Leslie Howard, Pygmalion

as PROFESSOR HENRY HIGGINS

Won: Venice Film Festival - Volpi Cup for Best Actor

By now, there've been two types of performances I've seen from Leslie Howard. That of the thankless supporting character (re: A Free Soul, Gone with the Wind) where the focus of the film is geared toward the leads and thus doesn't have much room for Howard to shine, and that of the thankless lead part (re: Of Human Bondage, Romeo and Juliet) where Howard comes off as stiff and dull because the films themselves are stiff and dull and because his female counterparts are the scene-stealers. And then there's Berkeley Square, a film anchored by Howard which completely sinks because both actor and picture are so devoid of life...but we'll forget that one ever happened. So I hadn't any expectations going into Pygmalion, and I was pleasantly surprised watching him here because for once Howard looks as though he's actually having fun with a part.

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.