Best Actress in a Supporting Role 1955: Peggy Lee in Pete Kelly's Blues

Peggy Lee received her only Oscar nomination for her performance as Rose Hopkins in Pete Kelly's Blues. 

Pete Kelly's Blues is a terrible movie about a jazz cornetist, Pete Kelly, who seeks revenge for the murder of his band's drummer at the hands of a local crime boss. The plot of the movie is hardly anything original but the real problem is that its execution is awful: the dialogues are melodramatic and borderline atrocious, Jack Webb's direction is completely uninspired and atonal and his leading performance is wooden and dull. The other performances aren't that better either: Janet Leigh is extremely annoying in her paper-thin portrayal of the feisty love interest of Kelly and Edmond O'Brien is more a caricature rather than a threatening, menacing presence. Lee Marvin though is quite good in his subtle, nice performance. The cinematography is also good and the movie looks wonderful, but that's about it. 

Peggy Lee plays the role of Rose Hopkins, an alcoholic jazz singer as well as Frank McCarg's (O'Brien) moll. It's a difficult role that features some extremely tricky scenes to play while not having that much screen-time either and before seeing the movie I was actually expecting a very poor performance. Watching the movie, I was extremely surprised: Peggy Lee shows to be a surprisingly talented performer and while her inexperience can be felt throughout some scenes I truly believe that in the hands of a better director and in a better movie her performance could have been absolutely great. Sadly, Lee doesn't get any help from Jack Webb's direction and it's extremely frustrating to see a potentially great performance being hindered by the poor quality of the movie and the utter lack of skill of the director. In the hands of, say, Orson Welles, this performance could have been so much more: unfortunately, we only get glimpses of the performance this could have been but it's still a fine performance that easily stands out as the movie's strongest asset. Her first scenes are actually her best and as soon as she appeared I found myself tolerating the movie a little bit more: Lee does a very good job in making Rose the movie's most sympathetic character and in her voice you can feel the pain, the regret of what her life could have been and the sad memories of her broken dreams. I was extremely surprised by her ability to convey so much with so little and seems to be, along with Lee Marvin, the only cast member who isn't awkwardly dull or painfully hammy: instead, she portrays the role with subtlety and delicacy and her line reading of the line "Don't worry Frank, I can't reach that high anymore" after McCarg smashes her glass on the wall is filled with bitterness and poignant sadness. Her singing scenes are very good as well: of course her voice is beautiful but she also uses those scenes to add a bit of depth to the character - particularly in her execution of the song He needs me she projects wonderfully her character's self-destructive love for a man who treats her like an object.

Her performance unfortunately kind of gets lost in the middle and she has a few extremely difficult scenes that she isn't quite able to handle. The scene in which Rose gets drunk and cannot bring herself to sing is played rather poorly by Peggy Lee who adopts the most stereotypical type of drunk acting. Her line-readings are unconvincing and come off as false, her facial expressions are occasionally odd and her body movements feel overcooked or strangely robotic, as if she wasn't quite sure of what to do. The brief moment in which Rose falls on the stairs after being savagely beaten by McCarg is almost embarrassing because of how forced it feels. And then there is her final scene, in which Kelly goes to visit Rose who has been admitted to an asylum due to having "the brain of a five years old" after her beating: the concept of the scene is actually quite ridiculous but Lee astonishingly manages to make it work. She's actually very moving in her portrayal of Rose's mental state and she does a pretty great job in switching from moments of hopeless confusion to brief, small moments of lucidity. She has some truly heartbreaking line deliveries ("He was mean to my baby" or her last line "I have so many good friends") and her rendition of the childish tune she keeps singing is extremely haunting. Unfortunately, she isn't helped at all by Jack Webb who is dreadfully dull and undercuts slightly the impact of the scene. 

In the end, this is a good performance from Peggy Lee who has some truly great moments in the beginning and towards the end but who is unfortunately hindered by the movie's terrible direction, awful screenplay and also her inability due to her inexperience to handle her drunk scenes. Still, I admire the fact that she manages to rise above the movie's quality and even if under other circumstances her performance could have been better it's still a fine, moving turn. 

3/5