Actor Round-up: 1934

Clark Gable, It Happened One Night

as PETER WARNE

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor

Hop onto Google Images and type in "leading man" and the first three men to pop up (ignoring the several photos of Jon Bon Jovi who I guess starred in a picture called The Leading Man...the more you know) are Leo DiCaprio, Cary Grant, and Clark Gable. I've always thought that Gable was as definitively a leading man as you could get--aside from his classic good looks, there is an air of arrogance in the smirks you see him giving in all those old Hollywood photographs of his, and reports such as his not wanting to do a crying scene as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind or his alleged unhappiness over Spencer Tracy upstaging him in San Francisco only solidifies this perception of Gable as your typical man's man. I had my qualms about Gable here as I thought it would be another William Powell situation, wherein the leading man ideal is epitomized perfectly but the performance as a whole lacks depth...

William Powell, The Thin Man

as NICK CHARLES

When analyzing William Powell in The Thin Man, the late great Roger Ebert said that Powell "is to dialogue as Fred Astaire is to dance. His delivery is so droll and insinuating, so knowing and innocent at the same time, that it hardly matters what he's saying."I think this perfectly sums up my own feelings about Powell's work as well. There is a mesmerizing quality to the way Powell speaks--his diction, his tone...all of it drips with intelligence, is assertive yet relaxed all at once, and blends so well with the dark wit that The Thin Man's screenplay offers. He is a perfect leading man in every possible way, and I'd wager that the subsequent five Thin Man sequels spawned not just from the strength of the story or the chemistry of Powell and Myrna Loy, but also because Powell is so good, so in his element, at being a charming sleuth.

Frank Morgan, The Affairs of Cellini

as ALESSANDRO, DUKE OF FLORENCE

I believe I'm in the minority when I say that I love Frank Morgan's nomination for The Affairs of Cellini (not that there are many people out there who are writing about--much less have seen--the film), and let me tell you why. My first reason is that The Affairs of Cellini is a comedy, a much underrepresented genre of film at the Oscars. My second reason is that The Affairs of Cellini is really quite a delightful film, with delightful performances across the board. My third reason is that Frank Morgan is not top-billed, a la Lionel Barrymore and Warner Baxter. It always tickles my fancy when a male actor nabs a Best Actor nod when he isn't top billed, because it goes against the very concept of top-billing. You are top billed if you are either the bigger star or the male (often times, both go hand-in-hand), and to be top-billed suggests that you are the reason people should see a particular film. At the same time, an acting nomination in and of itself is an even bigger suggestion to see a film, and thus when these schools of thought conflict, it suggests that even though a lesser star isn't technically the main draw for the film because he's not the bigger name, he still holds his own and manages work that's good enough to procure attention. Approach a person on the street and chances are he or she won't be familiar with the name Frank Morgan--interestingly enough Inside Oscar says that the prior year, after actors like Paul Muni, Gary Cooper, and Jeanette Macdonald withdrew from AMPAs, they had actually gone over to Morgan's house to form the Screen Actors Guild. Morgan also ended up being "narrowly defeated" by Clark Gable for the Best Actor trophy in 1934, so there seems to have been a great deal of industry respect for him at the time, despite whether or not he was a box office draw or the highest paid Hollywood actor at the time.