ENTERTAINMENT

Screen: No guarantee of success

Todd Hill
Reporter
Jo Van Fleet, left, and Jack Lemmon pose at the 1955 Academy Awards ceremony at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, Ca., March 21, 1956.  Fleet won best actress in a supporting role in "East of Eden," and Lemmon won best actor in a supporting role in "Mister Roberts."  (AP Photo)

So many years have come and gone that most of us around today were not around during the years after World War II. We probably don't have a good sense of just how many veterans America's cities, towns and villages had back then, but there were quite a few spread across the country – 16.1 million, to be exact.

Such a multitude of vets might be hard to grasp today, but we can get at least some idea of what it must have been like when we watch an American movie made during those postwar years. I'm not necessarily recommending the 1955 film "Mister Roberts," a mild comedy about a U.S. Navy cargo ship languishing somewhere in the Pacific Theater during the waning days of World War II, but it's a good start.

The movie was a big hit, just as the 1948 stage play and 1946 novel were before it, and it's notable for a few things – one crackling scene featuring Henry Fonda, his usual dour self, and a mischievous James Cagney; William Powell's final film appearance; and most of all, a breakthrough role for one of the 20th century's finest American actors.

"Mister Roberts," which received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture (it lost to "Marty"), received generous reviews upon its release, most of which saved their highest praise for the movie's many drawn out scenes of broad humor, which is what I like least about the film. The reviews also largely overlooked the performance of the actor who played Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver.

It was a smallish supporting role, but Jack Lemmon clearly made the most of every moment on screen that he had. He was working hard, and it showed, and he won an Oscar for his troubles. It was a classic example of the unforgettable breakthrough performance, the kind that launches careers.

It certainly did for Lemmon. He would go on to collect seven more Academy Award nominations (for "Some Like It Hot," "The Apartment," "Days of Wine and Roses," "Save the Tiger," "The China Syndrome," "Tribute" and "Missing"), winning only once more (for "Save the Tiger").

To the extent that "Mister Roberts" still matters today, or deserves to be seen, it's for announcing the arrival of Jack Lemmon.

Amy Adams poses for photographers during arrivals at the 15th annual Gotham Awards in New York, Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2005. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson)

Breakthrough performances are notoriously unreliable harbingers of what’s to come for an actor, however. For every Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" (1983) or Kevin Spacey in "The Usual Suspects" (1995), there's a Nia Vardalos, who made a big, big splash writing and starring in the 2002 comedy "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (it certainly didn't hurt that Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, bankrolled that production).

Vardalos has since gone on to make "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2," which comes out next March.

Tatum O'Neal notched her breakthrough role at the tender age of 10, for one of my favorite films of all time, 1973's "Paper Moon," winning an Oscar in the bargain. The wisdom of giving performance awards to children is a subject for another day, but there's no denying that O'Neal’s film career failed to live up to that early promise.

Other actors, meanwhile, have had to wait a relative eternity to get noticed. Sharon Stone was 34 when she broke through in "Basic Instinct" (1992), Harrison Ford was 35 when "Star Wars" (1977) fell into his lap. The fact that Ford has had the far more productive film career as he's gotten older is, for the most part, another example of the sexism that prevails in Hollywood.

It doesn’t take an award to validate a big-screen arrival, nor does it necessarily help. Marisa Tomei somehow earned an Oscar for 1992’s “My Cousin Vinny,” only to founder in forgettable film roles for a decade before several better parts came to her in the ‘00s.

Tatum O'Neal holds her Oscar statuette at the 46th Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, Ca. on April 2, 1974. The 10-year-old won as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the movie "Paper Moon." (AP Photo)

Given that, Amy Adams shouldn't feel so bad about missing out on an Academy Award for her smash turn in 2005's "Junebug," or should she? That first of her five Oscar nominations represented her best chance at the prize; she lost to Rachel Weisz, whose performance in "The Constant Gardener" I can remember nothing about.

Adams has since lost Oscars to Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona"), Melissa Leo ("The Fighter"), Anne Hathaway ("Les Miserables") and Cate Blanchett ("Blue Jasmine"), but there’s no real shame in losing to an actress whose win is essentially an inevitability.

All this talk of Oscars serves as a reminder that another awards season is nearly upon us. And inevitably, some actor or actress will be showered with a torrent of accolades they may never see again in their acting careers. Or, we could be about to witness the coming of the next Meryl Streep, or Jack Lemmon.

History could be made right before our eyes, but we may not know that for sure until it's history.

thill3@nncogannett.com

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Twitter: @ToddHillMNJ