Re: Best Supporting Actor 1958
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:24 am
Don't forget Steven Hill's brilliant work in The Goddess.
This is one of those years where I wouldn't nominate any of the performances up for the award.
I haven't seen Teacher's Pet. It's been eluding me for quite some time. Any idea where I can find it?
Lee J. Cobb is embarrassing here and adaptations of Russian literature are always a huge failure (I think Greta Garbo's Anna Karenina is the only exception).
I think Bikel and Williams' nominations were part of the "I don't know who else to vote for so why not The Defiant Ones" trend. Lackluster work on Bikel's part.
Arthur Kennedy had the curse of always giving great performances but always going unrewarded and this may be one of the better of his nominated performances. But Some Came Running is not a film I like and I guess I'm biased enough to not nominate Kennedy. Dean Martin is better in his borderline supporting work.
Burl Ives gives the best performance of the year but it's in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Big Daddy is one of the most complex characters the god Tennessee Williams ever wrote. He's a man who feels he has to prove his masculinity at any available chance while stuck in a marriage with a woman he only loved for her sex. And Burl Ives is the go-to guy for this performance. Big Daddy is truly a more complex character than Brick and Ives is able to hold his own against the outstanding Taylor and Newman. His Big Country work is alright but nowhere near his work as Big Daddy. I also have a massive adoration for anything Tennessee Williams is a part of but that is beside the point.
I'll vote for Ives but for Cat not Country.
1. Burl Ives - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
2. Orson Welles - Touch of Evil
3. Robert Stack - The Tarnished Angels
4. Maurice Chevalier - Gigi
5. Ray Walston - Damn Yankees!