Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1929-1930

The Contenders:

Greta Garbo: Anna Christie
Nancy Carroll: The Devil’s Holiday
Norma Shearer: The Divorcee (winner)
Greta Garbo: Romance
Ruth Chatterton: Sarah and Son
Norma Shearer: Their Own Desire
Gloria Swanson: The Trespasser

Motherhood

Film: The Trespasser
Format: Internet video on The Nook.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: when I dip into the distant past on Oscar films, I’m never really sure what I’m going to get. In the case of The Trespasser, released in 1929 but eligible for the 1930 Oscars, I’m getting something that absolutely screams that it’s from the period just after the invention of talkies. Evidently, this was filmed originally as a silent movie and then rushed into talkie production when the world shifted to films with sound. It feels very much like that. The melodrama is so thick here that it appears to have been made with 50% tree sap. In its own way, it’s almost impressive just how many melodramatic notes it manages to hit.

Marion Donnell (Gloria Swanson, in her talkie debut) works as a stenographer for a lawyer, but as the movie begins, she is quitting her job. Why? Because she is eloping with Jack Merrick (Robert Ames), son of one of the most powerful men in Chicago. The two get married and spend a particularly blissful night together until the next morning when Jack’s father (William Holden, no not that one) shows up. Naturally he doesn’t approve of his son marrying a girl who actually has to work for a living and he’s convinced that Marion is a gold digger. He suggests an annulment followed by a change to introduce Marion to society. At least that’s what he tells his son. In reality, he’s going to do everything he can to destroy Marion, but she doesn’t give him the chance. She can’t convince Jack to walk out on the family money, so she walks out.