"Stella Dallas" and "Camille" are named often as Stanwyck's and Garbo's best roles. Considering none of them ever won an Academy Award, who do you think should've won?
JUAN.
Either one would have been better than Luise Rainer playing a Chinese woman! But Garbo should have won, and Barbara should have won in 1944 for Double Indemnity.
shareTo me this was the greatest set of Best Actress nominations in Oscar history. 1939 and 1950 were also extremely strong but 1937 was absolutely the only time when I felt every single nominee deserved the award. My personal choices for 1937 are:
1. Barbara Stanwyck, Stella Dallas
2. Janet Gaynor, A Star is Born (has several just as memorable emotional scenes including a knockout of a finale)
3. Greta Garbo, Camille
4. Luise Rainer, The Good Earth
5. Irene Dunne, The Awful Truth
Every one of these performances is brillant and superior to dozens of others that actually won the Best Actress award! I do feel it is tragic that Barbara Stanwyck's years in the Oscar race were always strong years for the Best Actress category. She was the best in 1944 as well IMO but Ingrid Bergman was not an unpopular choice, for 1948 Jane Wyman justly won for Johnny Belinda and in 1941 I could vote for Stanwyck in The Lady Eve had she been nominated for that film but I don't think her work in the rather light albeit thoroughly enjoyable Ball of Fire is as strong a performance as Joan Fontaine in Suspicion or Bette Davis in The Little Foxes.