Jackie Cooper (actor, Skippy)
Bela Lugosi (actor, Dracula) (almost forgot him—MM, 11/2/09)
Irene Dunne (actress, Cimarron)
Louise Brooks (actress, Prix de Beauté)
Mary Astor (actress, Other Men's Women)
William A. Wellman (director, The Public Enemy)
Raoul Walsh (director, The Big Trail)
Luis Buñuel (director, L'Age d'Or)
Dwight Frye (supporting actor, Dracula)
Harry Myers (right, with Charles Chaplin) (supporting actor, City Lights)
Paul Ollivier (left) (supporting actor, Le Million)
Mae Clarke (supporting actress, The Front Page)
Virginia Cherrill (supporting actress, City Lights)
Marjorie Rambeau (supporting actress, Min and Bill)
John Monk Saunders (with wife Fay Wray) (screenplay, The Dawn Patrol)
I'm a laittle hard-pressed to come up with an answer to this question:
ReplyDeletewhy didn't the Mythological Monk select Mary Astor?
Why would anyone pass over that beauty -- who also had some skill, mind you -- and why was she tossed in with so many others?
I say this with my healthy ego intact, mind you -- it's just that fair's fair.
I should like to return to earth and have her, just as she was there.
Again, thank you for your kind regards and attentions.
-- Louise
I've been thinking about expanding the list of nominees to the traditional five. Maybe I should.
ReplyDeleteI nominated Marlene Dietrich, Marie Dressler and Joan Crawford. For Dietrich, Morocco was a career-defining performance and made her a star in America. Min and Bill won Dressler an Oscar and it's arguably the best performance of her career. Dance, Fools, Dance represented Crawford's break-out performance. Yes, she was already a star but here she made the leap from flapper to actress.
As for the three actresses I left out, it was a close call all the way around.
Irene Dunne is now better remembered for comedic roles like Theodora Goes Wild, The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife. And to be honest, while Cimarron is better than its harshest critics say, it wasn't that great a vehicle for Dunne's dramatic talents. I wouldn't want your first taste of Dunne to be that.
Louise Brooks, one of my all-time favorites of the silent- or any other movie era, is so expressive in Prix de Beaute that she almost overcomes being dubbed rather indifferently into French.
And Mary Astor, who has Katie nominations in her future for Dodsworth and The Maltese Falcon, is very good in Other Men's Women, but it's Joan Blondell in a supporting role that you remember. So in a close year, she just misses out.
Love her though. Love all of these actresses. I foresee that by the time I am done blogging, all six of them will have a Katie Award sitting on the mantle. Assuming I live that long.