Garbo or Stanwyck?
"Stella Dallas" and "Camille" are named often as Stanwyck's and Garbo's best performances. Considering none of them ever won an Academy Award, who do you think should've won?
JUAN.
Garbo, hands down.
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MovieChat Forums > Camille (1937) Discussion > Garbo or Stanwyck?
As much as I like Garbo, I think Stanwyck should have won. They were both marvelous in those roles, but Stella Dallas was surely a more difficult role to play.
shareI agree. Garbo was magnificent and Rainer was exceptional but Stanwyck gave the performance of her career, which is saying volumes. She was also robbed in 1944 of the Oscar she should have won for DOUBLE INDEMNITY. (The film itself should also have won over the sentimental,'reality-deficient' GOING MY WAY, no matter how polished it may have been put together by Leo McCarey). Garbo should have won for any number of her performances, but as someone stated above, she didn't "play the publicity game" and suffered accordingly. Nonetheless, in my book, the biggest Oscar travesty was Judy Garland missing her Oscar for A STAR IS BORN to Grace Kelly as an (unconvincing) unglamorous wife of an alcoholic. The two performances are light years apart. As Bette Davis once said to me regarding Elizabeth Taylor's Oscar win for WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?: "She was good, FOR LIz!". Grace Kelly was also good, FOR Grace! Personally ,I feel she gave a better performance in REAR WINDOW that year, but then again she wasn't suffering and playing against type. I am seeing a 35mm print of CAMILLE this Sunday (Oct 14th, 2012) at Melbourne's famed Astor cinema, on a double bill with NINOTCHKA. The days of being able to do this are sadly drawing to a close!
shareMike-957, I still say Garbo over Stanwyck but I am in complete agreement with you about Judy vs Princess Disgrace. Grace Kelly in "Country Girl" wears schlumpy clothes and no makeup and talks in a monotone and THAT is better than Judy's heart-wrenching performance in "Star"? In what alternate universe?
shareThe reason Kelly won is that her role in The Country Girl was totally against character for her. In nearly all her movies she is a remote, icy beauty. in CG she is tied to an alcoholic husband and struggling to maintain herself.
Of course Garland was brilliant in A Star is Born, and was well-deserving of the Oscar. Remember though that acting isn't about make-up or so on, it's about being a different person, and that's likely why Grace won.
To answer the original, will have to go with Garbo.
The reason Kelly won is that her role in The Country Girl was totally against character for her.
It really wasn't. Kelly had a "shlumpy," somewhat sad side that she tapped into for TCG. In her short career, she didn't stray from her professional "comfort zone," which is why she ultimately opted to work again with Hitchcock in Rear Window, playing a character not much different from her (non-shlumpy) self, rather than with Elia Kazan in On the Waterfront. Biographer Robert Lacey has suggested that Kelly won her Oscar as acknowledgment for her collective body of work up to that time and points out that indeed, it is Garland's performance that has stood the test of time. And of course, one has to consider the possibility of Academy politics as the basis of payback for Garland's reputation as a PITA. share
Garbo! ;)
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Glad to see this thread as I am torn myself. Camille is a slightly better movie, but Stella Dallas is the more unconventional part for its star, more of a character turn. But then Camille is just Garbo all the way through at her most emotive. I can't decide!
shareVery difficult, they're both so great in those movies you mentioned... But given the choice, I think Stanwyck should've won...!
"The willow sees the heron's image upside down" from 'Sans Soleil'
Stanwyck. She gave a fearless performance in Stella Dallas. My favourite acting performance ever.
shareI totally agree about Garland over Kelly. But I think Elizabeth Taylor' performance was great for any standard! I'm also having thougths Irene Dunne, another nominee against Garbo and Stanwyck who never won an Academy Award. She's great in "The awful truth"!
JUAN.
Well said.
Even larks and katydids are, supposed by some, to dream
Greta Garbo
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