Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1967: Beah Richards in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Beah Richards received her only Oscar nomination for her performance as Mary Prentice in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. 

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner focuses about a young black physician and a white girl who want to get married, and the problems that their decision causes to their families. It's a fine movie with some strong moments and a few good performances, but it's hardly a great movie and definitely not one that has aged well. The whole movie feels a bit too stagey and it deals with its (very important) theme in an extremely heavy-handed fashion (as it is usually the case with Stanley Kramer's movies). Also, it features a truly terrible performance from Katharine Houghton. It's not a bad movie at all but there are many flaws in it. 

The role of Mary Prentice shows up quite late in the movie and it doesn't get a whole lot of screen-time, but it's actually a pretty good role with a couple of juicy and potentially moving scenes. I suppose you could say actually that Mary, along with Christina, is the heart of the movie - on paper. Unfortunately, what's on screen isn't even remotely moving or interesting whatsoever because Beah Richards fails to fulfill any of the tasks that are placed on her by the script. She does have a couple of decent moments - particularly there a few reactionary shots of her during the final scene that are impressively done - but those moments can hardly save a performance that is thoroughly bland and forgettable. When the Prantices arrive to the Draytons' home, Beah Richards doesn't have a whole lot to do but even the little she does feels extremely underwhelming: she basically sleepwalks, keeping the same somber and dour expression over and over and uttering her lines in a monotonous and robotic fashion. She's constantly overshadowed by performances that I don't even like all that much and just fails to leave any sort of impact.

I suppose she could have saved her performances if she had delivered in her two big scenes - but, sadly, she doesn't. In the first one, in which Mary tells Christina that she supports Joanna's and John's decision, Richards is again mostly quite dull - maybe she thought that looking teary-eyed was enough but it's not. Her line-delivery and facial expression are just sort of lifeless and she fails to convey the unconditional motherly love of Mary for her son. But she's probably even worse in the following scene, in which she reminds Matt (Spencer Tracy) of the  love and passion that people feel in their youth and accuses him of having forgotten that kind of love. It had the potential to be an extremely powerful moment but unfortunately Beah Richards fails to deliver it in the right way: she plays the scene with an overwrought and overbearing intensity in her facial expressions that doesn't match at all her awkwardly stilted line-delivery. There isn't a single moment in that scene in which she doesn't come across as fake and overcooked and it's a pity because, as I said, the scene had real potential. 

This nomination is undeserved for many reasons: first off, it's not a good performance; secondly, it's not even the best female supporting performance in the movie as Isabel Sanford delivered a good and interesting portrayal of the black maid who is actually racist in her own way; thirdly, Beah Richards delivered a much better performance as the abortionist in In the Heath of the Night - she had only one brief scene in that movie but she was an intriguing and mysterious presence. I wouldn't have minded it if she had received a nomination for her performance in that movie, unfortunately the Academy decided to honor her for a forgettable and disappointing performance in a role that allowed for much more. 

2/5