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HUMPHREY BOGART, left, should have won the Oscar in 1943 for "Casablanca," but the Academy voted it instead to PAUL LUKAS, right, for "Watch on the Rhine," a film hardly anybody watches anymore. Bogart finally won his Oscar in 1951 for "The African Queen." |
Nobody ever accused the
Oscar voters of perfection
By JIM BAWDEN
of TheColumnists.com
Of course, Oscar
does make mistakes–lots of them.
I remember as an adolescent, watching with mouth open as Liz
Taylor was named Best Actress of 1960 for the dog awful "BUtterfield
8."
When I asked Deborah Kerr about it years later–I thought
her nominated performance in "The Sundowners" was the
year’s best--she shrugged and joked, “But I did
not have a tracheotomy.” (Elizabeth Taylor had just
recovered from a serious bout with pneumonia during which she'd
had a tracheotomy. Many observers felt Academy members had favored
her with a "sympathy" vote because of her near-death
experience.)
There are some other Oscar choices that really get to me, In
some cases I wasn’t even born when these classic critical
bloopers were made.
Here’s a roundup of my personal choice of Oscar’s 10
Worst Ever Mistakes:
1. "CAVALCADE"
WINS BEST PICTURE OF 1932-33.
I just saw "Cavalcade" for the second time. Was it
really the best picture of the year? I don't think so. There
are hugely staged scenes, but the tableaux look awfully stilted
today. Of the 10 nominated pictures that year, I much prefer
"42nd Street" or "I Am A Fugitive From A Chain
Gang."
"Cavalcade" is viewed these days as a bit of an oddity.
But what’s really crazy is the complete absence of "King
Kong" among nominated pictures. When I interviewed star
Fay Wray, she explained that this was the last year when the
Academy split the period of eligibility between two years. That
year the nominees were picked from films released during the
second half of 1932 and the first half of 1933. Movies released
in the second half of 1933 were not eligible because the Academy
switched to the calendar year 1934 next time around.
That meant "King Kong" couldn't contend for Best Picture of 1932-33 nor could Greta Garbo's 1933 performance in "Queen Christina" be considered for Best Actress.
Whatever the reason. "Cavalcade" does not deserve its Oscar.
2. PAUL LUKAS WINS BEST
ACTOR OF 1943.
Does anybody ever say, “I just saw Paul Lukas in 'Watch on the Rhine' and loved him?” Not! Nobody sees the film these days, a turgid flag waver of World War II. Indeed, the British National Theater once announced a new production of the play, but it was quickly cancelled because it’s merely a grab bag of outdated patriotic speeches.
The real winner that year should have been Humphrey Bogart as Rick in "Casablanca." There’s an iconic performance in a movie still cherished these days. So what happened?
Both actors were in movies made by Warner Brothers, but Lukas had starred in the well-received original Broadway play version of "Watch on the Rhine," which always impresses some voters. And just maybe some patriots were troubled by Rick’s lack of patriotic fervor through much of "Casablanca" and voted accordingly.
"Casablanca" did win as best
picture, but it’s significant to know that Ingrid Bergman
asked that her performance as Maria in "For Whom The Bell
Tolls" be considered over her performance as Ilsa in "Casablanca."
And, boy, was she wrong. Voters picked Jennifer Jones in "The
Song of Bernadette," a performance of mind-aching awfulness,
and overlooked Bergman.
3. INGRID BERGMAN WINS
BEST ACTRESS OF 1944.
One of the great heists in movie history was Ingrid Bergman winning the Oscar for "Gaslight" when it should have gone to Barbara Stanwyck for her murderous femme fatale in "Double Indemnity." It was a consolation Oscar for Bergman, who was so moving and beautiful in "Casablanca," but didn't win. Hollywood often says it's "sorry" by giving somebody an Oscar the following year that they should have won the year before.
Bergman was okay as the woman husband Charles
Boyer is trying to drive insane in "Gaslight," but
she was a large woman who scarcely seems to be fading away from
terror. Bergman’s award was akin to the one Jimmy Stewart
got for "The Philadelphia Story" in 1940, which was
sort of an effort to make up for the fact that he didn't get
one for "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" the year before.
Why did they overlook Stanwyck? Don’t forget Oscar has an
unproud history of ignoring controversial performances. Jimmy
Cagney wasn’t even nominated for two of his best performances
as gangsters in "The Public Enemy" (1931) and "White
Heat" (1949). Stanwyck’s turn as the visceral murderess
Phyllis Dietrichson, all dolled up in cheap finery, has never
been topped. It gave her a whole new career as a driven female.
And it is the one 1944 performance people seem to remember as
outstanding.
4. GRACE KELLY WINS BEST
ACTRESS OF 1954.
About the 1954 awards one thing was certain: Judy Garland was
going to win the Oscar for "A Star is Born" -- or so
the pundits predicted. Garland was in the hospital recovering
from the birth of her son and a camera crew was stationed to
record every moment. Then newcomer Grace Kelly up and walked
away with the Oscar for "The Country Girl," much to
Judy’s chagrin.
It was another case of Hollywood bestowing
its favor on an emerging new star. The same thing had happened
the year before with Audrey Hepburn and "Roman Holiday."
Viewed in the clear light of day, Kelly is more than adequate
and the film a satisfactory version of the Clifford Odets play.
Having Bing Crosby and Bill Holden as the male book ends certainly
did not hurt. But Garland is in another dimension of excellence
in "A Star is Born." Maybe voters were afraid to bestow
the award on somebody who was plainly having an up and down career
in terms of emotions. Maybe people were afraid the bad Judy would
show up Oscar night and misbehave on live TV? Her loss was a
big career letdown for her. She didn't make another film in the
Fifties.
5. JUDY HOLLIDAY WINS
BEST ACTRESS OF 1950
This was one of those curious cases when Hollywood could not make up its collective mind. Would it be Bette Davis as Margo Channing, giving what many thought was her all-time best performance, in "All About Eve" (my choice)? Or Gloria Swanson as silent movie siren Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard," surely one of the greatest comebacks of all time. It was hard to make a decision because both performances were great. And the characters of Margo and Norma went on to immortality in Broadway musical versions of the two movies.
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won the Best Actress Oscar in 1950, but it should have gone to Bette Davis, who gave the best performance of her career in "All About Eve." |
Bette Davis once told me she’d felt splitting votes with Anne Baxter was her downfall. Baxter, who co-starred with Davis in "All About Eve," refused to ask the Academy to put her in the Supporting Actress category because she already had a supporting Oscar, won back in 1946 for "The Razor's Edge," and wanted to get one for Best Actress. She felt she had a good chance because Davis already had two Best Actreses Oscars, for "Dangerous" in 1935 and "Jezebel" in 1938.
Gloria Swanson just felt she’d made too many enemies over the decades. Nobody seemed to think the fifth nominee--Eleanor Parker--had much of a chance to win for her role as a wrongly-imprisoned female convict in "Caged."
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category and BETTE DAVIS, right, felt they split the vote for Best Actress in 1950, letting Judy Holliday walk away with it. |
So, newcomer Judy Holliday slipped in to
win for her dim-witted blonde in "Born Yeserday," a
role she'd played to great acclaim on Broadway. She’s a
joy to behold in the role, but she’s the same as in most
of her movies. Both Bette and Gloria didn’t have many “A”
pictures left in them and, as it turned out, neither did Holliday,
who died young in 1965.
6. "AROUND THE WORLD
IN 80 DAYS" WINS BEST PICTURE OF 1956.
I was just a small kid when the 1956 winners were announced. And even then I couldn’t believe that rambling mess "Around the World in 80 Days" could garner the best picture award. I’m not sure which one I wanted to win back then, but it certainly was not "The Ten Commandments." My whole Sunday school class was bussed down to the Imperial cinema and that film took an entire afternoon to unspool. In fact, some critics have said this year marked the nadir of the Hollywood movie.
One of the other nominees, "The King and I," has an obviously dubbed Deborah Kerr doing the singing. "Friendly Persuasion" is too twee. And "Giant" is one mighty giant of a bore.
But left out was the greatest western ever
made by John Ford--or anybody else for that matter, "The
Searchers." Why was it so ignored? I’m thinking the
voters felt they’d given too many Oscars to old Jack Ford
over the decades and enough was enough. But "The Searchers"
has grown in stature since then and when was the last time anybody
even mentioned renting the DVD of "Around the World In 80
Days"?
7. CHARLTON HESTON WINS
BEST ACTOR OF 1959.
Shirley Knight said it, not me: “Hollywood is where they give awards for acting to Charlton Heston.” Ouch! Look, I’ve loved "Ben-Hur" since I first saw it in 1959 at Loew’s in Toronto. The chariot race is one of cinema’s greatest achievements. And Heston holds it all together with his grace and virility. But…but –it’s not so much a nuanced performance as simply being there as the physical essence of a Biblical era hero.
By contrast, Jack Lemmon in "Some Like It Hot" is versatility itself. One bad move and the implied vulgarity of playing a man passing for a woman could have popped out. It’s the supreme moment for farce in movie history and it still plays as fresh as when I first saw it. I would have given Heston's Oscar to Lemmon. I also don’t understand why Marilyn Monroe was completely ignored. They should have bumped Liz Taylor off the nominee list for "Suddenly, Last Summer" and put Marilyn in her place.
8. PAUL NEWMAN WINS BEST
ACTOR OF 1986.
I can’t totally begrudge Paul Newman the Oscar for "The Color of Money." For decades the Academy turned its back on him because he was an outsider. It’s just that I consider his work in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," "The Hustler" and "Cool Hand Luke" to be far better performances in every way. In "Color of Money," Newman was reprising his role from "The Hustler" and is listless at best.
Dennis Hopper was nominated that year as
best supporting actor for "Hoosiers," but he deserved
a Best Actor win for a magnificent turn as the scary psycho Frank
Booth in David Lynch’s "Blue Velvet" that year.
There’s no way Oscar voters would ever nominate yet alone
give an Oscar to anyone in such an eccentric film. David Lynch
did get a nomination for director, but that was as far as the
mind-bending black comedy went in terms of Oscar glory. Nothing
for Dennis Hopper, who wasn't real popular anyway because of
his well-known drug habits in the past.
9. "TITANIC"
WINS BEST PICTURE OF 1997.
"Titanic" was a marvelous achievement in terms of special effects, but this epic quickly sinks at sea with stereotypical characters, plodding, obvious direction and two sticky leads who look like mall rats from 1997 and not star-crossed Edwardian lovers. Filled with historical bloopers, it dreams up a purely fictitious plot to have Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslett hug and kiss all over the ship. Final incongruous moment has cuckolded Billy Zane chasing the lovers about with a gun. Why didn’t director James Cameron concentrate on the actual events. Then he would have made a corker of a film drama.
Dare I suggest the best film really was the less expensive, but completely compelling version of the James Ellroy novel "L.A. Confidential"? Featuring stand out performances from Kim Basinger, Russell Crowe , Guy Pearce and Kevin Spacey. Basinger did collect a supporting actress Oscar, but the film itself should have won the big one. There, I rest my case.
10. "THE KING'S SPEECH"
WINS BEST PICTURE OF 2010.
Until the very last moment, it seemed the brightly written social satire about Facebook, "The Social Network," would win the Best Picture award. After all; the American Film Institute named it movie of the year. The Boston Film Critics named it best picture. It won the Critics Choice award from the Broadcast Film Critics plus best picture from the Central Ohio Film Critics Competition, Chicago Film Critics, and best foreign film from Cinema Brazil, Cinama Writers Circle (Spain), Cesar Awards (France). You name the award, it got it.
But what "The Social Network"
lacked was the huge bag of money tossed voters’ way in Hollywood
in terms of print ads and TV promotion. And, remember, Academy
voters are an older, conservative lot and few are on Facebook
at all. So they settled for "The King’s Speech,"
respectable middle of the road fare. And who could argue? It
was the safe choice. But not the right one.
©2012 by Jim Bawden. This column first posted Feb. 20, 2012.
JIM BAWDEN is the former TV columnist for The Toronto Star. A lifelong studnet of film, he has written for most of the respected film publications.
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