Second guessing the Oscars comes naturally to film buffs. It could hardly be otherwise. To expect that a short list of nominees could adequately represent the rich field of film production is impossible at the outset. This was more obvious at the peak of the studio era than it is today. 

In 1939, a year that is often cited as Hollywood’s zenith, the field for best picture was so crowded that, with ten nominations (the maximum), it is easy to pick a further ten films that didn’t make the cut, but could have:  Beau Geste, Gunga Din, Only Angels Have Wings, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Women, Young Mr. Lincoln, Intermezzo, The Four Feathers, Drums Along the Mohawk, and The Old Maid, wonderful films all, which could supply additional nominations in the acting and production categories. To this, add the aesthetic judgments in Academy voting and the passionate interest of the movie going public. Oscar will always be controversial.

Disputes over winners and losers date at least to the best actress award at the second annual Academy banquet, on April 30, 1930, at the Coconut Grove. The field consisted of Ruth Chatterton for Madame X, Betty Compson for The Barker, Jeanne Eagels for The Letter, Bessie Love for The Broadway Melody of 1929, and the radiant winner, Mary Pickford for Coquette, who brushed away tears as she accepted the award.

Did Pickford win for Coquette, or for her legendary career?  This was debated for weeks and hashed out by columnists in the trade papers. Did Oscar signify artistic excellence, or did it reflect public favor, box office returns, career longevity, and nepotism?  (Pickford was a founding member of the Academy.)  Mary Pickford was one of the first film stars, but she was more than that. When she formed a production company and handpicked her writers, directors, and cinematographers, she was shaping the industry and raising the standards in film production. Coquette, although it made a lot of money and earned respectful reviews in the trades, is not one of her masterworks. Today, the film does not come to life. Fans of the early talkies will stick with it, but Pickford’s heavy Southern drawl and lengthy crying scenes only add to the picture’s leaden pace.

The performances Pickford ran against can all be seen today. (I have not seen Betty Compson in The Barker, but the film is preserved at UCLA and has been shown at film festivals.)  Ruth Chatterton and Bessie Love give strong, declamatory performances in stock melodramatic situations. Jeanne Eagels’ performance in The Letter raises the most interesting questions today. Her role as an adulterous, homicidal plantation owner’s wife is unsettling. In the closing scenes, Eagels emphasizes her character’s degeneration by her unkempt appearance, frenzied motion, and unbearably screechy voice. No leading lady had created such an unpleasant character on the screen, but Eagels was ahead of her time and would probably have lost to Pickford without two additional problems with The Letter:  the picture tanked at the box office, and Eagels died from complications of drug abuse some six months after it opened. Had she won, she would have been Oscar’s first posthumous winner.

Pickford’s win raised the question of favoritism over artistic achievement. It is one of several criticisms that dog the Oscars. Another is Oscar’s neglect of a large number of outstanding talents in acting, directing, and production, including those who never won a competitive Oscar and those who were never nominated. Finally, there are those who believe that comedy performances are slighted in favor of grand dramatic roles.

Favoritism is unsurprising in a company town where one’s fellow artists vote on the nominations and those who see it cite specific Oscar races, almost always in the best actress category. 1940, for example: was there ever a more ordinary poor girl/rich boy story than Kitty Foyle? Yet it was a box office marvel and brought Ginger Rogers her best actress win in a field that included Bette Davis in The Letter’s remake and Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story.

In retrospect, one can see Rogers’ win a validation of an engaging actress who, at her peak as a star of musicals and comedies, had successfully branched out into drama. Does her acting cut Davis and Hepburn?  Here the intangibles of artistic judgment intrude. Rogers was a big-hearted, natural talent who nailed the essence of a scene. She was always in the pocket. But Kitty Foyle becomes a blur in the memory, while the Davis and Hepburn performances are filled with classic moments. The scene in which Davis’ lawyer (James Stephenson) breaks down her controlled surface and ferrets out the truth about her night of murder stretches the audience’s tension to the limit. Hepburn, in her sleekest wardrobe, plays a hand of gamesmanship with Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart until her inner warmth is allowed to emerge in the picture’s second half. These are films to revisit and connect with, while Kitty Foyle seems conventional and merely good of type.

The 1954 Best Actress contest boiled down to what Groucho Marx called “the biggest robbery since Brink’s.”  He was referring to Judy Garland’s loss to Grace Kelly, and history has borne him out. A Star IsBorn is iconic, the famous comeback film in which Garland topped herself and added a deeper, bluesy layer to her image. ‘Born in a Trunk’ and ‘The Man That Got Away’ are the definition of showstoppers. This is explosive star energy. The search for the film’s missing footage for its 1983 restoration print was carried out like the quest for the grail. 

In contrast, The Country Girl is an almost forgotten film. Grace Kelly is remembered more for High Society and her three fetching turns in Hitchcock thrillers. She’s good in Country Girl, but it is Bing Crosby’s picture, and it was his portrayal of an alcoholic that occupied the critics in 1954. Grace plays his wife in a controlled performance of considerable skill. It’s a delicate creation, but Judy sits you down to a banquet. So who were these Academy members that cast their votes for Grace Kelly?  Perhaps they were won over by Kelly’s charm and classic beauty, and by her fairy tale success, from bit player in 1951 to costarring with Cooper, Gable, and Stewart by 1954. Perhaps they had tired of Judy’s disastrous lifestyle and lack of professionalism. On the artistic merits, it’s hard to accept their decision.

Another questionable award is Elizabeth Taylor’s 1960 win for Butterfield 8, a film which tries to be daring and sophisticated but now seems inept. Taylor pushes too hard in this; by contrast, her Virginia Woolf win six years later is a justified triumph, where her focus is laser-sharp and she makes each bitter comment tell. Hollywood insiders called her 1960 Oscar a sympathy win, coming after husband Mike Todd’s death in a plane crash and her own health crises. Among the actresses she bested that year were Melina Mercouri as the salty, unflappable prostitute in Never on Sunday and Shirley MacLaine as the vulnerable Fran in The Apartment.

When Oscar is criticized for neglecting major talents, every fan has a scorecard. There’s Peter O’Toole (8 nominations, 0 wins), who before his death in December 2013 was the best known example in the still-active category. A further listing of the greats who never won a competitive Oscar:  Richard Burton (7 nominations), Irene Dunne (5 nominations), Alfred Hitchcock (5 nominations), Greta Garbo (4 nominations), and Barbara Stanwyck (4 nominations.)

Even more jarring is the list of singular talents who never received a nomination. John Barrymore can head this list. He joked that the Academy feared that, if he were nominated, he would show up at the banquet drunk. Somehow, he was passed up for best actor consideration in Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Counsellor at Law (1933 – he’s simply great in this), Topaze, Reunion in Vienna, and Twentieth Century (1934), or best supporting actor in Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Maytime (1937). 

Edward G. Robinson was not recognized for Little Caesar (1931), Brother Orchid (1940), The Sea Wolf (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), Scarlet Street (1945), Key Largo (1948), or any of his other 81 features. Claude Rains, often discussed as the consummate screen actor: utter neglect. Joseph Cotten, portrayer of morally compromised, self-doubting protagonists: out of the running. Other one-of-a-kind talents who never received a nomination are Rouben Mamoulian, W.C. Fields, Myrna Loy, Boris Karloff, and Fred MacMurray.

There are several ways to account for this. The Academy restricted the nomination field in the early 30s. There were to be three actors and three actresses only in the contest (although tie votes added to the number.)  This meant that many worthy performances went unrecognized. Remember that major stars might have three, four or more releases in a single year and that rising stars had even more. In 1932, Clark Gable appeared in eight films, Bette Davis in nine. Production slates burgeoned. By the late 30s, about 600 features a year were released by Hollywood.

Also, the enduring power of a performance or a piece of direction may not be obvious to its original audience. Movie goers of December 1934 who came out of the cold to watch W.C. Fields romp through It’s a Gift, which is barely more than an hour long, had no idea that we would be watching this film 80 years later and calling it a perfect comedy. Fred MacMurray acted to effortlessly that it may well take years of watching his films on television, tape, and disc to appreciate his talent. Still, beyond all hindsight, I will never understand the lack of a directing nomination for Mamoulian’s Love Me Tonight (or any other nomination for this unique film.)

Does Oscar slight the comedians?  W. C. Fields thought so: “It seems to me that a comedian who makes people laugh should be as eligible for an award as a tragedian who makes people cry.”  For Oscar’s first year only, there was a separate category for comedy direction; thereafter, comedy wins were the exceptions to the rule. 

Marie Dressler won for Min and Bill (1930), but the picture is more melodrama than comedy. It Happened One Night is both romance and wonderful character comedy, and it swept the major awards in 1934. You Can’t Take It With You was 1938’s best picture. Quite a few dry years followed for comedy awards. Charles Coburn (The More the Merrier) and Edmund Gwenn (Miracle on 34th Street) picked up supporting actor awards in comic roles, and next came Judy Holliday’s flamboyantly comic role in Born Yesterday (1950), in which she wrested the best actress Oscar from both Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson.

Oscar’s history justifies W. C. Fields’ complaint. Somehow, the comedian’s quicksilver skills of mimicry, timing, inflection, and suggestion are undervalued; we consider that he is at play while the ‘serious’ actor is working. Significantly, Cary Grant (2 nominations, 0 wins) was nominated not for his matchless comedy skills, but for Penny Serenade (1941), a sentimental love story, and the wearying None But the Lonely Heart (1944).

We film buffs love the imponderable questions of why our favorites won or lost, and who should have won the Oscar. There is even a book on the subject, Danny Peary’s Alternate Oscars (1993), an addictive book to page through. Here are my choices for nominations that never were, but should have been:

1931:  Walter Huston, best actor, A House Divided; Charles Chaplin, best actor, City Lights

1932:  Love Me Tonight: best picture, best director, best editing

1933:  John Barrymore, best actor, Counsellor at Law

1934:  W. C. Fields, best actor, story, It’s a Gift (J. P. McEvoy, co-writer)

1939:  Rosalind Russell, best supporting actress, The Women

1944:  Edward G. Robinson, best supporting actor, Double Indemnity

1946:  Claude Rains, best supporting actor, Notorious

1948:  Humphrey Bogart, best actor, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

1949:  James Cagney, best actor; Margaret Wycherly, best supporting actress, White Heat

1951:  Robert Walker, best actor, Strangers on a Train

1956:  John Wayne, best actor, The Searchers 

1957:  Marlene Dietrich, best supporting actress, Witness for the Prosecution

1959:  Alfred Hitchcock, best director, North by Northwest

Beyond a doubt, this list could be scratched and redrawn by any film buff who compulsively watches the masterworks of the studio era. Hollywood’s productions have always outpaced the Academy’s attempts to honor their excellence. With its flaws of omission, favoritism, and lack of balance, Oscar remains the most coveted award in cinema. Buffs being buffs, we will always have it to celebrate, pick apart, and re-imagine. Oscar will point out some of the best achievements in film, but there will always be more excellent achievements than Oscar can recognize. Watching the old films with love and delight, one realizes how many actors, directors, writers, producers, cinematographers, composers, costumers, and editors were truly Oscar worthy.