Oscar Shockers 1946 (Part Two)

In Part One, I explained why I felt Dana Andrews should have been nominated for an Oscar in 1946 – and in this post, I share my disappointment that Claude Rains wasn’t recognized for his peerless work in Notorious that same year.

The Invisible Man (1933) wasn’t just the title of Claude Rains’ American screen debut. It was the story of his “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” record at the Academy Awards.

Sure, Rains earned four nominations as Best Supporting Actor for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Casablanca (1943), Mr. Skeffington (1944) and Notorious (1946). He must have enjoyed receiving critical acclaim for his work, and how proud he must have been when Bette Davis, the era’s undisputed box-office queen, singled him out as her favorite co-star.

Yet Rains never heard his name at the end of the Oscars’ iconic phrase, “And the winner is…” Instead, Rains went zero for four, while his competitors – Thomas Mitchell (Stagecoach), Charles Coburn (The More the Merrier), Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way), and Harold Russell (The Best Years of Our Lives) – strode to the podium to collect their prizes.

In 1946, the Academy chose to honor Russell, a disabled army staff sergeant making his film debut, with a special Oscar “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance in The Best Years of Our Lives.” Despite Russell’s Oscar nod for his performance, the Academy board reportedly assumed that the untrained actor would lose to the category’s more experienced nominees.

However, near the end of the ceremony, Russell won the competitive Oscar, as well. It was an emotional moment. As Alison Macon writes in her excellent book, Making The Best Years of Our Lives: “Anne Revere, who had won the Best Supporting Actress award a year earlier...took the stage to announce the winner. When she said Russell’s name, the audience erupted as if at a sporting event...Shaking from nerves, he made his way to the stage for the second time that evening. ‘Thank you very much. Two in a night is just too much!’ was all he could manage.”

Don’t get me wrong – it’s wonderful that Russell was recognized for a role that inspired millions of returning troops and their families. I just can’t help but wonder: Who came in second that year? Because if it wasn’t Claude Rains, there ain’t no justice in Hollywood.

As I noted in Part One of this post, Russell and Rains vied against three competent hopefuls in 1946, but to me, Rains surpassed them all in Notorious. How many other actors could poison the beloved star Ingrid Bergman and stoke moviegoers’ compassion for him? How many times has a Nazi been a sympathetic character, even when he’s conspiring to build a nuclear bomb?

Rains’ talent for threading that tricky dramatic needle – to juggle vulnerability and villainy; to plot his wife’s demise, while enduring the heartbreak of her passion for Cary Grant; and don’t even get me started on Rains’ clashes with his Hitler-loving smother mother – how is capturing the complexities of that character not worthy of an Academy Award?

Oscar jury, I rest my case.