Surely Grace Kelly's acting career is tainted by a few damning moments:
1.) She is simply the least impressive performer in High Noon, which is an impressive movie.
2.) She was nominated for two Oscars, but both nominations are dubious; Mogambo was a decadent, Technicolor epic in Africa that skimped on great acting moments and splurged on zebras, and in The Country Girl -- for which Kelly won the Academy Award -- she's downright miscast as the stoic, long-suffering wife Georgie Elgin. (It doesn't help that Kelly won the Oscar over Judy Garland, the towering favorite in the 1954 Best Actress race for her work in A Star is Born.)
3.) Of course, plenty of Grace Kelly's 11 films are duds. The Bridges at Toko-Ri? Green Fire? The remake of The Swan, co-starring my husband Louis Jourdan? Even High Society? All non-classic.
But avast: That leaves three films whose greatest moments come courtesy of Grace Kelly. They're Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief, three Hitchcock gems that combine the director's love for intrigue, feminine subversion, and glamor. Hitchcock understood Kelly's latent gall and always challenged it in his pictures. In Dial M, Kelly thwarted her own murder and fought for justice against the haunting Ray Milland. In To Catch a Thief, she traded barbs with Cary Grant and proved privy to his cat burglar past. And in Rear Window, she forced herself in front of the handicapped Jimmy Stewart, broke into the sinister apartment across the courtyard that captivated him so, and brazenly cast herself as the star of his voyeuristic fantasy. I like to say she invented Madonna with that move. If the most essential part of an actor's job is command, then surely Stanislavsky would take down notes when watching Grace Kelly break and enter.
Do you think Grace Kelly is a rightful screen legend? Does it help that she's perhaps the single most gorgeous star of all time? Does it hurt at all? And who here is really jealous of Toronto right now?
ยท TIFF Scores Coup with Grace Kelly Exhibition [Toronto Star]