Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1946: Results

5. Finlay Currie in Great Expectations- Currie brings the right roughness and heart to the role but still never makes that much an impression.

Best Scene: Magwitch comes back.

4. William Bendix in The Blue Dahlia- Bendix, despite the writing messing up his ending, gives an affecting portrayal of a man driven to moments of insanity due to his war experiences.

Best Scene: Buzz is bothered by the music. 

3. Roger Livesey in A Matter of Life and Death- Livesey steals the film right out from David Niven and manages to give weight to the central romance of the film than the two performers portraying it do.

Best Scene: The doctor fights for Peter's life in the Heavenly court.

2. Henry Travers in It's A Wonderful Life- Travers gives a funny and quite wonderful realization of the pure goodness of his character.

Best Scene: George after visiting his mother.

1. Lionel Barrymore in It's a Wonderful Life- Good Predictions Kevin, Maciej, moviefilm, koook160, and  Jackiboyz. The year itself came down to one of my favorite depictions of a villain of all time against Claude Rains who manages to make the villain the most sympathetic character in his film. Both I think are equally good in their roles and I don't see how either could be better. In a way to cheat out of really choosing I'll just base it on their second films of the year. Rains was also great in Angel on my Shoulder whereas Barrymore was quite forgettable in Duel in the Sun.

Best Scene: George goes to Potter for help.

Overall Rank:

1. Claude Rains in Notorious
2. Lionel Barrymore in It's A Wonderful Life
3. Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives
4. Henry Travers in It's A Wonderful Life
5. Roger Livesey in A Matter of Life and Death
6. Thomas Mitchell in It's A Wonderful Life 
7. Michael Redgrave in The Captive Heart 
8. Claude Rains in Deception  
9. Claude Rains in Angel on My Shoulder
10. William Bendix in The Blue Dahlia
11. Alastair Sim in Green For Danger 
12. Charles Coburn in The Green Years 
13. Robert Mitchum in The Locket 
14. Raymond Massey in A Matter of Life and Death 
15. François Périer in A Lover's Return
16. Jean Vilar in Gates of the Night 
17. Samuel S. Hinds in It's A Wonderful Life  
18. William Conrad in The Killers   
19. Hume Cronyn in The Postman Always Rings Twice
20. Trevor Howard in Green For Danger 
21. H.B. Warner in It's A Wonderful Life  
22. Marius Goring in A Matter of Life and Death
23. Raymond Bussières in Gates of the Night
24. Basil Radford in The Captive Heart 
25. Kirk Douglas in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers 
26. George Coulouris in The Verdict 
27. Burgess Meredith in The Diary of a Chambermaid 
28. Jimmy Hanley in The Captive Heart 
29. Finlay Currie in Great Expectations
30. Mervyn Johns in The Captive Heart 
31. Jack Warner in The Captive Heart  
32. Alexander Knox in Sister Kenny 
33. Serge Reggiani in Gates of the Night
34. Arno Paulsen in The Murderers Are Among Us 
35. Ian Wolfe in Bedlam 
36. Leo Genn in Green For Danger 
37. Oscar Levant in Humoresque 
38. Richard Haydn in Cluny Brown 
39. Victor Mature in My Darling Clementine
40. Alec Guinness in Great Expectations 
41. Reginald Gardiner in Cluny Brown
42. Francis Lederer in The Diary of a Chambermaid
43. Andy Devine in Canyon Passage
44. Pierre Brasseur in Gates of the Night 
45. Billy House in Bedlam 
46. Peter Lorre in Black Angel 
47. Francis L. Sullivan in Great Expectations
48. Peter Lawford in Cluny Brown 
49. Sheldon Leonard in It's A Wonderful Life
50. Richard Attenborough in A Matter of Life and Death  
51. Lee J. Cobb in Anna and the King of Siam 
52. Robert Shayne in Three Strangers  
53. Jason Robards Sr. in Bedlam 
54. Walter Brennan in my Darling Clementine  
55. Frank Faylen in It's A Wonderful Life 
56. Ward Bond in Canyon Passage 
57. Glen Vernon in Bedlam 
58. Roman Bohnen in The Best Years of Our Lives 
59. Alan Napier in Three Strangers 
60. Thomas Mitchell in The Dark Mirror
61. Robert Mitchum in Till the End of Time 
62. Monty Woolley in Night and Day 
63. Bobby Anderson in It's A Wonderful Life  
64. Glenn Ford in A Stolen Life 
65. Walter Huston in Dragonwyck 
66. Bernard Miles in Great Expectations 
67. Cecil Kellaway in Kitty 
68. Ward Bond in It's A Wonderful Life 
69. Walter Baldwin in The Best Years of Our Lives
70. Howard da Silva in The Blue Dahlia 
71. Hoagy Carmicheal in The Best Years of Our Lives
72. Robert Coote in A Matter of Life and Death 
73. Elisha Cook Jr. in The Big Sleep
74. Nigel Bruce in Terror By Night  
75. Albert Dekker in The Killers  
76. Harry Morgan in Dragonwyck 
77. William Edmunds in It's A Wonderful Life
78. Anthony Wager in Great Expectations
79. Henry Travers in The Yearling
80. Walter Brennan in A Centennial Summer 
81. Charles MacGraw in The Killers 
82. Ray Bolger in The Harvey Girls
83. Reginald Owen in Kitty  
84. Lucien Coëdel in L'Idiot
85. Hoagy Carmichael in Canyon Passage 
86. Marcel Andre in Beauty and the Beast
87. Walter Huston in Duel in the Sun
88. Reinhold Schunzel in Notorious
89. Hardie Albright in Angel on My Shoulder
90. Todd Karns in It's A Wonderful Life 
91. George Brent in The Spiral Staircase
92. Kent Smith in The Spiral Staircase 
93. Clifton Webb in The Razor's Edge
94. Gene Raymond in The Locket
95. Lionel Barrymore in Duel in the Sun 
96. John Hodiak in The Harvey Girls 
97. Will Wright in The Blue Dahlia 
98. Brian Aherne in The Locket
99. Richard Haydn in The Green Years 
100. George Brent in Tomorrow is Forever 
101. Herbert Marshall in The Razor's Edge
102. Michel Auclair in Beauty and the Beast
103. William Demarest in The Jolson Story
104. Ward Bond in My Darling Clementine
105. Brian Donlevy in Canyon Passage 
106. Louis Calhern in Notorious
107. Charles Waldron in The Big Sleep
108. Cecil Kellaway in The Postman Always Rings Twice
109. Jess Barker in The Time of Our Lives
110. Joseph Calleia in Gilda
111. John Payne in The Razor's Edge
112. Leon Ames in The Postman Always Rings Twice
113. Hume Cronyn in The Green Years
114. Philip Mervale in The Stranger
115. Hugh Beaumont in The Blue Dahlia 
116. Chill Wills in The Yearling 
117. Guy Madison in Till The End of Time 
118. Richard Long in The Stranger
119. Philip Terry in To Each His Own
120. Dane Clark in A Stolen Life 
121. George Macready in Gilda
122. Bill Goodwin in To Each His Own 
123. Richard Fraser in Bedlam 
124. Hurd Hatfield in The Diary of a Chambermaid 
125. Edwin Maxwell in The Jolson Story
126. Bill Goodwin in The Jolson Story 
127. John Lund in To Each His Own

Next Year: 1932 Lead might as well suggest any Supporting ideas as well.

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1946: Finlay Currie in Great Expectations

Finlay Currie did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Abel Magwitch in Great Expectations.

Great Expectations is a well directed adaptation of Charles Dickens's book about a meek orphan Pip's coming of age story which includes meeting some unusual characters.

One of these unusual characters appears rather early on in the film as the boy Pip finds an escaped convict who he is played by Currie. Currie is appropriately rough in his depiction of the convict's manner not sugar coating him at all at the beginning, and suggesting the hard life that the man his lead. Currie moment here is quite brief but he makes Magwitch memorable enough before he is taken away again by the police. Eventually Pip finds himself rich through a mysterious benefactor, who Pip assumes is the wrong person, but eventually he is surprised to see Magwitch in his house once again which is quite the surprise. Currie's is quite good in his reappearance by know portraying Magwitch as a much more jovial sort certainly made happy by his far better life, although Currie still carries the right roughness around the edges to still show that Magwitch never could quite lose his criminal past completely. 

Currie is effective in turning Magwitch into a likable figure in these few short moments and realizes his whole character best he can. We do want to indeed see Pip help him out as Currie brings an earnest charm into the role. After his first introduction he disappears for a long time and then after his second introduction he placed firmly into the background as the film focuses on Pip basically coming up with a way and the preparing his eventual devised way to smuggle Magwitch out of England. Currie has one more scene where talks about the pain of his past which he makes fairly poignant by honestly portraying the sentiment within the general roughness of Magwitch's character. This is a solid enough performance by Currie as he probably does as much as one could do with how the role Magwitch is used in this version at least. He does not make that much an impact, but his work certainly is more than satisfactory.

Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1946

And the Nominees Were Not:

Henry Travers in It's A Wonderful Life

Lionel Barrymore in It's A Wonderful Life

Roger Livesey in A Matter of Life and Death

Finlay Currie in Great Expectations

William Bendix in The Blue Dahlia