Oscar Profiles: Maurice Chevalier in The Big Pond

Best Actor Nominee, 1930 (paired with The Love Parade)
Lost to George Arliss in Disraeli

I'd argue that Maurice Chevalier didn't have much in the way of acting talent: he had charm and a certain lasciviousness, a knowing leer and a good singing voice. However good he was in the string of Ernst Lubitsch-directed and -inspired musicals he made in the early 1930s was a direct result of how well the films tapped his limited talents. This lower-tier semi-musical, more a standard fish out of water comedy than a musical or a romance, doesn't play to any of his strengths, and thus his Best Actor nod is one of the big head-scratchers of early 1930s acting nominations (a period filled with head-scratchers). Chevalier needed a bit of disreputability in his scripts, and the only thing this one can muster is some half-hearted references to homosexuality. Everything here works against Chevalier's grain, and so he seems a tad lost, with little of the charm that he sometimes passed off as talent. Of course the film was paired with the far superior The Love Parade, as nominations often were in the first few years of Oscar, so it's a bit more understandable to see his name among the luminaries of the category. But just a little bit. Performance rating: 2 goats