Presenting the 17th Academy Awards' nominees for Best Actress:
Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight
Claudette Colbert, Since You Went Away
Bette Davis, Mr. Skeffington
Greer Garson, Mrs. Parkington
Barbara Stanwyck, Double Indemnity
The Oscar ceremony honoring the films of 1944 took place on March 15, 1945. By that time, Going My Way was enough of a hit that a sequel, The Bells of St. Mary's, was already filming, reteaming director-writer Leo McCarey and star Bing Crosby, and adding Ingrid Bergman as a nun. When the Best Actress category for this year was announced, both McCarey and Crosby had already won their Going My Way Oscars, so when Ingrid Bergman was named the winner for Gaslight, she quipped, "I'm afraid if I didn't have an Oscar, too, they wouldn't speak to me." She needn't have worried.
Some Old Hollywood fans bemoan the win, not because she wasn't good, but because (a) she wound up getting two more anyway, and (b) this was probably the strongest chance Double Indemnity's Barbara Stanwyck had at winning. The other three were all former winners, with both Davis and Garson perennial favorites during this period. And in retrospect, certainly, it makes sense: Stanwyck's portrayal of Phyllis Dietrichson entered the public consciousness in a way none of the other performances have, the grande dame of all femme fatales. She even has her own Wikipedia page, which no other character here, or even in Double Indemnity, can claim!
The one who won, the one who left a legacy, or one of the others - who would you choose? My rankings, from fifth to first:
