Tallulah Bankhead | Through the Shattered Lens

Ah, the 40s! For most of the decade, the world was at war and the Academy’s nominations reflected that fact. The best picture lineups alternated between patriotic films that encouraged the battle against evil and darker films that contemplated both the mistakes of the past and what threats might be waiting in the future. With the Academy being even more aware than usual that films and awards could be used to send a message, the snubs continued.

1940: John Carradine Is Not Nominated For The Grapes of Wrath

John Carradine’s first credited film appearance was in 1930 but Carradine himself claimed that he had appeared as an uncredited extra in over 70 films before getting that first credit. Carradine would continue to work until his death 58 years later. John Carradine did so many films that he was still appearing in new releases in the 90s, years after his death. He appeared in over 234 films and in countless television shows. He was a favorite of not only Fred Olen Ray’s but also John Ford’s.

Unfortunately, Carradine was never nominated for an Oscar, despite the fact that he did appear in some classic films. (He also appeared in a lot of B-movies, which is perhaps one reason why the Academy was hesitant to honor him.) Personally, I think Carradine most deserved a nomination for playing “Pastor” Jim Casy in John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath. Carradine is ideally cast as the former preacher turned labor activist. When he’s alive, he gives the Joads hope. When he dies, both the Joads and the audience start to realize how difficult things are truly going to be.

1942: Ronald Reagan Is Not Nominated For Best Supporting Actor For Kings Row

Kings Row is an enjoyably over-the-top small town melodrama and future President Ronald Reagan is fantastic in the film, with his natural optimism providing a nice contrast to the truly terrible things that happen to him and his loved ones over the course of the film. Reagan was not nominated for this performance, the one that both he and the most of the critics agreed was his best, but he should have been.

1943: Hangmen Also Die Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

Fritz Lang’s anti-Nazi classic was not nominated for Best Picture and only received two nominations (for Sound and Score). That year, the Best Picture winner was another anti-Nazi classic, Casablanca.

1943: Shadow Of A Doubt Is Ignored

Today, it is recognized as one of Hitchcock’s best but, in 1943, Shadow of a Doubt couldn’t even score a nomination for Joseph Cotten’s wonderfully diabolical turn as Uncle Charlie. One gets the feeling that the film’s satirical jibes at small town America and its theme of evil hiding behind a normal façade were not what the Academy was looking for at the height of World War II. It’s a shame because, in many ways, Cotten’s Uncle Charlie was the perfect symbol of the enemy that the Allies were fighting.

1944: Tallulah Bankhead In Not Nominated For Best Actress For Lifeboat

Unlike Shadow of a Doubt, Hitchcock’s Lifeboat received several Oscar nominations. However, Tallulah Bankhead was not nominated for Best Actress. Perhaps the Academy was scared of what she might say if she won.

1944: Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson Are Not Nominated For Double Indemnity

For all the nominations that this classic noir received, somehow neither Fred MacMurray nor Edward G. Robinson were nominated for their roles. Both actors are brilliantly cast against type in this film. MacMurray uses his trademark casual glibness to portray Walter Neff as being an arrogant man who is hardly as clever as he thinks that he is. Meanwhile, Robinson’s more introspective performance leaves you with little doubt that, if anyone can solve this case, it’s him. While Barbara Stanwyck was (rightfully) nominated, it’s had to believe that both MacMurray and Robinson were snubbed.

1946: Thomas Mitchell and Lionel Barrymore Are Not Nominated For Best Supporting Actor For It’s A Wonderful Life

As wonderful as James Stewart and Donna Reed are, it just wouldn’t be Bedford Falls without Uncle Billy and Mr. Potter! Thomas Mitchell breaks your heart in the scene where he tries to remember what he did with the lost money. And, for audiences who had just lived through the Great Depression, Lionel Barrymore represented every businessman who cared more about money than people. It’s impossible to imagine the film without them …. or without Henry Travers, for that matter! Seriously, very few films have received three best supporting actor nominations but It’s A Wonderful Life deserved to be one of them.

1948: Humphrey Bogart Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre received four Oscar nominations. Somehow, not one of those nominations was not for Humphrey Bogart.

1948 and 1949: Red River, Fort Apache, and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon Are Not Nominated For Best Picture

The public may have loved Westerns but the Academy largely shied away from them, with a few notable exceptions. Howard Hawks’s Red River and John Ford’s Fort Apache and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon are today all recognized as being classic Hollywood films. However, the Academy, then at the height of its bias towards “genre” films, didn’t honor any of them.

1949: James Cagney Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For White Heat

“Top of the world, ma!” Maybe so, but not top of the Oscars. The Academy was always more interested in honoring Cagney for being a song-and-dance man than for honoring him for his iconic gangster roles.

Agree? Disagree? Do you have an Oscar snub that you think is even worse than the 10 listed here? Let us know in the comments!

Up next: Get ready to hate the commies and to love Ike because the 50s are coming!

In 1930, in response to claims that its movies were corrupting the youth of America (The more things change, the more they remain the same and all that…), Hollywood adopted the infamous Production Code. In the days before ratings, the Code told studio filmmakers what they could and could not put on screen. The Code told Hollywood that all crime must be punished, the only good sex was unseen married sex, that the clergy must be respected, and that the American way of life must be celebrated. Audiences could get rest assured that, if a film had managed to pass the Code, then that film was safe for impressionable minds.

Though the code was written out in 1930, it was not enforced in 1934. During those four years (known as the Pre-Code era), filmmakers responded to the looming reality of censorship by directing some of the most outlandishly sordid films that were ever made. Knowing that they would soon be forced to “play nice,” filmmakers decided to embrace as much sex, violence, suggestive dialogue, and as many tawdry situations as possible. The end results may have scandalized contemporary audiences but, for those of us today, these Pre-Code films can both be a lot of fun and continue to surprise us with just how far some of them went when it came to embracing the melodrama.

Take for example 1931’s The Cheat. Tallulah Bankhead plays Elsa Carlyle. Elsa is married to a boring but decent man named Jeff (Harvey Stephens). Jeff makes money and then Elsa spends it. Elsa is also a compulsive gambler and, after making one ill-fated bet at a local casino, Elsa finds herself owing more than she can pay.

That’s when the wonderfully sinister Hardy Livingstone (Irving Pichel) steps into the picture. Livingstone is a rich man who has spent the last few years living in Japan. As Livingstone explains after inviting Elsa back to his shadow-filled mansion, he is obsessed with Japanese culture, especially the idea of having his own personal geisha. (Admittedly, the film itself promotes the simplistic western assumption of just what exactly a geisha is. The truth is far more nuanced but — in the film’s defense — the brutish Livingstone doesn’t exactly come across like someone who would be smart enough to perceive or appreciate things like nuance.) Hardy agrees to pay Elsa’s debt if Elsa agrees to become his personal sex slave. Rather than tell her husband that she lost their money, Elsa agrees.

However, once Elsa returns home, she discovers that one of Jeff’s business deals has paid off. They’re rich! And Elsa now has more than enough money to pay back her gambling debts. Elsa goes back to Hardy and tells him that the deal is off. Hardy responds by declaring that Elsa is now his property and, to prove it, he literally brands her in a scene that is all the more disturbing because it is seen almost entirely in silhouette.

(Seriously, this was a pretty intense scene! Eli Roth has nothing on George Abbott!)

As often happened in the 1930s, all of this leads to Elsa shooting Hardy and Jeff confessing that he did it and being put on trial for attempted murder. The trial itself is pretty much a standard courtroom drama but it is memorable for the scene in which a bunch of courtroom observers are so offended by one witnesses’s testimony that they spontaneously respond by beating the crap out of the accused.

You can find The Cheat (along with 5 other films) on one of my favorite DVDs, the Pre-Code Hollywood Collection. It’s a film that I highly recommend to anyone who wants to see just how sordid a Pre-Code Hollywood film could truly be. Along with appealing to our historical curiosity, The Cheat also features an excellent lead performance from the legendary Tallulah Bankhead and a perfectly villainous turn from Irving Pichel. Finally, like many Pre-Code films, The Cheat serves as an interesting walking tour through the usually hidden recesses of the American psyche. In short, it’s a valuable portrait of the type of worldview that the Production Code was supposed to banish from existence.