Actor Round-up: 1937

Fredric March, A Star is Born

as NORMAN MAINE

I will preface this post by saying that I've fallen for Fredric March. Since I began my voyage of going through the nominated (leading) performances of Oscar's earliest years, March has popped up in several of the films I've seen and as a result, I became taken by the lax yet confident charisma he always exudes on the screen. I was so fond of him that I actively sought out films and performances of his not nominated for Oscars, one of which being his work as an alcoholic mess in Merrily We Go to Hell. Naturally, I was pretty excited to see him play another alcoholic mess in A Star is Born, especially since I had heard nothing but great things about him as the original Norman Maine. But upon finishing A Star is Born, I was left with a ton of indifferent feelings. My biggest issue with the film is the story, which, although interesting, doesn't do a very good job at addressing the topics of stardom and alcoholism, both of which are very hefty subjects to begin with. As a result, we're left with a performance from March that's sometimes compelling but mostly underdeveloped.

Robert Montgomery, Night Must Fall

as DANNY

Looking through Robert Montgomery's filmography, you'll see that he starred in a ton of forgettable flicks in the early thirties, often as the male counterpart to a bigger female star. He was unable to take the role of Roger Byam in Mutiny on the Bounty, and he passed on the role of Peter Warne in It Happened One Night the year before, giving him the dubious honor of having missed out on two consecutive Academy-Award nominated performances. I've only seen him in three other films, that being The Divorcee, Their Own Desire, and The Big House. In the first two pictures, his roles fall right into the typecast set by his studio--pretty forgettable and merely accessories to Norma Shearer's characters. But he's excellent in The Big House. The role is small, but he infuses his character with such a palpable sense of desperation and fear, and he more than holds his own up against Chester Morris and Wallace Beery. Watching him there, I got a sense that he was capable of so much more than what was being given to him. That said, I'm pretty happy that MGM decided to make Night Must Fall, not only because it's a film so unlike anything else that was being made by the studios at the time, but also because it finally gave Montgomery a plum role that was worthy of his talents.

Charles Boyer, Conquest

as NAPOLÉON BONAPARTE

When you decide to make a film where one of the main characters is Napoleon Bonaparte, an immensely iconic figure in world history whose name is recognizable to just about anyone who's ever taken a history class, it really ought to be interesting. He was, after all, one of the most powerful political and military leaders, who had rose to the position of Emperor of France "by achievement". So with Conquest, there's an inherent problem: this is not a film about Napoleon. This is a film that is strictly about the romance between Napoleon and a woman. Thus, anything interesting about Napoleon, any juice from his life story, any of those "achievements" that helped make him the legend he became--that's all tossed into the back seat in favor of yet another sappy love story. Charles Boyer's portrayal of Napoleon is filled with potential, but he isn't able to make something truly magnificent out of it due to the film's misdirected aspirations.

Spencer Tracy, Captains Courageous

as MANUEL

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor

Sometimes first impressions tell you everything you need to know. When we first meet Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous, he is sitting in a little fishing boat out in the middle of the ocean screaming "OOOH! OOOH!" because he's imitating a ship's fog horn. So in that moment when I realized I was watching a grown man do an impression of a ship instead of out at the local college bar drinking dollar beers, I rolled my eyes, laid back, and cursed my obsessively completist mentality regarding these Oscar-nominated performances. Because without it I certainly would have no reason to watch Captains Courageous, which is an amalgamation of a number of things I really don't like (a children's film, a child star, an all-male cast, a poorly acted ethnic role by an American actor, and a schmaltzy narrative).

Paul Muni, The Life of Emile Zola

as ÉMILE ZOLA

Won: New York Film Critics Circle - Best Actor

In the eight years between 1929 to 1937, Paul Muni managed to grab Oscar's attention five separate times*. Publicized by Warner Bros. as "the screen's greatest actor", Muni had enough clout to sway his studio into making The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola. And as poorly aged as some of his films and performances are, at the very least one gets the feeling that his own involvement with a project brings a certain aura of importance. That's because he was constantly transforming himself on the screen--from a violent gangster to a chain gang convict to a Mexican-American casino partner to a Hungarian coal miner to a French microbiologist to French author reviewed here to a Chinese farmer to a Mexican president--Muni was likely the bravest and most transformative actor of his era. He was constantly challenging himself, which can't be said about the likes of Clark Gable and Greta Garbo, huge stars who rested on a particular base persona in much of their roles.