Meet the Panelists for 1948's Smackdown

The next supporting actress smackdown is just one week away. UPDATE 06/28: HERE IT IS.  The panelists are watching John Huston's Key Largo, the immigrant drama I Remember Mama, and best picture contenders Johnny Belinda and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. 

MEET THE PANELISTS
Here's a little bit about our panel to prep you for our conversation as they finish up their screenings...

First Timers

ABDI NAZEMIAN (Screenwriter / Novelist)
Abdi Nazemian is the screenwriter of The Quiet, Beautiful Girl, Celeste in the City, and the short film Revolution. His first novel The Walk-In Closet recently received the Lambda Literary Award for Best Debut. He and his children live in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @Abdaddy.

What do you cherish about 1948?

In my 1948 fantasy, I am dancing at the Mocambo with Rita Hayworth to Ella Fitzgerald's How High the Moon, then going home to my private screening room to watch Ava Gardner in One Touch of Venus before retiring to bed (next to Gary Cooper, obviously) to read Truman Capote's debut novel on my Kindle. Wait, what year is it?".

CATHERINE STEBBINS (Film Blogger)
A librarian and professional film obsessive living in Providence, Catherine is best known for her in-depth Top Ten By Year project which can be found at her site Cinema Enthusiast (active since 2010). Contributor to Criterion Cast & Verite Magazine. Idols include Louise Brooks, Leonard Cohen, Joanna Newsom, Jim Henson, Isabelle Huppert, Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, and drag queens. 
[Follow Catherine on Twitter] 

What do you cherish about 1948?

To take the minute approach; little Bobby Henrey adorably saying 'Baines' and 'MacGregor' over and over in The Fallen Idol; varying degrees of homoeroticism in Rope and Red River; Joan Bennett narrating in the Freudian-laced Gothic melodrama Secret Beyond the Door... ("this is no time for me to talk of danger; this is my wedding day"); Laurence Olivier making a hot blonde Hamlet. And most of all, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Max Ophüls's unparalleled story of unrequited love, in which Joan Fontaine's Lisa reflects on her life through the romanticized facade of fate.'

Returning Panelists

JOE REID (Freelance)
Joe Reid never went to film school, unless you count the film school of hard knocks, which he also didn't go to. That hasn't stopped him from writing about movies (and TV, but don't think less of him) for places like The Atlantic, Grantland, Slate, and more. One day, he'll have written about his love for The Hours, Go, and Mermaids enough that he can finally close his laptop, satisfied that his work is done. You can experience the best (and worst) of him via his Twitter. 

What do you cherish about 1948?

1948 brings back so many memories; the Marshall Plan, the London Olympics, the Alger Hiss hearings, the Costa Rican Civil War. What a time to be alive. Or so I've heard. In reality, it would be one more year before my father was born, and while if I ever have a kid, I'll be certain to make sure he watches Kramer vs. Kramer, the shameful reality is that before this Smackdown, I'd only seen one film released in 1948. Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. It's too bad that one isn't reflected in the Oscar nominations of 1948, but part of the reason I wanted to participate in this particular year was to beef up my 1940s film vocabulary. Maybe I can move on from Olivier's Hamlet to Welles' Macbeth....

TIM ROBEY (Film Critic)
Tim Robey has been reviewing films for the Daily Telegraph since 2000, alongside a few interviews, book reviews, and more or less whatever else they throw at him. He turns up periodically on Radio 4's The Film Programme and Front Row, Monocle FM radio, and BBC Film Twenty-Whatever, as long as he has a new jacket to wear on it. His writing is mostly here. His recommendations series is here. A picture of a half-grown labrador squishing a cat is here. 
[Follow him on Twitter] 

What do you cherish about 1948?

1948 is the year my mum, Wendy, was born, so I'm trying to imagine her early years in filmgoing and immediately skipping a decade. She told me once she used to be a great fan of Lee Remick, which makes sense, as this is ten years before her big breaks in movies; ditto James Garner, a favourite of her late sister Jill. They would have been right there for Mary Poppins and Darling and The Graduate, if they weren't out rocking the new Dusty Springfield look, with a strict curfew from my grandfather. I can't imagine them having an iota of time for Star Wars, the year before I was born – mum's always been allergic to science-fiction films, horror, or anything not set in a plausible version of the real world. These days, if we go to films together, it'll be for Milk, or a Christmas screener-viewing of Philomena. I think she started to watch Under the Skin on a holiday flight and practically had to call the attendants to come and switch it off. Here's to mum and our barely-overlapping movie tastes! Love her loads.

And your host...

NATHANIEL R (Host)
Nathaniel is the founder of The Film Experience, a reknowned Oscar pundit, and the web's actressexual ringleader. He fell in love with the movies for always at The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) but mostly blames Oscar night (in general) and the 80s filmographies of Kathleen Turner & Michelle Pfeiffer. Though he holds a BFA in Illustration, he found his true calling when he started writing about the movies. He blames Boogie Nights for the career change. [Follow him on Twitter]

What do you cherish about 1948?

True fact: I cannot live without Montgomery Clift in Red River. I did not exist before seeing it. Or, rather, him. '48 also marks the technicolor reunion of my two favorite musical stars (Judy Garland and Gene Kelly) in The Pirate. Finally, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Vittoria de Sica's The Bicycle Thief were important discoveries on VHS when I was trying to learn about the movies as a teen cinephile. And now a shameful confession: I chose this year because it's the only one we've ever done, to my recollection, from which I'd previously seen none of the movies involved. No, not even Hamlet. Not sure how that happened but now my shame is public!

What does 1948 mean to you dear readers?

 Perhaps you have a favorite film or a movie you are ashamed to say you've never seen?

NOW PROCEED TO THE SMACKDOWN

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Please welcome Kyle Stevens to The Film Experience team. You've previously heard him on the podcast, you can pre-order his book on Mike Nichols, and you should follow him on twitter as he is delightful. - Editor

Adapted from the hit radio play by Lucille Fletcher (who also wrote the screenplay), Sorry, Wrong Number follows Leona Stevenson, a headstrong young heiress who aims to one day be the sharpest battleaxe in the armory. She is also an invalid, relegated to her bed. We discover Leona telephoning inquiries into her husband’s whereabouts when the line fatefully clicks. She overhears a conversation between two men plotting a murder that night. For me, the whole movie hangs on the image of her listening to this narrative catalyst. It hovers over the entire film. Its power lets us never forget that this is Leona’s story, even when we get elaborate flashbacks from others. We recall it later when we see Leona disheveled and shining from tears and anxious sweat. Its tightness contrasts with the way the camera later wanders in and around people, tracing the distances between them that the telephone extinguishes. 

The magic here is all down to Barbara Stanwyck, giving one her best performances (and receiving the last of her four Best Actress nominations). We see Leona’s selfishness ebb as she intelligently listens to the heavies on the line. That is, Stanwyck doesn’t play an inner monologue. Her bright brown eyes and horseshoe furrows do not propose “Oh no!” and “What should I do now?”, as though telling us what Leona wants to say. Rather, Leona, in this moment, and for a change, is not about herself at all. She just listens. This remains a thing of beauty, reminding us how much intelligence just listening can demand. I don’t know of a better demonstration of the cliché that listening is one of those feats accomplished by only the best actors.

Written by a woman and showcasing a female character who fights for what she wants, Sorry, Wrong Number would probably be received as a feminist statement were it released today. But in the moment in which Leona hears unheard, I am reminded that it is not just the film’s gender politics that remain relevant. Over the complex lines of a switchboard (where, according to Hollywood, women controlled the flow of information), the epigraph warns:

In the tangled networks of a great city, the telephone is the unseen link between a million lives… It is the servant of our common needs—the confidante of our inmost secrets…life and happiness wait upon its ring… and horror…and loneliness… and death.”

The technology behind our phones may have changed, but in an age where we’d rather text than talk, we seem to still fear verbal connections. We worry about who’s listening, and we know, deep down, that the voice can give too much away.

Previously
Vintage 1948 - Best of the Year 
Supporting Actress Smackdown - The Schedule 

The Year of the Month is... 1948

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) 

Smackdown Summer - Revamp Your Queues!

We're just 9 days away from the launch of another Smackdown Summer. Rather than announce piecemeal, we'll give you all five lineups in case you'd like more time to catch up with these films (some of them stone cold classics) over the hot months. Remember to cast your own ballots during each month for the reader-polling (your 1979 votes are due by June 4th). Your votes count toward the final Smackdown win so more of you should join in. 

These Oscar years were chosen after comment reading, dvd searching, handwringing, and desire-to-watch moods.  I wish we had time to squeeze in a dozen Smackdowns each summer! As it is there will be TWO Smackdowns in June, a gift to you since this first episode was delayed.

Sunday June 7th
The Best Supporting Actresses of 1979

Meryl Streep won her first of three Oscars while taking her co-star Jane Alexander along for the Oscar ride in Kramer vs. Kramer. The delightful character actress Barbara Barrie was nominated for her mom role in Breaking Away, Mariel Hemingway as Woody Allen's preternaturally wise teenage lover in Manhattan, and Candice Bergen played a singing divorcee in Starting Over - a role that supposedly helped win her Murphy Brown a decade later.

PANELISTS: Nathaniel R (TFE), Bill Chambers (Film Freak Central), Kristen Sales (Sales on Film), Brian Herrera (StinkyLulu) and novelist K. M. Soehnlein ("The World of Normal Boys," "Robin and Rudy")

Sunday June 28th
The Best Supporting Actresses of 1948

1948's roster has a genuine movie star and one of the most iconic character actresses of all time in Jean Simmons who didn't get to the nunnery in Hamlet and Agnes Moorehead in Johnny Belinda respectively. Also nominated were two women from the immigrant family drama I Remember Mama, Barbara Bel Geddes and Ellen Corby. But taking home the gold was Claire Trevor in the Bogart & Bacall noir Key Largo. Will the panel agree with Oscar's decision? 

PANELISTS: TBA

Sunday July 26th
The Best Supporting Actresses of 1995

The Oscar went to one-hit wonder Mira Sorvino (okay, two hit wonder: hi Romy & Michelle!) for her hooker with a heart of gold in Mighty Aphrodite but then no one knew what her future had in store. No one knew that for any of the contenders since they were all first timers. Sorvino was up against two familiar ensemble players Kathleen Quinlan in the popular hit Apollo 13, and critical darling Mare Winningham from Georgia, and two "new" faces who'd continue on to future Oscar glories and Great Actress reputations in Kate Winslet (Sense & Sensibility) and Joan Allen (Nixon).

PANELISTS TBA

Sunday August 30th
The Best Supporting Actresses of 1954 

Eva Marie Saint dropped a glove and won an Oscar for On the Waterfront opposite Marlon Brando by any margin the most famous of 1954's Oscar nominated films. But what will the panel make of her competition? There's also the formidable Nina Foch in the all-star corporate drama Executive Suite, Katy Jurado, the first Mexican actress ever nominated, for the western Broken Lance and rounding out the category were two women from John Wayne's airline thriller The High and the Mighty, Jan Sterling and Oscar regular Claire Trevor.

PANELISTS TBA

Sunday September 27th
The Best Supporting Actresses of 1963 (Season Finale!)  

Since the 2015 film year really heats up in September with the Toronto Film Festival (10th-20th) and Prestige Season Kick-Off, we're taking it easy for the finale with the one of only two years when only three films were nominated in the Supporting Actress category. Margaret Rutherford won the Oscar for The VIPs, a Liz & Dick show, Lilia Skalia was also popular in nun mode for Lilies of the Field but it was the Best Picture winning sex comedy Tom Jones that was the informal star of this category with three of Albert Finney's co-stars nominated (the all time record in this category): Diane Cilento, Joyce Redman, and '60s Oscar fixture Dame Edith Evans (nominated shortly thereafter for both The Chalk Garden and The Whisperers) 

PANELISTS TBA

 

Queue up those DVDs, readers, and play along at home! Unless you're a semi-famous star or accomplished character actor, oft-employed industry professional, best selling novelists, popular film critic, or AMPAS member in which case, tell me which panel you want to be on! (Shameless Plug). You know you want to join in the movie merriment !!!

Mother's Day Special: "Now, Voyager" and Bette Davis

Happy Mother's Day, readers! Here's new contributor Angelica Jade Bastién returning to talk Bette Davis, tell all bios, and a 1940s classic. - Editor

When I introduce friends to Bette Davis for the first time I tend to show them Now, Voyager. Yes, the film gives us one of Davis' best performances but my love for it is deeply personal. Whenever I watch Now, Voyager I see my emotional landscape on the screen. As a teenager struggling with mental illness and a caring yet controlling mother who didn’t quite know how to handle it the film was a revelation. It gave me hope that I could become the woman I always dreamed of. Ultimately, my obsession with the film centers upon the multiple ways it explores motherhood. 

Now, Voyager is essentially about the transformation of Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) from spinster aunt figure to badass, emotionally realized womanhood. The film begins with Charlotte teetering at the edge of a nervous breakdown brought upon by the multitude of ways her mother, Mrs. Vale, controls her...

Click to read more ...