The Verdict -- Best Supporting Actress 1942

#5. Susan Peters in Random Harvest: Susan Peters delivers a star making performance, receiving this nomination as a vote of confidence from the Academy for her future career. Unfortunately, we never did get to see if she had the staying power to become one of the greats so instead this feels like a sad nomination. Still, this is a perfectly lovely performance in a very underwritten, one dimensional role and Peters acts it with a youthful energy and innocence that is perfect for the character. She gets points for elevating herself beyond the role, and that final scene is a fantastic one but it's not enough to fully justify this nomination. Still good, just not quite on an Oscar nomination level.

#4. Gladys Cooper in Now, Voyager: As Bette Davis's stern mother Mrs. Vale, Gladys Cooper has a wonderful presence in her film. After only a brief scenes her cold-hearted mother figure leaves a nasty cloud hanging over the rest of the film and Davis' Charlotte in particularly. However, those hints of a truly heartless mother figure are never really explored in the film, and though Cooper fights valiantly to humanize Mrs. Vale, the film just doesn't seem quite as interested in her. It's a stock part done very, very well but remains unfortunately lifeless and one-note.

#3. Teresa Wright in Mrs. Miniver: It's very difficult to achieve the level of serenity and lovability Teresa Wright achieves in the role of Carol Beldon, a normal and good-hearted young woman. It's a performance grounded in reality and carefully modulated to avoid melodrama or theatricality. Wright plays Carol with such subtle grace and steadfast emotions that you fall in love with her right alongside the Miniver family. Carol is a very simple character, but it's through Wright's wonderfully simple performance that she becomes the emotional core of her film and a lovely presence on screen.

#2. Agnes Moorehead in The Magnificent Ambersons: Undoubtedly the most complex and confounding performance of this bunch, Moorehead is in a different league than her competitors in a lot of ways. She's got the most interesting director and film backing her, and delivers a performance of near-operatic levels but somehow makes it (mostly) work. Fanny's deep, deep dissatisfaction with her life is so potent in Moorehead's hands, and every minute of her screen time is spent pouring that dissatisfaction onto the screen. She leaves a strong impact and is so fascinating to watch as the shrill Aunt Fanny.

#1. May Whitty in Mrs. Miniver: Though Agnes Moorehead's performance is clearly much more ambitious, I have to go with Dame May Whitty on sheer emotional impact. At first this part seems like a completely cliched one, with Whitty doling out wisecracks wonderfully and being adorably cantankerous. But the genius comes when she flips the performance on it's head with a series of emotional moments that are tragically nostalgic and impactful. Whitty toys with the expectations placed on these types of Maggie Smith-type characters and rises high above them. Deserves an Oscar nomination just for making me cry at a damn flower contest.

The Year in Review: Though the scores don't add up to as high as some of my other banner years, I truly liked all five of these performances on different levels and really enjoyed doing this vintage year. Peters and Cooper both deliver admirable performances trapped by the limitations of their parts, and even Teresa Wright suffers a bit from the same affliction, in her case the slightly one-note role of Carol Beldon. It's clear to see why Wright won the Oscar, she's absolutely luminous, tragic, and winning in Mrs. Miniver, clearly an Oscar favorite. Whitty and Moorehead could not give more opposite performances, but both are great in different ways and worthy choices in this solid year for Best Supporting Actress. I always love seeing a field with no truly bad performances. Up next is a year from one of the three full decades in which I have only reviewed one year (60s, 70s, 00s), but don't expect it too soon since I'm sticking with the method of reviewing all nominees before posting even the intro post.

Worthy Non-Contenders:
Anne Baxter in The Magnificent Ambersons

Every Supporting Actress Nominee Ranked:

1. Patty Duke in "The Miracle Worker" (1962)
2. Dorothy Malone in "Written on the Wind" (1956)
3. Thelma Ritter in "Pickup on South Street" (1953)
4. Catherine Zeta-Jones in "Chicago" (2002)
5. Linda Hunt in "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1983)
6. Anna Paquin in "The Piano" (1993)
7. Meryl Streep in "Adaptation." (2002)
8. Cher in "Silkwood" (1983)
9. Eileen Heckart in "The Bad Seed" (1956)
10. Emma Thompson in "In the Name of the Father" (1993)
11. Julianne Moore in "Boogie Nights" (1997) 
12. Ellen Burstyn in "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
13. Oprah Winfrey in "The Color Purple" (1985)
14. May Whitty in "Mrs. Miniver" (1942)
15. Patty McCormack in "The Bad Seed" (1956)
16. Claire Trevor in "Dead End" (1937)
17. Agnes Moorehead in "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942)
18. May Whitty in "Night Must Fall" (1937)
19. Margaret Avery in "The Color Purple" (1985)
20. Mildred Dunnock in "Baby Doll" (1956)
21. Julianne Moore in "The Hours" (2002)
22. Kathy Bates in "About Schmidt" (2002)
23. Angela Lansbury in "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962)
24. Ethel Waters in "Pinky" (1949)
25. Amy Madigan in "Twice in a Lifetime" (1985)
26. Meg Tilly in "Agnes of God" (1985)
27. Teresa Wright in "Mrs. Miniver" (1942)
28. Gloria Stuart in "Titanic" (1997)
29. Alfre Woodard in "Cross Creek" (1983)
30. Barbara Harris in "Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?" (1971)
31. Geraldine Page in "Hondo" (1953)
32. Anne Shirley in "Stella Dallas" (1937)
33. Amy Irving in "Yentl" (1983)
34. Kim Basinger in "L.A. Confidential" (1997)
35. Shirley Knight in "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1962)
36. Cloris Leachman in "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
37. Margaret Leighton in "The Go-Between" (1971)
38. Rosie Perez in "Fearless" (1993)
39. Mercedes McCambridge in "All the King's Men" (1949)
40. Joan Cusack in "In & Out" (1997)
41. Anjelica Huston in "Prizzi's Honor" (1985)
42. Ann-Margret in "Carnal Knowledge" (1971)
43. Gladys Cooper in "Now, Voyager" (1942)
44. Donna Reed in "From Here to Eternity" (1953)
45. Glenn Close in "The Big Chill" (1983)
46. Susan Peters in "Random Harvest" (1942)
47. Alice Brady in "In Old Chicago" (1937)
48. Mary Badham in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962) 
49. Holly Hunter in "The Firm" (1993)
50. Queen Latifah in "Chicago" (2002)
51. Celeste Holm in "Come to the Stable" (1949)
52. Ethel Barrymore in "Pinky" (1949)
53. Minnie Driver in "Good Will Hunting" (1997)
54. Thelma Ritter in "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962) 
55. Winona Ryder in "The Age of Innocence" (1993)
56. Grace Kelly in "Mogambo" (1953)
57. Mercedes McCambridge in "Giant" (1956)
58. Marjorie Rambeau in "Torch Song" (1953) 
59. Elsa Lanchester in "Come to the Stable" (1949)
60. Andrea Leeds in  "Stage Door" (1937)

Susan Peters in Random Harvest

Susan Peters received her only Oscar nomination for her performance as Kitty Chiclet in Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest. Unfortunately, Susan Peters is mostly known nowadays (if mentioned at all) as a tragic Hollywood story after a 1945 hunting accident left her paralyzed from the waist down. Before the accident she was being groomed as a major star at MGM following her nomination for this film and a few other parts, but of course Hollywood didn't known what to do with a wheelchair-bound actress and Peters career fizzled out until she died at age 31 from what was essentially anorexia. It's a sad story for sure, especially considering how luminous she is in the role of Kitty in Random Harvest.

The film is a romantic drama about a man, "John Smith" (Oscar-nominated Ronald Colman) who loses his memory during World War I and falls in love with a singer who helps him make peace with his lost memories. After him and the woman, Paula (Greer Garson) get married and have a child he is hit by a car and suddenly regains the memory of his real life as Charles Rainier but simultaneously loses all of his memories of Paula and their time spent together. Peters enters as Kitty, Charles' step-niece who has a huge crush on him and eventually becomes engaged to him. However, Paula has found work as Charles' secretary and is determined to get him to remember their time together. It's a terribly overwrought film that is a little dull but still has a nice romantic glow whenever Garson and Colman are onscreen together.

Susan Peters has a tough job with the role of Kitty, having to traverse the film's drastic jumping around in time that forces her to age from a teen to a grown woman in what amounts to a few minutes onscreen. She's also got a really creepy romance, with vaguely incestuous undertones and a whopping 30 year age difference between her and Colman. It's a testament to Peters that she manages to make all of these aspects substantially less creepy (though not completely), through her charisma and charm. She's very convincing as a teenager, nicely expressing Kitty's childish crush on her uncle and her youthful confidence. She does absolutely all of the heavy lifting in the Charles/Kitty relationship, convincing us that the Kitty would be attracted to her uncle's romanticized mystique. She's not given a whole lot of time to develop a romance, since essentially two scenes in Kitty and Charles are engaged but Peters pulls it off with teenage aplomb and ardent forcefulness.

Because the performance is essentially three brief sequences, Peters has to work hard at showing the amount of maturity that Kitty has achieved in her second and third sequences. She definitely pulls it off, showing a more sophisticated and mature Kitty who has kept the torch going for her uncle over many years and maintains the determination to marry him. After the first two sequences featured, respectively, a teenage Kitty telling her uncle they will get married and a grown up Kitty getting him to propose to her, Peters is finally given a more emotional moment in her third and final scene. While her and Charles are picking hymns for their upcoming wedding they happen up the one that he and Paula got married to and Kitty recognizes that Charles still loves someone else. It's a beautifully acted moment, as we get a close-up on Kitty's face as her expression of giddy excitement changes to confusion and bewilderment to finally disappointment. Peters acts the scene with maturity and skill, having maneuvered Kitty to this place in only a few scenes. Her goodbye to Charles is touching and very noble, something the audience wouldn't have expected from the slightly annoying and petulant teen at the very beginning.

This is a perfectly lovely performance by Susan Peters, even if for the most part Kitty Chiclet is nothing more than a prop of a part that is meant to illustrate how attractive and charming Ronald Colman's character is. Peters tackles the role with charm and transitions the performance very well, but is essentially stuck by the part nonetheless. This nomination feels more like a "star is born" nomination than anything else, because I would very much have liked to see how Peters' career turned out after this lovely breakthrough. 3/5 Thelmas.

Best Supporting Actress 1942

And the nominees were....

• Gladys Cooper as Mrs. Vale in Now, Voyager
• Agnes Moorehead as Fany Minafer in The Magnificent Ambersons
• Susan Peters as Kitty Chilcet in Random Harvest
• May Whitty as Lady Beldon in Mrs. Miniver
• Teresa Wright as Carol Beldon in Mrs. Miniver (winner)

The Field: This is not the first year I planned to do next, nor is it the second even. It's actually the third year. I have a thing for starting years, losing time and interest in them and starting over with a new one. It's not so much the years themselves but rather my penchant for starting work on years and letting too much time pass in between watching films and reviewing the performances. So, sorry 1947 & 2003, but this is my next year. I'm pretty excited to be doing this year because it's got an interesting collection of Oscar favorites in a group of interesting films that received a total of 26 Oscar nominations in 1942. I've vowed to review all of the nominees before posting this, so if you are reading this I've reviewed all of the nominees and they will be released two days apart. Though this looks to be a sad group from that group photo, I'm pretty excited to write about them! Gladys Cooper is up first.