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Oscars 1952: Best Supporting Actress

Oscars 1952 was about 25 years of the Academy Awards, about Cecil B. DeMille (in addition to Best Picture, he also received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award), and, interestingly, about Gloria Grahame. Five years after her Oscar nomination for Crossfire, Grahame found herself with her busiest slate yet, four films that showcased her range. In The Greatest Show on Earth, she's the straightforward but good-hearted elephant tamer, a tough cookie but vulnerable - and knows a good man when she sees one. In Macao, she's a gangster's opportunistic sidepiece who tosses in with the hero when she realizes how expendable she might be. In Sudden Fear, she's a gal on the make who realizes, alongside Jack Palance, there's a potential fortune to be made in murder. And in The Bad and the Beautiful, she's the dizzy Southern wife of an author wooed to Hollywood by Kirk Douglas's manipulative producer, who entices her away from hubby and into the arms of a Latin lothario... More comic in pitch than the other roles, it's the one that got her the Oscar:



How does it stand against the others in this category? That's why we're here...

Gloria Grahame as Rosemary Bartlow
The Bad and the Beautiful
***
second and final nomination; Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actress

It's a performance of a bored woman, maybe a silly woman, who can't imagine that life as a small-town professor's wife is really all there is for her. Grahame fills Rosemary with a desperate thirst for the desert oasis of Hollywood, she must have it. Is she overwhelmed by temptation? Or, as I think Grahame plays, is she beside herself with the opportunity of actually getting to give in to it? It's a fun side performance.

Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont
Singin' in the Rain
*****
only nomination

I mean! A legendary performance! Beautiful, elegant, poised: these are the qualities that describe Lina Lamont, film star, qualities embodied by Jean Hagen, communicated by every slow movement of the head gracious flutter of the fingers, the partly-open but sensuous mouth. That is, that's the Lina the audience knows. In real life, that wail, that shrill, unpolished wail! Hagen's vocal gifts allow her to create indelible moments like "I caaaaaan't stan'im" and "Whadaya think, I'm dumb or sumthin'?" Hagen's understanding of Lina and ground-up construction of her creates one of the screen's great comic performances, gifts cinema one of its greatest villains!

Colette Marchand as Marie Charlet
Moulin Rouge
***
only nomination; Golden Globe winner for Most Promising Newcomer - Female; BAFTA Awards nominee for Most Promising Newcomer to Film

Prima ballerina Marchand plays Toulouse-Lautrec's muse, who flirts and teases, who disappears for days at a time, who tempts him and bleeds his purse dry, but who never seems to respect him. Nevertheless, she is drawn to him. The very embodiment of tempestuous woman, Marchand plays both fantasy and the frustration with that fantasy - and does it all rather well!

Terry Moore as Marie Buckholder
Come Back, Little Sheba
****
only nomination

Marie is the new boarder at the middle-aged Delaneys' home, a girl with a boyfriend back home who nevertheless enjoys quality "studying" time with handsome classmate and track star Richard Jaeckel. Moore is excellent, the play between her and Jaeckel makes for some of my favorite moments in the movie. She gets the combination of lust and guilt that can guide the hormones of the young. She communicates the desire without ever seeming a tease or hypocritical. She's just a nice girl figuring it out.

Thelma Ritter as Clancy
With a Song in My Heart
**

Clancy is the nurse who helps torch singer Jane Froman on the road to recovery following a plane crash takes one of the chanteuse's legs. With Ritter's unmistakable voice, Clancy provides the ough love and simple wisdom that Froman the star needs to hear. It's fine, Ritter's been better, so have many others.

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Hello, obviously, the winner is:

JEAN HAGEN
in
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN


Tomorrow, the nominees for Best Actor: Marlon Brando (Viva Zapata!), Gary Cooper (High Noon), Kirk Douglas (The Bad and the Beautiful), Jose Ferrer (Moulin Rouge), and Alec Guinness (The Lavender Hill Mob). 

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