Snugglecub – Page 25 – Academy Award Best Picture Winners

1938 – Walter Brennan (WINNER)

1938 – Walter Brennan

Kentucky

Walter Brennan created a great character. A walking stereotype, but a great character. He was the crotchety old grandpa with a kind heart… well, kind to everybody except his life-long rival. That was what so wonderful about the role, and sadly what made him a little one-note at the same time. But you have to give Brennan credit for being consistent from his first on-screen appearance to his last.

Brennan is a great character actor. He has one of those faces that I remember seeing often enough in other films, always a supporting character, and never a lead. But he was so good at it. He was one of those actors who really inhabited a role. Brennan’s acting could be said to be like a simple painting. Painting something simple is tricky because it is so easy, you think anyone could do it, when in reality, if it isn’t done flawlessly, it is more likely to be seen as terrible. Brennan’s acting was like that. It could so easily have been a throw-away performance, but because he was such a skilled actor, he elevated the simple character to a higher level.

Brennan’s acting elevated the way the part was written into the script. He made the cranky old man likeable, and gave him a softer side that was always under the surface. And the fact is, I liked him. I liked the old coot, just as I was supposed to, despite his grouchy demeanor.

I also noticed that all the publicity photos of the actor I have seen, show Brennan as a younger and more clean-cut gentleman. He grew a van-dyke for the role, and it looked completely natural on his face, even though he didn’t even look like the same person. When I was watching the movie, it took me a moment to recognize him from his other film roles and publicity pics.

However, all that being said. I’m not sure if I would have awarded Brennan the Oscar. You see, I have also now seen Gene Lochkart in Algiers, and I think, I might have cast my vote for him. I’m certainly not saying that Brennan was undeserving. I’m just saying, if it had been up to me, it would have been a close call.

1938 – Robert Morley

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.

1938 – Fay Bainter

1938 – Fay Bainter

Jezebel

This was Fay Bainter’s second Oscar nomination, but her first in a supporting role. For some reason, in my mind, I am constantly confusing her with Spring Byington, and have sometimes made the joke that they must be the same person, since you never see them on the screen at the same time. But here, that theory is debunked. Bainter’s performance as Miss Julie’s Aunt Belle was more than competent, and she stood out, even against the accomplished Byington.

The character of Aunt Belle, to be honest, was a little one note. For the most part, her job was to stand in the background and look worried because of how horrible Julie was being. But she did have a few moments, especially in the latter half of the movie, where she showed a deeper side. She showed some fear when the rumors of Yellow Fever began to circulate. She has a scene where she was horrified at the idea of Preston being taken to a leper colony, observing that he would have no chance of survival there.

So, Bainter played the character of Julie’s Aunt, but the film never explained where her parents were. Julie was described as spoiled, so I have to think that it was Aunt Belle who did the spoiling. She certainly did nothing to discipline the girl, but granted, at the time the movie takes place, Julie was old enough that she was beyond being disciplined, though it might have indicated an indulgent upbringing.

So was it Aunt Belle’s fault that Julie was so spoiled? Maybe. Could Aunt Belle have put her foot down and insisted that Julie wear white to the Olympus Ball? Possibly. Should she then have been at least a little bit responsible for the catastrophe that followed? And did these things come through, even a little bit, in Bainter’s performance? I think maybe they did. I think there was a little shame in the constant worry, and that was what Fay Bainter brought to the character.

So, I found Bainter’s performance good, but not great. It was clear that this wasn’t her first rodeo, but I’m not certain if the performance was strong enough for an Oscar win. I’ll have to watch the other nominees, and judge for myself.

1938 – Bette Davis

1938 – Bette Davis

Jezebel

Here we are with another Oscar for Bette Davis. The Academy sure loved her, and with good reason. She had an unconventional beauty and she could act. This was only the third of her career total of eleven Best Actress nominations. In other words, she was just getting started. And this was a period piece, showing us that she had a little versatility to her look and her abilities. And it is easy to see her believability in this performance.

She played the character of Julie Marsden, a spoiled Southern Belle, in 1852. Not only was she accustomed to getting her way, she had a reputation of being careless of the feelings of others in her pursuit of her desires. And for some reason, these negative traits were almost admired back in those days. Look how self-assured and strong willed she is! Look at how scandalously she is behaving, wink, wink! Unless she takes things too far. Eventually, when her actions cause the death of a family friend, her own aunt compares her to the evil biblical character of Jezebel

This is a role that seemed to be made for Davis. She seemed to have just the right amount of youth, immaturity, selfishness, and petulance to do the part justice. Through Davis’s acting, it was clear that Julie felt perfectly justified in her cruel behavior, because none of her self-centered schemes had ever really failed her, and she had never faced any consequences, emotional or social, to deter her. So when her terrible actions in the name of love caused her to lose everything, she became so despondent, she couldn’t even leave her house. Her fall, and later, her redemption, were very well-played. In the end, we learn that her love was not as childish as it had once been, turning out to be real and true.

As I’ve mentioned before, an acting nomination needs to be a seamless blending of the actor’s craft, and a well-written script. Here, Davis had a great character to work with, and she played the part perfectly. The final scene, where she puts her own life at risk to care for the man she loved, knowing that he loved another and would never be hers, was perfectly written, and beautifully acted. There was a good reason why Davis took home the Oscar for her work in Jezebel.

1938 – Margaret Sullavan

1938 – Margaret Sullavan

Three Comrades

So, I’m having difficulty putting my finger on exactly why, but I found Margaret Sullavan’s performance to be good, but ultimately average in Three Comrades. On the one hand, she played a character who was in ill health most of the time, but on the other, it seemed to translate, on the screen, as a lack of energy in the performance. I don’t know if this was intentional or not. Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with Sullavan’s body of work, or I would be able to compare the performance with her other films, which were many. Then I could determine if the weakness came from a place of skill, or a lack of it. I suppose I should really think of it as a deliberate acting choice, since she was clearly revered by Hollywood for many years, and was nominated for the Best Actress award.

She played the character of Patricia Hollmann, a young German aristocrat who is now impoverished following the end of WWI. She has had health problems in the past and is now constantly in danger of slipping into terminal sickness. She meets the three German comrades, and ends up falling for the youngest of them. I originally thought the three men were Americans staying in Germany in the aftermath of the war, but no, they were all German, Sullavan being the only one of them that had anything even resembling a German accent.

I think the problem I had with Sullavan’s performance was that there didn’t seem to be any difference between Patricia when she was healthy, and Patricia when she was ill. Even when the character was feeling well, she seemed too frail. Because of this, I was able to infer that Pat would be dead by the end of the movie, and I wasn’t wrong. But again, I have to ask if this was intentional or not. But for all that, I believed her when she became bedridden. I guess I just didn’t believe her enough when she wasn’t, because it was all the same.

Still, she looked good, even beautiful. She had a waifish kind of allure that persisted, no matter what the state of the character’s health was at any given time. And story-wise, I’m not exactly sure why she committed suicide in the end, though I know that wasn’t Sullavan’s fault. She wasn’t bad, she was just drawn that way.

Iron Man 2 Character Posters

Iron Man 2 Cast Photos

Scarlett Johanssen as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow

Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia “Pepper” Potts

Iron Man 2

Cast Photos

Character Posters

Iron Man 2

Robert Downey Jr. does it again! I’ve already commented on how he was so perfectly cast as Tony Stark, how he was able to flawlessly embody both the man and the superhero, Iron Man. And while I’m on the subject of casting, I’d like to mention how amazing it is that with only one notable exception, the major players in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have all stayed with their roles for the duration of the Infinity Saga and beyond. As I write this, the MCU’s phase 4 has just ended, and phase 5 is about to begin, and the only major character that changed was Edward Norton playing the Incredible Hulk in his first appearance, but being replace with Mark Ruffalo in all forthcoming films.

Here, we have a secondary character, at least he was at the time, Rhodey, played in the first Iron Man movie by Terrence Howard, was replaced by Don Cheadle. Personally I have always been a fan of Cheadle as an actor, and I thought the change was a good one. Howard didn’t do a bad job. Cheadle was just better. And we are introduced to a major superhero and fan favorite, Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson. She has a fighting style that to my untrained eye, looks completely unique to her character. It is like martial arts, but with a lot more body contact like aggressive wrestling, and a healthy measure of gymnastics. The first time we see Black Widow unleashed was something like the first time we saw Darth Vader unleashed at the end of Rogue One, except that this came first. She was totally bad-ass, and she looked good doing it!!

We also got two new villains, one of whom was pretty cool, the other, unfortunately, not so much. Justin Hammer, played by Sam Rockwell, was so arrogant and so smarmy, that you couldn’t help but love him as a bad guy. Whiplash, played by Mickey Rourke, had the potential to be a really great baddy, but I don’t think he was written well. He just got defeated a little too easily… twice. The first time he attacked Iron Man on the race track in Monaco, we see that his electrified whips can slice cars up like cake. But Iron man just grabs one of them, uses it to pull himself to Whiplash, and takes him down with a couple quick punches. Then he tears out his mini-arc-reactor, and that was it.

The second fight, Whiplash’s drones seemed like more of a threat than he, himself, was. When he came in, the skirmish lasted a very short time, and the villain was taken down with the single super-blast from the two converging energy beams. I don’t know. I just wanted the bad guy to seem more powerful and harder to beat. At least he embodied the mentally unbalanced thing pretty well. Maybe some of his questionable decisions could be attributed to that. Still, he looked the part. He was physically imposing and you could tell he was no weakling.

The one thing that never sat well with me, though it was visually cool to watch on the screen, was the new way Iron Man put on his armor. So there he is, on the race track, and Pepper and Happy arrive in the car. Pepper has the suit that is disguised as a briefcase. So that means that the small briefcase-sized package should weigh the same as the fully deployed suit of armor, right? She should not have been able to lift it. OK, suspension of disbelief.

But overall, it was a great movie. The casting was spot-on, the action was good, the introduction of new characters, including Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, was great, the acting was good, the visuals and special effects were stunning, the connections to the larger cinematic universe were amazing, and it was just a fun ride. It might sound like I didn’t care for the film, but I really liked it. The good far outweighed the bad. Now, if I had to compare it with the first Iron Man movie, I think I liked the first one better, but when a movie is that good, it is kind-of hard to top it in the sequel. At least we got to see Tony and Pepper kiss at the end. Let’s just admit that it was something we were all wanting to happen. The romantic tension between them had been growing since the first movie, and the build had been slow enough to be believable. Kudos to director Jon Favreau for another successful addition to the franchise.

Top 10 Favorite Parts

Tony’s appearance at the Senate hearing.
The first appearance of Black Widow, when she takes down Happy in the Boxing Ring.
Whiplash destroys the race in Monaco
Iron Man’s fight with Rhodey at Tony’s birthday party.
Stark’s meeting with Nick Fury. “Sir, can you please exit the doughnut.”
Justin Hammer presents the weapons to Rhodey. The Ex-Wife.
Tony discovers how to create a new element to power his Iron Man suit.
Black Widow takes out the guards at the Hammer facility.
Iron Man and War Machine fight the drones in the garden at the Stark Expo.
Tony rescues Pepper from the exploding drone, then all the drones at the Expo explode as they fly away.

1938 – Fay Bainter

1938 – Fay Bainter

White Banners

I’ll be honest, I don’t think this was an Oscar-worthy performance. I don’t really get the nomination. This was a strange movie, and the part Bainter played, that of Hannah Parmalee, was a strange role, and I tend to think that the role, and maybe the movie itself, had the potential to be more dynamic, more dramatic. But Bainter played it so subdued that it lacked energy. It lacked tension, even when a scene demanded it. Yes, it was partly the way it was written, but it was also the acting choices Bainter made.

First of all, I know the film was made in the 1930s, but I didn’t like some of the messages in it. One of them, delivered by Bainter, herself, was that women were the weaker gender, and that it was the obligation of men to be stronger than them. Obviously, that one didn’t age well. But that one statement seemed to color how Bainter approached the role. There were two scenes that come to mind when I think of how her performance could have had more intensity, more impact.

The first of these scenes was the one in which she is trying to prevent Sally from going ice skating, and Peter puts her in her place by calling her the family’s servant. She took the slight by having no reaction at all, not even a look of hurt shock or disappointment. And if you think about it, since we later learn that Peter is her own child, you’d think that she would have some kind of reaction to the fact that her son had the capacity for such cruel words, even if she could not scold him. The second scene where her acting could have been more intense was the one where she is begging Mr. Ward not to reveal her secret to Peter. He tells her several times that telling the boy the truth is the right thing to do, but her protestations were just weak. The scene would have been better served with a little more desperation in her eyes, more pleading in her voice.

I mean, I know that Bainter was a fine actress, but I just don’t think this was her best moment. Though, I will also admit that the scene where she convinces Mr. Ward not to fight for his stolen patent was well played. There was a righteous nobility about her that sold the scene, and maybe that’s what earned her the nomination.

1938 – Norma Shearer

1938 – Norma Shearer

Marie Antoinette

As always, Norma Shearer turned in a wonderful performance. I only have one grievance with her performance, and it isn’t a big one, so I’ll get it out of the way quickly. In every performance I’ve ever seen her in, she always has an unnatural ease in front of the camera. But in Marie Antoinette, there were a few scenes where she seems to be putting on airs. Not the airs of the character, but those of someone who is trying hard to portray the character. It didn’t happen all the time, but every once in a while, it was as if she had to really try to be Marie Antoinette. The role didn’t seem like an extension of herself, which is what I usually get from her in other performances. Just an observation from an untrained eye.

But the greatness of her performance far outshined that one thing. The character really went through the full range of emotions over the course of the film, especially near the end. The emotions she displayed were raw and real. The tears she shed were not pretty. They were hard and unapologetic. She didn’t cry. She sobbed. And in those moments, her face was so changed by the emotions, that she didn’t even look like the same actress. The makeup and lighting helped. And I have to mention the costumes that she wore in the film. Talk about grand and opulent! She looked magnificent! Absolutely gorgeous! Although, it was interesting seeing her as a blond, instead of her natural brunette.

Time and again, Shearer has proven herself to be a natural in front of the camera. She always seemed to be aware of her surroundings. She always paid attention to what was going on in a scene, and behaving accordingly. What I mean is that when someone else was speaking, she listened. When someone else was the focus of a scene, she didn’t stop acting. She was actively in the moment, even when she wasn’t the most important part of that moment. It is a quality that not every actor always has. She had it in spades.

Norma Shearer was quite a rare talent, and it is no wonder that this was her sixth Best Actress nomination, an impressive feat, considering that the Academy Awards themselves were barely over ten years old.