Oscar Profiles: Charles Coburn in The Devil and Miss Jones

Best Supporting Actor nomination, 1941
Lost to Donald Crisp in How Green Was My Valley

Although I'm still choking a little on some massive category fraud—Charles Coburn is the lead in this film, not a supporting player by any measure—and although it might be that this is just another case of Coburn being rewarded for doing the exact same thing over and over—three Oscar nominations for playing essentially the same gruff curmudgeon—I loved this film, and I loved Charles Coburn in it. He gives one of his three best performances (the others coming in The Lady Eve and Heaven Can Wait) as John P. Merrick, a reclusive plutocrat who decides to ferret out the union organizers in one of his department stores by posing as a shoe clerk and infiltrating their ranks. Of course he starts out as a bumbler, demonstrating how his wealth has insulated him from having to learn any useful skills, and of course he initially distrusts and then grows fond of the rabble-rousers, among them Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings, and a surprisingly attractive Spring Byington. It's hard to nail down exactly what makes him so good here, but I think Sam Wood's sprightly direction is the reason; maybe Coburn dependably brings the same raw materials to a role—that patrician voice coupled with the vaguely ridiculous carriage and face, that impeccable comic timing, and that grandfatherly warmth bubbling beneath the surface—but only sometimes does the right director allow or convince him to put his talents to such good use. He shows off a knack for physical comedy in a hilarious shoe-fitting battle with a recalcitrant tween, hefty doses of his patented gloweringly funny anger in any number of scenes, and a touching softness, especially in his scenes with Byington. Yes, it's the same Charles Coburn schtick that we've grown so used to, but the success of this movie depended on the perfect deployment of that schtick. Performance rating: 4 goats