1939 – Mickey Rooney
Babes in Arms
It’s a good thing I’m rating Mickey Rooney’s performance and not the movie. It may have been acceptable in 1939, but dear God, this one didn’t age well. The movie was shamefully racist, even going so far as to show an entire stage of white performers wearing black-face in one of the films many musical numbers. And both Rooney and Judy Garland were there in the forefront of that scene.
Rooney was only nineteen years old when Babes in Arms was released. But as could many actors of the day, he could sing… well, sort-of… and he could dance. I’m just saying that singing clearly wasn’t his best talent. He was primarily an actor, and he could do that pretty well… uh… most of the time. But I wouldn’t have nominated him for Best Actor. And I have two very specific reasons why.
First, this was a musical. You’d think that a lead actor in a musical should be able to sing. And yes, he sang a few lines passably well, but the lion’s share of the male singing in the film was given to Douglas McPhail, who had an incredible voice. Rooney only sang in fairly soft passages and for only a few measures at a time. The rest of his singing was done in what I sometimes call speak-singing. He basically spoke his lyrics rhythmically.
Second, and I know I might be a little unpopular for saying this, but I’ve never been a huge fan of Rooney’s over-the-top style of acting during his younger years. Most of the time, he was fine, good even, like when he was arguing with his father, or when he had a romantic scene with Garland. His comedy bits were good, too, like when he was impersonating Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore.
But then there was that small scene where he hammed up his performance so much that it took me out of the story. Early in the movie, he is given a hundred dollars for a song he has written. He suddenly turned into a looney-toons cartoon character, hooting, screeching, and gibbering like he belonged in an insane asylum. To me, that’s not good acting. That’s just ridiculous. Maybe I should blame the director for that, but his performance in that scene wasn’t at all Oscar-worthy.