Best Supporting Actor 1945: John Dall in The Corn is Green

John Dall received his only Oscar nomination for portraying Morgan Evans in The Corn is Green.

The Corn is Green is another film that seemed quite popular during this period about a small mining town, this time the central story consists Miss Moffatt (Bette Davis) who seeks to educate the people of the town.

John Dall who is best known for portraying the controlling killer in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope portrays one of the miners who Davis' character takes special interest in. It is funny that she takes an interest in him, seeing some sort of intelligence in him, the problem is though there really is not anything to see in him as portrayed by Dall. He is suppose to be an intelligent man who shows a great deal of promise despite his profession, and his grammar. The problem is Dall does not really present the man, he makes Morgan seem basically as much of a dope as any other of the men in town.

John Dall fails to present any sort of really energetic spark in Morgan that would cause Davis' character to become so devoted to him so quickly. Dall remains rather dull in the part never achieving anything special with his character even if the film wants us to believe otherwise.  He does not even subtly show there is some hidden element to the man that goes beyond his exterior the problem is he just is not. Dall whole portrayal fails to ever feel original or inspiring for a moment.

Dall certainly has plenty of screentime to attempt to realize Morgan as a character, after all you could probably argue him as the male lead of the film. Dall though keeps the same annoyed looking face almost throughout his performance, showing his character always being slightly discontented. What is he discontented about? Well that is a little hard to tell with Dall think characterization, maybe it is because he is a miner, or the way Davis' character wants to change him perhaps, but really Dall never really makes this annoyance have too much of a purpose.

Dall never makes Morgan into an interesting character he remains quite boring throughout his performance. I never really cared for a second about his character's future, because Dall never showed any promise in him in fact he came off as well plainly dull. He really doesn't have any chemistry with Bette Davis to make their scenes together have the emotional impact the film was seeking. He also lacks the romantic, or a lustful spark with Joan Lorring, the fact they have a relationship at all never seems even that believable despite the fact that it is only suppose to be superficial to begin with.

Dall never makes any aspect of his character particularly convincing, and certainly not compelling. It feels like an entirely standard performance that any actor could have given from the period, and there probably where many young actors from the time who could have given a far better performance. Dall simply never achieves anything remotely interesting with Morgan, and actually makes the film rather boring itself because Dall is given such attention. Dall in the role never for a moment makes the viewer believe he is deserving of such attention.