Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1985: Results

5. Danny Glover in The Color Purple- Glover is properly intense in his brutality in his role as an abusive husband, but he is unable to get past the restrictions of the part.

Best Scene: Mister is ridiculed by his father. 

4. Wilford Brimley in Cocoon- Brimley gives the best performance of the cast being the quietly commanding presence of the group, as well as creating the greatest emotional impact of the various stories.

Best Scene: Ben tells his grandson he's going away. 

3. M. Emmet Walsh in Blood Simple- Walsh creates a deliriously evil and memorable villain by beautifully playing up the sleaze and menace of his slimy private detective.

Best Scene: Visser double crosses Marty. 

2. Crispin Glover in Back to The Future- Glover gives my second favorite supporting turn of the year in his absolutely hilarious, but when it needs to be moving turn as the spineless George McFly.

Best Scene: George stands up to Biff. 

1. Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future-Well Good predictions to Paoloduncan, and Lezlie please throw out a year and a performance. Lloyd wins this year as it came to the two Back to the Future performances which I love both. I have to choose one so I will choose Lloyd manic and funny turn creating Doc Brown into a truly memorable character.

Best Scene: Doc reveals he did read the letter after all. 

Overall Rank:

1. Christopher Lloyd in Back To The Future
2. Treat Williams in Smooth Talk
3. Daniel Day-Lewis in My Beautiful Laundrette
4. Ian Holm in Dreamchild
5. Crispin Glover in Back To The Future
6. Michael Mckean in Clue
7. Martin Mull in Clue
8. Christopher Lloyd in Clue
9. M. Emmet Walsh in Blood Simple
10. John Lone in Year of the Dragon
11. Roddy McDowall in Fright Night
12. Dan Hedaya in Blood Simple  
13. Michael Palin in Brazil
14. Chris Sarandon in Fright Night
15. Tim Curry in Legend
16. Robert De Niro in Brazil
17. Wilford Brimley in Cocoon
18. Willem Dafoe in To Live and Die in LA
19. Klaus Maria Brandauer in Out of Africa
20. John Gielgud in The Shooting Party
21. Thomas F. Wilson in Back to the Future  
22. Roshan Seth in My Beautiful Laundrette
23. Stephen Geoffreys in Fright Night 
24. Jan Rubes in Witness
25. Peter Vaughan in Brazil 
26. David Gale in Re-Animator
27. Lucas Haas in Witness
28. Brian Dennehy in Cocoon  
29. John Heard in Trip to the Bountiful 
30. Saeed Jaffrey in My Beautiful Laundrette
31. Bob Hoskins in Brazil   
32. Mark Holton in Pee Wee's Big Adventure
33. Ian Holm in Brazil
34. John Pankow in To Live and Die in LA
35. Danny Glover in The Color Purple
36. Josef Summer in Witness 
37. Ian Holm in Wetherby
38. Paul Gleason in The Breakfast Club 
39. Hume Cronyn in Cocoon 
40. Nicol Williamson in Return to Oz
    
41. John Turturro in To Live and Die in LA   
42. Jim Broadbent in Brazil 
43. Ken Wantanabe in Tampopo 
44. Shinnosuke Ikehata in Ran
45. Dean Stockwell in To Live and Die in LA 
46. Gary Marshall in Lost in America 
47. Tom Wilkinson in Wetherby
48. Curtis Armstrong in Better Off Dead
49. Masayuki Yui in Ran
50. John Heard in After Hours 
51. Hisashi Igawa in Ran
52. Jack Gilford in Cocoon 
53. Leo McKern in Ladyhawke 
54. Jonathan Stark in Fright Night 
55. Hector Alterio in The Official Story
56. Sam Elliott in Mask 
57. Daisuke Ryu in Ran 
58. David Ogden Stiers in Better Off Dead
59. Christopher Walken in A View To Kill
60. Adolph Caesar in The Color Purple 
61. John Hurt in The Black Cauldron
    
62. John Kapelos in The Breakfast Club
63. Charles Napier in Rambo First Blood Part II 
64. Gordon Jackson in The Shooting Party
65. Richard Crenna in Rambo First Blood Part II 
66. Freddie Jones in Young Sherlock Holmes
67. Derrick Branche in My Beautiful Laundrette 
    
68. Armin Mueller-Stahl in Colonel Redl 
69. Sean Barrett in Return to Oz
    
70. Nigle Hawthorne in The Black Cauldron 
71. Brian Henson in Return to Oz
    
72. Roger Ashton-Griffiths in Young Sherlock Holmes
73. John Russell in Pale Rider
74. Jinpachi Nezu in Ran
75. Akira Terao in Ran 
    
76. Robert Loggia in Jagged Edge
77. Freddie Jones in The Black Cauldron
    
78. Will Patton in After Hours 
79. Edward Fox in The Shooting Party
80. Robert Sampson in Re-Animator
81. Michael Moriarty in Pale Rider 
82. James Cromwell in Explorers
83. Tommy Chong in After Hours
84. Cheech Marin in After Hours
85. Danny Glover in Witness
86. Dennis Dun in Year of the Dragon
87. Chris Penn in Pale Rider 
88. Robert Picardo in Explorers
89. Robert Hardy in The Shooting Party  
90. Richard Dysart in Pale Rider
91. Peter Coyote in Jagged Edge 
92. Raymond J. Barry in Year of the Dragon
93. Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV 
94. Pat Hingle in The Falcon and the Snowman 
95. Peter Gallagher in Dreamchild 
96. Anthony  Higgins in Young Sherlock Holmes
97. Richard Dysart in Mask  
98. William Hickey in Prizzi's Honor
99. Don Ameche in Cocoon
100. Burt Young in Rocky IV
101. John Wood in Ladyhawke
102. John Lithgow in Santa Clause
103. Steve Guttenberg in Cocoon 
104. John Byner in The Black Cauldron
     
105. Eric Roberts in Runaway Train

Next Year: 1960 Supporting

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1985: Danny Glover in The Color Purple

Danny Glover did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Mister Albert Johnson in The Color Purple. 

The Color Purple is a film about the trials of a young African American woman Celie (Whoopi Goldberg).

To say the men depicted in The Color Purple are cruel would probably be a bit of an understatement. Most of the men depicted are easily angered individuals not opposed to severely beating women or raping them without hesitation. They are creeps, and Glover gets the biggest role of the creeps as the man who basically buys Celie for a wife that he wants to merely take care of his house, and keep his kids in line. Mister, as he is referred to, is not a nice man and that is the way Glover portrays him without really trying to make any silver lining to the character.

Almost all of his scenes with Goldberg Glover portrays Mister in really one of two ways. One is the more explosively violent abusive side of Mister as he constantly yells at her, hits her if  he so chooses, and does not take a second thought about the whole affair. Glover certainly is blunt and unapologetic as Mister who brings the brutality of Mister to life fairly well. I would say his other way though is perhaps just as brutal which is when he not being as openly hostile.

When he is not being hostile though Glover plays it as though Mister barely recognizes her as a person. Glover has Mister barely look at her or acknowledge her in anyway even during sex, which he does well in showing that Mister does not really see Celie as anything to him. In these moments when Mister notices her at all he only acts in a quick violent manner to get her to do something for her. Glover is actually quite good in portraying that no matter what if Mister is not directly abusing her, he is always ready to.

There is another side to Mister also seen that is not really much better than his violently abusive side which instead is a constantly lustful side. Here really is where one would maybe expect a little more depth from Glover's performance as he lusts after women, but really it is pretty much on the surface again. There is not anything special about him here he just wants the women he wants and tries to smile into his way to get them where he wants them. The fact that his charm is really a joke is actually a fine enough way to portray Mister, but never makes him particularly interesting.

One of the underlying ideas in this film is the way the abused can easily become abusers themselves. Mister himself his abused by his father verbally in one scene, and Glover is rather effective in this scene showing Mister as the one without the power for once. Glover handles it well by losing all of his intensity of before in this scene and almost seeming to become a child in this scene as Mister becomes shy and filled with hesitations to say anything to his father's angry attacks against him.

Mister though is a fairly repetitive character as he stays abusive until near the end of the film after Celie leaves him, and he becomes a pathetic mess of a man. Again Glover could have the chance for to really make a great impression with his performance, but really he stays fine in the part. His final scenes Glover portrays it as less of a transformation for Mister, but more him becoming that shy child again without power, who know might as well do something right since he no longer has the power to do something wrong.

To be perfectly fair to Danny Glover as written Mister Albert Johnson is a pretty thin character, and he mostly is there to be the terrible force that Celie wants to get away from. Glover actually is fine in being brutal, and intense in a believable fashion as it would have been really easy to go way too over the top with this character. This never becomes a particularly fascinating sort of characterization and as the story wants it Mister is always overshadowed by the female characters, and Glover is overshadowed by the female performances.

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1985

And the Nominees Were Not:

Crispin Glover in Back to the Future

Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future

M. Emmet Walsh in Blood Simple 

Wilford Brimley in Cocoon

Danny Glover in The Color Purple