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Today, March 24th, in Oscar history only. Four ceremonies have held on this day.
1949 The 21st Academy Awards are held honoring the films of 1948. We discussed this race a handful of years ago on the Smackdown. Johnny Belinda led the nominations with 12 but it was Laurence Olivier's Hamlet that emerged as the Best Picture winner and took home 3 other Oscars as well. It's actually a fairly interesting Oscar year given the variety of genres in the Best Picture shortlist...
It's Jane Wyman's Centennial. The actress was born on this day in Missouri in 1917 as Sara Jane Mayfield.
Like many major stars her legacy rests on a period that's only about a decade long -- in Wyman's case the mid 40s through the 50s, or more specifically the Best Picture winner The Lost Weekend (1945) through the Douglas Sirk classic All that Heaven Allows (1955) a period in which she specialized in childlike women and their inverse young widows-- but her career was long, stretching from bit parts in the early 30s through TV stardom in the 80s.
Her greatest hits and Oscar triumphs after the jump. Which is your favorite?
Presenting the Supporting Actresses of '48. A young writer, a drunken chanteuse, two spinster aunties, and a girl who never gets to the nunnery.
THE NOMINEES
1948 is so basic. A typical Best Supporting Actress shortlist looks almost exactly like this: an actress whose paid her dues finally getting a plum opportunity (hello usually uncredited Ellen Corby in I Remember Mama finally stepping into the limelight), a rapidly rising star (Jean Simmons inHamlet, not her first attention grabbing role in the late 40s), a fresh ingenue in a popular picture (Meet Barbara Bel Geddes in I Remember Mama), and if you're lucky in a good year a couple of revered character actresses to class up the shortlist joint (Agnes Moorehead in Johnny Belinda and Claire Trevor in Key Largo). And within that mix you'll usually have a protagonist demoted to "supporting" and Best Picture heat helping at least a few of them find a seat at the table. All of that is true for 1948. What isn't so typical is a supporting actress winning on a picture's sole nomination and that happened here. Key Largo has aged well but Oscar didn't have any time for it back then outside of Trevor's drunk despair. The other three pictures had 24 nominations between them!
Here to talk about these five turns are screenwriter/author Abdi Nazemian ("The Walk in Closet"), film blogger Catherine Stebbins(Cinema Enthusiast), freelance journalist Joe Reid, film critic Tim Robey(The Telegraph),and your host Nathaniel R (The Film Experience). In addition to this write up we recorded a companion podcast where we flesh out some of these thoughts and expound on the movies themselves.
Without further ado...
1948 SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN
BARBARA BEL GEDDES as "Katrin" in I Remember Mama Synopsis: A teenager who dreams of being a writer finds source material in her immigrant mother Stats: Then 26 yrs old, 2nd film, first and only nomination. 72 minutes of screen time (or 54% of running time).
Abdi Nazemian: She carries much of the emotional life of the film, but I found the film unbearably sentimental (this from a man who loves Andy Hardy movies and Little Women). She lacks the unique quirks that young actors like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney brought to the same kinds of roles, and gives us a bland portrayal of adolescence. Of all the nominated actresses, she was given the most screen time, and did the least with it. ♥
Catherine Stebbins: One of these days I’ll figure out why I’m always so drawn to Bel Geddes. She has a lot of screen time as Katrin, given the unenviable task of holding up the film’s relentless episodic nostalgia. She is narrator, observer, worshiper, and anadult playing an adolescent. Katrin constantly looks at her mother, whether in the background or foreground, with reverent awe. Bel Geddes plays this with a partial cognizance that Katrin is in the gently reenacted memories of her past. ♥♥♥
Joe Reid: I can see how, if you were swept up in the homey charms of George Stevens' film, you'd want to throw accolades at Bel Geddes, who plays such an observant window onto the life of her saintly mother. Her hushed voice-over gets to the gauzy-memoir nature of the story effectively, but I'm not sure the performance ever gets much farther than doe-eyed wonderment. ♥♥
Tim Robey: Saddled with just about the hoariest framing narration in film history, and doing little to lift it out of sanctified goo, Barbara has a near-impossible task here – making the terminally precious Katrin and her “gifted” (read: soporific) memoirs interesting. She can’t win, but we still need something more than a voice like tree sap to get us through this. In overegged close-ups she’s weirdly divorced from real-time engagement with her scenes, and every co-star seems faintly embarrassed about what to do with her. ♥
Nathaniel R: In the movie's crowded frames, you can often see just her hair or the back of her head; unfortunately her full closeups aren't that much more expressive, generally landing a single emotion. The narration is even stiffer like she's reading to a very small child from an immobile body cast. (The direction and screenplay all but force this stiff repetitiveness though, so it's not all on her) She aces warm awestruck looks at goddess Irene Dunne, but... I mean... who doesn't? ♥
Reader Write-Ins: "She is telling THEIR story, which she happens to be in. Therefore she is bland, quiet, blending to the background so others can showcase themselves." - Tom (Reader average: ♥♥¼)
Lest you forget, we have two Smackdowns this month. The first, already published, was for 1979 and for the second half of the month our retrospective love will be devoted to 1948 when these five women were nominated for Best Supporting Actress
Barbarba Bell Geddes, I Remember Mama
Ellen Corby, I Remember Mama
Agnes Moorhead, Johnny Belinda
Jean Simmons, Hamlet
Claire Trevor, Key Largo[winner]
Readers are the final panelist and your votes count (collectively) so between now and June 25th get your votes in with 1 (ouch) to 5 (total perfection) hearts for each. Please only vote on the performances you've seen (points are proportional so it doesn't affect the widely seen or the underseen).
To give you some context for the year, let's go over some high points of 1948...
Montgomery Clift becomes a superstar right out of the gate with his first two films: The Search and Red River
Great Big Box Office Hits: 1) The Red Shoes, 2) The Three Musketeers, 3) Red River, 4) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 5) When My Baby Smiles at Me 6)Easter Parade 7) Johnny Belinda 8) The Snake Pit 9) Ingrid Bergman as Joan of Arc and 10) Erroll Flynn in The Adventures of Don Juan
Oscar's Best Pictures: Johnny Belinda (12 noms / 1 win), Hamlet (7 noms/4 wins), The Snake Pit (6 noms / 1 win), The Red Shoes (5 noms / 2 wins), and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (4 noms / 3 wins). The Search starring Montgomery Clift probably just missed the cut-off with 4 major nominations, 1 win and a special Juvenile Oscar. Johnny Belinda and Sierra Madre shared the Golden Globe honors while Hamlet won Oscar's top prize
Happenings: Hollywood is still under the thumb of the HUAC hearings and many valuable players have already been blacklisted and/or jailed at this point; Post World War II anti-semitism is a mainstream topic which results in a Best Picture win early in the year for Gentleman's Agreement and then the banning of another film, David Lean's Oliver Twist, due to perceptions of anti-semitism in the character of Fagin (Alec Guiness); The US Supreme Court rules against religious instruction in public schools; Alfred Kinsey publishes "Sexual Behavior in the US Male"; Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated; a subway fare hike in Manhattan kicks it up to a whole dime.
Other Arts: Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms" and Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" are published, Pulitzer winners include James Michenere's "Tales of the South Pacific," Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire", and W.H. Auden for "The Age of Anxiety," Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle both begin their historical television superstardom this year with the variety shows "Toast of the Town" and "Texaco Star Theater" both of which will be retitled to reflect their star's name; "Mister Roberts" wins the first Tony Award for Best Play and "Kiss Me Kate" premieres on Broadway and will win the next year's inaugural Best Musical category.
Some Magazine Covers for Context Various movie queens, a reference to Shirley Temple's baby (her first child was born in January of '48), hot topics like Alfred Kinsey and Mahatma Gandhi, and more...
Mix Tape (Born in '48) Olivia Newton-John, Stevie Nicks, Grace Jones, Kenny Loggins, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Donna Summer, Jackson Browe, and Steve Winwood
Actors We ♥♥♥♥ Hard at TFE that were born in '48 Bernadette Peters, Dianne Wiest, Barbara Hershey, Kathy Bates and Christopher Guest
Other Key Showbiz Figures From '48's Fine Vintage Joe Dallesandro, Samuel L Jackson, John Carpenter, Gérard Depardieu, Bonnie Bedelia, Margot Kidder, Bud Cort, Kate Jackson, Mercedes Reuhl, Phylicia Rashad, Linsday Crouse, Mimi Kennedy, Nathalie Baye, Nell Carter, George RR Martin (author), Ben Burtt (sound genius), Colleen Atwood (costume designer), Javier Aguierresarobe (cinematographer), Edward Lachman (cinematographer), Lindy Hemming (costume designer)
Showtune to Go: Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy" is released which will later play a key role in one our mutual favorite films of all time Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 8:30AM 
