The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actress – 1944
I don’t know if my subconscious is really smart or really dickish. Or really dickish because it’s really smart. It seems like these last few days have been nothing but shit categories. Now, to show you behind the curtain: what I do when figuring out what posts are going up each month is, I figure out which categories are finished and which ones have the most years left to write up. I like to space out each category, so that you don’t get Best Actor after Best Actor every day (unless I have a lot of that category, like last month, where the first half was all Best Actress categories). Then what I do is just pick randomly which years go where. I try to make it so years aren’t in close proximity to years near it. Like, yesterday was 1990, today is 1944, tomorrow will be 1959, and then after that is 1976. It’s spread out.
I’m not really paying attention to what specific categories are going up when I plan this. It’s just about spreading out the years. Which is why, either my subconscious is really smart or really dickish. Because either it was like, “All of these categories really suck. Mike’s gonna hate having to write them up. Let’s put them in his birthday month so he has no choice but to do them and not put them off.” Or it was like, “Let’s put them in his birthday month because he’s got all that other stuff going on that he likes that he’ll be able to power through it and get them over with so he doesn’t have to deal with them all later.” I’d like to think it was the latter. But, honestly, it’s probably pure happenstance. I just thought I should mention it because I like weird coincidences like this. It’s rare to see so many shitty categories in a row.
Anywho, I find 1944 to be a very boring year. Mostly because the best film of the year lost to a crowd pleaser. Going My Way wins Best Picture, Best Actor for Bing Crosby (talked about here), Best Supporting Actor for Barry Fitzgerald (talked about here) and Best Director for Leo McCarey (talked about here). I love the acting decisions, but I don’t agree with the Picture decision and hate the Director decision. Hitchcock or Billy Wilder should have won there, and Double Indemnity really should have won Best Picture. Then there’s Best Actress, which was Ingrid Bergman for Gaslight (talked about here), which is clearly a makeup Oscar for her not winning the year before (she was nominated for For Whom the Bell Tolls instead of Casablanca, which is what she should have won for), which screwed Barbara Stanwyck out of a well-deserved Oscar. So this year is just chaos. Punctuated (or rather, underscored) by this piece of shit category, where once again, the Academy votes for the worst possible choice. And don’t give me that veteran shit — she shouldn’t have won.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 1944
And the nominees were…
Ethel Barrymore, None But the Lonely Heart
Jennifer Jones, Since You Went Away
Angela Lansbury, Gaslight
Aline MacMahon, Dragon Seed
Agnes Moorehead, Mrs. Parkington (more…)
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