Oh, I don’t like 1947. This year just reeks of weak to me. Not that Gentleman’s Agreement is a bad film, it’s just — the rest of the year is so weak around it, to me, it feels like a weak choice. It’s a great film, and in the category, it totally should have won Best Picture. It also won Best Director for Elia Kazan, which — no objections there, and Best Supporting Actress for Celeste Holm, which I’m cool with. I like her. And the category was weak.

Best Actor this year was Ronald Colman for A Double Life, which is a really weak choice. Gregory Peck was so much better in Gentleman’s Agreement. Best Actress this year was Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter, which is one of the worst Best Actress decisions of all time (probably second, maybe third, still, really, really bad). Rosalind Russell definitely should have won for Mourning Becomes Electra. The performances aren’t even close.

So that’s 1947. Just a weak set of films, Academy-wise, and overall weak choices outside of Best Picture and Director. Fortunately, though, this category does redeem a lot of it, because — Santa Claus. Instant redemption.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – 1947

And the nominees were…

Charles Bickford, The Farmer’s Daughter

Thomas Gomez, Ride the Pink Horse

Edmund Gwenn, Miracle on 34th Street

Robert Ryan, Crossfire

Richard Widmark, Kiss of Death Read the rest of this page »

Oh hey, it’s the very first Best Supporting Actress category ever. That means several things. Most of all, it means that the rules don’t apply. You can’t judge this based on strictly the performances. You have to think of it as establishing the category. This sets the trend for what exactly is a supporting performance as we know it.

As for the rest of the year, The Great Ziegfeld wins Best Picture, which, is a pretty good choice, since it’s big and epic (at least, for 1936), and Best Actress for Luise Rainer, which, is a terrible decision. She was a supporting character at best in the film. And, surprisingly, William Powell does not win Best Actor for that film and for My Man Godfrey (being nominated for the latter), but rather, Paul Muni wins Best Actor for The Story of Louis Pasteur, which I don’t really like as a decision. It just seemed like too easy a performance to vote for. Powell, and especially Walter Huston, were better choices. (They could have given it to Muni, who very much deserved an Oscar, for The Story of Louis Pasteur the year after this. It would have made perfect sense.) Then Best Supporting Actor (the very first of that category) went to Walter Brennan for Come and Get It. While I don’t much care for the film or the performance, Brennan does play Swedish, and is an actor who epitomizes the category, so ultimately it was a good decision. Then Best Director was Frank Capra for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, which, as much as I loved the film (as I said here), I think is a terrible decision.

So, keeping in mind it’s not so much the performance as much as it is a foundation for a category, let’s take a look at this one…

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 1936

And the nominees were…

Alice Brady, My Man Godfrey

Beulah Bondi, The Gorgeous Hussy

Bonita Granville, These Three

Maria Ouspenskaya, Dodsworth

Gale Sondergaard, Anthony Adverse Read the rest of this page »