Best Actress 1962, Part 4: Katharine Hepburn and "Long Day's Journey into Night" 

I think that Katherine Hepburn was absolutely heartbreaking as Mary Tyrone in Long Day Journey into Night and I think that 1962 was a really great year for female performances. I think that there was a case of each of the nominees could had won and nobody would be mad about who won because each performance by the nominees were absolutely brilliant and wonderful

I had no knowledge of the play when I watched the film for the first time, but I must say that I was awestruck by Hepburn's performance. It was a bravura performance in every sense of the word. I haven't seen it in years but her performance haunts me still and refuses to leave my memory. 1962 was just a great lineup for Best Actress.

Ms Hepburn deserved the Oscar for this brilliant piece of work far more than for her win for “Guess Who..”

The best actress of 1962. The Festival of Cannes winner. Her best role, along with "Lion in winter". Only the great Bette Davis could match her that year.

This film and The Lion in Winter are her final mature achievements.

She is extraordinary in this role. She rides the rollercoaster of vulnerability, rage, and desperation like she never had before. I always feel, though, that her last appearance dragging the wedding gown is where she remains too sharp and vivid. We hear James say that she'll be a ghost by tonight but she still recites the already familiar lines too clearly. By then I picture her slurring far more and being truly out of it. A small nit to pick in the face of such overall brilliance. And the final close up shots of each them are absolutely shattering. Unforgettable film.

Fantastic overview of one of the great performances. Thank you for giving Hepburn's astounding work full merit, when often her singular achievement in "Long Day's" is overlooked in discussions of the 1962 Best Actress race. It's nice to finally see it placed front-and-center for praise, where it belongs.

You knocked this one out of the park.

14:18 You should have said WHY Katharine did the spitting. It was for brutal maltreatment of the already-fragile Montgomery Clift. Brava to Kate! 🙏🌹

I think Dean Stockwell was so underrated.

Yes, this is a masterclass in acting, despite what Hepburn said about the art, because of course, she wasn't acting, she was bearing her soul. Because she had been a screen legend for decades, she knew exactly how to play the part for maximum effect. She certainly couldn't have done this in the 30s (some call her film heyday). Also, you have to give credit to the great instincts of director, Sidney Lumet and the great cameraman, Boris Kaufman, for capturing the performance so artfully and without which the film might not be the film classic it is today. Thanks!

Long Day's Journey into Night was a remarkable movie, I've seen it many times. Jason Robards perhaps a bit old for the role, but we'll overlook that because the principals worked together so well as an ensemble, as a family. I was always lukewarm on Katharine Hepburn until this brilliant performance, but her Mary Tyrone won me over. I don't begrudge Anne Bancroft her Oscar win that year as her performance was deserving of the honor. It was just one of those years you wish for something statistically very rare: a tie.

Katharine Hepburn is one of the few actresses who has given me goosebumps and been a revelation several times in her career, usually it happens once at best. Her performances in this movie, the lion in winter, the philadelphia story, bringing up baby and suddenly, last summer and for the ages and should be seen by anyone with an interest in acting.

Kate was mighty proud o her work in Long Day's Journey into Night. It was rumoured she actually called up many columnists incl Louella n Hedda to promote the pic!! The one n only time she ever went outta her way to campaign. But she disappeared right after she got the nom. I believe if she had cont her campaign, she might hav won her 2nd oscar for this

I had the great good luck to see Jason Robards in this- NYC Broadway. Long play!

I had forgotten the problem of the newspaper strike in NYC; i remembered that this was the reason that the New York Film Critics Circle did not give out its awards that year (would Anne Bancroft have won?). That played a large part in the "popular" reception for LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT: without reviews (and in terms of nationwide coverage, the initial NYC reviews were crucial; Pauline Kael would rail about this when she was in San Francisco, as so apparent in her book I LOST IT AT THE MOVIES) there was no chance for the film to attract an audience. Yet the magnificence of Katharine Hepburn's work was so apparent that her Oscar nomination was almost a foregone conclusion. The thing is: it is a triumph in so many ways, and largely because, on first glance, Katharine Hepburn is not ideal casting. The part of Mary Tyrone is that of a woman from an Irish Catholic background: that is about as far from Katharine Hepburn's very WASP background as you can get. The religiosity which informs the character is also very far from the freethinking family background of the Houghton-Hepburn clan. When Hepburn played Jo in LITTLE WOMEN, it was "ideal" casting: everything about the part (the freethinking WASP background) found its perfect equivalent in Katharine Hepburn. But here, there is so much "friction" between Hepburn and the part, and she really must push herself beyond her limits in order to express the full character of this part. That she had the resources to do that is a testament to her ambitions as an artist. And i should just say your analysis is brilliant, equal to the task of explicating this brilliant performance.

Vielen Dank, Fritz ! Dieser Samstag ist mit deinem Video schon besser.❤❤❤❤

Thank you for this. Very well done.

I LOVE Katherinnes work beyond Guess Who's Coming To Dinner but THIS is one of best parts--she made me REMEMBER my craziness in MY life--I was depressed in my late 20's LOL- (NOT late in life I realize--but She Did MAKE me remember THAT as I Watched This!

Fritz....this actress series is ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC ! 🤩 I am enjoying it IMMENSELY & watching them ALLLLLL ! 😂👍❤️ Thanks soooo much for all the details, facts and your passion for film & theater.

Excellent video …. I learned a lot thank you

The winner of the Oscar for 1962 is Anne Bancroft in "The Miracle Worker."

I read a comment somewhere else that the Academy got it backwards and that Kate should have won in '62 for Long Day's Journey and Anne Bancroft should have won in '67 for The Graduate. But basically yeah...

Can’t wait to hear your review on bette and Anne’s performances,

This is wonderful documentary. And well researched. What a wonderful channel! The play is great, and that production was fabulous. It doesn't get the credit it deserves for the reasons you articulated here: Tennessee Williams was saucy. O'Neil more cerebral. Hepburn deserved the Oscar [but so did Geraldine Page that year], and it's shocking the film only received one nomination. A sad twist for Kate around the timing of the film. About 10 years before, her radical mother, a feminist, union supporter, supporter of the Soviet Union, and co-founder of Planned Parenthood, had died just weeks before Kate had to fly to Africa to film "The African Queen." So, here she was in 1962 with a film to complete and this time her father on her mind.

everyone talks about Hepburn's 4 Oscars- but when she did this- she had only won once and that was 29 years earlier- she was due for a second and this would have been perfect- but there are those years when 3 actresses split the vote- this was one such year. 1950 had Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson splitting the vote- letting Judy Holiday come through the middle. In 2017 Glenn Close and Lady Gaga split it letting Olivia Coleman thread the needle... this year- 1962- we had Kate and Bette Davis splitting it and Bancroft took it. Each time, one actress took and early lead and began to decline as the ward drew near and a second coming on strong at the end, as she rose and the other fell, the 3rd kept a strong middle ground between them. The week before, the first would have won- a week later the surging one would have won- at this perfect time- the 3rd one won.

If you don't know this movie, you are NOT a Katharine Hepburn fan. It's one of the five greatest performances by any actor ever put on film. As for Oscar blunders, Hepburn losing to Bancroft is right there with Garland losing to Kelly.

Nowadays Mary is rightfully placed front and centre..when you mentioned the word ghostly that I think is the key element to Mary as a character as when she is not on screen the ghost of her presence remains...this was exemplified in Vanessa Redgrave's occasionally breathtaking work as Mary, playing her as a figure seemingly lost in opiated haze and delusion...Jessica Lange is a Dionysian actress so her Mary had an edge that was akin to Kate's Apollonian skills but with a sensuality that implies something darker....The one performance of Mary I would love to have seen is Gwen Ffrancon Davies which Glenda Jackson once stated was the only performance she saw in her lifetime she could describe as great....

One day please do a review on Reese vs Felicity Huffman 😂

What made you decide to focus on this year?

Initially the casting for the two elder Tyrone’s were to be Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. She would have been brilliant, far better than Hepburn. But then I also heard that Spencer Tracy was to play James Tyrone, but I wish Leigh had done it instead. She was far more subtle than Hepburn.

Love 14:18-14:24!

Never quite bought her in this role. Mary Tyrone needs softer, put-upon, insecure and passive/aggressive qualities which by temperament (and the many roles we have already seen her in) Hepburn is too far away from. Even on the clip provided in which Mary longs for the person she once was and "would pray to her"--- what talented Kate does is rather empty. If I were to apply the word "miracle" to a performance of hers it would be for "Summertime" I will go so far as to say what she does in "Long Day's Journey," even throws off the balance of the filmed play. For anyone interested in a "behind the curtain" view into the life of Miss Hepburn I recommend "Kate Remembered" by her good friend A. Scott Berg, as startling in some ways as the book written about Marlene Dietrich by her daughter. Nice research, Fritz!

Not when the majority of film goers have NOT even a 3rd grade education, Ms. Hepburn!!

Fritz take ur HEAD & shove u know where!