a cinematic serialization of Nancy Drew -- that Granville is most remembered (though, surely, more people have seen her brief but memorable turn as Betty Davis' shallow niece in 1942's Now, Voyager).

The character of Mary Tilford is part indulged beast, part self-centered bully, part dispassionate sociopath -- Mary's a calculating menace both to those that love and those that loathe her. And Bonita Granville acquits the task efficiently. Indeed, Granville's Mary is most effective because she's so efficient, so cool, and so direct in her manipulations. Whether she's ensnaring her devoted grandmother in a skein of lies, or feigning friendship to a girl she plans to cruelly abuse in a moment's time, Granville's approach to the part is simple and direct, exceptionally understated in a dramatic scenario inclined to all kinds of hysterics. Indeed, Granville's Mary -- strangely subtle amidst the scenery chewing -- almost gets lost among the 1930s dramatics popping all 'round her.

A BRIEF ASIDE: It certainly doesn't help that, in many of her scenes, Granville's up against Marcia Mae Jones as everyone's favorite dim-witted kiddie klepto Rosalie. Quite simply, Jones' performance as Rosalie is one of the more electrifying kid performances Lulu's ever screened. With a wide-eyed pie-face just made for '30s cinematography, little Marcia Mae just wipes the floor with anyone, young or old, unfortunate enough to share the screen with her. The girl goes from shy to dumb to adamant to terrorized to hysterical -- all in the space of about 3 minutes, with intelligent clarity and thrilling precision. By far the best work in the film, Marcia Mae Jones' performance is reason enough to arrange a screening. And kid actresses should take note, what with Veronica Cartwright's excellent work in the 1961 version, Jones' scene-stealing should be a reminder that Rosalie is perhaps the coolest part in this enduring piece.

But there is one great moment in Bonita Granville's Mary that deserves especial note, a moment that subtly recalibrates the whole architecture of her entire performance: the penultimate beat of Mary's final scene. All her dissembling has been revealed and her grandmother, Mrs. Tilford, seems ready to keel over. Tilford's housekeeper, Agatha -- played by that snugglebunny Margaret Hamilton -- is charged with locking little Mary in her room. Mary tries to escape, but Agatha proves too swift, wrenches the child back to her and whallops her with a mighty slap. It's a shocking moment, made all the creepier by the glow that fills Granville's eyes as she regards Hamilton. Is it shock that someone would punish her? Relief that someone's finally taken her in hand? Or some creepier, other thing? (StinkyLulu votes for option 3.) This fleeting moment is the only glimpse that Granville provides of Mary without her mask and it's utterly enthralling. And it's proof positive that Bonita Granville was quite the little actress, entirely deserving of Oscar's nomination.

Maria Ouspenskaya in Dodsworth - Supporting Actress Sundays (Wednesday Edition)

When the 1936 roster for September's Supporting Actress Sundays came up for review, Lulu had no frickin' idea who the hell Maria Ouspenskaya was. Moreover, because things have been a littlecrazybusy in LuluLand of late, StinkyLulu didn't do any prep research before tossing in the dvd late last night. So. Imagine Lu's surprise when, about ten minutes from the end of the flick, Maria Ouspenskaya popped up for a single, slapdown of a scene. And StinkyLulu was all: "Oh. My. God. Is Maria Ouspenskaya Madame Ouspenskaya?! The legendary proponent of Stanislavski's System among American actors in the '20s and '30s?! The little old crone/bitch-on-wheels acting teacher -- 8th-generation impressions of whom acting geeks trade like the über-queers trade Tallulahs?! That Madame Ouspenskaya?! Who knew?!" (Truth be told, StinkyLulu really should have known.) But 'twas exciting nonethe to have an unexpected late-night encounter with THE...

...Maria Ouspenskaya in Dodsworth (1936).
5 minutes and 27 seconds on-screen
1 scene
5% of film's total screen time

The Russian-born Ouspenskaya was a member of the legendary Moscow Art Theatre, where she studied with and was directed by Stanislavski. Ouspenskaya came to U.S. with the Moscow Art Theatre in 1922, and became one of the few who remained in New York after the theatre's storied U.S. tour. After achieving sustained success on the New York stage during the 1920s, Ouspenskaya founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York in 1929. When the school's finance's foundered during the Depression, Ouspenskaya headed to Hollywood on a dollar-gathering venture for the school. Her first Hollywood film (she had done a few Russian films) just happens to have been Dodsworth, for which she received her first of two Supporting Actress nominations, and which began a thirteen-year run as one of Hollywood's most memorable character actresses. (Ouspenskaya died in 1949 of a stroke resulting from injuries sustained in a house fire.)

In Dodsworth, Ouspenskaya plays Baroness Von Obersdorf, the imperious mother of Baron Kurt von Obersdorf -- the third European cad to "make love" to the story's female protagonist, Fran Dodsworth (Ruth Chatterton), a wealthy not-quite-divorced American simp. Baron Kurt & Fran are planning to marry and Ouspenskaya's Baroness arrives -- a wee tiny gorgon swathed in widow's black and possessing the kind of bark that makes you real scared of her bite-- to survey her son's betrothed. Simply put, Ouspenskaya's Baroness does not approve and conveys her withering disdain with near scientific precision. In perhaps the movie's most exultant moment, Ouspenskaya's Baroness slaps some sense into the sillysilly Fran: "Have you thought how little happiness there can be for the old wife of a young husband!" Of course, the impact on Fran -- whose dithering selfishness contributes the narrative through-line of the film -- doesn't last long. But the Baroness' verbal smackdown of insufferable Fran contributes one of those moments to inspire a movie-house's cheering... and Ouspenskaya manages it with clarity, precision and integrity.

Can't say that StinkyLulu loved the performance, but -- for what it was -- Maria Ouspenskaya's Baroness contributed some exhilarating zest to this fascinating, if tortured, contemplation on the perils of middle age. And while Mary Astor might have made for a much more satisfying Supporting Actress candidate, Ouspenskaya's just fine. Her extraordinary presence creates an indelible impression & one can't help but think that this encounter with the Baroness might well be the turning point in Fran Dodsworth's idiocy. All told, an interesting romp that reminds Lulu that -- where Supporting Actresses are concerned -- surprises lurk around every corner...

PS: And, once again, who knew of John Payne's hotness? The scene were he kisses the palm of his wife's hand as she cradles their newborn baby? Swoon/woof/swoon.

Fay Bainter in THE CHILDREN'S HOUR (1961) - Supporting Actress Sundays

The third Supporting Actress Sunday for 1961 brings StinkyLulu's attention to a piece with which Lu has a peculiarly personal history, The Children's Hour, Lillian Hellman's enduring piece about two teachers being accused of -- gasp -- lesbianism. See, in high school, Lulu acted a production of the play (no drag involved so guess which part). And then, the very first thing StinkyLulu ever directed in college was a scene from this play -- the one in Act2 where evil little Mary makes the allegation to her grandmother Mrs. Tilford -- and guess who played Mary brilliantly in that little freshman acting scene? A certain one hit wonder... Uh huh. No lie.) There's much to loathe about Hellman's most frequently produced play, yet somehow Lulu remains strangely attached to The Children's Hour.

But even then, with all this previous exposure, Lulu certainly did not expect to be completely engrossed by...

...Fay Bainter in The Children's Hour (1961).

approximately 26 minutes and 50 seconds
8 scenes
roughly 25% of film's total running time
(data courtesy of Raybee)

William Wyler's 1961 film is not Hollywood's only adaptation of Lillian Hellman's 1934 play. A quarter century earlier, Wyler himself directed a sanitized/heterosexualized version of the piece, retitled These Three, which premiered in 1936. While the backstory of These Three is interesting, it's most notable for Supporting Actress Sundays to note that Miriam Hopkins -- who, in 1961, is great as Martha's wacky aunt Lily Mortar -- played Martha Dobie in Wyler's 1936 version, opposite Merle Oberon as Karen and Bonita Granville (who the Smackdowners saw in 1942's Now, Voyager) as Mary. By the early 1950s, though, the red-scare and HUAC hearings reactivated an interest in Hellman's play as a theatrical treatment of the power of insinuation and innuendo to ruin lives. Indeed, it's not uncommon to hear The Children's Hour lumped with Arthur Miller's The Crucible as "reactions" to McCarthyism, even though Hellman wrote her play nearly 20 years earlier and based it on an essay she read in a 1930 "true crime" anthology (about an 1809 Scottish scandal). The storied 1952 Broadway revival of the play (starring Kim Hunter and Patricia Neal in the lead roles) certainly fueled the piece's contemporaneity and notoriety in the 1950s but, for a variety of reasons, it took Wyler nearly a decade to bring his new cinematic treatment of the piece to the screen.

And it's just like a director like William Wyler to bring a trouper back to the screen in the lynchpin role of Amelia Tilford, the wealthy matron who righteously remakes a child's whispered innuendo into the scandalous allegation that destroys three lives. For this essential role, William Wyler smartly turned to Fay Bainter, who he directed to Oscar in 1938's Jezebel.

On first glance, and like fellow Class of '61 nominee Una Merkel, Fay Bainter's nomination might well be understood as one of those "tribute" nominations for which Oscar's somewhat notorious: the kind where the voters give a nod to the work of a performer whose career reaches wayway back in movie history. Not that Bainter was unworthy of such a tribute. An established early 20th century theatre star (she was a "privileged" member of David Belasco's company in the 1910s), Hollywood snagged Bainter in the early sound era and she quickly emerged as one of the most reliable character actors of the 1930s. For those less interested in Fay Bainter trivia than in Oscar's minutiae, Bainter's also an important footnote in Oscar history for being first performer to be nominated both leading and supporting acting categories in the same year ('38); only ten performers have been so honored -- Bainter in '38, previous Smackdown subject Teresa Wright '42, Barry Fitzgerald '44; Jessica Lange '82, Sigourney Weaver '88; Al Pacino '92; Holly Hunter & Emma Thompson '93; Julianne Moore '02; and Jamie Foxx '04). Bainter might also blip across Oscar-fiend minds as the presenter of Hattie McDaniel's historic win in 1939. A reliable film presence in the 1930s and '40s, Bainter worked mostly in television in the 1950s. 1961's The Children's Hour marked both Bainter's return to film as well as her final film performance, a swan song of sorts for seven decades of thespianism. (Bainter died in April 1968, about six years after the 1961 Oscar ceremony.)

The character of Amelia Tilford might easily be misrecognized simply as the villain of the piece. But neither Wyler nor Fay Bainter make that mistake. Bainter's performance is -- in a very subtle way -- perfectly electrifying. When she walks into the room, everyone seems to stand at attention, a curious power that both Wyler and Bainter expertly deploy in service of the character. Swathed in the garb of a meticulously genteel dowager, the outfits barely disguise the ferocious lionness underneath. Mrs. Tilford's furious instinct to protect her grandchild rages in Bainter's eyes. Bainter smartly plays Mrs. Tilford as a not unkind woman -- just a little too sure of what she thinks she knows -- and whatever villainy follows stems from this misguided righteousness. Mrs. Tilford's problem comes first when she places her cultivated confidence as surety for a petty child's insinuation, and next when the devastating impact of her actions are impervious to her amends.

Bainter's most complex moment comes when her granddaughter Mary's selfish trickery and malicious deception are finally revealed. Rosalie -- Mary's little klepto minion (played very well here by the always delicious Veronica Cartwright, when she was maybe 11) -- has just come clean, telling Mrs. Tilford that Mary forced Rosalie to verify Mary's lies about their former teachers. Just then, Mary (played atrociously by a little beast in her single film role) stomps into the house. Bainter's Tilford demands that she "come here." Frozen still on the stair, Mary sees Rosalie, figures what's happening and begins to protest, but the glare Bainter's Tilford gives her beloved, monstrous granddaughter? It just burns the screen; the genteel old lady is pissed and Mary's gonna get it (nyahnyahnananyah). But right then -- as though the karmic boomerang of righteousness just swoops back and clips her smack in the back of her knees -- Bainter's Tilford buckles and falls to the floor. As she refuses assistance to stand, it's clear: This moment -- not the many good deeds that came before -- will be the defining moment of Amelia Tilford's life and legacy, and that realization seems to age the woman before our eyes. It's deep, this scene -- and Bainter and Wyler pitch the tone of it perfectly. Revelatory without being redemptive, Bainter's Mrs. Tilford emodies the reciprocal damage of deception and Tilford's pathetic and fruitless attempts to make amends for her actions become -- for better and worse -- the most haunting of the myriad tragedies and losses scripted in this narrative.

In a film with powerful performances from James Garner and Shirley Maclaine, with what is -- arguably -- Audrey Hepburn's most textured performance, Fay Bainter's work in this role -- while not necessarily trophy worthy -- is certainly nomination worthy...one of the handful of "tribute" nominations that withstand this Oscar-dork's scrutiny. StinkyLulu's pleased that this nomination served as a powerful re/introduction to Fay Bainter. That's what Lulu so loves about Supporting Actress Sundays: the opportunity to give full attention to brilliant actressing at the edges...like Fay Bainter's performance in The Children's Hour.

Don't forget to vote
for the next month of
Supporting Actress Sundays!

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.)