Smackdown '37: Bossy Women and Fragile Wrecks

Welcome back to the Supporting Actress Smackdown. Each month we pick an Oscar vintage to explore through the lens of actressing at the edges. This episode takes us back to 1937, which was only the second year of the category. 

THE NOMINEES  It was only the second year of the Supporting Actress category yet the tropes and shortlist makeup were already falling into place. Oscar voters went with a mix of industry veterans (Alice Brady the first consecutive nominee in this category), stage stars transferring to film (Dame May Whitty), fresh faces (Anne Shirley), and rising talent (Andrea Leeds, Claire Trevor) to play an array of familiar types: the martyr mom, the tetchy elder, the sad / confused daughter, the insecure actress, and the complicated hooker...

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Would you rather?

This informal poll is just our silly way of sharing the latest Instagram photos we loved. So, would you rather...

• Grab an ice cream cone with Brie Larson?
• Have a moonlight bath with Gwyneth Paltrow?
• Attend the opera with Molly Ringwald?
• Wander the dunes with Lee Pace?
• Make your mark on the street with Nathan Fillion?
• Get pizza in a limo with Audra McDonald?
• Find your own stunt double so you can hang with Alessandro Nivola and his?
• Feed grapes to supermodel Kristen McMenamy?
• Do the "Buckingham Lean" with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II?
• Take a nap (anywhere) with Michelle Monaghan?
• Sign the Zurich guest book with Sharon Stone?
• Lift weights with Winston Duke?
• ...Or Make it a trio of voices on "Jolene" with Dolly, Lil Nas X and you?

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide...

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1937: Olivia de Havilland in "It's Love I'm After"

The 1937 smackdown late tonight. Before each Smackdown Nick Taylor suggests alternates to Oscar's Supporting Actress ballot. 

First thing’s first, everyone should run to see It’s Love I’m After, a romantic farce that pulls liberally from the tropes of stage comedies while staying as fleet and entertaining as the best screwball films. If you’re a fan of above-the-title players Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Olivia de Havilland, relish in their easy camaraderie and shimmering star turns (and look out for Eric Blore’s put-upon, bird-imitating manservant, who steals the film every chance he gets). If you’re not a fan of these three, take heed! It’s Love I’m After gives these famous dramaturgists a ripe outlet for prime Hollywood farce way outside their most famous, legacy-defining role (All About Eve being the big exception). De Havilland in particular shines. I’ve never seen her flex her comedic chops like this, and she excels marvelously as an engaged socialite with a puppy-love celebrity crush that’s got her man increasingly anxious...

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Review: Jake Gyllenhaal's one-man show "The Guilty"

by Matt St Clair

Despite being a proponent of Bong Joon-ho's advice to overcome the "one-inch barrier" of subtitles, I confess that I never got around to seeing the popular Danish film The Guilty (2018) which became an Oscar finalist for Best International Feature in its year. As a result of this blind spot, none of my thoughts on the new English-language remake will pertain to how it measures up to the original. Instead, let's talk about what a tense one man show this is. 

Although Jake Gyllenhaal has actors surrounding him, both in-person and through vocal performances on the telephone, The Guilty is laser focused on his character, 911 dispatcher Joe Baylor. Joe is on the phone trying to save a woman named Emily (voiced by a skillfully elusive Riley Keough) who’s being kidnapped by her ex-husband...

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"The Awful Truth" about Irene Dunne

by Baby Clyde

I adore Irene Dunne. Who doesn’t? She great in everything. She’s great AT everything. So why is she so little known these days? How can a woman who was an A List Movie star for 20 years during the Golden Age of Classic Hollywood be so little remembered? Obviously, she’s a big deal to Old Hollywood loving cinephiles but to the public at large she’s a more or less forgotten. I think this mainly comes down to the fact that she doesn’t really fit in anywhere. She was a Jack of all Trades and consequently isn’t specifically identified with one genre. In many ways her versatility was her downfall (in terms of staying in the public imagination).

She started in movies quite late. Born in 1898 she was already a fair bit older than most of her contemporaries when she headed West, after a successful if unspectacular Broadway career. Making her first film in 1930 she was an immediate hit. Her second film, 1931’s Cimarron, won the Best Picture Academy Award and she received the 1st of her five Best Actress nominations...

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