OVP: Kentucky (1938)

Film: Kentucky (1938)
Stars: Loretta Young, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Douglass Dumbrille
Director: David Butler
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Supporting Actor-Walter Brennan*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I've been royally remiss lately in my Oscar Viewing Project watching, as my TiVo and increasingly full Genie (not to mention dust-collecting Netflix DVD's) can all attest.  I could blame a lot of things, but the fact that there just is never enough time (he said, pretending to be Burgess Meredith) to do all the things you want can be blamed most heavily.  However, I'm using this weekend as a Clean-Out-the-TiVo event (so I can cancel my subscription and just use the Genie).  As a result, throughout the next week, you're going to be seeing a plethora of films from different genres and time periods, bound together by nothing more than a random Oscar nomination.

Spoilers Ahead We'll start this series of write-ups with Kentucky, an early Technicolor picture from 20th Century FOX starring Loretta Young and Richard Greene.  The film starts during the Civil War, with two rivals (the Goodwins and the Dillons) taking different stances in the war, which ultimately leaves Mr. Dillon (who supported Lincoln) fairly wealthy and Mr. Goodwin (who supported Davis) ends up flat broke, and eventually dead, at the hands of Mr. Dillon.  This sets up a remarkable feud that goes on to the present day, which happens to be 1938.

The film then follows the instant attraction between young Sally Goodwin (Loretta Young, in one of her only four color film roles) and Jack Dillon (Richard Greene, who with his Grand Canyon dimples and pleading eyes looks like a cross between Harry Styles and Dana Andrews).  They flirt quite readily at a horse race (both families are titans of the horse-racing industry), with Sally not knowing Jack's heritage.  Sally's father dies and as a result Sally must sell all of her horses, but thanks to a bet her father made before he died, she gets to keep one.  Jack, still under the guise of a rambling horse trainer, offers to train the animal, who like all horses in the movies starts out a runt and ends up a champion.

The film clearly is borrowing from Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers routine, but there's no need for poison and Friar Lawrence here.  Once Sally discovers Jack's true identity, she quickly realizes that he genuinely loved her (this is a film from 1938, after all), and ends up in his arms after her horse wins the Kentucky Derby.

The film would be a typical forgotten love story were it not for that old codger of the American Cinema, Mr. Walter Brennan.  Robert Osborne introduced this film (I watched it on Turner Classic) and made the sarcastic comment about Brennan being only 44 when this film was made, but he played a man who was "in his sixties...or perhaps 125; no one could ever tell with Brennan."  This is so true-I often wonder if there's any actual proof that Walter Brennan wasn't born a cranky old man.

Brennan won his second Academy Award for this performance, and while his routine is standard Brennan, there's a likability about him-he lands his jokes (some of which are still funny 75 years later) and steals every scene from Young, an actress who is very beautiful but generally does nothing for me on the screen (I've never seen her play a role I really latched onto, and this is no exception).  This is the first of 1938's Supporting Actor nominees I've seen, oddly enough, so I cannot say where Brennan will end up ranking, though I would put his performance somewhere around three stars, much better than the film.  I will say, though, that Brennan has a special spot in every Oscar trivia hound's heart, as his three Oscars in five years is a record that no actor will break, ever.

Those are my thoughts on Kentucky-if you've seen it, share yours.  If you haven't, discuss what your favorite Loretta Young and Walter Brennan roles are.  Or if you also have a school girl crush on Richard Greene.  Or what performance from 1956 or 1982 (the only other two years where I've never seen a Supporting Actor nominee) I should investigate first!