Best Actress 1952

1927/28 through 1997

Best Actress 1952 - Vote for the Best Actress 1952

Shirley Booth - Come Back, Little Sheba
7
27%
Joan Crawford - Sudden Fear
4
15%
Bette Davis - The Star
1
4%
Julie Harris - The Member of the Wedding
8
31%
Susan Hayward - With a Song in My Heart
6
23%
 
Total votes: 26

ksrymy
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Re: Best Actress 1952

Post by ksrymy »

mlrg wrote:Still can’t vote here as I still need to see David and Hayward but having just seen The Member of the Wedding I have to say that Julie Harris performance is probably one of the worst best actress nominated performances ever. The constant whining, screaming, machinated, over the top performance makes this almost unwatchable even at 90 minutes.
Could not agree more. One of the very, very few films I have sitting at a 1/10 on Letterboxd. It's like someone forgot to tell her that she's not on stage, and the decision to cast her as a child is still baffling to me. You can easily get away with something like that on Broadway but not on film.
"Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Re: Best Actress 1952

Post by mlrg »

Still can’t vote here as I still need to see David and Hayward but having just seen The Member of the Wedding I have to say that Julie Harris performance is probably one of the worst best actress nominated performances ever. The constant whining, screaming, machinated, over the top performance makes this almost unwatchable even at 90 minutes.
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Re: Best Actress 1952 - Vote for the Best Actress 1952

Post by divooo »

Reza wrote:
divooo wrote:
bizarre wrote:I have not seen any of these nominees.
Then this "contribution" is rather pointless.
All the actual nominees are available for free online.
Exactly. That's why it's straight up trolling spamming these polls with personal picks who have nothing remotely to do with Oscars.
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Re: Best Actress 1952

Post by Big Magilla »

Now that there seems to be renewed interest in this one, I've added the option that allows you to change your vote.

My personal take remains the same. Hayward is the only nominee worthy of a win in my estimation.

Mister Tee's take on Shirley Booth's performance is spot-on, but Booth does have one or two scenes in Come Back, Little Sheba where she seems like a real person rather than the annoying caricature she is through most of the film. To me, the most annoying performance is that of Julie Harris straining at 26 to make herself believable as a 12-year-old in The Member of a Wedding, detracting from the commendable performance of Ethel Waters and the astonishing one of Brandon De Wilde.

I re-watched Sudden Fear recently, and while I still don't find Joan Crawford remotely award-worthy in it, I do think she deserved some kind of recognition for trying to make audiences believe that she was even remotely attracted to Jack Palance, whose supporting nomination is even more of a head-scratcher.
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Re: Best Actress 1952 - Vote for the Best Actress 1952

Post by Reza »

divooo wrote:
bizarre wrote:I have not seen any of these nominees.
Then this "contribution" is rather pointless.
All the actual nominees are available for free online.
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Re: Best Actress 1952 - Vote for the Best Actress 1952

Post by divooo »

bizarre wrote:I have not seen any of these nominees.
Then this "contribution" is rather pointless.
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Re: Best Actress 1952 - Vote for the Best Actress 1952

Post by bizarre »

I have not seen any of these nominees.

My picks for this strange year:
1. Mirjami Kuosmanen, The White Reindeer
2. Mandy Miller, Mandy
3. Kinuyo Tanaka, Mother
4. Phyllis Calvert, Mandy
5. Maria Fiore, Two Cents Worth of Hope
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Post by ITALIANO »

This is the kind of year when one can make an outrageous choice, considering that none of the nominees was truly memorable (though I must admit that I never saw Member of the Wedding since it was never shown in Italy).

Technically the best performance is the one they gave the Oscar to. The character may be annoying, and I'm certainly not a big fan of those American plays about "little people". But Shirley Booth plays it in the only possible way, or at least in the only possible way it could be played back then. I'm not saying that it's a groundbreaking acting turn, but at least you kind of feel that you are watching a good, solid actress.

Before becoming mannered, Susan Hayward was bland, and this is what she is in With a Song in My Heart. The fun could start with Bette Davis, in a forgettable movie where she plays a former Oscar winner. Which could be a good chance at camp, but apart from a terrible scene in which she looks at herself acting badly on a screen, there arent really memorable moments.

Thank God we can always count on La Crawford. And of course Crawford made camp into a very personal, stylized work of contemporary art. She's admittedly helped by a script which borders on the absurd, but I doubt that another actress would be as memorable in it. Bulging eyes, perennially pained face, Crawford at least makes the movie entertaining, which is more that can be said about the other nominees (though I think back then the movie was taken quite seriously, since it got a few other nominations, none really deserved) .
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Post by Big Magilla »

Okri wrote:I don't think highly of William Inge's writing, but in Come Back, Little Sheba and The Dark at the Top of Stairs, I actually quite like it.
For me, it's Picnic and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, though I like parts of Bus Stop, Splender in the Grass and The Stripper as well, but I've never liked Come Back, Little Sheba in any of its iterations. Even Joanne Woodward, one of my favorite actresses, couldn't make me like Lola in the 1977 TV version opposite Laurence Olivier as "Daddy" and Carrie Fisher as the border. In fact, Woodward was even more whiny and pathetic than Booth.
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Post by Big Magilla »

dws1982 wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:I remember Susan Hayward in The Lusty Men but she is clearly in support of Robert Mitchum in that.
Many roles have been nominated in Lead that were much smaller and less substantial than Hayward's in The Lusty Men, including two just the year before. It may be kind of a borderline case, but I don't think it's a clear-cut one.
True and if she didn't have With a Song in My Heart she may well have been nominated for that instead, but her performance in With a Song in My Heart is nothing less than brilliant.

The script pretty much sucks, but you don't care when Hayward is emoting post-plane crash or when she is so perfectly lip-synching to Jane Froman's soul stirring voice. Hayward's warmth and generosity of spirit shines through, especially in the scene with a young Robert Wagner as the shell shocked soldier she sings to, camera (at her insistence) on his face, not hers. As he will tell you, that scene made Wagner's career. The film also made both Hayward and Froman bigger stars than they ever were before and rightly so.
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Post by Okri »

Interesting that so soon after a landslide victory, we come to a highly split year. A tie for the top two with the third one vote behind. And even funnier, that clearly the most notable film actress of the bunch is the one without a vote (I say film actress because you can't argue with Harris' ten Tony nominations, can you?). And she's playing an Oscar winner!

Like Magilla, I have warmer memories of de Wilde and Waters in Member of the Wedding than of Harris. I actually much prefer Booth. I don't think highly of William Inge's writing, but in Come Back, Little Sheba and The Dark at the Top of Stairs, I actually quite like it. For whatever reason, I really warm to Booth's (and Lancaster's) work. Not all time list brilliant or anything, but quite good.

Haven't seen Crawford.

I also voted Hayward. Admittedly, I voted for her year (The Lusty Men and With a Song in My Heart really are a great combo), but she's one of my favourite classic actresses. Just an incredibly gutsy performer.

(Heh - I originally wrote Hayworth above.)
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Post by dws1982 »

Big Magilla wrote:I remember Susan Hayward in The Lusty Men but she is clearly in support of Robert Mitchum in that.
Many roles have been nominated in Lead that were much smaller and less substantial than Hayward's in The Lusty Men, including two just the year before. It may be kind of a borderline case, but I don't think it's a clear-cut one.
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Post by Big Magilla »

I guess I need to give The Member of the Wedding another shot. I do have fond memories of Ethel Waters and Brandon de Wilde but I have never liked Julie Harris on screen, not even in East of Eden which is one of my favorite films despite her obvious theatricality which is at odds with the rest of the cast.

I remember Susan Hayward in The Lusty Men but she is clearly in support of Robert Mitchum in that. She has a much bigger, and to me, more satisfying role in With a Song in My Heart. The big revelation in The Lusty Men is Arthur Kennedy who probably had his best year ever following on the heels of his Best Actor nod for Bright Victory the year before. He also had stellar roles in Bend of the River and Rancho Notorious, working with three legendary directors: Nichoals Ray, Anthony Mann and Fritz Lang all in the same year.
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Post by Reza »

Voted for Hayward. I have seen The Lusty Men but hardly recall Hayward in it....it needs a review, I guess, after Damien's comments below.

I agree, Booth is very annoying, and she has been much better elsewhere. Her win was an acknowledgement of her acclaimed stage performance. I enjoyed both Davis and Crawford in their respective films but they certainly did not warrant nods. Have not seen Harris although I have the film on video.

My top 5:

Susan Hayward, With a Song in My Heart
Dorothy McGuire, Invitation
Maureen O'Hara, The Quiet Man
Katharine Hepburn, Pat and Mike
Marlene Dietrich, Rancho Notorious

I like Lana Turner in The Bad and the Beautiful but consider it to be a supporting role. It was a toss-up for me between Dietrich and Simmons (Angel Face) for my fifth slot.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Damien wrote:
jowy_jillia wrote:Shirley Booth with Hayward as runner up
You need to give these polls a few days before you declare a winner. Right now, Julie Harris is in the lead.
He wasn't declaring a winner, he was stating his preference.
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