Best Supporting Actor 1938: Basil Rathbone in If I Were King

Basil Rathbone received his second and final Oscar nomination for portraying King Louis XI in If I Were King.

If I Were King tells the story of a rebellious poet who ends up as Grand Constable in France.

Rathbone portrays King Louis XI who is an incompetent, and rather unintelligent King who attempts to scheme to keep power by using the Poet Francois Vilon (Ronald Colman), but the Poet constantly gets the better of him. Rathbone really plays the part rather oddly because sometimes he plays it fairly normally, but other times he acts like some sort of kooky old man for no apparent reason. There is not a consistency between these two portrayals.

Both portrayals are not particularly interesting as well. When he is the Kooky old man he is really over the top with his mannerisms, and not very amusing except for one line at the end of the film, but one line out of as many as he has is to few. When not acting kooky he is just rather dull, so either way this is just not a very interesting performance by Rathbone. Yes he gets the incompetence down, but doing that is not that hard, if he had been infused with some more humor perhaps his performance could have been something memorable but as it is his performance is rather forgettable.