1938 – Robert Morley
Marie Antoinette
Honestly, this nomination was a bit of a surprise for me. It isn’t that I think Robert Morley turned in a bad performance. I think he played the character very well, as it was written. It’s just that the character wasn’t very dynamic. It wasn’t a character that made the actor shine. For one thing, he didn’t have more than two facial expressions throughout the entire film. For another he didn’t do much of anything that caught my attention. He didn’t have any special dramatic moments, and he didn’t stand out to me for his skills as an actor. Or did he…?
Maybe that was the point of the character of King Louis XVI of France. He was supposed to me an emotionally stunted, timid, almost buffoonish man. He was sullen and depressed, and spent most of his screen time looking confused. And I’m beginning to think that this was a conscious choice on the actor’s part. He could very easily been more animated, and yet he reigned it all in to give that impression of ineptitude. Every once in a while, he fought back, rebelled against that royal upbringing that forced him to hide his emotions and deny any passionate feelings. And when that happened, a little anger crept into him, and a little self-confidence.
So maybe the part was a little harder to play than I’m giving him credit for. Maybe the performance was more subtle and more nuanced than I was thinking. Maybe the real challenge of the role was the actors ability to make the perpetual timidness and the extreme lack of self-confidence. If that was the case, then he was fairly good. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like it was a difficult emotion to portray, and the way the character was written, made it seem a little one-note.
And something else that I didn’t care for in the performance is that Morley spoke with a decidedly British accent. Now, I’ll admit that this might have simply been a product of the time. Any time they wanted someone to be snobby, wealthy, or high-class, Hollywood would simply give them that snooty British accent. Never-mind that he was a French king. And never-mind that there were other characters in the film that spoke with proper French accent. Oh well. I think this is just a case of the actor doing just fine, but the role not being especially Oscar-worthy.