1929-30 – Nancy Carroll
The Devil’s Holiday
Now here’s what I want in a Best Actress nomination. Nancy Carroll’s performance was incredible. Not only was the part written well, it was acted beautifully. There was drama, personality, a wide range of emotions, and a believable character arch. This is what so many other performances seem to lack, a good script and a bit of passion. There was an ease about her, a confidence that made her look completely comfortable in the lead role of the film.
She played Hallie Hobart, a gold-digger who cared nothing for men, except for the money she could get from them. The thought of falling in love was laughable to her. She wanted to be a carefree party-girl with exciting friends and beautiful clothes. So of course, we know what happens. When her con-man friend tells her of a mark, a rich young country rube in town to make a business deal for his father, she gets him to fall for her. She even marries him to have access to his family’s money, but in the end, she ends up falling in love with him.
This is where Nancy really got to show off her acting skills. The young man has fallen deeply in love with her, and when he is injured, she rushes to his side, prays over him in his sick-bed, and sheds tears of joy when he recovers. This really put the actress through her paces, and Carroll was up to the challenge. I’m finding that many actors of this era are turning in performances that are good, but not great. But Carroll was great, especially in these final scenes. Her frantic and selfless love was powerful to watch and I think she must have given the Oscar winner, Norma Shearer, a run for her money that year. But let’s face it. Shearer was a pretty hard one to beat. But Carroll was fantastic.
When I looked at a complete list of acting nominees, I was surprised to find that this was the only time Nancy Carroll every earned an Academy nomination. So I looked up what other movies she was in. There were only 39 films on the list. She stopped acting in movies around 1938, but then spent the 50s and early 60s acting for television. If any of her other performances were anything like The Devil’s Holiday, she should have been a bigger star than she apparently was.