Ethel Waters in Pinky (1949) - Supporting Actress Sundays

Rarely, lovely reader, have I so struggled in resolving my feelings about a performance as I did while developing this week's profile. It's a legendary performance by a legendary performer, one I'm still struggling to parse out for myself. Of course, I'm talking about...

...Ethel Waters in Pinky (1949)
approximately 29 minutes and 57 seconds
21 scenes
roughly 29% of film's total running time

Ethel Waters plays Aunt Dicey, a hard-working washerwoman in the rural South whose devotion to both her granddaughter and her former employer results in a set of events that threaten the only life Aunt Dicey has ever known.
Pinky, the film's title, refers of course to the nickname given Aunt Dicey's granddaughter, Patricia, a fair-skinned young black woman recently returned from the North where she "passed" for white while pursuing her nursing degree.
Waters's Aunt Dicey, of course, disapproves of Pinky's "passing" deception, affirming the core moral of this tale ("you must be decent to others and 'true' to yourself, no matter the consequences").
Waters is formidable in the humble role of Aunt Dicey, especially in the films first several scenes when she's laying down the exposition while also communicating how a humble black woman in the Jim Crow South might maintain her self-respect in the face of daily indignities (a faith in God, a commitment to doing the right thing, and a clear understanding of one's place). Yet Waters's Aunt Dicey is also one of the films most prominent defenders of the existing, racially segregated social order. In many ways, Aunt Dicey is the character who feels the film's central conflict most profoundly: Aunt Dicey's compelled to support her granddaughter as Pinky attempts to honor Miss Em's dying wishes; at the same time, Aunt Dicey's mortally terrified of so violating the social codes of the day.
Aunt Dicey's dilemma is a potentially powerful one, and Waters seems entirely capable of delivering a knockout dramatic performance, yet Elia Kazan's film finds itself more invested in what becomes the core relationship between Pinky and Miss Em (a narrative that is more about accessing the privileges of whiteness than about dealing with the shifting meanings of blackness). So, without much attention from the script or the camera (or, most notably, her own costars), Waters is left pretty much on her own and, perhaps as a result, her performance is marked by curious moments of stylistic discordance.
An organic naturalism amplifies some scenes (as when Waters conveys the potency of Aunt Dicey's grief at Miss Em's imminent passing) while stock posturing diminishes others (as when Waters's face freezes in a broad but hollow grin as she ventures to check on Miss Em, or in a mask of uncertain anxiety as the huckster Jake waxes ominous).
Waters is good in the role, sometimes great. But the film remains uninterested in Aunt Dicey, except as its symbol of everything good in a basically awful social system.
Basically, the film situates Aunt Dicey as someone to be treasured, to be honored, and to be pitied.
And Waters does what she can to elevate the role beyond its base simplicity, but even a performer as formidable as Waters can only do so much when the film seems to be working against her. The film may be "about" the immoral idiocies of the color line but the film also fails to invest Aunt Dicey's character (and, by extension, Ethel Waters' performance) with the possibility of dynamic personhood. (And it's probably best to not get me started on the ignominy of Aunt Dicey's final scene, an ostensibly "lightly mocking" moment which bears a barely hidden cruelty -- to actress and to character -- that I find utterly shocking.)
Waters' performance in Pinky presents a frustrating conundrum. Her Aunt Dicey is, by turns, vivid and blurry. Waters presents a completely realized characterization in one moment, a 2nd tier stock performance in the next. It's an erratic performance of a complicated role that seems to have been directed with benign (?) neglect. A worthy nomination for a formidable performer, to be sure, but the performance itself remains a confounding mess that I yet struggle to sort through.

"Mandate Book Club" (Homo Heritage Fridays)

from MANDATE:

The International Magazine of Entertainment and Eros.
May 1980 ~ page 59.
For details, click the image; then click again to magnify
Which of these books do YOU remember?

You're Invited: SMACKDOWN '49

"Like a Brazil Wax for a Smurf" (PhotoQuote of the WednesDay)

behold Project Runway 5 Contestant SUEDE

via Pink Navy
click image to be routed to full post

To Dos Day

___ Item 1: HAPPINESS IS...
The Disney Villainesses doing "The Cell Block Tango." (Via The Film Experience.)

___ Item 2: ENJOY.
Way back when, I worked an event in NYC in which I was briefly charged with escorting Supporting Actress Legend Celeste Holm around a big hotel banquet hall. The room was crowded with glamorous stage folk, some of whom I also helped find their way this way and that, but amongst them all I was most impressed by Ms. Holm, who radiated humor and humanity the whole time. (My two favorite moments? First, when she intervened to prevent Anne Meara from falling on her ass. Second, when she sought me out as she was leaving to offer her thanks for my help that day.) The woman's a class act and a hoot to boot. Need proof? Check out this recent Celeste sighting over at And Your Little Blog, Too.

___ Item 3: SEEKING SUGGESTIONS.
One of my recurring interests, one which I don't think I've ever mentioned here, is the subject of queer-affirming young adult fiction. I first fell under the spell when a friend gifted me the whole Weetzie Bat series a few years back. And recently my interest has been reanimated, thanks to the suggestion of James Howe'sTotally Joe which I read on the way back from San Franfrisky. (I've also just can't get Jean Ferris' Eight Seconds out of my head, a less tragic Brokeback Mountain featuring contemporary kids.) So, if any of y'all have any suggestions, I'm all ears. Share your suggestions in comments or via email.

___ Item 4: PASTRY PERVERSION?
I love cake. I love pudding. I love cake and pudding all swilled together. Yet I'm not sure how I feel about cakefarts & puddingfarts.

(NSFW - thanks, Lady Bunny, I think.)

___ Item 5: CLICK BACK.
The 1949 Smackdown's scheduled for this Sunday, with my remaining profiles likely to hit the intertubes in the next days. It's an interesting year and 'twill be fascinating to see how things shake out.

___ Item 6: REMEMBER.
As you certainly know, Estelle Getty passed away today. Though she was never among StinkyLulu's superfavorites (she'd probably rank #4 if I were to rank my favorite Golden Girls), the woman -- whose acting career did not begin until her late 50s -- did portray major roles in three touchstone texts of my early queer consciousness: Mask; the stage version of Torch Song Trilogy; and -- natch -- Golden Girls. I likely won't have time to do a tribute to her incredible, subtle work as the anxious but loving grandmother in Mask but I find myself wondering: what are other great Estelle moments? Share your favorites in comments, pussycat.

Have at it, lovelies...

Ethel Barrymore in Pinky (1949) - Supporting Actress Sundays

When you're a movie freak of a certain age, those inevitable gaps in your screening experience start to feel like character flaws. What do you mean you've never seen Gone with the Wind? Or The Magnificent Ambersons? Or All the King's Men? Or Singing in the Rain? (Oops. I meant to keep that last one a secret for a while longer...) But, thanks to Supporting Actress Sundays, I am -- slowly but surely -- chipping away at my personal list of "Appalling Gaps in StinkyLulu's Screening History." And this week is no exception, bringing me to a somewhat lesser-known (but no less notable/notorious) film that's been on my "To Do List" for some time. So once again -- thanks to y'all -- I commence my journey with just such a film and offer my first close look at...

...Ethel Barrymore in Pinky (1949)
approximately 17 minutes and 9 seconds
7 scenes
roughly 17% of film's total running time

Ethel Barrymore plays Miss Em, a nearly penniless elderly white woman who lives alone on an estate loaded with history and priceless heirlooms. Stubborn and proud, Miss Em refuses to sell any of her treasures and instead depends upon kindness and courtesy of old friends to get through her days.
Barrymore's Miss Em has cast a shadow over Pinky her whole life. (Pinky, a young light-skinned black woman who has passed for white while pursuing her nursing education in the North, is portrayed here by Irish-American Jeanne Crain, who is sincere but clueless in the role.) And so it's only fitting when, at the insistence of Pinky's devoted grandmother Aunt Dicey (Ethel Waters in a curiously unmoored performance), Pinky finds herself grudgingly caring for the imperious old woman.
Before long, Pinky and Miss Em develop a mutual respect that edges perilously close to affection and Miss Em makes the fateful decision to redraft her will to include her formidable, young caregiver.
Barrymore's role is constructed as a showcase. Barrymore's character haunts the entire film (nearly every scene has something or other to do with Miss Em). Barrymore's character also instigates the crucial change for the film's protagonist (Crain's Pinky becomes a different person because of her encounter with Barrymore's Miss Em.) Yet, Barrymore herself is only seen in a concentrated series of scenes at the movie's midpoint. In short, it's the kind of "minimum screentime with maximum impact" role the category of Supporting Actress seems designed for.
And Barrymore seems to have fun with the role, investing her Miss Em with an alacrity and intelligence just slightly beyond what's required by the script. Each of Barrymore's glances and glares carry just enough meaning to amplify the tensions and uncertainties of the situation while also maintaining an easy humor. (Indeed, the wit of Barrymore's performance -- with an able assist by Evelyn Varden as the deliciously awful Cousin Melba -- provides the film's only real touch of genuine humor.)
Prior to this screening of the film (my first), I was under the impression that Pinky was essentially about the relationship between the young "passing" daughter and her devoted darker (grand)mother, Ethel Waters. As such, I was suprised to find that the Pinky-Aunt Dicey relationship is subservient (natch) to the film's central relationship: Pinky & Miss Em. In ways that are more interesting than I expected, Pinky's not about "passing" or blackness in the same way that, say, 1949's Lost Boundaries is. No, Pinky is a critical account of the unearned privileges that accrue to whiteness, in which Barrymore's Miss Em functions as Pinky's self-appointed mentor in understanding the potencies of privilege.
(All of which explains why the film concludes the way it does, with the two black women in service uniforms and with the white woman's name on the building.)
While not especially surprising or deep, Barrymore's performance is solid, witty and astute -- an entirely adept performance of a very good role.

On a personal side note, it's somehow appropriate that I profile this film and this performance today, on the day of my grandmother's 82nd birthday. This grandmother is roughly the same age, disposition and physical condition as Miss Em. This grandmother is also a woman who lived the life that Pinky almost did -- a woman who fled her humble, racially humiliating origins on the Gulf Coast to live life as a white woman in the Rocky Mountain west. My grandmother was not black, but Mexican, and her efforts to "pass" continue to this day even as she's barking orders about her fireplace screen (just like Miss Em.) It's an ironic poignancy I was not aware of until this moment, as I'm doing final edits on this post before I get ready to head out to this same grandmother's birthday celebration... So happy birthday, GrammaStinky.
Or should we call you Miss Pinky?

"The New Richness of the Urban Life" (Homo Heritage Fridays)

from MANDATE:
The International Magazine of Entertainment and Eros.
September 1981 ~ page 24-25, 28.
For details, click the image; then click again to magnify

Ahhh - A New York I caught but a glimpse of...

To Dos Day

___ Item 1: CHANGE.
I did. My screening log has now migrated from LiveJournal (which I quite liked for some things) back over to Blogger (which I prefer for selected archiving/indexing purposes). So, if you are at all interested in my unedited ramblings about the films that cross my path, please see/feed/bookmark me at my new site StinkyBits, which I seem very proud of. (The widget at right will link to the new site, though the old page remains up and running.) And, while you're at it, see my sisters in filmlogblogging: The Oscar Completist and The Diva's Film Screenings.

___ Item 2: WATCH.
Nathaniel's got another of his particularly genius concoctions which he seems very proud of. This one is a brilliant montage of his all-time 100 favorite actresses. Gorgeous, just gorgeous.

___ Item 3: CELEBRATE (Part 1).
That crazy genius behind My New Plaid Pants who has offered his own birthday gift to himself, a gift that might be the start of an annual tradition and one which he seems very proud of. Hippo birdie, JA! (BTW - I plan to steal the concept for myself this year, so be warned.)

___ Item 4: CELEBRATE (Part 2).
The life of the one, the only -- Michael Edward Bowman, Jr. aka "BO". This young man, A wondrous fury of humor and strangeness, Bo was someone I mostly knew through his magical friendship with Reddish68/Criticlasm. Nonetheless, Bo easily colonized a permanent place in my heart as one of the strangest, most fabulous creatures I've ever had the blessing to laugh with. Simply put, Bo possessed an incredible gift for high-concept character comedy (think Lily Tomlin + Kiki + Phyllis Diller) which he could snap into/out of with astonishing speed (fun at parties!). Twas a specialized gift that he seemed very proud of and which, if you believe what the people say, he put to great use in his career as a makeup artist. As I said when learning of Bo's stunningly sudden passing, "I've known a great many crazy gays in my days but I've never known any crazy like Bo's." So, beloveds, toss Bo a tribute and "Taste the beauty!" with your nearest and dearest. Blessings, beautiful man, blessings.

___ Item 5: VOTE.
The voting for August's Supporting Actress Sundays is active in the column at right. (And be sure to vote daily for MrStinky's niece (aka Finalist #1) in that Tommy Hilfiger fashion contest; she's worked hard on some fashion designs which she seems very proud of.)

___ Item 6: OPINE.
Have we seen any likely Supporting Actress nominees this year? I'm not sure I have, at least not in any films that will see a high-profile US release this year (examples A &B). Share your thoughts in comments.

Taste the beauty, lovelies...

Celeste Holm in Come to the Stable (1949) - Supporting Actress Sundays

Among the treats I look forward to in Supporting Actress Sundays is hitting the lesser-known or lesser-loved performances by those actresses I have come to call the category's WIDOs, or the actresses who seem to function as the category's standbys for a discrete period of years. WIDOs, of course, is my evocative abbreviation for the "when-in-doubt-options" for Supporting Actress Nominations. WIDOs are those actresses -- think Glenn Close in the early 1980s, Dianne Wiest in the later 1980s, Cate Blanchett in the mid2000s, and Thelma Ritter through most of the 1950s -- who, for a handful of years, seem to ever be on Oscar's Supporting Actress shortlist, whether or not the performance/film warrants it. Sometimes, the performer's run of good nomination fortune begins with a win, but, other times (Close, Ritter), the actress really does turn out to be a WIDO only. So, 'twas with some interest that I approached this week's nominated performance, the least acclaimed of this particular actress's three nominated performances in four years...

...Celeste Holm in Come to the Stable (1949)
approximately 53 minutes and 51 seconds
31 scenes
roughly 57% of film's total running time

Celeste Holm plays Sister Scholastica, the incessantly naïve French nun who serves as sidekick to Sister Margaret (Loretta Young in a ghastly performance of mellifluous sincerity) on their shared, quixotic quest to establish a Children's Hospital in the wilds of Western Connecticut.
In the role of Sister Scholastica, Holm is charged with three main tasks:
A) To be plausibly naïve/culturally clueless/idiotic enough to justify Sister Margaret's many expository sermonettes;
B) To be adorably enthusiastic, permitting her bright face to beam with beatific joy from the confines of her wimple; and
C) To play a mean game of tennis.
To her credit, Holm acquits herself gamely on all three counts. Which is somewhat impressive as the role has no use whatsoever for what is, perhaps, Holm's greatest gift: the slyly nuanced line-reading. Instead, Holm is saddled with chirpy, mostly monosyllabic dialogue which she delivers in a nearly shrill "Fifi" accent. This incongruity of Holm -- who nearly radiates sophistication and integrity -- in the role of a wimpled French ditzball? It can be tough to swallow (especially with the smarmy Young jabbering right next to the usually silent Holm).
Holm is at her best when "beaming beatifically." Holm's Sister Scholastica is especially vivid -- her facing registering empathy and gravitas with undistracting warmth at precisely the right moments -- in the film's single, genuinely moving sequence in which the Sisters visit a shady underworld figure named Luigi Rossi (Thomas Gomez in a startling, emotionally textured performance).
Holm is also adept at conveying genuine, infectious enthusiasm, all of which makes her Sister Scholastica pretty adorable.
This wimpled adorableness is on full display when Holm's Sister Scholastica takes to the tennis court in a quid pro quo gesture that feels dangerously close to a wager. The scene is played for comedy -- I kept thinking that Sister Scholastica has all the makings of a 1960s Disney feature, The Nun Who Wore Tennis Shoes -- before it is revealed -- spoiler alert! like you care! -- that Sister Scholastica was a French tennis champion before she entered the religious life. (Imagine that!)
Celeste Holm is entirely adequate in the role of Sister Scholastica, surviving both her miscasting and her costar with a witty, empathetic grace.
The part of Sister Scholastica -- a co-lead by most measures -- is nonetheless a supporting role that would have likely escaped Oscar's notice, were it not for the inexplicable nomination surge for this picture (7 nominations! WTF!?) and for Celeste Holm being one of Oscar's most reliable WIDOs of the period. (I tend to count the other Supporting Actress nomination from this film "a coaster" but we'll get into that in the coming weeks.)
An entirely decent performance by an actress on whom Oscar was sorta stuck in the later 1940s.

"Anita Sucks..." (Homo Heritage Fridays)

from MANDATE:
The International Magazine of Entertainment and Eros.
September 1977 ~ page 50
For details, click the image; then click again to magnify

I wonder what the "Gayest Designs" are...
And if you have NO idea what this piece of jewelry is all about, click here.

To Dos Day

___ Item 1: BE SHIRTLESS (OR A SHIRTLESS ADMIRER).
MyNewPlaidPants' recent/delightful appreciation of the hunka John Gavin is worth your delectation. And, along those lines, you should really know about Square Hippies, a site I've come to quite enjoy over the last few months. It's devoted to the very simple pleasures of shirtless male celebrities.
___ Item 2: BE BOOTYLICIOUS.
A (w)hole new meaning (totally nsfw).

via Plushie Schwartz

___ Item 3: BE PART OF THE FUTURE OF FASHION.
MrStinky's niece is a finalist in some Tommy Hilfiger fashion contest that I don't entirely understand. What I do understand is that (a) it's a great prize and (b) she's a great kid and (c) the winner is determined by a popular vote. So, lovely reader, do check out the contestants and, if you are at all inclined, please consider clicking your support for Contestant #1. You can vote once a day, so do vote early and vote often.

___ Item 4: BE GRATEFUL FOR SMALL FAVORS.
Everytime the American Idol humiliations (aka auditions) run on television, I give a private prayer of thanks that the program wasn't around when I was a teen. I can just see myself showing up to give a really sincere but truly awful audition and then tossing just enough drama to capture the editor's eye. I was, shall we say, somewhat intense as a highschooler. And this account of "The High School Tony Awards" brings all that cringe-tasticness to newly hilarious, delirious, delightful life....

___ Item 5: BE PATIENT.
The still-outstanding extra profiles (Manville, Hamilton, Tomlin, Huppert, et al) have created an embarrassing backlog, perhaps the most conspicuous casualties of my big move (into a big house with MrStinky) and my more professional obligations. I haven't forgotten these ladies, but remain uncertain about when/if I'll get to them. As such, I won't be adding to the pile by promising "overlooked" and "born in" profiles for 1949. So - FYI.

___ Item 6: BE CONTRARY.
My reaction to WALL*E -- in which I found myself impressed but unmoved and unsettled (for all sorts of reasons aside from what the filmmakers seemed to intend) -- seems to have established me as something of a naysaying curmudgeonly iconoclast. Am I really all alone in my frustration with the basic conservatism of this often admirable picture? (Then, again, I might be just a freak. I basically liked The Happening, after all.) But I don't try to be a contrarian, and I don't especially enjoy it when it happens. But happen it does. Which makes me wonder: which movies generally acclaimed/reviled films have inspired your most intransigent contrarianism? Which performers/performances? Please do share your thoughts in comments.

Have at it, lovelies...

Mercedes McCambridge in All the King's Men (1949) - Supporting Actress Sunday

One thing I've not really considered in all my months of doing Supporting Actress Sundays is which performances have the most astonishing outfits. For this morning at least, I know that an assured contender on my shortlist for such a distinction would have to be...

...Mercedes McCambridge in All the King's Men (1949)
approximately 20 minutes and 57 seconds
28 scenes
roughly 19% of film's total running time

Mercedes McCambridge plays Sadie Burke, a no-nonsense dame who makes a mercenary living manipulating the political process.
McCambridge's Sadie finds an easy friendship with journalist Jack Burden (John Ireland) over their mutual fascination with the ascendant political career of Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford, in a performance of astonishing visual and vocal power).
But where Ireland's Burden prefers the role of somewhat detached observer, McCambridge's Sadie is the sort to stealthily but forcefully make things happen, goading the still idealistic Stark to see just what he's made of.
Before long, both Burden and Sadie find themselves in the thrall of Stark's formidable charisma, itself a heady mix of righteous principle and burgeoning ego, and they each offer themselves in devoted service to their new political savior.
Sadie is a curious creature. Above it all even as she's right in the thick of things, McCambridge's Sadie emerges as a savvy, cynical political operative who understands that you can't take anything in politics personally. Yet her entire personal life is dependent on politics.
The film and McCambridge choose to convey Sadie's intrinsic contradictions by making her a mannish woman. Costumed in excellent (though outlandish) outfits that would likely best suit the Master of Ceremonies at the Lesbian Librarian Circus on Planet Fabulon, the film conceives Sadie as a hypercompetent woman in a man's world who is nonetheless emotionally defined by her inadequacies as a female. Sadie may be able to give it (and take it) like a man but, deep down, McCambridge shows us the character's abiding terror that she'll never be woman enough to hold a man.
The choice to play Sadie as a super-competent woman who's nonetheless defined by her inability to keep a man not only provides a midcentury update to hoary spinster tropes but also proves debilitating to McCambridge's work within the character. I love that Sadie's sexually adventurous, that she can turn a vicious phrase with wit and dexterity, that she's capable of falling in swoon with a wildly inappropriate person. But by portraying Sadie's distinctive character traits as aspects of a kind of gender confusion, Rossen (and McCambridge) transform most everything that's thrilling about the character into pathetic features of Sadie's tragedy as an overcompensating homely girl.
McCambridge herself actually contributes to this by offering a strangely disembodied performance in the role. While McCambridge's line readings are consistently superb -- the way she says "whom," the way her contemptous laugh burbles through a yelp of pain -- and a great many of her moments resonate with integrity, the radio actress's physicality remains unfortunately stiff and over-posed. Each turn of her head is a snap; every movement of her arms a jab. And while such a combination of resonant vocality and awkward physicality might have served the character of Sadie, this discrepant style unfortunately marks most of the performances in the film and does particular damage to McCambridge's work in the role of Sadie.
McCambridge's performance as Sadie delivers many vivid, and skillfully rendered, moments of clarity to this fascinating and prescient film. Yet, somehow, McCambridge's recurrent stiffness create a strangely discordant performance, as her Sadie lapses between electric clarity and indistinct cardboardness in scene after scene. I wanted to love this performance as much as I sometimes did in a specific moment, but ultimately I'm just confounded by the character of Sadie, largely because of Mercedes McCambridge's fascinating but erratic work in the role.

"Heat '83" (Homo Heritage Fridays)

from MANDATE:
The International Magazine of Entertainment and Eros.
May 1983 ~ page 1
For details, click the image; then click again to magnify

Happy 4th!