1935: Actor

StinkyLulu, if you don't know, is one of the greatest voices on the internet. His Supporting Actress Smackdown series was, as you can tell, extremely influential not just on me, but on how Oscar races and individual categories were and are discussed. And if it wasn't for this specific category, Best Actor 1935, such work as he has done in that regard would not have been possible.

From the 1st Academy Awards through to the 8th, there were only two acting categories: Best Actor and Best Actress. The supporting categories would not be introduced until the next year honoring the films of 1936, and it is generally assumed and accepted that the three-peat of Mutiny on the Bounty is the reason why. Franchot Tone was certainly a leading man in films at the time, but neither his character in the film nor his status against his co-stars (1934 Best Actor winner Clark Gable and 1932-33 Best Actor winner Charles Laughton) would have made his Best Actor nomination a given in a world where supporting is an option. Personally, I feel any nomination for this guy is a stretch, but we'll get into that. In fact...let's:

Trial and Terror: Witness for the Prosecution, 1957

All month long, we're celebrating the Queen of Crime as she and her works appeared on screen, with a grand finale of five Murder on the Orient Expresses the first full week of November. Today, and all this week, we're focusing on her standalone works. Yesterday, we talked the page to stage to screen transfer that made "Philomel Cottage" into Love from a Stranger; today, a similar trick is performed... 

Witness for the Prosecution began as "The Witness for the Prosecution", a short story published in 1928 in . The story is familiar: Leonard Vole is accused of murdering an older woman, and the star witness for the prosecution...is his own wife! There's a twist, then a turn, then it closes with a shocker of a final line.

The story was popular enough to inspire adaptations on its own, including an episode of Lux Video Theater with Edward G. Robinson. But Christie herself wasn't satisfied with the story as is. A slight spoiler here, but part of the shock in the story involves, of course, the revelation of the true murderer, who gets away with the crime; Christie felt the culprit should not go completely unpunished. She also thought it was quite a good plot (if she do say so herself), and didn't want it completely confined to short fiction. So she set about expanding it, for a medium she had gotten quite good at...

The end result was the stage play, which Christie would later name her personal favorite of her 19 theatre works, and which became a smash hit on the West End and Broadway. Oh, yes, I know I said that about Love from a Stranger, but that show's comparatively limited runs cannot rival Witness for the Prosecution. In the West End, it ran concurrently with Christie's The Mousetrap and Spider's web, making her the only female dramatist to have three shows running simultaneously. The New York production alone ran 645 performances, winning Tony Awards for its leading players, Francis L. Sullivan (a friend of Christie's) and Patricia Jessel.

When you're a hit on the page and a smash on the stage, the next step is obvious: HOLLYWOOD! And boy howdy, did Hollywood deliver....

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

dir: Billy Wilder