And the nominees were:
Lew Ayres, Johnny Belinda
Montgomery Clift, The Search
Dan Dailey, When My Baby Smiles At Me
Laurence Olivier, Hamlet
Clifton Webb, Sitting Pretty
Ingrid Bergman, Joan of Arc
Olivia de Havilland, The Snake Pit
Irene Dunne, I Remember Mama
Barbara Stanwyck, Sorry, Wrong Number
Jane Wyman, Johnny Belinda
Well damn, 1947 took way longer to finish than I expected. We're coming down the home stretch here (!!!!!) so I'm going to try my damnedest to power through the final two years of the forties as quickly and concisely as possible so that I can leave it behind once and for all.
1948's contenders leads us to an unusually fresh batch of pickings in the Best Actor category, with four of the five actors securing their first lead actor nominations. At the other end of the spectrum is a completely omnipresent Best Actress category, with all five ladies being returning nominees.
As per usual, let me know who your faves here are, and which ones you think I'll take to or hate :)
**Side note: the next Best Actress covered here will be the 100th Best Actress nominee I've written about!! This won't be the 100th Actress review overall, given the handful of ladies I covered under the Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda category as well as the few covered under NYFCC, but whatever. A special mark nonetheless! Who will be the lucky lady to be number 100???? I don't even know, I'm still figuring it out! Woo hoo!
***Second side note: The 100th Best Actor won't be officially coming along until 1949, with the discrepancy here being that there're a number of lost Best Actor nominees and an uneven count of nominees between 1934-1935.
This is a tough one. The best actor of the year (Humphrey Bogart in 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre') wasn't even nominated for a character with no redeeming qualities ... oh, wait a second ... THAT'S why he wasn't nominated. Montgomery Clift played an atypical part (that we didn't know was atypical then) and mesmerized. As for the others ... lightweight roles and one heavyweight: Oliver in "Hamlet". What a year! For the actresses, none impressed me much but deHavilland tried something very different and risky for its time and I like that she took risks in playing an initially weak character with obvious flaws. Not a great year but with a few interesting surprises. I hope you get some enjoyment from these films. I did.
ReplyDeleteBest Actor seems interesting, I've only seen Olivier and I hope you like him, even if I'm not sure as you don't seem to be much of a fan of his work. As for Best Actress, they are at least interesting and I think you'll end up picking Wyman or De Havilland but the un-nominated Joan Fontaine for Letter from an Unknown Woman should have won.
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ReplyDeleteWill be this the first time you'll love Olivier?
As for the best actress category Johnny Belinda is a very entertaining film in my book, and Wyman is quite good, but de Havilland is my winner. I like Dunne and Stanwyck too. Bergman I think is almost terrible.
It's ironic what you say about the '40s in general. There are MANY films of the '30s I love, but not so much the '40s. Between the 'patriotic' stuff, the extremely conventional family-oriented films and the overall 'safeness' that permeates filmmaking of that era, it's a dull decade. Film noir added an interesting twist but that came late in the game and wasn't high on the Academy's radar. The '50s are an improvement and things really get interesting in the '60s and 70s.
ReplyDeleteI thought Olivia De Havilland was great, but frankly, I really didn't love her as much as the whole world did. The Snake Pit may have been "brave" back then, but it is kinda tame by today's standards and the same could be said about De Havilland's work here.
ReplyDeleteDidn't like Hamlet, I mean I love the play, but I found the whole thing dry. I don't think you will really like Olivier's performance given your past track record with him, but I thought he was good for the most part.
This is a pretty strong Best Actress line-up - even if you don't like those specific performances, there is still much to admire about the actresses themselves. :)
ReplyDeleteFunny enough, the only best actress of the group i've seen is the most obscure one: Stanwyck in Wrong Number. :) which has a great premise.
ReplyDeletenot feeling an urge to see any of the other performances.