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The long-standing debate about what separates a lead from a supporting performance has resurfaced this awards season. Case in point: Netflix’s high-profile contender “Emilia Pérez.” The Spanish-language musical, directed by acclaimed French auteur Jacques Audiard, has already garnered enthusiastic reviews and is poised to be a significant player across multiple Oscar categories. But the studio’s decision to campaign Karla Sofía Gascón as best actress while positioning her co-star Zoe Saldaña as a supporting actress has sparked a heated discussion.

Saldaña’s role as Rita, a lawyer who aids the drug cartel boss Manitas in faking her death, undergoing gender-affirming surgery, and emerging as “Emilia Pérez,” propels the film’s narrative. Her extensive screen time supports this argument.

According to Matthew Stewart of Screen Time Central, Saldaña’s performance clocks in at 57 minutes and 50 seconds, representing 43.69% of the film’s runtime. It’s also slightly more than Gascón’s 52 minutes and 21 seconds (39.54%) on film.

In the Supporting Actress Smackdown series we take a particular Oscar vintage and explore it with a panel of artists and journalists. This time we're talking 1957

The Actresses & Characters

In 1957 Oscar voters were in the mood for fresh faces. Four rising stars were honored along with one Old Hollywood mainstay, the Bride of Frankenstein herself (Elsa Lanchester). The shortlisted characters were a counter culture partygoer, an exasperated nurse, a Japanese newlywed, and two 18 year-old besties in a small town with both love and grief on their minds.

The Panelists

Here to talk about these performances and movies are filmmaker Q Allan Brocka, theater and film critic Kenji Fujishima, Be Kind Reward's Izzy, film critic Kimberly Pierce, writer/ director/ archivist Brett Wood and your host Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

1957

Supporting Actress Smackdown + Podcast  

The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page.

Are you enjoying our super-sized Supporting Actress Smackdown season? We've already discussed 1947, 1981, and 2002. We normally only do 4 episodes but we're super-sizing things this summer so there's lots more to come. It's our own niche movie-loving way of trying to alleviate your (and our) anxiety, depression, exhaustion, during this tumultous time of righteous protests, pandemic sheltering, and treasonous manchild in the White House. Up next 1957

The Nominees

Hope Lange (Peyton Place) Carolyn Jones (The Bachelor Party) Miyoshi Umeki (Sayonara) Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution) Diane Varsi (Peyton Place)

Get to watching those four films when you need a break from the real world! Send in your ballots once you've screened 'em with "1957" in the subject line. But please only vote on the movies you've seen.

Please Welcome Our Next Panel ... ...

By Todd Garbarini

Mark Robson’s 1957 film Peyton Place celebrates its 60th anniversary with a special screening at the Royal Theatre in Los Angeles. The film, which runs 157 minutes, stars Lana Turner, Lee Philips, Lloyd Nolan, Arthur Kennedy, Russ Tamblyn, Terry More, and Hope Lange.

Please Note: Actress Terry Moore is currently scheduled to appear at the screening as part of a Q & A regarding the film and her career.

From the press release:

Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.

Peyton Place (1957)

60th Anniversary Screening

Wednesday, July 12, at 7:00 Pm at the Royal Theatre

Q & A with Co-Star Terry Moore

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 60th anniversary screening of 'Peyton Place,' the smash hit movie version of Grace Metalious’s best-selling novel. The film earned nine top Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The book was raw & dirty, and did you read what that girl did with that guy on page 167? Racking up a stack of Oscar nominations, Peyton Place became one of the big hits of its year, launched the careers of several young actors, and proved that Hollywood could pasteurize most any so-called un-filmable book. Lana Turner is the nominal star but the leading actress is Diane Varsi, in her film debut.

Peyton Place

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 157 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Lana Turner, Hope Lange, Arthur Kennedy, Lloyd Nolan, Lee Philips, Terry Moore, Russ Tamblyn, Betty Field, David Nelson, Leon Ames, Mildred Dunnock.

Cinematography William Mellor

Art Direction Jack Martin Smith, Lyle R. Wheeler

Film Editor David Bretherton

Original Music Franz Waxman

Written by John Michael Hayes from the book by Grace Metalious

Produced by Jerry Wald

Directed by Mark Robson

What’s this,...

This classy Fox production was considered the epitome of sick film subject matter in the pre- Psycho year of 1959, the true story of jazz-age thrill killers Leopold & Loeb. Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman are the nihilistic child murderers; Orson Welles stops the show with his portrayal of Clarence Darrow, going under a different name.

Compulsion

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1959 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date March 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell, Diane Varsi, Bradford Dillman, E.G. Marshall, Richard Anderson, Robert F. Simon, Edward Binns, Gavid McLeod, Russ Bender, Peter Brocco.

Cinematography: William C. Mellor

Film Editor: William Reynolds

Original Music: Lionel Newman

Written by Richard Murphy from a novel by Meyer Levin

Produced by Richard D. Zanuck

Directed by Richard Fleischer

Movies about serial killers and psychos with exotic agendas were much different before Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which hit America in 1960 like a thrown brick.

Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones and Diane Varsi star in American-International's most successful 'youth rebellion' epic -- a political sci-fi satire about a rock star whose opportunistic political movement overthrows the government and puts everyone over 35 into concentration camps... to be force-fed LSD. Wild in the Streets Blu-ray Olive Films 1968 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date August 16, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones, Diane Varsi, Hal Holbrook, Millie Perkins, Richard Pryor, Bert Freed, Kevin Coughlin, Larry Bishop, Michael Margotta, Ed Begley, May Ishihara. Cinematography Richard Moore Film Editor Fred Feitshans Jr., Eve Newman Original Music Les Baxter Written by Robert Thom from his short story "The Day it All Happened, Baby" Produced by Burt Topper Directed by Barry Shear

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back around 1965 - 1966 we endured this stupid buzzword concept called The Generation Gap, a notion that there was a natural divide between old people and their kids.

The already-incredible line-up for the 2016 New York Film Festival just got even more promising. Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk will hold its world premiere at the festival on October 14th, the NY Times confirmed today. The adaptation of Ben Fountain‘s Iraq War novel, with a script by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), follows a teenage soldier who survives a battle in Iraq and then is brought home for a victory lap before returning.

Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...

Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...

Monster Mash! concludes at Trailers from Hell, with filmmaker Darren Bousman introducing "The Dunwich Horror," directed in 1970 by Roger Corman's wizardly production designer, Daniel Heller.Scored by Les Baxter and produced by Corman, Sam Arkoff and James Nicholson, The Dunwich Horror is an A.I.P. film through and through. Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s 1928 story and cowritten by Curtis Hanson, the film was to have starred Boris Karloff (featured in Haller’s previous Lovecraft adaptation, Die, Monster, Die) but Karloff passed away before the production’s start. Peter Fonda and Diane Varsi, originally cast as the conjurer Wilbur Whateley and his victim, each bowed out to be replaced by Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee. The final film role of Ed Begley.

Lana Turner movies: Scandal and more scandal Lana Turner is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Saturday, August 10, 2013. I’m a little — or rather, a lot — late in the game posting this article, but there are still three Lana Turner movies left. You can see Turner get herself embroiled in scandal right now, in Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), both the director and the star’s biggest box-office hit. More scandal follows in Mark Robson’s Peyton Place (1957), the movie that earned Lana Turner her one and only Academy Award nomination. And wrapping things up is George Sidney’s lively The Three Musketeers (1948), with Turner as the ruthless, heartless, remorseless — but quite elegant — Lady de Winter. Based on Fannie Hurst’s novel and a remake of John M. Stahl’s 1934 melodrama about mother love, class disparities, racism, and good cooking, Imitation of Life was shown on...

It now appears to be more likely than not that Hailee Steinfeld, the 14-year-old actress who makes her big screen debut in the Coen brothers’ critically and commercially successful Western “True Grit,” will score an Oscar nomination — and perhaps even a win — in one category or another for her film-stealing performance. Consequently, some of you may be wondering if any other newcomer has ever earned that kind of recongition over the 82 year history of the Academy Awards. The answer is yes — in fact, it has happened precisely 47 times, 16 in lead and 31 in supporting.

Some of those women were famous before they received their nods (i.e. Jennifer Hudson and Barbra Streisand); most were not (i.e. Mary Badham and Gabby Sidibe). Some never made another movie after they received their nods (i.e. Jocelyne Lagarde); some made a few and then dropped off the face of the earth (i.e.

Dennis Hopper: actor, artist, filmmaker, Hollywood survivor.

Just days after remembering the loss of Sydney Pollack two years ago, we awaken to mourn the loss of another Hollywood icon, Dennis Hopper, less than two weeks after his 74th birthday. Hopper had been on my short list of "dream interviews" during my tenure at Venice Magazine. When I was lucky enough to finally sit down with him in November of 2008, I was thrilled, and didn't know quite what to expect.

What I found while smoking cigars with Hopper in his Venice home-studio, was a thoughtful man with a gentle demeanor, who spoke in measured tones and loved telling stories. Gone was the wild-eyed "enfant terrible" that Hopper had made his name playing, and sometimes living. What I saw instead was a man who seemed to be at peace with himself and his life, who loved his children, art, film and new ideas.

The first thing I remember seeing of Peyton Place turned out to be the last shot, where two children on bicycles crisscross their way up a bucolic town street. It was evocative in a sentimental way, and my interest was piqued, but by then the movie was already over. Here at work I sometimes watch movies on our channel out of the corner of my eye, catching scenes out of order and out of context. On another day, I caught a vision of a pretty blond teenage girl in a full blue skirt running through the woods, terrified by a scary dirty man chasing her. That really caught my attention, so I tuned in, but still only saw part of the film. But enough that I came back for all of it. 

The truth is, when I initially encountered the title Peyton Place on a list of movies that I...

It's nitro meets glycerine when Kim Morgan--the Diane Varsi of movie blogging--and James Toback--the Russ Tamblyn of...no, that can't be right--delve into the moody, riven, scarred body, soul, and psyche of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, the subject of Toback's critically hailed new documentary. It and Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor will probably be going head to head, toe to toe, vicious tattoo against savage suntan for the doc Oscar in next year's Academy Awards, which is why I'm already setting aside lunch money to fund that long Greyhound ride west so that I can attend my first Vanity Fair post-Oscar party, assuming I can finagle my way on to the guest list. If all else fails, I may have to offer my services as a cater waiter, and pray those Dr Scholl's footpads hold up under the heavy strain of a long evening. (For...