OVP: The Luck of the Irish (1948)

Film: The Luck of the Irish (1948)

Stars: Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter, Cecil Kellaway, Lee J. Cobb, Jayne Meadows

Director: Henry Koster

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actor-Cecil Kellaway)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Anne Baxter-click here to learn more about Ms. Baxter (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

For the first two weeks of this month, we discussed how Anne Baxter was given roles that typically led to a proper kind of stardom, someone that would graduate from "love interest roles" to major lead player.  That didn't happen for Baxter, though.  While today it's common for leading actresses to take on plum supporting parts in films (think of someone like Meryl Streep or Glenn Close oscillating between lead/supporting roles), that was not something that stars did in the 1940's-you were either an above-the-line figure, or someone who got supporting parts.  Baxter doing this always makes her career's success hard-to-grasp.  She won an Oscar in 1946 for Best Supporting Actress for The Razor's Edge, then four years later was nominated for Best Lead Actress for All About Eve-it was a pretty short list at the time of actors who had been cited for both categories.  But in between those two classics, she starred in a number of forgotten films, one of which got onto Oscar's radar for her costar Cecil Kellaway, and that's the picture we're looking at today.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Luck of the Irish centers around reporter Stephen Fitzgerald (Power), who during a trip to Ireland meets a beautiful young woman named Nora (Baxter), with whom he becomes somewhat smitten but doesn't make a proper move on since he's soon headed back to his job in NYC.  He also, it's worth noting, meets a leprechaun we eventually learn to be named Horace (Kellaway), who gives him a piece of gold.  When he returns to NYC, he finds out his boss Mr. Agur (Cobb) is going to run for the Senate, and his daughter Frances (Meadows) has designs on Stephen getting both the top job and her hand in marriage.  What throws a wrench in this is both Nora & Horace are now in NYC, the first by chance & the second by magic, to remind him of the simple life he might be able to have in Ireland.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which one the movie ultimately gives him (but Baxter's name is above the title for a reason).

The plot itself is a bit hard-to-follow, and quite meandering.  Power's character is a man-at-a-crossroads, but his complicated relationship with his politician boss sometimes borders on him seemingly misusing his position, and other times he just wants to live the simple life.  Jayne Meadows as the ambitious daughter is also a bit ridiculous.  Kudos to the casting director for not typecasting, but Meadows is a poor choice for such a part, and can't really land it.  One honestly wonders why they didn't just switch Baxter & Meadows' parts, as both would've been better in the other role.  Our star-of-the-month fails to deliver here in terms of her character, though her Irish accent work is superb (Anne Baxter never phones in the accent).

The film's one Oscar nomination is harder to begrudge, even if it's not great acting.  Cecil Kellaway is adorable as the man with a pot-of-gold, and as it was his first nomination, I'm not going to complain too heartily, but let's be real here-he got this for playing a sweet old man, not for actual acting.  There's nothing noteworthy here other than scene-stealing, and the nature of the part makes it so that any actor would've pulled that off.  Being pleasant helps lift an otherwise routine (and misguided) movie, but it doesn't deserve an Oscar.  That being said, of course, it'd have been kind of funny if the Academy had followed giving Santa Claus an Oscar by rewarding a leprechaun.