How the hell did Rosalind Russell lose the Oscar for Mourning becomes Electra?

The movie was so worthy and noble and arty no one went to see it.

OP, have you actually seen the movie? It is a chore to sit through. Unlike The Farmer's Daughter, which is an absolute delight of a film.

Because I'm not one of her FAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNS!!!!

The film has a great cast, serviceable direction and a script that adhere's quite well to O'Neill's play.

The last item is the problem with the movie. People want(ed) their prestige films to have some entertainment value, and didn't see the camp or have patience for what tragedy looks like when plopped (again) into New England.

Land's sakes. That's what the South is for!

Loretta Young was the better cocksucker.

Although she does a good job, Katina's the wrong choice to play the mother. The performances are excellent and as R4 says, the film is remarkably faithful to the play. But there's something static about it. Maybe the glacial pace.

In her autobiography Rosalind talks about asking the director (paraphrasing) "Why do you keep using the establishing shot of the wagon outside the house?" He said "Those are the first, second and third act curtains." She wrote "Maybe someone should have told that to the audiences."

She only did MBE because the director had done Sister Kenny with her previously and it was a project that meant a great deal to her.

R2 Well having Michael Redgrave in his otter stage made the movie so much easier to watch.

I finally got around to watching MBE and it wasn’t as long and or boring as I thought maybe it would be. Roz was so sure she would win she was halfway out of her seat before Young’s name was read. Probably another split vote. Voters just didn’t warm to MBE and Russell, even though deserving, lost out. The other nominees, Crawford, McGuire and Hayward probably siphoned off votes RR needed to win.

"Remarkably faithful to the play"? MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA is a trilogy of plays. The PBS version from the late '70s took cuts and nonetheless required nearly 5 hours; the 1947 film runs 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Did Roz win any other Oscar nominations except for this and for "Auntie Mame"? She gives a fine dramatic performance in her really tricky role in "Night Must Fall," as the repressed paid companion to Dame May Whitty who is both attracted to Michael Redgrave but who also knows he's a killer.

She was one of those few Hollywood Golden Age actresses who was as good at drama as she was at comedy: Katharine Hepburn, Stanwyck, Dunne, and Margaret Sullavan were the others.

Bette Davis was as good or better as a dramatic actress than any of them, but she just wasn't good at comedy. Neither were De Havilland, Fontaine, Lupino, or Crawford.

In my opinion, it was a hammy performance and one of Roz's worst. She was so good in so many films and deserved it for Auntie Mame, as well as a bunch of others.

I was cheated out of an Oscar too. But I'm still young and have plenty of time. I'm thinking of playing Louise to Lady Gaga's Mama Rose in the new theatrical release of GYPSY!! Barbra Streisand is already casted as Mister Goldstein.

I'm learning to strip. This is not easy for a shy catholic girl, but we're determined to have a HIT!!

R9, that's odd (not doubting you though). I'd read the play prior to seeing the movie and it seemed like they got everything from the play into the film.

It was Robert Montgomery in Night Must Fall, not Michael Redgrave, R10.

r10, Rosalind Russell was nominated four times as Best Actress:

My Sister Eileen (1942)

Sister Kenny (1946)

Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)

Auntie Mame (1958)

Was she any good in Sister Kenny? There's no way Olivia deserved 2 Oscars.

She's fine, r16, but the Oscar should've gone to Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter.

Oops forgot her R17 totally agree.

She could have won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "Picnic" where she tears up the screen. She declined to be nominated because she didn't want to settle for Supporting.

I liked Kirk Douglas but he's terrible in this (and in The Glass Menagerie, too) and it brings down the whole film. A little editing and replacing Kirk and the film would have been much better.

I think her role in "Picnic" is so embarrassing that it's hard for almost any actress to pull if off, though I'm grateful she pulled off William Holden's shirt, even if the studio did make him shave his chest.

Her next movie after MBE, THE VELVET TOUCH (48) is a hoot. She plays an Actress who kills! Not the people. But her luvvah.

I think she's great in Picnic. Her desperation and hysteria as a late middle aged woman with no luck seeing her life going down the tubes is perfect. You would think just about everyone on DL would get it.

Well....to paraphrase a critic....watching Rosalind Russell in PICNIC is like seeing your mother drunk. You are embarrassed for her, but there's really nothing you can about it....

She's a bit hammy in Picnic. The other women in supporting parts are so much better. If she'd made the character a little more sympathetic and chewed the scenery a little bit less, it would have been a much better performance.

She should have won for His Girl Friday.

R26 she wasn't even nominated that year. That year had some of the strongest female performances of classical Hollywood.

Isn't Baby Jane comedic?

Supposedly the competition between Young and Russell was extremely close, with Young winning by just a handful of votes. I'd go with Nancy Davis's comment at R5

And they should have taken the Oscar back for that atrocity of a dress Loretta wore - Scarlett's drapes on steroids!

This movie makes me nervous.

I liked her in "Night Must Fall" too, as well as many of her early comedies. I don't think her performance in "Mourning Becomes Electra" is one of her best; as others have said, something got lost in adapting the play for the screen and nothing really works. There's a TV adaptation form 1978 with Roberta Maxwell as Lavinia: has anyone seen it?

1971

She was a B level actress as far as talent. More like a B minus in hindsight.

R29, Young looks like The Bride of the Creature of the Black Lagoon in that dress.

I book I used to have described it as a gown clearly not meant to walk up steps, inferring that even Loretta thought Russell was going to win. Right after winning she said to someone, "What am I going to tell Roz?".

R35 When she got to the stage Young made presenter Fredric March show her the card with her name on it just to be sure. I think nearly everyone was convinced Roz would win. Loretta said after the ceremony when reporters asked her don’t say poor Roz she will go onto to win her own Oscar. She did an honorary one.

Gown without the jacket

She looks like a toilet paper cosy.

Huh. Imagine that! I've listened to Mourning Becomes Electra every day on KCRW and not a peep about Rosiland Russell.

Oh dear, r39.

I saw the 1978 PBS version with Maxwell, Joan Hackett as Catherine, Bruce Davison as Orin and Peter Weller as Capt. Niles. It was very good and much better than the 1947 film. It's also about 5 hours long as opposed to 2 1/2 like the film.

For one thing the actors in the PBS version seem more like a credible family as opposed to the combo of Russell, Redgrave, Massey, and especially Paxinou (who is really out of place). Second, you can believe Hackett and Weller as lovers, which is impossible with Paxinou and Leo Genn. Third, it's just better acted in general (especially Hackett) - Russell seems like she's trying to be a "great lady actress" in her performance. Maxwell really gets the crazy manipulative nature of Lavinia.

It's interesting that the play rarely gets revived. Helen Mirren and Eve Best did a production in London that was supposed to be terrific but never made it to the U.S. The only NYC production in recent years I can recall is a disastrous one done off-Broadway, with a miscast Lili Taylor as Catherine and an amateurish Jenna Malone as Lavinia, directed by the talent-free Scott Elliott. I walked out of it as it was just awful.

There was the 1971 production. See r32...

In the early '00s, there was a production that played Seattle and New Haven, starring Jane Alexander and a then-unknown Mireille Enos. I saw it in Connecticut and was underwhelmed (and I know the original plays very well). I had a ticket to see the Lili Taylor/Jenna Malone one that R31 mentioned, but dismal reviews resulted in its folding even before its "limited" run was scheduled to do so.

This is a play that could use Jessica Lange and Lily Rabe.

In the original Broadway production, Lavinia was Alice Brady and Christine was Alla Nazimova. Would love to have seen them.