Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1950

The Contenders:

Jose Ferrer: Cyrano de Bergerac (winner)
Spencer Tracy: Father of the Bride
James Stewart: Harvey
Louis Calhern: The Magnificent Yankee
William Holden: Sunset Boulevard

The Magnificent Yankee

Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Oh boy. February on TCM is great because every film they show has some connection to the Oscars and many of them are ones that I have trouble locating. With the case of The Magnificent Yankee, there may well be a reason that I have trouble finding someone willing to carry a copy. I won’t say that this is a bad movie, but I will say to my last breath that it’s dull as dishwater.

The Magnificent Yankee is the story of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and more specifically, it’s the story of Holmes when he was a Supreme Court justice. Holmes (Louis Calhern, who created this role on stage) arrives in Washington as a new justice with his wife, Fanny (Ann Harding). He is sworn in, and he makes an arrangement with Harvard to take on a single promising student every year to work as his clerk. Since the Holmeses are without children, this parade of young men becomes, more or less, their children. Holmes certainly takes a father’s pride in the men who operate as his yearly secretaries.