1936 – Mischa Auer
My Man Godfrey
Well, finally, they created the Best Supporting Actor category. It so needed to happen. There were too many supporting characters that were being nominated for Best Actor. If not for the new Oscar category, Auer would have never been nominated for an acting award. But that being said, I’m not sure why he was nominated. He barely had any screen time, and while lengthy screen time is not necessary for a worthy nominee, it doesn’t hurt. No, the real problem is that he was so unmemorable. Part of that was because of a script that didn’t give him much to do, but for the rest, he just didn’t stand out.
Auer played the part of Carlo, The boorish, mooching protégée of the ditzy Mrs. Bullock. He is always hanging around where he is not wanted, eating at the family’s table, and practicing depressing music at the piano. He is clearly taking advantage of the family’s money and is quite unapologetic about it. And Mrs. Bullock seems to be thoroughly enamored with him, or at the very least by his talent as a musician. Either way her attitude concerning him borders on obsession.
Auer had two scenes that gave him something to do. The first was the one in which Mrs. Bullock instructs him to behave like a wild ape, which he reluctantly does, though once he gets started, he attacks the assignment with gusto. He makes faces, makes the monkey “ooo, ooo, ooo,” sound, and scampers around the room, dragging his knuckles and climbing the pillars. He makes a complete fool of himself at his patron’s request. I believe this was actually Auer’s big scene. The movie was a screwball comedy, so the scene fit the film. But was this enough to give him an Oscar nomination? I’m not sure.
His other big scene is where he is playing the piano and singing as if the music were a Puccini opera. He was hamming it up for Mrs. Bullock and being as overly-dramatic as he could. He even took the time to cover his face as if in utter despair because of the extreme pathos of his music. But again, I have to ask, was this enough to give him an Oscar nomination. I don’t think so.
But hey, this was the first year the category existed and maybe he was nominated because he just delighted the voters. Maybe he was just funny enough in that 1930s kind of humor, that he caught their attention. But I’ll be honest, I was just not really impressed with his performance. Aside from his monkey scene, the role was so low-key and lackluster that the only reason I remember his performance at all was because of his nomination. But since this was the first year for the Best Supporting acting categories, maybe the Academy voter were still trying to figure things out… maybe.