Whirlpool (1950)

Film: Whirlpool (1950)

Stars: Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, Jose Ferrer, Charles Bickford

Director: Otto Preminger

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

Few film noirs are as storied as Laura, perhaps the greatest film noir of all time if we want to get right down to it.  Both director Otto Preminger and star Gene Tierney would go on to make a name for themselves in the genre.  Preminger would have great success the following year with Fallen Angel (review for it at the bottom of this page), the movie that would make Linda Darnell's career (and end Alice Faye's), while Tierney would go on to become one of the few women nominated for an Academy Award for inhabiting a femme fatale role in Leave Her to Heaven, the most financially successful film that Fox made in the 1940's (again, review at the bottom of this page).  By 1950, though, both of them needed some of that Laura magic back.  Preminger had recently made one of the decade's highest-profile flops, Forever Amber, and while his follow-up Daisy Kenyon (for a third time, review at the bottom of the page) was well-regarded, it wasn't as big of a hit as its Joan Crawford/Henry Fonda double-billing would've implied.  Tierney, meanwhile, was in the middle of her messy, multi-year divorce to fashion designer Oleg Cassini, and had also had a brief (and for Tierney, heartbreaking) affair with a young John F. Kennedy years before his time in the White House.  Actress & director reunited in 1950 for not one but two films, and as I've seen Where the Sidewalk Ends before (no review at bottom of the page, you'll have to rely upon my Letterboxd) I figured it made sense to go with my final missing gap in their combined filmography, Whirlpool.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie honestly has a really cool plot, even if it makes no sense when it's being executed.  We have Ann Sutton (Tierney), the wealthy wife of a famous psychoanalyst named Bill (Conte), who has a bit of a problem with kleptomania, and is nearly arrested until a fellow therapist David Korvo (Ferrer) saves her from embarrassment.  He begins to treat her, without her husband knowing, for her issues with insomnia, but in a hypnotic trance, she shows up in the apartment of a dead woman, one who had been threatening her over an implied infatuation she had with Dr. Korvo.  She, in the trance, confesses to the murder, but Bill, along with a detective (Bickford) start to investigate, with Bill convinced that his wife couldn't have been the killer because people who are hypnotized would only do something they'd do in real life.  It turns out he is right (about her innocence at least) as it's Dr. Korvo who was the real killer, and he perishes in the film's closing scene, bleeding to death while professing Ann's innocence.

Whirlpool would make a decent amount for what it was at the box office, and for both of its stars it did allow something of a jump into the next decade.  This sort of "mousy femme fatale" routine would be a big part of Tierney's career for when she'd work the next decade (offscreen she would have more ill-timed romances, including with Aly Khan, and eventually have a suicide attempt before finally getting better outside of the Hollywood glare), while Preminger would go on to make major movies like The Moon is Blue, Carmen Jones, and Anatomy of a Murder, the latter two winning him Oscar nominations.

But it's not very good.  The movie rarely makes sense, and even when it does, it's far too dry.  Tierney, once such a vibrant onscreen performer, really struggled with her offscreen troubles to not bring that to the theatergoers, and not in an interesting way (that sounds gauche...but it's real).  She's too staid in this, and she's honestly offscreen for far too long.  Conte & Bickford are boring, and Ferrer is a bad over-actor.  The script also makes very little sense (Ferrer's approach to psychiatry reads less like genius and more like a voodoo spell you'd find in a Poverty Row film with Bela Lugosi).  The movie is not good, and a personal love of Tierney is the only thing keeping me from going 1-star on this picture.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Born to Kill, Brighton Rock, Brute Force, Call Northside 777, Caught, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Cry Wolf, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, The Naked City, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Secret Beyond the Door, Side Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Stranger on the Third Floor, They Drive By Night, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach, A Woman's Secret

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, Julie, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Lightning Strikes Twice, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, Lost Highway, Night Moves, Nightcrawler, Le Samourai

Night and the City (1950)

Film: Night and the City (1950)
Stars: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan
Director: Jules Dassin
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 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.

We are at the exact midpoint of our series about film noir, and it's worth stating that I'm having a marvelous time here.  Film noir is by-far my favorite genre, which is why we're doing this as a birthday present to myself, but it's also a genre that it's easier for me to see past the flaws.  The desperation in the leading men, the worshiping of beautiful, talented actresses, the lighting, the scores-these are all motifs that I eat up no matter how often I see the pictures, and one could be forgiven for thinking I might be being a bit generous in my reviews.  However, Night and the City is perhaps the best example of a movie that it'd be very easy to look past the flaws.  You have some truly memorable acting, some great plot devices, but it's also kind of a mess if you don't get distracted by the shiny objects.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around Harry Fabian (Widmark), a conman around London who is always on the fuzzy end of most deals.  He has a rough relationship with his sweet, kind girlfriend Mary (Tierney), and works for a nightclub owner Phil (Sullivan) and his wife Helen (Withers), who appears to be the brains of the operation.  By chance, he finds himself in a deal with a wrestling legend who wants to start his own wrestling club, and is the only man in the city who can do it, because his son Kristo (Herbert Lom) owns the racket, but won't go against his own father.  Harry finds this to be a great deal, understanding that as long as he keeps the father around, Kristo can't touch him and he can score an easy amount of money as a wrestling promoter-he just needs the money to get started.  Meanwhile, Helen is trying to strike out on her own, leaving her fat husband for her own bar, and creates a situation where she will trick Phil into giving Harry the cash, and in the process he'll get her the money she needs to start her own club, and he'll use his seedy connections to get a license to start that club (there's also a lot of indications that she wants to sex up Harry despite hating him, but this goes nowhere).  Eventually the wrestling father dies in a fight, putting a mark on Harry's head, and Helen's plan also backfires when she tells off her husband, and then when she comes crawling back she finds out he's dead, and has disinherited her, leaving her bereft.  The film ends with Harry dying, trying to get Mary the money that is ransomed on his head, and Kristo's assassin also getting arrested.

That's a lot of plot, and it's worth noting that in a lot of ways the movie seems to be borrowing from the "no frills" approach employed by a flick like Detour.  Withers, for example, is clearly giving off a similar vibe to Ann Savage, and is the best part of the movie.  There's so much malice, cruelty, and sheer ambition that you can't fathom she won't get away with her crimes, and when she falls, essentially being put at the mercy of a washerwoman when she'd humiliated herself for years at the hands of a detestable man...it's pretty fucking bleak.  This film is right on the edge of cult-film famous/forgotten, but man if it started to play in midnight showings it'd be easy to see people becoming obsessed with Withers here.

But the actual film itself is a mess.  Widmark, typically a very fine actor, is all over the place as Harry, and instead of finding the desperation and soul of a fascinating character, he spends most of the movie instead just eating the scenery.  Tierney was suffering a severe bout of depression at the time (legend has it that she was only hired onto this movie as Jules Dassin's way to make sure she didn't kill herself), so she can be forgiven for doing almost nothing with this part, but man it's strange to see Laura Hunt herself reduced to a sniveling doormat of a girlfriend.  Dassin was about to be blacklisted, so that might have been part of the reason the movie feels so rushed, but Night and the City is one of those films that has contains many really cool elements, but doesn't work out when you gel them together.

Previous Films in the Series: In a Lonely Place, They Live By Night, Nightmare Alley, Ride the Pink Horse, The Killers, The Woman in the Window, The Big Sleep

5 Theoretical Character Sequels to Classic Movies

The entire concept of a character sequel (not sure if this is the correct term for such a film, but I first heard it used by Nathaniel over at The Film Experience, so giving credit where it's due) is a breath-of-fresh-air in a world where I feel like everything has to have a sequel (seriously-I don't want a follow-up to Big Little Lies!).  While a sequel seems to just be a continuation of the story, a character sequel checks in on a specific character instead, much like how Victoria & Abdul did this year, not focusing on what happened to Queen Victoria immediately after Mrs. Brown, but waiting decades to tell the tale.  It made me wonder about some of my favorite movies, and whether or not they had sequels that could have (or still could!) be situated in their tales.  Below I list out five of the characters I wish had had sequels, roughly when I would have wanted the movies, and what I hoped they would have entailed. (Spoilers Ahead if you haven't seen these movies)

Midge in Vertigo (1983)

Set 25 years after the events of Vertigo, Midge is a widow who is on the cusp of selling her lingerie empire, and contemplating what to do next in her life.  She meets a young man who inspires her into a brief affair, all-the-while being haunted by her late husband Scotty, who died of liver failure years earlier, and whether or not he ever loved her.

Laura Hunt in Laura (1974)

Laura Hunt, once the darling of the New York social set, lives a rather lonely life in Queens, with her gruff soon-to-be-retired ex-cop husband.  She begins to write a romantic mystery inspired by real-life events in her youth, and watches as her life is torn asunder when she once again becomes the suspect in a death that eerily mirrors the events that took place in her life thirty years previously.

Sandy in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1999)

Technically this is cheating, as in the book we see Sandy quite often in the future (the movie and the novel differ greatly on that front), but as Sandy is one of my favorite complicated villains, it makes sense to show a movie of her as a nun, a writer of some renown but largely reclusive, still under the spell of Miss Jean Brodie.

Betty Schaefer in Sunset Boulevard (2000)

I actually quite like this idea, of Schaefer's life being chronicled by a reporter.  We learn that after the events of Norma Desmond's life, she ended up writing what would largely become the script for Sunset Boulevard, and then became a feminist pioneer and the first female Hollywood studio head  This becomes a look at how Hollywood treated women behind-the-camera in the 1970's and 1980's.

Nina in Nightcrawler (2026)

Set in the future, Nina is the producer of a trashy low-budget cable talk show, similar to Sally Jesse Raphael but with a vapid, coked-out young woman as the lead.  Broke and in-need of money, she sets out to blackmail Lou Bloom, who is about to become the CEO of a major news network.

Okay, I'm aware that some of these toe the line into being a straight sequel, rather than a character one, but I'm still playing with the concept.  Below, let me know some of your favorite characters from the movies you want follow-ups regarding!

Top 10 Favorite Femme Fatales

There is literally no film character trope I love more than the femme fatale.  Thankfully the "femme fatale" trope is not always literal as many of the women that are considered "femme fatales" don't exactly end up being the killers, just leading our heroes to dangerous situations, so I feel like I can do this list without having to worry too much about revealing spoilers.  As a way to kick off my vacation (I'm on vacation if you're reading this within a week of it being published!), I wanted to countdown my ten favorite femme fatales of cinema, in order (though not necessarily in order of best performance, but instead within the confines of this...you know what, just enjoy the list and provide your own, and recommendations of underrated femme fatales as I am always looking for recommendations!).

10. Ann Blyth in Mildred Pierce

9. Kim Novak in Vertigo

8. Gloria Grahame in Crossfire

7. Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai

6. Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard

5. Rita Hayworth in Gilda

4. Jane Greer in Out of the Past

3. Faye Dunaway in Chinatown

2. Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity

1. Gene Tierney in Laura

OVP: Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Film: Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Stars: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price, Mary Philips
Director: John M. Stahl
Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Gene Tierney, Art Direction, Cinematography*, Sound)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Ooph, I frequently take a random week off each summer to catch up on my life and get it in order, but quite frankly I should really reconsider moving that to February each year, as between the Oscars, the thrill of watching awards season, Turner Classic Movies' 31 Days of Oscars, and my general urge to move as fast as lightning through my goals in the first third of the year, I find myself most in need of time in the month made for lovers and presidents.  I am continuing to sail through as many of the TCM classics as possible to keep my DVR from brimming over (I will find myself unsuccessful in the next couple of days, admittedly, as there's no way I can maintain this pace with a weirdly busy social life for me), but I will try my best and continue to give you as many lovely and random pictures as I can find from this most heavenly of channels.

(Spoilers Ahead) It is, of course, Valentine's Day today but since I'm single I thought it would be fun to watch a noir movie, which of course ended up about as close to Fatal Attraction as one can get from a 1940's film, so it goes along well with my jaded heart on such a day (kidding, kidding...kind of).  The film is the tale of one Ellen Berent (Tierney) a woman desperately in love with an author she meets on a train named Richard (Wilde), who marries her quite impetuously and watches as her entire world crumbles.  The film is a melodrama as much as it is a noir, with the final third of the film turning into a pretty staid and eye-rolling courtroom drama as Ellen, after going on a bit of a murderer's spree (killing both Richard's disabled brother and her unborn son) offs herself to frame her sister Ruth (Crain) of the murder after she suspects Richard has fallen in love with her.

However, up until that point the film has a couple of really great scenes amidst some soggy melodrama.  Gene Tierney won her only Oscar nomination for this mammoth hit for FOX (it was the studio's highest-earning picture of the 1940's), and you can see what the draw is.  The film is not shy about first making you almost cower in fear at her beauty (I texted my brother as the film started, "Cornel Wilde is cute and all, but Gene Tierney is so gorgeous she genuinely looks like a cartoon"), and then spend the rest of the film subliminally making excuses for her as she continues to be worse and worse of a human being.  Tierney will always be one of my favorite performers (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which we recently visited, as well as The Razor's Edge or especially my beloved Laura, all being treats in my opinion), but I will admit that I was a bit flummoxed for the first half of the film as to why Tierney was nominated, and part of me wondered if she was getting it simply because she was (at the time) one of Hollywood's biggest stars and this was such a big picture that it felt like she had to have it, in a similar way to say Doris Day in Pillow Talk or Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side.  However, I will admit that the scene where she watches a young Darryl Hickman drown in broad daylight is bone-chilling, and played to perfection in a method that rivals Barbara Stanwyck waiting at the train in Double Indemnity.  Tierney's performance never again matches Stanwyck's (she's too full of clenched glares and doesn't have the ease that this role requires in scenes with other people to make her seem convincingly manipulative), but there's power in her Ellen and the drowning scene alone probably mandated this nomination.

The mention of broad daylight is an interesting look at the cinematography, which actually won the Oscar.  The film is shot beautifully, all gorgeous shadows like we're in a Douglas Sirk film, but the real trick of Leon Shamroy's work in Leave Her to Heaven is the way he throws typical noir on its head by having the most heinous of actions take place not at night, but during the day.  Look at how brightly-lit something like the drowning sequence is in the film-you almost certainly assume Tierney will dive into the water and save Hickman at the last minute, and that he'll die later on in the evening, but here (like when she forces her miscarriage) Shamroy and director John Stahl play with our expectations and force us to realize that even in the safest of settings we cannot trust Ellen.  The film was also nominated for Art Direction (the set is fine, but the backdrops look unusually fake even for a 1940's picture, particularly an early scene where Cornel Wilde somehow manages to step in front of a series of mountains in just a ten-foot jaunt) and Sound (a strange nomination, quite frankly, and one that feels like it was earned in the courtroom scene for getting Vincent Price's voice to be as loud as possible, but the movie's score work in compliment with the film and the rather clumsy way that noise=passion makes me think this is the least of the citations), but it's the cinematography that stands out: gorgeously-lit, beautifully subtle, a sort of precursor to the grandness that something like Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes would soon perfect in the hands of Jack Cardiff.

Those are my thoughts on Leave Her to Heaven, a film I have long wanted to see thanks to my devotion to Tierney.  Do you have any thoughts on the picture?  What is your favorite Gene Tierney film?  What is your favorite of Leon Shamroy's eighteen nominated films?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Film: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Stars: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Black-and-White Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

There are few things enjoyable to me than sitting on a Saturday night, cozied up with a Turner Classic Movies tale (it is, in fact, what I plan on doing in a few hours from now, along with some Pop-Secret and probably Swedish Fish).  The thing I love about Turner Classic Movies (a list I should make at some point on this blog, but that would be pages and pages and pages) is that the films of the channel always give me something unexpected.  Sometimes that's bad (not every classic movie is a "classic," if you get my drift), but usually it comes with a wonderful dose of delightful, as was the case when I recently caught The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.  Having not been familiar before with either the film or the later television series starring Hope Lange, I settled in for a lovely evening of movie-watching (and had my mom, who has loved this movie for years, alongside me to watch it with me for the first time).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie was everything I hoped it would be and more.  Honestly, it's hard to go wrong when you have Gene Tierney in the lead.  Tierney, largely forgotten today (even by the standards of Millennials who only seem to know that Marilyn Monroe once existed when it comes to classic cinema), was such a strong performer in the 1940's and someone that consistently played regal-but-tough heroines in the 1940's and is one of my favorite performers (if you know me in real-life you'll know that I speak of Laura in hushed and reverent tones every chance that I get).  The film follows her Lucy Muir as she buys a house that is supposedly haunted, a rumor that turns out to be true when she meets a sea captain named Daniel Gregg (Harrison), who is ornery and doesn't want anyone to be in his house, not least of which a widow and her young daughter.  Slowly but steadily he comes to be fond of her, and eventually he helps her to buy the house after it turns out her money has disappeared and she must find a way to earn a salary (she does this by quite literally ghost-writing the captain's memoirs).  After a while the two realize that their romantic relationship is hopeless, and Lucy tries to date a successful children's author named Fairley (Sanders), but it turns out that he's actually married and a serial philanderer, and she contents herself to many years quietly alone in her house, until eventually she joins the captain in the afterlife.

The film could so easily be silly, and occasionally it is, but the two leads completely sell the film's more ridiculous notions, and actually save it from being too sitcom-y (though the elements were there for it, hence the later television series) by making the characters terribly romantic.  You spend the entire film sort of glued to the two of them, their ribald chemistry just innocent enough for the 1940's but occasionally with a wink or two in the direction of the audience.  The film is beautifully shot, with gorgeous use of light (the day scenes are particularly expressive) and wonderful shadow in the candlelight.  It makes sense, as a result, that the film was nominated for Best Cinematography as its sole Oscar notice, but honestly (and especially considering the dearth of fine work for women in 1947 in particular), it wouldn't have been without issue to nominate the film for Best Actress or Screenplay (Tierney is heads and tails above Loretta Young's winning work in The Farmer's Daughter, though that's a low threshold).  Honestly, this is the sort of simple but classic film that makes watching old movies such a joy-there's nothing unpredictable about it (you know that Harrison and Tierney will find a way to be together), but it's romantic and elegant, and with sharp enough writing and performances that you actually quite enjoy the entire tale.

Those are my thoughts on this lovely movie from Joseph L. Mankiewicz (this was right before he would win his back-to-back Oscars).  What about you?  Are you a fan of the romantic comedy, and if not, what is wrong with you?  Has anyone seen the Hope Lange film as well, and how does it compare?  And what are some other favorite films you have of Gene Tierney's?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

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!

Laura, My Love

There are a few things that I do on a daily basis. Shower, check my email, utter the phrase "Oscar-winning." You know, the usual. And, of course, there is nare a day where I don't think about one of my all-time favorite movies, the one to the left. Laura is one of the finest things that I have ever had the pleasure at viewing (cinematic or otherwise). Simply put, I don't think there is a movie that I am in love with more than Laura. Casablanca is my favorite, The English Patient is the one I'm most passionate about, but I long for Laura. The mystery, the wit, the stylish direction and production, I can't get enough. It's the best film that Alfred Hitchcock never directed. And that cast, from the smoky Gene Tierney to the lugheaded Vincent Price to the "neanderthal" Dana Andrews to the stony Judith Anderson to the monument to verbal venom, Clifton Webb, there's a sumptuous feast of thespian antics in this film. Simply mentioning this movie puts me into a trance-I'll just sigh, go off into my beautiful Preminger world, with a whisper of, "Laura."

And, though Oscar never seems to get these things right, the fact that he had both Laura and Double Indemnity to give a trophy for in 1944, and yet it was Going My Way that swept the trophies still irks me.