Academy to recognize Jerry Lewis with an honorary Oscar: What are the greatest unrecognized comedic performances of all time?

by Steve Mason

The Academy Awards have never been generous and fair in recognizing comedies. In 1934, the near-perfect romantic comedy It Happened One Night became the first film to win Best Picture, Best Actor: Clark Gable, Best Actress: Claudette Colbert and Best Director: Frank Capra. That feat has only been accomplished twice since then with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Silence of the Lambs.


Since then, a few musical comedies like Going My Way, Gigi and My Fair Lady have broken through with Best Picture wins, but the only true comedic films to score Hollywood’s biggest prize were You Can’t Take It With You (1938), The Sting (1973), Annie Hall (1977) and Shakespeare in Love (1998).

As Bob Hope famously said while hosting the 1968 Oscars, “Welcome to the Academy Awards, or, as it’s known at my house, Passover.” (Hope was recognized with five separate Honorary Awards from the Academy over the years.) The reality is that actors and actresses who specialize in comedy are regularly “passed over.” They are rarely nominated and almost never win.


This year, the under-appreciated comic genius Jerry Lewis will receive the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his tireless work for Muscular Dystrophy over the years. Lewis tells Entertainment Weekly that he is honored, but that it is bittersweet because the Academy is recognizing his service and not his film performances. ”Because they didn’t think enough of my work. Because what I did didn’t command consideration because it’s slapstick, because it’s lowbrow, because the Academy’s always been cautious about comedy.”

A couple of summers ago, I went to the Hollywood Bowl on a perfect summer night to see a program called the Music of Paramount Pictures. The idea was that the Los Angeles Philharmonic accompanied scenes from classic Paramount movies projected on a gigantic screen. I was blown away by this sequence starring Jerry Lewis in The Errand Boy.


As the famous expression goes, “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” In tribute to Jerry Lewis and all of the great comic performers who were overlooked across the decades, here is my list of the ten best comic performances not to be nominated for an Academy Award. Feel free to suggest your own. My list is, by no means, definitive.

1. BILL MURRAY, CADDYSHACK (1980)
Also worthy for Groundhog’s Day, but with loony groundskeeper Carl Spackler, he teaches a master class in funny. Who among us has not done the impression? “It’s a Cinderella story….”

2. PARKER POSEY, BEST IN SHOW (2000)
I am citing Posey, but this movie was filled with amazing comic performances. Posey gets the nod for her insanely funny rant at a pet store while she is looking trying to replace her dogs favorite stuffed toy, which is shaped like a bee. “No, that’s a bear in a, in a bee costume. This? This is a fish. This is a fish! You know what? Just shut up. I didn’t ask for your opinion. I asked for a toy that you don’t have!”

3. GENE WILDER, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)
Tough choice between Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, but I knew Wilder had to be on the list. And, for the record, “it’s pronounced ‘Fronkensteen.’”

4. JOHN BELUSHI, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE (1978)
Would Belushi have gone on to become a durable comic star? I don’t know. But from Bluto’s impression of a zit to his rip-roaring motivational speech (“Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”), he is the reason the average American male loves Animal House to this day.


5. CARY GRANT, HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940)
This is flat-out one of my favorite movies. Another Howard Hawks comedy, this rat-a-tat-tat newspaper yarn is a hilarious full-scale charm offensive for Grant. Also brilliant in Bringing Up Baby, a bit further down the list, he aside from the Honorary variety, Grant never won an Oscar for Best Actor.


6. ALBERT BROOKS, LOST IN AMERICA (1985)
This is genius from beginning to end. Highlight: after Linda (played by Julie Haggerty) loses the “nest egg” in one night at the tables, Brooks tries to convince the casino general manager (Garry Marshall) to do something unprecedented, “As the boldest experiment in advertising history, you give us our money back.” Priceless.


7. MATTHEW BRODERICK, FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF (1986)
He received a Golden Globe nomination, but was snubbed at the Oscars. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are such a wonderful crowd, we’d like to play a little tune for you. It’s one of my personal favorites and I’d like to dedicate it to a young man who doesn’t think he’s seen anything good today – Cameron Frye, this one’s for you.” And with that, Broderick performs Wayne Newton’s Danke Schoen.

8. KATHERINE HEPBURN, BRINGING UP BABY (1938)
This Howard Hawks’ directed classic features Hepburn as Susan Vance. Possibly the quintessential screwball comedy, riding on Kate’s effervescent performance which actresses have been riffing on ever since. She did win four Academy Awards in her career, but nothing for her role that included this line, “There is a leopard on your roof and it’s my leopard and I have to get it and to get it I have to sing.”

9. SEAN PENN, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982)
Based on the real-life growing up years of writer/director Cameron Crowe, Penn steals the show with his stoner-surfer-dude turn as Jeff Spicoli, a character who understood what the Declaration of Independence is all about. “What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place ’cause it was bogus; so if we don’t get some cool rules ourselves – pronto – we’ll just be bogus too! Get it?”

10. JACK BENNY, TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942)
A decade ago, this movie was placed in the National Film Registry by the National Film Preservation Board, and it is a classic, in part, because of the genius of Jack Benny. He knew how to get laughs both on radio and television because he came up the hard way n the vaudeville circuit. More known for TV, To Be Or Not To Be was easily his best film role.

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.


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Posted Feb 20th 2009 at 2:41 pm in Entertainment, Media Criticism, Steve Mason's Box Office | 176 Comments