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:

Got Me Feeling Like A...: 1960, Part Seven

In September 1960, OPEC is founded, The Flintstones premieres on ABC, and the first-ever televised presidential debate takes place between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. And there was much at the cinema, too, but the big story was Psycho.

Psycho was a bit of a gamble for director-producer Alfred Hitchcock, who insisted on making it, even when his parent studio Paramount balked. But Hitchcock loved a challenge, and making a commercial film out of a particularly nasty horror novel like Robert Bloch's was certainly one of his biggest. Ultimately, he filmed on the Universal lot, using the quick-acting crew from his then-popular television program, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, waving his usual fee in exchange for 60% stake, and financing much of it himself; Paramount would only have to distribute. He broke all the rules: the heroine was a criminal, the most sympathetic character is a serial killer, a toilet flushes on screen...he even broke the rules of exhibition, instilling a policy where, for fear of spoilers, no one was admitted into the cinema once the film had begun (at a time when people would wander freely once they bought a ticket - it's where the phrase, "This is where we came in," originated from). 

The film was, as you must know, a massive hit, which made Hitchcock's "deal" with Paramount a sound financial decision on his part. The sets used for the film are still on display and visited by thousands of tourists daily at Universal Studios Hollywood's Backlot Tour. Bernard Herrmann's iconic score and the shower scene it accompanies are recognizable even by people who've never seen the film, so often have they been referenced and parodied. But the original still entices, and there are retro screenings (like the one I attended back in 2000) all year round, all over the world . There are even action figures and computer games, three sequels and one remake, and a surprisingly well-received television adaptation. Psycho is its own economy, and it all started here, in September 1960 - among these films: