Round-Up: Actor 1945

Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend

as DON BIRNAM

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor | New York Film Critics Circle - Best Actor
Cannes Film Festival - Best Actor | Golden Globe Award - Best Actor

Ray Milland's performance in The Lost Weekend swept just about any and all the Best Actor prizes that were available to be won back in 1945. It's the type of performance that has been heralded for its greatness to this day, and it's also the kind of performance that completely lives up to the hype.

Gene Kelly, Anchors Aweigh

as JOE BRADY

A quick musing: Cornel Wilde is billed beneath Paul Muni (and Merle Oberon) on the posters for A Song to Remember. Likewise, Gene Kelly is billed beneath Frank Sinatra (and Kathryn Grayson) on the posters for Anchors Aweigh. Their nominations, in and of themselves, suggest that Wilde and Kelly were better than their more established co-stars. While I don't feel that way for the former, I do feel that Kelly absolutely steals the show. There's a bias here as I've always been a complete sucker for a song-and-dance guy...but this is the first time in recent memory where a performance made me feel all sorts of blissful happiness while watching it.

Cornel Wilde, A Song to Remember

as FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN

The positive: it's always refreshing to view the singular Oscar nominated performance of an otherwise forgotten actor, because you can only handle reoccurring presences of Gary Cooper, Greer Garson, and Bette Davis for so long. In this case it's Cornel Wilde, who, after taking a gander at his filmography, probably wouldn't be at all on my radar if it wasn't for this nomination. The negative: this nomination is for a biopic on Frédéric Chopin, which is just about as exciting as you would expect it to be.

Bing Crosby, The Bells of St. Mary's

as FATHER CHUCK O'MALLEY

And now comes the second-nominated priest performance of 1945, the second in a row from Bing Crosby (playing the same character to boot!), and the fourth in the Best Actor category total across 1944-1945 (40% priests...it's as painful for me as it is hilarious). Ultimately, The Bells of St. Mary's isn't very different from Going My Way, and Crosby's work in the sequel is pretty much the same schtick we had seen the year before.

Gregory Peck, The Keys of the Kingdom

as FATHER FRANCIS CHISHOLM

The Keys of the Kingdom is one of those interesting cases in the sense that it looks like it got a New York release one year but didn't get a Los Angeles release until the next. Gregory Peck was honored with a Best Actor nomination at the 1946 Academy Awards ceremony in spite of this movie being marked as a 1944 film everywhere you look. I bring this up because the movie basically could have not been nominated, and if I had it my way I'd have preferred that the Academy had forgotten about this movie altogether. Because I hated it. And Peck, bless his heart, does not have the goods to make this film worthwhile.