Shirley Booth, Come Back, Little Sheba

Won: Academy Award - Best Actress • New York Film Critics Circle - Best Actress
Golden Globe Award - Best Actress in a Drama • Cannes Film Festival - Best Actress

1952's slate of Best Actress contenders has gained a bad rap. I had read insinuations that the year is particularly poor on the actressing front, and yet, based on what I've seen so far, I'd conclude that it's largely an imperfect lineup with performances and films that hit a murky gray: be that Susan Hayward's questionably saintlike performance in a run-of-the-mill biopic, Joan Crawford's emoting in a sensationalized B-movie, Bette Davis' wild hysterics in a Sunset-Boulevard-on-bath-salts camp picture, or Julie Harris' pubescent hysterics in a stagey stage-to-film adaptation, this is not a field of contenders that strikes wide-range appeal to the modern masses. That being said, I don't think either are awful, though they do challenge you to conclude otherwise.

This also rings true for Shirley Booth, the victor of this pack: she and her performance in Come Back, Little Sheba are easily more forgotten and receive significantly less share of voice than the likes of fellow winners Judy Holliday, Vivien Leigh, Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly. This is in spite of the fact that Booth was a juggernaut during her respective year, picking up nearly every major Best Actress prize available (it should be noted that no other actor that decade, male or female, received prizes from Cannes, the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Globes and the Academy for a sole performance).

Julie Harris, The Member of the Wedding

You're four minutes in to The Member of the Wedding before Brandon deWilde's John Henry proclaims aloud, "Frankie's crazy!" It's a flippant line, executed quickly and in a humorous, charming manner, and yet it also serves as a forewarning for what's to come for the next hour and a half: Frankie Addams, played by a fiercely dedicated Julie Harris, is batshit insane, and you the viewer are in for a helluva ride.

Joan Crawford, Sudden Fear

The other week, I had a dream in which I was terrorized by Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford. I remember little about the dream outside of the fact that Faye/Joan was incensed about something and screaming at me about it - her face terrifying, flush with fury.

It goes without saying that the symbolism of "angry Joan Crawford," made possible by Mommie Dearest, has ingratiated itself into, and endured as a component of, Crawford's legacy. Crawford's bitter rivalry with Bette Davis stands as another component of this legacy, recently publicized and manifested by Ryan Murphy's Feud: Bette & Joan. It's safe to say that these properties have helped immortalize Crawford to the collective wisdom as a dramatic public figure, her prowess as a skilled dramatic actress known more so to cinephiles and actressphiles such as myself (and perhaps you, dear reader).

I myself am guilty of forgetting about Crawford's talents as an actress, even though I really ought to know better by now. Sudden Fear, Crawford's last Academy Award-nominated performance, is a palpable reminder that there's much more to the actress beyond the feuds, the grandeur, the tempestuousness, the pettiness.

Bette Davis, The Star

The challenge in digesting a performance like Bette Davis' in The Star lies in the fact that it inherently conflicts with two dimensions of who I am as an individual. A moviegoer with a more modernist, art house-leaning eye might view Davis' performance as a relic of its time, one riddled with such grossly melodramatic narrative devices that it veers into farcical parody. A more lax moviegoer (dare I say, of the homosexual variety) might see Davis' performance as a fun, campy joyride - the film a befitting vehicle for an inherently dramatic diva to showcase all the qualities to which her fandom admires her for.

Susan Hayward, With a Song in My Heart

To watch With a Song in My Heart is to be fed a two-hour tale of an impossibly saintlike (and horribly basic, if you ask me) individual. This ought not come as a surprise to me or you by now, as biopics, especially those of the classical Hollywood variety, are often semi-fictionalized and scrubbed of its subjects' imperfections, revealing little to us about said subjects aside from the fact that they may have had to endure something traumatic once, and/or they may have been faced with a difficult decision they had to make. Jane Froman herself had a heavy hand in the production of With a Song in My Heart, perhaps an acting influence on the film's insignificant narrative weight.

Marlon Brando, Viva Zapata!

Won: Cannes Film Festival - Best Actor

It is only appropriate that the man often credited as being the trailblazing force behind bridging the gap between realism and film acting should also thrill us in his ability to bridge the gap between his own whiteness and other ethnicities. Viva Zapata! would not be the only film in the 1950s to which Marlon Brando attempted to play a character of an entirely different ethnicity from his own, and, based on what I've seen, Brando's Emiliano Zapata isn't nearly as jarring or disagreeable as his Sakini in The Teahouse of August Moon, released four years later. But Brando's interpretation of the Mexican revolutionary straddles the threshold of my own tolerance towards whitewashing - for at what point does it become a little too silly, thereby taking the viewer "out" of the picture?

Alec Guinness, The Lavender Hill Mob

I wasn't fond of The Lavender Hill Mob. In fact, it was a bit of a struggle for me to make my way through the film. I report this feeling queer about my overall sentiment, as though I've misunderstood something - for both the film and its lead performance from Alec Guinness seem to have favorable notices online. And yet, for whatever reason, neither registered for me.

Gary Cooper, High Noon

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor | Golden Globe (Drama) - Best Actor

Years ago, before Oscargasms came to fruition, I was haphazardly watching and reviewing various movies that piqued my interest. One of those films was Wings. For a picture that had very little surprises outside of Buddy Rogers' drunken hallucinogenic bubble episode, one moment that I can usually recall is that of Gary Cooper’s cameo at the half hour mark. We see Cooper waking up from a nap, hair perfectly coiffed, where in typical old-Hollywood fashion, he then smolders his way through his 2 or so minutes of screen time. Moments later, Cooper's character dies in a plane accident while practicing figure eights. While brief, he had about him a radiant energy in those moments that are effortless yet impactful. I ramble on about this because I find it ironic — and fitting — that my journey with Cooper should end at High Noon. For what Cooper delivers in the film is heavily silent, and there is a forcefulness in his presence I’d not felt since that very cameo in Wings.

Kirk Douglas, The Bad and the Beautiful

If there's one thing I've deduced from the few Kirk Douglas performances I've watched so far, it's that he's quite good at playing a dick. In quick succession, Douglas delivered a pompous boxer in Champion, a pompous reporter in Ace in the Hole, and a hard ass detective in Detective Story who's technically a good guy but kind of pompous in the sense that he's riddled with toxic masculinity. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it - and thus we're here to witness Douglas' third rendering of an ambitious tool who backstabs his way to the top, this time in the form of a Hollywood producer.

José Ferrer, Moulin Rouge

Bravado was what made José Ferrer's performance in Cyrano de Bergerac so compelling to me, but not a lick of it is to be found in Moulin Rouge. However, the body disfigurement - and therefore, Oscar-baity "grotesqueness," if you will - is still there, this time child-sized legs on a grown man instead of an aggressively large nose.

Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire

Won: Academy Award - Best Actress | New York Film Critics Circle - Best Actress | Venice Film Festival - Volpi Cup, Best Actress

Many actresses have that one powerhouse performance which goes on to define their filmographies. Some produce multiple, truly great performances. Where Vivien Leigh's legacy stands out is through two pieces of performance art which are not only "great," but widely considered as monumental, iconic acting achievements that belong in the upper echelon of Oscar's Best Actress category. No other actress holds this distinction.

With that being said, there's a question I've grappled with: is Leigh the definitive Blanche DuBois?

Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire

A quick search of "sex symbol" might show you Rudolph Valentino, Ramon Novarro, and Sessue Hayakawa as representations of the term for early Hollywood - their respective iconographies suggestive of men who, while undoubtably handsome, were also noble, chivalrous, clean-cut. The same applies for the likes of a young Cary Grant, Gary Cooper and Clark Gable - these are men who are emblems of an old-fashioned "masculine" ideal - good looking, debonair, a smidge cocksure. Enter Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire - vulgar, villainous, biceps bulging out of his tight, sweaty undershirts - to screw shit up a bit.

Montgomery Clift, A Place in the Sun

Montgomery Clift has a face that was meant to be gazed at. As if by the grace of God, his matinee idol looks pull you in, commanding you to pay attention.

The camera knows this. The opening seconds of A Place in the Sun is that of an opening long shot of Monty, his back to us. His turn to the camera is accompanied with a swell in the score, as if we've experienced some sort of dramatic reveal. It then closes in on Monty's face, very close. Too close? This happens on a number of occasions throughout the film, the camera encroaching rather tightly into Monty's personal space and lingering its focus on that mug of his for our collective gaze.

Shelley Winters, A Place in the Sun

Through Shelley Winters, Alice Tripp is an anomalous character which presents an array of conflicting feelings. Alice is fundamentally a good person, one who wants to do the right thing when she finds herself in a precarious situation. And yet I didn't like her - and I imagine I'm not the only viewer to have felt this way. More broadly, Alice is a character whose total screen time will make you feel as though she is a supporting character - yet she is deeply central to A Place in the Sun, and the film could not advance without her.

Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen

While Tracy Lord was the role that reinvigorated Katharine Hepburn's career, Rose Sayer is one which seems to mark the beginning of a new era for Kate. Watching The African Queen, one might be surprised to realize that she is just a little over ten years older than she was when she played Tracy. Gone are the soft, beautifying studio lights befitting for A Goddess. Gone are the gowns by Adrian. Gone are MGM's opulent mansions. Instead, we see a sweaty, matronly Kate thrusted out in the bright African sunshine and shot in vivid, unforgiving technicolor. The African Queen is the debut of the deglammed, "old maid" Kate.

Humphrey Bogart, The African Queen

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor

Humphrey Bogart's victory for The African Queen checks off two common tenets that come with rewarding Academy Awards - the first being that Bogie defeated performances which've become much more iconic or revered in time, and the second being that Bogie won for a performance not widely perceived as being as "good" as other works in his filmography. Needless to say, I was not expecting to have much of a reaction to this particular performance, but was surprised to have liked it as much as I did.

Eleanor Parker, Detective Story

Consecutive Oscar nominations are indicative that one is in the Academy's good graces at a specific moment in time. And at first blush, it makes sense why Eleanor Parker would receive a nomination for Detective Story - hot off the success and recognition of Caged, she play Oscar's favorite archetype (the supportive, sort-of long-suffering wife) in a prestige Warner Brothers drama that made a lot of money at the box office. While I don't mean to discredit Parker's work in the role - I do think that this is an afterglow nomination. Had she not been nominated the year prior, I imagine it'd have been tougher for her to snatch up a nomination based on the merit alone of this specific role.

Fredric March, Death of a Salesman

Won: Golden Globe (Drama) - Best Actor

20 years after receiving his first Academy Award-nominated performance in the film adaptation of The Royal Family, it is apt that Fredric March would receive his last under similar circumstances. This time, he closes out his Oscar run leading a stage-to-film adaptation of one of the greatest American plays, taking on a part that any consummate, veteran actor would desire. It is interesting then that both actor and film have been forgotten over time; one does not usually think of March when they harken back to this era of film history, and, Salesman, like The Glass Menagerie, is one of those quintessential plays that did not - and likely will not ever - result in a de-facto screen translation.

Arthur Kennedy, Bright Victory

Won: New York Film Critics Circle - Best Actor

Take a look at Arthur Kennedy's career from 1949 through the 1950s - a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor, five(!!) Academy Award nominations, and inaugural stage performances in The Crucible and The Price, among other things - and you'd think he'd have been set to become a much more regarded actor in the collective memory than he is today. That said: in reviewing his sole Oscar nomination in the lead acting category (a performance which also won him the Best Actor prize via the New York Film Critics), I was expecting a sort of dynamism that might complement these impressive highlights in his resume. Alas...

Jane Wyman, The Blue Veil

Won: Golden Globe Award - Best Actress in a Drama

Having first watched The Blue Veil years ago, I thought it was necessary to give the picture a revisit, just in case a few years of maturity might have softened some of my initial pointed views. Sitting through it all again, I suppose The Blue Veil as a whole does come off as more bearable. However, my overall sentiment towards Jane Wyman's work and the limitations of her role remains unchanged.