Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1960

The Contenders:

Shirley MacLaine: The Apartment
Elizabeth Taylor: Butterfield 8 (winner)
Melina Mercouri: Never on Sunday
Deborah Kerr: The Sundowners
Greer Garson: Sunrise at Campobello

Sunrise at Campobello

Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I seem to be watching a lot of biopics lately. That might be coincidence or it might be that a lot of biopics get nominated for various Oscars. In the case of Sunrise at Campobello, the Oscar it was nominated for is not obvious upon watching. If you’d asked me to guess the nomination, I’ve have picked Ralph Bellamy’s portrayal of FDR without hesitation. But, instead we get Greer Garson’s odd version of Eleanor Roosevelt as the nominated performance here.

Instead of looking at FDR’s presidency, Sunrise at Campobello looks instead at his illness. According to legend, Roosevelt suffered from a bout of polio that left him paralyzed, unusual because it happened well into his adult life. That’s the theory the film works with, too. The current belief is that it’s much more likely he suffered from Guillain-Barre syndrome, since it has the same general symptoms, fits more closely with what he did experience, and is much more likely to occur in adults. Regardless, that’s what we’re dealing with here.