1943 – Katina Paxinou
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Katina Paxinou took home the Oscar for her performance in this film. But outside of this movie, I’ve never even heard her name. She was very good and she deserved her award, but now I have to wonder what else she was in. Well, she was only in fifteen films, and I’ve never heard of any of them. She got her start doing stage work in Greece, and some of her movies were in Italian
She did a fantastic job here, playing Pilar, an unattractive and strong willed woman who wrests the leadership of a band of anti-fascist guerillas from her husband, Pablo, during the Spanish Civil War. She is a powerful woman who is ultimately disappointed with her husband who used to be a strong leader and revolutionary, but who is now a drunkard and a coward. She is quick to anger, quick to smile, and ready to hold a gun when it is necessary. And I love the way Paxinou played it. She cared for her men like a mother cares for her children. Pilar was always ready with a sharp tongue or an open smile, whatever was required. I loved the scene where she agrees to let her men execute her husband for betraying them
And it was a bit of a minor plot point that she was an unattractive woman, and she knew it. In fact she even had a pretty hefty monologue about how she was ugly, but men loved her anyway, and she joked about stealing the American away from Maria. It was the kind of scene that made you fall in love with her. But looking at a glamour photo of the actress, I can see how they had to give her a thorough makeup job to make the attractive woman appear ugly. But this was still the early days of Technicolor, and I think they were still trying to figure out color. Both Pilar and Pablo had a lot of makeup on their faces to try to make them look ethnically Spanish, and they just ended up looking dark brown, or sometimes a weird gray.
And in the last few scenes of the film, Paxinou really pulled out all the stops. She picked up a rifle and proved she was just as tough as any man, and I loved her even more for it. She completely deserved the Oscar she won. She was just that good. It’s too bad she wasn’t in more American films. I was thoroughly impressed. Paxinou really knocked this one out of the park.