Noir Nook: Oscar Omission – Edward G. Robinson

Noir Nook: Oscar Omission – Edward G. Robinson

One of my favorite times of year is awards season. For years, as soon as the Oscars are announced, I’ve been on a quest to see as many Oscar-nominated films and performances as possible. And I’m happy to say that in 2022, thanks to streaming, I was able to see every film in each of the eight main categories for the first time!

But I digress. The point of Noir Nook this month isn’t to discuss films or actors that have received Oscar awards in the past, but instead to spotlight Edward G. Robinson, a noir vet who was never the recipient of that golden statuette .

It’s hard to understand, but Robinson was never even nominated for an Oscar, despite a career that spanned seven decades and included a variety of roles in films like Little Caesar (1931), The whole city is talking (1935), sea ​​wolf (1941) and Our vines have tender grapes (1945). Today I’m looking at three of his noir performances that I think should have been applauded by the Academy.

Barton Keyes: double compensation (1944)

This film – my absolute favorite by the way – revolves around the deadly duo of housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray). These two team up for a little handkerchief and a little murder, and intend to rake in a big insurance payday after taking down Phyllis’ hapless husband.

Robinson played Walter’s boss, a claims adjuster who harbors a “little man” in his gut that empowers him to uncover all manner of evasions and wrongdoing. As Barton Keyes, Robinson serves up a master class in acting and gives us a character who is smart and implacable, compassionate, funny and adorable. Robinson was initially reluctant to take on the supporting role, but he turned it into one of noir’s most memorable performances. From his first scene, in which he outwits a hapless truck driver trying to collect a fraudulent debt, to his final scene, in which he pathos and tenderly lights his doomed colleague and friend’s cigarette, he excels.

Christopher Cross: Scarlet Road (1945)

Robinson plays a humble cashier whose life is turned upside down when he saves the seductive Kitty March (Joan Bennett) from what appears to be an attack on the street by a stranger. The stranger turns out to be Kitty’s good-for-nothing friend Johnny (Dan Duryea), who sees nothing but dollar signs when he and Kitty mistakenly believe that Chris is a wealthy artist. It’s a mistake that will ultimately lead to disaster for all of them.

For my money, Chris Cross is one of Robinson’s most intriguing characters. He’s perfectly sympathetic, if a little pathetic; he shows himself to be an upstanding citizen at first, and when we meet his seedy wife, we don’t blame him for getting off with another woman. His greatest joy in life (before he met Kitty, that is) is bringing his rather unusual perspective to the screen. And unfortunately, once he falls in love with Kitty, he makes decisions he would never otherwise have considered. bad. And Robinson plays all these facets with believable perfection.

Gino Monetti: house of strangers (1950)

In this feature, Robinson is the strong-willed patriarch of an Italian family and owner of a bank that he runs like his family – with his own rules and an iron fist. Gino’s questionable banking practices land him in hot water with the law, but after years of being bullied by his father, three of his sons refuse to help. Only his favorite son Max (Richard Conte) is willing to fight back, but when Max bribes a jury member, he ends up serving a seven-year sentence – and, fueled by his father’s resentment, swears revenge on his siblings.

Robinson plays Gino as the despot you love to hate. We are introduced to him taking a bubble bath and belting out an Italian song. When his eldest son Joe (Luther Adler) walks in, Gino orders him to scrub his back and barks instructions at him (“Higher! Harder! A little lower!”) before splashing soapy water in Joe’s face. We see more evidence of Gino’s treatment of his sons during one of the family’s weekly dinners. At Gino’s urging, the meal is postponed in favor of the defaulting Max, and when the youngest son, Pietro (Paul Valentine), eats a piece of bread, Gino orders him to spit it out, repeatedly calling him a “fool”. Outside the home, Gino’s royalty-like personality is demonstrated at the bank, where every morning he hosts a crowd of community members, all of whom demand money from him, which he pays out in cash from a safe after listening to their various stories – man who man Signing a $150 note for a new horse only gets $120 (“Interest,” Gino explains. “I’ll take them out in advance.”) while a woman who wants a $62 train ticket to take her sick child to Denver send, gets a handful of money. When the woman tells him he gave her too much, Gino shrugs. “So I make a mistake.” Scene after scene, Robinson skillfully brings to life a character who embodies tyranny, ambition, compassion and – at the very end – an all-consuming grudge against the three sons who turned against him.

I can’t think of any other performer from Hollywood’s Golden Age who displayed such talent and versatility but was never recognized by the Academy. In my opinion Edward G. Robinson should have been nominated for at least those three performances if he hadn’t received an Oscar for all three. What do you think? And can you think of any other noir performances that deserve Oscar recognition? Leave a comment and let me know!

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– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.

Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on films and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and is the editor-in-chief of The Dark Sides, a bi-monthly newsletter dedicated to film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film And Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages.
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