The 1960 nominees for Best Supporting Actor:
Peter Falk, Murder, Inc.
Jack Kruschen, The Apartment
Sal Mineo, Exodus
Peter Ustinov, Spartacus
Chill Wills, The Alamo
Peter Ustinov won, but that win has been overshadowed by Chill Wills’ infamous awards campaign. Wills, who’d been in the business a good long time and figured this was his one short at the gold, hired a publicist named W.S. Wojciechowicz, aka “Bow-Wow”. Apparently, he did not consult with Wills, the actor trusting the professional to know his business. So Wills was blindsided when an ad appeared in the Hollywood Reporter purporting to be from the cast and crew of The Alamo: We of The Alamo cast are praying harder - than the real Texans prayed for their lives in the Alamo - for Chill Wills to win the Oscar…”
Tacky! Tasteless! And, for some I’m sure, proof that every element of this film was just ego and Oscar-hunting. The Alamo’s director-producer-star John Wayne condemned the ad, Wills sent Bow-Wow to the doghouse, and Ustinov went home with the gold.
My rankings, from fifth to first:
5. Chill Wills as Beekeeper
The Alamo
only nomination
I would forgive the publicity campaign if I understood the nomination, but good Lord. As the comic relief, he brings an unpolished, real Amurrican simplicity. He breaks up the seriousness, sure, but I found his shtick a lot more monotonous. They couldn’t nominate Fred MacMurray or David Opatoshu or Laurence Olivier or Charles Laughton or….
4. Peter Falk as Abe Reles
Murder, Inc.
first of two nominations
A co-lead, really, as chief antagonist Abe “Kid Twist” Reles. He’s a mean runt, you’d think he was pure carnage except for the stillness in him at times: he watches, he measures, and when he strikes, it’s with an unsettling sense of catharsis - he likes this work! But Falk, good as he is, also seems almost too conscious of the camera, you catch him doing some actorly bits, some self-conscious mumbling, that don't feel completely organic.
3. Sal Mineo as Dov Landau
Exodus
second and final nomination; Golden Globe winner for Best Supporting Actor
Pent-up rage finally permitted to let loose, as a Holocaust survivor who wishes to join the Irgun, the Zionist paramilitary group whose actions cross into terrorism. Mineo’s is a fine performance, one that could be another angry young man role were it not for the extended scene where he confesses how he survived the camps, what he had to do to live. It’s a scene that opens with determination and defiance, and ends with a broken kid … ready to be rebuilt into someone stronger. A great scene, a great showcase for his talents, the reason, I’m sure, he got the nomination.
2. Peter Ustinov as Batiatus
Spartacus
second of three acting nominations; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actor
Now here’s a comic relief character with a real arc whose humor plays on the tension between the performance and the despicability of the character. He turns men into gladiators, puts them against each other for show, sells them - all so that they may murder and maim each other for entertainment. Ustinov sells, quite entertainingly, this grasping, sleazy, brown-nosing businessman. Yet there's a certain quality Ustinov brings that makes him a stitch, amusing without ever being completely reformed, though he does wind up helping the heroes in the end - and we buy that because Ustinov has made this guy so pathetically human, we can tell he'd go where the wind blows.
1. Jack Kruschen as Dr. David Dreyfuss
The Apartment
only nomination
Didn’t think I’d rank him my #1, but I cannot deny how effective he is, a role and performer this category was made for. He’s the neighbor who thinks C.C. Baxter is a lech, not knowing that Baxter’s not the one entertaining girls every night, it’s his bosses borrowing the key…not that that would be a better explanation. So, yes, here’s Kruschen and his perfect New York Yiddish accent, imploring Baxter to be a mensch… Oh, I believed every moment, every gesture, every click of the tongue, he reminded me of neighbors and friends’ relatives and the folks at the cinema from where I grew up. It’s not the flashiest role, you just have to believe in the man’s competence, in his ability to be neighborly without having to fake niceties about it. It’s the kind of role this category was invented to honor.
Tomorrow, the nominees for Best Actor: Trevor Howard (Sons and Lovers), Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry), Jack Lemmon (The Apartment), Laurence Olivier (The Entertainer), and Spencer Tracy (Inherit the Wind).
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