Sunday 4 March 2012

Best Supporting Actor 1958: Gig Young in Teacher's Pet

Gig Young received his second Oscar nomination for portraying Dr. Hugo Pine in Teacher's Pet.

Teacher's Pet is an enjoyable comedy about a newspaper editor who learned his way solely through working the job James Gannon (a very physically haggard but still charming Clark Gable) who tricks and later romances a journalism instructor Erica Stone (Doris Day) into thinking he is just a pupil.

Gig Young appears later in a film as the colleague of Day's character who Gable's Gannon assume is a rival suitor. Dr. Hugo Pine is a well educated, well read, and well experienced psychology professor. The Dr. know a whole lot, and does not mind telling others about that fact all the time. Young is quite enjoyable in the part of Hugo perfectly finding just the right way to portray his "perfectness". Young shows that Hugo certainly likes to flaunt his knowledge, but he portrays it with a degree of naivety to show that Hugo almost can't help it. Young turns him into certainly a well into himself fellow, but a slightly by accident into himself fellow.

 He is funny with his distinct sort of somewhat earned pompousness that is enjoyable and an effective contrast to the gruffer less sure of himself Gable. He effectively stays this way into a single reaction that instantly makes him fall from grace, which is a very amusing single physical reaction by Young. The rest of his performance involves Hugo suffering from a hangover from the alcohol that caused his fall, and actually helping Gable's character as it turns out Hugo and Erica are just friends, and he really is not any sort of rival to Gable's James Gannon after all.

The hungover Dr. Hugo Pine is as enjoyable as overly the sure of himself one. The difference in them is especially made amusing by Young through just how much he loses in the exchange. Young still shows Hugo to be quite intelligent as he tries to help Gable's character in the end, and tries to bring the two romantic leads together despite the fact their relationship is built on a lie. Young comes in at the right moment in the film as he acts as an negotiator between the two, as the film could easily fell almost completely into drama at the end.

Young though keeps the humor alive near the end with his comedic presence. Whether it is his constant handover that pains him, or his reactions to the rather bad decisions made by Gable's character are all quite funny and perfectly timed by Young. It is simply a very enjoyable supporting performance that appears exactly when it needs to in the film, and succeeds completely in preventing the film from having the slump that it very well could have had without him. It is the exact sort of supporting performance right for a romantic comedy like this that I maybe could have used even more of actually.

3 comments:

dinasztie said...

I've always been kind of interested in this one. I really hope you di 1969 very soon. :)

RatedRStar said...

was Clark Gable deserving of an oscar nomination here perhaps since 1958 best actor was not a particularly strong one.

Louis Morgan said...

Even though he was technically miscast I really did enjoy his performance a great deal and he probably would make my line up. He most certainly would been a better choice than Spencer Tracy.