Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1961: Results

5. Alan Bates in Whistle Down the Wind - Bates certainly makes an impression with a role that, much like the children, he causes you to perhaps put in more than what's there. 

Best Scene: Before giving up.

4. Leo McKern in The Day the Earth Caught Fire - McKern grants a proper sense of character within a role that is often just used for exposition. 

Best Scene: Reporting on what is really happening.

3. Nakamura Ganjirō II in The End of Summer - A delightful mischievous performance as an atypical Ozu patriarch.

Best Scene: "Argument" with daughter.  

2. Murray Melvin in A Taste of Honey - Melvin delivers such humanity and heart to a role that was boundary breaking, but also just a, more importantly now, a memorable portrait of a caring human in a place where he received little care. 

Best Scene: Watching in the dark.

1. Martin Stephens in The Innocents - Stephens gives one of the most confident child performances ever in creating the right ambiguity between a sinister child guilty beyond his years or perhaps just a boy broken by abuse.  

Best Scene: Ending.

Updated Overall

Next: 2009 Lead

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1961: Martin Stephens in The Innocents

Martin Stephens did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Miles in The Innocents. 

The Innocents is the masterful telling of the tale of a new governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) dealing with unexpected horrors as she attempts to take care of two orphaned children on a palatial estate. 

Martin Stephens, having previously played a creepy kid in Village of the Damned, takes upon a greater challenge here than that of an inhumane alien spawn in the character of Miles, one of the two children along with his younger sister Flora (Pamela Franklin). Stephens comes into the film as Miles has left school, in fact, expelled, and is returning home. Right from the start it is hard to feel fully comfortable with Miles as performed by Stephens, as he steps off the train with a grin of sheer jubilation. Stephens just seems too content for any person, particularly not a boy who was just kicked off a school. And you see the effectiveness of his performance by attributing qualities of the "innocent" that aren't innocent, in an innocent-seeming way but also not. It's a fundamental trick of this performance that is essential to its way of getting under your skin. Taking his first moment of complementing Kerr's Giddens with flattery, which if spoken with a bit more of naivety or simple surface could seem just like a cute moment of a child pretending to be an adult. Stephens though presents it differently from that though and it is with the confidence he speaks that there is this maturity of the flattery, flattery that in a moment seems genuine, and not with innocence, which in a moment creates a less pleasant quality within the moment. Although notable Stephens doesn't give away the game too early, as a little strange but maybe one can accept it as just a bit more precocious.

We do have what would seem like a bit of a respite from the feeling of uneasiness as the children begin to play, and while I wouldn't say Stephens exactly seems immediately normal, however, one can accept him as a child at play along with his sister at first. The two play though in a way that quickly doesn't at all make you filled with joy or comfort. There is a mix in the way they go about that seems extreme that makes normal childhood antics. The performances are what make the fundamental difference as they just don't seem quite right at all, which in that is most unnerving. Stephens's grin is hard not to see as nefarious as he teases Miss Giddens early on and it isn't a pleasant tease. Stephens has an intensity in his delivery that cuts deeper than it should and that makes Miles more off-putting than his evil alien in damned, because there is something both so believable about his Miles, while also being so unordinary which makes him so disturbing. Particularly there is a moment where Miles "pretend" chokes Miss Giddens, and the sort of mania at the moment that comes across Stephens's face seems so suddenly vicious for a child, yet still childlike in some respects. And perhaps that is the genius of the performance because Stephens never plays the part simply as another, or as a more mature figure in a younger body, it is rather a chimera that is oddly tangible, if so unnatural. Even in the moment of playacting as the two play together, Stephens's conviction as Miles "playing" makes what could be a charming performance, truly unsettling. 

The truth of the piece is a complicated one, and part of the brilliance of the adaptation is its ability to juggle concepts between the literal and what can be interpreted. Is this a ghost story about the dead caretaker and old deceased governess haunting the estate, is it just their memory haunting the mind of the deeply repressed and probably rather insane herself Miss Giddens or is it in between somewhere?  The greatness of the film is not forcing a choice while also not seeming vague, and personally, I'd say Miss Giddens is a bit off her rocker, but the children are at the very least metaphorically "haunted" by the memories of the old pair of lovers who likely abused them in some way. Stephens's performance in many ways creates the sense of the realization of these concepts in a way that is specific while never affirming an absolute. What we do see is a boy who is not right for his age, but whether that is via ghostly possession, or being mistaught in some way by a creepy older man is what is up to interpretation. In either sense, Stephens's performance brilliantly captures these ideas with a force of presence that is often seen in most performances, and very rarely seen in a child. Stephens's nefarious moments as Miles aren't a simple just creepiness, but rather something truly under the skin because of how much strength there is in these acts behind his eyes. Take the moment where Giddens puts him to sleep, and Stephens as Miles speaks towards her with assurance in his eyes and an attempted seductiveness in his voice as he leaps up and kisses her. Stephens's performance is amazing at the moment because how exact this moment is in his work, it isn't clumsy in an innocent way or a creepy way, it is with a particularly frightening intention. 

As much as Stephens makes a powerful impression in giving the greatest creepy child performance of all time already, he perhaps cements this status within the final sequence of the film where Giddens intends to confront him about his "possession" by the old Peter Quint. And the playful Miles twists and turns as she presses the thought to him and tries to get some kind of confession from him. Stephens's first incredible reaction is as he stares down Giddens really and seems truly possessed by Quint, or maybe just using the man's language to his advantage, as he tears into her with violent disparaging anger. Stephens's delivery of the moment is particularly remarkable because again it isn't with a gimmick of a deep voice or anything like that, it is very much a boy's voice, but the intensity behind it and the vileness in his eyes is of a sinister man, maybe just in memory or in truth, either way absolutely captivating to watch. Contrasting that however is when Giddens stays firm in her quest and continues to appeal to the boy as a boy and attempts the confession out of him. Stephens is equally tremendous here and is the one moment in the entire film where Miles seems like, well just a boy. This as Stephens presents this immediate emotional desperation and really just the blunt fear. A fear he presents now not with any of that confidence or sort of eerie wisdom, but rather just the fear of a little boy who is painfully expressing his uncomfortable trauma. The contrasting come seamlessly together to show us Miles as a true victim of something beneath all of his eerie terror, which one can freely interpret on their own. Stephens delivers a great performance here, which requires no qualification, it is simply that by providing the surface chill of an unnervingly mature yet childish boy, and the depth in realizing what might be behind it all. 

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1961

 And the Nominees Were Not:

Murray Melvin in A Taste of Honey

Alan Bates in Whistle Down the Wind

Martin Stephens in The Innocents

Nakamura Ganjirō II in The End of Summer

Leo McKern in The Day The Earth Caught Fire

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1960: Results

5. Martin Stephens in Village of the Damned - Stephens gives an effectively creepy kid performance, though it feels but a warm up for his more impressive work in The Innocents a year later.

Best Scene: The kids tear down the "brick wall"

4. Robert Mitchum in Home From the Hill - Mitchum avoids falling into overblown melodrama by giving an unassuming yet commanding turn that successfully realizes the two conflicting sides of his character.

 Best Scene: The captain tries to win back his wife.

3. John Mills in Tunes of Glory - Mills gives perhaps his best performance, in his tragic portrayal of a soldier being slowly broken down by his own men.

Best Scene: The final party.

2. Peter Sellers in Never Let Go - Sellers more than proves his merit in a wholly dramatic role, through his compelling portrayal of a vicious and desperate criminal.

Best Scene: The final fight.

1. Renato Salvatori in Rocco and his Brothers - Salvatori gives a powerful performance as he realizes the descent of a simple man into a form of madness in chilling detail.

Best Scene: The Murder.

Overall Rank

Next Year: 2005 Lead

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1960: Martin Stephens in The Village of the Damned

Martin Stephens did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying David Zellaby in The Village of the Damned.

The Village of the Damned is a fairly effective horror film about a group of strange children "miraculously" born in an English village all at the same time.

The film very much depends upon the potential creepiness of children through its monsters being a group of blond haired, light skinned, kids. Now their very image is off putting, particularly when they are all together, but a little more is needed that little more being Martin Stephens. Stephens plays the only one of the odd children who speaks. Stephens's speaks with an excessively articulation that is most off putting. Although it should be noted that they rerecorded Stephens's lines which makes his voice all the more disturbing since it seems partially detached from the image. Stephens's voice is incredibly creepy though since he does not make anything specifically monstrous about it. He instead delivers his lines as a proper English schoolboy, a too proper English schoolboy for sure, and the sophistication of his voice makes him seem truly alien.

Stephens's work goes beyond merely being the only one of the children who speaks. There is more tasked from Stephens as David also acts as the child who explains a bit of their intent, and philosophy of sorts to his "father" Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders). The philosophy being a maniacal lack of emotion, and Stephens is terrific in realizing this in his hollow expressions. He adds a bit more there within that as there is always an eerie contentment in his description as though the lack of concern is the better way to exist. The film never allows their exact intentions to be explained other than general survival. There is a sense of dread created though and Stephens contributes greatly to this. The soulless quality in David that Stephens brings so effectively suggests a terrible intent since there is such a clear lack of empathy for what surrounds them.

This is technically a one note performance for the most part, but that is exactly the point. Stephens is not playing a real boy but rather a creature in boy form. Stephens though makes the most out of that one note as he is absolutely menacing despite his rather unassuming frame. Stephens brings the demonic presence  to the part, and manages to make the eye glow scenes far more chilling than they would be otherwise. Now I wrote one note for the most part because at the very end of his performance there is a bit of emotion. It's just a brief second but Stephens's portrayal of David realizing he's made a terrible mistake is extremely satisfying due to his oh so consistent portrayal of David's contentment beforehand. This is a striking turn by Martin Stephens but I will say in the end this feels like a warmup. The warmup for his masterful turn as a "creepy kid" in the Innocents.

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1960

And the Nominees Were Not:

Peter Sellers in Never Let Go

Robert Mitchum in Home From the Hill

John Mills in Tunes of Glory

Martin Stephens in Village of the Damned

Renato Salvatori in Rocco and His Brothers