Best Supporting Actor 1948: Jose Ferrer in Joan of Arc

Jose Ferrer received his first Oscar nomination for portraying the Dauphin in Joan of Arc.

Joan of Arc is a pretty poor telling of the story of Joan, that always seems unrealistic and over the top, and never becomes very interesting or very good.

Ferrer is not in the film for very much of the time but when he is he makes little to no impact. He plays a Dauphin who is a poor ruler in all regards who is incompetent and basically sells out Joan for his own gain. Ferrer shows the Dauphin's incompetence well enough but that is all he does well enough. I will admit he does not seem kingly at all or in charge and he is not suppose to. But Ferrer really does very little to show this except read the lines that say this. He does not really do anything with this performance at all. He adds no depth to his character, he is just the incompetent Dauphin in the script and he adds nothing to the character from there. He leaves everything really to the script never giving little hints to more or adding anything interesting about the character. He is a bit theatrical in his way of speaking yet somehow he is always incredibly dull at the same time. He made no impact on the movie at all and is one of the weakest parts in a movie that is already weak. Ferrer does not give a very interesting or well played film debut. He clearly seemed to be inexperienced in film acting and shows really none of abilities that would be seen in later films, such as his brilliant single scene in Lawrence of Arabia.