The nominees were ...
- Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips
- Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind
- Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights
- Mickey Rooney in Babes in Arms
- James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
... when they should have been ...
- Charles Boyer in Love Affair
- Henry Fonda in Young Mr. Lincoln
- Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind
- Cary Grant in Only Angels Have Wings
- James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
And the Oscar went to ...
Donat triumphed over one of the most famous performances in the history of movies, Clark Gable's Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind. But it has to be admitted that Donat gave the better performance: Gable was not particularly happy in his role, even though every reader of Margaret Mitchell's novel seems to have envisioned him in the part. He was aware that it was essentially a "woman's picture" (which is one of the reasons why he objected to George Cukor's directing it and held out for his friend Victor Fleming), and that Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and Hattie McDaniel had the best parts in the movie. As Mr. Chips, Donat, a consummate professional, makes a meticulous passage from timorous young teacher to shy lover to devastated widower to beloved mentor. In his youth, Donat had looked like a strong rival for Laurence Olivier as both actor and matinee idol, and he had made a strong impression in the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock classic The 39 Steps and in his first Oscar-nominated role in The Citadel. But poor health -- a lifelong battle with asthma -- restricted his career. His post-Oscar performances were scattered, and his last screen appearance, just before his death at fifty-three, was in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness in 1958.
... when it should have gone to ...
Stewart's performance as the naive young patriot Jefferson Smith was one of the year's most talked-about, and it's generally thought that his Oscar the following year, for what is essentially a supporting role in The Philadelphia Story, was a consolation prize for losing to Robert Donat. The movie itself lacks subtlety -- never a strong point of director Frank Capra's -- but Stewart's impassioned filibuster remains one of the great performances, largely because of Stewart's intrinsic credibility as an actor. He never goes over the top, even though the screenplay gives him every opportunity to do so. Ironically this great flagwaver, with its harangue about truth, justice, and the American way, got under the skin of some members of the U.S. Senate, and Capra (never the most reliable source) claimed that Joseph P. Kennedy, then the ambassador to Great Britain, tried to prevent the film's being exported.
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