The Sun Also Rises (1957)

Film: The Sun Also Rises (1957)

Stars: Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert, Juliette Greco

Director: Henry King

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Errol Flynn: click here to learn more about Mr. Flynn (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Errol Flynn, one of the most consistently strong performers at the box office for Warner Brothers for nearly 18 years, ended his career with the studio in 1953.  At that point Flynn was in his mid-40's, and while his handsomeness was still there, years of drinking & health problems made it unlikely that he could achieve some of the stunt acrobatics that were a huge calling card in his early fame.  After going broke trying to self-finance The Story of William Tell (a film that never was actually released), he started to make bad decisions with his career, making B-movies, choosing poor projects like Istanbul & The Big Boodle, and only really had one important film left in him, where he would have to endure the indignity of being fourth-billed, here against a guy who for much of the 1930's & early 40's, one could argue Flynn was a more important action star than, Tyrone Power.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Sun Also Rises is a glossy Fox film that tackles Ernest Hemingway's famed novel.  This is where I'm going to confess something that doesn't often come up on this blog: I don't particularly care for Ernest Hemingway's writing, and in some ways that translates to the screen.  A lot of the novel's strength comes from discussions about Jake's (Power) impotence, both as a man who has moved on from a war (and a nation that has stolen his virility without much thanks), and that comes across in the movie...to a degree.  The Hays Code was getting hit a little bit at the time (if you look at posters for this film, they say very clearly "Not Suitable for Children" and that's because they use the actual word "impotence" in the film), but that lack of sexual stamina is lost in the movie because they can't really discuss it as the Code still drove a lot of scripting decisions.  It doesn't help that Power is at least ten years too old for this part (it's hard not to wonder how different this might've been in the hands of an actor like Marlon Brando, who was closer to the age Jake is in the novel), and that they aren't really able to point out how Ava Gardner's Lady Brett absolutely loves sex, and while she takes on some "lovers" in the film they aren't really hinted at in an oblique way.  It all feels dry and neutered (pun truly unintended...only caught the double entendre while editing this article).

Flynn's character is essentially a cad, one who can satisfy Brett (which Jake can't, even though they're in love with each other), but isn't honorable and is a giant walking fuck boy.  This isn't a new part for Flynn, but I will say that, even robbed of much of his charisma (and a decent script), Flynn is the best part of this movie because there's an unrest in his performance that I found really melancholy.  He plays his Mike as a man who knows he's a failure and likely to die unsatisfied...but also can't stop himself.  Flynn would die of a heart attack, exacerbated by cirrhosis & fatty degeneration of the liver, just over two years later at the age of only 50.

That is not where Flynn's story ends though, and in many ways it was only beginning.  In terms of Classical Hollywood stars, only Marilyn Monroe can rival Flynn for things we found out about him after his death.  For starters, there are allegations that Flynn had a sexual affair late in his life with 15-year-old actress Beverly Aadland, whom he would make his last movie Cuban Rebel Girls with (during which time Flynn spent much of production becoming pals with Fidel Castro).  There have also been a lot of debates about his politics, with some accusing Flynn of being a fascist, specifically the highly-publicized biography by Charles Higham which also alleged that Flynn was bisexual and was a Nazi spy.  There is no evidence of him being bisexual or a spy (he was investigated by the FBI, and they didn't find evidence of this), but it is a case where he was friends with Herrmann Erben, who was a Nazi intelligence officer during World War II, and whom Flynn was friends with until at least 1940 (after meeting on an expedition to Spain in the 1930's), and possibly throughout World War II.

This was not the only friendship that Flynn had that caused headlines after his death.  A correspondence with Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was uncovered in Penthouse magazine in 1982 by Hubbard's son Ronald, and the two would engage in sexual & drug-induced debauchery together.  It's worth noting we haven't heard from Flynn's son Sean, a photojournalist, about him because he would disappear in 1970, likely being killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (we talk about this more in one of our Unsolved Hollywood mysteries articles here).  All-in-all, Flynn's life is remarkably complicated by the many things he was never asked about as they came to light after his death, making his star persona one of the most challenging to tackle beyond the big screen.

OVP: Mogambo (1953)

Film: Mogambo (1953)

Stars: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Donald Sinden

Director: John Ford

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actress-Ava Gardner, Supporting Actress-Grace Kelly)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Grace Kelly-click here to learn more about Ms. Kelly (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned in our kickoff to Grace Kelly Month, Kelly's story is not one of a robust amount of struggle in terms of getting into the upper echelons of Hollywood (in fact, more than almost any major star of the era, it's hard to find an actress who struggled less to make it in the industry).  A swiftly successful career in theater & television opened up doors for Kelly, first in Henry Hathaway's Fourteen Hours and then in the first of several genuine classics Kelly made, Fred Zinnemann's High Noon.  High Noon was a success, winning Kelly's costar Gary Cooper an Oscar, but her notices were middling, and she was worried she might be considered "just a pretty face" in Hollywood despite getting a lot of opportunity from the picture.  However, when Gene Tierney (who was off being wooed by Aly Khan at the time) dropped out of Mogambo, Kelly jumped at the opportunity to work with screen legends Clark Gable & John Ford in the role that would change her life.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Victor Marswell (Gable), a big-game hunter who spends much of his time trapping animals in Africa to send to zoos and circuses.  He meets Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly (Gardner), a fortune-hunter who is trapped on their safari briefly.  Though initially they dislike one another, that animosity melts into attraction, and they clearly sleep together (despite not being married).  Honey Bear leaves, and in her place is Donald (Sinden) and Linda Nordley (Kelly), a couple that want to safari to record the gorillas, which Victor refuses to do because it's too difficult to find the gorillas.  However, slowly Linda begins to wear him down, and despite being a prim married woman, she & Victor begin to have a love affair.  This is complicated further when Honey Bear, obviously still in love with Victor, returns, and has to hide their relationship so as not to scandalize Linda.  As the film progresses, Victor clearly loves Linda, and wants to be with her, but doesn't have the guts to break up their relationship, so instead she has Linda catch him with Honey Bear, and in anger she shoots him.  The film ends with Honey Bear claiming that Linda was right to shoot him (since he'd been making advances on her, a lie only the audience and the love triangle knows), and though they have some friction, Honey Bear & Victor end up together while Linda & Donald return to domesticity.

The movie, if it sounds familiar, is somewhat based on a different Clark Gable film, Red Dust, which we reviewed for the blog a few years back for a different season of Saturdays with the Stars.  If you click that film's review, you'll see that I loved Red Dust...and if you look above, you'll see that I did not love Mogambo.  The difference here is the performances.  While Gable is in the same role, he doesn't have the same kind of chemistry with either of his leading ladies that he did with Jean Harlow.  Ava Gardner makes out the best of the two, as she's giving a decent performance (it's the only bit of light in the movie), as Honey Bear, though it's an easy part that Gardner nails thoroughly.  This was the only Oscar nomination in her long career, but it's not the best that Gardner could do-she plays a spunky, jaded lover, but they don't lean in hard enough into the sultriness that Gardner would brilliantly capture in earlier film noir.

That said, Gardner is miles ahead of Grace Kelly who, I'm sorry to say in a month devoted to her, is actively not good in Mogambo.  Kelly is given the more interesting, if also more difficult part.  Linda is a woman who has lived in a glass cage, always being asked to be perfect, and she's feeling something for the first time.  Unlike Gardner's Honey Bear, there's not a lot to like in her, and Kelly underscores that by making her seem stiff, guarded, & without any feeling.  Her romance with Gable should be steamy, a haloed saint deigning to come to life & play among the mortals, but Kelly can't get that across.  Instead she plays Linda as wooden & two-dimensional...I'm honestly flummoxed how Kelly got this Oscar nomination.  Gene Tierney, a more experienced actress, would've been a better choice.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that the real story of Mogambo wasn't what was going on onscreen, but offscreen, as the filming of this movie is the stuff of Hollywood legend.  Gable & Kelly were having an affair (this is basically taken as gospel even if neither party seems to have ever officially stated that it was happening), which would be something of a pattern for Kelly during her filming (we'll talk about this in the coming weeks).  Gable, Gardner, & Donald Sinden all fought repeatedly with director John Ford, and Gardner had to be flown off location after she got stuck with a bad case of dysentery.  Of course, this might've been the least of her worries.  Gardner was in one of the rockier patches of her legendary marriage to Frank Sinatra, and determined not to have a permanent connection with her husband, got an abortion during filming (the two would divorce, childless, in 1957).  Next week we're going to move just a year into the future of Kelly's career, but with it we're going to move beyond the early whiffs in her career to the one director who knew exactly what he had when she got onscreen.

OVP: The Killers (1946)

Film: The Killers (1946)
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene, Vince Barnett
Director: Robert Siodmak
Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Director, Original Score, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the Month of June, as a birthday present to myself, we'll be profiling 15 famous film noir movies I've never seen (my favorite film genre).  Look at the bottom of this review for some of the other movies we've profiled.


During the classical era of Film Noir (the 1940's and 50's), the genre only enjoyed mild success with Oscar.  Just six films (The Letter, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, Crossfire, and Sunset Boulevard) were cited for the Best Picture, none of them winning (in fact, unless you consider The French Connection to be a noir film, you have to wait until 2007 for a proper noir film to win, even if it's neo-noir).  However, a weird thing happens when you expand to Best Director, as the number of films cited nearly doubles.  One of these films is The Killers, a film that did surprisingly well in 1946 with Oscar despite starring a newcomer (this is Burt Lancaster's film debut) and an actress that Oscar usually kept at arm's length (Ava Gardner), scoring a quartet of nominations and likely coming close to a Best Picture citation.  This trivia is worth remembering as we explore the film, knowing that it's one of the few films we're profiling this month that was genuinely critically-acclaimed at the time of its release, and not just rescued later by cinephiles.


(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around the Swede (aka Ole Andreson, aka Pete Lund, aka Burt Lancaster), who is being pursued by two men, hired killers who stand up the diner where the Swede frequently eats, and eventually find him in a hotel room where they shoot him in cold blood, but weirdly the Swede doesn't run from his impending death or struggle, but just lets it happen.  We then see insurance investigator Jim Reardon (O'Brien) look into the life of the Swede, feeling that there is something fishy about his death.  He tracks down the Swede's identity, and hears the story of his life through a series of interviews, getting closer & closer to the truth, and eventually learning that the Swede once staged a robbery with a criminal "Big Jim" Colfax (Dekker) and successfully pursued Big Jim's girlfriend Kitty Collins (a dynamite moniker, and perhaps one that could only be sported by an Ava Gardner character).  The Swede is accused of running off with the money, but this is actually part of a long con by Kitty and Big Jim, who never broke up and are in fact married in domesticity years later, and have essentially put the fix on the Swede, knowing that he must die or the other men in the heist could someday figure out that it was Big Jim who was the double-crosser, not the Swede.  The film ends with Big Jim dying in a shootout, seconds before he might help save his wife from the chair with a deathbed confessional.

The movie is based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, though only the first twenty minutes focuses on Hemingway's original work, and it shows in the sense that the first twenty minutes is arguably the tightest of the picture.  This sounds like an insult, as almost none of the characters who matter in the picture (those played by Lancaster, Gardner, O'Brien, and Dekker) are actually a part of the first twenty minutes, but just know that there's a tightness to those first twenty minutes that would be impossible to carry forward through a 100 minute picture, and if that had occurred this would rank as a classic in the vein of Double Indemnity or Laura, rather than a more "forgotten classic."

Still, the rest of the movie is pretty great, even if it never hits the emotional high of those first opening scenes.  There are clear parallels to Citizen Kane here, with the Swede being dead for nearly the entire movie (so it's the how not the what that the audience is curious about), but the interesting twist compared to Welles' magnum opus is that Charles Foster Kane is the most famous man in the country, while the Swede is so unknown to even those closest around him that many of them don't know his real name, and in a lot of ways he dies a mystery, a tool to be used or projected upon by those around him..  The only thing we do know is that he is desperately, hopelessly in love with Kitty Collins, enough so that it causes his own demise.  Lancaster was making his screen debut with The Killers (which was the cover photo of the book that I mentioned in our series kickoff), and may be giving the best performance from him that I've seen.  He's swaggering, sexy, and with a great deal of brute malice in his work that instantly shows the draw of the Swede and also why it's so easy for Kitty to con him.  Gardner is good, but doesn't quite sink into the character the way, say, Barbara Stanwyck would have given the same material.  Still, Gardner has never been so glamorous and beautiful, and considering how the role is written, she really doesn't need to be much more than an object of desire.  Best of all is Vince Barnett as a ginned-out former cellmate of the Swede's.  Barnett gets an awesome soliloquy in the middle of the picture about the stars and planets, to the point where if this was in contention for a Best Picture nomination, he was probably in the cards for a Best Supporting Actor nomination.  Though he doesn't get the same level of credit as ubiquitous character actors like John Carradine & Ward Bond do, Barnett appeared in hundreds of movies (though IMDB lists less, his obituary has him pegged at 400 movies...even if we just count his IMDB page it's a lengthy CV), so this might have been an appropriate way to honor his work in hindsight.

Previous Films in the Series: The Woman in the Window, The Big Sleep

Flying Solo in Best Actress

Let's spread the wealth, shall we ladies?

My brother and I were talking the other day about the Best Actress field for 2015, as we are wont to do, and how strange the slate of women that will potentially be competing for the top prize is.  Amongst the leading contenders for the prize this year include Meryl Streep (Ricki and the Flash), Jennifer Lawrence (Joy), Cate Blanchett (Carol), and Julianne Moore (Freeheld).  You might recognize these names in particular because they also happen to be the last four women to win the Best Actress Oscar (Natalie Portman is hanging her chances on a Malick film and the ill-fated Jane Get Your Gun, so I doubt that they can go with a 5/5 situation).  My brother made a comment about how Best Actress may soon be as insular as Best Costume or Score, or at least that it will be again, which felt to me like an Oscar-trivia article.

The reality, is in fact, that Best Actress has long been one of the most insular categories at the Oscars, even in comparison with the very chummy Best Actor category.  If you only count people who would receive their sole Oscar nomination in that category, it's roughly 1 in 5 for both fields as an average in almost every decade.  The Best Actress race, however, has gone through weird spurts of repetitiveness, particularly in the 1940's, 80's and the current decade.  I figured it would be worth looking at every decade since the 1930's where a woman received only one nomination for Best Actress and was never heard from again.

Miriam Hopkins

1930's
Number of Solo Nominees: 12 (Nancy Carroll, Ann Harding, Lynn Fontanne, May Robson, Diana Wynward, Grace Moore, Elisabeth Bergner, Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Gladys George, Carole Lombard, and Margaret Sullavan)
Any Winners?: Not a one of them.  Luise Rainer, Marie Dressler, Viven Leigh, and Helen Hayes came the closest, each only receiving two Oscar nominations in their careers.
I'd Like An Explanation: One of the larger lists of actresses, this may be because only a couple of actresses really dominated the decade in terms of public consciousness, and one of those oddly didn't receive a nomination (Joan Crawford).  The early years of the cinema seemed to be kinder to emerging talents and in particular, crossover stars from the theater and opera like Fontanne and Moore.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: A few of them probably came close.  Hopkins received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in The Heiress, so I suspect she was in the running, Lombard was a major player who definitely wanted an Oscar (and may well have gotten one if she hadn't died tragically so early in her career), and Oberon certainly came close with her lead role in Best Picture nominee Wuthering Heights, though she had the misfortune of contending in 1939 against Oscar titans like Bette Davis and Greer Garson.
Most Likely to Get a Second: Elisabeth Bergner was the last living member of the dozen solo nominees listed above, dying in 1986, so no one will be getting a second citation.

Jeanne Crain

1940's
Number of Solo Nominees: 7 (Martha Scott, Ginger Rogers, Jean Arthur, Gene Tierney, Celia Johnson, Dorothy McGuire, and Jeanne Crain)
Any Winners?: Ginger Rogers is one of the only women to win a Best Actress Oscar on her only nomination.
I'd Like An Explanation: The 1940's were dominated by a select 6-7 actresses (Rosalind Russell, Bette Davis, Kate Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Olivia de Havilland, Barbara Stanwyck, and Greer Garson) resulting in very few openings for ambitious screen stars.  With the exception of perhaps Rogers (who was more noted for musical comedies) none of these are particularly stunning solo nominees, frequently getting upstaged even in their era by the more nominated women at the Box Office.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: My money is on Tierney, who was a major dramatic actress for 20th Century FOX (her nominated film, Leave Her to Heaven, was the most successful film for the studio during the 1940's), and starred in major motion pictures of the era like Laura, The Razor's Edge, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.  Behind her would be Jean Arthur, who starred in two major Oscar films (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Shane), but was famously press-shy which probably didn't help, even in a pre-Twitter era.
Most Likely to Get a Second: Both Martha Scott and Jeanne Crain died in 2003, the last living women on that list.

Lana Turner

1950's
Number of Solo Nominees: 10 (Judy Holliday, Shirley Booth, Julie Harris, Ava Gardner, Maggie McNamara, Dorothy Dandridge, Carroll Baker, Nancy Kelly, Lana Turner, and Doris Day)
Any Winners?: Judy Holliday and Shirley Booth both won on their only shots at the fair.
I'd Like An Explanation: We see a slight uptick in the 1950's, possibly because of the decline of the studio system, and possibly because certain women that normally wouldn't do well with the Oscars (glamour girls and romantic comedy leads) both saw a major increase in popularity.  Still, women such as Deborah Kerr, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Hepburns continued to prove that it's easy to repeat.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Ava Gardner was probably tops amongst the many legends on this list, with her performance in Night of the Iguana grabbing nominations at the Globes and BAFTA's but not the Oscars (Tennessee Williams-penned roles were a major Oscar draw for women of the era, with women ranging from Kate Hepburn toVivien Leigh to Anna Magnani to Geraldine Page all landing nominations for his plays).
Most Likely to Get a Second: Doris Day and Carroll Baker are still living, though both have been retired from acting for over a decade.  I suspect that if she actually was willing to show up and win it that an Honorary Oscar would be Day's for the taking, but she's very press shy and I doubt would attend.

Anouk Aimee

1960's
Number of Solo Nominees: 9 (Melina Mercouri, Lee Remick, Rachel Roberts, Debbie Reynolds, Samantha Eggar, Elizabeth Hartman, Anouk Aimee, Ida Kaminska, and Genevieve Bujold)
Any Winners?: Not a one.  Sophia Loren, Patricia Neal, and Barbra Streisand all only received two acting nominations in their careers, so that's the closest.
I'd Like An Explanation: The 1960's are a bit odd in that no woman received more than three nominations (that would be the ever dependable Kate Hepburn, as well as Mrs. Robinson-herself Anne Bancroft), but the decade is dominated by women who either were getting the final nominations of their oft-recognized careers (Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr) or were starting a long affair with Oscar that would continue into the coming decades (Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Julie Christie).  That leaves a hodgepodge of foreign-born actresses (very much the rage in the 1960's) and random younger stars who never seemed to pop to get the sole nominations.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: I would imagine it was Lee Remick, to be honest.  I know that Debbie Reynolds is the name everyone remembers from the above list, but Remick was nearly nominated in 1959 for Anatomy of a Murder where she played a rape victim and won a Globe nod.  It's worth noting that in a very odd year (1966) Elizabeth Hartman could have been cited for her bizarre turn in You're a Big Boy Now as pretty much anyone with a pulse was contending that year (she did get a Globe nod).
Most Likely to Get a Second: Four of these women are still living, and actually all of them have made films in the past five years: Debbie Reynolds, Anouk Aimee, Samantha Eggar, and Genevieve Bujold. Of the five, Reynolds would have the best luck both as the biggest movie star (in the US, at least) and as someone who picks the right material (she may well have been cited if Behind the Candelabra had played theatrically).  Either way, she should start campaigning for an Honorary Award as I think she'd be on the shortlist.

Diahann Carroll

1970's
Number of Solo Nominees: 11 (Ali MacGraw, Sarah Miles, Carrie Snodgress, Janet Suzman, Diana Ross, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Valerie Perrine, Louise Fletcher, Carol Kane, and Marie Christine-Barrault)
Any Winners?: Louise Fletcher's nurse from Hell (which is pretty much a supporting turn, let's be honest) was the only victory for a sole nomination.
I'd Like An Explanation: This decade saw a number of women that could get nominated basically every time they opened a picture (Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, Marsha Mason, Glenda Jackson), but like the years before we saw a combination of foreign actresses and movie star careers that didn't quite pan out.  It's also worth noting the unfortunate fate of black actresses in this category (only two of which have ever been nominated for a second trophy), which means that Ross, Tyson, and Carroll were all one-and-done nominees.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Sarah Miles headlined a Best Picture nominee in 1987 in Hope and Glory, which could well have been a contender in a less competitive year.  Diana Ross actually had buzz for Mahogany back in the day (1975 was a weird year), and there was some movement to make her the first black actress to win a Best Actress Oscar (that feat would happen 26 years later).  Otherwise none of these women came particularly close before or after.
Most Likely to Get to Second: Snodgress is the only woman on the above list to have passed away, but the only women who seem like they could someday score another nomination are Tyson and Kane, both of whom work extremely regularly, though more so on television than in the cinema.

Kathleen Turner

1980's
Number of Solo Nominees: 6 (Mary Tyler Moore, Marlee Matlin, Kathleen Turner, Sally Kirkland, Melanie Griffith, and Pauline Collins)
Any Winners?: Marlee Matlin became the youngest winner ever of the Best Actress award when she picked it up for Children of a Lesser God at the age of 21.
I'd Like An Explanation: No other decade will probably ever have a run quite like this.  Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Sissy Spacek dominated (there is no year of the decade where at least one isn't nominated) and routinely it was the bulk of them.  Most of the above women were either randomly-cited for tiny films (Matlin, Kirkland, Collins), matinee idols with quickly burnt-out movie stardoms (Turner, Griffith), or headlining a Best Picture winner (Moore).
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Most assuredly Kathleen Turner, who was a major matinee idol in the 1980's and won back-to-back Golden Globes for Romancing the Stone and Prizzi's Honor, both mammoth hits that for some reason Oscar didn't really want to put his stamp on (the 1980's were very fond of drama, more so than usual, but even then Prizzi's Honor was a major Oscar-player with eight nominations and 1984 had a weird glut of similarly-themed farm-movies, so this one is had to explain).  Either way, there's a decent chance she was in second place twice before finally getting cited for Peggy Sue Got Married (when she probably came in second to Matlin, give-or-take Sissy Spacek).
Most Likely to Get to Second: All of these women are still alive and working, though none of them seem particularly prone to a second nomination.  Turner gets the most attention currently, but that's almost entirely on-stage and she rarely makes movies.  Perhaps it would be Pauline Collins?  She's British, of-a-certain-age, and does bit roles frequently in BAIT-y looking projects (Albert Nobbs, Quartet).  Perhaps she'll pull a Janet McTeer and randomly get in once more?

Catherine Deneuve

1990's
Number of Solo Nominees: 8 (Catherine Deneuve, Angela Bassett, Stockard Channing, Elisabeth Shue, Sharon Stone, Kristin Scott Thomas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Fernanda Montenegro)
Any Winners?: In one of the weirdest moments in on-paper Oscar history, Gwyneth Paltrow's career totally stalled with Oscar after Shakespeare in Love.  Perhaps the Cate Blanchett curse?
I'd Like An Explanation: We continued to see a few actresses that totally dominated (Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Emma Thompson), but by-and-large this list was actually considerably larger a few years ago.  Actresses like Janet McTeer, Helen Hunt, and Helena Bonham Carter have made good in supporting roles in recent years, winnowing down the list a bit, something I suspect will continue to happen.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: I mean, Gwyneth seems like the obvious choice, but she wasn't actually that close with Sylvia or Emma, so I'm going to go with Sharon Stone, who was such a big star in the 1990's and was very much in the HFPA's favor (scandalously so).  Basic Instinct or The Mighty might have been close possibilities.
Most Likely to Get a Second: We're now going from the possible to the plausible for "most likely to get a second."  All of these women are still living, and in the cases of Scott Thomas, Bassett, and Paltrow, so regularly make major films that it's difficult not to see at least one of them scoring again, if not all three.  Plus, I think Sharon Stone is going to be discovered by Quentin Tarantino any minute now and that could be not only a nod but a trophy.

Carey Mulligan

2000's
Number of Solo Nominees: 10 (Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Diane Lane, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Imelda Staunton, Felicity Huffman, Ellen Page, Carey Mulligan, and Gabourey Sidibe)
Any Winners?: Halle Berry is the most recent woman to win an Oscar on her only nomination.
I'd Like An Explanation: Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Judi Dench, and Cate Blanchett may have been nominated in perpetuity, but the biggest explanation is that we're not far enough away for this list to be super small.  All of these women are still living and most of them are still very much in the hunt.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Carey Mulligan, probably, who somehow missed a lot of her buzz for Shame despite that seeming like a pretty plum part (then again, Fassbender missed there so the prudish Academy may just not have been feeling that sex addiction drama).
Most Likely to Get a Second: There are several women on this list that could not only make it again (anyone other than probably Castle-Hughes or Sandino Moreno have the star status still to pull this off), but could make it this year.  Carey Mulligan's Suffragette and Ellen Page's Freeheld both seem like prime contenders.  Imelda Staunton is entering her key "elderly British scene-stealer" years and both Diane Lane and Felicity Huffman are actors that consistently play supporting parts in big things-either one could luck into a Helen Hunt in The Sessions situation.

Emmanuelle Riva

2010's
Number of Solo Nominees (so far): 5 (Rooney Mara, Emmanuelle Riva, Quvenzhane Wallis, Felicity Jones, and Rosamund Pike)
Any Winners?: Not a one-Natalie Portman is the only winner with just two nominations.
I'd Like An Explanation: Too soon to tell, though the 2012 age record-breakers don't really seem as likely to make it again as the other three women.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Probably none of them.  Pike, Jones, and Mara have all had key roles in Oscar-nominated films in the past, but it's doubtful any of them made any sorts of waves prior to their nominations.
Most Likely to Get a Second: Hmm, it's obvious that this is a threeway race, but I'd argue that it's a two-way: Rosamund Pike doesn't give off the vibe of a repeat offender.  Jones and Mara, on the other hand, both seem like repeaters, particularly Mara who could be back again this year in Carol.

And there you have it-the few, the proud, the really-wishing-they'd-landed-one-more.  Who do you think is the most likely sole Best Actress nominee to repeat (I'm going with Ellen Page or Rooney Mara, but that's really playing the obvious)?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

AFI's 25 Greatest Actresses, Part 3

I'm on a roll here, so I'm just going to keep this countdown going (we'll possibly have a quick break in-between Parts 3 and 4, but we're only at the halfway point here so lots of great actressing to come).  If you missed Parts 1 or 2, please click here and here so you're all caught up.  And now, onto the last nine actresses from the AFI's 25 Greatest Actress countdown.

17. Lillian Gish (1893-1993)

Oscar Nominations: Gish would receive only one Oscar nomination in her career for the bawdy western Duel in the Sun.  The Academy wisely gave her an Honorary Oscar at the 43rd Academy Awards for an extraordinarily long (it would stretch 75 years) career.
Probably Best Known Today For: Her incredible longevity, and having a name that is synonymous with Silent Era cinema.  She doesn't have a specific film role that people know her from, but the name Lillian Gish conjures a bygone era of Hollywood.
My Favorite Performance: Her career stretched so many decades and so many periods it's difficult to pick a specific favorite, so I'm going with two and I don't care what you think.  If it's Silent Era Gish, it would have to be her mesmerizing work as Eternal Motherhood in Intolerance (a film that has to be seen to be believed), but if it's Sound Era Gish surely I would need to go with her work as Rachel Cooper (forever brandishing that gun) opposite Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: It would probably have to be one of the D.W. Griffith films (she starred in all five of his most acclaimed and successful pictures), and considering it contains one of the most iconic images of her, I'll go with Gish floating on ice in Way Down East.

18. Shirley Temple (1928-2014)

Oscar Nominations: Temple never received a competitive Oscar nomination or win, but she did pick up the first Juvenile Award at the Oscars in 1934.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being the quintessential child star.  Like Gish, very few people could name an actual Shirley Temple movie, but everyone knows who she is, thanks to those dimples and her curly hair.  Her moniker is also synonymous with a fruity non-alcoholic cocktail that every little kid has in hopes of emulating the fancy (not so angelic) drinks their parents are imbibing.
My Favorite Performance: All right, the third leg of this competition is when my shame grows exponentially.  I have never seen a single child performance of Shirley Temple's.  That said, I have seen some of her work as an adult, and though it has been many (MANY) years since I last saw it, I actually remember her fondly in John Ford's Fort Apache.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Clearly there's a few that I need to get caught up with, so I don't know if I should cite Temple on the staircase with Bill Robinson in The Little Colonel, her pining for "Animal Crackers in Her Soup" in Curly Top, her iconic work as Johanna Spyri's titular heroine in Heidi, or jumping aboard the good ship lollipop in Bright Eyes.  I probably need a marathon.

19. Rita Hayworth (1918-1987)

Oscar Nominations: Ms. Hayworth is our third performer to never win or be nominated for an Academy Award, proving that clearly the bombshells did not play well with classical AMPAS (the other two so far being Marilyn and Mae West).
Probably Best Known Today For: Her iconic looks and glamour.  Though not as central to pop culture as Marilyn, she was the 1940's equivalent of the actress, and her name conjures sophisticated beauty and a spectacular mane of red hair.  She also has a key role (as a poster) in The Shawshank Redemption, which many modern film stars will recognize her photo from.
My Favorite Performance: This is going to make me hang my head, but as much as I hate to admit it, I don't believe that I have ever seen a Rita Hayworth movie.  I was always entranced by her beauty as a cinema-adoring young man, but without AMPAS to guide me in her direction I never got into one of the movies.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Surely Gilda has to be at the top of the list (I have seen her "put the blame on Mame" in film clips, of course), what with her brilliant hair-tossing.  My adoration of Orson Welles also means that The Lady from Shanghai would also be high on my wish list.

20. Lauren Bacall (1924-2014)

Oscar Nominations: Bacall would receive an Oscar nomination very late in her career for The Mirror Has Two Faces (losing in a major upset to Juliette Binoche).  In 2009 she would receive an Honorary Academy Award "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures."
Probably Best Known Today For: Her short but memorable marriage to Humphrey Bogart.  Bogie and Baby are one of those couples like Liz and Dick and Paul and Joanne that continue to dominate the public's obsession with Hollywood romance to this day (Brangelina, anyone?).
My Favorite Performance: I mentioned this in my obituary to Bacall, but To Have and Have Not remains my favorite of her work.  I love the sheer confidence that she portrays, never really seeming the nineteen-years-old she is onscreen, and commanding that leading role in a way few other actors could in their debut performances.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I have seen half of the Bogie/Bacall filmography, and of the two I have remaining, I think The Big Sleep is probably the more pivotal movie to check out (rather than Dark Passage), though both flicks are in my Netflix queue.

21. Sophia Loren (1934-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Loren received two Oscar nominations in her career, winning for Two Women in 1961 (the first person to win for a foreign-language film).  She would go on to win an Honorary Oscar in 1991 for her body of work.
Probably Best Known Today For: For starters, thankfully being alive and still working (the only woman on this list still with us).  Loren recently starred in Rob Marshall's Nine, but is probably best known for her enduring beauty.  Consistently considered one of the most striking and attractive women in the history of cinema, she was a major star at the height of America's fascination with foreign language cinema. (Completely Random Aside-I once had a car that I named after Loren because the car was so pretty).
My Favorite Performance: I am pretty lax in my Loren film-watching, but I can claim that I have seen her Oscar-winning work in Two Women, and for lack of a better choice, I'm going to go with that for my favorite (still have a lot to see here).  I also remember really liking Houseboat as a kid.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I am going to go with Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, which unites Loren with one of her favorite directors (Vittorio de Sica) and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

22. Jean Harlow (1911-1937)

Oscar Nominations: Like our three other major sex symbols on this list, Harlow would never be nominated for or win an Academy Award.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being the original Marilyn.  Harlow was to the 1930's what Rita was to the 1940's and Marilyn was to the 1950's-a bombshell the public couldn't get enough of, and like Monroe, she is also remembered for her tragic early demise (from kidney disease in 1937 at only 26).
My Favorite Performance: I could totally cheat here and say City Lights, which is indeed one of my favorite silent films and a truly wonderful movie, but Harlow has only a bit part in it.  As a result, Harlow joins Rita Hayworth on the list of actors whom I have seen no major movies of their filmography.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: At this point, everything, clearly.  I'm most looking forward to Red Dust, where she is at her most glamorous, and the critically-acclaimed Dinner at Eight.  Honestly, though, you could easily add Hell's Angels, The Public Enemy, Platinum Blonde, or Libeled Lady to that list and I would have no qualms.

23. Carole Lombard (1908-1942)

Oscar Nominations: Lombard only received one Oscar nomination in her career, for her work in My Man Godfrey in 1936 (she lost to Luise Rainer).
Probably Best Known Today For: If Lombard is known for anything today, it is likely her tragic demise.  Lombard, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood and at the peak of her career tragically died in a plane accident when her aircraft crashed into a mountain.  The death was felt all over Hollywood, and the press heavily covered her mourning husband, Clark Gable.
My Favorite Performance: It's hard to really top My Man Godfrey, one of a string of truly brilliant comedies of the 1930's (the dramatic films, in my opinion, didn't hold up to the screwball masterworks of this era), and Lombard had wildly good chemistry with William Powell in the picture (this despite them having been divorced several years earlier-can you even fathom that happening now with someone like Brad and Jen or Tom and Nicole?).
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Probably the Ernst Lubitsch classic To Be or Not To Be, which has been rescued by cinephiles after a tepid initial reception.

24. Mary Pickford (1892-1979)

Oscar Nominations: Pickford received one Oscar nomination in her career, and thanks to her insane celebrity at the time she won despite its questionable quality (for Coquette).  A more appropriate award came over 45 years later when she picked up an Honorary Academy Award for her body of work.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being the original America's Sweetheart.  Much like Lillian Gish, most people would have difficulty coming up with any of her films, but her name brings to mind the Silent Era and her role as one of the biggest stars of early cinema (likely the biggest female star of the era).
My Favorite Performance: I'm going to balk on this one, as the only Pickford performance that I have seen is Coquette, which is tragically bad (possibly the worst Oscar-winning performance I have ever seen).  I don't think it'd be appropriate to pin one of Hollywood's most significant founders with that as their best work.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Obviously most of her principle work in silent pictures.  I would probably start with Sparrows, which is considered one of her finest and most interesting pictures, and far more in her acting wheelhouse than Coquette.

25. Ava Gardner (1922-1990)

Oscar Nominations: Gardner would receive only one Oscar nomination in her career, for Mogambo in 1953 (she would lose that year to Audrey Hepburn).
Probably Best Known Today For: Her extremely high profile marriages to and relationships with some very famous men.  She was married three times, to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and most notably to Frank Sinatra in one of the most storied Hollywood marries of the 1950's.  She was also in a romantic relationship with Howard Hughes (chronicled in The Aviator, where she was played by Kate Beckinsale), and had a strong (possibly romantic) friendship with Ernest Hemingway.
My Favorite Performance: I haven't seen a lot of Gardner's work, but certainly my favorite of her performances was in Show Boat, partially because of Gardner but mostly because it's one of my mom's favorite films.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Probably the classic 1959 drama On the Beach, where she stars opposite Gregory Peck and Fred Astaire in a movie about the fallout of nuclear war.

And there you have it (fifteen years after the fact)-a look at the 25 greatest actresses from the American Film Institute.  We'll continue our five-part series tomorrow, but in the meantime head to the comments and discuss today's nine actresses-who is your favorite in the bunch?  What are your favorites of all of their films?  And what movies did you just write down as ones you still need to see?