The Lone Acting Nominee vs Best Picture Stars

by Cláudio Alves

In the battle of Aunt Gladys against Best Picture stars, the witch won!

I don’t know about you, but I love Oscar trivia, the more meaningless, niche, and utterly useless for prediction purposes, the better. Indeed, matters of stats and precedent feel better invoked in post-Oscar talk than in the middle of the season, when folks sometimes hold on to these analyses as if they were unshakable rules. Every year, Academy Award history gains new records, new precursor combos that failed or succeeded, and age-old assumptions that were never examined until they were proven wrong. So, let’s roll with it and enjoy the silliness of our collective Oscar obsession. Tonight, I’d like to return to the matter of Amy Madigan’s Best Supporting Actress win.

Hers is a remarkable achievement for a number of reasons, spanning from genre bias to the sheer quality of the performance at hand. Still, even odder is the fact that the Weapons witch was a lone acting nominee facing off against a lineup of women starring in Best Picture nominees. And though we live in an era when the Academy tends to privilege the movies listed in their top race in almost every other category, Madigan came out victorious. This particular scenario has only happened three times before…

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Judy Garland @ 100: "Meet Me In St. Louis"

Team Experience is revisiting a dozen Judy Garland movies for her Centennial. Here’s Ben Miller discussing her biggest hit...

Meet Me In St. Louis marked a number of notable events in Judy Garland’s life. Her love affair and eventual marriage to director Vincent Minnelli came from filming. The film itself was Garland’s biggest box office success in initial release, becoming the second most popular film of 1944 (behind only the Best Picture winner Going My Way). But more than anything else the film completed Garland's transition from teen stardom to adult roles. In Meet Me in St Louis Garland was at the absolute peak of her star power and on-screen magnetism...

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Showbiz History: Bob Hope, Ava Gardner, and Herbie the Love Bug

7 random things that happened on this day, December 24th, in showbiz history

1936 The Jungle Princess starring Dorothy Lamour and Ray Milland opens in movie theaters. How about that tagline?

"You savage, untamed she-devil -- I adore you!"

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1938: Mary Astor in "Listen, Darling", "Paradise for Three", and "There's Always a Woman"

Before each Smackdown, Nick Taylor considers alternates to Oscar's Best Supporting Actress roster...

Thank you to everyone who recommended performances from 1938 to look into! And a big thanks, especially, to joel6, whose suggestion inspired today's write-up. 

Mary Astor made five movies in 1938. Three of them - Listen, Darling, Paradise for Three, and There’s Always a Woman - are still relatively easy to track down online. One of these missing titles, Woman Against Woman, barely seems to exist anymore. I also couldn’t find No Time to Marry anywhere, which is a shame since it sounds like an actual leading role. But the three titles one can easily find all provide a snapshot of this endlessly talented actress doing her thing across a wide range of genres and archetypes...

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Judy by the Numbers: "Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart!"

Anne Marie is tracking Judy Garland's career through musical numbers...

The Movie: Listen, Darling (MGM, 1938)
The Songwriter: James F. Hanley (Music & Lyrics)
The Players: Judy Garland, Freddie Bartholemew, Mary Astor, Walter Pidgeon, directed by Edwin L. Marin

The Story: No rise to stardom is without its setbacks. Despite Judy Garland's continuing success teaming up with established stars like Mickey Rooney and Fanny Brice, Listen, Darling marked Judy's first box office disappointment. 

Though Judy and Freddie were stars in their own right, when starring in a film together, their chemistry was nil. As a result, the thin 70 minute musical comedy fizzled at the box office, ultimately losing $200,000.

Nonetheless, Listen, Darling did introduce the public to another Judy Garland standard. Though young Judy had been singing "Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart" for years - she actually auditioned for MGM with the song - this 1938 film and a 1939 Decca record added the song to Judy's public repertoire. Judy made the Hit Parade, and would go on to perform and re-record the song throughout her career. Even if Listen, Darling wasn't a hit, Judy Garland and her zing-y song were.

previously: "The Land of Let's Pretend" (1930), "The Texas Tornado" (1936), "Americana" (1936), "Dear Mr Gable" (1937), "Got a New Pair of Shoes" (1937), "Why? Because!" (1938), "Inbetween" (1938)