tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3166297507174717122.post8212040812244917626..comments2024-03-27T21:42:56.131-05:00Comments on 1001plus: Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1943SJHoneywellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13550007053995112090noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3166297507174717122.post-1147187385021561172019-01-29T22:56:15.406-06:002019-01-29T22:56:15.406-06:00I'm pretty much on the same page.
Of course, ...I'm pretty much on the same page.<br /><br />Of course, I think Cotten should pretty much have always been nominated. I can't fathom how he never was.SJHoneywellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13550007053995112090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3166297507174717122.post-37095635835437894542019-01-29T15:57:20.366-06:002019-01-29T15:57:20.366-06:00Joseph Cotton was great in Shadow of a doubt and i...Joseph Cotton was great in Shadow of a doubt and in a standard year he could have won. 43 however belonged to Casablanca and Bogart. In my book it could have won most of the awards at stake that year.TSorensenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3166297507174717122.post-15157324321951039282019-01-28T21:33:28.449-06:002019-01-28T21:33:28.449-06:00I found Heaven Can Wait to be a piffle. That said,...I found <i>Heaven Can Wait</i> to be a piffle. That said, Laird Cregar is absoultely the best thing in it. I'd watch it again for him. <br /><br />It shocks me that I might actually put Franchot Tone in the running, since I find him dead boring in just about everything, but that's a good movie and, credit where it's due, he's good in it.<br /><br />Once again, this was a better year than the nominations indicate. If they'd gotten it right, though, it would have forgiven a lot of sins.SJHoneywellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13550007053995112090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3166297507174717122.post-22167185201773091722019-01-28T18:42:40.766-06:002019-01-28T18:42:40.766-06:00While my conclusion would be the same my lineup wo...While my conclusion would be the same my lineup would be slightly different but only slightly.<br /><br />Our biggest difference would be the placement of Gary Cooper. I like Cooper a great deal and in High Noon and Pride of the Yankees he gave award level performances but I detested For Whom the Bell Tolls, though Paxinou was a saving grace, finding its running time an arduous trial and Cooper both horribly miscast and dull in the extreme. He’d be dead last for me and shouldn’t have been here at all. <br /><br />Likewise Madame Curie tested my patience. It had so much potential, a compelling story about a fascinating woman and one of the best screen teams of the 40’s in the leads but it moved at a snail’s pace boring me terribly. The fault lies in the direction not the performances but I wasn’t deeply moved by those either and if anyone deserved a nomination (they didn’t) it was Greer not Pidgeon. <br /><br />Rooney’s tendency towards unctuousness often turned me off to his performances but in The Human Comedy his keeps a handle on it juggling brashness and tenderness pretty well. I would never have nominated him but I thought he made more of an impact than the previous two so he manages third. <br /><br />I love Watch on the Rhine, although I admit that it reveals its stage origins and is at time verbose but its cautionary tale about the insidiousness of evil and the dangers of complacency remains a timely one. Lukas’s worn down world weary performance is the first one I’d consider keeping though he’d never be my winner and in an open field wouldn’t make it to second place. <br /><br />But this should have been Bogart’s all the way. A perfect melding of actor and role. That he won for the middling African Queen instead of this is another example of Oscar’s fallacy. <br /><br />I agree with all your alternate suggestions, even Livesey though I wasn’t much of a fan of Colonel Blimp.<br /><br />While Bogart would always come out on top the competition could have so much more heated with Ameche (I LOVE Heaven Can Wait-sorry to hear you don’t-I think the story is charming and the performances by all wonderful…Laird Cregar’s urbane devil is a marvel of what a talented actor can do with what could have been a throwaway nothing of a role) and Cotton in the mix.<br /><br />My list would run this way and in this order:<br /><br />Humphrey Bogart-Casablanca<br />Joseph Cotton-Shadow of a Doubt<br />Don Ameche-Heaven Can Wait<br />Henry Fonda-The Ox-Bow Incident<br />Paul Lukas-Watch on the Rhine<br /><br />With Franchot Tone (never better) in Five Graves to Cairo & Charles Laughton in This Land is Mine very close behind. joel65913https://www.blogger.com/profile/14526657073681774683noreply@blogger.com