Best Actor of 1927-28

Initially, the Academy nominated three men for Best Actor in the first year of the awards, but after one of them (Charlie Chaplin) was removed for consideration, it became a two-person race. Both of the remaining nominees were mentioned for performances in two movies each. That would never happen again in Oscar history.

 

A copy of The Noose is preserved at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, so unless the museum partners with someone to release a copy of this film, Richard Barthelmess’s performance as Nickie Elkins is almost impossible to see these days. Elkins is a criminal who learns that his mother, whom he has never met, is the wife of the governor. He tries to protect his mother from the machinations of his father, a gangster who tries to blackmail the governor. Barthelmess was one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was nominated for two of his performances during the first year of the awards.

Barthelmess plays the title role in The Patent Leather Kid, a film about the aftereffects of World War I on those who served in battle. Barthelmess’ character, who is referred to most often as “The Kid,” is a boxer, a particularly handsome and conceited one, but a talented one nonetheless. He falls for a rather tough-talking woman called Curly (played with gusto by Molly O’Day) and takes her away from her boyfriend at the time, a guy named Breen who’s going to show up later in the plot. The Kid, as played by Barthelmess, is clearly afraid of being drafted to serve in the military, and when he gets his draft notice, he winds up serving under Lt. Hugo Breen (Lawford Davidson). Barthelmess lets us see the fear that the Kid has underneath all that bravado and bluster, and it’s easy to see how much he truly cares for Curley, who’s also in France working as a nurse. In the wake of his friend Puffy’s death – I know, Puffy? – the Kid saves Breen’s life and manages to destroy a German stronghold, only to have the building collapse on top of him. Thanks to Curley’s pleadings, the doctor agrees to operate even though he thinks the Kid’s prognosis is dire. Of course, he’s probably never going to box again due to his injuries, but the film leaves that question unanswered. I’m not sure why the character named Puffy has to have a stutter that must then be replicated on the intertitles, making them harder to read, and I’m certainly confused as to why the one African American character has to be nicknamed Molasses although he does collect a lot of medals during the war. By the way, I thought the character was known as the Patent Leather Kid because of his penchant for wearing a leather trench coat and/or for having leather elements on his boxing robe. However, after reading some reviews online, I’ve come to realize that it’s his slick hair that earned him the nickname. Perhaps this was covered at some point in the film, but to be honest, the print that I was able to see was so bad, I couldn’t even tell at times who was on the screen. There’s one print of the film at the Library of Congress and another one at an archive in Wisconsin, and I hope they’re in better shape than the versions available on YouTube.

Charles Chaplin’s performance as the Tramp in The Circus was removed as a nominee before the first Academy Awards were handed out, but the film serves as a delightful reminder of just how deft Chaplin was at physical comedy. Whether he’s trying to walk a tightrope while several monkeys are interfering with his ability to move or even keep his pants on or he’s trying to learn a routine for the clowns involving barbers fighting over a client, his Tramp is always an active, engaged presence. The quieter moments are lovely too, such as when he’s making himself a meagre breakfast or listening to the woman he’s fallen in love with confess her love for someone else. There’s a great deal of sadness underpinning the more outrageous and happy moments. This film features the Tramp in a series of circus acts, but one of the most memorable sequences involves him and a pickpocket for whom he’s been mistaken. They’re running away from the police and wind up in a fun house early in the film. They have to pretend to be automatons, and Chaplin gets to hit the pickpocket over the head and laugh several times. It must have been quite funny to Chaplin to get to play someone who makes everyone else happy without knowing how or why he does so. This would be the only nomination Chaplin would receive for his acting, and it’s the only nomination for one of the most iconic characters of the silent era. Sadly, the Academy no longer considers it a nomination since Chaplin instead received an honorary award for acting, writing, directing, and producing the film.

Emil Jannings plays Grand Duke Sergius Alexander in The Last Command, the commanding officer of the Russian army during the 1917 Revolution and a cousin to the czar (don’t we spell it tsar now?). Although he only plays one character here, Jannings actually has to give two rather different performances in the role. As the younger Grand Duke, the one who falls in love with a revolutionist and keeps her as his lover, Jannings has to be arrogant and quick-tempered and demanding. He also does a lot of “business” with his cigarettes during the extended flashback to the 1917 era. However, he is also tender and emotionally sensitive in his interactions with Natalie Dubrova (played by Evelyn Brent, his equal on the screen). His heart seems to ache when he fears she’s betrayed him, which actually happens several times. In the framing sections of the film, those set in Hollywood a decade after the revolution, Jannings plays an old man who has been weakened by Natalie’s death and his escape from Russia. He has to keep shaking his head throughout these sequences, a consequence (according to the Grand Duke) of an unpleasant experience in his past. We know what that experience is, of course, from watching the film, but seeing him walking in a stupor at the film’s beginning is not quite as powerful as seeing him do the same after we have watched the extended flashback sequence. Jannings also gets a very long death scene at the film’s end after he seems to regain a bit of his former strength. It’s not quite a dual role that he plays in The Last Command, but it is certainly two very distinct performances, and perhaps that explains his win for the very first year of the Oscars.

Only about 5 ½ minutes still exist of  Jannings’s performance in The Way of All Flesh. We have, basically, just two scenes from the film, both of them featuring interactions between August Schilling (Jannings) and his son August Jr. (Donald Keith), who thinks his father has died years earlier. The first of the two remaining fragments shows the elder Schilling, now a beggar, discovering that his now-grown son has become an acclaimed violinist. He buys the cheapest possible balcony ticket to watch his son play and is moved to tears when the younger Schilling plays a “cradle song” taught to him by his father. The second intact scene is the film’s ending, where the two men are in front of the family’s home during a snowstorm. The younger man, still unaware that he is face-to-face with his father, offers the old man a warm drink and then a dollar before returning inside to celebrate Christmas with the family. The film’s frequent use of close-ups in these two scenes gives the audience an opportunity to concentrate upon Jannings’ face. He wears a lot of old-age makeup in the role, but his eyes truly convey emotions so powerfully. He doesn’t need to speak in order for the audience to sense the anguish and remorse and sense of loss that Schilling feels. Even his posture, primarily demonstrated by a stooped, shambling walk, shows how much pain he feels. Sadly, the rest of Janning’s Oscar-winning performance is lost, a fate suffered by large numbers of silent films that were made on flammable nitrate stock.

Oscar Winner: Emil Jannings left Hollywood soon after he received the first Oscar for Best Actor for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. His thick German accent reportedly made him unemployable during the Hollywood sound era. After starring in several Nazi propaganda films, Jannings was never to act again after the end of World War II.

My Choice: Charlie Chaplin gives an iconic performance as The Tramp in The Circus. I’d choose him over the other talented nominees. It’s odd that he received an honorary award for this film; it would have been interesting to see if he won any of the categories for which he was nominated. He was a multi-hyphenate before we even coined the world.