Top Ten Oscar Travesties of the Golden Age: #5

The #5 Oscar travesty of the Golden Age

James Stewart fails to win Best Actor for It's a Wonderful Life.

Forget the annual Christmas tradition, forget Clarence and his stinkin' wings, forget Gloria Grahame..oh, wait, scratch that last one...

I'm a lukewarm admirer of Frank Capra. I'm an "everyman" kind of guy, but Capra laid the sticky sentiment on with a trowel, and sometimes I can't go near any of his movies for long periods of time; I'm going through such a time right now.

But James Stewart was so darned good in It's a Wonderful Life and he really is the sole reason (not counting Gloria Grahame) to watch this every Christmas. The Academy should've been forced to live in Pottersville for denying Stewart his second Best Actor Award for this movie. Instead, it would be Fredric March who would get his second Oscar, for The Best Years of Our Lives. At one time considered the best actor...period (replacing Paul Muni, I guess), March snagged his second Oscar in a role that could not have been at all challenging to the great thespian--and he was a fine actor, indeed. I just don't see how his performance was an Oscar-winning one. Maybe Hollywood wanted to recognize the "everyman" soldier that March portrayed, adjusting to a changed home and family, but in the many times I've watched Best Years--and I love that movie--there's nothing in March's perfunctory performance that I found Oscar worthy.

Let's also not forget that Harold Russell was recognized as such when he won Best Supporting Actor *and* a special Oscar "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance in The Best Years of Our Lives."

March's winning is a most curious affair.

Furthermore, if the Academy truly wanted to recognize the common soldier, they could've awarded Stewart for that--a Bomber Pilot during WWII--but instead the Academy got carried away and awarded every statuette to Best Years as long as they didn't have to give non-nominees Dana Andrews and Myrna Loy anything, of course.

Stewart probably didn't think much one way or the other about winning or losing. After all, he was no stranger to compensation Oscars when he himself won in 1940 for The Philadelphia Story, something I've defended and which is this blog's very first post. The fact that Jimmy already had an Oscar is the only thing keeping this travesty from being higher on the list.

(Near) Travesties That Didn't Make the Cut

Before the top five Golden Age Oscar travesties are unveiled, Let's take a moment to mention what didn't make it. This is because I don’t think of these as major travesties--though others might--yet somehow I felt the need to include them, just to let you know they were thought about, but not enough to be in the running.

“Near travesties” considered for this list, but ultimately rejected:

How Green Was My Valley beats out Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon for Best Picture, 1941.

I think too highly of John Ford and his reputation, so I can’t muster any vitriol on this issue. I’m also a lukewarm Citizen Kane and Maltese Falcon fan. I like both movies and understand their importance and appeal, but the Ford Factor weighs too heavily for me to label this a travesty.

Thelma Ritter never wins an Oscar.

Though nominated six times for Best Supporting Actress, Thelma Ritter never won. While this is highly unfortunate, in looking at the roles for which Miss Ritter received her nominations, I feel as though she lost out to superior performances each and every time even if she lost to actors via the dreaded stage performance-turned -film-performance curse which reared its ugly head in the case of 1950 and 1951:

All About Eve (1950) Lost to Josephine Hull in Harvey
The Mating Season (1951) Lost to Kim Hunter in A Streetcar Named Desire
With a Song in My Heart (1952) Lost to Gloria Grahame in The Bad and the Beautiful
Pickup on South Street (1953) Lost to Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity
Pillow Talk (1959) Lost to Shelley Winter in The Diary of Anne Frank
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) Lost to Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker

Marlon Brando fails to win Best Actor in 1951.

It was a stage role that Brando played a zillion times; my dislike for actors getting Oscar nominations for stage roles holds true in this and every regard, despite my admiration for Brando in general. Besides, Bogart was better.

Barbara Stanwyck never wins an Oscar.

This omission pains me the most, but in looking at Babs' nominations, with the exception of 1937--see travesty #9--when Stanwyck was nominated for Stella Dallas--I couldn't make a case for her beating out the actual victors:

Ball of Fire (1942) Lost to Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver
Double Indemnity (1944) Lost to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) Lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda

So while it's a travesty that Barbara Stanwyck never won a "competitive" Oscar, at least her losses were in years with memorable winners.

Top Ten Oscar Travesties of the Golden Age: #6

The #6 Oscar travesty of the Golden Age

Barry Fitzgerald’s nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same role in 1944.


“Performances by an actor or actress in any supporting role may be nominated for either the Best Acting Award or the Award for Best Supporting Player.”

~the Academy’s official rules circa 1944.

Oh, so you can be lead and second banana?

Barry Fitzgerald wasn’t a man, he was a leprechaun; a wee leprechaun who charmed and enchanted the Academy out of its then-fashionable high-waisted pants. His half-senile, Best Supporting Actor-winning performance as the "lovable" Father Fitzgibbon in Going My Way notwithstanding, Barry Fitzgerald could do no wrong in 1944. He was so lucky that he beat a manslaughter rap a month before the Oscar nominations were announced.

But the real travesty lies in that the Academy’s dopey rules prevented 1944’s most deserving Supporting Actor--Clifton Webb in Laura—from taking home the Oscar. The dual nomination also aided his Going My Way co-star, Bing Crosby. Crosby was the odds on favorite, but in case that wasn't enough, voters could refrain from voting for Fitzgerald for Best Actor, knowing they could award him Best Supporting Actor instead. In a sense, the game was rigged for ol' Barry, wasn't it?

Fitzgerald later knocked the head off of his plaster Oscar while practicing his golf swing in his living room, and Paramount paid for its replacement. In a way he received two Oscars anyway. Imagine the horror if Fitzgerald had somehow won the Best Actor award, too? If that happened I doubt we would've been treated to Crosby and Fitzy’s subsequent blarney team ups throughout the rest of the ‘40s.

Not only did Fitzgerald’s unfair (but within the flawed rules) dual nomination deny the deliciously catty Webb-as-Waldo Lydecker the Oscar, but his intrusion in the Best Actor category kept some other worthy performer from receiving a nod.

Top Ten Oscar Travesties of the Golden Age: #7

The #7 Oscar travesty of the Golden Age

Bette Davis fails to win Best Actress, 1950.

I originally titled this entry "Judy Holliday wins Best Actress, 1950", but I love Judy Holliday and her turn as Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday is delightful; she was never better. It's probably the only reason this travesty isn't higher on the list. Why? Because I have this prejudice against actors who play a role forever on stage and then cop an Oscar for the same performance in a film. Yes, stage and screen are different mediums blah blah blah, but it almost always ends up costing a once-in-a-lifetime film performance the Oscar I feel it richly deserves.

Bette Davis-as-Margo Channing. Lost Best Actress. Aaargh! Even though I'm not a huge fan of Bette Davis movies, I absolutely love her charisma, screen presence, and her sheer Bette Davisness. She's the definite movie actress and the greatest of all Grand Dames. The Academy, in its infinite wisdom, often chooses to honor the right actors for the wrong roles. Bette should've been the first three-time Best Actress winner (sorry, Kate!) but being the indomitable spirit and strong-willed woman she was, she most likely made scads of enemies during her long and storied career. However, in 1950 she was also painted in the proverbial corner because the Best Actress competition was as strong as it ever was:

Anne Baxter in All About Eve
Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday
Eleanor Parker in Caged
Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard

Bette had votes pulled away from her by her All About Eve co-star, Anne Baxter; she was also up against a career-defining role with Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. Bette losing among such fine competition and the fact that All About Eve was just too good for its own good; an abundance of riches in a year that was among the very best roles for women. Still, Davis-as-Margo Channing is among her top three Oscar-nominated performances and it's a shame she didn't bring home the prize a third time.