Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1934

The Contenders:

Norma Shearer: The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Claudette Colbert: It Happened One Night (winner)
Bette Davis: Of Human Bondage (write-in candidate)
Grace Moore: One Night of Love

Rules for Dating

Film: Of Human Bondage
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’ve been married for close to 23 years, so I’d understand it someone dismissed any dating advice I might give. Because it has been a number of years since I’ve been in that part of the world, there’s only one dating rule I remember for heterosexual men. Pardon the crudity, but that rule is, “Never stick it in crazy,” and I can’t but imagine that there’s variations of this for women and for men of different proclivities than mine. I think it’s a rule to live by, although I’ll certainly let my wife give this particular bit of advice to my daughters when they need it. I bring this up because Of Human Bondage is a short film about a guy who spends the whole film attempting to, well, stick it in crazy.

Or course, since this is from 1934, it’s going to be pretty tame in a lot of respects. Timid Philip (Leslie Howard) is cursed with a club foot, which has made him something of an emotional pushover. After spending a few years in Paris attempting and failing to be a painter, he decides to return to London and pursue a medical degree. It is there that he meets Mildred (Bette Davis), a server at a local café. Mildred is regularly terrible to Philip, which does not dissuade him from chasing after her. Mildred is regularly scornful of him and always non-committal. His infatuation with her causes him to fail his examinations. When he proposes marriage to her, she essentially laughs in his face and runs off to marry one of her wealthy customers.