Best Supporting Actress 1972

1927/28 through 1997

Best Supporting Actress 1972

Jeannie Berlin - The Heartbreak Kid
6
20%
Eileen Heckart - Butterflies Are Free
10
33%
Geraldine Page - Pete 'n' Tillie
1
3%
Susan Tyrrell - Fat City
8
27%
Shelley Winters - The Poseidon Adventure
5
17%
 
Total votes: 30

Big Magilla
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 1972

Post by Big Magilla »

The odd thing about the Broadway run of Butterflies Are Free was that Keir Dullea (in Edward Albert's role) and Heckart were billed over the title while Blythe Danner in Hawn's role was billed below yet both were nominated in the featured category in the days when above-the-title stars were generally nominated in lead and those billed below were generally nominated in featured.

This was, though, the year after William Daniels famously refused his nomination for Best Featured Actor in 1776, so this may have been the first year that they started playing with the categories.
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 1972

Post by Sabin »

Just watched Butterflies Are Free for the first time. I need to watch The Poseidon Adventure and Pete 'n' Tillie first before making my choice (do I?), but I would have predicted Eileen Heckart to win at the time. She's a previous nominee who takes over the whole second half of the film. She gets to play a domineering mother who actually has her son's best interests in mind the entire time, so it's very much a cave-your-cake-and-eat-it-too performance. I saw that Damien referred to her as mannered. I don't see that at all. She seems pretty relaxed before the camera to me, which probably deserves Academy consideration considering how stagy this film is (that cinematography nomination is shameful). When your choices are something as acerbic as The Heartbreak Kid or as downbeat as Fat City, I get it and I don't see it as any kind of injustice especially for how grateful I was to have someone else show up in this thing and inject a different energy. As for the film itself, it's... fine. It's a relic but it's generally effective as what it's doing. I really only have two issues with the film. It doesn't feel like Goldie Hawn and Eddie Albert are only together for one or two days. I get that that's important to her arc that she never stays put for longer than six days but... I don't know... they have a "week of fucking" familiarity to them. Also, I can't decide if there's something off about Hawn's behavior when Heckhart shows up or if it's just a missed opportunity for the script. Really, that scene has the makings of a (dated) farce and it largely whiffs. I noticed that the Tony's honored her character for Featured and I think that's the issue. If she's just an unknowable butterfly fluttering in and out of Don's room, she makes a little more sense than as a protagonist. But it's sweet.

I was most interested in it as a leisurely film that really takes the entire first half of the movie to get the lovers together. While this isn't conventional school of thought, this is increasingly becoming more of an accepted way of looking at a romantic films even if they're (obviously) not in a commercial vein. There's a dated school of thought that says Inciting Incident (Pg. 15), they meet, Debate (20-30), decide whether or not to date, Break Into Second Act (Pg. 30), they're a couple. And not only is that approach a one size fits all bit of nonsense, it would make this film incoherent. What's the story then? Anyway, just a gateway into my thoughts.
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 1972

Post by flipp525 »

Big Magilla wrote:I wrote that in 2010.
Yes, and my opening was “This is obviously an old post.”
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 1972

Post by Big Magilla »

flipp525 wrote:
Big Magilla wrote: don't think Berlin has played anything other than that same character in anything.
This is obviously an old post, but I would recommend checking out Jeannie Berlin in The Night Of which starred Riz Ahmed and John Tutturro on HBO last year. Berlin is excellent as the DA and has a very powerful scene in the closing courtroom scene. Magilla, you seemed rather down on her in his thread and it might make you reconsider.

If I recall correctly, she was also in Margaret with Anna Paquin.

Allison Janney should’ve been nominated for (and even perhaps won) an Oscar for her brief cameo in the same film - a heart-wrenching, devastating scene. She’s provided so much texture to films over the years, I won’t begrudge what looks like it might be a steamroll win for I, Tonya this year.
I wrote that in 2010. Berlin's superb comeback performance in Margaret was 2011. And, yes, she was superb again in The Night Of.
The last time I saw The Heartbreak Kid, which was post-Margaret, pre-The Night Of, I still didn't like her in it.
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Re: Best Supporting Actress 1972

Post by flipp525 »

Big Magilla wrote: don't think Berlin has played anything other than that same character in anything.
This is obviously an old post, but I would recommend checking out Jeannie Berlin in The Night Of which starred Riz Ahmed and John Tutturro on HBO last year. Berlin is excellent as the DA and has a very powerful scene in the closing courtroom scene. Magilla, you seemed rather down on her in his thread and it might make you reconsider.

If I recall correctly, she was also in Margaret with Anna Paquin.

Allison Janney should’ve been nominated for (and even perhaps won) an Oscar for her brief cameo in the same film - a heart-wrenching, devastating scene. She’s provided so much texture to films over the years, I won’t begrudge what looks like it might be a steamroll win for I, Tonya this year.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Post by Big Magilla »

I remember Joe Gelmis voting for Daisy the Sheep but I didn't recall Anna Massey and Vivien Merchant polling six points each for Frenzy, nor did I remember that Ida Lupino had tied with Susan Tyrell for second place.
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Post by Mike Kelly »

As I posted for 1973, here's the National Society of Film Critics voting breakdown for 1972. These are the only two years that I have their books. I'm not sure they published more than one or two others.

26 Points - Jeannie Berlin - The Heartbreak Kid
11 Points - Ida Lupino - Junior Bonner
11 Points - Susan Tyrrell - Fat City
09 Points - Harriet Andersson - Cries and Whispers
08 Points - Valentina Cortese - The Assassination of Trotsky
06 Points - Anna Massey - Frenzy
06 Points - Vivien Merchant - Frenzy
05 Points - Diane Keaton - Play it Again, Sam
05 Points - Karen Black - Portnoy's Complaint
05 Points - Kari Sylwan - Cries and Whispers
04 Points - Monica Zetterland - the Emigrants
04 Points - Ellen Burstyn - The King of Marvin Gardens
03 Points - Lois Nettleton - The Honkers
03 Points - Roberta Wallach - The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
02 Points - Bulle Ogier - the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
01 Point - Barbara Harris - War Between Man and Woman
01 Point - Shelley Winters - The Poseidon Adventure
01 Point - Daisy the Sheep - Everything you Always Wanted to Know About Sex...

Daisy's vote came from Joseph Gelmis, longtime critic for Newsday. He did vote Jeannie Berlin for first place and Roberta Wallach for second. Oscar winner Eileen Heckart was shut out.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Mister Tee wrote:Magilla, you keep unintentionally pushing me further away -- in this case by reminding me Gershe was the writer of Funny Face. I'd actually considered mentioning yesterday that the only scene I could recall comparable to Heckart's denunciation of the director in Butterflies was that now-embarrassing drop-in at the beat bar in Funny Face. In both cases, Gershe depicted a contemporary social phenomenon in the squarest, most caricatured way possible. So, it's hard for me to take a change-of-perspective ending very seriously -- his heart has always seemed to be firmly with the squares.
LMAO.
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Post by Sabin »

I haven't seen Heckhart (whom I like very much) or Page, so I'll abstain from voting. But were I to vote on the basis of what I've seen right now, there's no question. Tyrrell. She comes to life every time I rewatch the great Fat City.
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Post by Mister Tee »

Magilla, you keep unintentionally pushing me further away -- in this case by reminding me Gershe was the writer of Funny Face. I'd actually considered mentioning yesterday that the only scene I could recall comparable to Heckart's denunciation of the director in Butterflies was that now-embarrassing drop-in at the beat bar in Funny Face. In both cases, Gershe depicted a contemporary social phenomenon in the squarest, most caricatured way possible. So, it's hard for me to take a change-of-perspective ending very seriously -- his heart has always seemed to be firmly with the squares.

I believe Eve Arden took over Heckart's role for some time, as well.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Of course the characters are different but they are both played bigger than life by actresses who usually faded into the background of their films.

I think Mister Tee is missing the point of Butterflies Are Free which was ultimately about the change in the character of the mother. I hate to give away endings but the whole point of it is that it is the seemingly tough, set in her ways, middle-aged woman is the one who has an epiphany, the only one of the three principal characters who really grows during the course of the play/film and sees the error of her ways in the end. If the playwright (Leonard Gershe) was sending a message to the blue-haired old ladies it wasn't "I'm on your side" but "get over it".

Gershe was no prude. He wrote for Judy Garland (fixing the the script of A Star Is Born), Fred Astaire (the screenplays for Funny Face and Silk Stockings) and Ann Sothern (both Private Secretary and The Ann Sothern Show). Sothern in fact played Heckart's part in the touring version of the play opposite Brandon de Wilde who died in a car crash during the Denver run.

Gloria Swanson in one of her many comebacks also had great success with it. She is credited with extending the Broadway run for two years.




Edited By Big Magilla on 1281549831
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Post by ITALIANO »

Yes, I'd say that the two characters - and, most importantly, the two performances, because this is what we should talk about - aren't as similar as they may seem. And I swear I'd never thought I'd ever praise Neil Simon, but honestly Barefoot in the Park, while certainly not Moliere or Goldoni or Noel Coward, is better material than Butterflies Are Free (at least judging from the film versions).

Natwick is better than Heckart, definitely. Still, I think that most of Mister Tee's antipathy for Heckart's character comes from having seen the play back then, in that political and social context (and what a feverish context that was!), when its ideology must have been very obvious and even offensive. Now, so many years later, the movie itself is so weak and forgettable that nothing about it can seem even remotely relevant - nor, by consequence, irritating; and the only element which makes it really entertaining today is Heckart's solid, professional contribution.
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Post by Mister Tee »

Big Magilla wrote:I don't know how you could love Mildred Natwick in Barefoot in the Park and not love Eileen Heckart in Butterflies Are Free, they're the same kind of performance.
Except Natwick's character had an appealing dottiness about her, which made her open to fresh experience and prevented even her disapprovals of her daughter's behavior from seeming judgmental. Heckart's character, by contrast, was full-on censorious, and proud of it. Christ, two of those putdowns you quote amount to "You little tramp", which was hopelessly retro by 1970. I see the characters as superficially similar, but different in all important ways.

Broadway audiences obviously contain their share of sophisticates, but there are plenty of lowest-denominator members as well. It'll vary from show to show how much the directors/creators push their performers to play to these cheap seats. (I mean cheap seats metaphorically, of course -- since some of those who pay the highest prices can represent the lowest brow)
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Post by Hustler »

Heckart is my choice
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Post by Big Magilla »

Mister Tee wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:
ITALIANO wrote: I don't remember this in the movie, but then I saw it long ago. But yes, of course she represented conservative, traditional values as opposed to the world of the confused, unreliable young.
Yes, it's in the movie. Paul Michael Glaser played the part. She says "I do not intend to pay money to see nudity, obsenity and degeneracy." He says "These things are part of life." She says "So is diarrhea, but I wouldn't classify it as entertainment."

There was cheering when I saw the film on opening day at Radio City Music Hall but I'm not sure it was because the audience agreed with her putdown or that Glaser played the director as such a creep that they were glad to see her give him his comeuppance or that they were blown away by her acting.

Not having seen it on the stage I don't know how broadly she played it, but she was appropriately toned down for the film version. Her best moments, of course, came with her droll putdowns of Hawn:

Heckart: "Then you're an actress?"
Hawn: "Well, yeah."
Heckart: "Might I have seen you in something besides your underwear?"

Hawn (after Heckart gives her a shiny apple): "This reminds me of something. I know, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Oh, I didn't mean that you were the wicked witch."

Heckart: "And I know you're not Snow White."
Certainly onstage the "diarrhea" moment was played to get the blue-haired ladies cheering for themselves and their old-fashioned-ness. It's exactly why I despised the play. (It's not, of course, Heckart's fault that the script created such an insulting straw man caricature as the director, but she didn't do anything to redeem the moment, either)

In fact, you've managed to pinpoint the moments I disliked most about the play. I recall, when Heckart held out the apple, and the girl (Danner) said, "This reminds me of something", thinking, hey, decent joke. Which they then extended out the two more lines more lines you've quoted, made it now thuddingly obvious to even lip-readers, and thus no longer funny, to me.
I don't know how you could love Mildred Natwick in Barefoot in the Park and not love Eileen Heckart in Butterflies Are Free, they're the same kind of performance.

This does, however, bring up something about live theatre performances, even those on Broadway where you would think sophistication would be at a higher level.

I remember seeing My Fair Lady circa 1960 with I believe Edward Mulhare and Sally Ann Howes.

It was competently done except for two lines that I thought were played more broadly than they should have been. The "move yer bloomin' arse" line was one. The other is one that isn't in the film but drew loud laughs from the audience.

Col. Pickering, having tea with Mrs. Higgins and Mrs. Eynsford-Hill, having just spent weeks listening to Eliza's cockney dialect, turns to the ladies and says "I say, do you care for kikes..., er cakes." The blue-haired Jewish ladies in the audiences laughed louder than anyone.
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