Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1962: Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate

Angela Lansbury received her third and final Oscar nomination for her performance as Eleanor Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate. 

The Manchurian Candidate is a great movie about a soldier who, during the Korean War, is imprisoned by the Soviets and is brainwashed, becoming their unwitting assassin. I personally found it extremely compelling and engaging from beginning to end and I found Laurence Harvey's performance absolutely terrific and emotionally devastating (he's such an underrated actor). Frank Sinatra also delivers a memorable, effective turn, while Janet Leigh does next to nothing but she didn't have much of a role to begin with. 

Angela Lansbury plays Mrs. Iselin, the mother of the leading character, Raymond Shaw. Right from her first scene on the plane, after Raymond has been awarded of a Medal of Honor, Lansbury is terrific in establishing her character as a domineering and controlling mother (a kind of role she also played in All Fall Down, from the same year). From that moment and throughout the whole movie, both Lansbury and Harvey realize perfectly well their character's complicated relationship and they do such a great job that the scenes involving Mrs. Iselin's and Shaw's interactions some of the highlights of the movie: in fact, Lansbury's portrayal of her character's overbearingly manipulative nature matches perfectly the emotional frailty and instability of Harvey's performance. Lansbury turns every single moment of her performance into gold by always showing how subtly and cleverly Eleanor manages to hold her son under her influence: without saying a word, Lansbury always shows through her facial acting what Mrs. Iselin is thinking, how she's calmly calculating and planning her next move. Even when she technically isn't doing much Lansbury always grabs the viewer's attention as in every moment she makes you wonder what she is going to do next. It would have been so easy to make Eleanor completely inhuman character but Lansbury is amazing in showing how Mrs. Iselin, from her own point of view, thinks she loves her son and is doing what she thinks is best for him - even when she is deliberately destroying his life. This makes her performance even more disconcerting and she never once feels any remorse for her actions. But even the affection Eleanor sometimes shows towards Shaw is portrayed by Lansbury in a very dark and twisted way that sometimes borders on incestuous. 

Mrs. Iselin is married to Senator Iselin but it's clear that she's the mastermind and he, just like Raymond, is just her puppet. Outside of the moments of clear manipulation (both of her husband and her son), which she handles brilliantly, she's terrific in every small reactionary moment and in a few silent seconds she conveys either Eleanor's feeling of triumph or of anger and defeat. If a lesser actress had played the role, it might have been unconvincing that such a despicable woman like her could manipulate everyone around her but Lansbury brings so much command, presence and charisma to Mrs. Iselin that her power is never once in question. I particularly love the scene at the costume party in which she attempts to convince her political enemy, Senator Jordan, to support her husband's bid for Vice President: she is amazing as she fakes a warm appearence while subtly manipulating him, and when her plan doesn't work out, she powerfully lets loose her character's true, ruthless nature.

Technically there is not much character development in the screenplay and Mrs. Iselin could have been a one-note villain but Lansbury is amazing in going deeper and deeper into the darkest sides of her character as the movie progresses, building up wonderfully to her legendary monologue towards the end. It's an amazing scene that is portrayed by Lansbury with such determination and almost fanatical fury that it's just chilling: she is simply groundbreaking and controls the screen like no other, leaving you deeply unsettled.

Iconic doesn't always mean great, but Lansbury's performance is both. She creates one of the most unforgettable and terrifying villain ever, because she feels frighteningly real. It's a performance that deserves every single praise it gets and Angela Lansbury dominates the whole movie with her towering, forceful presence. Simply amazing. 

5/5