Actor Round-up: 1935

Victor McLaglen, The Informer

as GYPO NOLAN

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor

When Victor McLaglen makes facial expressions, all the lines and wrinkles on his mug are so vivid and harsh. There's a bit of wear and tear on that face of his, and it looks as if he's been through it all--and that may have just been true. Prior to his Hollywood career, he had worked in a circus, was a successful heavyweight boxer, and also fought for Britain in World War I. The latter two work experiences alone ensures that he's got just the right amount of machismo for the role of Gypo Nolan. But I couldn't help but wonder if McLaglen had to channel any wartime memories for his performance, as it's certainly one of the most distraught and vulnerable pieces of work from a male actor I've seen since I began plowing through the nominees of Oscar's earliest years.

Paul Muni, Black Fury

as JOE RADEK

Paul Muni ended up placing second in the Best Actor tallies in 1935, which was a surprise seeing as he, like Bette Davis the prior year, wasn't an official Oscar nominee. This naturally piqued my interest--surely this is notable work if, despite not being on the shortlist, the performance still managed to secure enough votes from the industry to upend the Mutiny boys and almost strike gold. As it turns out, Inside Oscar noted that because the Academy allowed write-in votes again that year, Warner Bros' head Jack Warner "sent out a memo to all the Academy members at his studio "suggesting" they write in votes for Warners' movies all the way down the ballot." This politicking ended up working quite well, as fellow non-nominee Hal Mohr ended up winning Best Cinematography for A Midsummer's Night Dream, Bette Davis ended up with the Best Actress statue for Dangerous, and snubbed director Michael Curtiz ended up placing third for Captain Blood. So was Muni's inclusion a result of these Academy members/Warner employees collectively selecting a performance because they were suggested to or was it justice for a truly deserving piece of work that had been wrongfully snubbed by AMPAS?

Franchot Tone, Mutiny on the Bounty

as ROGER BYAM

Take a look at all of Mutiny on the Bounty's posters and you will see Franchot Tone's name placed humbly below the large and vivid LAUGHTON and GABLE print. Take a look at the film's DVD and Blu-Ray covers, and even its old VHS tape covers, and Tone's face is never to be seen. It seems as though he has become the forgotten man out of the Oscar-nominated triumvirate, and if Mutiny on the Bounty were released today, Tone (and let's be honest...probably Charles Laughton as well) would almost certainly be campaigned for the Supporting Actor category. I've stumbled across a few sites that've mentioned that Tone's nomination is one of the reasons why AMPAs installed Supporting Actor and Actress categories the following year, and that couldn't be further from the truth--firstly because Inside Oscar cites that then-Academy president Frank Capra decided to install those supporting categories to nab interest from the many actors who had withdrawn from the Academy during that time due to guild disagreements, and secondly because Tone's role and performance is just as pivotal to the narrative than those of Laughton and Gable.

Charles Laughton, Mutiny on the Bounty

as CAPTAIN WILLIAM BLIGH

Won: New York Film Critics Circle - Best Actor

If there was anything I was looking forward to going into Mutiny on the Bounty, it was Charles Laughton. This is because I tend to thoroughly enjoy villainous characters--I just think that the depiction of evil is a complicated art and can be so fascinating on the screen when done right. Further, Laughton's performance as the vile Edward Barrett in The Barretts of Wimpole Street was, in my opinion, the best thing about that movie, so I was pretty curious to see what he would do with the real-life ship captain who was supposedly so terrible that he provoked his men to mutiny on more than one occasion. More fuel to the fire was the fact that Laughton was also the very first recipient of the Best Actor prize through the New York Film Critics Circle, which was just about the only precursor award to the Oscars in 1935 and would remain so until the Golden Globes came along nearly a decade later. I've mentioned in a prior post that there is a steady build-up leading to Bligh's onscreen reveal, and yet once we see him getting aboard the Bounty, director Frank Lloyd (annoyingly) films the entire sequence in long-shot--and just like that this allegedly larger-than-life, terrible man whom everyone is supposed to be so afraid of is cinematically framed to look like another tiny individual amongst a ship of many tiny individuals. A very anticlimactic entrance and very...unremarkable, if you will.

Clark Gable, Mutiny on the Bounty

as FLETCHER CHRISTIAN

The toughest thing about watching a film with multiple acting nominees is that I have terrible difficulty focusing wholly on one performance. I could be watching and absorbing in Actor 1, and once Actor 2 comes into the scene, my train of thought is totally derailed as I try to juggle my analysis of both actors simultaneously. So imagine my difficulty with Mutiny on the Bounty, the first and probably the last film ever to boast three lead actor nominees. Each man's character is different from the other, and each man tackles his role in a different manner to varying levels of success. The performance I had the most trouble in forming an opinion on was Clark Gable's, whom I really enjoyed when I first sat through Mutiny on the Bounty, but whom I also became really disenchanted with after the second run-through, and ever since I've been trying to figure out why.