Best Actress 1971

[Big Magilla]

Fascinating reading the old comments in this thread.

Klute was Fonda's peak. The screenplay was written by a pair of TV writers. It would have been a routine thriller if not for the depth that Fonda brought to the work.

Glenda Jackson was equally fine in Sunday Bloody Sunday, the most humanistic of her characters in the period. I still think Julie Christie gave a better performance in The Go-Between than she did in McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

I like but don't love Mary, Queen of Scots but Vanessa Redgrave was luminous. Janet Suzman is still acting but the star period of her career was short-lived. Her Oscar nomination was a complete surprise. Both the Globes and BAFTA had nominated her only as Best Female Newcomer. Nicholas and Alexandra is worth seeing once. Once seen, it's not something you want to revisit every few years like the other nominees' films.

I rewatched Summer of '42 a few years ago. It doesn't hold up at all. A Clockwork Orange, The Last Picture Show and Sunday Bloody Sunday were the films of the year for me with The French Connection, Fiddler on the Roof, The Go-Between, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, and The Conformist others that still hold up extremely well. McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Carnal Knowledge, and Klute are on the next tier for me while Harold and Maude, which I loved at the time, I found hard to watch when I sat through it recently.

[Sabin]

Klute is a good film but a little bit of a weird one. Obviously, it has plenty going for it: Jane Fonda, Gordon Willis, the score, nice loneliness in the air, etc. But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it started off as one film and sort of gravitated into being another. Let's start with the title, "Klute." Why name it after such a forgettable detective? Maybe this is a stretch on my part, but it tells me that in the writing process it was being seen as more of a typical gumshoe-centered story and naming these films after the protagonist is sort of the go-to. I can't imagine one person leaving the theater and thinking that Klute was a film about John Klute. Maybe in the earlier drafts, Bree Daniel was more of a typical femme fatale given the early 1970s/second wave feminism treatment. That's certainly not the movie that we're watching. It feels like a barebones potboiler with this unexpected explosion of id energy throughout. Klute isn't a great film but I found it to be an exciting one because there's so much unruly energy in Jane Fonda's performance that the film could barely contain and it goes from being a not-too-terribly interesting mystery (which the film sort of loses focus on from time to time) to a portrait of loneliness, regret, and psychoanalysis, which is to the film's favor. There are traces of (perhaps, again just guessing) the script that used to exist as the film trucks along, such as when Bree discusses in therapy that she doesn't understand the idea of enjoying sex with somebody that she likes, which is far too dumb for this character to say. But I generally liked it, despite an ending that I never really bought.

I haven't ever seen Mary, Queen of Scots or Nicholas and Alexandra, or Sunday Bloody Sunday in about twenty years, so I won't be voting in this contest. But I can't imagine thinking that Jane Fonda was an undeserving winner in this category.

Was Klute discussed with any seriousness as a Best Picture contender? I see it as a dual nominee for Best Actress and Original Screenplay. Nominations for Best Cinematography, Film Editing, and Original Score are certainly deserving enough. What about the top prize? That being said, I don't really understand this era. The French Connection and The Last Picture Show make perfect sense as contenders, as I suppose A Clockwork Orange does considering its NYFCC win. Fiddler on the Roof was a hit and I've always had a soft spot in my heart for it on account on multiple annual family viewings. But I don't know why Nicholas and Alexandra and not Mary, Queen of Scots, not that I've seen either one nor have I had any inclination, and not Sunday, Bloody Sunday or Summer of '42 (which I certainly need to revisit but don't recall being astonished by), let alone Klute, Carnal Knowledge, or McCabe and Mrs. Miller which seem to be more fondly remembered and "of the era." Not like I would know.

[OscarGoesTwo]

Jane Fonda

[mayukh]

Julie Christie is exciting playing against type in one of my favorite films, but the role is way too limited. Jackson, when not being absolutely unhinged and expressive like she was in Women in Love, was often a difficult actress for me to warm up to – incredibly talented, but nothing I can get enthusiastic about. That's how I feel about her in SBS.

What to say that hasn't already been said? Jane Fonda is naked and brave in Klute, and seeing her for the first time just years ago made me reconfigure how I interpreted screen acting at all...it's like watching a performer realize herself, and discover the extent of her talents, as she goes along. After this, I think Fonda became too aware of herself – even in Julia, where I love her, there's something less spontaneous about her. But anything that feels overprepared or self-aware about her in Klute is really just another brilliant way of expressing a part of this character's wounded, debilitating lifestyle. This really is one of the greats.

Nothing can touch Fonda in Klute this year, but I did like Jenny Agutter in Walkabout (not sure when it was released in the US) and MacLaine in Desperate Characters.

[Mister Tee]

Other than Cannes, does anyone know whether Kitty Winn had any Oscar buzz behind her for her performance in The Panic in Needle Park? And Al Pacino as well?

Not that I recall. The performances were highly praised, but the film was probably too much of a downer for serious Oscar consideration.

And as a result, the movie died pretty quickly at the box office, which got you out of the Oscar conversation pretty quickly back then. (Shirley MacLaine's Desperate Characters performance, despite good reviews, was a scratch later in the year for the same reason)

I actually saw Panic in Needle Park during its Lowers Tower East engagement. Prompted by Cannes, I went in anticipating a Kitty Winn performance, but instead was blown away by this Pacino guy (who I'd never seen before -- though I did dimly remember him winning a Tony two years earlier).

And now I live a few blocks from Needle Park -- though, like most of NY, it's all been cleaned up, and we now call it Verdi Square.

[Big Magilla]

Other than Cannes, does anyone know whether Kitty Winn had any Oscar buzz behind her for her performance in The Panic in Needle Park? And Al Pacino as well?

Not that I recall. The performances were highly praised, but the film was probably too much of a downer for serious Oscar consideration.

[ksrymy]

Other than Cannes, does anyone know whether Kitty Winn had any Oscar buzz behind her for her performance in The Panic in Needle Park? And Al Pacino as well?

[dws1982]

I like the three I've seen--Christie, Fonda, and Jackson--very much. Any of them would've been deserving I think.

I ultimately voted for Julie Christie here, though for a few reasons. One is that I can't remember if I voted for her in the 1965 poll, and I wanted to make sure I got one vote for her in the game. (And her final two nominations won't get my vote.) Also, I think her movie is the best of the three, and she's probably my favorite actress of the three.

Jackson got my vote for 1970, and Fonda may get my vote a few years down the line.

[Damien]

Janet Suzman was the outsider, a good but not famous actress who was probably the best thing about the long, dignified but rather dull movie she was in.

But the other four were (and this doesnt happen often, especially nowadays) among the best, if not THE best, actresses working in English language movies at the time.

I totally agree with Marco on this. And Suzman is known to be an outstanding stage actress, though I've never seen her. How cool that all 5 are not only great actresses, but hard-core lefties.

I love Fonda, but the intelligence and quiet range of emotions which Jackson displays in Sunday, Bloody Sunday trump Fonda's more expressive playing in a close call.



Edited By Damien on 1255564423

[Reza]

Am I the only one on he planet who thought Julie Christie was better in The Go-Between than in McCabe & Mrs. Miller? I've always thought that was the performance she should have been nominated for that year.

Vanessa Redgrave, as has been pointed out, didn't have the best script to work with in Mary, Queen of Scots. Even Glenda Jackson's Elizabeth I was watered down from what she did in TV's Elizabeth R, but the two actresses were fascinating to watch even so. It's one of my favoriite Redgrave performances even if it is''t one of her "best".

I'm with you on Christie here although the critical consensus does not match our preference. I have never been able to sit through McCabe and Mrs Miller because of which I have never been able to appreciate her in the film (although I have watched all the scenes she is a part of).

Redgrave can do no wrong as far as I am concerned. She is excellent as Mary although I think she was extremely brave to attempt the part of the hunchbacked nun in The Devils...a performance I would rate higher.

My top 5 of the year:

Jane Fonda, Klute
Glenda Jackson, Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Ruth Gordon, Harold and Maude
Vanessa Redgrave, The Devils
Julie Christie, The Go-Between

Janet Suzman (very good in Nicholas and Alexandra) gets my 6th spot.



Edited By Reza on 1255513142

[mlrg]

I've seen Suzman and Redgrave a long time ago, and don't really remember the performances.

Christie is good, but the standout is Beatty and Altman's direction. Jackson is also good, but the movie belongs to Peter Finch.

Jane Fonda gets my vote for a truly masterfull performance that I had the chance to see very recently.

[Big Magilla]

I voted for Glenda Jackson here although Jane Fonda does get my nod in my Oscar Shouldabeens. Fonda's carefuly reserached prostutite in Klute may have been the greater "performance", but I like what Jackson did with her role better.

She brought a warmth to her character in Sunday Bloody Sunday that was missing from her previous work, brilliant as it may been in Marat/Sade, Women in Love, The Music Lovers and even Elizabeth R.

Am I the only one on he planet who thought Julie Christie was better in The Go-Between than in McCabe & Mrs. Miller? I've always thought that was the performance she should have been nominated for that year.

Vanessa Redgrave, as has been pointed out, didn't have the best script to work with in Mary, Queen of Scots. Even Glenda Jackson's Elizabeth I was watered down from what she did in TV's Elizabeth R, but the two actresses were fascinating to watch even so. It's one of my favoriite Redgrave performances even if it is''t one of her "best".

I haven;t seen Nicholas and Alexandra is so long I can't recall whether Janet Suzman was good or not. My memory of it is that she was a bit too British, too stiff upper lip in her delivery.

Among those I thought were better choices than Suzman were Ruth Gordon in Harold and Maude; Angela Lansbury in Bedknobs and Broomsticks; Gena Rowlands in Minnie and Moskowitz; Shirley MacLaine in Desperate Characters and Twiggy (yes, Twiggy) in The Boy Friend.

[ITALIANO]

Janet Suzman was the outsider, a good but not famous actress who was probably the best thing about the long, dignified but rather dull movie she was in.

But the other four were (and this doesnt happen often, especially nowadays) among the best, if not THE best, actresses working in English language movies at the time. Truly an impressive line up, even more so considering that three of these actresses were nominated for some of their best work ever.

The one who wasn't at her best was, of course, Vanessa Redgrave. She could have been a great Mary Stuart, but unfortunately hers wasn't Schiller's Mary, hers was Charles Jarrott's "Mary", a dreadful, amateurish, badly written movie without any pathos (she was still better, though, than Katharine Hepburn had been when she had played the same role many years before, an embarassing performance which fully justifies Dorothy Parker's famous remark on the diva's acting talent, though Parker's comment was about some stage play she was in).

Christie, Jackson and Fonda were very good, and while Jackson was maybe even better in Sunday than in Women in Love, nobody can deny that the Academy did the right thing when it picked what truly was one of the best performances by an actress in the 70s, a raw, uncompromising, real portrayal which is as fresh and impressive today as it must have been back then. (If this board had been active in that period, Jane Fonda would have been adored here, and rightly so; though some of her later performances, including a few she was nominated for, and even the one which gave her a second Oscar, arent as memorable as this one, Klute is enough to make her one of the most interesting American actresses ever).

There were many reasons why Sunday Bloody Sunday didnt win Best Screenplay, including the fact that, even back then, there were many doubts about Penelope Gilliat's real contribution to it in its final form.

[Mister Tee]

Redgrave and Suzman are good actresses, but strictly ballot-fill.

Christie and Jackson both give very good performances in good movies, and might have offered some competition had they not each won Oscars quite recently. (Though, maybe not, as their films were critically admired but not "popular", as witness Sunday's screenplay loss to the manifestly inferior The Hospital)

Klute is nowhere near the film McCabe or Sunday were, but Fonda is just extraordinary in it. I thought it the best performance by an actress in that decade, and only a few since have matched it. As Michael Gebert says, it was also something of a door-opening performance -- the first truly modern (post-feminism) American female role. Many of our best contemporary actresses follow her footsteps. For me, an easy choice.

[jowy_jillia]

Jane Fonda gets my vote!

1970
1. Glenda Jackson - Women in Love - 14 votes
2. Carrie Snodgress - Diary of a Mad Housewife - 3 votes
3. Ali MacGraw - Love Story - 1 vote

1969
1. Jane Fonda - They Shoot Horses Don't They - 10 votes
2. Maggie Smith - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - 8 votes
3. Liza Minnelli - The Sterile Cuckoo - 2 vote
4. Genevieve Bujold - Anne of the Thousand Days - 1 vote
4. Jean Simmons - The Happy Ending - 1 vote

1968
1. Joanne Woodward - Rachel, Rachel - 9 votes
2. Katharine Hepburn - The Lion in Winter - 8 votes
3. Vanessa Redgrave - Isadora - 4 votes
4. Barbra Streisand - Funny Girl - 2 votes

1967
1. Anne Bancroft - The Graduate - 10 votes
2. Edith Evans - The Whisperers - 9 votes
3. Faye Dunaway - Bonnie and Clyde - 2 votes
4. Audrey Hepburn - Wait Until Dark - 1 vote
4. Katharine Hepburn - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - 1
vote

1966
1. Elizabeth Taylor - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - 17 votes
2. Ida Kaminska - The Shop on Main Street - 3 votes
2. Lynn Redgrave - Georgy Girl - 3 votes
4. Anouke Aimée - A Man and A Woman - 1 vote

1965
1. Julie Christie - Darling - 11 votes
2. Julie Andrews - The Sound of Music - 9 votes
3. Elizabeth Hartman - A Patch of Blue - 2 votes
4. Samantha Eggar - The Collector - 1 vote

1964
1. Kim Stanley - Séance on a Wet Afternoon - 9 votes
2. Julie Andrews - Mary Poppins - 6 votes
3. Anne Bancroft - The Pumpkin Eater - 4 votes
4. Debbie Reynolds - The Unsinkable Molly Brown - 1 vote

1963
1. Patricia Neal - Hud - 16 votes
2. Leslie Caron - The L-Shaped Room - 3 votes
3. Shirley MacLaine - Irma La Douce - 1 vote
3. Rachel Roberts - This Sporting Life - 1 vote

1962
1. Anne Bancroft - The Miracle Worker - 7 votes
1. Katharine Hepburn - Long Day's Journey Into Night - 7 votes
3. Bette Davis - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? - 3 votes
3. Geraldine Page - Sweet Bird of Youth - 3 votes
5. Lee Remick - Days of Wines and Roses - 2 votes

1961
1. Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffany's - 9 votes
1. Sophia Loren - Two Women - 9 votes
3. Natalie Wood - Splendor in the Grass - 4 votes
4. Geraldine Page - Summer and Smoke - 2 votes
5. Piper Laurie - The Hustler - 1 vote

1960
1. Deborah Kerr - The Sundowners - 8 votes
2. Shirley MacLaine - The Apartment - 7 votes
3. Melina Mercouri - Never on a Sunday - 2 votes
4. Greer Garson - Sunrise at Campobello - 1 vote
4. Elizabeth Taylor - Butterfield 8 - 1 vote

1959
1. Simone Signoret - Room at the Top - 9 votes
2. Audrey Hepburn - The Nun's Story - 6 votes
3. Katharine Hepburn - Suddenly Last Summer - 2 vote
4. Elizabeth Taylor - Suddenly Last Summer - 1 vote

1958
1. Rosalind Russell - Auntie Mame - 8 votes
2. Susan Hayward - I Want to Live! - 7 votes
3. Elizabeth Taylor - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - 3 votes
4. Shirley MacLaine - Some Came Running - 2 votes

1957
1. Joanne Woodward - The Three Faces of Eve - 6 votes
2. Anna Magnani - Wild is the Wind - 4 votes
2. Lana Turner - Peyton Place - 4 votes
4. Deborah Kerr - Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison - 2 votes

1956
1. Ingrid Bergman - Anastasia - 10 votes
2. Carroll Baker - Baby Doll - 2 votes
2. Nancy Kelly - The Bad Seed - 1 vote
4. Katharine Hepburn - The Rainmaker - 1 vote
4. Deborah Kerr - The King and I - 1 vote

1955
1. Katharine Hepburn - Summertime - 11 votes
2. Anna Magnani - The Rose Tattoo - 4 vote
3. Eleanor Parker - Interrupted Melody - 2 votes
4. Susan Hayward - I'll Cry Tomorrow - 1 vote

1954
1. Judy Garland - A Star Is Born - 14 votes
2. Grace Kelly - The Country Girl - 2 votes
2. Jane Wyman - Magnificent Obsession - 2 votes
4. Audrey Hepburn - Sabrina - 1 vote

1953
1. Audrey Hepburn - Roman Holiday - 10 votes
2. Deborah Kerr - From Here to Eternity - 4 votes
3. Leslie Caron - Lili - 1 vote
3. Ava Gardner - Mogambo - 1 vote

1952
1. Julie Harris - The Member of the Wedding - 5 votes
2. Susan Hayward - With a Song in my Heart - 4 votes
3. Shirley Booth - Come Back, Little Sheba - 3 votes
3. Joan Crawford - Sudden Fear - 3 vote

1951
1. Vivien Leigh - A Streetcar Named Desire - 21 votes
2. Shelley Winters - A Place in the Sun - 3 votes

1950
1. Gloria Swanson - Sunset Blvd. - 14 votes
2. Bette Davis - All About Eve - 10 votes
3. Anne Baxter - All About Eve - 1 vote
3. Eleanor Parker - Caged - 1 vote

1949
1. Olivia de Havilland - The Heiress - 13 votes
2. Deborah Kerr - Edward My Son - 3 votes
3. Susan Hayward - My Foolish Heart - 1 vote
3. Loretta Young - Come to the Stable - 1 vote

1948
1. Jane Wyman - Johnny Belinda - 9 votes
2. Olivia de Havilland - The Snake Pit - 6 votes
3. Barbara Stanwyck - Sorry Wrong Number - 2 vote

1947
1. Rosalind Russell - Mourning Becomes Electra - 5 votes
2. Susan Hayward - Smash Up - 4 votes.
3. Joan Crawford - Possessed - 3 votes
4. Loretta Young - The Farmer's Daughter - 2 votes

1946
1. Celia Johnson - Brief Encounter - 15 votes
2. Olivia de Havilland - To Each His Own - 3 votes
2. Jennifer Jones - Duel in the Sun - 3 votes
4. Jane Wyman - The Yearling - 1 vote

1945
1. Joan Crawford - Mildred Pierce - 8 votes
2. Gene Tierny - Leave Her to Heaven - 6 votes
3. Ingrid Bergman - The Bells of St. Mary's - 4 votes
4. Jennifer Jones - Love Letters - 1 vote

1944
1. Barbara Stanwyck - Double Indemnity - 16 votes
2. Ingrid Bergman - Gaslight - 5 votes

1943
1. Jean Arthur - The More the Merrier - 6 votes
2. Jennifer Jonies - The Song of Bernadette - 4 votes
3. Ingrid Bergman - For Whom the Bell Tolls - 2 vote
3. Joan Fontaine - The Constant Nymph - 1 vote

1942
1. Bette Davis - Now, Voyager - 8 votes
1. Greer Garson - Mrs. Miniver - 7 votes
3. Katharine Hepburn - Woman of the Year - 1 vote

1941
1. Barbara Stanwyck - Ball of Fire - 9 votes
2. Bette Davis - The Little Foxes - 5 votes
3. Olivia de Havilland - Hold Back the Dawn - 1 vote
3. Joan Fontaine - Suspicion - 1 vote

1940
1. Katharine Hepburn - The Philadelphia Story - 10 votes
2. Joan Fontaine - Rebecca - 7 votes
3. Bette Davis - The Letter - 5 votes

1939
1. Vivien Leigh - Gone With the Wind - 24 votes
2. Greta Garbo - Ninotchka - 2 votes

1938
1. Bette Davis - Jezebel - 6 votes
1. Wendy Hiller - Pygmalion - 5 votes
3. Margaret Sullavan - Three Comrades - 3 votes
4. Norma Shearer - Marie Antoinette - 1 vote

1937
1. Irene Dunne - The Awful Truth - 7 votes
2. Greta Garbo - Camille - 6 votes
3. Barbara Stanwyck - Stella Dallas - 2 votes
4. Janet Gaynor - A Star is Born - 1 vote
4. Luise Rainer - The Good Earth - 1 vote

1936
1. Carole Lombard - My Man Godfrey - 11 votes
2. Irene Dunne - Theodora Goes Wild - 1 vote
2. Luise Rainer - The Great Ziegfeld - 1 vote

1935
1. Katharine Hepburn - Alice Adams - 8 votes
2. Claudette Colbert - Private Worlds - 2 votes
2. Bette Davis - Dangerous - 2 votes
4. Miriam Hopkins - Becky Sharp - 1 vote

1934
1. Claudette Colbert - It Happened One Night - 7 votes
2. Bette Davis - Of Human Bondage - 2 vote

1932/33
1. Katharine Hepburn - Morning Glory - 6 votes
2. May Robson - Lady for a Day - 3 votes

1931/32
1. Marie Dressler - Emma - 6 votes
2. Lynn Fontanne - The Guardsman - 1 vote

1930/31
1. Marlene Dietrich - Morocco - 8 votes
2. Marie Dressler - Min and Bill - 1 vote
2. Irene Dunne - Cimarron - 1 vote
2. Norma Shearer - A Free Soul - 1 vote

1929/30
1. Greta Garbo - Anna Christie - 4 votes
2. Norma Shearer - The Divorcee - 2 vote
3. Ruth Chatterton - Sarah and Son - 1 vote
3. Greta Garbo - Romance - 1 vote

1928/29
1. Ruth Chatterton - Madame X - 4 votes
2. Betty Compson - The Barker - 1 vote
2. Jeanne Eagels - The Letter - 1 vote

1927/28
1. Janet Gaynor - Sunrise - 7 votes
2. Janet Gaynor - Seventh Heaven - 3 votes
3. Janet Gaynor - Street Angel - 1 vote

Most Winns:
Katharine Hepburn - 5
Anne Bancroft - 2
Bette Davis - 2
Audrey Hepburn - 2
Vivien Leigh - 2
Rosalind Russell - 2
Barbara Stanwyck - 2
Joanne Woodward - 2

Actual Winners who didn't recieve any vote
28/29. Mary Pickford - Coquette
31/32. Helen Hayes - The Sin of Madelon Claudet
40. Ginger Rogers - Kitty Foyle
50. Judy Holliday - Born Yesterday