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

Their Own Desire

Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

When one looks at the earliest films in Oscar’s arsenal, one is apt to find films in which the plot seems to simply be bizarre by modern standards. Their Own Desire is a case in point. This is a weird little film, and I stress the word “little” because the running time barely scrapes past an hour. In a way, it reminds me of a film like Dodsworth in that it is an ultimate white people problems film, or at least a rich people problems film. Seriously, the thing starts with a polo match, and the players in the game are our main characters. I’ve not only never played polo, I don’t know anyone who has.

Anyway, Lucia “Lally” Marlett (Norma Shearer) has the sort of life that most people in 1929, pre- or post-crash would have loved to have. She and her family play polo and have more money than they can spend. Tragically, sadness has crept into the Marlett home. Lally’s father Henry (Lewis Stone) has been carrying on a year-long affair with a woman known to us only as Mrs. Cheever (Helene Millard). Lally discovers this as her parents have decided on a divorce. After a heated argument with her father, Lally heads off to summer with her mother (Belle Bennett).