|
|
Post by Mattsby on Jul 25, 2017 20:23:09 GMT
She was only in 18 movies and a couple TV-movies..... Before turning 30, she'd won two Tonys ('63 & '64) and an Oscar ('66) !! From what I've seen, she had a terrific amount of talent, with her signature stammer and singular sensitivity — from the Actors Studio/Method school many thought her to be a mannered performer. But rather, I think she has a really poetic, incredibly sad quality to her...
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean, That Cold Day in the Park.... all brilliant performances. And then there's work like The Out of Towners where she's an Everywoman, stripped of "actorly" proclivity. Her performance there, as the hilarious stoic sidekick wife to Jack Lemmon, is beneath the afore mentioned but hints that she could've easily played/catered to more "commercial" types of films.
Her '70s/'80s output is surprisingly scant. Anyway; what have you seen from her?
|
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Jul 25, 2017 22:27:19 GMT
I think she was a fine actress and agree on the ones you listed for her Matts but she is really a punchline in a certain strand of critical thought - I remember Gene Siskel (or Kael?) calling her style "post-nasal drip" acting, and she got hammered by that sort of shorthand in some circles that she wasn't discussed as anything else unfortunately.
|
|
|
|
Post by taranofprydain on Jul 26, 2017 5:17:07 GMT
I've only seen a few things of hers, namely Virginia Woolf, Up the Down Staircase, The Four Seasons, Another Woman, and that bit role of hers in Splendor in the Grass, but she was a powerhouse in those roles, she was a marvellous, exceedingly talented actress who was gone too soon.
PS Regarding Ebert since you asked up above, I have read a lot of Ebert's reviews and I don't think that he went as deep down with insults like Gene Siskel or Pauline Kael sometimes did. The latter two could be quite cutting (although Kael was a much better writer, which somehow alleviated the sting to a large degree). I remember seeing an old Siskel and Ebert show on the web from 1985. One film that got two thumbs down that week was The Man With One Red Shoe, starring Tom Hanks, and Siskel said during the show "I hope we never hear about Tom Hanks again" or something to that degree. (That was also the episode where Siskel compared Ebert's weight to that of Dumbo or his mother during a split-opinion review of The Black Cauldron)
|
|
|
|
Post by Mattsby on Feb 23, 2018 0:04:51 GMT
I've seen a few more since posting this thread....
The Fox ('67) where Sandy Dennis plays a lesbian lumberjack of sorts! Her performance is impressively, tightly balanced. The film is okay, it gets worse as it goes along and by the third act the characters have lost their cogency. Note: rather sexually explicit for '67.
Up the Down Staircase ('67); she's very good here too but the material several times tails off and redirects--the script flattens the social context and dramatic throughline.
Thank You All Very Much ('69) - also known as A Touch of Love. Very underseen, a subtle and effective feminist character study. Made by a production company known for their sci-fi horror b-movies! Sandy's terrific here and this one probably stands with or right behind her Top 3 (Woolf, 5 & Dime, That Cold Day).
Next....I'm looking around for the slapstick Nasty Habits ('77) and the little Spielberg horror Something Evil ('72) which I believe is on youtube!
|
|
|
|
Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 23, 2018 1:23:27 GMT
only seen Virginia Woolf and didn't care for her at all
|
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Feb 23, 2018 13:31:20 GMT
As the resident Sandy Dennis hater from the IMDb boards of old, yeah, still very much hate her.
|
|
|
|
Post by therealcomicman117 on Feb 24, 2018 8:04:11 GMT
I've only seen The Fox, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but she's good.
|
|
