Best Actress: Bette Davis I

What do you get when the media plays up your Oscar snub? An Oscar the next year! 

via classicfilmsource

That's where we find Bette Davis in 1935, after being snubbed for Of Human Bondage (1934). She wasn't even nominated. As someone underwhelmed by that movie, put down the pitchforks, and who loves Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, I'm of the opinion that the right actress won in 1934.

Anyway, that brings us to 1935 and Dangerous. I bet if you told someone with a vague knowledge of Bette Davis that she won two Oscars and asked them to pick which ones she won for, they wouldn't pick Dangerous. I have my doubts that they'd pick Jezebel either, but we'll get to that in due time. 

In Dangerous, Bette plays Joyce Heath, an alcoholic out-of-work actress who's declared a jinx. Anyone that comes into contact with her suddenly finds themselves on the wrong side of fate. Her plays close, people lose everything, and her once promising career has vanished, all because no director and no producer is willing to take a risk and cast her. Enter Don, played by Franchot Tone, an architect with (what I'd consider) a god complex who wants to fix/help her by letting her stay at his country home to dry out. 

But then they fall in love, very quickly, as is the wont in old Hollywood movies, and suddenly Don wants to be the backer for her Broadway comeback, he wants to marry her—breaking up with his perfectly suited fiancée in the process—and he wants to spend the rest of his life basking in Joyce's glow. 

And then suddenly... all that talk of Joyce being a jinx comes back to haunt Don and there's a plot twist that I forgot all about! And the movie is wrapped up in a neat little bow, about 80 minutes after it started.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, because I do love Bette Davis, but it's hard to believe that she won an Oscar for Dangerous. Not because she's not great in it—because she is; there are several monologues and dramatic overtures and those oversized Bette Davis Eyes working overtime to convey what Joyce can't say—but because when you consider what came before and what came after Dangerous, this is what got rewarded? 

I also realize that I can't have it both ways: Bette was snubbed for Of Human Bondage and I don't think she should've won over Claudette Colbert; but what else did she make in those early years worth memorializing? Fog Over Frisco? [That's a joke, but I do enjoy that one. When I first really started watching old movies, not just the ones on AFI lists, Fog Over Frisco was one of the earliest ones I watched.]

I'm also speaking with the benefit of hindsight. I know what's coming. And I'm sitting here, having not seen Jezebel in ages, wondering if that was a consolation Oscar as well (in my mind, it's because Selznick didn't cast her in Gone with the Wind and Warner Brothers wanted to appease her; don't correct me in the comments, let's dig into that when we get to the next post!). 

But then you sit there and look at Bette's filmography, and you know what earned nominations, and if you get into the game of 'she should've won for this or that' then you're saying that another actress shouldn't have won instead. It's such a slippery slope! 

Is Bette better than Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind? Than Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle? Than Joan Fontaine in Suspicion? Than Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver? Than Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight? Than Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday? Than Shirley Booth in Come Back, Little Sheba? Than Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker?

You know who didn't seem all that impressed with the Oscar win? Bette. She even said as much in her acceptance speech, that Katharine Hepburn should have won for Alice Adams and dressed down for the banquet, appearing in what some commentators have since called a dressing gown (wait til they see what Luise Rainer wore, amirite?) as a form of silent protest for the Of Human Bondage snub. 

Bette was nominated against Elisabeth Bergner (Escape Me Never), Claudette Colbert (Private Worlds), Katharine Hepburn (Alice Adams), Miriam Hopkins (Becky Sharp), and Merle Oberon (The Dark Angel). I've only seen Alice Adams and I don't have strong opinions on it. 

It's a testament to her talent, though, that she would go on to become one of the most nominated actresses in Oscar history (Bette's currently third next to Meryl Streep and Katharine Hepburn). Regardless of what she won for, what she was nominated for, she still has a beloved filmography and performances indelible to Hollywood history. 

And, if nothing else, Dangerous may have been the breeding ground for the long-run Bette vs Joan Crawford feud [basically, the rumour—I can't remember if it's true, correct me in the comments if it is—is that Bette and Franchot Tone had a brief affair during the filming, meanwhile he was dating/engaged to Joan Crawford]. We'll dine on that feud for the rest of our lives. 

DID I LIKE DANGEROUS? Yes. Is it the most Oscar-y Oscar-winning performance that ever Oscared? No. But Bette's great in it; bombastic and also silent, and if nothing else, it's required that you reward talent like hers.
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Did you like Dangerous? What are your thoughts on Bette Davis's first Oscar win? 

Keep up with all my Rewatching the Best Actresses posts here.