Nominated for BROKEN LANCE, but not HIGH NOON?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Katy Jurado
BoyWiththeGreenHair — 13 years ago(June 30, 2012 05:18 PM)
Don't get me wrong, Jurado was great in BROKEN LANCE. I just saw it again on AMC she was beautiful, charming, warm - excellent in ways that any other actress of that time couldn't be. She's photographed beautifully, has good dialogue, her costumes are beautiful, and her end scene is a great tearjerker. I do believe she deserved to be honored by the Academy with this performance. But, why JUST this one? What about HIGH NOON?
Her Helen Ramirez in HIGH NOON made Rita Moreno's Anita in WEST1c84 SIDE STORY look downright timid. She may very well have become the first Latina to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar if things had gone down like that.
I'll tell you why I think she was nominated for BROKEN LANCE, though my personal opinion is that Jurado's exclusion was perceived as such an injustice that they felt the Academy felt they had to nominate her for her next prominent role in a film.
But, in the same way that the Academy honored people like Hattie McDaniel, Ethel Waters, and James Baskett for playing servants, I suspect that they may have been trying to make a very specific statement by nominating Jurado for playing the wife in BROKEN LANCE.
There could not be two more different women than the two played by Jurado - Helen Ramirez and Senora Devereaux. You almost can't imagine these two women having a conversation together.
In HIGH NOON, her character is liberated; she allows no man to dominate her and is fully in control of her emotions, body language, and sexuality. by contrast, the wife in BROKEN LANCE is dutiful, supportive, conservative, and, most importantly, married. She refers to Spencer Tracy as "my husband" every chance she gets and is a "happy homemaker" to the fullest extent, putting the men in her life ahead of her, as opposed to in HIGH NOON, where she essentially lives for herself, even when she can't have Gary Cooper for herself, chooses to leave on her own accord. Heck, her character in BROKEN LANCE doesn't even have a name of her own, she is merely "Senora" in the film.
Her character isn't even a Latina in the film, technically - she's a "Squaw" who is passed off as a Mexicana to gain social acceptance as Tracy's wife and is the mother of Robert Wagner - an "Anglo." In a way, I guess that concept does in fact address issues of social inequity in the film and the American Western genre, but hardly in the way that it would be perceived as threatening to the American public, or challengeing conventional, modern society.
In HIGH NOON, Jurado was a businesswoman, a passionate lover, not to mention a "madam," and a "wise Latina" who understood the events swirling around the characters better than they themselves did. In BROKEN LANCE, she's just a dutiful wife and mother. I understand that apparently all actors' names had been listed as "Leads" so this may explain why Jurado was snubbed in 1954, but I almost doubt that a Latina playing a substantive role like Helen Ramirez would EVER be bestowed the honor of even a nomination, much less a straight out win.
So, was the Academy trying to say that the type of Latina they valued was a domestic woman who served her men, Anglo men at that, and put their needs before herself - one who did not draw attention to her sexuality or even exhibit an awareness of said sexuality? Who knows. I'm at least glad that she was nominated, for certain.
On a sidenote, IMHO, Richard Widmark also deserved to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor in that film. o-o -
Gold_Moon — 13 years ago(July 08, 2012 06:15 PM)
I guess she was not nominated for her role in High Noon because women were not suppose to be seen as the way Helen Ramirez was seen. Also, Katy Jurado was just starting out. But I think that the Academy felt bad that they did not nominate her then, so they made up for it by nominating her in 1955. She's if she would have won an Oscar in 1954, she would of paved the way for so many Latinas, especially Mexican actresses.
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FranLovesBetteD — 13 years ago(July 09, 2012 06:47 AM)
I agree that she should have been nominated for High Noon, in which she was
brilliant
and absolutely steals the show. I have no idea who won the Oscar that year, but the fabulous Ms. Jurado certainly deserved it.
Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop -
Gold_Moon — 13 years ago(July 09, 2012 01:30 PM)
The winner for the 1953 Oscars was,
Gloria Grahame
The Bad and the Beautiful:
The nomminess were,
Jean Hagen Singin' in the Rain
Colette Marchand Moulin Rouge
Terry Moore Come Back, Little Sheba
Thelma Ritter With a Song in My Heart
Gloria and Colette as well as Katy (winning the Golden Globe for Supporting Actress and nominated for Newcomer female) were nominated for a Golden Globe. I think Katy Jurado should of been nominated instead of Terry Moore or Colette Marchand. "Come back, little sheba" was not as massive nor praised enough as High Noon, nor was Terry Moore's performance. The same can be said for Moulin Rouge. Terrys performance was ok and as for Colette Marchand performance in Moulin Rouge, lets just say that Colette can't hold a candle to Katy's performance in High Noon. Jean Hagen was nominated because the film Singin' in the Rain was pretty popular, sort of like West side Story. And her performance got good reviews. So in my opinion Terry Moore's and Colette Marchand's nomination was forced or just favored because they are cute and nice. -
BoyWiththeGreenHair — 13 years ago(July 24, 2012 03:26 PM)
Yeah, 1952 was a sucky year in general for the talented. Isn't Graham's win known as one of the "great injustices in Academy Award history" or something? Of the listed actresses, I would have given the award to Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont, just because of how flipping hilarious she was. And, because Graham's performance was just so darn bad, really.
Of course, if Jurado was nominated, then it wouldn't even be a contest. She should have blown them all out of the water. Not even Hagen's performance was so central to the story as was Jurado's. Graham could never have appeared on screen in BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL and you still would have been able to understand why Dick Powell's character was honked off at Jonathan Shields.
Aside from the Hagen loss and the Jurado snub, I think that Lana Turner should have gotten at least a Best Actress nod for her work in BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. By all accounts, it was the best work she had done up until that point, and she's the one who kills the movie's sentimental mood up until that point.
But, then MGM never seemed particularly interested in nominating their "glamour girls"/"pinup girls" for Oscars. Joan Crawford didn't start getting nominations until she signed on with Warner Brothers, even though she had given several noteworthy, "Oscar-worthy" performances in GRAND HOTEL, RAIN, THE WOMEN, and A WOMAN'S FACE prior to her signing on. -
Gold_Moon — 13 years ago(August 15, 2012 12:26 AM)
I believe the Academy nominated Katy Jurado for her role in Broken Lance just to make up the snob. After Broke Lance, Katy Jurado did some films that maybe could have not eraned her an Oscar nomination, but at least a Golden Globe. She did say in a Mexican interview that she could careless for the Oscars (lol her acid witty comments). But she did earn 3 Ariel Awards (Mexican Oscars). 2 for supporting actress and 1 for leading actress and a golden honorary Ariel Award "for a Mexican as well as international actress." She went on winning the Silver Goddess "Mexican Cinema Journalists" (Mexican Golden Globes) for best leading actress and an honorary award. At least her home country saw and loved her for it.
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BoyWiththeGreenHair — 13 years ago(November 04, 2012 02:37 PM)
I just realized that one potential reason for Katy Jurado's subservience is the reality that the role was originally meant not for her, but for Dolores Del Rio, who generally was prone to taking more "lady-like" roles to project a positive image of Latinas, rather than negative ones like the "Mexican spitfire" roles accepted by Lupe Velez in the 30s and 40s.
Of course, Del Rio was held back because of the Red Scare of the 1950s, due to accusations that dated back to the 1930s, and she was prevented from reentering the United States for filming.
Jurado was probably the closest thing to a cross between the wild, vainglorious "Mexican spitfire" Lupe Velez and the dignified, bourgeoise "grand lady" Dolores Del Rio. She projected dignified feminitiy, sexual animosity, and physical strength at the same time, something that even modern day actresses, regardless of ethnicity or race, have a problem with. So many actresses, nowadays, are "girls" and remain "girls" to the bitter end. But, Jurado was 100% woman. The only other Latina actress of that period I can think of who matched that sort of combination was Maria Felix, although not in the same way, certainly.