Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1935

The Contenders:

Katharine Hepburn: Alice Adams
Miriam Hopkins: Becky Sharp
Bette Davis: Dangerous (winner)
Merle Oberon: The Dark Angel
Elisabeth Bergner: Escape Me Never
Claudette Colbert: Private Worlds

Love on the Ward

Film: Private Worlds
Format: Internet video on laptop.

This is going to sound mildly heretical, but I really don’t understand the appeal of Claudette Colbert. Sure, she’s good in It Happened One Night, but I get the impression that I’m always supposed to find her irresistible and I find her pretty resistible. I don’t know what it is. The last of her Oscar nominations for me to see is Private Worlds, and since knocking out a rarity now and then keeps my stress levels down, that’s what I went for tonight.

Private Worlds packs a good deal of weird into its 82 minutes, so it’s got that going for it. The film takes place inside a mental hospital, and while it concerns the doctors and their lives more than anything, we get a few glimpses of some of the patients. As the film opens, everything at the hospital is clicking on all cylinders. The patients are treated with kindness and respect, even if the matron (Esther Dale) disapproves and wants everyone tossed into solitary. Running the hospital is Dr. Alex MacGregor (Joel McCrea), who is ably assisted by Dr. Jane Everest (Claudette Colbert). A woman doctor for this time is pretty surprising and a woman doctor in an asylum is even more surprising.