Supporting Actress 1977

This year puts me at 40 years out of 90 for old Oscar and that's pretty damn impressive to me. Soon I'll be over half way and that felt like an impossibility not that long ago. I'm glad to be churning through these years. I have seen Dillon but don't remember her. The rest remain a mystery. Time to unravel it!

1977 Best Supporting Actress

Vanessa Redgrave - Julia

This is the last nominee I am reviewing from this category but one thing stands out: how head and shoulders above the rest Redgrave is as an actress. This role is somewhat meaty, like a chicken wing, but it's slathered in your favorite hot sauce. Meaning, it's not as big of a role as you'd think but it delivers. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not amazed by this performance to the point that I claim it's a favorite or anything like that. I just know that Redgrave knocks it out of the park and is the only possible choice for a win. I can recognize good acting without really liking it. I do like her, just not enough to get ecstatic about it. Redgrave is the eponymous Julia. She is a friend of the writer Lillian Hellman and is a strong woman outright. She goes to medical school in Europe and while there, fighting breaks out and she is wounded and then eventually whisked away somewhere. The film follows Fonda as she searches for Redgrave, so the Julia isn't in the film all that much. She's decent in the beginning when we see her and Fonda as friends growing up. Julia is self assured and a natural born leader and Redgrave emotes this effortlessly. She dominates the screen and Fonda seems to cower when the two are together. That is never more obvious than when the two finally meet late in the film in a bar and Redgrave just imposes herself on the scene. She is impatient but tactful and a woman who knows that she needs to get out certain information in a hurry to a friend that is basically bewildered and star struck. It's a powerful scene because Redgrave controls the whole thing from the start and is probably what sealed her as the winner. It will stand out to you when you watch it as being particularly good and you'll understand what Redgrave means to the film. My issue is that we never really get to know anything about Redgrave and why she chose to go off and be a revolutionary other than her mother was an independent gal doing whatever she wanted. I feel like more effort on establishing why Redgrave did anything would have been nice. I recognize she is great here, but I'm not all that enthused about the performance. I won't ever come back to this film so what does that tell you?

Leslie Browne - The Turning Point

I had heard that this was a bad performance but I don't think that's true at all. Browne was a professional ballerina and the story of this film is actually based around her life, essentially. The director knew her parents and they had a similar story to the parents in this one in that they were dancers in New York who got married and moved to I think Arizona and opened a dance school. So Browne plays herself, as the daughter who goes back to NYC to become a respected ballerina. She wasn't an actress before this and it shows at times, but I feel like she handles the role just fine. It's probably easy to play yourself in your first role and the fact the she already was a dancer probably made it an easy transition. At first she is shy and quiet but then opens up when she is able to dance and come out of her shell. The scene where she dances drunk onstage is actually really great and doesn't play like most drunk scenes. Her dancing is off and also selfish while not being too overdone to emphasize being drunk. It was restrained but really effective in showing how her character had evolved. Browne is also very good at the whole dancing thing which helps her performance and isn't the only thing going for her like in Baryshnikov's case. She does get overpowered by the other actresses in the film but never to the point where she loses control of her character and she still is able to give an effective, heartfelt performance. This was a lot better than I was expecting it to be even with Browne not having to do much heavy lifting acting wise in the film. Her greenness shows, but it works in context for the character and that's okay.

Quinn Cummings - The Goodbye Girl

Okay, my first instinct is to lay into this nomination because it's a child nomination. I've been conditioned that way because when kids are nominated, they are usually beyond awful and annoying. This is a Neil Simon film and I have realized that I mostly don't like his films. I actually liked Only When I Laugh but seems everything else hasn't been all that good. Cummings is a child actor if I didn't make that clear. She's like 12 or something and I think she does a better job than most of the child actors in this project. But I'll get this out there already, this is a young girl speaking the words of Neil Simon. His scripts are already too polished and overworked. You put his words into a young girl and you get a performance that is too cutesy, precocious, and annoying. Cummings says things that no other kid would ever say and is too mature despite being underage. I don't like those types of performances for kids and I don't like them for Oscar nominated kids. But I will say that Cummings is a good actress. She is able to at least try to bring Simon's words to life and seem like they are from a naturally quirky, weird little girl. It's just that Simon gives her quip after biting quip that doesn't feel authentic in the slightest. The script even calls itself out when Marsha Mason says Cummings was born 23 or whatever age she says. That's admitting that your child character is too adult and you need an actor that is transcendent to pull of anything natural. But again, Cummings is decent in the role. Yeah, she's annoying and too polished but she tries to give it her best shot. She doesn't come off like the typical theater kid. So it's a performance that you'll recognize as good but also too annoying at times. Did it deserve to be nominated? Nah, I don't think so but at least it's not a performance to make you hate the Academy. Cummings is fine but not amazing.

Melinda Dillon - Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I always forget that this film wasn't actually nominated for Best Picture, even though it got a bunch of other nominations including one for Best Director for Steven Spielberg. I have always really enjoyed this film since I first saw it as a young lad. If you don't know, it tells the story of aliens who come to earth and abduct some people and speak to us through musical cues. What I'd really love is this film followed by a watch of Arrival because damn, do these films have similar ideas. That would be a hell of a double feature. Anyway, Dillon sucks. I hate to say that, but she is literally only the mother of the young boy who is abducted in the beginning of the film and meets Dreyfuss when that happens. But really until the end she isn't featured again until she teams up with Dreyfuss as they infiltrate the UFO landing site. She gets her kid back and that's it! I much prefer Teri Garr as Dreyfuss's wife because she is so worried about him and then storms out with the kids. I also thought Garr offered up an actual performance that meant something to the film. Dillon is just the abducted boy's mother and that's basically it. She does nothing besides be really into finding where the aliens are going to come back to. I think Teri Garr has the better claim to an Oscar nomination, however. Garr just does more as an actress and has to experience and demonstrate more range. It's also the more interesting of the supporting actress performances in the film. Dillon is just not interesting. So therefore Garr deserves the second Oscar nomination (which would have been the first nomination, but you get it). Either way, I'm just glad I got to watch this film again because it's so good.

Tuesday Weld - Looking for Mr Goodbar

This is probably the first real 70s movie that I've encountered so far, like super 70s in content. Sure, some of the other films feel like they were definitely made in the 70s and have that vibe, but this one is just an interesting cultural relic. The story concerns Diane Keaton as a hardworking and loved teacher of deaf students by day who then goes out at night and has all kinds of casual sex and does drugs and gets drunk and is murdered at the end. It's got that 70s vibe because of the music and the way everyone talks and how free love the characters seem to be and the way the film is shot. It's really interesting to watch. It's got a very young Richard Gere and Tom Berenger and even LaVar Burton. Tuesday Weld, who I honestly had trouble figuring out which woman she was, is the sister of Keaton and she flits in and out of the film, sometimes like a whirlwind. We are first introduced to her when her sister comes home and Weld is taking pills and talking about drugs and just being this frenetic,obvious acting mess. In contrast to Keaton's refined and controlled acting, Weld looks like an amateur and it's a little jarring. It reminded me of Jesse Spanos on Saved by the Bell when she overdoses on the speed pills. I know that sounds pretty goofy, but she has that same energy. The rest of the film she is more subdued but she still comes in and either talks about some new crisis she is in like getting an abortion or how her therapy sessions are doing while admonishing her sister's choices. I guess you can say she's memorable in that every time she's onscreen her acting is obvious and she is showing up with some new addiction. I feel like Weld got nominated because Keaton is pretty good in this and she was going to win for Annie Hall but Academy members probably watched this film because of her and latched onto Weld as a choice. Maybe. Weld's role is pretty underwritten and she's not given a whole lot to do other than be a spastic reminder of addiction. Weld does what she can but I don't think you'll remember her all that much after watching her performance. The one plus is she allowed me to watch a really interesting film that has been forgotten and is very much of the time.


Ehhh, not that great of a year if you really look at it. Redgrave is the only one that makes sense for a win and no one else even comes close to her. The other four are barely supporting enough. Cummings has more to do than basically everyone but Redgrave and Browne, and even that is arguable, but I just can't really stand these too precious child performances. It's not natural in the slightest and no kid would ever talk like her. I just am not a fan of child performances period. Next up would be Weld, who also doesn't do much other than show the perils that young women can encounter. Drugs, abortion, therapy, men - all that stupid stuff. It's not very interesting or good and probably only gets on because the Academy couldn't nominate Keaton twice for Lead Actress. Then comes Dillon who isn't even the best supporting actress in her own film. That goes to Teri Garr who would have easily been second best in this group. Dillon just plays a frightened mother and that's about it. Meh. Browne was at least a lot better than I was anticipating. She may not be much of an actress but she does what is necessary of her character despite how shallow the character is written. She is better than you will expect but obviously not better than Redgrave. It was hers to lose and she never did. It's not really all that amazing of a performance to me, but others thought so. This is one of the weaker categories I've seen in awhile.

Oscar Winner: Vanessa Redgrave - Julia
My Winner:  Vanessa Redgrave - Julia
Leslie Browne
Melinda Dillon
Tuesday Weld
Quinn Cummings