Marie Antoinette

Film: Marie Antoinette
Year: 1938
Cast: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Robert Morley, Anita Louise, Joseph Schildkraut, Gladys George, Henry Stevenson, Cora Witherspoon, Barnett Parker, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniel, Leonard Penn, Albert Dekker, Alma Kruger, Joseph Calleia, Marilyn Knowlden, Scotty Beckett, George Meeker, Charles Waldron
Director: WS Van Dyke
Nominations: Best Actress (Shearer), Best Supporting Actor (Morley), Best Original Score, Best Art Direction

Wait, wait, wait, what's going on here? A 1938 film with French characters and the decidedly not-French actors Walter Kingsford and Paul Harvey are nowhere to be found? Wasn't there some sort of law that they had to be included?

At least Joseph Calleia is back, if in a small role. Charles Waldron from Kentucky is here, too, again in a smaller role. In fact I have yet to see a movie from this year that didn't share actors with at least one other, and I've only seen six (I've watched The Adventures of Robin Hood many times in the past). There weren't that many actors in the studio industry back then, were there?

Man, what was it with 1938 and this fascination with France? In one single category alone, we've had a movie about a French criminal hiding from the French police while longing to go home to Paris, a movie set during the Burgundian Rebellion focusing on a well-known French poet, and now one based on the tragic life of the woman who might very well be the most well-known French historical figure ever...and she wasn't even French!

Norma Shearer stars here in the title role, playing Marie as a sympathetic, lonely young woman who's eternally frustrated in her royal husband's lack of interest in her, lack of spine, lack of social graces, lack of almost anything. She's quickly drawn into court intrigue, wanting nothing more than to be queen some day and have royal babies, but realizing she's stuck with a husband who has no interest in her, an oily, snake-like noble cousin Duc de Orleans (Joseph Schildkraut) trying to draw her into his intrigues, and ruin her and usurp the throne if he can't use her, a rival who doesn't pull any punches (Gladys George) and a king (John Barrymore) clearly not certain he made the right marriage contract.

Running from all this, she lands in the arms of Swedish Count Axel von Fersen (Tyrone Power), trying to ground herself in him and use him to strengthen her spirit. But it can't work, because, naturally, as the new queen, no hint of scandal can be allowed, so he runs off to America to keep her reputation safe. At around the same time, her manchild of a husband, the now King Louis XVI (Robert Morley) starts to feel genuine affection for her. Children finally come, and then revolution comes knocking...

We know the story of Marie Antoinette. The question is how does the movie bring that story to life? The answer is...it's kinda predictable. This was a historical drama made back when historical dramas didn't really try to glitz up the lives of the figures presented. It just told their story. No, it didn't always get the facts straight, or left stuff out, etc., but you didn't get stuff like the more recent Marie Antoinette from Sophia Coppola, who used deliberately anachronistic acting styles, music (including modern songs on the soundtrack) and even costumes to a degree, to try and communicate the historical tale to modern audiences. This one's just a straight costume drama, and while that's fine, it looks to me just like a dozen other costume dramas out there.

Norma Shearer gives a terrific performance as Marie, and I understand it was her favorite role of her career, which is saying something as this is Norma Shearer, one of the biggest stars of her day. This was her fifth and final nominated performance (she was already a winner by this point), and the first of her's I've seen. She's able to make Marie seem sympathetic even as she cheats on her husband and behaves like a frivolous child. We can believe it when she matures into a benevolent ruler even if it comes too late to make a difference.

As for Robert Morley, I'll admit that I'm primarily familiar with him as the posh English gentleman in The Great Muppet Caper who directs Kermit and friends to the Happiness Hotel. I'd actually forgotten this was the same man. As King Louis XVI (two King Louis's in the same year? At least they weren't the same king), he's doughy, dour and dopey, at least at first, and begins to grow up (slightly) only when he becomes king himself and a father to two children with Marie. He kinda looks like Jonah Hill crossed with Timothy Spall, with his hapless stare and double-chin. He's pitiful, but you can't help but feel a little sorry for him. He's one of the few characters surrounding the queen who has no malice in him. Unfortunately he also has little else in him at all. Morley does a fine job with the pathetic character, making us care about him even though the film goes to great pains to show how little respect he commands.

I won't pretend the ending isn't quite sad. For some reason most of my education on this subject painted Marie Antoinette as a callous aristocrat who couldn't have cared less about her poor subjects ("let them eat cake"), and was still insisting she was the queen and would be obeyed as she was being led to the executioner. That's certainly not the Marie we see here. The last 40 minutes or so focus on her attempts to flee with her family and protect her children. It's quite moving, but I've always had a real hang-up about children being hurt, even if I know it's just a movie. It's easy for me to think that if I could have witnessed the real event, it would have looked like this; Marie weeping and pleading as her son is ripped from her arms. The final shot is well-done in its directly contrasting Marie at the film's start and her final moments.

Next post is my own personal "awards" as I rank the performances and pick which one I think deserved the win, and if any in fact might not have deserved their nominations. After that, it's time for another year and category.

Kentucky

Film: Kentucky
Year: 1938
Cast: Loretta Young, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Douglass Dumbrille, Karen Morley, Moroni Olsen, Russell Hicks, Willard Robertson, Charles Waldron, Bobs Watson, Madame Sul-te-Wan, Delmar Watson, Leona Roberts, George Reed, Lillian Yarbo
Director: David Butler
Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Brennan)

Ah, a good old southern feud!

Future Oscar winner Loretta Young and future Robin Hood Richard Greene play the latest generation in two southern horse-trading families dating back to before the Civil War; she of the cash-poor Goodwin family and he of the upscale, bank-owning Dillons. While neither family is openly hostile to the other, there's bad blood there dating back to the war, when John Dillon confiscated the Goodwin horses by order of the Union, and then shot Thad Goodwin when he complained, with his wife and two young sons, including 5-year-old Peter (Bobs Watson) looking on.

75 years later, Peter's grandniece Sally (Loretta Young) and the great-grandson of John Dillon, Jack (Richard Greene), meet and hit it off, Sally not knowing he's a Dillon. Times have been tough for the Goodwins, and Sally's father has been buying up shares of cotton, certain that its stock will rise and bring the family back to its former glory. He applies for a loan with Jack's father, John Jr. (Moroni Olsen), and is flatly turned down, and the question is open as to whether or not it's due to the decades-old feud. Almost immediately after, Sally's father dies of a heart attack when he reads in the paper that cotton stock has plummeted.

Peter himself, meanwhile, has turned into a crotchety old buzzard determined to keep the feud alive at all costs, and only approving of Sally hiring Jack as a horse trainer because he too is unaware of the man's parentage.

For the most part, this movie kind of writes itself, and what I just told you gives you plenty to figure out how it ends. Unlike most others on my watch list, this one is only here due to the presence of Walter Brennan, who collected his second Oscar for this film. It was his second, in fact, of three Oscars, making him the first three-time winner among actors ever, and still in very select company today. He would go on to lose his fourth and last nomination, giving him also the best ratio of wins to losses among actors. It seemed like the Academy just couldn't get enough of him back then.

How'd he do? Well, he was certainly the most memorable part of this movie, or at least the most memorable of the main story. I guess if I was disappointed at all, it was that there wasn't a lot of nuance to a character who should have been brimming with it. After all, we see just what caused his hatred of the Dillons, but aside from being a cantankerous old coot set in his ways of loving his horses and hating the Dillons, there just wasn't much to this character. I thought it would end with him realizing he can't hold on to hate forever and patching things up with the Dillons and to be fair, it's hinted that he was starting to come around and that the feud may end, but it wasn't given much focus, nor was it confirmed.

But the prologue...the prologue will stay with me for a while.

Bobs Watson plays Brennan as a boy, and holy lord does he sell the part. Child actors in old films, heck, even modern films, tended to be annoying little moppets hired because they were adorable, even if they couldn't act. Not here. No sir. My heart broke in pieces watching his extreme hurt and anger seeing his father being shot and their horses stolen. And it kept breaking as the poor kid, struggling to hold it together, tells his mother that the foals don't have any food now that their mothers have been taken. I didn't feel like I was watching a child actor playing a heart-broken kid. I felt like I was watching a heart-broken kid, and dangit if it didn't really get to me.

Now, I feel like I can't really ignore the elephant in the room here. It was the 30's in the deep south, and both families are shown employing a bevy of African American servants. No, these people are not slaves, they don't call anyone "master", and they're free to leave if they want, but it's still the 30's in the deep south, so they're shown in subservient roles and there's a lot of "yessuh, boss, nosuh, boss", etc. Think the character of Stephen from Django Unchained in that they're all clearly devoted to their employers, and, well, if it's not slavery, it's not to far a step away from it. Both families (especially the Goodwins) are shown treating their servants with love and respect, and we see the servants bantering and even talking back to their employers with no consequences. There's a tear-jerking scene where Sally is forced to let all the help go thanks to the Goodwin's financial state and she clearly thinks of them all as family and is heart-broken to lose them, and none of them want to go, but still. In 2019, these scenes are a bit uncomfortable to watch, and the actual performances from the African American cast do seem to be firmly stuck in Steppin Fetchit territory. Just having the white characters treat them with respect isn't really enough to make me ignore the kind of buffoonery and happy servitude they're shown with. It's probably accurate to the times, but that doesn't make it any easier.

I say that mainly as a warning if you're gonna watch it yourself.

We've got one more film to go for 1938 Best Supporting Actor and it's the longest of them thus far, so I'm not sure when I will be able to post about it, and after that we'll hold our own awards and decide which of these performances really won. Next up: Marie Antoinette.

If I Were King

Film: If I Were King
Year: 1938
Cast: Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone, Frances Dee, Ellen Drew, Henry Wilcoxon, Colin Tapley, CV France, Heather Thatcher, Stanley Ridges, Bruce Lester, Alma Lloyd, Walter Kingsford, Sidney Toler, Ralph Forbes, John Miljan, William Haade, Adrian Morris, Montagu Love, Lester Matthews, William Farnum, Paul Harvey, Barry Macollum, May Beatty, Winter Hall, Francis McDonald, Ann Evers, Jean Fenwick
Director: Frank Lloyd
Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Rathbone), Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Recording

Hey, a period costume piece! I do so enjoy those. Oscar used to honor them all the time. These days it's kinda rare. I wonder why that is, and when it happened?

The action here takes place in the late 1400's during the Burgundian rebellion against King Louis XI (Basil Rathbone), who is beseiged on all sides by the forces of Charles the Bold, his people driven to thievery in the streets. Meanwhile he has reason to suspect a traitor among his councilors, and thus goes undercover as a commoner among the people to root out the traitor. It is here he encounters that great poet, braggart and criminal François Villon (Ronald Colman).

François has some, shall we say, outspoken opinions on the king, and all members of his council. In a hilarious early scene, he loudly and brashly wishes for the king's defeat, not knowing the king himself is quite near him in his crowd of listeners. But rather than immediately order François's arrest, Louis simply asks the poet what he would do in the king's place. Hence the title.

In a series of hilarious exchanges I'd rather you watch than I describe, François is appointed Grand Constable of France, Commander of the King's armies and dispenser of the King's justice. In other words, it's time for him to put his money where his mouth is. Can he do it? How long will the king last before he tires of this joke?

The answer is a joy to watch. It's funny, it's engrossing, engaging and in all other ways a triumph. Well, the romance angle seems kinda tacked on, but what would a grand tale of a thief given power be if he didn't woo an unattainable woman in the process? And thankfully, his romance with noblewoman Lady Katherine (Frances Dee) does give her some dignity and brains as well. We see why François is attracted to her, and she to him.

Ronald Colman is at the top of his game, here. I wonder if in 1939 he was widely expected to be nominated for an Oscar for this film, and were the masses angry when it didn't happen? Colman has a number of winning scenes, my favorites being his liberal interpretation of sentencing of prisoners (his friends) and a scene where he lambastes the army's generals for their refusal to open the gates and attack the Burgundians. "You've no understanding of military tactics!" growls a general. "Emphatically I do not," says François. "I've studied your campaigns relentlessly and I've learned nothing from them." He would almost walk away with the whole movie if it weren't for one man.

Academy Award nominee Basil Rathbone is equally matched with Colman in this film. As the king, Rathbone is at once hilarious, threatening, cunning, silly and absolutely magnetic. Doddering about like an old hen, laughing like a mad old witch, unpredictable in his decisions, yet solidly in control, Rathbone more than earns his nomination, and so far, among the performances I've watched, he's the winner. It gets more impressive when you realize this film was released the same year that he made The Adventures of Robin Hood and cut an impressive figure as the virile Guy of Gisbourne. In fact, I've now seen two movies featuring actors from that film, both of them released the same year as Robin Hood. Cool.

To be honest, I don't know why this one wasn't a Best Picture contender. As much as I was charmed by Four Daughters this one is the finer film in almost all respects. It was robbed, robbed, I tell you.

We have two films left in this category and year before it's time to evaluate the performances against each other. In light of that, I think I'll reserve speaking further about who's ahead until all five competitors go head to head. Next up is Kentucky, which contains the actual winner for that year, Walter Brennan, who took home Oscar number two. Did he deserve it? We'll see.

Four Daughters

Film: Four Daughters
Year: 1938
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Gale Page, Claude Raines, John Garfield, Jeffrey Lynn, Dick Foran, Frank McHugh, May Robson
Director: Michael Curtiz
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Garfield), Best Writing; Screenplay, Best Sound Recording

Next up among the Best Supporting Actor nominees of 1938 is Four Daughters, which coincidentally was written and directed by the same two men who would later bring us Casablanca, which was considered a spiritual successor to Algiers.

Swinging the exact opposite way from Algiers, which was a heavy crime drama, this one is a delightful romantic comedy, or perhaps dramedy would be a better word.

What a delightful little movie this is. I say little because it feels quaint. Cute. Charming but ultimately inconsequential. A movie like this would never catch Oscar's attention these days, not unless it was done as a powerhouse emotional drama with some crazy great acting. This film feels more like an excuse for four singing sisters to do a movie together.

Make that three sisters. The Lane Sisters, a singing group that did some acting on the side, primarily in plays but also in movies, were lined up to play the titular four daughters, but for some reason the studio didn't like the eldest sister, Leotta, and replaced her with Gale Page. She looks enough like the real sisters to pass muster, but as the sisters' acting really isn't this movie's centerpiece, one wonders just how bad Leotta must have been. Then again, the role of the oldest daughter, Emma, was also the second biggest of the four, so it needed someone who could carry it.

The four daughters are the offspring of music professor Adam Lemp, played by a not-yet-Oscar-nominated Claude Raines. All four have musical talent, and their father is ruthless in his instruction of them. I liked the way his stern disapproval is played off as banter rather than true gruffness. He says something thoroughly insulting about their talent, and they laugh, and then he laughs.

Eventually, as is the case in the 30's, men come into their lives, and kinda become all the four can talk about. Emma (Gale Page) is pursued by a local delivery boy, Ernest (Dick Foran), whose attention she lightly spurns, while Thea (Lola Lane) is courted by the older, yet wealthy, Ben (Frank McHugh), an awkward fellow whom she wants to marry mainly due to the status it would bring her (what is this; two movies in a row where a woman is clearly marrying for money?). Kay (Rosemary Lane), the one who might very well be leaving to attend a choral school, doesn't have a suitor at all while Ann (Priscilla Lane), the youngest (and in my opinion, the best actress of the four; no wonder she seems to get the most screen time), has two men after her; composer Felix (Jeffrey Lynn) and orchestral arranger Mickey (John Garfield).

Thus ensues a romantic rectangle as Felix pursues Ann, who loves him back, while sad-sack Mickey does his best to hide his own feelings for her (and fails), and Emma bemoans losing Felix as she's yearned for by Ernest. Meanwhile Thea and Kay have their own dramas; Thea likes the idea of being married to Ben but keeps putting off the wedding date (eventually marrying him primarily to beat Ann to the altar) while Kay isn't sure she wants to leave home.

It all culminates in Felix and Ann's wedding, in which Ann fails to show up, and sends a telegram instead saying she's married Mickey. And that's about where I'll leave it, plot-wise. I said I wouldn't hide spoilers, but here I think I'll make an exception. You'll know why once you've watched it.

Unlike Algiers this was one of the Best Picture nominees for the year, and Michael Curtiz received a Best Director nod for his efforts as well (one of two, the other being for Angels with Dirty Faces, making Curtiz the first, and for many decades the only, man to compete against himself for the Director prize). The screenplay got a nod, too. It's hard to judge just whether or not it's all deserved. This is a delightful little movie, but it feels little. And very much a product of its time. While both Algiers and this film are set in the 30's, Algiers feels timeless while Four Daughters feels like it couldn't have been made any other decade. Even if you remade it and kept the 30's setting, I feel like some changes would have to be made, especially the idea that these women with promising musical careers all are dying to be married, even if it's not for love, whereas you could remake Algiers almost word-for-word even in the new 10's.

That being said I really had a pleasant experience watching this one. If I was a contemporary in the 30's, I probably would have thought it entirely worthy of the Best Picture and Director nods it received, and the screenplay, quaint though it might have been, was effervescent, charming and very clever, with a lot of witty banter that still holds up and made me laugh out loud a few times. In one scene, the family has just sat down to a big dinner they're holding to get to know Ben after he's proposed to Thea. Adam begins his prayer and then is interrupted by Aunt Edda (May Robson), and this is what (roughly) follows:

Adam: And we thank thee, o Lord, for the bountiful...
Edda: Ann forgot to light the flame under the duck!
Adam: ...for these sandwiches that we are about to receive.

What makes that even funnier is that Ann was supposed to pretend to Ben that Thea had cooked the whole dinner herself. She even recites to Thea just what she's supposed to say. When the time comes, she stands in front of Ben like a statue, clears her throat, and says with all the confidence and genuine emotion of a ninth-grade student acting in the school play for the first time in her life: "Oh, Mr. Crowley, I just can't get over it. Thea cooked this whole dinner, every inch of it, herself. And just look at her, she's as fresh as if she just stepped out of a band box." She caps it by grinning as if to say "I did it!" and heaving a sigh of relief. You want to give her a big hug.

While I liked all the acting, it was quite obvious that this was a different era and different types of acting were preferred. While Raines and Robson (who are over 30 years apart and yet play brother and sister!) gave performances that would probably feel similar today, all the young folk...I don't know how to put this. They acted like they were acting. That's probably the best way to say it. Very understated performances, but smirky, taking their cue from the rapid-fire dialogue.

I think the reason John Garfield was the only Oscar nominee from this film is that his character is really the only one to stand out. While I liked Ann and Felix just fine, I didn't necessarily believe either of them. Ann was too perfect (I don't know if I believed the twist that she'd run off with Mickey) and Felix was so effortlessly charming that I feel like if I knew a guy like that in real life I'd hate his guts. I didn't hate movie Felix, but it was obvious that the movie didn't want me to. Felix is the kind of guy who can walk into any room, behave as if he owns the place and have people start deferring to him. Funny, yes. No real depth, though. Daddy Adam and Aunt Edda are all banter and wit, and while that's fine, and both characters are acted by consummate professionals, there's just not much to either character.

The four daughters themselves, while I didn't dislike any of them, well, they're all so similar, both in look and performance that in several scenes I wasn't sure which daughter I was watching. Ann is the exception, and not only for being the most competently acted of the four (it's no wonder Priscilla was the only Lane sister to have her acting career really flourish), but because she's the only blonde. That's right; the non-sister of the four seemed so much like two of the others that the fourth, who was a real sister, seemed the most different.

Garfield, though, his character has an arc. I'm not sure how satisfying an arc it is, but he certainly goes through the most among the characters. Initially he annoyed me how whiny Mickey seemed, continually acting like the universe loves screwing with him, but I came to appreciate his blase bad-boy act that masked his inner pain. For such a charming little comedy, his tragic character seems almost to have wandered in from another movie, and in this case, I mean that in the best way. So, yes, if any performer in this film deserved a nomination, it was him. I still wonder how he and Gene Lockhart made it to the shortlist and Joseph Calleia didn't, but that's not Garfield's fault. I will say for sure that between him and Lockhart, Garfield is my winner so far.

Next up is If I Were King, and like these first two, I know literally nothing about it except that it earned Basil Rathbone his second Oscar nod. We'll see if Garfield can hold on to his temporary crown.

Algiers

Film: Algiers
Year: 1938
Cast: Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, Hedy LaMarr, Joseph Calleia, Alan Hale, Gene Lockhart, Walter Kingsford, Paul Harvey, Stanley Fields, Johnny Downs, Leonid Kinskey
Director: John Cromwell
Nominations: Best Actor (Boyer), Best Supporting Actor (Lockhart), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction

We begin our project with Algiers. As I said in my initial post, the random year and category I selected was Best Supporting Actor, 1938. I decided I would watch the films in alphabetical order, so this week, Algiers is up.

As I've said, when a film I've watched was nominated in multiple categories, I don't see a need to review it each time it comes up, though in the recap posts I will discuss the other appropriate nominations in comparison with their competitors. So while this post is first because of Gene Lockhart's nominated supporting performance, I'll touch a bit on Charles Boyer's Best-Actor-nominated performance as well.

This film was, essentially, Casablanca before there was such a thing as Casablanca. It takes place in an exotic locale, in this case the Casbah district in Algiers (hence the title) and focuses on a man whose hands aren't exactly the cleanest, who has a complicated but not unpleasant relationship with local law enforcement, and his world is rocked by the arrival of a beautiful woman. In fact, this film bears such a resemblance to Casablanca that when it was being pitched, Julius Epstein eventually just said "Oh, what the hell, it's Algiers." What it actually is, however, is an English-language remake (nearly shot-for-shot, from what I read!) of a French film called Pépé le Moko. It's the story of a career criminal who is currently holed up in the Casbah in Algiers, untouchable as the Casbah is essentially a wretched hive of scum and villainy, unmanageable by police. Think the Narrows in Batman Begins (though it looks like a lot more fun).

Its king is Pépé le Moko (Boyer), a crime lord and master thief. In person, he's a charming Frenchman who is hardly ever seen on camera actually committing a crime. The only real crime we witness him commit is shooting an informant (more on that in a moment), while in another scene we see him speaking with his fence about the value of some jewels. But mostly his crimes are left vaguely hinted at. What's mainly important is that the French police want him badly, and a French inspector (Paul Harvey, and no, not that Paul Harvey), who's about as French as Morgan Freeman is white, is angered by the local police chief's insistence that as long as he's walled inside the Casbah, he's untouchable. He leads several raids that Pépé easily avoids, but a local officer, Inspector Slimane (Joseph Calleia), is hunting Pépé mainly by use of informants who gradually lead away Pépé's protection.

The characters of Pépé and Inspector Slimane are, to me, the main draws of this film. Yes, there's a love triangle between Pépé, a gypsy named Ines (Sigrid Gurie) who is tangentially connected to his gang and loves him unrequitedly, and Gaby, a French tourist who's engaged to a rich man she doesn't love, but both women are less people and more walking representations of Pépé's frustrating situation.

See, Pépé feels like the Casbah is his prison. He hates having to hide out there; he wants to go back to France and live as a free man. Gaby represents this ideal to him, so while one could be tempted to wonder why and how he falls for her so hard, so fast, I don't believe he's fallen for her at all, but more the idea of her as the freedom of a life in Paris. That she's bound to a fat, old, boorish fiance just makes her that much more forbidden and thus desirable. Ines, meanwhile, is a picture of his current life; comfortable, easy and predictable, asking nothing but granting everything, but still, not what he wants.

One could argue that Pépé's best friend is in fact Inspector Slimane. The two respect each other a great deal, to the point where Slimane makes several friendly visits to the Casbah where he and Pépé sit and chat like old friends (which is pretty much what they are). If Slimane comes by himself he's welcomed as a friend. Raids are impossible, so Slimane doesn't try. In fact, he seems like he'd prefer to leave Pépé where he is, even knowing how miserable Pépé is there.

Among the informants is a weasly little guy named Regis (Gene Lockhart) who will sell out anyone who can pay him. While Pépé knows this, his young associate Pierrot (Johnny Downs) seems to like and even trust Regis, and in the end dies for it. I'll be honest, I didn't think that much of Lockhart's performance, which seems to mostly consist of speaking several lines at once, all with the same inflection and cadence, with an accent that goes in and out. What saves him, almost, is that the other characters seem to be just as annoyed with him as I was. He's kind of a pathetic guy; everyone who knows him seems to understand how much of a creep he is. I will give him this; he sells the scene where his duplicity leading the Pierrot's death is discovered. Without speaking, for once, he just stares in plain panic, knowing his duplicity has caught up with him, and knowing that for once he can't talk his way out of it. It might have been that scene that got him nominated, but I'm glad he didn't win.

It's actually Calleia that I feel deserved the nomination. That he can make Slimane seem utterly competent and in control even as he admits he can't touch Pépé is a testament to his abilities. It kinda sucks that he's ultimately a footnote in Hollywood, remembered only by film buffs. He definitely would have had my vote. I also appreciated the performances of Pépé's gang, especially Carlos the thug (Stanley Fields), who must be the muscle of the operation because he certainly isn't the brains. A running gag is that someone will insult them, and he'll shout "Say that again!", at which point they'll repeat the insult and he'll say, as if satisfied, "...Okay."

Boyer, that great French lover, is fine here. It's not an especially challenging role for him, and seems almost written for him. It's also the inspiration for Looney Toons's Pépé le Pew, which made it hard for me to take his accent seriously. I did understand and relate to Pépé's plight, and enjoyed the exploration of his situation vs. his desires. He never once acknowledges that if the Casbah really is his prison, it's one of his own making through his own deeds, and he seems to genuinely believe he's in love with Gaby, even though he hardly knows her.

In the end, this was an interesting film with a gaggle of nice characters and an interesting story, but it didn't win any Oscars and I can see why; it's good, but not great. I can also see why Casablanca has completely eclipsed it.

Let's Watch Oscar's Greatest!

I'm starting this blog because I've been doing the whole Oscar Handicapping thing since I was in High School but for some reason, when it comes to actually watching the movies the Academy honors with nominations, I've actually seen very few, and most of them are from the last five decades.

So, I'm remedying that one. I've decided to watch every movie the Academy has nominated for all the major awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and screenplay (including all writing categories, regardless of their name at the time). I'd go further, but many of the other categories changed significantly over the years, and including all of them will likely give me a headache. What I want to focus on are the movies the Academy truly felt contained the greatest performances, the greatest writing, were guided by the best hands and were the best films each year could offer. I'll be judging them based on how well they hold up, whether or not they were deserving at the time, whether or not I recommend the film and general thoughts.

I won't make any promises as to how fast I can get each post up. I'd like to do a post a week, but I might skip some weeks or put up more than one in a week, all depending on how much I'm able to watch and how much time I get to write about it.

This is clearly going to be a long project, especially as I'm going to re-watch any movies I've already seen when they come up. That's well over 1500 movies and many are three-plus hours long. Also I don't like to feel like I'm stuck in a given decade. So what I've done is made up a little bag with slips of paper, each containing a category, and I'll be selecting one at random from the bag. Then I will use a random year-generating website to give me a year. Whatever category gets chosen, I will watch all films in that category for the random year given me.

Clearly this will give me films nominated in other categories their given years as well. This is fine, and I don't see a need to watch each film more than once, unless I've truly forgotten everything about it when it comes up again.

This first selection gave me Best Supporting Actor, 1938.

This year, the Academy nominated:

• Walter Brennan in Kentucky (the winner)
• John Garfield in Four Daughters
• Gene Lockhart in Algiers
• Robert Morley in Marie Antoinette
• Basil Rathbone in If I Were King

Of the nominees, this year, few were in movies honored in other major categories. Four Daughters was a Best Picture nominee, while Algiers and Marie Antoinette were nominated in other acting categories.

Each new category will come with an introductory post like this one, introducing the year and category, and a quick summation. Each film I watch, I'll give a short review, speaking mainly of the nominees and my impression of them. I'll finish each category watch with a concluding post, comparing each of the nominees in that category, and whether or not I feel the Academy got it wrong or right.

As most of these films are older, spoilers will be coming a-plenty, though I'll try to leave the events of the film vague enough that watching it will still be a good experience.