Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1929-1930

The Contenders:

Wallace Beery: The Big House
Maurice Chevalier: The Big Pond
Ronald Colman: Bulldog Drummond
Ronald Colman: Condemned
George Arliss: Disraeli (winner)
George Arliss: The Green Goddess
Maurice Chevalier: The Love Parade
Lawrence Tibbett: The Rogue Song

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1929-1930

The Contenders:

All Quiet on the Western Front (winner)
The Big House
Disraeli
The Divorcee
The Love Parade

Statesman

Film: Disraeli
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Sometimes, the movies that I watch on a given day are ones I look forward to and sometimes they are just a box to check off. It’s what happens when you watch films off a master list. With Disraeli, it was very much the second type, at least until I got a little way into it. While nominated for awards in the third Oscars ceremony, Disraeli was released in 1929, making it one of the early talkies. It’s also the debut of George Arliss in talkie films and it’s a good enough debut that he won the Best Actor Oscar for this role.

This is an odd film in that it doesn’t follow the man’s whole life and it focuses on a piece of history that is unusual for the subject of a film to say the least. Benjamin Disraeli (George Arliss) is the Prime Minister of Great Britain when the film opens, and he faces a great deal of opposition for a number of reasons. Disraeli was descended from immigrants and was born a Jew (although he eventually converted to the Anglican faith), not necessarily a recipe for success in mid-late nineteenth century British politics. He was also a man of big ideas focused on not simply his own political career but on the image of his country and the state of the greater empire.