Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1970: David Warner in The Ballad of Cable Hogue

David Warner did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Joshua in The Ballad of Cable Hogue. 

The particularly consistent David Warner has seemed game for most anything in his career from more serious dramas towards genre affairs, like his multiple Star Trek appearances, and even comedies. This film being squarely in that final column with Warner perhaps the most comic element of the film, which he is most game for. This as Joshua, a preacher, that we meet as he runs across the titular Cable Hogue (Jason Robards)'s watering hole. Warner who more often played more dignified sorts, even as villains, gets to play around with that presence wonderfully here. This as his magnificent voice and manner certainly conducts the proper facade of a preacher, however his sloppy way of running off to the drinking hole, and his unabashed way of attempting to speak of his own basically con man ideas, Warner undercuts this wonderfully. Warner though finds rather the balance in his moments with Robards in his eagerness and interest in the water has the shades of a palatable greed, however in a way Warner makes this strange endearing by being so falsely coy about it. Warner is so much fun here as he just throws himself into the part, making Joshua strangely likable in this initial scene even as he makes one ask more than a few questions about his claims of being spiritually enlightened, or just really his general moral state as a man. It is as a strange but oh so wonderful sidekick to Robards that Warner makes Joshua, having just the right bit of tempered ridiculousness that finds the proper tone for the film. He's never too much but always just enough. 

Warner initially just showing a similarly minded man who can find the great monetary success in the well placed watery hole, and his reactions, of success by proximity are great bit of unashamed greed. Warner though gets to go further as he goes about "plying" his trade by consoling a "widow" with this religious sense. Warner is hilarious in this scene in portraying with such divine zealotry his speaking of every word to her, that is far more seduction than consoling of a widow. Warner's portrayal bringing just the right disregard for decency by bringing such a striking emphasis in each word through that regal voice of his while also still showing just the utmost earthly lust within his expression. All the better though is the comedy that ensues when the woman's very alive husband returns, with her more than willing to hope that Joshua can "help" her husband. Warner's reaction to that is pure gold of disgust just in his classical farce fear of being caught with his hand more than just in the cookie jar to say the least. His physical work again being just magnificent as he becomes more weasel than man of God, in attempting to run from the room bumping into a locked door. Warner again though being great in switching from a hilarious expression of abject fear, towards that of clear refinement, and a zen like ease as he attempts to "console" both husband and wife now as his way out of the house. Keeping this overt dignity as he leads the prayer, well except Warner's perfectly executed eye movement as Joshua carefully readjusts the wife's garment, he had helped adjust. 

Warner is quite simply a delight, making the most out of every second of his screentime as a proper scoundrel, you can't help but enjoy which is quite a trick on its own. This as even as he hides out with Cable, having successfully fully "consoled" the wife this time, Warner is a grand fool once again. This again in his oh so artful combination of a phony lordliness with his true nature as basically a lusty idiot. This in pleading his case with a pathetic desperation though Warner still comically funneling this through the demeanor of attempt's at grace at every turn. Warner excelling within realizing this duality of the character that is a singularity within his entertaining work. This in wholly revealing what is really a fiendish charlatan as just as he is, but doing it in such a particularly enjoyable and always oddly likable way. Warner again executing every single moment of comedy so well, and I would say no one better in the film seems to understand how to make the film's idiosyncratic tone work. Warner does so as he is always walking a fine line on possibly being too broad, but never falling off into it. This approach rather he uses it to enliven every moment that he does appear. The highlight of this however being however his final scene where he comes in last second to find a dying Cable, wounded fatally by an out of control automobile. Warner's amazing in this scene as Cable calls on Joshua to give his eulogy while Cable still lives. Warner's reactions are key though in sensing in each one, every little admiring glint, just showing a natural honest friendship between he and Cable over their mutual misadventures, that doesn't need to be stated however instead is so naturally exuded by Warner's performance. Warner though then goes into with a marvelous showman's manner of speaking towards Cable with great affection but also a nearly over the top grandeur. Warner selling the man almost as one would speak of a legend of old rather than a living man in front of us. This before the film cuts to Cable's actual funeral, and Warner is outstanding as he changes his delivery from that of the showman, that still undercut Joshua's virtuousness, and instead now finally speaks as an actual preacher for the Lord. This as Warner delivers with a somber and understated conviction of a man genuinely remembering his friend, and offering his case up to the heavens. This is a great performance by David Warner, that makes proper comical use of a more wild off-beat energy for, while also still offering that specific power of his presence, however here brilliantly subverted to give just give a truly memorable portrait of a rouge preacher.