Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1967

The Contenders:

Faye Dunaway: Bonnie and Clyde
Anne Bancroft: The Graduate
Katharine Hepburn: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (winner)
Audrey Hepburn: Wait Until Dark
Edith Evans: The Whisperers

Dementia

Film: The Whisperers
Format: Internet video on laptop.

Lately, when I’ve watched a film that was nominated only for Best Actor or Best Actress, I’ve found a film that is relatively forgettable save for that one nominated performance. This is more or less what I expected with The Whisperers, a forgotten film from the year of my birth. There is, certainly, some element of truth in my expectations, but The Whisperers is far more than a forgettable film with a great performance. No, this is a film that really should be better known than it is. In addition to the justifiably nominated performance, there is a true darkness in this film and a story that is noteworthy in its brutality. This isn’t a film I’d want to watch if I was already depressed, but it’s a hell of a nice piece of dark theater.

Mrs. Ross (Edith Evans) is an elderly woman with her own series of issues and problems. In the main, she is extremely paranoid, under the belief that people are listening to her through the walls or the sink faucet. She reports things that she believes to the local police. It is her belief, for instance, that the white woman who lives above her with an Indian man is being held against her will. She’s also evidently suffering from dementia. She believes that she is descended from royalty, and that the welfare that she gets to keep her alive is something only temporary, since she is constantly expecting a windfall of money from her father. None of her delusions come close to even approximating reality.