10 Great Eva Marie Saint Performances to Stream
New York Times · LC · trust 27/100
From “On the Waterfront” to “North by Northwest,” Saint specialized in complex sympathetic women who did their best to weather domestic and cultural storms.
Share full article Eva Maire Saint, right, with Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront” (1954). Credit... Columbia Pictures By Scott Tobias
Doubling as high-water mark and statement of purpose, Saint’s first feature role won her the Oscar for best supporting actress and established her image as a complex “good woman” type, a moral standard-bearer set against an imperfect world. In “On the Waterfront,” Saint’s character is the first to take the fight to the mob-controlled union responsible for her brother’s murder and her decency both humbles and inspires a dockworker (Marlon Brando) into action. Brando’s groundbreaking performance tends to get most of the attention, but much of his tortured vulnerability comes in response to Saint, whose firm, quiet conviction stirs his slumbering conscience. The film stands as a rousing drama about doing the right thing and a pointed explanation for why the director Elia Kazan decided to “name names” before the House Committee on Un-American Activities two years earlier.
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‘A Hatful of Rain’ (1957) Offering itself as “The Lost Weekend” for morphine addiction, Fred Zinnemann’s white-hot melodrama, based on Michael V. Gazzo’s 1955 stage play, doesn’t do much more than cram four actors together in close quarters and turn up the gas. Set largely in a New York City housing project, “A Hatful of Rain” starts with a blowhard father (Lloyd Nolan) paying an unwanted visit to two sons, one of whom is a Korean War veteran (Don Murray) with a faithful wife (Saint) and a nice apartment, and the other of whom (Anthony Franciosa) he considers a loser. What he doesn’t realize is that the good son has a $40-a-day morphine habit and the bad son is going broke trying to keep his shady dealers at bay. Saint stands in the middle of this fireworks display, as her loyalty to her husband is tested by her feelings for his brother.
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