Best Actor 1930: Results

7. Wallace Beery in The Big House- Beery's performance just is laughable when he tries to act tough, he gets better later in the film, but never very good.

6. Maurice Chevalier in The Big Pond- Chevalier sure is charming here, but his charm just is not utilized well enough for anything to really come from it.

5. George Arliss in The Green Goddess- Arliss' stiff approach sort of works at times as the cruel Raja, overall it still is a rather boring effort, and really Arliss actually is rather hard to believe as an Indian ruler.

4. George Arliss in Disraeli- Arliss is most certianly more believable as Benjamin Disraeli than as the Raja of Ruhk, but still his performance suffers from similar problems. He is sometimes just frankly boring, there are moments of strength but not enough of them.

3. Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade- Chevalier, better utilized in this film, gives a nice winning performance actually as the romantic Count. He is very charming, rather humorous, and really brings a great joy to his performance.

2. Ronald Colman in Condemned- Colman gives a good relaxed performance as the suave thief who falls in love with the wrong woman. Not his best, but easy to watch, with charm in every moment.

1. Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond- The only performance that could beat Colman in Condemned, is Colman in this. Colman is even better in this because he has even more to do, is even more charming, far more humorous, and this performance just is hard not to watch. Colman's whole performance is one great moment after another, he makes Drummond one character easy to watch all the way through his investigation. He even manages to make the lacking performances work in his favor, he is amazing here.

Deserving Performances:
Lew Ayres in All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Actor 1930: George Arliss in The Green Goddess

George Arliss did not win his Oscar from his other nomination this year for portraying The Raja of Ruhk in The Green Goddess.

The Green Goddess tells the story of three British citizens who crash land in Himalaya Mountains, and they meet the anti-British ruler of the lands.

It is interesting that George Arliss received his two nominations for two roles that he had played previously in silent films and both for performances as rules. It is also interesting to note that Arliss in one portrays one as an evil leader who is anti British, and played the nice leader of Britain in the other.

George Arliss actually does differentiate between the two parts, The Raja and Disraeli are not at all the same man. He does play them similarly in some ways though,  in that they both almost always have this slight grin, as well as they both stand and move in a rather stiff fashion, as well as talk in a rather stiff fashion. I would say the Raja is ever stiffer than Disraeli though.

I will say that this stiffness actually does fit the part a little bit. The Raja is suppose to be very cold and calculated, and boy is Arliss cold and calculating in his performance. He also does always hint as well that the Raja enjoys his power a great deal, just as Arliss showed in Disraeli although this time he shows it in a darker tone.

I can't say this is ever that great of a performance though. He still is much too stiff, and as I said it works a little in his favor, he could have still put just some more life into the performance on a whole, and the part could have been far more entertaining and interesting than it is. As it stands it is a not entirely ineffective performance that does work as sort of an interesting companion piece to Arliss' performance in Disraeli.

Best Actor 1930: George Arliss in Disraeli

George Arliss won his Oscar from one his two nominations this year for portraying Benjamin Disraeli in Disraeli.

Disraeli is a rather dull film about Disraeli, the British Prime Minister, an he plans to buy the suez canal and performs a many of manipulations to achieve his goal in the end.

George Arliss was the third Oscar and the first one to win for portraying a real person. This fact results in him in rather odd looking hair which when up close looks rather strange.  Arliss seems in his performance does actually want to try to portray Disraeli in an accurate realistic fashion. Disraeli whole flamboyant fashion is not inaccurate to the real Disraeli who apparently was that sort of fellow.

I think because of that Disraeli most certianly is an interesting character. A terrific manipulator, as well as thinker, who goes on very difficult and specific routes to achieve his aims. I think Disraeli probably could have made for a great character and film later than when this film was made. Disraeli manipulations though in this film never mean very much though because every character besides Disraeli is completely one dimensional and uninteresting.

Arliss is basically center stage throughout the whole film, and it follows Disraeli through his various manipulations of people to achieve his plan of gaining the Suez Canal. Arliss goes through a many of different type of manipulations whether he gently insures someone to do his will or more underhandedly by pretending to be sick, or pretending to be far more powerful than he actually is.

Arliss I will give credit is not completely dull as Disraeli, he is dull at times most certainly, but not all the time. There are many boring moments where Arliss reads his lines, in a slightly above average fashion, which is unfortuantely only slightly above average for the time, which means he still is pretty dull and quite boring.  These moments he barely does much of anything, and he certainly does not add it to his completely stiff spine he has in the role either.

Arliss does have his better moments  though which are the manipulation moments, where he does show some energy in his portrayal of Disraeli, showing that Disraeli enjoys being smarter than every thing else. He also inserts some passion into his performance when fighting for the nation.  These are better moments because firstly he infuses some much needed spirit into the role, and also he does seem to use film a little bit to show his performance reacting in the right way toward the camera in the right fashion, rather than treating the film set like a stage set as he does in many other scenes. Although Arliss has his semi moments he never really is that good though, he is only ever at best mildly fine with his performance.

Best Actor 1930

And the Nominees Were:

Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond

Ronald Colman in Condemned

George Arliss in The Green Goddess 

George Arliss in Disraeli

Maurice Chevalier in The Big Pond

Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade

Wallace Beery in The Big House

Lawrence Tibbett in The Rogue Song

That's right eight nominations total. Unfortunately though since only two short clips of Tibbett's performance survive so I will only be doing a very brief review of his performance that will not be ranked with the others, or rated.