1929-30 Best Actor: My Choice

Time again to recap, rank the performances for this year and category and choose my own winner.

1929-30's nominees, once again, are:

• George Arliss as Benjamin Disraeli in Disraeli and the Raja in The Green Goddess
• Wallace Beery as Machine Gun Butch Schmidt in The Big House
• Maurice Chevalier as Pierre Mirande in The Big Pond and Count Alfred Renard in The Love Parade
• Ronald Colman as Captain Hugh Drummond in Bulldog Drummond and Michel in Condemned
• Laurence Tibbett as Yegor in The Rogue Song

The Academy's Choice: George Arliss in Disraeli

Weighing the Performances:

George Arliss in Disraeli

Judging the third Academy Awards ceremony in existence seems a little unfair. As I've pointed out, The idea of talkies was still so new that most of the nominated films were essentially silent films with sound; ludicrously over-acted but with a lack of the subtlety that silent films had just by the fact that the actors couldn't be heard speaking. Actors in silent films had to portray complex emotions almost entirely through facial expressions and body movements, but now that they could be heard, it was time to start acting like people, and many of the silent film stars didn't know how to do that. What we got were bloated melodramas (and bloated comedies) light on plot, or point. Three of the films this year were pseudo-musicals, one an actual musical, another an operatic melodrama, that seemed to have only as much substance as it took to say "we have this popular star who can sing. Let's put him in a singing movie."

George Arliss in The Green Goddess

George Arliss struck a nice compromise, mostly remaining cool, calm and understated, both as the overwhelmed British Prime Minister in Disraeli and as the cunning Raja in The Green Goddess. In both cases he eschewed hammy over-acting for the most part, only going to it in moments of great distress. I didn't care much for The Green Goddess nor did I care for the casting of a white Englishman as a Himalayan king and priest, but he did a fine job in the film nonetheless, taking what could have been the opportunity to chew giant holes in the scenery and mostly just playing him as a standard upper-class villain. That said, there was nothing award-worthy about the film or the performance, but as Disraeli, his look, movements and vocal efforts really do make me think I'm watching old parliamentary films of the PM, even if that can't be the case because none exist. I can see why he was chosen, and I don't have an issue with the Academy's decision here, even if I disagree with it.

Wallace Beery in The Big House

Wallace Beery really isn't the lead in The Big House, but he's certainly the most memorable character, and that's probably what got him nominated. I have to say, his performance seemed ahead of its time. It wasn't merely a silent performance but with talking. He seemed like an actual hardened criminal, with no weird, over-the-top facial expressions or movements, and instead a quiet intensity that occasionally boiled over into violence. It was a very strong, very natural performance that probably wouldn't change even if the movie had been made two or three decades later. Probably the only thing holding him back is that he really is a supporting character, and if that category had existed back then, He likely would have been nominated there instead. But the same can be said for Arliss in Goddess, so I won't take points off for it.

Maurice Chevalier in The Big Pond

Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade

I gotta say, if I never see another Maurice Chevalier movie again it'll...what? There's more coming? Gaaaaaaahhhh...Well, let's hope it's a few more draws before I get to them. I find him annoying, not funny in the least and a mediocre singer, which shouldn't even matter as it's his acting that got him these nominations. To start with, The Big Pond is an entirely forgettable, ephemeral little film that should never have gotten the Academy's attention. Oddly, so was The Green Goddess, which makes me think, as I said back in the review of that film, that the Academy this year was trying to nominate actors for every leading role they had, and then you could select which leading role you preferred. There's nothing Oscar-worthy about Chevalier in Pond, and he's basically just playing himself. Even more so than he did in The Love Parade. That film actually got attention in other categories including Best Picture (as The Big House and Disraeli) but I can't say as I understand why. Popularity, maybe. This was back when Ernst Lubitsch was considered the best working director, and I guess it is staged well enough but much like nearly every other film in this category and year, it just doesn't hold up. Chevalier was just hamming it up and being silly.

Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond

Ronald Colman is a fine actor, who I enjoy watching. He was great in If I Were King, and eventually I'll be getting to his winning performance in A Double Life which I'm really looking forward to. Unfortunately I was unable to watch him in Condemned but I did see him in Bulldog Drummond, in which he played what is essentially the prototype for John Steed of The Avengers. No, not those Avengers. As the smooth, unflappable Drummond, who gets into the hero game mainly because he's bored, I can see the attraction to nominating him, but he really wasn't asked to do much he wasn't totally at home doing. I do wish I could see his performance in Condemned, but as I can't, I won't be ranking it.

Lawrence Tibbett in The Rogue Song

Finally we come to Lawrence Tibbett, the dramatic answer to Maurice Chevalier. He kind of made me think of Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn, but with occasional opera singing. As I mentioned, he was the only one in the movie who sang, so it really just felt like the entire movie was an excuse for him to play a dashing, singing hero. I'll give the man this, though; boy can sing. Chevalier has no issues carrying a song, but it fails to evoke any real reaction from me. Tibbett is a vocal powerhouse, and that can't be denied. And of course it also provided an excuse for Laurel and Hardy to do their thing. It seemed like the movie could have been cute and funny, but my viewing of it was hampered by the film being 90% lost and therefore 90% reconstructed. It wasn't a bad film, and Tibbett wasn't bad in it, but it wasn't anything special.

In fact, so little that I saw in this category really felt like something that would be regarded with the same reverence today. Unlike the classics of the later 30's, 40's and beyond, and very much unlike the silent film era, these early talkies seemed to focus so hard on the idea that the actors can talk now that half the time they forgot to actually have a real point. I enjoyed The Big House and Bulldog Drummond, and appreciated Disraeli and The Rogue Song, even if the latter two are very much products of their time. What I could see of Condemned while trying to watch the Spanish-dubbed version definitely makes it look like it was ahead of its time the same way that The Big House was. One of these days I'll see it. I hope.

The ranking this time is much easier than with 1954, because I really felt like only Arliss, Beery and Colman were even acting. The other three were just performing. Of them, Colman's performance was fine but the film and character so light and inconsequential that I can't call him the winner. If I'd been able to see his full performance in Condemned it might have been the winner here, but I can't. Arliss was quite servicable as Disraeli, and put in the same level of commitment to a role that did him no favors in The Green Goddess. His performance in Disraeli clearly wins out between the two, but it still contains far too many instances of pantomime and overacting to sell the performance, so I gotta take points away for that.

Wallace Beery, unlike most of his co-stars, didn't make me think he was an actor playing a hardened criminal. He made me think he was a hardened criminal! He was so intimidating and scary that I wonder how I'm gonna perceive his other roles I know I'll be watching at some point. And yet, there was a tender, sympathetic side to him. The scene where he learned his mother died made me wonder if he would have been a different man if he'd not lost his father so young and ended up on the street. It was a grand performance all around, and to me, the clear winner.

My Choice: Wallace Beery

Coming next; it's a new year and category drawn at random!