LEAST deserving Best Actress Winner? 1940s edition

Did Olivia really deserve two? I would give her Oscar for To Each His Own to Celia Johnson for Brief Encounter. Livvie was forgettable in her pic that year and it hasn't aged very well

Kitty Foyle, not Kitty Doyle.

If anyone dares vote for me they're getting the ax

Sorry R2 it autocorrected and I missed it!

Loretta Young is the worst, and it's so frustrating that the Oscars so rarely honor comedic performances, and yet when they do, it's for something as bad as The Farmer's Daughter. Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story, Roz Russell in His Girl Friday, Barbara Stanwyck for either one of her 1941 comedies (Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve), Carole Lombard in To Be Or Not To Be, and Jean Arthur in The More the Merrier all gave performances worthy of the award, and yet the Oscar goes to Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter? Shameful.

[QUOTE] Livvie was forgettable in her pic that year and it hasn't aged very well

I have to disagree. I think she’s perfect in To Each His Own.

I would have given Jane’s second Oscar to Geraldine Page or Ingrid Bergman that year who (yes, I know that would give her a total of four Oscars) is incredible in Autumn Sonata. Does anyone even watch Coming Home?

R6 in my reimagined Oscar history I gave a tie to Ingrid and Jill Clayburgh for An Unmarried Woman!

I’d give it to Livvie for The Heiress and maybe The Snake Pit (I’ve never been impressed by Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda—she mainly stared with her cow eyes—there’s more to performing a deaf character than a tabula rasa of blankness), though both Irene Dunne in Mama (great blend of comedy and drama and a good Scandinavian accent—take THAT, Loretta!) and Stanwyck in Sorry Wrong Number we’re worthy (though Moorehead’s radio performance of SWN is unbeatable). She was fine in To Each His Own, but no one could top Celia Johnson’s greatness in Brief Encounter. That she wasn’t nominated for Supporting Actress for her Miss Mackay, a fitting antagonist for Maggie Smith’s Jean Brodie—and they gave it to Goldie Hawn for Cactus Flower, for Crissake!—was such an error in taste and judgment.

Jill should have been nominated for getting the shit beat out of her by her boyfriend in I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can!

I like Ginger but Kitty Foyle is pretty mediocre. And her performance really isn't much better than the material.

R8 I recently watch The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and both Celia and Maggie were terrific! I agree she should have been recognised for it, especially considering she was overlooked for one of the all-time great performances in BE

R11. She at least won the BAFTA for her matchless Mackay.

Johnson hadn't appeared in a feature film in 12 years when "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" was released. I remember reading a contemporary New York review that said the audience gasped when she first appeared because she looked so different. Great actress at any age.

It’s such a DataLounge thing that conversations so easily veer toward certain movies like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and An Unmarried Woman, and for once that’s a compliment. We’re dedicated to keeping the memories of those movies alive.

Was Joan any good in Suspicion?

I liked Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle, but I think she won more because the movie was considering "daring" for its time than she did for her actual performance.

I actually think she did a much better job in an obscure film TCM aired a weeks ago, "Storm Warning," which also starred Doris Day and Ronald Reagan. Rogers comes to visit her sister (Day) in a backward southern town and witnesses a man murdered by the KKK. Turns out one of the murderers is Day's husband.

It was a controversial film, but Rogers gave a great performance.

"Was Joan any good in Suspicion?"

Yes, she was good, but her Oscar is widely regarded as a make-up Oscar for "Rebecca", in which she was outstanding.

And Ginger is the clear winner in this poll, she was bad in a terrible film! I still don't understand why she won, I suspect it was because she had been known for musicals up until then so she the film did break the career mold. Who the hell was her competetion, it must have been a hell of a weak year.

Ginger's competition wasn't weak at all. She was up against Katharine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story), Joan Fontaine (Rebecca), Bette Davis (The Letter) and Martha Scott (Our Town).

Good to hear Ginger was good in some roles

[QUOTE] Ginger's competition wasn't weak at all. She was up against Katharine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story), Joan Fontaine (Rebecca), Bette Davis (The Letter) and Martha Scott (Our Town).

Literally any of these other nominees (one or two are giving career-best performances) would have been preferable over Ginger.

Davis was wonderful in "The Letter." Great film too.

It's true, Ginger was by far the weakest nominee, and didn't deserve to be nominated, she was that bad, so I really wonder what the hell kind of studio politics went on to make her undeserved win happen!

Fontaine should have won for "Rebecca", but I suppose she wasn't a big enough name at the time, and her reward was the nomination and becoming the kind of big name who had a chance at winning.

I don't think most of you realize how enormously popular and downright likeable Ginger Rogers was in 1940.

Besides all of her incredibly glamorous performances dancing with Fred Astaire throughout the 1930s, she made lots of other dramas and comedies for RKO, often as a spunky and very relatable working girl next door type that were adored by millions of Depression-depressed Americans looking for hope and fun and wholesome sexiness. She always played strong young women who could wisecrack with the boys without losing her femininity. KITTY FOYLE was the ultimate expression of that persona, as well as an idealization of independent American womanhood, played out in a very daring story in its day, and I'm sure the time seemed just right to honor Ginger.

For a country emerging from the Depression and about to enter uncertainly into WWII, Bette in THE LETTER, Kate in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY and even Joan Fontaine in REBECCA (as admittedly superior they all were) were just simply not playing especially sympathetic women. Hindsight is everything.

What was Jennifer Jones like in her role?

R24. Ethereal—not much range (the role is that of a saint, after all), but touching. I think it’s the role that won—and Selznick pushing her down everyone’s throat (and I like Jones). Gladys Cooper should have won supporting actress for playing the meanest nun ever.

Jones was mealy-mouthed, like everything else she ever did, r24.

Bette should have won for The Letter

I came here to downvote June Allyson but she only won a Golden Globe.

R26 honey you would say that!

I saw a video on youtube of the Top 5 shocking Best Actress wins. They said Loretta Young was in 5th place in most predictions but managed to win somehow.

(G's loss to Olivia Colman was #1)

I lost a lot of money when Glenn lost, I thought she was a shoo-in after her SAG and GG win

Loretta Young should win this. Uniformly awful actress who probably won as a celebration of how wonderfully she kept studio abortionists in business. Jennifer Jones would also be a good choice, terrible in everything she did and only had any success because she was Selznick’s personal slut. At least Ginger Rogers was an excellent comedic actress.

Overall, a pretty weak-line up of winners if you look at the nominees for each year and the non-nominated high profile performances, but better than the 1930s. Olivia De Havilland in The Heiress is the only one who 100% deserved it her year.

Yes, I think Joan Crawford was mediocre in Mildred Pierce compared to the rest of the cast and the other nominees she was up against. Either of the first choices Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck would have been better, Stanwyck would have been great.

Greer was another one who acted with her nostrils. A proto-Judi Dench, if you will…

Oh Joan Fontaine & Ingrid on nil poi

What about Grace Kelly in The Country Girl? She definitely didn't deserve to win for that.

This thread is about the forties winners r35.

Jane Wyman should have won the next decade for Magnificent Obsession or All That Heaven Allows (for which she was unfortunately non-nominated).

Her Johnny Belinda performance is very one-note.

[quote]r2 Kitty Foyle, not Kitty Doyle.

It’s “Kitty Doily”… about a paper products heiress.

Another (forgotten) factor in Ginger's win: KITTY FOYLE was based on a hugely popular, best-selling novel by Christopher Morley and audiences heartily approved of Ginger's portrayal of the much loved and admired heroine.

Of course, REBECCA was also based on a huge best-seller but I'd bet that the character of Kitty Foyle was more relatable and admired by American audiences (and Academy voters) than the second Mrs. de Wynter.

Joan Fontaine is such a dull actress. I have no clue why people on here think she should have won for 1940 - Judith Anderson owned Rebecca.

I'd have actually been fine Bette wining back to back in 1940/1941 - two of her best performances. Replace the two Oscars she actually won with those.

Or Bette in 1940 and Stanwyck in 1941.

Stanwyck was also great in THE GREAT MAN’S LADY, aging from a teenager to centenarian. But the film was not a success, dismissed by some critics as a “horse opera”. One of the times where not having a long term contract did her in.

Any more votes? Looks like Ginger and Loretta are still duking it out

Fontaine's performance in REBECCA is one of the finest in 40s films, and may be the greatest single performance Hitchcock ever got out of an actress. There are multiple great moments that are all reactive--the way she hesitates to the gigantic doors to Rebecca's rooms and lets her spine compress to show her anxiety; and the great half-smile she gives when she asks Frank Crawley what Rebecca was really like and he tells her she was the most gorgeous woman he had ever met 9it's what she secretly wanted to hear). She never gave a performance so great again.

The only time Hitchcock ever got a performance nearly so fine from an actress was soon after, when he got to direct Teresa Wright and Patricia Collinge in SHADOW OF A DOUBT. They both should have won Oscars.

Judith Anderson in Rebecca and Janet Leigh in Psycho were also unforgettable.

Part of the reason Fontaine did not win for REBECCA was because she basically came out of nowhere to win that part--she had been a mostly ignored starlet before then playing wimpy forgettable roles in GUNGA DIN and THE WOMEN before then. Her work in SUSPICION is not nearly so good a performance as her performance in REBECCA, but it did show the REBECCA work was not a one-off. She genuinely had talent, though it almost always took a great director like Hitchcock or Max Ophuls to bring a fine performance from her.

Her sister Olivia was the more disciplined actor, which was why she was so furious when Fontaine won the Oscar before her. De Havilland's performance in THE HEIRESS is pretty amazing.

Jennifer Jones is actually quite good in THE SONG OF BERNADETTE, but it's an annoying performance just because the real Bernadette Soubirous seems to have been a pretty annoying person--a cheerful idiot.

Jones was always better in comedy, especially in things like BEAT THE DEVIL and CLUNY BROWN.

Don’t you ever say Gloria Gibson.

Wasn't Joan Fontaine one of very few (if not the only) Hitchcock heroine to get both a Leading Actress Oscar and another nomination in two of his films? Considering the actresses Hitch directed over his long career, that's saying something.

Also, just to rile the Olivia fans here more, Suspicion is a far less effective film than Rebecca, as is the writing of it's leading lady. Don't merely blame Joan.

[quote] Suspicion is a far less effective film than Rebecca,as is the writing of it's leading lady.

Not everyone can write so elegantly as [italic]some[/italic] of us actresses can!

Hitchcock made a number of movies that were just sort of...middling in the 40s. Suspicion is one. They didn't have the pure entertainment gloss of his late work nor the sophisticated construction of his early work. I still think his best 40s movie is Lifeboat (Shadow of a Doubt is also excellent, Rope is also very good) but no one I've met agrees with me, I also think his work with Ingrid Bergman is extremely overrated.

Speaking of. Why was Tallulah not nominated in 1944? Even though she wasn't a contract player, the film was a big hit and she won a number of critics awards. She should have easily beat out Bette in one of her worst performances (Mr. Skeffington) at very least.

Agree about Tallulah but I really think her performance in LIFE BOAT at the time, sadly, was roundly dismissed as a parody of her stagey persona and not taken very seriously, at least by her snooty Academy colleagues, even if the film was a big commercial hit.

Once again, hindsight is everything.

Mrs. Skeffington is a real dud, but it did well at the box office. Vincent Sherman's previous two movies, The Hard Way and Old Acquaintance, are much more fun.

Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, is the single greatest female performance as a Hitchcock lead. Notorious is Hitchcock's greatest movie of the 40s, by a mile. But Rebecca does have Judith Anderson AND George Sanders.

[Quote] Does anyone even watch Coming Home?

YES!

Love NOTORIOUS. UNDER CAPRICORN not so much.

R53 The Hard Way is a gem. The wonderful Ida Lupino should have been nominated and won in 1943 instead of Selznick's whore...

Also why was Ingrid Bergman nominated for For Whom the Bell Tolls and not Casablanca in 1943? I know that FWTBT was a hit and considered more prestige because it was from a Hemingway novel, but Casablanca was also wildly popular and she gave a far better performance in that. She's fine in FWTBT but it's overall a lame adaptation of a great novel. Of her and Gary Cooper's literary pairings, I had more fun with the ridiculous Western Saratoga Trunk, based off the Edna Ferber book.

"I also think his work with Ingrid Bergman is extremely overrated."

I disagree, "Notorious" is a damn good, timeless movie, with a marvelous performance from Bergman, and "Spellbound" is a guilty pleasure of mine! Yes, advances in the science of Psychology have rendered the plot ridiculous, and the much-hyped Dali sequence is a waste of film, but Bergman and Peck are marvelous together! They light up the screen with their beauty and charisma, and I like their role-reversed relationship, where the woman is the knight in shining armor, riding to the rescue of a male Damsel In Distress!

But yeah, I won't dispute the premise that Hitchcock made some very weak films in the 1940s. For every glory like "Shadow of a Doubt", he seems to have made two "Paradine Cases".

Wallace Beery was in the thick of it.

Norma Shearer was robbed for “Her Cardboard Lover”

(not)

the most memorable performances were de Haviland The Heiress, Bergman Gaslight and Crawford Mildred Pierce,

This thread about the 1940s has surpassed the 1980s thread which is another remember that DL is old as fuck.

I think JOHNNY BELINDA was a groundbreaking movie in a way. It treated deafness in a positive way and it pushed the boundaries of the Hays Code by dealing with taboo issues like rape and illegitimacy.

[Quote] This thread about the 1940s has surpassed the 1980s thread which is another remember (sic) that DL is old as fuck.

and another reminder that some people don't get the concept of the term classic i.e. Having lasting significance or worth; enduring.

Looks like Ginger took it

R53 did you see Mrs Skeffington during its original theatrical run?

It’s called Mr. Skeffington, not Mrs.

^^Whatever, fossil prude

Marjorie Mains was THE BEST.

[QUOTE] ^^Whatever, fossil prude

I’m only 45!

Maybe you had it confused with Mrs. Parkington which was released the same year.

[Quote] I’m only 45!

R71 that’s what they all say on here.

Seems like in the first half of the '40s, Greer Garson & Jennifer Jones got Oscar noms for just breathing... would have been nice to see Dorothy McGuire to have gotten a couple of noms for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Enchanted Cottage, or The Spiral Staircase. Instead, she gets her 1st for the dull Gentleman's Agreement? Anyway, I think Joan deserved her career Oscar for "Mildred Pierce," and explain why here!

Mildred! Mildred!

Sorry, I did get Mrs. Skeffington and Mr. Parkington mixed up!

What about Miss Susie Slagle?

Mrs. Parkington is blech, incoherent movie with a good cast.

[quote]would have been nice to see Dorothy McGuire to have gotten a couple of noms for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Enchanted Cottage, or The Spiral Staircase.

It would have been nice if they remembered her at the Oscars when she died. They left her off the death reel and yet included Aaliyah, who had made...wait for it...two movies!

Yeah, it's 21 years and I'm still not over it.

R78 "the death reel" lol!

R79 - I forgot what the In Memoriam segment was called. I'm old and forget shit.

I give credit to Loretta Young for praising Fontaine's performance in REBECCA. Young admitted she wanted the role very badly and was crushed to lose it. But she admitted Fontaines performance was extraordinary and and miles better than what she could have done.

I'd swap Ginger's Oscar KITTY FOYLE for ROXY HART, one of her rare '40s films with the sass and snap of her early 30s roles. Ginger got awfully noble in the '40s.

Ginger started to smell herself after winning that GIFTED Oscar. She only wanted to portray what she thought were “dignified” parts. She even turned down BALL OF FIRE because the character was a burlesque dancer (stripper). Barbara Stanwyck took the job and got an Oscar nomination. But that’s one of my least favorite Stanwyck films. Too silly.

Instead, Rogers took Oscar bait roles in PRIMROSE PATH and TENDER COMRADE. She later dismissed the latter as having Communist overtones. It was written by Dalton Trumbo and directed by Edward Dymytryk, both who were blacklisted during the Hollywood witch hunts. But then, Barbara was also fervently anti communist also, disparaging director Lewis Milestone, who directed her in THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS (great movie, terrible title).

But it’s telling that That was Ginger’s first and last Oscar. She was never even nominated again.

But ROXIE HART and THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR were both made in 1942 after Ginger won the Oscar and are both exemplary versions of her classic wisecracker persona, hardly "dignified" roles.

Not really trying to defend Ginger but I suspect even she felt she was aging out of those kinds of characters and was looking for more substantial material, even if, more often than not, it didn't lead to great performances or films. If nothing else, it can certainly be said of her long career that she successfully went through several phases and styles and bucked stereotyping whenever she could.

R80 it was genuinely funny and I forget names all the time too!