Actor Round-up: 1932-1933

Paul Muni, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

as JAMES ALLEN

Paul Muni had quite an impressive run in the early thirties--by 1934 he'd been twice nominated for Best Actor and had already made the controversial Scarface, and he'd only been in four films! According to Inside Oscar, AMPAs revealed the placements of the nominees in the major categories at 1934's ceremony, pointing out that Muni was "right behind Charles Laughton." The book adds that there was only "polite applause" when Laughton was crowned the winner, suggesting that he wasn't exactly a crowd pleasing winner. But apparently the writers and many of the top Hollywood stars--Muni included--had resigned from AMPAs that year to form their own guilds, and despite his managing to pull out a nomination, one could imagine this as putting him at an unfavorable disadvantage in regards to accumulating enough votes to win him top honors. But I guess the question remains: is he any better than that year's champ?

Leslie Howard, Berkeley Square

as PETER STANDISH

Just looking at the stats, the overall intensity of AMPA's anglophilia during its sixth year was pretty crazy. The grotesque Best Picture winner was a film that spent 110 minutes trying to show how amazing it was to be English. U.K.'s Frank Lloyd was named the Best Director of said grotesque Best Picture (this was his second time winning in the Academy's six years for incredibly banal pictures). The Private Life of Henry VIII became the first completely British production to be nominated for Best Picture, and that film's English star won Best Actor. 50% of the acting nominees were English--the last of whom to be reviewed by yours truly is here. I suppose Lloyd wasn't satisfied enough with Cavalcade (that or the demand for British pics was through the roof), so he popped out a second story about English life that very year in the form of Berkeley Square, a film that manages to be just as mundane (but not quite as bad) as Cavalcade. And like Diana Wynyard and Corinne Griffith, star Leslie Howard's work here isn't anything to get excited about.

Charles Laughton, The Private Life of Henry Viii

as KING HENRY VIII

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor

The Private Life of Henry VIII was a weird film for me. I wasn't sure what to make of it. Apparently it was a hugely successful film during the time of its release, and the very first British film to be nominated for Best Picture (not to take away from Cavalcade's British glory, but the Best Picture winner was made through Fox while Private Life was through London Films), which is crazy to think that it took AMPAS six years to become entranced by British pictures, seeing as they're such anglophiles nowadays. At the heart of The Private Life of Henry VIII is Charles Laughton, who looks spot on as King Henry VIII, but like the film I'm not so sure what to make of his performance either.