The Private Life of Don Juan (1934)

Film: The Private Life of Don Juan (1934)

Stars: Douglas Fairbanks, Merle Oberon, Gina Malo, Benita Hume

Director: Alexander Korda

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.: click here to learn more about Mr. Fairbanks (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. is a major star of his era that was not a timeless star.  As we talked about last week, Douglas Fairbanks wasn't really an actor that couldn't make it work in the Sound Era (there was nothing wrong with his voice, and as we'll talk about today, he still has a presence with sound movies that felt at-home with the screwball pictures that succeeded here), but he didn't pair well with the 1930's.  This was partially because he was older than actors like Gary Cooper & Clark Gable, both of whom were big names at the time who were a couple of decades the junior of Fairbanks, so there was very much a ticking clock on how long he could be the suave leading man.  And it was also in part because his movies went out of fashion.  For Depression Era audiences, they wanted escapism, but they wanted it with a modern flare, things like Dinner at Eight or Grand Hotel, movies that were how they wished they could live their lives, glamorously spending money vicariously through Joan Crawford or Jean Harlow.  They didn't want period dramas, which had been Fairbanks' bread-and-butter.  And so today we get to not just discuss our final film of the month, but also the last movie of Fairbanks' career as a leading man: the surprisingly witty & introspective The Private Life of Don Juan.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film tackles Don Juan's (Fairbanks) life after he's already become a Lothario-like legend.  Here, he is so famous that men actually impersonate him, and get away with it because they are what Don Juan was 10 years ago-sexier, younger, more virile.  This causes a huge problem for the actual Don Juan, who at one point in the film shows his seduction techniques on Antonita (Oberon) a beautiful young dancer, but at the same time an imposter is seducing a woman across town with a jealous husband...who kills him.  She assumes this is the real Don Juan (because that's what she told him, and that's the fantasy both she & her husband enjoy), and there is a giant funeral for Don Juan, including women mourning him who have not even met him before (they just have fantasized about it).  The actual Don Juan takes this as an opportunity to move on from his life (and the problems his life has caused), but soon learns that the myth he has cultivated is essential to picking up women.  They now see him for what he is: a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a paunch, and not the fantasy that they have come to expect from legends and fictional stories about him.  Even when he comes back, women don't recognize him, not even Antonita.  He eventually falls for the woman who has been pretending to be his widow, who is happy with the (aged) version of him as long as she gets him all to herself.

I'll be honest-I did not expect this movie to be as funny as it is, nor did I expect it to be as genuinely thought-provoking.  The script is a riot, and you see pretty quickly why Fairbanks' original fame as an actor was in comedy, not in action-adventure.  He is a gas as he fights with his manservant over eating too much, and there's a terrific bit where his doctor tries to trick him into admitting his age that feels almost like a Laurel & Hardy gag.  This is also surprising because it is downright impossible to find movies in Classical Hollywood where leading actors admit that they are getting older and less desirable.  Think of, say, Joan Crawford even in the 1960's attempting to play glamour girl roles in movies like Berserk!, or John Wayne inexplicably trying to get audiences to believe he can drive a young Angie Dickinson into fits of passion.  Yes, Fairbanks seduces Merle Oberon in this (an actress more beautiful than him, even when he was in his prime, and also 30 years younger than him), but the movie goes to great pains to make sure you know she's sleeping with Don Juan the Myth...not the man in front of her, even to the point of embarrassing him later in the movie when she can't recognize him.  Essentially, she was doing the modern equivalent of picturing your hot gym trainer while you were getting laid instead of the person actually on top of you (don't give me that look...we've all done it).

The film was good, and it's a sad final chapter for Fairbanks, particularly given that his career after this isn't all that interesting.  Fairbanks would divorce Mary Pickford in 1936, ending Hollywood's first storybook marriage, and though he was unique amongst stars of his era in that he was sober (something his ex-wife sadly could not boast), he was a habitual chain smoker, which caused severe heart problems for him.  He would work at he & Pickford's cofounded United Artists, but by the late 1930's he was unable to do most of the things that had once made him a star (i.e. giant action movies), so a comeback wasn't in the cards even if he wanted to have one.  In 1939, Fairbanks would die of a heart attack, at the age of only 56.  He was buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where almost 70 years later his namesake son would be buried next to him.  Mary Pickford, who outlived her ex-husband by nearly 40 years, would eventually become a savvy businesswoman, and would be given accolades like two Academy Awards and a spot on the AFI's list of greatest stars (while Fairbanks would forever remain in her shadow, their marriage the most-known thing about his time as one of Tinseltown's biggest names).

Next month, we're going to talk about a star who would become the successor of Fairbanks in the Sound Era, taking on the swashbuckling roles in a way no other actor would in Classical Hollywood (to the point where the word "swashbuckling" basically conjures up images of him).  He would also have perhaps the most controversial off-screen life of any actor of Hollywood's Golden Age, in many ways dwarfing his onscreen persona, which we will inevitably also discuss.

OVP: Lydia (1941)

Film: Lydia (1941)

Stars: Merle Oberon, Joseph Cotten, Hans Jaray, Alan Marshal, Edna May Oliver, George Reeves

Director: Julien Duvivier

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

One of the more daunting aspects of the Oscar Viewing Project comes from the films of the late 1930's & early 1940's.  This is one of my favorite Hollywood eras.  It is also exhausting when it comes to just how many films were nominated for Academy Awards during this time frame, principally because the music categories had so many pictures that were cited.  The song & score categories could have as many as twenty nominees at the time due to quirks in the Academy bylaws, and this results in at least 100 of the remaining films I have left for the project solely coming from being nominated for a music award in this ten year stretch.  One of those films (up until this past weekend) was Lydia, a largely forgotten Merle Oberon melodrama, cited for its score.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is told largely in flashback, after Michael (Cotten) and Lydia (Oberon) meet.  They were once young lovers who could never get the timing right, and Michael has spent his whole life loving her while she has embraced her "spinsterhood" by improving the lives of the less fortunate.  Michael assembles a team of her other former beaus, and they all reminisce about her youth, how she came to romance them all (and then how they left her), and then telling the secret of her romance with Richard (Marshal), where she essentially lived-in-sin with him (there's strong indications they had sex as they lived together in a seaside home despite not being married).  The film ends tragically, with the three men doting upon Lydia but her still in love with Richard, and then when Richard comes, she's ready to forgive him but he doesn't remember her-their love only meant something to Lydia.  She realizes that her life has always been a story of different "Lydia's" and she never truly was herself.

The film is a bit of a bore, honestly.  While I generally like Joseph Cotten, Merle Oberon is a star that has virtually no appeal to me, even in movies I've liked of hers (specifically Wuthering Heights).  Her accent work is dreadful (is she British?  From Connecticut?  Just exceedingly rich?) and the backstory on all of the men is confusing.  Oberon's feelings for all of these men, particularly Cotten, is bizarre-she plays her character as alternating between Katharine Hepburn style independence or Celia Johnson-esque forlornness.  Neither of these things work, and while the ending is brutal (when we find out the one true love of Lydia' life never loved her the way the other three men did), and would've been a killer ending to a better movie, Lydia suffers from a lack of investment in these characters.

The film's sole Oscar nomination is unearned as well.  Miklos Rozsa was one of the finest composers of the era, a classically-trained conductor who, despite over 100 film scores, saw this as simply a "second career" to his traditional classical conducting.  His music here is lovely, but it's overbearing & doesn't fit the movie-it's too grand for such a trifle, and oftentimes feels like it's undercutting a script & acting that is not able to keep up with the film's designs.  As a result, it likely sounds terrific outside of the movie, but within the context it's a poor fit, and an unworthy citation no matter how many nominations studios were afforded in the music categories in the 1940's.

OVP: The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)

Film: The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)
Stars: Gary Cooper, Merle Oberon, Patsy Kelly, Walter Brennan, Fuzzy Knight, Mabel Todd
Director: HC Potter
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Sound*, Score, Original Song-"The Cowboy and the Lady")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We continue going backward chronologically (though, spoiler alert, this will end this afternoon as we'll be moving into the late 1950's for our final movie) in our theme week salute to the Oscars and their music categories, this time going nearly to the beginning with 1938's The Cowboy and the Lady.  The Cowboy and the Lady is the kind of movie that got nominated a lot in the early days of the music categories-relatively innocuous, a kind of throwaway B-movie in the careers of two big stars of the era, in this case Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon.  One of the things about these movies that I've found is they run the length from either hidden gem to "movie you'll forget in a week."  As I do love westerns, and this one was a romantic comedy to add a little unusual patter behind the film, my hope was this was in the former category, but sadly, despite some charming moments, it falls decidedly into the latter.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Mary Smith (played by Oberon, given a moniker that doesn't make the audience confident we're getting a lot of originality), who is the daughter of a presidential hopeful but wants to go out and see the world.  One night her two maids (Kelly and Todd) take her out for a night on the town with three local cowboys, and in the process she meets Stretch (Cooper), a handsome but inexperienced cowpoke who thinks that she's swell, but doesn't realize that she's not a maid, but in fact the daughter of a wealthy-and-important man.  Mary continues this lie because she wants Stretch to marry her, and he does...but then realizes that she was lying to him, and her father doesn't approve of the union as it will ruin his political chances.  After some confusion, of course, everyone realizes what's "important"-Mary goes back to live the simple country life with her new husband and her father wants his daughter's happiness, so he drops out of the presidential race so that she can enter this union without pressure.

The film is really anti-progressive (there's never consideration that perhaps Stretch should try and fit into Mary's world except for one dinner table scene that feels like it was pulled straight out of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, a more famous Cooper picture), but you'd expect that.  What you might not expect is how listless the two leads are.  While Oberon isn't really my cup of tea (she always plays her characters so surface-level and breathlessly), Cooper can be marvelous with the right role, but he doesn't find it here.  Instead, he just plays Stretch as unusually handsome & bizarrely dimwitted (while still a chauvinist).  Weirdly it's not perpetual scene-stealer Walter Brennan who takes the picture from the two leads, but instead Patsy Kelly, who is by-far the best part of this movie as a wisecracking maid, and an actress I want in every movie I see from the 1930's from now on.

While none of the film's three Oscar nominations are what you'd consider "all-timers," they're all better than the movie.  The sound work is great in some of the outdoor sequences (particularly highlighting the music on the beach), and during the scenes where we're using multiple rooms for sight gags (particularly when a befuddled Gary Cooper doesn't realize that not only has his wife returned to their new home, but also that she's become a fixture of his mother's and friends' lives without realizing it).  The score is playful, charming, and fun, if not all that memorable, while the Best Original Song sticks out as a weirdly moving number for a film of this nature.  It would be treated more romantically than it is in this movie in later recordings of the song (a melancholy, straight-up romantic ballad than the drunken tossaway number it is here).  The song isn't really that important to the film, but it's a truly lovely piece of music, the kind of old (OLD) school country song that is right in my wheelhouse.  It's easily my favorite part of this otherwise kind of dismissable picture.

Oscar-Connected Lost Films, Part 2

Last week, we chronicled through the Top 10 missing Oscar-nominated films (the films that keep my OVP-loving heart up at night knowing that I'm doomed to failure even if I manage to hit most of the pictures).  Today, however, I decided to try a slightly different tack (one that includes a bit more of a list).  Here we have lost films starring Oscar-nominated actors or directed by Oscar-nominated directors.  While this list is far from complete, these stand out in my mind as some of the more important feature-length films that are hopefully still in someone's attic.

Note: While I couldn't include every missing feature-length film starring an Oscar nominee, I'm curious about which ones are on your "where is it?!?' list, so please share below in the comments!

12. Tenderloin (1928)

Directed by future Oscar winner Michael Curtiz and starring Dolores Costello and Conrad Nagel, the film is in a weird place in history as it's the second Vitaphone feature, and reportedly featured the first feature where actors actually spoke their lines (though the dialogue was so hammy people actually laughed when it first came out).  Considering its place in history, you'd think this would have hung on, but it's still considered lost.

11. Lilies of the Field (1924)

While it shares the name of an Oscar-winning film, it actually has no connection to the movie starring Sidney Poitier.  Instead, it gets its AMPAS connection through leading lady Corinne Griffith, who would be one of the first women ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress (in The Divine Lady).  The film sounds pretty messed up, and I'm curious to see how the sexual politics of the period play out, but like all of the other eleven films on this list, it's lost for now.

10. Red Sky at Morning (1944)

One of several missing films from the early career of future Oscar-winner Peter Finch, this one struck me as odd simply because of its late release date.  While portions of films from the 1940's and 50's are missing (most famously A Star is Born), this entire movie (about a sailor who falls in love with the wife of a captain) is completely gone, which is unusual for a film with a now recognizable star.

9. The Promise (1969)

By far the latest film on this list, and the only one that features a currently living Oscar nominee that I can find.  Sir Ian McKellen, very early in his career, made the first big-screen adaptation of an Aleksei Abuzov play, that is now considered lost.  Weirdly, it featured another actor who'd gained some fame the year previous (John Castle) for starring in an Oscar-winning film (The Lion in Winter) and was reusing Oscar-winning sets from the previous year's Best Picture winner Oliver!, so how this remains lost is also a mystery.

8. Men of Tomorrow (1932)

One of those films where you didn't know what you had until it was gone, the film actually stars Maurice Braddell and Joan Gardner, but it was the supporting cast that calls out a bit more ferociously, featuring Oscar-nominee Merle Oberon and future Oscar-winner Robert Donat in his film debut.  The film apparently was a bit salacious and had to be trimmed for re-distribution (and was dubiously marketed in the United States in 1935 because Oberon and Donat were headliners at that point, even though they weren't the stars of the picture).

7. White Man (1924)

One of the earliest films on this list, White Man would be a largely forgotten film starring Kenneth Harlan and Alice Joyce were it not for a bit part (that of Joyce's brother) played by one of the biggest leading men in Hollywood history: Clark Gable.  Yes, the future Oscar-winner made his film debut in a small role in this film, now largely lost (perhaps due to the fact that Gable wouldn't be a huge star for a bit longer after this).

6. Convention City (1933)

A plethora of big name actors are featured in this film, including Joan Blondell, Adolphe Menjeu, Dick Powell, and Mary Astor, 75% of which were Oscar nominees (Menjeu even was a nominee already at that point).  But what sets this film apart is that it is apparently quite scandalous, with a number of double entendres and Blondell's costume budget being smaller than Jack Warner wanted it to be.  As a result, it's one of those movies that you want to see more out of shock value than anything else.

5. The Forward Pass (1929)

This would be worthy of inclusion simply based on the premise alone: how many movies in cinematic history have ever been made about football, and turned into a musical?  Throw in Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and future Oscar-winner Loretta Young and the intrigue is factored up.  But it's a cameo by a 22-year-old John Wayne (in one of only a couple of his films that are considered lost) that makes me truly curious-what was John Wayne like at 22?!?

4. The Callahans and the Murphys (1927)

Toward the top more for the director of the film, and what he was able to do with his leading lady in other films.  George W. Hill, while never an Oscar nominee, managed to helm two major Oscar contenders early on in the Academy's history: The Big House, which was an early Best Picture nominee, and Min and Bill, which won Marie Dressler (who stars in Callahans and the Murphys) her only Oscar.

3. For the Love of Mike (1927)

Another film with a man who'd later bring his leading lady an Oscar, but here we have even bigger names than Hill and Dressler: Claudette Colbert and Frank Capra.  Seven years before both of them won Oscars for It Happened One Night, these two screen icons made a silent picture (Colbert's only one), which bombed and almost caused Colbert to quit the movies.  Thankfully she didn't and went on to make decades of classics, but this one is sadly not one that can be discovered by new film audiences.

2. Hollywood (1923)

What gets a film you've never heard of into the Top 2?  Well, it's that literally every major star of this era somehow managed to make it into the film!  Yes, while the leads are a pair of unknowns (Hope Drown and Luke Cosgrave), you have everyone from Will Rogers to Douglas Fairbanks Sr. to Baby Peggy, as well as six-Oscar nominated/winning entertainers (Gloria Swanson, Betty Compson, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Mary Astor, and Cecil B. DeMille), all made more impressive as the Oscars hadn't even happened when this came out.  Throw in one of the only screen appearances Fatty Arbuckle made after his arrest, and you have arguably the biggest curiosity on this list.

1. The Mountain Eagle (1927)
An easy choice for the list, as The Mountain Eagle is the only lost film of Alfred Hitchcock's extensive filmography.  Hitch reportedly hated the film (and the production was apparently a nightmare) and was glad it was gone, but for the legions of his fans (myself included) it remains a film that we most hope is discovered in someone's attic.  I mean, it's hard to really compare with finally getting the only missing feature-length film from Alfred Hitchcock.

Flying Solo in Best Actress

Let's spread the wealth, shall we ladies?

My brother and I were talking the other day about the Best Actress field for 2015, as we are wont to do, and how strange the slate of women that will potentially be competing for the top prize is.  Amongst the leading contenders for the prize this year include Meryl Streep (Ricki and the Flash), Jennifer Lawrence (Joy), Cate Blanchett (Carol), and Julianne Moore (Freeheld).  You might recognize these names in particular because they also happen to be the last four women to win the Best Actress Oscar (Natalie Portman is hanging her chances on a Malick film and the ill-fated Jane Get Your Gun, so I doubt that they can go with a 5/5 situation).  My brother made a comment about how Best Actress may soon be as insular as Best Costume or Score, or at least that it will be again, which felt to me like an Oscar-trivia article.

The reality, is in fact, that Best Actress has long been one of the most insular categories at the Oscars, even in comparison with the very chummy Best Actor category.  If you only count people who would receive their sole Oscar nomination in that category, it's roughly 1 in 5 for both fields as an average in almost every decade.  The Best Actress race, however, has gone through weird spurts of repetitiveness, particularly in the 1940's, 80's and the current decade.  I figured it would be worth looking at every decade since the 1930's where a woman received only one nomination for Best Actress and was never heard from again.

Miriam Hopkins

1930's
Number of Solo Nominees: 12 (Nancy Carroll, Ann Harding, Lynn Fontanne, May Robson, Diana Wynward, Grace Moore, Elisabeth Bergner, Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Gladys George, Carole Lombard, and Margaret Sullavan)
Any Winners?: Not a one of them.  Luise Rainer, Marie Dressler, Viven Leigh, and Helen Hayes came the closest, each only receiving two Oscar nominations in their careers.
I'd Like An Explanation: One of the larger lists of actresses, this may be because only a couple of actresses really dominated the decade in terms of public consciousness, and one of those oddly didn't receive a nomination (Joan Crawford).  The early years of the cinema seemed to be kinder to emerging talents and in particular, crossover stars from the theater and opera like Fontanne and Moore.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: A few of them probably came close.  Hopkins received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in The Heiress, so I suspect she was in the running, Lombard was a major player who definitely wanted an Oscar (and may well have gotten one if she hadn't died tragically so early in her career), and Oberon certainly came close with her lead role in Best Picture nominee Wuthering Heights, though she had the misfortune of contending in 1939 against Oscar titans like Bette Davis and Greer Garson.
Most Likely to Get a Second: Elisabeth Bergner was the last living member of the dozen solo nominees listed above, dying in 1986, so no one will be getting a second citation.

Jeanne Crain

1940's
Number of Solo Nominees: 7 (Martha Scott, Ginger Rogers, Jean Arthur, Gene Tierney, Celia Johnson, Dorothy McGuire, and Jeanne Crain)
Any Winners?: Ginger Rogers is one of the only women to win a Best Actress Oscar on her only nomination.
I'd Like An Explanation: The 1940's were dominated by a select 6-7 actresses (Rosalind Russell, Bette Davis, Kate Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Olivia de Havilland, Barbara Stanwyck, and Greer Garson) resulting in very few openings for ambitious screen stars.  With the exception of perhaps Rogers (who was more noted for musical comedies) none of these are particularly stunning solo nominees, frequently getting upstaged even in their era by the more nominated women at the Box Office.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: My money is on Tierney, who was a major dramatic actress for 20th Century FOX (her nominated film, Leave Her to Heaven, was the most successful film for the studio during the 1940's), and starred in major motion pictures of the era like Laura, The Razor's Edge, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.  Behind her would be Jean Arthur, who starred in two major Oscar films (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Shane), but was famously press-shy which probably didn't help, even in a pre-Twitter era.
Most Likely to Get a Second: Both Martha Scott and Jeanne Crain died in 2003, the last living women on that list.

Lana Turner

1950's
Number of Solo Nominees: 10 (Judy Holliday, Shirley Booth, Julie Harris, Ava Gardner, Maggie McNamara, Dorothy Dandridge, Carroll Baker, Nancy Kelly, Lana Turner, and Doris Day)
Any Winners?: Judy Holliday and Shirley Booth both won on their only shots at the fair.
I'd Like An Explanation: We see a slight uptick in the 1950's, possibly because of the decline of the studio system, and possibly because certain women that normally wouldn't do well with the Oscars (glamour girls and romantic comedy leads) both saw a major increase in popularity.  Still, women such as Deborah Kerr, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Hepburns continued to prove that it's easy to repeat.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Ava Gardner was probably tops amongst the many legends on this list, with her performance in Night of the Iguana grabbing nominations at the Globes and BAFTA's but not the Oscars (Tennessee Williams-penned roles were a major Oscar draw for women of the era, with women ranging from Kate Hepburn toVivien Leigh to Anna Magnani to Geraldine Page all landing nominations for his plays).
Most Likely to Get a Second: Doris Day and Carroll Baker are still living, though both have been retired from acting for over a decade.  I suspect that if she actually was willing to show up and win it that an Honorary Oscar would be Day's for the taking, but she's very press shy and I doubt would attend.

Anouk Aimee

1960's
Number of Solo Nominees: 9 (Melina Mercouri, Lee Remick, Rachel Roberts, Debbie Reynolds, Samantha Eggar, Elizabeth Hartman, Anouk Aimee, Ida Kaminska, and Genevieve Bujold)
Any Winners?: Not a one.  Sophia Loren, Patricia Neal, and Barbra Streisand all only received two acting nominations in their careers, so that's the closest.
I'd Like An Explanation: The 1960's are a bit odd in that no woman received more than three nominations (that would be the ever dependable Kate Hepburn, as well as Mrs. Robinson-herself Anne Bancroft), but the decade is dominated by women who either were getting the final nominations of their oft-recognized careers (Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr) or were starting a long affair with Oscar that would continue into the coming decades (Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Julie Christie).  That leaves a hodgepodge of foreign-born actresses (very much the rage in the 1960's) and random younger stars who never seemed to pop to get the sole nominations.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: I would imagine it was Lee Remick, to be honest.  I know that Debbie Reynolds is the name everyone remembers from the above list, but Remick was nearly nominated in 1959 for Anatomy of a Murder where she played a rape victim and won a Globe nod.  It's worth noting that in a very odd year (1966) Elizabeth Hartman could have been cited for her bizarre turn in You're a Big Boy Now as pretty much anyone with a pulse was contending that year (she did get a Globe nod).
Most Likely to Get a Second: Four of these women are still living, and actually all of them have made films in the past five years: Debbie Reynolds, Anouk Aimee, Samantha Eggar, and Genevieve Bujold. Of the five, Reynolds would have the best luck both as the biggest movie star (in the US, at least) and as someone who picks the right material (she may well have been cited if Behind the Candelabra had played theatrically).  Either way, she should start campaigning for an Honorary Award as I think she'd be on the shortlist.

Diahann Carroll

1970's
Number of Solo Nominees: 11 (Ali MacGraw, Sarah Miles, Carrie Snodgress, Janet Suzman, Diana Ross, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Valerie Perrine, Louise Fletcher, Carol Kane, and Marie Christine-Barrault)
Any Winners?: Louise Fletcher's nurse from Hell (which is pretty much a supporting turn, let's be honest) was the only victory for a sole nomination.
I'd Like An Explanation: This decade saw a number of women that could get nominated basically every time they opened a picture (Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, Marsha Mason, Glenda Jackson), but like the years before we saw a combination of foreign actresses and movie star careers that didn't quite pan out.  It's also worth noting the unfortunate fate of black actresses in this category (only two of which have ever been nominated for a second trophy), which means that Ross, Tyson, and Carroll were all one-and-done nominees.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Sarah Miles headlined a Best Picture nominee in 1987 in Hope and Glory, which could well have been a contender in a less competitive year.  Diana Ross actually had buzz for Mahogany back in the day (1975 was a weird year), and there was some movement to make her the first black actress to win a Best Actress Oscar (that feat would happen 26 years later).  Otherwise none of these women came particularly close before or after.
Most Likely to Get to Second: Snodgress is the only woman on the above list to have passed away, but the only women who seem like they could someday score another nomination are Tyson and Kane, both of whom work extremely regularly, though more so on television than in the cinema.

Kathleen Turner

1980's
Number of Solo Nominees: 6 (Mary Tyler Moore, Marlee Matlin, Kathleen Turner, Sally Kirkland, Melanie Griffith, and Pauline Collins)
Any Winners?: Marlee Matlin became the youngest winner ever of the Best Actress award when she picked it up for Children of a Lesser God at the age of 21.
I'd Like An Explanation: No other decade will probably ever have a run quite like this.  Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Sissy Spacek dominated (there is no year of the decade where at least one isn't nominated) and routinely it was the bulk of them.  Most of the above women were either randomly-cited for tiny films (Matlin, Kirkland, Collins), matinee idols with quickly burnt-out movie stardoms (Turner, Griffith), or headlining a Best Picture winner (Moore).
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Most assuredly Kathleen Turner, who was a major matinee idol in the 1980's and won back-to-back Golden Globes for Romancing the Stone and Prizzi's Honor, both mammoth hits that for some reason Oscar didn't really want to put his stamp on (the 1980's were very fond of drama, more so than usual, but even then Prizzi's Honor was a major Oscar-player with eight nominations and 1984 had a weird glut of similarly-themed farm-movies, so this one is had to explain).  Either way, there's a decent chance she was in second place twice before finally getting cited for Peggy Sue Got Married (when she probably came in second to Matlin, give-or-take Sissy Spacek).
Most Likely to Get to Second: All of these women are still alive and working, though none of them seem particularly prone to a second nomination.  Turner gets the most attention currently, but that's almost entirely on-stage and she rarely makes movies.  Perhaps it would be Pauline Collins?  She's British, of-a-certain-age, and does bit roles frequently in BAIT-y looking projects (Albert Nobbs, Quartet).  Perhaps she'll pull a Janet McTeer and randomly get in once more?

Catherine Deneuve

1990's
Number of Solo Nominees: 8 (Catherine Deneuve, Angela Bassett, Stockard Channing, Elisabeth Shue, Sharon Stone, Kristin Scott Thomas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Fernanda Montenegro)
Any Winners?: In one of the weirdest moments in on-paper Oscar history, Gwyneth Paltrow's career totally stalled with Oscar after Shakespeare in Love.  Perhaps the Cate Blanchett curse?
I'd Like An Explanation: We continued to see a few actresses that totally dominated (Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Emma Thompson), but by-and-large this list was actually considerably larger a few years ago.  Actresses like Janet McTeer, Helen Hunt, and Helena Bonham Carter have made good in supporting roles in recent years, winnowing down the list a bit, something I suspect will continue to happen.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: I mean, Gwyneth seems like the obvious choice, but she wasn't actually that close with Sylvia or Emma, so I'm going to go with Sharon Stone, who was such a big star in the 1990's and was very much in the HFPA's favor (scandalously so).  Basic Instinct or The Mighty might have been close possibilities.
Most Likely to Get a Second: We're now going from the possible to the plausible for "most likely to get a second."  All of these women are still living, and in the cases of Scott Thomas, Bassett, and Paltrow, so regularly make major films that it's difficult not to see at least one of them scoring again, if not all three.  Plus, I think Sharon Stone is going to be discovered by Quentin Tarantino any minute now and that could be not only a nod but a trophy.

Carey Mulligan

2000's
Number of Solo Nominees: 10 (Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Diane Lane, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Imelda Staunton, Felicity Huffman, Ellen Page, Carey Mulligan, and Gabourey Sidibe)
Any Winners?: Halle Berry is the most recent woman to win an Oscar on her only nomination.
I'd Like An Explanation: Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Judi Dench, and Cate Blanchett may have been nominated in perpetuity, but the biggest explanation is that we're not far enough away for this list to be super small.  All of these women are still living and most of them are still very much in the hunt.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Carey Mulligan, probably, who somehow missed a lot of her buzz for Shame despite that seeming like a pretty plum part (then again, Fassbender missed there so the prudish Academy may just not have been feeling that sex addiction drama).
Most Likely to Get a Second: There are several women on this list that could not only make it again (anyone other than probably Castle-Hughes or Sandino Moreno have the star status still to pull this off), but could make it this year.  Carey Mulligan's Suffragette and Ellen Page's Freeheld both seem like prime contenders.  Imelda Staunton is entering her key "elderly British scene-stealer" years and both Diane Lane and Felicity Huffman are actors that consistently play supporting parts in big things-either one could luck into a Helen Hunt in The Sessions situation.

Emmanuelle Riva

2010's
Number of Solo Nominees (so far): 5 (Rooney Mara, Emmanuelle Riva, Quvenzhane Wallis, Felicity Jones, and Rosamund Pike)
Any Winners?: Not a one-Natalie Portman is the only winner with just two nominations.
I'd Like An Explanation: Too soon to tell, though the 2012 age record-breakers don't really seem as likely to make it again as the other three women.
Who Came Closest to Another Round?: Probably none of them.  Pike, Jones, and Mara have all had key roles in Oscar-nominated films in the past, but it's doubtful any of them made any sorts of waves prior to their nominations.
Most Likely to Get a Second: Hmm, it's obvious that this is a threeway race, but I'd argue that it's a two-way: Rosamund Pike doesn't give off the vibe of a repeat offender.  Jones and Mara, on the other hand, both seem like repeaters, particularly Mara who could be back again this year in Carol.

And there you have it-the few, the proud, the really-wishing-they'd-landed-one-more.  Who do you think is the most likely sole Best Actress nominee to repeat (I'm going with Ellen Page or Rooney Mara, but that's really playing the obvious)?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: The Dark Angel (1935)

Film: The Dark Angel (1935)
Stars: Fredric March, Merle Oberon, Herbert Marshall
Director: Sidney Franklin
Oscar History: 3 nominations, 1 win (Actress-Merle Oberon, Art Direction*, Sound-Recording)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

After a few days off from movie-viewing, I have returned to what will hopefully be a long weekend of Oscar-watching (my TiVo is fuller than Chris Christie at the moment, and I make that joke not because he's overweight, but because of the inordinately high amount of hot air he seems to be constantly spouting).  So I decided to get back into the groove with one of those early 1930's films that the Academy seemed to so love at the beginning of its inception-a long, tender, occasionally overwrought melodrama called The Dark Angel.

Written by Lillian Hellman, which should be indicative of exactly what direction we're about to take, the film is the story of a woman (Oberon) drawn to two men, one strong and silent (Marshall), the other literary and debonair (March).  In later years, when movies were made more formulaic, the strong and silent Marshall would have gotten the girl, but it doesn't take much of a spoiler to tell you that 2-time Oscar winner and movie star par excellence Fredric March is going to end up with Oberon, which is apparent from the beginning scenes, with Oberon as a little girl tormenting him into marrying her.

The film drags quite a bit at the beginning, before World War I comes, and without the charm of March to carry it through its slower, "do you love me?" sorts of scenes, it would likely fall on its face.  However, March shows both his serious and playful sides throughout the film, and this gets you to the best parts of the film, the tough war scenes.  It's always puzzled me that filmmakers in the latter half of the century have found most of their wartime inspiration in World War II, when World War I with its iconic trenches and its start-of-war naivete is more suited to the silver screen.  Luckily, Richard Day, who won a stunning seven Oscars for Art Direction, knows a thing or two about design and makes a deeply intimate trench that adds a claustrophobic element to the film's middle.  It is in this part, that Marshall, angry because he believed that March had had an affair after announcing his engagement to Oberon's Kitty Vane (what a moniker!) sends March off to a seemingly impossible mission, and March's character is assumed dead, though is really just blind and taken to enemy camps.

I don't need to tell you the rest, because you already know it (story short: March's character is ashamed of his disability, doesn't return home, Oberon mourns but then becomes engaged to Marshall, the day before the wedding they discover that March is really still alive, and Oberon comes running back into his arms).  I toyed with a 2-star rating, but couldn't quite bring myself there-the art direction is terrific, though not quite up to the Art Deco that Top Hat also brought that year, and the Sound work, especially in the stilled night silences, is also top rate, and I personally loved some of the cinematography.  March didn't receive an Oscar nomination, and considering who did that year (basically all of the Bounty sailors), it's easy to see why, but he's a weirdly underrated actor, and it seems odd that his star has gotten so horribly lost considering his career longevity and his place at the head of one of the great American classics, The Best Years of Our Lives.  Oberon did, however, get nominated, her first and only nomination, and while she's terribly beautiful, she doesn't add the layers that say, Vivien Leigh would do in Sidney Franklin's later melodrama (and a personal favorite), Waterloo Bridge.  Oberon would be considerably better, though not nominated, four years later for her most iconic of roles, Catherine Earnshaw, in Wuthering Heights.

What about you-do you find the works of Lillian Hellman captivating or plodding (or perhaps a little bit of both)?  Do you think that Oberon deserved the Oscar over Bette Davis this year (or are you in the camp of say Katherine Hepburn in Alice Adams?) And what of Fredric March-why is it that he never became the iconic Hollywood star that his peers, the likes of Gable and Bogart did?