A Reluctant Return, A Distinguished Debut: Best Supporting Actress, 1944

Presenting the 17th Annual Academy Awards' nominees for Best Supporting Actress:

Ethel Barrymore, None But the Lonely Heart

Jennifer Jones, Since You Went Away

Angela Lansbury, Gaslight

Aline MacMahon, Dragon Seed

Agnes Moorehead, Mrs. Parkington

Barrymore is a widow whose ne'erdowell son returns after years away, and now both are tempted into crime. Jones is a young woman whose father is at war, now falling in love with the grandson of her mother's boarder. Lansbury is a young housemaid whose indolence makes her unaware of (or accessory to?) Boyer's schemes. MacMahon plays the elder matariarch of a Chinese family navigating life under the occupation of the Japanese. And Moorehead is a French aristocrat who becomes the best friend and closest confidante of her ex-lover's new wife.

A prominent and prestigious stage star, Barrymore's film work before None But the Lonely Heart is scattered, comprised mostly of pre-20s silent films and one talkie team-up with screen star siblings John and Lionel, 1932's Rasputin and the Empress. Her return to film, a medium she disliked, was financially motivated and meant as a one-off, but she wound up doing more and more of them in her last years. Maybe winning the Oscar for her performance here helped, even though she did not attend the ceremony and later described the win as “very pleasant.”

On the other end of this stage veteran and reluctant screen actress, is Angela Lansbury in her film debut. Lansbury was born and raised in London, but the Blitz led her mother, actress Moyna Macgill, to bring the family to the United States in 1940. Lansbury studied acting, began performing professionally (albeit while lying about her age), and so she was ready when Macgill moved the family to Los Angeles. At a party, the 17-year-old Lansbury met the screenwriter John van Druten, whose adaptation of Gaslight was casting for the role of a cockney maid...and here we are today, discussing her first nomination for her first screen role in a career that would last eighty years.

Two great stories, and three others besides. So who would I vote for? My rankings, from fifth to first, after the jump... 

The Crooner Crowned: Best Actor, 1944

Presenting the 17th Academy Awards' nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role:

Charles Boyer, Gaslight

Bing Crosby, Going My Way

Barry Fitzgerald, Going My Way

Cary Grant, None But the Lonely Heart

Alexander Knox, Wilson

Boyer is a villain, mentally torturing his wife for reasons to be revealed. Crosby is a chill, hands-in-pockets priest come to shake things up at a crumbling parish. Fitzgerald is the old and old-fashioned priest who runs that parish, and has done so for a long time, perhaps too long. Grant is a Cockney who can't help getting into trouble. And Knox is the President of the United States who spearheaded the establishment of the League of Nations.

There were fewer "precursors" at this time, and the ones from that period that still remain were not as we know them. Knox and Fitzgerald won the Golden Globes for Lead and Supporting Actor, respectively, but at that time, there were no nominees, only winners - and no distinction between Drama and Musical/Comedy. Fitzgerald was named Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle, but that organization did not even introduce Supporting prizes until 1969. And Crosby's performance was cited by the National Board of Review for Best Acting...alongside eight others, male and female, lead and supporting (among the names: Eddie Bracken in Hail the Conquering Hero and Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not, which was eligible for the next year's Oscars). 

Crosby himself claimed he did not expect to win, that Knox would be unbeatable. Indeed, he had to coaxed off the golf course by studio publicity people and his mother just two hours before the ceremony started - which explains the hat in photos from that night, hiding his toupee-less scalp. It's a good thing he went, because it meant Gary Cooper didn't have to present the Oscar to nobody.

Yes, despite his own doubts (or insecurities?), Crosby won, and he'd even be back the very next year for the very same role. Would he get my vote? Read on:

How You Like Me Now?: 1944, Part Eight

We're coming to an interesting point of 1944. The most famous film of today's collection was made three years before its release, did OK at the box office, and received no Academy Award nominations. And yet! It has endured! That and more, just below...