The Oscar Quest: Best Actor – 1943
1943. Great year. Hard to argue when your Best Picture is Casablanca and Michael Curtiz also wins Best Director for it (talked about here). But you know what? Complaints can be made here. Complaints that Casablanca didn’t win more.
Best Actress this year was Jennifer Jones for The Song of Bernadette (talked about here). I’m sort of okay with this, because Ingrid Bergman was nominated for the wrong film. Best Supporting Actor was Charles Coburn for The More the Merrier (talked about here), which was a fine decision, and a great performance, but I personally think Claude Rains should have won for Casablanca. And Best Supporting Actress was Katina Paxinou for For Whom the Bell Tolls, which was in one of the weakest Best Supporting Actress categories of all time (and there was no Casablanca nomination there), so it was okay.
And then there’s this category. One of the top five worst Best Actor decisions of all time. One of the bottom three worst Best Actor-winning performances of all time. This is just a shitty decision all around. I actually went back to watch this film again to double check that it was so bad. It was.
BEST ACTOR – 1943
And the nominees were…
Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca
Gary Cooper, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Paul Lukas, Watch on the Rhine
Walter Pidgeon, Madame Curie
Mickey Rooney, The Human Comedy (more…)
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