Best Actress 1928

The next year will be 1928 and the nominees were

Louise Dresser in A Ship Comes in

Janet Gaynor in Seventh Heaven

Janet Gaynor in Street Angel

Janet Gaynor in Sunrise

Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson

YOUR Best Actress of 1950!

Here are the results of the poll:

1. Gloria Swanson - Sunset Boulevard (28 votes)

2. Bette Davis - All about Eve (16 votes)

3. Judy Holliday - Born Yesterday (9 votes)

4. Anne Baxter - All about Eve & Eleanor Parker - Caged (2 votes)

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 1950 - The resolution

After having watched and reviewed all five nominated performances, it's time to pick the winner!

5. Anne Baxter in All about Eve

Anne Baxter wants to do everything right but unfortunately does a lot wrong in her performance but is nonetheless still able to create an interesting character thanks to the brilliant writing. She shows the differences between the fake Eve, the evil Eve, the manipulating Eve, the scared Eve and the real Eve but her limited talent prevents her from combining her instincts with a truly great performance.

4. Eleanor Parker in Caged

                     

Eleanor Parker shows Marie like a deer caught in the spotlight – frightened, unable to do anything. This way, she is wonderfully able to distance Marie’s character from the other, more experienced inmates and give an extremely moving performance that shows how innocence and goodness can be turned into hardness, bitterness and insubordination.

3. Bette Davis in All about Eve

Bette Davis is able to show all the weak and strong sides of Margo and mixes them with wonderful sarcastic humor and so creates one of the most fascinating characters in movie history. In a very private portrayal of a larger-than-life woman, Bette flawlessly demonstrates the self-assurance of Margo without ever overshadowing any of her co-stars.

2. Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard

Gloria Swanson gives a pitch-perfect performance as she completely understands both the character and the movie style: it’s a mix of satire and realism, a dark comedy and a shocking drama and Gloria Swanson fitted her performance to this – stylized to the maximum, over-the-top and larger-than-life but always real and Gloria Swanson never crosses the line to unconvincing.

1. Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday

Judy Holliday delivered a comedic tour-de-force in Born Yesterday that carries this movie and turns it into one of the great comedies while never forgetting to show also more serious sides of the character. It’s an incredibly multidimensional and deep characterization that is done in the most subtle way because Judy Holliday never draws any attention to her performance itself. Instead, she understands how to maximize the comedy aspect while slowly creating a character that is so much more than visible on the first look.

Best Actress 1950: Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard"

After various actresses had rejected the part of silent film star Norma Desmond, director Billy Wilder turned to Gloria Swanson, an actress who, just like Norma Desmond herself, had been one of the great stars in silent films but whose fame faded after the transition to talkies. While Gloria Swanson was interested in playing the part, she felt insulted by the demand to make a screen test for her studio but finally swallowed her pride and gave one of the most iconic and unforgettable performances of all time and the signature work of her entire career.

Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder’s masterpiece and one of the greatest movies of all time, tells the story of Joe Gillis, an unsuccessful and cynical screenwriter, whose life takes an unexpected turn when he has to stop his car in the driveway of a big, apparently abandoned mansion. Very soon her realizes that this mansion is not left but inhabited by Norma Desmond, a great, but forgotten star of the silent era who dreams of a return to the silver screen.

Before Norma Desmond appears for the first time, the viewer hears her distinctive, bidding voice from the distance. Then the camera moves slowly towards her, but her face is mostly hidden behind some blinds in front of her windows. It’s a mysterious introduction to one of the most fascinating movie characters ever. Norma Desmond lives in a world of the past. She doesn’t realize that she is forgotten by today’s audience but still thinks of herself as the greatest of them all. She is not the same kind of diva as Margo Channing in All about Eve – Margo has trouble to face reality while Norma doesn’t even see reality and lives in her own fantasy world. And it’s also obvious from the beginning that the years of isolation, living in an empty house full of pictures of herself, watching movies with herself, has driven Norma close to the edge of insanity. As her butler says, she has already tried to kill herself and Norma’s constant behavior, her mood swings, her way of talking and behaving, show that this woman is slowly becoming crazy.

Gloria Swanson gives a performance that is pitch-perfect because she completely understands both the character and the movie style: it’s a mix of satire and realism, a dark comedy and a shocking drama and Gloria Swanson fitted her performance to this – her performance is stylized to the maximum, over-the-top and larger-than-life but always real and Gloria Swanson never crosses the line to unconvincing. It’s the only way this character could have been played successfully and Gloria Swanson is masterful. She also understands the humor and comedy of the film and that Norma Desmond is not supposed to be realistic but Gloria is able to give a real performance of this unreal character. She also perfectly brings all the supposed qualities of Norma to live – she is able to make it believable that this woman used to be a great star, there is something hypnotic about her personality that glues the viewer’s eye to the screen whenever she appears.

Norma Desmond is not a diva because she is a great star – she is only a diva because she thinks she is. Gloria Swanson is not afraid to show that Norma is mostly a pathetic character. Forgotten, laughed at, only remembered by people who actually experienced her fame. But Norma never becomes a laughable character thanks to Gloria Swanson’s dominating tour-de-force that always hints at something dangerous, unstable and uncontrollable behind Norma’s face that prevents from laughing at her. Instead, she is completely captivating from start to finish.

Even though the character of Norma Desmond sometimes seems of secondary importance compared to Joe Gillis, she never steps into the background and her presence is constantly felt. Gloria Swanson also developed a wonderful chemistry with William Holden who also plays his part with outstanding determination.

Gloria Swanson plays her role with full confidence in her own ability to combine her personal experiences as a silent movie star with Norma’s inability to leaves these days behind her. Especially in the scenes when Norma finally goes mad, Gloria Swanson’s own roots in the silent era become most effective because her widened eyes, filled with insanity, her way of moving could only be done by an actress who knew a time before there was ‘talk, talk, talk’. In these scenes, Gloria Swanson’s performances crosses the line from outstanding to perfection. Her line delivery, which has been wonderful already and turned so many of her lines into classics, becomes so deliciously mad without ever seeming exaggerated. Her final scene is an incredibly mix of insanity, paltriness and comedy. A performance like hers could not have been so successful in any other movie because it completely depends on Sunset Boulevard’s style and story but in this fictitious world, it’s true perfection.

In the role of Norma Desmond, Gloria Swanson knows exactly what she is doing and what she can achieve. It’s one of the great screen performances and for this she gets

Best Actress 1950

The next year is 1950 and the nominees were

Anne Baxter in All about Eve

Bette Davis in All about Eve

Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday

Eleanor Parker in Caged

Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard