Presenting the 17th Annual Academy Awards' nominees for Best Supporting Actress:
Ethel Barrymore, None But the Lonely Heart
Jennifer Jones, Since You Went Away
Angela Lansbury, Gaslight
Aline MacMahon, Dragon Seed
Agnes Moorehead, Mrs. Parkington
Barrymore is a widow whose ne'erdowell son returns after years away, and now both are tempted into crime. Jones is a young woman whose father is at war, now falling in love with the grandson of her mother's boarder. Lansbury is a young housemaid whose indolence makes her unaware of (or accessory to?) Boyer's schemes. MacMahon plays the elder matariarch of a Chinese family navigating life under the occupation of the Japanese. And Moorehead is a French aristocrat who becomes the best friend and closest confidante of her ex-lover's new wife.
A prominent and prestigious stage star, Barrymore's film work before None But the Lonely Heart is scattered, comprised mostly of pre-20s silent films and one talkie team-up with screen star siblings John and Lionel, 1932's Rasputin and the Empress. Her return to film, a medium she disliked, was financially motivated and meant as a one-off, but she wound up doing more and more of them in her last years. Maybe winning the Oscar for her performance here helped, even though she did not attend the ceremony and later described the win as “very pleasant.”
On the other end of this stage veteran and reluctant screen actress, is Angela Lansbury in her film debut. Lansbury was born and raised in London, but the Blitz led her mother, actress Moyna Macgill, to bring the family to the United States in 1940. Lansbury studied acting, began performing professionally (albeit while lying about her age), and so she was ready when Macgill moved the family to Los Angeles. At a party, the 17-year-old Lansbury met the screenwriter John van Druten, whose adaptation of Gaslight was casting for the role of a cockney maid...and here we are today, discussing her first nomination for her first screen role in a career that would last eighty years.
Two great stories, and three others besides. So who would I vote for? My rankings, from fifth to first, after the jump...
5. Aline MacMahon as Ling Tan's Wife
Dragon Seed
only nomination
MacMahon and Walter Huston, as her husband, are the only two performers to come out of this well-intentioned misfire completely unscathed, I think - they actually treat their characters as people, not as strange, foreign totems. She at least gives a sense of an actual lived-in experience on her land, with her family. Still, a nomination seems a bit much.
4. Jennifer Jones as Jane Deborah Hilton
Since You Went Away
previous winner, second of five nominations
I've been skeptical of Jones in the past, but she acquits herself well as the girl who must grow up as the reality of war hits even the homefront. She's quite good against real-life soon-to-be-ex-husband Robert Walker as the soldier she falls for, and she, Claudette Colbert, and Shirley Temple are a believable family unit. I do think you could call this a lead role and I wouldn't blink, but I don't blink at its placement here, either.
3. Ethel Barrymore as Ma Mott
None But the Lonely Heart
first of four nominations; National Board of Review's Best Acting of 1944 (named alongside None But the Lonely Heart co-star June Duprez!)
Barrymore's return to cinema - and alleged nervousness - makes for a raw, unself-conscious performance. You see the weight and weariness of her years running an unprofitable secondhand shop and worrying about her itinerant son - and, of course, there's the cancer. There's a directness to Barrymore's acting style that I've always liked, and it suits her well here. Her last scene with Grant...I swear you've never seen either of them at this level!
2. Angela Lansbury as Nancy Oliver
Gaslight
first of three nominations
It is a surprising nomination, since there's not much for her to do by the end of the film, but she does serve as a sort of menacing comic relief. She rolls her hips, purses her lips, and can just barely be bothered to feign respectability towards the lady of the house; meanwhile, her flirtations with anyone in pants is obvious, but so is her genuine panic when she believes something is off in the house. Not that she gets to the crux of it. Still, Lansbury is undeniably a joy to watch and a boon to every scene she's in; if her absence becomes notable, it's only because she's made such an impression.
1. Agnes Moorehead as Baroness Aspasia Conti
Mrs. Parkington
second of four nominations; Golden Globe winner for Best Supporting Actress
Now, I admit, when I first finished watching this movie, I thought, "A nomination?" But it's a performance I can't get out of my head. She plays jealousy and genuine understanding so well, you see how her friendship with Mrs. Parkington was born of her affection for Mr. Parkington, a kinship between two women who love the same man. It’s not what she would have chosen, we can see she doesn’t even really like it, yet ultimately, Aspasia herself seems surprised by how much admiration she has for Susie, seems surprised that she is, after all, willing to help Susie - even if that means finally leaving the couple alone. Moorehead’s effective and memorable - and that accent!!! (Bonus Point: As human and warm as she is here, she is just the opposite in her other qualifying films: nagging in Dragon Seed, opportunistic in Since You Went Away, and cruel in Jane Eyre)
Next time, the nominees for Best Actress: Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight), Claudette Colbert (Since You Went Away), Bette Davis (Mr. Skeffington), Greer Garson (Mrs. Parkington), and Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity).
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