| Medal Competition for Best Supporting Performance, Female. |
| Night five is coming to a close, with this, the first of four performance competitions. While not as glamorous as the leads, the supporting players are vitally important to the success of any motion picture. To provide quality support requires special skills, whether the ability to play "straight man" in a comedy, the evil foil in a melodrama, the trusted sidekick, the spurned lover or the comic relief; these performers make the leads great through their quality support. After all, you can't have a memorable hero with out a memorable villain to vanquish. You can't have a great lover without a great love worthy of their affections. The performance awards are among the most difficult to categorize, as the line between lead and supporting can often be very fine, and there will be many disagreements, as to who is which. However, these women all have one thing in common; they provide great performances and create memorable characters, regardless of limited screen-time, and their films would be much weaker without their presence. So without further ado, here are the nominees... |
| � Grete Berger: The Student of Prague (1913) (Germany) In this early horror film one of the primary motivations for the title character to make his pact with the devil is to attain the social status to be worthy of the daughter of an aristocrat. Is Berger up to the task of being a love interest worthy of such a bargain? Well, your Deviant Chairman once offered to sell his eternal soul for a pickled herring sandwich, so he might not be the best person to ask, but his Catholic schooling does give him some knowledge of the gravity of such matters and he gives Berger a resounding thumbs up! Her quality performance helps make the student's terrible decision completely understandable. � Loretta Blake: His Picture in the Papers (1916) (USA) This lively comedy provided an early showcase for mega-star Douglas Fairbanks, and is another entrant in the "what crazy things a man will do to win a woman" category. In this case, rather than selling his soul the rascally lay about Doug tries to prove himself worthy of Blake, the refined daughter of an important family, through elaborate schemes to get himself in the papers so he can appear important without actually having to do any work. The alluring Blake puts in a fine turn as a love worth winning and a great "straight woman" for Fairbanks' outlandish antics. � Miriam Cooper: The Birth of a Nation (1915) (USA) While the expected smattering of boos can be heard, the crowd is starting to get accustomed to the film receiving nominations because there seems to be a bit less enthusiasm behind it. (Or perhaps they just appreciate Cooper's fine performance.) D. W. Griffith worked very well with performers and especially well with women, and Miriam Cooper was one of those in his stock company who excelled in often-thankless rolls. As Margaret Cameron, she played the tragic role of a woman whose family and idyllic life is torn apart by the civil war. She gives her difficult role a quiet dignity. There are oceans of sadness in her face. � Miriam Cooper: Intolerance (1916) (USA) Cooper puts in another fine turn in a thankless role for Griffith. (The title of her character is simply "The Friendless One.") In the modern sequence, she plays a woman who is driven to the impersonal city by economic despair and through desperation and falls in with the wrong crowd. In the end guilt and a tinge of decency drive her to abandon her wanton ways and do the right thing. A lesser actress could have turned the role into a hysterical caricature, but Cooper invests it with the poignancy that we have become accustomed to and shows why she was on of the greatest performers in the Griffith company. � Lila Lee: Male & Female (1919) (USA) In Cecil B. DeMille's naughty morality play, Lee reveals a flair for comedy. As Tweeny, the scullery maid, she also plays the dramatic aspects of her character well, and invests humanity and a bit of tragedy in her characters unrequited love of the butler Crichton. Lee works flawlessly in support of male lead Thomas Meighan and her performance makes his better, the primary function of any great supporting player. Oh yeah, for you less refined gentlemen, your Of Course He's a Good Liberated Male and Doesn't Notice Such Things Chairman would be remiss if he didn't point out that her Mitchell Leisen designed costumes...hmmm, how shall I say this...umm...fit rather well. � Mae Marsh: The Birth of a Nation (1915) (USA) After Lillian Gish, Marsh was perhaps the greatest of the Griffith acting stable. She was one of the first great performers, and along with Gish, helped usher in a new, modern film acting style. As the youngest Cameron daughter, we watch Marsh grow from an innocent and carefree girl to a young woman who is worldlier but forever tarnished by the horrors of the Civil War. She portrays this transformation flawlessly. One of the many disturbing characteristics of the film is that we grow to feel for Marsh's character so strongly that when Griffith uses her to help justify his racism it becomes very difficult for enlightened audiences to stomach. (Her terror stricken flight from an animalistic black man who is out to rape her is marvelous acting, but used by Griffith as one of justifications for the "heroic" actions of the Klu Klux Klan.) Taken outside of the political context, however, Marsh's performance is one of the finest of the day. � Mae Marsh: Intolerance (1916) (USA) This is an interesting case in the battle of lead vs. supporting, as Marsh is the lead of Intolerance's modern sequence, but as the film has a cast of thousands and three other stories in which she plays no part, she is not featured in a large portion of the over three hour run-time of the film. Thus as a part of a much larger whole, she is being nominated here as a supporting player, although there will probably be justifiable arguments that she actually should be considered a lead. Whew! Now for those less geeky than your Detail Obsessed chairman, on to the film. This is another outstanding emotional portrait by Marsh, where she once more starts as an innocent. Through economic hardship caused by wanton Capitalism, she is forced to migrate to the cruel and unforgiving urban jungle where she must face a seemingly never-ending stream of indignities. Yep, she has to grow up fast if she's going to survive long enough to see the happy ending. Griffith tended to put his women through the emotional wringer, and Marsh was more than up to the task. Once again she was nearly flawless, and we grow to really care for her character, only this time without the ugly racism Griffith threw into the mix in Birth of a Nation. � Italia Almirante-Manzini: Cabiria (1914) (Italy) Whew! This nomination comes none-to-soon as your Nervous Chairman was staring down an angry mob from the European contingent due to the U.S. bias in this category! Like Intolerance, Cabiria was an epic with a huge cast. Italia Almirante-Manzini refused to get lost in the crowd or to be overshadowed by the spectacle or the massive sets. Amongst everything she stood out as a strong woman, a sympathetic villain who stole the show. She was passionate and shrewd and the film was always improved when she was on the screen. After four of the last five nominees coming from Griffith films, the crowd has adopted the lovely Italian as their favorite to stem the American tide. After all, if Italia Almirante-Manzini didn't get lost in Cabiria, she might be able to find her way to the medal stand as well. � Edna Purviance: Easy Street (1917) (USA) The crowd is more enthusiastic for this U.S. entry as it marks the debut of a film by the beloved Charlie Chaplin into the Cinema Olympics. Edna Purviance excelled as Chaplin's female counterpart, ably supporting him in countless short films throughout the latter part of the decade. While often playing it straight to give Chaplin a love-interest to play his antics on, she was a skilled comedienne in her own right, which she proves in this small but essential role in the best of Chaplin's shorts for Mutual Company. � Edna Purviance: Shoulder Arms (1918) (USA) Purviance returns for another nomination, as slapstick comedy begins to receive some respect in these games. As the French Girl in this war-front comedy, Purviance gets to stretch out and show her comedic chops a bit more and truly excels. An excellent turn as both romantic interest and comic foil, Purviance is looking strong, in what might be the strongest Chaplin entry in these games. |