Best Actor 1929: Paul Muni in The Valiant

Paul Muni received his first Oscar nomination for portraying a man who claims to James Dyke but he might just be Joe Douglas in The Valiant.

The Valiant is a terrible film about a man who is convicted of murder, and tries to convince a mother and sister that he is not there long lost son.

The acting in the Valiant is pretty terrible almost the whole through, particularly by the fiancee of the sister, as well as the sister, as well as the mother, I guess the jail warden could be worse, but still this is a pretty poorly acted picture. I am happy to say that Paul Muni does not join the rest of the cast though when it comes to his performance.

This is a very short film, possibly the shortest film with a best actor nominee in fact. Paul Muni is not every scene either in fact he has very few scenes all together. In fact so few I can really describe each of his scenes in this review with great ease.

He first appears in the film slowly walking the streets and finally goes to a police station and tells the police that he murdered a man. Why? well the film does not say, but Muni is natural enough in this scene given a somewhat depressed performance, but still showing that he must have hated the man for a good reason.

In a few scenes in a row Muni is continually talked to by other people asking who he really is, and he continues to deny that he is anyone by a murder. Muni is again fine, in just showing that the man just refuses to recognize that he has a family knowing having a murderer in the family.

His performance was just okay up until his last scene where he has a long talk with the sister who keeps trying to find out if he really is her brother. Muni is fine again in denying that he is her brother, although gives the right slight indication that he is her brother.

Rather than admit the truth though he denies it still instead telling her that he knew her brother who was killed as a war hero. Muni puts the right emotional effort into the scene, despite not getting any help from Marguerite Churchill who plays the sister. Muni is not amazing by any means, but he is good in suggesting that it does pain him to not be able to admit that he has a family after all.

This is never a great performance by any means, although it is most certianly the best in the film. Paul Muni is natural enough and does carry a little bit of emotional weight to his part. He also does not overact as he so commonly does in his later roles. Much of his performance is just adequate line readings though. Muni stays basically fine throughout, and only at the very end does he really have a strong moment.

Best Actor 1929: Results

3. Chester Morris in Alibi- Chester Morris gives a rather standard gangster performance, he is not charismatic enough to be as manipulative as the character is, and his big final scene I do not know what to make out of it.

2. Paul Muni in the Valiant- In the Valiant Paul Muni is consistently fine, and quite good in his final moments, he never is great, but he never is bad either.  Also interestingly enough he never has his overacting moments as he does in his later performances.

1. Warner Baxter in In Old Arizona- Warner Baxter performance suffers only a little bit from its age. He really does make a very memorable character out of the singing bandit called the Cisco Kid. He is very good throughout and particularly strong when showing the darker side of the character. An interesting side note is Baxter joins the short list of actors who replayed their Oscar role, he played the kid again in a short comedy film called the Stolen Jools.

Best Actor 1929: Chester Morris in Alibi

Chester Morris received his only Oscar nomination for portraying Chick Williams in Alibi.

Alibi is an somewhat okay crime film about a criminal who manipulates others to get alibis to cover his crimes.

Chester Morris plays this criminal named chick. His performance is a pretty standard tough gangster performance. He has the right way of looking and all that but in terms of screen presence he is no Edward G. Robinson. He mostly just keeps with the tough gangster way for most of the film, which is a bit of a problem.

 Chick is suppose to be a very manipulative person, and very charismatic person since he is always trying to convince others to do his bidding. He simply is not charismatic enough for his manipulations to be made believable. He just keeps his tough guy way of acting which is still not the greatest. He does not show how he could make a police man's daughter to marry him, or convince a law abiding man to make an alibi for him.

He has one big scene though where he must show a different side of Chick. In this scene he no longer is able to act tough when threatened with death. I do not know what to make of this scene actually. It is the type of acting and scene that was made fun of a million times after this film. I'm not sure if he is actually bad or not, but it brought memories back to me of the parodies too well. I simply, am not sure, but still even if he is not bad his performance is simply not anything special, basically standard throughout. I did not dislike it but there is nothing at all special, and from the same film Harry Stubbs as the police man who must take Chick down is much better.

Best Actor 1929: Warner Baxter in In Old Arizona

Warner Baxter won an Oscar from his only Oscar nomination for portraying the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona.

In Old Arizona is an odd film which was the first talkie film to be filmed outdoors. It is odd because it does not seem to know what type of story it is telling, and its tone is all over the place. Especially with its light comic tone most of the time then ending with a pretty dark tone.

Warner Baxter plays an outlaw known as the Cisco Kid who is wanted by the authorities for his constant armed robberies and occasional killings during the robbery. Baxter's character adds to the oddness of the film because I was not sure if he was suppose to be a hero or villain, since it is about him but at the same time he is a criminal who at times is rather cold blooded. I would say the film harms Baxter's character just a little due to his bizarre costume. It looks a little tight actually, and makes him look a little strange, but still it does not technically harm the strength of his performance.

Baxter is in the older acting style to a degree. There is never extreme subtlety but that is also due to the fact that the script wants just about everything said. He does not fall into the pitfall though of being boring though. He is rather interesting and charismatic in his performance, much more than I really expected before the first time I saw him. The Cisco kid talks to himself and Baxter is very good at attempting to make these scenes interesting just due to his unique delivery, he does not always succeed but he certainly tries hard and deserves credit for it. I like the way he shows the Kid's joy in his robberies, and the way he talks very happily about what he does.

He also is very good at being old timey romantic with his local girl. He has the right charisma and really does create a memorable character as the old singing bandito. He really does make Cisco Kid memorable which caused a whole slew of characters to be based on this performance.  He is properly charismatic in all his scenes but he really is strongest in the scenes where he shows the dark murderous side of his character. Even if the script is strange in having the Kid have such wild changes in personality, Baxter amazingly actually does make it work. He transitions well showing that the Kid sees killing as part of his job, and does it rather fittingly. Although when someone really tries to kill him he is rather brilliantly cold. His dark delivery really is perfect when he kills some who tried to kill him, or the way he says his darkly comic line.  His performance does suffer a little from age, but he still gives a memorable performance, that is especially strong in certain scenes.

Best Actor 1929

1929's nominees include Lewis Milestone The Patriot which is basically lost, and George Bancroft in Thunderbolt which I checked for everywhere and only found on eBay, but I am hardly going to payout the cost to by the actual reels of the film which is all I could find. I will get back to any of these if they ever become easier to find, but for the moment I will reduce the nominees to:

Warner Baxter in Old Arizona

Chester Morris in Alibi

Paul Muni in The Valiant

Who do you pick? Who do you predict?