Best Actor 1948

1927/28 through 1997

Best Actor 1948

Lew Ayres - Johnny Belinda
4
17%
Montgomery Clift - The Search
7
29%
Dan Dailey - When My Baby Smiles at Me
1
4%
Laurence Olivier - Hamlet
10
42%
Clifton Webb - Sitting Pretty
2
8%
 
Total votes: 24

flipp525
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Re: Best Actor 1948

Post by flipp525 »

Reza wrote:
flipp525 wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:Thanks to Reza providing a link, I finally added When My Baby Smiles at Me to my repertoire.
Could you pass that link along, Magilla? I’d love to mark this off my list.
Phillip.....have sent you the link.
Thank you, Reza.
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Reza
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Re: Best Actor 1948

Post by Reza »

flipp525 wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:Thanks to Reza providing a link, I finally added When My Baby Smiles at Me to my repertoire.
Could you pass that link along, Magilla? I’d love to mark this off my list.
Phillip.....have sent you the link.
Big Magilla
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Re: Best Actor 1948

Post by Big Magilla »

flipp525 wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:Thanks to Reza providing a link, I finally added When My Baby Smiles at Me to my repertoire.
Could you pass that link along, Magilla? I’d love to mark this off my list.
I don't have the link.
flipp525
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Re: Best Actor 1948

Post by flipp525 »

Mister Tee wrote:Thanks to Reza providing a link, I finally added When My Baby Smiles at Me to my repertoire.
Could you pass that link along, Magilla? I’d love to mark this off my list.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Re: Best Actor 1948

Post by Mister Tee »

Thanks to Reza providing a link, I finally added When My Baby Smiles at Me to my repertoire.

The fact that the film was such a non-entity in all other categories makes Dailey the outlier -- and prime candidate for the "he robbed Bogart" designation. But, good god, it's very easy to see why he was nominated; this performance is Oscar bait supreme. He's a troubled-but-charming glad-hander, until his life falls apart. Then he has an angry, ever-drunker scene trying to come to grips with his wife divorcing him, followed by a down-to-the-dregs, near-tears confession in the alcoholic ward, followed by an I-can't-do-it-anymore backstage scene, redeemed by a happy ending. I'm not saying it's a good performance...but anyone who doesn't understand how he was nominated isn't looking very closely.
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Re: Best Actor 1948

Post by ksrymy »

Without a doubt in my mind, this belongs to Sir Laurence Olivier. His Hamlet is different and entirely original from other versions we've seen on stage and film. His brilliance in directing choices such as keeping some of the monologues in his head as a voice-over and the way he dictates it with such elocution is beyond this world.

My personal nominees
__________________________
Humphrey Bogart - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Montgomery Clift - The Search
LAURENCE OLIVIER - HAMLET
Anton Walbrook - The Red Shoes
John Wayne - Red River
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Post by Mister Tee »

Big Magilla wrote: Dan Dailey does a competent job, singing dancing, clowning, getting drunk and going through the shakes in a straitjacket.
Well, that would seem to explain the nomination right there.

Okri, it looks like we do finally have a race, for once. (The amazing thing to me about the decade's earlier results is that the one performance I HAD thought would romp home -- Cagney's -- turned out one of the tighter, if still comfortable enough, wins)
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Post by Bruce_Lavigne »

I'm abstaining, as I haven't seen either Sitting Pretty or When My Baby Smiles at Me, and I almost certainly never will.

I will, however, put forth that this is one of the weakest fields I've ever seen in this category. Two of the nominees are in movies I'm happy to go without seeing; one is probably nominated for the wrong movie; one does represent a terrific cast, but is arguably its least outstanding member; and the best of the bunch is a 41-year-old Hamlet.

How Humphrey Bogart failed to make the cut for one of those "no-brainer" performances (Treasure of the Sierra Madre) I've talked about in previous years -- performances so great, with reputations that loom so large not just in my mind but in the popular consciousness, that even the best of the other nominees become an afterthought -- is baffling. Olivier's performance is good enough that I can kind of forgive his nomination in spite of how wrong his age makes him for the role at the time, but that does't excuse how John Wayne (Red River), Anton Walbrook (The Red Shoes), John Garfield (Force of Evil), Joseph Cotten (giving his best performance ever in Portrait of Jennie), Henry Fonda (Fort Apache), and Edward G. Robinson (All My Sons) were similarly passed over in favor of Dailey, Webb, Clift's Search performance (as opposed to his Red River one), and Ayres.
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Post by Okri »

Mister Tee wrote:We'll see if this is another year that makes Okri smack his head at our uniformity. I'd sort of be surprised if we came to any sharp consensus, since I came in here not sure about my own decision.
I guess that's just it. While some years do strike me as plausible years for uniformity, others don't, but we're still getting it (uniformity defined as >50% going to one nominee)

Examining the comparable time period for actress, we have far fewer routs.
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Post by Okri »

I've only seen Hamlet and The Search. Sitting this one out.
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Post by Big Magilla »

I don't know whyWhen My Baby Smiles at Me has fallen into obscurity, but I just re-watched it on DVD - it's available from Loving the Classics - and while it's still no great lost gem, it isn't boring as I remembered it. Dan Dailey does a competent job, singing dancing, clowning, getting drunk and going through the shakes in a straitjacket. Still, in the end it's really just another Betty Grable-Dan Dailey musical, in the mold of the better known Mother Wore Tights.

It's actually the third film version of the Broadway play Burlesque . The first version in 1929 with Hal Skelley and Nancy Carroll was called The Dance of Life, the second from 1937 with Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray under Mitchell Liesen's direction was called Swing High, Swing Low. It's probably the only film with those two stars that isn't readily available these days.

Trust me, though, Bogart was robbed.




Edited By Big Magilla on 1300202546
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Post by ITALIANO »

Has anyone ACTUALLY seen When My Baby Smiles At Me? It was never shown in Italy, but it seems that it's invisible in the US too. And who knows - Dan Dailey's performance (probably the most obscure ever nominated in this category, or in any category) might even be an undiscovered gem - there must be some reason why it was nominated and others, more celebrated today, weren't. And my love for history, for archeology, makes me very curious about these forgotten, mysterious nominees. But then of course it's true that I never found this actor's work especially impressive.

Of the four I have seen, for once none is terrible. Ayres is good in a not-very-interesting role. Webb is even better, but I guess that I will vote for him when we get to Best Supporting Actor (though Supporting Actor in this period is crowded with excellent roles and excellent character actors). And the young Montgomery Clift turns in a lovely, unaffected performance in The Search, but he'd be even better in the next years.

Olivier's Hamlet is still seen, praised, studied today, and for good reasons - it's admirably effective even by contemporary standards, intelligent, restrained even for those times. Voting for anyone else is honestly unthinkable.
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Post by Reza »

My picks for 1948:

Laurence Olivier, Hamlet
Montgomery Clift, The Search
Gene Kelly, The Pirate
Lew Ayres, Johnny Belinda
John Wayne, Red River
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Post by Damien »

First off, I've never seen When My Baby Smiles At Me. While every other Betty Grable picture gets shown to death on the Fox Movie Channel, this one never shows up anywhere. It's especially maddening because Dan Dailry's nomination may be the most perplexing Best Actor nod in Oscar history. When Mason and I researched Inside Oscar, we could find no reason for this. Dailey was not singled out in reviews and no one seemed to be talking about the performance (or the movie), but there he was on nominations day, present and accounted for. (It may be that his character has a drinking problem, but there were plenty of other screen alcoholics who weren't nominated.)

As for the others, Clifton Webb is droll and amusing in the role that turned him into the most unlikely of huge box-office atttractions. But Mr. Belvedere lacks the depth and quirks of Laura's Waldo Lydecker. A nomination, sure. A win, no.

Montgomery Clift was sensational in 1948, but in Red River, not The Search. Whereas in the Howard Hawks western he was fresh, enigmatic and sexy as hell, in The Search his charisma was muted so that he is, more than anything, sincere.

Laurence Olivier as Hamlet. Who can argue with that? His is a less cerebral interpretation of the role than is usual, but it is -- along with Rebecca -- his most compelling screen performance.

But I'm voting for Lew Ayres, To play a character of genuine goodness and decency without coming off as phony or smarmy is not easy, but Ayres brings it off. And he also conveys a low-keyed but definite steeliness to complement his character's sensitivity. A lovely performance and one I whole-heartedly and enthusiastically endorse.

My Own Top 5:
1. Joseph Cotten in Portrait Of Jennie
2. Lew Ayres in Johnny Belinda
3. Montgomery Clift in Red River
4. Robert Ryan in The Boy With Green Hair
5. Laurence Olivier in Hamlet




Edited By Damien on 1300169554
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Post by Mister Tee »

We'll see if this is another year that makes Okri smack his head at our uniformity. I'd sort of be surprised if we came to any sharp consensus, since I came in here not sure about my own decision.

In addition to (especially) Bogart in Treasure and Walbrook in Red Shoes, I'd throw in last year's winner, John Garfield in Force of Evil. as worthy of inclusion.

I technically shouldn't vote, as I'm missing the "what's he doing there?" Dan Dailey performance. But since I've never heard of him as anything but an inconsequential mystery nominee, I'll take the plunge regardless.

I watched Johnny Belinda during TCM's Oscar month, and had my memory's instinct confirmed: Lew Ayres makes practically no impression.

Montgomery Clift brought his inventive style to both Red River and The Search and improved both as a result. But there's a far better chance to vote for him ahead.

It's hard not to feel Olivier won on Prestige. I find his Hamlet perhaps the least interesting of his filmed Shakespeares. But it's still Olivier doing Hamlet, and I suppose alot of people will be going for him.

But I settled on Clifton Webb. Since childhood I've had an inexplicable affection for Sitting Pretty; I must have watched it 30-40 times. And Webb is just perfect in it. (I greatly dispute it as a supporting role, as well; I think he cleraly dominates the film) Mr. Belvedere is not as great role as Waldo Lydecker, but it's a great fit for Webb, and, in this line-up without a clear winner, he gets my vote.
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