Streaming Revisit: Pauline Collins in "Shirley Valentine"
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 7:00PM by Baby Clyde
These days Driving Miss Daisy’s multiple wins for the 1989 film year are seen as a low point in Oscar history. Not only that the film itself is often criticised for its naïve take on race relations, but especially because 32 years later movie goddess Michelle Pfeiffer is still without a Best Actress award. Whilst no one critizes Jessica Tandy’s performance the win is viewed as a career award for someone who’s film career didn’t warrant one. Combine this with Pfeiffer losing for what is probably her most legendary part and no one’s happy. Especially me as I don’t sign up to either of those interpretations!
In my eyes there is only one possible winner in this contentious race...
I'm talking about the woman who’d already won numerous other awards for her iconic role in a film that immediately became a classic (in my part of the world). A film that my mum has watched a dozen times. I doubt she even knows what The Fabulous Baker Boys is. I’m of course talking about Pauline Collins' warm, winning, hilarious performance in Shirley Valentine a film which whilst mostly forgotten around the world but considered a stone cold classic here in the UK. It was a massive hit. The 2nd biggest grosser of the year after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; It beat Batman back into third place! It was a British cultural phenomenon inspiring a flurry of think pieces about how middle aged women were viewed in society. Millions of women around the country felt like they were being given voice. A whole generation can quote the dialogue and "Shirley Valentine" has become shorthand for any middle-aged woman who enjoys a holiday romance.
The 1989 romantic comedy tells the story of the titular Shirley Valentine. A 42 year old housewife whose marriage to Joe (Bernard Hill) has grown stale and whose life lacks purpose now that her children have left home. Tired of talking to the kitchen wall and cooking her husband egg and chips she gets an offer for an all-expenses paid trip to Greece from her brash friend Jane (Alison Steadman). Gaining confidence from a chance encounter with an old school friend and surprise encouragement from a snooty neighbour she leaves on the two week trip, only to be abandoned by Jane. Shirley is forced to fend for herself in the unfamiliar environment. It won’t surprise you to learn that she blossoms and with the help of a fling with local bar owner Costas (Tom Conti) learns a lot about who she is and who she wants to be.
I watched this with my brother on Christmas Day. We’d both agreed beforehand, having not seen it since the 90’s, that it probably hadn’t aged well. We were wrong.
Shirley Valentine remains an absolute delight. Funny and touching with that particular brand of British humour that’s very hard to explain and almost certainly lost on many people from other cultures (It was written by Willy Russell of Educating Rita fame). It has to be performed by a certain kind of actor who understands the exact pauses, inflections and timing. Luckily, Pauline Collins, who had originated the role on stage understood this perfectly. I’m probably biased but I would give her that 1989 Oscar in a heartbeat.
Despite already winning the Olivier, Tony and BAFTA for the role and being nominated for a Golden Globe, on the night she lost to another Brit, Jessica Tandy who had moved to America 50 years before and was not at all well-known name to British audiences. Pauline Collins, on the other hand, was a National Treasure.
At this point she’d been a familiar face on British TV for 25 years. It was her role in the smash hit drama Upstairs Downstairs that made her a star. Often appearing with her actor husband John Alderton she’d been in everything from sitcoms and children’s programmes to TV plays and even Doctor Who. The one place you didn’t expect to see her was in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Shirley Valentine is currently streaming on both Hulu and Amazon Prime
Reader Comments (48)
I have to say that I 100% agree. I found this performance so funny, lived in and moving.
Jessica Lange in Costa-Gavras' MUSIC BOX! She's the most deserved winner that year
But, personal barrows aside, yes this is a fun film with a great performance.
Really getting tired of the Jessica Tandy bashing on this site. #Haters
I agree with the 5 Oscar nominees and the winner. Collins is very funny and sentimental at the same time, maybe the movie is not very good, but she's great in it.
Travis--cosign. Jessica Lange is incredible in Music Box. The level of difficulty in that role is sky-high. The unbelievable scene where she confronts her father is one of the great moments of screen acting.
This lovely article really makes me want to check out Shirley Valentine. My favorite singer, the great Helen Reddy who recently passed, scored a triumph on stage in the role.
I thought Driving Miss Daisy was a worthy Oscar winner. And Jessica Tandy certainly deserved the Oscar.
If you are gonna bash films that didn't deserve to win Best Picture - how about Rain Man, Million Dollar Baby, Green Book? Good lord those films were AWFUL.
The Tandyman,
BabyClyde clearly has Granny issues he needs to work on. Don’t waste your energy
Jessica Tandy definitely deserved her Oscar, and Morgan Freeman should have won, too.
Uh oh. Clyde has awoken the Jessica Tandy stans! I actually think she was quite good and I’d give her the Oscar as well.
Baby you are inspiring me to give SHIRLEY VALENTINE a watch. 1989 was a loooong long time ago.
I love Pauline Collins as an actress and Shirley Valentine remains my favorite performance of hers. All the actresses nominated that year were all incredible (Adjani, Collins, Lange, Pfeiffer, Tandy) but I also think Jessica Tandy's "career win" no matter how condescending that sounds, was deserved. She was aces and spot-on as Daisy Werthan with great line readings ("I'm ageless") in a film that, I agree, was problematic in its treatment of race relations. Let's not conflate the film with the performance.
Pfeiffer is a favorite here in this site and I like her a lot too, less so the people who had to denigrate other actresses to praise her. Susie Diamond is unforgettable and I surprised myself by being misty-eyed when the end credits of The Fabulous Baker Boys rolled with her and Jack walking in separate directions even if it hints of hopeful possibilities.
Co-sign Lange's heartbreaking performance in Music Box when she said "Not my father!" to the lawyer who told her of damning evidence. And Adjani -- what can I say -- her Camille is poignant, intense and ultimately heart-wrenching.
“... the win is viewed as a career award for someone who’s film career didn’t warrant one.”
If you’re going to come for an acting legend like Jessica Tandy and say her career doesn’t deserve an Oscar (even though she likely would have won Vivien Leigh’s Oscar for A Streetcar Named Desire, the role she originated and won a Tony for on stage, had she not been the only Broadway cast member not cast in the movie), at least spell that sentence correctly. “Who’s” is an abbreviation meaning “who is.” “Whose” is a possessive pronoun and would have been the correct grammatical choice here.
Agreed that Tandy was wonderful. Regardless of the competition, that was an Oscar-worthy performance.
Thanks for the heads up about it being available to stream, I definitely need to fill-in my blindspots for this Best Actress year. I get why it won, but Driving Miss Daisy shouldn't have any Oscars.
@Bette Streep: all of those films you mentioned have been denigrated to some extent in movie-loving circles on and off this site, but they weren't in competition in the year of this performance so why would they be relevant to the discussion?
I think most Oscar watchers would agree Pfeiffer was the deserved winner, though personally I think Collins would be my choice in hindsight. Michelle should have won in 1992 for Love Field and also alongside Glenn Close for supporting in 1988's Dangerous Liaisons. My ranking;
1-Collins
2-Pfeiffer
3-Adjani
4-Tandy
5-Lange
And as far as wretched Best Picture Winners, that era was gruesome!
1) BRAVEHEART over any film released in 1995, particularly Se7en
2) Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas????
3) Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction?
4) Driving Miss Daisy over Do The Right Thing?
5) Rain Man over Dangerous Liaisons?
And Mel Gibson & Kevin Costner having Best Directing Oscars is simply a travesty.
Love Pauline Collins in Shirley Valentine. Love the play. I've seen it twice on stage, last time not long ago. It holds up. Collins would have had a better post-Oscar nom career these days. There's more material for that type of actress.
P.S. Love old Tonys clips. When are they gonna give Lois Smith hers? Where is Kate Nelligan?
BabyClyde has been cancelled by TFE readers
Suzanne -- i dont think so. The Tandy fans are just a very vocal bunch and they perceive everything as an attack (to be fair to them -- i have been snippy about Tandy once or twice, always in regards to this oscar race since Pfeiffer is the greatest.) Anyway this piece *doesn't* criticize Tandy and even mentions that people never criticize the performance itself (which is true. I even think she's really good in it)
It's strange but in a way i understand it since we all have our actress passions. As for her win being perceived as a career win... it was. I lived through that year. I remember it well because I was so obsessed with watching the Pfeiffer coronation happen and then it didn't because in December suddenly the tide turned and it was "we must honor this screen legend"... even though she wasn't actually a screen legend but a stage legend.
BABY - thanks for this piece. it was a fun read. I love hearing anecdotes about how much particular movies mean to specific families.
TANDY4EVA
Collins is delightful. Pffeifer is a 10 for star power charisma and a 7 on performance in The Fabulous Baker Boys. Tandy's masterclass gets unfairly ripped on or called a lifetime achievement just because she was old.
Eh, Tandy was often passed over (Streetcar) and didn't start to get alot of great consistent screen roles until around Cocoon. As somebody with about equal affection for Tandy and Pffeifer who was older than you and paying close attention to the race, it was a lifetime achievement Oscar in the same way as Judi Dench winning for Mrs Brown would have been. Just a less biased, equally attentive to the racr in real time at a more mature age than you were opinion to add to the pile.
Sigourney Weaver's Oscar-less career > Michelle Pffeifer's.
Honestly any Best Picture winner with a winning female Lead performance is fine in my book. Pffeifer and Tandy are close enough in quality that I can't get the vitriol from alot of Pffeifer fans. 89ers has become a term synonymous with bitter Pfans says enough of how widespread their disgruntled postings have become over the years.
(I prefer the trickier and, to those with a keen cinematic eye, more nuanced Tandy in this case. A surprisingly strong lineup, with Field and McDowell continuing a strong year just outside the nominees)
I watched SHIRLEY VALENTINE for the first time last year and felt that the gimmick got tired after about 10 minutes. I'd imagine it was very difficult to make a one-woman play such as this one into a movie, but even so, the adaptation felt rather lazy. COLLINS' performance is fine but I would actually rank her near the bottom on a list of the nominated performances from the '80s. I'm sure she was great on the stage, but in the film, her charm dries out rather quickly.
Intriguingly enough, I also re-watched DRIVING MISS DAISY last year. TANDY was indeed very good in the film but I do think the movie warrants being one of Oscar’s biggest mistakes. It’s one of the rare instances in which a film’s well intentions can be its biggest flaw, as the movie is really only interested in a white person’s perspective of civil rights and in ensuring that the white people who made the movie can pat themselves on the back for making a nice, little movie about overcoming racism. It may not be as ostentatiously bad as CRASH or GREEN BOOK but it is still very, very problematic.
I’ve yet to see CAMILLE CLAUDEL (that running time … ugh) but regarding the remaining nominees…
JESSICA LANGE is quite good in MUSIC BOX even if you could poke a thousand holes in the script. I’ve never been a huge fan of her work (TERI GARR did way more with way less screen time in TOOTSIE, for example) but I do think this is one of her best performances.
MICHELLE PFEIFFER, for me, is without question the strongest of the lineup — a rare brilliant star turn that still feels as powerful as I imagine it did when it first came out. The movie isn’t nearly as good as she is, but still. Iconic.
I think George mistakes taking particular characters leading a film and it's plot, through personal truths, blindspots and all as shirking it's civil rights duties. Not what every film needs to do. Characters who aren't completely woke by todays standards and lived in their own bubbles doesn't mean that the story is a failure. I try not to read every film on a surface level or through a lens of what I think the characters should espuse and represent.
I wouldn't fuck a member of the basic film watchers brigade.
Black and white characters having to act progressive or correctly, regardless of time period, is fucking stupid from a storytelling perspective. Miss Daisy didn't end racism and Hoke didn't lead the civil rights movement. Sorry losers, normal folks will enjoy the great lead performances, iconic score and incisive interpersonal drama between two imperfect characters. All in under 100 minutes. Respect to that douchenozzles.
Guys, the 89ers are just scared that Pffeifer will never win an Oscar. If she keeps working at a brisk pace she surely will sooner or later and then their visciousness can fade away with glory. It's weird because in two nominations Tandy has better lead and supporting nominations than Pffeifer, so maybe that's salt to their wounds? They're a strange crowd to try to understand I know.
1989. Tandy = Art film. Pffeifer = content.
I wasn't saying Miss Daisy needed to be woke by 2020 standards.
I was simply saying that you can tell the movie was made by a bunch of white people and was targeted to a bunch of white people.
When I think of 89 I think of 2 Pop Culture performances Sally Field in Steel Magnolias and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.
I know most love Pfeiffer this year but I think she was better many times after her loss.
Collins is fun but 89 is too full to include her on my ballot.
For the record, I'm a Michelle Pfeiffer voter in 88 and 89.
Ahem DRIVING MISS DAISY is wonderful.
Pauline Collins should have been Oscar nominated for Quartet too.
Marta -- i have literally never heard the term "89ers" until now. I'm assuming it comes from another site somewhere? or a forum or something.
Mark -- i looooove Sally Field in Steel Magnolias. People were so dismissive of that performancee at the time. Anyway 1989 was real good for actressing. Here was my dream ballot
ADJANI - camille claudel
MACDOWELL - sex lies and videtape
PFEIFFER -fabulous baker boys
RYAN - when harry met sally
and either FIELD in steel magnolias or TURNER in war of the roses for the fifth slot. dont make me choose.
but this conversation has convinced me i need to finally see MUSIC BOX (a blind spot)
I absolutely LOVE Shirley Valentine!! I watch it at least once every year.
The movie made me want to go to Greece and have an adventure/affair!
Her line reading gets me every time "I have allowed myself to lead this little life, when inside me there was so much more. And it's all gone unused. And now it never will be. Why do we get all this life if we don't ever use it? Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and hopes if we don't ever use them?"
For me Pfeiffer is at her best in Batman Returns and The Age of the Innocence but I know very well that the Goddess herself disagree with me, so...regarding her Oscar moment probably this was the time she was closest to get it (her Golden Globe win as drama actress is the best clue) and it’s a pity the Academy has lost interest in her post 1992.
Tandy (a legend, stage or screen, but still a legend) and Freeman are wonderful in Driving Miss Daisy (and also Dan Aykroyd is very good in his only Oscar nominated role). But the film, even if more lovely than Green Book, didn’t deserve the Best Picture. My Best Actress rank: 1) Pfeiffer 2) Adjani 3) Tandy 4) Lange 5) Collins.
Since this post is dedicate to Collins I risk to be quite harsh confessing you that I had several actress I had imagined filling her spot (Andie MacDowell, Meg Ryan, Kathleen Turner, Ellen Barkin), clearly the Academy had other opinions about it...
I think this is one of the strongest Best Actress years ever. Any of the 5 could have won and I would have applauded. But sadly, that means 4 deserving performances lost.
Who knew Pauline Collins was such a controversial figure???
This is one of the strangest reply threads I've ever come across, who new Jessica Tandy has her very own Beehive !!
Anyway i have to agree with Baby Clyde here. Pauline Collins is absolutely amazing in this delightful film she's both hilarious and heart breaking. The delivery, the timing the sly looks to camera. It's a masterclass
It's also VERY VERY British i wonder if some things are lost in translation across the Atlantic.
As for Tandy I honestly couldn't comment on the performance as i haven't seen it for 30 years (I think I saw Vanessa Redgrave do it on the stage and it was rubbish) but i have to push back that she was a screen legend of any description. She was certainly a legend but not on screen !!
That isn't a criticism at all it's just a fact.
I'm going to hide now before the onslaught
Ps trying to prove a point by criticizing grammar just proves you don't have one.
Tandy deserves that Oscar.
Jessica Tandy and "Driving Miss Daisy" - **** . Supreme, superb, sterling.
The balls of Kathleen Turner in War of the Roses. She's wild.
Wait, Pauline Collins was mentioned somewhere? ;)
Not Nathaniel ignoring Tandy, giving an alternate 6 names and not realising Pffeifer is the weakest off them. Yikes. The 89ers at it again.
The only exciting choice would be Pfeiffer or Adjani.
Travis C and brookesboy, I agree, Jessica Lange is stunning in “Music Box” - which is severely underrated - and should’ve won her the Oscar that year. Her amazing chemistry with Armin Mueller-Stahl, who was also fantastic, pulls the whole film together.
Lange’s equally brilliant work the following year in another underrated gem - “Men Don’t Leave” - should have also nabbed her a nod.
The only exhilarating choice would be Tandy or Collins.
Just saw this post linked in the Feb wrap-up. Wow, loved this movie, as did my mom. Brings up memories of the VCR where she would rewind to watch her favorite parts: she was the same age as the title character and loved Pauline Collins.
Willy Russell doesn’t get enough credit in the US. His Blood Brothers musical is virtually unknown here, despite winning Tony awards.