Tuesday 8 February 2011

Best Supporting Actor 1960: Jack Kruschen in The Apartment

Jack Kruschen received his only Oscar nomination for portraying Doctor Dreyfuss in The Apartment.

Doctor Dreyfuss is the neighbor of C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). Baxter lends his apartment to higher ups at the company he works at.  Dreyfuss does not know this believing the drinking, the women, and the noise all are Baxter's doings. Dreyfuss gives the occasional humorous remark to Baxter that his "life style" is not going to lead to good things. Kruschen adds a nice little bit of humor here and there well, not sticking out too much, but still adding to the film.

Kruschen has a bigger moment though when Dreyfuss must aid Baxter with a rather serious situation. Kruschen is good here, add the proper amount of weight to the scene actually while still infusing it with a little bit of humor at the same time. Kruschen never does all that much though overall as Dreyfuss but I do think he portrays the part as well as anyone possibly could. I like his performance it adds just a little more to an already great film. His performance is again not amazing but it certainly is good.

5 comments:

Tom said...

I agree with your assessment. He's funny and adds comedy to the situations but not necessarily the performance you remember after the picture is over. On the other hand, Sal Mineo in Exodus I can never forget.

Anonymous said...

He was brilliant! The Apartment is definitely one of the best films ever, what did you think of Lemmon and MacLaine?

Louis Morgan said...

I will get to Lemmon later, but Maclaine was pretty good.

dinasztie said...

Jack Lemmon gives one of my favorite performances ever. Kruschen is indeed very good (I think he's just as god as Ustinov). I feel that no one threatens Mineo's win.

Anonymous said...

I completely forgot he was nominated.