The Winners - 1941 Retro Hollmann Awards

As the title says. Check out the Top Ten for more on my favorites of the year; look at the nominees to see the full...nominees.

We begin with an overture. Well, not really an overture, it's still an award, but we still begin with instrumentals to set the mood. Here is Best Score in order from #5 to the winner, setting the mood for the night ahead:

Best Score

5. That Night in Rio

Alfred Newman / David Buttolph / Harry Warren

4. Citizen Kane

Bernard Herrmann

3. Blood and Sand

Alfred Newman / David Buttolph / Vicente Gómez

2. All That Money Can Buy

Bernard Herrmann

1. The Wolf Man

Charles Previn / Hans J. Salter / Frank Skinner

And on with the show:

Oscars 1941: Best Actor

Gary Cooper was the star of the biggest hit of the year, a heartthrob and a serious actor who had headlined the first Best Picture winner and many nominees in that category since. A previous nominee, is it any surprise that it was he who took home the prize?

Not really. But I do feel...well, let's talk.

1948: Best Supporting Actor

The moment The Treasure of the Sierra Madre opened back in January 1948, critics had been talking up Walter Huston's performance as a shoo-in for the Oscars. For the usual Awards Season reasons, of course: veteran actor, frequently nominated but never won, deglam...oh, and his acting's great, too! All true, but there's one more thing: who could resist the narrative of Legacy? Not only was Huston giving the performance of his life, he was doing so in a film written and directed by his own son, John. Upon winning the Oscar (oh, yes, you saw that coming if you didn't already know), Huston said, "I said to him, 'Son, if you ever become a writer, try to write a good part for your old man some time.' Well, by cracky, that's what he did!"

They were the first parent-child pair to win Academy Awards in the same ceremony, a feat later repeated by Francis Ford Coppola (Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay) and his father Carmine Coppola (Original Score) for 1974's The Godfather: Part II.

But, while Huston's win may have been a cakewalk, he was up against what I consider one of this category's strongest lineups. If you please:

1936: Actor

Even with the addition of two categories for supporting actors, there were still some complaints from the acting branch after the 9th Academy Awards. W.C. Fields complained about the Academy's tendency to favor drama over comedy in the acting categories - yes, an issue even just nine years into their run, and one that is frequently brought up today. Just as much, in fact, as the tendency to award biopic performances. The Film Experience's Nathaniel Rogers just tweeted last week:

It wasn't always this way but it's getting harder and harder to remember a time when biographical performances didn't thoroughly dominate.

— Nathaniel Rogers ☮️ (@nathanielr) July 28, 2022

I replied that I blame Paul Muni. In 1936, he finally triumphed after three nominations (and one write-in), being named Best Actor for The Story of Louis Pasteur. 

And sure, he wasn't the first performer to win for playing a real person (that was George Arliss in Disraeli), but his Pasteur certainly set the template for burying a hot actor under makeup, letting them go nuts on an accent, and emphasizing the importance of the subject. The fact that his win this year was immediately followed by a nomination for The Life of Emile Zola, the 1937 Best Picture winner, further cements the Muni Method as the best way to impress the Academy into at least a nomination.

All that said, though...was it an undeserved win? Let's look at the lineup: