Best Actor 1944

[Mister Tee]

It was indeed harder to find info on historical Oscar nominations in the 60s. I began delving into it around 1965 -- like Magilla, scouring the Information Please Almanac, which gave me only the winners in the top five categories (they did have the NY Critics' winners, as well). Later I ran across a book called A Pictorial History of the Academy Awards, which gave the non-winning nominees for picture/actor/actress, and, soon after, found a paperback (Hollywood and the Academy Awards) that had the remainder of the acting nominees. But it wasn't till I tracked down Academy Awards Illustrated (by Robert Osborne, maybe?) at a library that I finally had the full panoply of nominees from the beginning. This was in the early 70s some time.

It wasn't that easy to get current information then, either, beyond top categories. As late as the late 70s/early 80s, I had to wait for weekly Variety to come out before I was able to get all the tech nominees for a ballot.

Mike, I'm sure you're right, that the skewed universe in which we dwell makes us assume a level of general Oscar/filmic knowledge that is way beyond reality. But at least the information is there for all those who want it. I remember when I used to have to buy a New York Post (the only paper that seemed to report it) on Monday afternoon to find out who won the Directors' Guild Award the preceding Saturday. Now, even if you're not fanatic enough to sit up and read the results online, you can find it reported in about a hundred media outlets.

[Mike Kelly]

I guess it was the 60s when I got all caught up in the Oscars. I never made alternate lists, but I remember spending most of my time at the University of Miami library reading Variety, and reviews by Hollis Alpert, Jay Cocks, Arthur Knight, Judith Christ, Kael and Gilliatt etc. Not too many of my college friends were movie buffs. I remember meeting a girl at a college party once that not only saw The Swimmer, but knew who Frank Perry was and had seen David and Lisa. I think I asked her to marry me.

Today, it seems that the Internet has opened the floodgates with both movies and Award interest, but most people I know, both my age and younger could barely tell me the difference between The King's Speech and King Kong. It's still a niche hobby.

[Big Magilla]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but when I started thinking about who should have won Oscars when I was in my teens, there were no books other than annual almanacs and all they told you was who won. As I delved further into it, I discovered that a lot of people I thought should have at least been nominated, were, while others were not.

By the mid-sixties there were books available and I pretty much knew who was and who wasn't nominated. As late as 1965, however, this was still a specialized knowledge. When I was in the Army, the USO ladies had a contest on the Oscars just after the 1964 awards. I was sure I would ace it and gave all the right answers, but the morons running the thing - I don't use the word lightly, they were morons who had no business running something they knew nothing about - insisted that Margaret Hamilton won for The Wizard of Oz when she wasn't even nominated, and that the winners of the most recent Oscars were Mary Poppins for Best Picture and Lila Kedrova in Zorba the Greek for Best Actress.

In my own retrospective awards, I try to honor those films and performances that were well regarded at the time, but for some reason, often political, had no chance of winning.

[Mike Kelly]

Another advantage to the authors of alternate or hindsight awards is that they aren't limited to the actual nominees for any particular year. Danny Peary nearly splits his Best Actor Awards. For the 64 years he covers (and I wonder why he never did a follow-up book) he selected 34 winners that were nominees and 30 that weren't. It gave him the flexibility to award, for example, Cary Grant, for a film that played to his strengths (The Awful Truth).

[The Original BJ]

To quibble with one of your points, though: as I expressed in the 1942 thread, I don't think Cagney requires much in the way of historic perspective to win. He was a landslide winner with the NY critics, by all accounts a hugely popular Oscar choice, and both Peary and Michael Gebert (who also made revisionist yearly choices in his Encyclopedia of Film Awards) marked Cagney the easy choice. I've always thought of his Yankee Doodle Dandy work as one of the top ten least-disputed Oscar victories.

It's not the first time some opinions expressed here have taken me by surprise.

Oh, I totally agree with your take on the consensus re: Cagney. I was just expressing my personal reasoning for voting for him, and using it as an example for how perspective may affect voting (even if, for most, it wouldn't have any effect on their vote in THIS race.)

[Mister Tee]

Danny Peary, in his book Alternate Oscars, does largely what we're doing here: chooses the clear-best when he sees it, but, in ambiguous cases, finagles a bit so that as many of his favorites as possible end up with at least one prize. For example, for those of us who want to honor Fonda, but would take hemlock before we'd vote for On Golden Pond, Grapes of Wrath was an unavoidable (and easily justifiable) choice.

In a way, you can say we're doing just what the Academy does, only with benefit of hindsight.

To quibble with one of your points, though: as I expressed in the 1942 thread, I don't think Cagney requires much in the way of historic perspective to win. He was a landslide winner with the NY critics, by all accounts a hugely popular Oscar choice, and both Peary and Michael Gebert (who also made revisionist yearly choices in his Encyclopedia of Film Awards) marked Cagney the easy choice. I've always thought of his Yankee Doodle Dandy work as one of the top ten least-disputed Oscar victories.

It's not the first time some opinions expressed here have taken me by surprise.

[The Original BJ]

I wonder if our tendency to vote overwhelmingly for certain candidates in these years has anything to do with the fact that we have foreknowledge of the entire careers of these actors.

Fonda in '40 is no doubt an exemplary choice, but the field as a whole is quite solid; I wonder if the feeling that this was the best place to honor Fonda (both in terms of Grapes as a career peak AND the fact that so many of his future performances went un-nominated) had any effect on our collective decision, particularly when we also know that career peaks for Stewart and Olivier would come in years ahead. (I'm missing Massey from this field, so I didn't vote yet.)

I did vote in '42, for the Cagney landslide, but I stated when doing so that it was a close call for me. What tipped my vote was the fact that Cagney's was the most iconic performance of the five. Now that I think about it, isn't this like saying that Cagney got my vote because, over the past 70 seventy years, his performance has become so enshrined in the annals of film history that when I think about movie musicals, I think about the image of Cagney as Cohan? It's impossible for me to say whether or not my vote would have been different at the time.

I know there are times when we consciously admit these factors (i.e. giving a vote to Actor X because we know we'll vote for Actor Y later), but I wonder if there isn't an element of this that might be subconscious as well.

[Mister Tee]

Had I known it would be a runaway for Boyer (didn't see that coming at all. I just hoped he had enough to make it interesting against Crosby), I would've tossed my vote to Knox. I think I like Wilson more than most, but I also only saw it once, early in my cineducation.

Interesting that the forties have given us nothing BUT runaways. I wonder when that changes.

It's also interesting that there's no consistency to these runaway winners -- some were lionized at the time (Cagney especially), and some are major revisionist choices (as in Bogart). And the two succeeding years BJ cites are (unless I'm mistaken) likely to offer one of each of those as well.

The 30s were interesting, too, in that, from '35 through '39, we picked only one Oscar wnner (Tracy '37), but four NY Critics winners (the other four). Yet, in the five 40s years that followed, our only NY winner was also our only Oscar choice: Cagney.

[The Original BJ]

Interesting that the forties have given us nothing BUT runaways. I wonder when that changes.

Probably not in '45 or '46.

[Okri]

Had I known it would be a runaway for Boyer (didn't see that coming at all. I just hoped he had enough to make it interesting against Crosby), I would've tossed my vote to Knox. I think I like Wilson more than most, but I also only saw it once, early in my cineducation.

Interesting that the forties have given us nothing BUT runaways. I wonder when that changes.

[Big Magilla]

Wilson was Daryl F. Zanuck's pet production. Only The Longest Day eighteen years later would prove to be more of an obsession with him. The film is well made, but fairly by-the-book. Still, it's an interesting exploration of both American and world history leading up to, during and just after World War I. Alexander Knox is quite deserving of his nomination, but not of a win, although the actor himself seemed to have thought he should have won, famously remarking "I can't believe I lost to a crooner." Zanuck, himself, alluded to the film's loss when he won for producing Gentleman's Agreement three years later with the terse "this doesn't make up for past mistakes".

The supporting performances of both Ruth Nelson as the first Mrs. Wilson and Geraldine Fitzgerald as the second Mrs. Wilson are almost as good as Knox's. The second Mrs Wilson, as may not be generally known any more, was widely believed to have run the country during Wilson's recovery from his stroke, which almost led to his impeachment.

[Reza]

I should finally take all my courage and get Wilson through Amazon.com. It's really one of the few multi-nominated movies that I have never seen - impossible to find it in Italy.

Still, I'm reasonably sure that I wouldn't change my mind about my pick for this year - Charles Boyer, a memorable villain.

Wilson: It's great to look at because of the colour but deathly slow. Knox is not bad but not deserving of any award.



Edited By Reza on 1299127424

[ITALIANO]

I should finally take all my courage and get Wilson through Amazon.com. It's really one of the few multi-nominated movies that I have never seen - impossible to find it in Italy.

Still, I'm reasonably sure that I wouldn't change my mind about my pick for this year - Charles Boyer, a memorable villain.

[Bruce_Lavigne]

It's funny: I have less tolerance than just about anybody for clear leads receiving supporting nominations, and yet the inverse -- possibly because it's so rare, possibly because I feel (rightly or wrongly) that leading actors have an easier time getting attention than the ones who support them -- doesn't upset me in the least. I generally subscribe to the theory that if an argument can be made that a role is either lead or supporting, it should be nominated as a lead. So Barry Fitzgerald's category placement is fine by me. I'm not voting for him, but it's fine.

This is the first year in a while that doesn't include one of those undeniable performances I've talked about in past years. Crosby is fine and Fitzgerald is better in a perfectly enjoyable movie, but not win-worthy. Unlike most, I have no problem with either of Cary Grant's "serious" performances -- I actually think he does some of his best acting ever in Penny Serenade -- although I of course agree that they shouldn't be his only nominations. Still, no win. And Wilson is yet another movie from this era that I haven't seen, and don't feel particularly inspired to check out.

That leaves Boyer, who gets my vote -- not as easily as my past few votes, but enthusiastically all the same.

[Mister Tee]

So we're back to business in a jiffy as if yesterday Oscars never happened. How fitting.

For an assortment of reasons, this just feels like an Oscar season to which we all want to bid a quick goodbye, and hope for better ahead.

As to 1944...

I agree with most of the "should have been here" folk -- MacMurray (though only as nominee, as Stanwyck and Robinson dominate his film), Bracken, Andrews.

I can't work up huge enthusiasm for any of the actual nominees.

Alexander Knox is a worthy actor, but Wilson is a bio-pic in the least exciting tradition, and Knox, like the president he portrays, is no charismatic figure.

Bing Crosby has a couple of nifty line readings ("I'll bet you're the priest who's going to fix the trouble" "And I'll bet you're the trouble"), but mostly just breezes his way through like he usually does. Fine; not Oscar level.

I know we all disparage Cary Grant's two nominated performances because they're not Essential Cary. But I think his None But the Lonely Heart work is far better than Penny Serenade, and has its moving moments (particularly when he hears his mother has been arrested). I'm not voting for him, but I think he's a worthy nominee.

I have to confess I've never much liked Gaslight. I didn't see it till I was out of college, and during college I had worked on a production of Angel Street (the title under which the stage version had played NY). The play is just so much pulpy fun -- audiences reacted like they were at a kiddie matinee, cheering the detective, hissing the husband whenever he reappeared. I was rather astounded to find the film treated all this like it was some piece of immense seriousness. I can't fault the work of Boyer or Bergman, given the solemn framework within which they were working. But I just find the film's lack of humor/fun pointless, and, in the end, faintly dull, and can't select anyone from it.

I'm not going to strenuously argue that Barry Fitzgerald is the lead in Going My Way, but I do think he's the dominant and most memorable force in his film. I also have a tactical reason for choosing him here: it saves me from having to choose between him and Clifton Webb when we get to the supporting race this year. It's hardly an easy call -- I could almost abstain -- but in the end I'm going to go with the NY Critics and pick Fitzgerald.