Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1954: Alastair Sim in An Inspector Calls

Alastair Sim did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Inspector Poole in An Inspector Calls. 

An Inspector Calls follows an upper class family as they face charges over their mistreatment of a recently deceased working class woman. 

Alastair Sim essentially portrays the master of ceremonies for this piece as the titular inspector we learn little of, rather he used for us to learn of each family member's relation, and in turn related "crime", with the young woman who he informs them has ingested a kind of poison. It is upon Sim's performance much to create what is captivating about the Inspector. An actor who has an advantage that being his distinctive face, which makes quite the impressive as he suddenly appears in the film without entering. Sim's initial delivery of the death of the woman is striking in his manner. Sim speaks bluntly of the invents with this certain though inherent sympathy within the death even as he is so matter of act. Sim speaks with more than one card to play as it seems. Still though he appears but an inspector until the patriarch of the family speaks to being unaware of the woman. Sim's expression changes to a kind ghoulish smile as he indicates that the man should most certainly know her. There is an accusation in the grin, and almost something quite sinister even in Sim's portrayal. There is more though than that as the man explains himself, shirking responsibility claiming it would be awkward to maintain any responsibility. Sim's speaking of "oh yes, very awkward" carries a duality of complete lack of sympathy for the man and irony for the statement of a man clearly trying to avoid any connection with the person he wronged. 

Sim's performance carries still this kind of nearly monstrous quality, as he almost seems like a shark when another member of the family enters the room who he is going to accuse of their crime against the young woman next. Sim's eyes carry a quick accusation in them, and this incisive stare. The grin that he carries with them seeming a man just waiting to reveal his truth, and knowing the weaknesses that will be revealed within the family. Sim though has this calm about him that is quite unnerving in this way, but what makes it so remarkable is the particular edge his performance sits on. This as we see his reactions towards the family with this vindictive joyful quality in his attacks, however that isn't all there is. This as he speaks of the woman, of any success, there is some greater sense of care about it properly to some one. He doesn't make it even then as an easy sympathy, rather almost this sort of tragedy within any notion of good news. Sim speaks the Inspectors news always with this certain almost laughing manner towards the woman, not out of hate, but this kind of bemusement that she could possibly attempt to find any success in this particular world. Sim brilliantly colors the exposition with dynamic depth within every moment of it. Sim as much as the inspector is just telling the story, never is doing it so simply as that. The texture he brings to every line creates such a palatable sense of the nature of this story through the seemingly lack of sympathy of the family and the tragedy in the young woman's story. 

Now the film itself, based on a play that makes its allegory even more obvious than it is here, I would is repetitious in its point and characters too much pawns per the scenario to exist. The one aspect of the film that is wholly successful is in the overarching dramatic device of the inspector, this as it grants a certain haunting mood to the whole drama, though with Sim being the most essential ingredient. Frankly director Guy Hamilton unnecessarily overplays the supernatural nature of the inspector (literally named Goole in the play which is painfully on the nose), because Sim already has it entirely in hand. Every scene with Sim is compelling due to Sim as you can just watch him throughout every one of these scenes, as he brings this quietly terrifying ethereal omnipotent quality within his work. This as Sim never simply sits and stare, rather there is this judgment that is being inflicted whether it is through a turn down of the nose to imply a bit of exhaustion at the family's dodges, to a penetrating glare when forcing a bit of information out of his given target in a moment. Sim himself is compelling to watch as this essential force for truth, which to his credit again finds the right balance. Sim plays the part perhaps as some supernatural force implying this inquisition, however he does so with the right humanity even as the inspector seems so all knowing. Sim brings, for the lack of a better word, this sort of nearly playful sense of exhaustion in the inspector. This sort of weariness upon his duties, less so as an obvious vengeful spirit, but rather a man there to deliver a painful message, a message he has seemingly delivered far too many times before. Sim gives a great performance, that really realizes every virtue of the material, and creates this captivating portrait of the accuser who both thrives within the allegory, but also successfully exists beyond it.