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 1959: Results

5. Paul Muni in The Last Angry Man- Paul Muni's performance is frustrating because he shows some honest moments in his performance, but perpetuates throughout most of his performance a lot of overacting.

4. Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur- Charlton Heston performance is not at all perfect, but it works incredibly well for the film. His strong presence carries this epic the whole way through. 

3. Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot- Jack Lemmon's performance is one loved by many, I find he is good myself infusing a lot of energy into his part, but I just did not like him as much as most people seem to.

2. Laurence Harvey in Room at the Top- Besides some very small nitpicks this is an almost perfect performance by Laurence Harvey. He shows a fascinating portrait of man filled with hate, and ambitious, but as well as some underneath the rough service.

1. James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder- Good prediction Dinasztie. The only reason Stewart really tops Harvey for me is that Harvey had almost unnoticeable flaws, where Stewart is flawless. The reason Stewart is the best of the year though is because of how brilliant, entertaining, funny, effective he is in this role. Paul Biegler really could have been a lackluster role in lesser hands but Stewart shows what how an old pro can truly bring the absolute best out of a role.

Deserving Performance:
Cary Grant in North by Northwest

Best Actor 1959: Paul Muni in The Last Angry Man

Paul Muni received his fifth and final Oscar nomination for portraying Doctor Sam Ableman in The Last Angry Man.

The Last Angry Man is partially about a hard working doctor in a working class neighborhood who wants to do the right thing for his patients no matter what, but it is mostly about actually a television producer who wants to make a story about the doctor.

Paul Muni as the doctor really is only sort of the main character, as most of the attention is given to the television producer played by David Wayne who also is the character with an arc of sorts. Muni though received his last nomination though for his last film performance.

Muni's performance here is much like many of his performances. Muni is an actor I get annoyed at because he shows certainly a talent, and does create a potentially interesting characterization, but constantly overacts though.

Paul Muni does create the doctor well by not making him an overly goody good sort of a character. He does show that he really does not do what he does to seem or act like a nice person, but simply that it is what it required of him as a good doctor. He has some honestly good moments as the doctor where he shows the honest ethic of the character who hates freeloaders but refuses to turn the needy away.

Although he does have a good honest emotional moment now and again like his tough dealing with an ill street punk, but he is terribly inconsistent due to Paul Muni's tendency to overact. It would not be so distracting but Muni overacts almost randomly in this performance. There will be a scene where he realistically underplays most of a scene than suddenly sometime mid sentence he starts his overemphasized facial expressions or a very labored sounding line reading. 

Muni goes back and forth through his entire performance like this sometimes some scenes are better than others for him entirely on how much he chooses to overact in a particular scene. Muni certainly again shows a talent since there is an honest depiction of this doctor in his performance, but unfortuantely it is always offset by Muni giving a far too self-aware performance.

Best Actor 1959

And the Nominees Were:

James Stewart in Anatomy of A Murder

Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot

Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur

Paul Muni in The Last Angry Man

Laurence Harvey in Room at the Top

I suppose this is my special Easter edition of best actor thanks to the actual winner Ben-Hur.

Best Actor 1937: Results

5. Spencer Tracy in Captain Courageous- Tracy I just think is completely unbelievable in this role, I never was convinced by his accent or his performance.

4. Paul Muni in The Life of Emile Zola- Muni does do some overacting in some scenes, and Zola is portrayed rather simply in the film itself. Still though he handles the speeches of Zola pretty well, and his changes as Zola ages are very well done.

3. Charles Boyer in Conquest- Boyer is perfectly cast as Napoleon, but unfortunately napoleon is portrayed incredibly inconsistently. Still Boyer does have some strong moments, and shows if the film had been better than he probably could have been great.

2. Fredric March in A Star is Born- Like Boyer I do feel March is hurt a little by the film, but he still gives a very charming performance as Norman Maine. Then as Norman's stardom falls he gives a pretty effective portrait of a man who continues to drift downward, despite the fact the film rushes this far too much.

1. Robert Montgomery in Night Must Fall- Montgomery is absolutely brilliant in his performance here. He is both charming and incredibly chilling. His performance is truly great, giving the right hints of the true nature of the character throughout, and mixes his charm with his psychotic nature incredibly well. And his final look at himself in the mirror that is just a truly outstanding scene.

Deserving Performances:
Cary Grant in The Awful Truth
Stan Laurel in Way Out West
Oliver Hardy in Way Out West

Best Actor 1937: Paul Muni in The Life of Emile Zola

Paul Muni received his fourth Oscar nomination for portraying French writer Emile Zola in The Life of Emile Zola.

The Life Emile Zola is not a great movie by any means, and it takes a very long time to get going. I feel it does when it reaches the Dreyfus affair but it should probably have just been called the Dreyfus Affair with Zola being an important character. I think that would have made a better film.

Muni here plays a character who is almost always in the right and likes to tell other people how they are wrong, all through his life. Muni role is simple in this way, as Zola is rarely conflicted and almost always right. I will say an actor can actually excel in roles like these like Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird, but Muni does not quite excel. He moves along throughout the film with a fine adequate performance, even though at times he certainly does overact especially in the opening scene. He throws up his arms and makes some over the top faces for no real reason. He does these at times throughout his performance they are never that distracting but always stick out in a bad way.

He does do something well in this film and that is quite well. He ages incredibly well in this film. I really believed him as the elderly Zola, and thought he did a good job doing the mannerism of older age without over doing it. The other thing he does well enough are his speeches. I will say some he is a little annoying, but he is always properly passionate in the role. His best speech is his one to the Jury where he wants proper justice. He delivers this speech particularly well and certainly does a good job of it. His performance works well for the film, and I think he was right for the part. I would say I could have done without his overacting at times, but still he delivered the "goods" so to speak when he had to in this performance.

Best Actor 1937

And the Nominees Were:

Fredric March in A Star Was Born

Paul Muni in The Life of Emile Zola

Spencer Tracy in Captain Courageous 

Robert Montgomery in Night Must Fall

Charles Boyer in Conquest

Who do you pick, and predict? The drunken actor, Emile Zola, the guy who looks like he is drunk, the man who has more than smoking on his mind, or Napoleon Bonaparte.

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

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?