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<TR><TD width=60% valign=center><Font Face=Garamond Color="#003399" Size=+3><b>Best Actress 1932-33</b></Font><br>
<b><Font Color="#660066">Oscar Winner:</Font> <Font Face=Garamond>Katharine Hepburn, <a href=mglory.html><i>Morning Glory</i></a></Font></b><br>
<Font Color="#660066">Nominees:</Font> May Robson, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Lady for a Day</i></Font><br>
<Font Color="#FFFFCC">Nominees:</Font> Diana Wynyard, <a href=cavalcad.html><i>Cavalcade</i></a><br>
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<Font Color="#660066">The Field:</Font> <Font Color=Red Size=-1>★</Font> <Font Color=Gray Size=-1>★ ★ ★ ★</Font><br>
Hepburn and Robson are both proficient enough, even in their limited ways, that a second star shouldn't be out of the question here. Maybe Wynyard, who by
all rights should make her competitors look better, somehow infects them and makes them look worse. More problematically, Oscar had such immensely superior
alternatives at hand, without even having to budge much from his demonstrated proclivities. Surely Stanwyck in <i>The Bitter Tea of General Yen</i> shows
Capra's direction to more advantage than Robson does, and Hepburn is varied, rich, and inspired in <i>Little Women</i>, a nominee for Best Picture and Best
Director but, for some reason, not the chosen vehicle for her "Star Is Born" prize. Most gallingly of all, with Oscar changing his timetable from the August-to-July
qualifying heats of the previous ceremonies and preparing for the simpler calendar-year rubric of later ones, voters had 17 months of movies, and they didn't
even have a five-wide roster to fill. So where are the glorious holdovers from '32 like the <i>Trouble in Paradise</i> dames or Dietrich pushing her masquerade
act into strangely maternal directions in <i>Blonde Venus</i>, or Harlow in <i>Red Dust</i>? Or, in 1933, why not Garbo in <i>Queen Christina</i> or the
<i>Dinner at Eight</i> crowd, or any of Busby Berkeley's emotive hoofers or the pre-Code titillators like Chatterton, Hopkins, Stanwyck, or Mae West, headlining
another Best Picture nominee even if she puts her own spin on "acting"? As usual, when faced with an unusually rich banquet of tastes, voters kept to the bland
and the obvious.
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<img src=acspck33.jpg align=right width=200 height=75 hspace=10 vspace=5><Font Face=Garamond Color="#003399" Size=+2><b>Ranking Oscar's Ballot</b></Font><br>
<Font Size=-2> <br></Font>
<Font Color="#660066"><b>My Pick:</b></Font><br>
<b><Font Face=Garamond>Katharine Hepburn, <a href=mglory.html><i>Morning Glory</i></a></Font></b> <Font Color=Red Size=-1>★ ★ ★</Font> <Font Color=Gray Size=-1>★ ★</Font><br>
I think people tend to be either too hard on this performance or too forgiving of it. Granted, all critics think this about everything, just like all drivers
think everyone else on the road is too fast or too slow. Yes, Hepburn miscalculates in locating all of Eva's single-mindedness and her determined evasions
of reality within the single device of that monotone, rat-a-tat voice. She hasn't yet the facility for dizzy acceleration that she has in the best parts of
<i>Bringing Up Baby</i>, and her director, Lowell Sherman, isn't trying to make a case for the character or the film so much as he's dutifully advertising the
new, curious commodity on RKO Radio's lot. It's surprising, in fact, that there's as much humor and looseness in Hepburn's self-consciously debutante-ish
performance as there is, and it's wonderful that she has fun with her drunken recitals of "To be or not to be..." and "What's in a name?..." without selling
out the language or the character sense entirely to silliness. One of the few times Sherman places the camera expressively—as Eva finishes one of many vague
and dewy speeches to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and commences her walk of shame out of Adolphe Menjou's two-story apartment in extreme low-angle—Hepburn
finds just the right moment and cadence for a gently humiliated "Thanks" to Fairbanks and an undisguised and sad disappointment with herself. With more
opportunity like this, she might have constructed a more flexible, rangier Eva, but she also might have needed more time or more strenuous convincing to make
sense of that climactic embrace of love at the expense of career. You don't have to know that Hepburn would never have supported this turn of events, even
if she was hardly the unmitigated feminist trailblazer we sometimes pretend, to recognize that as an actress, she's at sea with this precipitous reversal.
Not a poor or unpromising performance, gilded with humor andd flashes of sharpness, certainly not a nightmare—we'd have to wait for the next year's
<i>Spitfire</i> for that—but much less than a warmer, less self-serious actress would have achieved. Three stars is a bit generous...
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<Font Color="#660066">From There:</Font><br>
<b><Font Face=Garamond>May Robson, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Lady for a Day</i></Font></Font></b> <Font Color=Red Size=-1>★ ★ ★</Font> <Font Color=Gray Size=-1>★ ★</Font><br>
...as it is for Robson, possibly best known for supporting Hepburn five years later as the exasperated aunt in <a href=brupbaby.html><i>Bringing Up Baby</i></a>.
She won her Oscar-nominated role only after MGM refused to loan out Marie Dressler. Few actors earn their breakout rule at 75 years of age, but <i>Lady for a Day</i>
and Robson's performance were enormous hits. If Hepburn hadn't had novelty and a four-film body of work on her side, Robson probably would have claimed the
prize&—capping the film's own narrative trajectory where Robson's "Apple" Annie sees her star rise unexpectedly and benefits from the copious and strenuous
kindness of an entire city's worth of rogues, operators, charmers, and charlatans (not a terrible analogy for Hollywood). Robson does wonderful work in her
pre-makeover scenes. Beyond constructing a sufficiently boozy, hardscrabble character that her eventual Swan routine pays off, and beyond her gift for being
demonsrative but not obnoxious in her expressions of drunkenness, poverty, and mother-love (all of them pitfalls to many a strong performer), Robson is smart
enough to anchor our sympathies in the extremity of Annie's emotions, rather than take the easier route of making Annie suspiciously sweet beneath her tough,
eroded exterior. The set-up of the film and of the performance are so satisfying that it's a surprise when <i>Lady for a Day</i> has so little to do with Robson
during its second half. Her transformation into a semi-plausible society dame transpires in the space of a single cut, and the film underlines the convoluted
labors of Warren William and his criminal cadre as they keep the deception going, rather than spending much time at all with Annie as she learns her new routine.
Furthermore, Robson doesn't let a lot of the original Annie shine through the new, abruptly polished guise, even when some unfolding crises toward the end
of the narrative would suggest some cracks in the façade. She even risks a few moments of being cloying, and she's too cautious
to find any humor in the role or the predicament. One of <i>Lady for a Day</i>'s admirable qualities is its refusal to go for outright farce at the expense
of credible feeling, but Robson almost stands out as maybe the film's least ambitious performer in blending all of these tones.<br>
<br>
<b><Font Face=Garamond>Diana Wynyard, <a href=cavalcad.html><i>Cavalcade</i></a></Font></b> <Font Color=Red Size=-1>★ ★</Font> <Font Color=Gray Size=-1>★ ★ ★</Font><br>
A doldrum, at every increment of faux-aging and for nearly every minute of Noel Coward's strangely strangled script. The nicest things to be said are that
Wynyard moves well amidst the meticulous art-direction and poses expressively, at least a few times, on the theatrical furniture. A proficient stage performance
is not out of the question here, albeit in a very outmoded style, though <i>Cavalcade</i>'s inexplicable editing and scene construction and Frank Lloyd's
commitment to close-ups make it impossible to discern. He premises the film on close-ups, at least when he isn't hammering away at a lifeless and slipshod
montage of History, and though I hear that Wynyard is compelling in the original, British <i>Gaslight</i> of 1940, where acting well in close-up is surely a
baseline requirement of the tale, she's gauzy and incoherent with them here. She has no instinctive sense for the camera or its orientations, giving off
strange expressions at odd and unflattering angles, but she also treats the entire filmmaking apparatus as though it is a time-capsule for her wistful
solemnities. She credits the script with so much more wisdom than it actually possesses and subscribes completely to its abstractly reverential, garishly
monumental sense of time. There is nothing quotidian and very little spontaneous in her performance—too little sense that her Jane Marryot is alive,
much less what she's like, on days where war doesn't happen to erupt or the <i>Titanic</i> doesn't sink or none of her children dies. The minute Wynyard
does fix on something like a subtext, as in the early scenes where she perhaps takes her servants a bit much for granted, and perhaps isn't as adored by
them or by her unruliest child as she assumes she is, Lloyd makes sure to steer her away from it and consign her back to one-dimensional posterboarding of
time-tested dignity. Anyone short of Dolores Del Rio would be more creditable on this list.<br>
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<Font Size=+1><Font Color="#660066">Who gets your vote in this field, and on my dream ballot below?</Font> <a href=actres33polls.html style="text-decoration:none"><Font Color="#003399">VOTE HERE!</Font></a></Font><br>
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<img src=acsfav33.jpg align=right width=200 height=75 hspace=10 vspace=5><Font Face=Garamond Color="#003399" Size=+2><b>My
Favorites from 1932-33:</b></Font><br>
<br>
<b><Font Color="#660066">My Pick:</Font> <Font Face=Garamond>Kay Francis, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Trouble in Paradise</i></Font></Font></b><br>
<Font Color="#660066">Nominees:</Font> Katharine Hepburn, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Little Women</i></Font><br>
<Font Color="#FFFFCC">Nominees:</Font> Barbara Stanwyck, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>The Bitter Tea of General Yen</i></Font><br>
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<Font Face=Garamond Color="#660066"><b>Honorable Mentions:</b></Font>
Marlene Dietrich, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Blonde Venus</i></Font>;
Miriam Hopkins, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Trouble in Paradise</i></Font>;
Billie Burke, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Dinner at Eight</i></Font>;
Bebe Daniels, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>42nd Street</i></Font>;
Mae West, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>She Done Him Wrong</i></Font>;
Helen Hayes, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>A Farewell to Arms</i></Font>;
Barbara Stanwyck, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Ladies They Talk About</i></Font>;
Katharine Hepburn, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Morning Glory</i></Font>;
May Robson, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Lady for a Day</i></Font>;
Fay Wray, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>King Kong</i></Font>;
Ruby Keeler, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>42nd Street</i></Font>;
Marie Dressler, <Font Color="#3333FF"><i>Dinner at Eight</i></Font><br>
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<Font Face=Garamond Color="#660066"><b>Gourmet Prospects:</b></Font>
Ethel Barrymore, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Rasputin and the Empress</i></Font>;
Constance Bennett, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Two Against the World</i></Font>;
Joan Blondell, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Footlight Parade</i></Font>;
Nancy Carroll, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Hot Saturday</i></Font>;
Ruth Chatterton, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Female</i></Font>;
Ruth Chatterton, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Lilly Turner</i></Font>;
Claudette Colbert, <Font Color="#660066"><i>I Cover the Waterfront</i></Font>;
Joan Crawford, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Rain</i></Font>;
Bette Davis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Three on a Match</i></Font>;
Irene Dunne, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Back Street</i></Font>;
Kay Francis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>One Way Passage</i></Font>;
Greta Garbo, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Queen Christina</i></Font>;
Ann Harding, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Animal Kingdom</i></Font>;
Jean Harlow, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Bombshell</i></Font>;
Jean Harlow, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Red Dust</i></Font>;
Miriam Hopkins, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Design for Living</i></Font>;
Miriam Hopkins, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Story of Temple Drake</i></Font>;
Jeanette MacDonald, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Love Me Tonight</i></Font>;
Norma Shearer, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Strange Interlude</i></Font>;
Barbara Stanwyck, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Baby Face</i></Font>;
Loretta Young, <Font Color="#660066"><i>A Man's Castle</i></Font><br>
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<Font Face=Garamond Color="#660066"><b>Further Research:</b></Font>
Joan Bennett, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Me and My Gal</i></Font>;
Joan Blondell, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Three on a Match</i></Font>;
Clara Bow, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Call Her Savage</i></Font>;
Nancy Carroll, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Woman Accused</i></Font>;
Mae Clarke, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Fast Workers</i></Font>;
Claudette Colbert, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Sign of the Cross</i></Font>;
Joan Crawford, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Dancing Lady</i></Font>;
Joan Crawford, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Today We Live</i></Font>;
Constance Cummings, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Movie Crazy</i></Font>;
Marion Davies, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Peg o' My Heart</i></Font>;
Bette Davis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Bureau of Missing Persons</i></Font>;
Bette Davis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Cabin in the Cotton</i></Font>;
Bette Davis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Ex-Lady</i></Font>;
Bette Davis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Parachute Jumper</i></Font>;
Bette Davis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>20,000 Years in Sing Sing</i></Font>;
Bette Davis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Working Man</i></Font>;
Irene Dunne, <Font Color="#660066"><i>No Other Woman</i></Font>;
Irene Dunne, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Secret of Madame Blanche</i></Font>;
Ann Dvorak, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Three on a Match</i></Font>;
Kay Francis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Cynara</i></Font>;
Kay Francis, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The House on 56th Street</i></Font>;
Janet Gaynor, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Tess of the Storm Country</i></Font>;
Ann Harding, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Right to Romance</i></Font>;
Ann Harding, <Font Color="#660066"><i>When Ladies Meet</i></Font>;
Helen Hayes, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The White Sister</i></Font>;
Leila Hyams, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Constant Woman</i></Font>;
Carole Lombard, <Font Color="#660066"><i>No Man of Her Own</i></Font>;
Carole Lombard, <Font Color="#660066"><i>White Woman</i></Font>;
Myrna Loy, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Prizefighter and the Lady</i></Font>;
Lyda Roberti, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Kid from Spain</i></Font>;
Gloria Stuart, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Invisible Man</i></Font>;
Gloria Stuart, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Old Dark House</i></Font>;
Lupe Velez, <Font Color="#660066"><i>The Half Naked Truth</i></Font>;
Mae West, <Font Color="#660066"><i>I'm No Angel</i></Font>;
Anna May Wong, <Font Color="#660066"><i>A Study in Scarlet</i></Font>;
Loretta Young, <Font Color="#660066"><i>Heroes for Sale</i></Font><br>
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