Norma Shearer, The Divorcée

as JERRY

Won: Academy Award - Best Actress

Norma Shearer, Their Own Desire

as LALLY MARLETT

Norma Shearer, Marie Antoinette

as MARIE ANTOINETTE

Won: Venice Film Festival - Volpi Cup for Best Actress

People naturally compare Gone with the Wind and Jezebel due to both films being set around the Civil War period and the fact that both have queenly southern belles for heroines. However, I'd say that Marie Antoinette is just as worthy a comparison. Like Gone with the Wind, it too has a hefty running-time and monster grandiose aspirations. Further, like the other two pictures, the success of Marie Antoinette settles itself entirely on the giant wigs of leading lady Norma Shearer, whose French queen has a fabulosity that makes Scarlett O'Hara and Julie Marsden look like mere mortals. By now I've seen all of Shearer's Oscar-nominated performances and my relationship with her has been on-and-off. I tend to find her work either pretty good or terribly dull. Marie Antoinette was the last project Irving Thalberg had lined up for his wife before his death. In a figurative sense, this performance would be a bid farewell to Oscar, who had recognized Shearer more than any other actress throughout his first 12 years. I imagine that Shearer saw this role as an opportunity to not only honor her late husband, but to channel her pain by giving the performance of her life as well.

Norma Shearer, Romeo and Juliet

as JULIET

At the age of 34, Norma Shearer was about twenty years too old to be playing Juliet in Shakespeare's classic tragedy. I've seen this factoid brought up quite a bit in articles regarding the 1936 Romeo & Juliet...but at the end of the day, does it really matter? After all, the earliest actors who played Juliet were men. Plus, this is a story that has a boy and a girl meet one evening, fall in love right on the spot, decide later that night that they are to be married, get married less than 24 hours after having first laid eyes on each other, and then die for each other by the end of the week. Needless to say, Romeo & Juliet is a play that teeters a bit onto the unrealistic. I had my doubts, but all that really mattered to me was whether or not Shearer could bring anything interesting to such a world-renown character.

Norma Shearer, The Barretts of Wimpole Street

as ELIZABETH BARRETT

Another year, another melodramatic romance starring Norma Shearer. The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a film I didn't quite enjoy save for its rather shocking final act revelation. While the dynamics of the storyline is certainly interesting at times and kinda-sorta-maybe based off the real lives of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, this is a drama done dull. I mean, I can't garner much excitement over a film that sees Shearer basically locked in a house the entire time and features two scenes in which the viewer has to guess whether or not Shearer can make it up/down a flight of stairs--very much a filmed play and not really cinematic. At the end of the day, this is an average to above-average picture with performances that are good but hardly worth fussing over.

Norma Shearer, A Free Soul

as JAN ASHE

Norma Shearer is an actress with whom I'm completely indifferent to. I'm neither excited by her nor do I dislike her enough to dread watching another one of her films--I'm just completely on the fence. So when it comes time to view another one of her performances, I'm neither expecting to be wowed or disappointed. After reviewing her Oscar winning turn and its sister nomination in the last profiled year, my perception of her performance work was that she is generally above-average with occasional moments of captivating dramatic excellence. After finishing A Free Soul, I have to give credit where it's due: Shearer's work is fantastic, and she's by far my MVP of the film.