Awards presented November 18, 1932
(Films released from August 1, 1931 through July 31, 1932 were eligible.)
The nominees were ...
... when they should have been ...
And the Oscar went to ...
(Tie)
Wallace Beery in
The Champ and
Fredric March in
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
March led Beery by one vote, which under the Academy rules at that time constituted a tie. In fact, up to a three-vote difference would be ruled a tie; before Pricewaterhouse Coopers -- at that time just Price Waterhouse -- took over the balloting in 1934, the Academy seemed to want a sizable margin of error. (Today, only an identical number of votes counts as a tie.) Beery had worked steadily as a heavy or a comic in silent pictures, starting in 1913, including a series of one-reel shorts in which he played a drag role: Sweedie, the Swedish maid. He became a star with the arrival of sound, though he owed his stardom to two women: Screenwriter Frances Marion had teamed him with Marie Dressler in
Min and Bill and
Tugboat Annie; Marion had also written the role in
The Big House that earned Beery his first Oscar nomination. The teaming with Dressler ended with her death in 1934, after which Beery returned to supporting roles. March, who would go on to a long screen career, winning a second Oscar for
The Best Years of Our Lives, had been discovered by a Paramount scout in a touring production of
The Royal Family, in which he parodied John Barrymore. He earned his first Oscar nomination when he re-created that role on screen.
... when it should have gone to ...
 |
| with Joan Crawford |
 |
| with Greta Garbo |
Unlike his brother, Lionel, and his sister, Ethel, John Barrymore never won an Oscar. He was never even nominated for one. He had been acclaimed as a stage actor, particularly as Shakespeare's Richard III and Hamlet, but we have only the reviews to go by. His one turn at Shakespeare on screen was in the 1936 MGM
Romeo and Juliet, with its superannuated teenagers: thirty-six-year-old Norma Shearer as Juliet, forty-four-year-old Leslie Howard as Romeo, and fifty-four-year-old Barrymore as Mercutio. Even so, we have glimpses there of what Barrymore may have been like in his prime: His performance is amusingly over-the-top, containing the energy that the rest of the movie sorely needs. He had made silent films starting in 1914, but after a 1925 appearance as Hamlet in London, he gave up the stage and joined Lionel in Hollywood, where his good looks and rakish ways fit right in. His finest screen performance is probably in 1934's
Twentieth Century, in which director Howard Hawks, the screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (plus some uncredited work by Preston Sturges), and an uninhibited performance by Carole Lombard brought out the madcap best in Barrymore.
Grand Hotel, of course, is melodramatic to the point of absurdity, but Barrymore gives it a center and a measure of credibility, especially in his scenes with Garbo, Crawford, and particularly his brother, Lionel. Eventually, Barrymore's alcoholism began to destroy his career, however, and at the end he was playing small roles in throwaway movies, unable to memorize lines and relying on cue cards to get through his scenes.
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