The nominees were ...
- Charles Boyer in Conquest
- Fredric March in A Star Is Born
- Robert Montgomery in Night Must Fall
- Paul Muni in The Life of Emile Zola
- Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous
... when they should have been ...
- Humphrey Bogart in Black Legion
- Ronald Colman in The Prisoner of Zenda
- Cary Grant in The Awful Truth
- Fredric March in A Star Is Born
- Robert Montgomery in Night Must Fall
And the Oscar went to ...
Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous.
Giving Tracy a permanent wave (Joan Crawford said he looked like Harpo Marx) and having him call the plummy-voiced English tyke Freddie Bartholomew "Leetle Feesh" may not have been the worst thing to happen to an Irishman since the Battle of the Boyne, but it certainly wasn't Tracy's best role or performance. Still, it won him his first Oscar.
Giving Tracy a permanent wave (Joan Crawford said he looked like Harpo Marx) and having him call the plummy-voiced English tyke Freddie Bartholomew "Leetle Feesh" may not have been the worst thing to happen to an Irishman since the Battle of the Boyne, but it certainly wasn't Tracy's best role or performance. Still, it won him his first Oscar.
... when it should have gone to ...
Cary Grant in The Awful Truth.
Why Grant wasn't nominated for this movie, when his co-star Irene Dunne was, and even Ralph Bellamy landed a supporting actor nomination, is one of the abiding mysteries of the Oscars. Grant received only two nominations, for the tear-jerking Penny Serenade (also with Dunne) and the plodding None But the Lonely Heart. Eventually, the Academy got around to giving him a consolation prize, an honorary award, but his mastery of both screwball and sophisticated comedy was unequaled. In one of the funniest scenes of The Awful Truth, Grant, after a tiff with Dunne, grabs a hat and starts to leave, only to discover, and to demonstrate in several bemused moments before a mirror, that the hat isn't his. No actor on earth, not even Chaplin, could do more with a moment like that than Grant does. Even without a nomination, The Awful Truth was the film that launched Grant into major stardom.
Why Grant wasn't nominated for this movie, when his co-star Irene Dunne was, and even Ralph Bellamy landed a supporting actor nomination, is one of the abiding mysteries of the Oscars. Grant received only two nominations, for the tear-jerking Penny Serenade (also with Dunne) and the plodding None But the Lonely Heart. Eventually, the Academy got around to giving him a consolation prize, an honorary award, but his mastery of both screwball and sophisticated comedy was unequaled. In one of the funniest scenes of The Awful Truth, Grant, after a tiff with Dunne, grabs a hat and starts to leave, only to discover, and to demonstrate in several bemused moments before a mirror, that the hat isn't his. No actor on earth, not even Chaplin, could do more with a moment like that than Grant does. Even without a nomination, The Awful Truth was the film that launched Grant into major stardom.
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