Shirley Jones Has Range: Best Supporting Actress, 1960

We finally begin our 1960 Oscars coverage with Best Supporting Actress:

Glynis Johns, The Sundowners

Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry

Shirley Knight, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

Janet Leigh, Psycho

Mary Ure, Sons and Lovers

All five were first-time nominees; three came from Best Picture nominees, including the eventual winner, Shirley Jones:

At this point, Jones was best known as the heroine of Rodgers & Hammerstein: as the first - and only - singer ever under a personal contract for the famous songwriting duo, she was hand-selected by them to lead the film adaptation of Oklahoma! when she was but 20. That was five years ago, and now, in her sixth movie role, Jones finally got to quit playing the good girl and start being bad. In Elmer Gantry, she plays Lulu Bains, a prostitute who learns of the growing fame of traveling preacher Elmer Gantry...and remembers his younger days when he used his charms on her and, as she says, "rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man's footsteps!" Now she has a way to pay him back...

That's the kind of narrative that gets you an Oscar: young up-and-comer established in one kind of role gets to flex her acting muscles with a "de-glammed" one. And in a Best Picture nominee! And a prostitute, Oscar's favored profession for women! And you can't say she didn't make good on it: while she was never nominated again, she did achieve pop culture immortality - and a Grammy nomination! - as the momma behind The Partridge Family. 

Her competition? Golden Globe winner Janet Leigh in Psycho, who dominates the first half-hour before taking the most legendary shower in movie history; Mary Ure in Best Picture nominee Sons and Lovers, as a married yet liberated woman in turn-of-the-century England; Glynis Johns in Best Picture nominee The Sundowners, as a pub owner who entertains romance with Peter Ustinov; and Shirley Knight as the daughter in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, the only nominee here who was nominated a second time.

Did the performances merit their nominations? My thoughts, from fifth to first:

Delays: 1960, Part Four

Well, it's been a week, but things get busy in life. Let's return to Summer 1960.

In June 1960, two Best Picture nominees debuted in cinemas. One, The Apartment, would finish at #8 in the Top 10 Box Office Performers of the Year, win Best Picture, and inspire a Neil Simon-Burt Bacharach-Hal David musical called Promises, Promises, which won many Tonys across the decades and gave us "I'm Never Gonna Fall in Love Again." The other, Elmer Gantry, so burrowed into my brain when I watched it in college that I then read the book, gave the book to my mother, got the opera on CD from the library, plotted out a remake, and still quote to this day.

They are but two of the ten releases I want to talk about today:

Casting Coup Month: Elmer Gantry

NOMINATIONS

Best Picture

Best Actor - Burt Lancaster (WON)

Best Supporting Actress - Shirley Jones (WON)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Richard Brooks (WON)

Best Score, Drama/Comedy - Andre Previn

I think I saw Elmer Gantry in the fall of 2009 or thereabouts. It was one of those things that happens on a Sunday afternoon: bored, channel-surfing, checking out what's on TCM. Well, as it happens, I saw Robert osborne talking, which meant that either I just missed or was just in time for whatever was happening; and when he said, "Here, from 1960, Elmer Gantry," I sat the fuck down. I had no idea what it was about, but I did know that it won the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Burt Lancaster and Shirley Jones. As an Oscar completist, it was VITAL that I check this out.

It had me from the first title card, a disclaimer reassuring its audience that the depiction of evangelists within the film was not reflective of the majority, but of a small minority exploiting the faith of their congregation. Now, I don't know what y'all know about me, but I went to church for years -- YEARS. I'd say I was probably sixteen or seventeen when I stopped going. I went through four pastors and three churches, with occasional visits to other places of worship. Jewish, non-denominational, Catholic, Baptist...and my family is Adventist. One of my last days at church was an argument with my Sabbath School teacher and fellow students about homosexuality. Apparently, I was wrong for not believing that prayer makes gayness go away, for thinking gay people were not headed to Hell, nor did they need saving. At the same time, you will never see a more devoted, loyal, there-for-you group of people than churchgoers. Warm and loving, truly a group that loves the sinner even while they hate the sin. Hell, our Sabbath School teacher was a rabid liberal otherwise, outright saying that Bush was ruining the country and Clinton was a sexy man. Church is funny.

Anyway. My point is, stories about religion, the church, the faithful, etc., hold an interest for me. That Elmer Gantry boasted this and Oscar cred was enough to keep me in front of that TV for at least an hour. By the end of the movie, I knew I had seen one of my favorites. I was taken aback by the masterful performance given by Burt Lancaster in the title role. You can hear Jesus in Elmer's voice, even when you know that's the furthest from his mind. Shirley Jones plays the bad girl well, while Jean Simmons was unfairly snubbed for her powerful performance as the lady preacher who believes in her work...and her own press. The score by Andre Previn had me from the first note. By the time the movie ended, my jaw was dropped, my arms were goosebumped, and I felt lifted.

So of course I read the original novel by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1927. And man, was that a difference. It's about 500 pages, I think, but the material that provides the basis of the film takes up only five chapters, with details from later and earlier chapters thrown in. For example: My favorite character from the movie is Arthur Kennedy's atheist journalist who is both Elmer's conscience, rival, and friend, Jim Lefferts. While the novel does feature an atheist friend of Elmer's named Jim Lefferts, he is only an influence in the first couple of chapters, taking place at the University. The Lefferts of the film is probably writer-director Richard Brooks, with some influences from the novel's Frank Shallard, a rival of Elmer's at seminary who, though he becomes a preacher, secretly turns to atheism. The film spans a year or two; the novel spans thirty years. Elmer's ex-lover Lulu Bains is a dumb housewife in the novel; in the film, she is a cynical prostitute. And, of course, there's Sister Sharon Falconer, who Lewis portrays as more crazy and less Christian than her celluloid counterpart.

They are interesting as companion pieces, as a look at methods of adaptation. Sinclair Lewis himself told Brooks to make extensive changes, advising him to read criticisms beforehand so that he wouldn't make the same mistakes (Sinclair Lewis was awesome). Since the material is so ripe, however -- and since the subject matter is as timely now as it was back then -- I've often wondered when a remake would come...and what it would look like. I invite you to take a look for yourself...apres le jump:

Casting Coup Month: Soooon!

Only 26 more days until the Oscars! And if you're a frequent reader, you know what that means: Casting Coup Month! Starting Monday, each weekday will offer a new Casting Coup, all the way up to the Friday before the ceremony. The running theme: they're all re-casts of Oscar Winners. As always, I would love it if any and all of you wished to participate with casting ideas of your own, whether in the comments or on your own blog (which I'll link to, of course!).

The group for Week One:

Grand Hotel

 

On the Waterfront 

The Ten Commandments 

Elmer Gantry 

Forrest Gump

(as seen on Andrew's LAMB Casting Series)