Alternate Best Actor 1946: Results

5. Sydney Greenstreet in The Verdict - Greenstreet is innately an interesting performer but even that struggles under the often repetitive role he has here. 

 

Best Scene: Summary.  

4. Michel Simon in Panique - Simon gives a convincing performance as an eccentric but mostly innocent man being played as the fool.

 

Best Scene:  Finale.

3. Franco Interlenghi in Shoeshine - Interlenghi gives a moving and convincing portrayal of a boy's friendship but also his hardened state slowly being worn away by a cruel system.

 

Best Scene: Interrogation.  

2. Michael Redgrave in The Captive Heart - Redgrave gives a moving portrayal of the quiet tension but also determination of a man living under constant threat yet still trying to maintain his humanity. 

 

Best Scene: Explaining his story. 

1. Charles Boyer in Cluny Brown - Good prediction Robert. Boyer is at his most charming here in delivering on the wonderful wit of his character where he manages to be the smartest man in the room so effortlessly and delightfully.  

 

Best Scene:  Final talk with Cluny.

Updated Overall 

 

Next: A few supporting reviews for 46. 

Alternate Best Actor 1946: Michel Simon in Panique

Michel Simon did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Monsieur Hire in Panique.

Panique follows an eccentric outsider as he gets slowly set up to take the fall of a murder by the murderer and his accomplice girlfriend. 

Simon honestly doesn’t play a role too far removed from his work with Jean Renoir in La Chienne. Where both films are essentially setups for one man to be treated cruelly by a couple with the woman acting as a black widow to ensnare the unsuspecting man. A key word in both instances however is unsuspecting, not innocent. We first really see Hire from a bit of a distance as a potentially suspicious man as the film opens with the murder of a woman and the whole town wondering who might be the culprit. We see Hire lurking about and Simon in a way creates the potential doubt where the man is knowingly looking on in these moments and it seems like he knows something. Well he does know something as a new woman comes into town, Alice (Viviane Romance), who has already helped the actual murderer, Alfred (Paul Bernard), cover up a different murder before even coming to see him as a false stranger so they can be together while avoiding police suspicion. Simon plays directly a creep figure as he leers at Alice from his window then even approaches her the following day, in no way trying to soften those elements. Although one can argue a noble effort that Hire wants to warn her about Alfred, because he knows for sure that Alfred is the killer, since Hire knows it becomes a strange game he is also playing given he could easily turn over his evidence to the police at any time that he claims to have. Simon though is effective and convincing in presenting the strangeness in a very tangible way where you never doubt that Hire would proceed in this way as the man just has his own way about life and interacting with others. 

The film then progresses as Alice is instructed to ingratiate herself with Hire to eventually plant evidence of the murder, meanwhile Alfred spreads rumors around about the already disliked Hire to try to get the town to turn on him. In their interactions Simon manages an artful combination between some genuine pathos as he describes with this accepted manner his own life as an outsider in all places, while holding this cheery disposition when speaking of his own wife who died. In those moments Simon is quietly moving, although at the same time he does bring a certain overbearing quality in moments that again emphasize that eccentricity in ways that are less endearing. While we know Alice is manipulative, and the real reason why she’s there, Simon very much presents a certain obliviousness even with some bits of creepiness as the man is just fascinated by this woman who is bothering to give him the time of day. I haven’t said it in awhile but this film is a bit of a director’s film where the overall vision is most pronounced and to a certain point the characters are more so puzzle pieces in that tapestry more than fully coming to life beyond it. At a certain point Hire is given less time, particularly in the lead up to the climax, although he returns for the climax where Simon certainly is moving and makes his whole scene of becoming a pariah hard to watch. Simon emphasizing just the confusion of the moment that turns to fear and just the final sorrow in his eyes is heartbreaking. There is however a certain limitation by the nature of the script however and by comparison the similar role in La Chienne had more he could sink his teeth into, no pun intended. It’s a good performance as Simon creates the tragedy both in terms of showing why people might not trust Hire, why Hire might conceal his knowledge of the murder, but also how he still is a victim regardless. 

Alternate Best Actor 1946

 And the Nominees Were Not:

 

Michel Simon in Panique

 

Michael Redgrave in The Captive Heart

 

Charles Boyer in Cluny Brown

 

Franco Interlenghi in Shoeshine

 

Sydney Greenstreet in The Verdict  

Alternate Best Actor 1967: Results

 5. Sergei Bondarchuk in War and Peace Part IV - I elected not to review Bondarchuk for his self-directed performance. While a good performance in terms of his reactions to the various horrors of war and the eventual respite in the end, as a director he chooses not to focus on his performance as much as you'd think, particularly when the subtitle of the film is his character's name. Pierre's story while not lost in the shuffle wholly, is not focused upon performance wise heavily, instead choosing more visual choices to convey certain moments including the final romantic overture where we get a brief reaction by Bondarchuk, which while good, is quickly moved on from. He gives a good performance but it does feel like less of an impactful one thanks his choices as a director than say what he gave himself as an actor in the first part of the film series especially. 

Best Scene: Arriving Home. 

4. Ljubiša Samardžić in The Morning - Within very much a director's film as well, giving a interesting charismatic performance that unfortunately is very much limited by the confines of the writing. 

Best Scene: Fantasy

3. Michel Simon in The Two of Us - Simon gives a striking and extremely naturalistic portrayal of seemingly warm loving old man, who also holds some casual cruel prejudices. 

Best Scene: Ending.

2. Scott Wilson in In Cold Blood - Wilson gives a brilliant counter performance to Blake, bringing to life as tangibly a career criminal who may be less personally violent but is just as deadly. 

Best Scene: Conning the store. 

1. Toshiro Mifune in Samurai Rebellion - Good predictions Razor and Shaggy. Mifune delivers one of his best performances giving such a moving portrayal of the love of a father that also realizes intense rage when that love is endangered. 

Best Scene: The violence begins. 

Updated Overall

Next: 1967 Supporting (Probably not a lineup)

Alternate Best Actor 1967: Michel Simon in The Two of Us

Michel Simon did not receive an Oscar nomination, despite winning the Silver Bear, for portraying Pépé in The Two of Us. 

The Two of Us follows a young Jewish boy Claude sent to live with an elderly couple in the country. 

Michel Simon was simply one of the first actors to “get it” when it came to film acting, becoming one of the early consistent performers on film who not only seemed to understand the medium but had the ability to take risks with dynamic characterizations. A career that lasted from the silent era to the 70’s. One of the few major awards received by Simon was for Berlin top acting prize for this film. Simon plays the grandfather of the elderly couple who take in the boy and Simon’s ability on screen is readily apparent as it always is. There’s a natural ease to his performances and this one is no different. Simon brings instantly a sense of this man of the country who has long lived there and pretty much is an innate product of this existence, something we will find is both a good thing and a bad thing. But let’s begin with the lacking complication of the good, where Simon is truly wonderful in portraying the overabundance of warmth in his performance towards the boy Claude. Simon is just beaming in the way he presents that the grandfather couldn’t be more fulfilled than when he is playing with this boy. He is loving every second of it, and is something you feel come across the screen to create such a warm loving dynamic. Simon has so many great moments that aren’t defined by any great drama just of great fun. Such as rough housing with the boy, or a moment of the two swinging each other on a swing. There is such a zest to it all and Simon succeeds in making that sense of fun come to the viewer, while also seemingly getting the best out of the child actor who too seems to be just having fun at least from what comes onscreen. It feels wholly natural and just wholly honest in every moment of it. 

But of course it isn’t all good, and even then Simon is great such as a moment where Claude is sent away to school where he is immediately bullied, ridiculed and has his head cruelly shaved. Simon’s reaction is heartbreaking because you do so how much he loves the boy in his eyes and his delivery of saying that he’ll teach him instead couldn’t be more reassuring or supportive to the struggling boy. With that though we have the most challenging aspect of the film and something that I think is its greatest ambition but also its greatest deficiency. Because as much as the film devotes so many lovely moments to Simon’s Pépé, it as often gives him moments of his views on the world which are openly antisemetic, prejudicial to outsiders in general and fully supports the Nazi puppet French leader Philippe Pétain. There’s a struggle here as the film is directed by Claude Berri, that depicts a boy named Claude in a situation that apparently mirrors his own life where he too was sent to the countryside to an antismetic couple, so theoretically he is just delivering his life story, and so maybe why the reckoning of this element is light, and the commentary on it beyond the depiction is somewhat limited. Berri himself seems to want to focus on the good times more but wishes to depict that nagging element. Something that should be potentially fascinating but maybe his closeness to the subject matter limited his commentary. So creates a curious situation because so much of it, and so much of what Simon does in the role, wants you to love Pépé yet he has these horrible beliefs behind him. 

Well as much as the film limits the resolution of this, Simon I think does what he can in terms of trying to kind of make you understand this man, and show that someone can be largely likable as long as you don’t bring up certain subjects, which to be fair holds true for some. Simon very much emphasizes the limitations of the man’s perspective for his politics. When he goes off on Jewish people, foreigners, communists or anything else, there’s a routine in his delivery, it is the standard statements of expectation and something he doesn’t even really reflect on. It is an old man’s rambling, sadly given the situation such mentality leading to horrible events so it is difficult to ignore. Something that the boy slightly challenges by questioning if he’s actually met Jewish people, which Simon’s reaction in these moments is perfect as it is of someone who never even furnished such deep connections to the topic as he presents confusion and naivety. An element Berri seems to be partially commenting on such as when Pépé happens upon a brutal Nazi regulation, where Simon’s reaction is terrific in showing the suddenly the old man being completely lost at such a horrible notion before being hurried along. Or another moment where with the war ending Pépé is still holding onto Pétain as this great man, to the point even part of Pépé’s family threaten to leave forever if the old man doesn’t take the picture of the disgraced false leader. We get the moment after he’s caved in, where Simon would be deeply affecting with the emotion he brings out in his performance by showing so convincingly this man who is just lost and confused by the revelations of the world around him…if one can’t be so easily detached given what he’s sad about is a man who was an active tool of the Nazi regime. So it’s a strange situation, but in all of this Simon is effective in playing every emotional beat, and creating a cohesiveness in presenting the more savory and less savory elements of this character. As he is genuinely unquestionably affecting by comparison when Simon shows with such empathetic heartbreak the old man's reaction to the death of his faithful dog. There isn't a second where the emotion doesn't feel absolutely real and tangible. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention his scene of presenting himself as he was as a soldier in World War I, which is a terrific vaudevillian bit of over the top physical performance, where Simon is having a blast but is also very entertaining in the grandfather making fun of himself by lampooning old serious soldier self. But that scene is just another example of so much of what Simon does well with this part, challenging you to like this old man, even as his stated beliefs are that of a terrible person. 

Alternate Best Actor 1967

 And the Nominees Were Not:

Michel Simon in The Two of Us

Ljubiša Samardžić in The Morning

Sergei Bondarchuk in War and Peace Part IV

Toshiro Mifune in Samurai Rebellion

Scott Wilson in In Cold Blood

Alternate Best Actor 1932: Michel Simon in Boudu Saved from Drowning

Michel Simon did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying the titular character of Boudu Saved From Drowning. 

Boudu follows the interactions between a hobo and the family whose patriarch saved the man from drowning. 

Now with that brief synopsis you may be thinking this is some heartwarming story about the rich and poor coming together, and learning from each other. Well you'd be dead wrong, as it is a film by Jean Renoir after all who wasn't typically about the easiest answers. Rather this is a social satire personified most in the character of Boudu, who you may think is one thing in the opening scenes of the film, however again you'd be dead wrong. As the idiosyncratic Michel Simon, who at the very least always stood out as a screen presence no matter where or when he showed up by the sheer one of a kind nature of his face, first appears as a hobo we see lounging around a park. And while there seems the innate sympathy to be created as his dog runs away after he tells the dog to leave him alone while he's eating, even how he reacts isn't quite what you'd expect. It is though the one moment where his character seems even in mild distress as he asks a policeman if he's seen his dog, only to be aggressively scared away lest he be arrested. What speaks more to the character is Simon sitting on a park bench, seemingly somewhat dejected, until a young girl, prompted by his mother, gives him money for a meal. Simon's reaction to this is of a cold confusion and even annoyance and not at all a loving man you might expect. And we see his Boudu almost immediately give away the food to a random mean with a callous sort of anger before going off to jump in the river, seemingly to commit suicide. His attempt is prevented by the wealthy man Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval) who saves him from drowning and takes him into his home with his wife Emma (Marcelle Hainia) and his maid Chloe (Severine Lerczinska), whom Edouard also is having an affair with. 

The man being taken into the home is where the film begins and Simon's performance becomes the center of the film as this man exists outside of his world now living in the confined space of the rich. And while one might again presume this instead will be about how cruel and careless the rich are, that really isn't the case either as Boudu along with Simon's portrayal, is that of a man of chaos. Simon's physical performance is brilliant because everything he does paints a man essentially out of sorts with everything around him. Although what is so remarkable is how Simon embodies this into every aspect of his work, not just one. His face expresses a constant kind of discomfort, or a nasty sort of dismay. His chest seems always too tight within his now fancier clothes, his way of walking about the house even has an awkwardness as he almost kicks every step, likely a child bored but it doesn't really end there. Simon's constantly doing something physically, and it is captivating because every choice further illustrates the nature of Boudu in this situation. There's weird moments quite frankly of him even sitting between a door frame, which is amazing work by Simon because it feels so natural within his performance, though not natural within the setting. Every glance towards his rich host, every random spit, there is something so uniquely eye-catching about what Simon does, that makes him not just out of place, but actively trying to almost destroy the sense of place. And there really is the key to this performance, and the story as a whole. As this is not the case of the rich mistreating the poor, though there is certainly a disconnect, rather it is this story of a chaotic force being introduced into the tightly ordered constructed society of the house. 

Simon does not make you want to like Boudu, in fact you might find him as deplorable as the rich family does at certain points, though equally so, Simon does make there just something so captivating about the man even in his strangeness. Boudu spits randomly in the house, and scoffs at any redirection. He acts lustful towards both the wife and maid, which only exacerbates after he shaves his large beard. Simon's performance is piercing in its aggressiveness, of the man who constantly pesters and prods rather than enjoys. The man is incapable of existing in this more structured state, and Simon portrays a vicious disregard for all that he sees. There is something very specific within the performance though that makes him not exactly hateful with any sense for cause or passion, he's not some true anarchist or hippie breakdown the confines of society. Boudu is Boudu, who is a man who strives to exist within his world, his way with disregard for anyone or anything that gets in his way. Simon's performance brings to life this sense of the unwieldy, animalistic and callous. He never makes you care about Boudu, but he does make him so idiosyncratic in his state as a man that it becomes difficult to not watch him. In a way what his Boudu is, is like Laurel and Hardy, or Chaplin, as the men who are so unlikely themselves that it causes intense friction if not explosion against the society they are within. The difference though is Boudu's not comical, at least not in an overt charming way, and his behaviors always reeks of intention in his actions and is not accidental in his nonconformity. There isn't some secret that makes him who he is, there is some great change, even as he visually changes throughout, he is who he is and always is that, as this agent of individualistic chaos against everything that isn't his exact existence. A strange idea, that is realized effortlessly by Simon, who doesn't charm you or entertain you really, but rather he just fascinates you.