Category: Best Supporting Actor

1939 – Brian Aherne

Juarez

I’ll be honest, Brian Aherne is one of those actors whose name I don’t recognize at all.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard the name before, and I don’t remember his face.  Whenever that happens, I have to look up a filmography to see if I recognize any of the films they’ve been in.  But I didn’t recognize any of them.  I think he did a fine job.  In Juarez, he played the supporting role of Maximillian I of Mexico, but I almost think he should be recognized as the film’s lead.  Yes, he was up against the Hollywood superstar Paul Muni, but his part was just as big, he had just as much, if not more screen time, and he had to shoulder the lion’s share of the film’s deep dramatic content.

He is a Habsburg who is duped into becoming the King of Mexico by Napoleon III of France.  However, the common people all favor Benito Juarez as an elected president, rather than him as an appointed monarch.  But rather than abdicating the throne and stepping down when he learns of Napoleon’s plot, he tries to do right by his fabricated position, and is eventually captured and executed by Juarez.  And in fact, his death was the climax of the movie.  If anything, I think he should have gotten a Best Actor nomination instead of Supporting Actor.

So he is supposed to be a European aristocrat, and he pulled it off just fine.  He was supposed to be noble, up to the point of death.  He did that believably.  He was supposed to be a romantic man who is very much in love with his wife, he did that, too.  But it was the quieter dramatic scenes where he really earned his Oscar nomination.  His wife, who had gone to France to confront Napoleon for his underhanded political scheming at her husband’s expense, has lost her sanity, and fails to return to him.  And as much as he wanted to go to her, his complete dedication to his position forced him to remain, and be put to death.

Aherne handled those moments with a deep sense of honor and quiet dignity.  Of course, it helped that, as a British actor, he had that innate stiff upper lip and calm composure in the face of terrible danger.  It is a trait shared with most British film actors.  And he really looked the part with his perfect hair and that crazy beard!

1939 – Brian Donlevy

Beau Geste

Beau Geste was an interesting movie, and Brian Donlevy did a good enough job, I suppose, even though his character was a little one-note.  Actually, if I had to choose a nominee for Best Supporting Actor in this movie, I might have chosen Robert Preston, but that’s beside the point.  And this isn’t the first time a bad-guy has been nominated for an Oscar.  So I have to ask myself if Donlevy’s performance was good enough to earn him the nomination?

As I’ve said before, an acting nomination should be a happy marriage of a good actor and a well-written character.  Donlevy played the part as it was written quite adequately.  But there was just very little to the character.  He played Sergeant Markoff of the French Foreign Legion.  He is a cruel man who prefers leading his men with an iron fist, and by the end, we see no character development.  We get no back story, and no reason for his cruelty except that he is just a mean guy.  And eventually, he turns to thievery, scheming to steal Beau’s gemstone for himself.

Donlevy actually did a fine job with the material he was given.  He played mean well.  He was an attractive man, made unattractive by his personality, and by a nasty scar on his face.  He played the part like I think it needed to be played, as very stoic, stiff, and military.  And he was always in his dress uniform and his smart cap; always wearing his military medals, giving him an air of smug superiority.  And all that out in the hot sun of the Saharan Desert.

I think Donlevy had two shining moments in the film.  The first was when he witnessed the death of his kindly commander, allowing him to take control of the Legionnaires, himself.  He smile, as he confirms the other man’s demise, was just the right amount of sadistic.  The other was when the fort is once again attacked by the Tuaregs, and he actually becomes a good battle commander, even if it was just for a moment.  And he even proved himself to be smart when he began propping up the dead soldiers in the battlements, to trick the enemy into thinking that there were more defenders than there actually were.  In that moment, Donlevy actually showed Markoff to be a competent military officer, despite his sadistic attitude.

1939 – Claude Rains

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Claude Rains has been a great character actor in every movie I’ve ever seen him in.  He is always competent, no matter what kind of role he is playing, and this movie is no exception.  In this film, he plays one of the bad guys.  He is an old friend of Mr. Smith’s father, and a sympathetic supporter of Smith, himself.  That is, until Smith’s idealism starts to accidentally get in the way of the underhanded political scheme he is a part of.  Then he turns on him in the worst way.  He lies about his old friend’s son to discredit him and ruin his political career.

And Claude Rains, always the professional actor, does a fantastic job.  And the film never tries to hide his lies from the audience, so we know, right from the start, what kind of a man he really is.  Rains seemed to be perfect for the part.  He has the kind of face that you just want to trust.  And he hides his lies so well.  And then after his criminal boss tells him to destroy Mr. Smith, he shows reluctance, but only a little, before doing just as he it told.

There was an ease about the actor that naturally came across in his performance.  He seemed very practiced and intentional in every scene, knowing exactly how to lead the viewer along.  And then, after witnessing the phenomenal courage and stamina of Mr. Smith, he has a final change of heart.  He first tries to kill himself, then bursts into the Senate room, shouting his confession so the whole room can hear him.  It was a very powerful scene.  Rains yelling out his own admission of guilt as Mr. Smith’s unconscious body is carried from the chamber. 

Whenever you see Claude Rain’s name appear in the cast of actors, you know you are in for an intense performance.  He never seemed to do anything half-way, whether he is playing a good guy or a bad guy.  He is one of those actors who seems to really dive into his performances, almost as if he feels very passionately about the film he is making.  At least, that is what comes across whenever he is on the screen.  Honestly, I am glad he was recognized for his work in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  He seemed to really understand the emotional ins and outs of the character, and he looked good doing it.

1939 – Harry Carey

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

I have to say, Harry Carey did a fine job, but I don’t think he really deserved an Oscar nomination.  Is role was pretty small, and he didn’t have too many lines. I know a big role with a lot of lines isn’t a requirement for recognition by the Academy, but it doesn’t hurt.  The more screen time an actor has, the greater his chance to have a memorable part in the film, to have a noticeable impact on the movie’s story, as a whole.  I was just underwhelmed by his competent performance.  I felt like he did what was expected of him, but not much more.

He played the president of the U. S. Senate.  He sat in his high seat, swore in Mr. Smith as a Senator, stopped Senators from speaking out of turn, and perfunctorily presided over the Senate meetings.  He had one line in one scene near the end in which he said anything beyond his official capacity as the President of the Senate.  He gave an opinion when Senators were arguing outside of the chamber.  And that was it.  Oh, he also smiled when Mr. Smith’s filibuster achieved its goal.

Aside from that, he just didn’t really do much.  Granted, he looked the part of a stuffy old politician, but I feel that almost any character actor could have played his part.  So what made him stand out above the pack?  Why was he nominated for Best Supporting Actor?    Well, I might be totally guessing, but I suspect that it may have been something like an honorary nomination for a character actor that had appeared in about two hundred forty films since his big screen career began in 1910.  Imagine that, being involved in that many movies over the course of roughly thirty years.  That would average out to about 8 films a year, every year, for thirty years.  I would call that pretty darn impressive.

Yes, there’s no doubt, he was a trouper.  And after playing the Senate President in this film, he still had another seventeen films over the next decade in which he would act.  But if that wasn’t the reason for his nomination, then I can’t figure out what was.  This is another case of an actor’s performance being just fine, but the role itself just didn’t seem worth the nomination.  He just didn’t do much, and didn’t stand out to me as a better actor than any of his co-stars.

1938 – John Garfield

Four daughters

Ok, John Garfield was one handsome man! But what’s more, he could act.  He knew how to use his posture, his facial expressions, his eyes, and his attitude to create a complex character.  He wasn’t exactly a likable character, but I don’t think we were supposed to like him.  Garfield took that one dimensional role and gave it another layer that made me question whether Mickey Borden was just a loser, or if he was really life’s victim, as he claimed.  I mean, were his intentions good, or was he just a shiftless drifter who fell in love with a girl he couldn’t support. 

But I guess that was the big question.  If he was just a loser, would he really commit suicide so that his wife could have a better life?  And was that the coward’s way out, or an act of love and bravery?  I actually think it was both.  He knew, or at least was convinced, that he wasn’t capable of making Ann happy, so he stepped aside in a grand and dramatic gesture.  But a strong man would have done one of two things.  Either he would have just divorced her, allowing her to return to the man she really loved, or he would have pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, become a better man, himself, and become worthy of Ann’s love.

Either way, Garfield did a fantastic job.  He left me both despising and liking Mickey at the same time, so that when he died, I felt something and mourned his passing.  I have a feeling that it was a little more than the script gave him to work with, and I think the actor elevated the role.  But the whole thing worked because his ultimate sacrifice accomplished what it was supposed to.  It allowed Ann to return to Felix, and that is what the movie wanted us all to want.

The two scenes that stood out to me as very well-acted were Mickey’s first scene, and then his second to last.  In the first, he immediately showed us how he was a drifter with little concern for others or himself.  He took things without asking, he was disrespectful to strangers who would welcome him into their home, and yet he proved himself to be a talented musician.  In that second to last scene, there is a crazed look in his eyes as he determines to run his car off the road, in a successful attempt to kill himself.  Well done, Garfield.  Well done.

1938 – Basil Rathbone

If I Were King

Basil Rathbone’s outstanding performance in this movie took me completely by surprise, and here’s why.  The only kind of film I remember seeing him in are swashbuckling movies in which he is a master swordsman and fencer.  Even though he generally plays the villain, he is still handsome, brash, bold, and courageous.  He is always witty, confident, and even arrogant.  But here he plays against that go-to character, and creates a weaselly, sniveling, devious, childish, and crafty king, who looks and behaves like he has never touched a sword in his life.

And yet he pulled it off perfectly.  Not only that, he actually made me like the character by the end of the film.  The part was so well-written.  King Louis XI could so easily have been portrayed as a typical bad-guy, as many villains are in films.  But even though he did have plenty of negative qualities, he also had several redeeming traits as well, and Rathbone made them all believable.  The part was so contrary to his normal role, his performance impressed me, and showed me a completely different side of the actor.  He was amazing.

He created a memorable character.  Some of his little quirks were his distinctive cackling laugh, his hunched shoulders, his small steps, his perpetual sneer.  He played a little weasel.  Clever, confident, and petulant, all at the same time.  There was only one thing that I didn’t really care for, but I don’t hold it against him.  He was no worse than any of the other actors in the film, certainly no worse than the film’s lead, Ronald Colman.  The story takes place in France, but half the cast had a decidedly British accent.  The other half had obvious American accents.  There was no consistency, and no attention to that little detail.

But like I said, the character was written quite well.  He actually had a sense of honor… a skewed one, maybe, but honor nonetheless.  There was a touch of honesty and at times, a sense of fairness and decency.  After watching the end of the movie, I would hesitate to call his character a villain.  I might categorize him as an antagonist, but not a villain.  And I think Rathbone’s Oscar nomination was well-deserved.  It was the perfect marriage of a smart script and a great actor.

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

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 – Gene Lockhart

Algiers

I originally started watching this movie because Charles Boyer had been nominated for Best actor, not realizing that Gene Lockhart had also been nominated for Best Supporting Actor.  While watching the movie, I was thinking that Lockhart should have been nominated as well.  Imagine my surprise, and my validation, when I learned that Lockhart had gotten an Oscar nod for his work.  He deserved it.

He played the part of Regis, a sleazy resident of The Casbah, the criminal quarter in the city of Algiers.  On the surface, he is a toady of the notorious thief Pepe le Moko, doing what he can to be of service to the crook, while always feeling underappreciated.  But under that, he is a police informant who devises a plan to betray Pepe and collect the reward money.  Lockhart was perfect in both capacities.  His plan consisted of luring Pepe’s close friend out of the Casbah so that Pepe will follow him.  But the plan fails and the other man dies as a result.  Pepe then learns of Regis’s involvement and betrayal. 

Lockhart’s final scenes were memorable, and so well acted.  Pepe takes Regis into an empty room.  Already nervous about the suspicious attention, Regis begins sweating.  But when Pepe’s thugs slowly begin to join them, Regis knows he’s been discovered.  Lockhart was great here.  He knows he can’t run, and that he probably isn’t leaving the room alive.  He’s so terrified, he can barely think.  The assassins are all nice to him while he is a shaking, sweating, pile of fear.

I thought Lockhart’s performance was good, but in this scene he was great.  He was so perfectly pathetic.  And when the man he betrayed came back with a fatal gunshot wound, you could see in Lockhart’s eyes that the game was up.  The actual death moment was almost surreal.  Pierrot is carried into the room with a gun in his hand.  Regis starts whimpering and backing away.  The fear in his eyes was palpable.  He bumps into a player piano which begins playing a happy, jaunty ragtime tune, a horrifying underscore to his impending murder.  Pierrot’s approach is slow, giving Regis an uncomfortably long time to cower in the corner and wait for death.  Lockhart handled it like a pro and I really believed his performance.

1937 – Roland Young

Topper

This was only the second year that Best Supporting Actor was a category at the Academy Awards, and I don’t think they quite had it figured out yet.  This should not have been nominated for an Oscar, not because Roland Young’s performance was bad, but because he was the lead role in the film.  But if he had been put in the Best Actor category, he wouldn’t have been nominated at all.  I mean, the story was his story, but the movie had Carry Grant in it.  Grant was the supporting character, but he was the big name, so Roland Young got put in the wrong category.  And while it was a fun film, the roll itself was just not Oscar-worthy.

He played the title roll of Cosmo Topper, the President of a large bank, who is haunted by the ghosts of the Bank’s biggest client and his wife.  There were scenes in which Young had to work with floating objects, actors who were not there, but who faded in and out of existence, and silly, goofy shenanigans.  And he was the straight man to their comedy.  But there was an undercurrent in his character that fit the story well.  Though he was straight-laced and serious, he had a desire to be wild and carefree, out from under the loving, yet controlling thumb of his wife.

I think that was where Young shined.  He maintained that seriousness but the deep longing to have fun colored much of what he did.  Topper was likable, gentle, and even charming in a strange sort of way.  The scene where the ghosts get him drunk on Champagne was actually pretty funny.  He did a silly dance, then fell on the floor with his butt sticking up in the air.  Then he had to act like invisible hands were boosting him to his feet and carrying him across the room.  It was a fun scene

But there was one weird thing about Young’s performance.  He seemed to deliver most of his dialogue without moving his lips.  There were times when he would say entire lines as if he was a ventriloquist.  At other times, his bottom lip moved slightly, and his upper lip was perfectly still.  Sure, he was supposed to be meek almost to the point of mousiness, and maybe that lack of enunciation that bordered on mumbling was a conscious acting choice, but it was a strange one.  Still Young did a fine job, so why not give him an acting nomination?