For the vast majority of its 95-year history, theAcademy Awardshas banned write-in voting. In the modern era, fans and industry insiders alike occasionally propose write-in campaigns for movies and creators snubbed by the nomination process, despite the fact that it’s outlawed in the official voting rules. But for a brief period from 1935 to 1936, the Academy did allow write-in votes, and one person actually won as a write-in. CinematographerHal Mohrtook home an Oscar forA Midsummer Night’s Dreamin 1936 — and he hasBette Davis'1935 snub to thank for it.
When Oscar nominations are announced each January,the actors, directors, and crew who don’t make the cutoften generate as much buzz as the ones who do. WhenMichael Moore’s documentaryRoger & Mewas snubbed in 1990,dozens of filmmakers called for a changeto the way nominations were made in the Best Documentary category. In 2009, at least oneanonymous Academy voter claimedthey planned to write in a Best Picture vote forChristopher Nolan’sThe Dark Knight. And in 2013, writers atThe Hollywood Reporterpushed write-insfor directorBen AffleckforArgo— even while acknowledging that the Academy wouldn’t count them. But perhaps no snub had a bigger impact on Oscar history than Bette Davis for 1934’sOf Human Bondage.
The Academy Started Write-In Votes After Bette Davis' Controversial 1935 Oscar Snub
Davis had a rough goin her first few years in Hollywood. After a string of thankless roles in unremarkable films, Universal Studios let her contract expire. Ready to call it quits on a screen career, Davis planned to go back to New York, where she’d had some success on Broadway. At the last minute, however, she was unexpectedly cast in a major role in 1932’sThe Man Who Played God— and from there, her career took off.
Based on the 1915 novel of the same name byW. Somerset Maugham,Of Human Bondagefollows failed artist-turned-medical student Philip (Leslie Howard), who becomes obsessed with cruel and manipulative waitress Mildred Rogers (Davis). The film was produced by RKO, and at the time, Davis was contracted with Warner Bros., but she was determined to get the role of Mildred. Studio headJack Warnerinitially turned down her pleas to be loaned out to RKO, arguing that the unlikable character of Mildred would damage her glamorous persona. But Davis wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I begged, implored, cajoled,“she recounted later. “I haunted Jack Warner’s office. Every single day, I arrived at his door with the shoeshine boy.” Eventually, RKO producerPandro Bermantalked Warner into a deal:Warner would get RKO contractee Irene Dunne for the musicalSweet Adeline, and RKO would get Davis.
The move turned out to be a smart one. Although the film flopped at the box office, critics raved about Davis’s performance. TheNew York Times called it"enormously effective” — noting that the audience cheered when the villainous Mildred finally got her comeuppance — andLife Magazine exclaimedthat it was “[p]robably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a U.S. actress.”
Yet whenAcademy Award nominations rolled aroundthe following year, fans and critics alike were shocked to find Davis’s name absent from the list.One outraged fan wrote toMovie Classicmagazine, “Are the judges near-sighted, or with the present reign of censorship fearful of so much as countenancing her ‘bad-girl’ role inOf Human Bondage? Surely, they can’t be so blindly prejudiced as to fail to realize that Bette’s Mildred was not only the most individual performance of the year. It has made screen history.” The uproar reached such fervor that at the eleventh hour,the Academy made a surprise rule change, allowing write-in votes for the first time in its history.
Hal Mohr Won His Oscar For ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Through Write-In Votes
Despite all the noise, Davis didn’t win that year; instead,It Happened One Nightsweptthe five major categories, becoming the first film to do so.Davis actually came in third— still an impressive result for a write-in. (She’d take home her first of two Oscars the following year for her turn as Joyce Heath inDangerous.) Warner Bros., however, saw the ultimately unsuccessful effort and began to get ideas. After Oscar nominations were announced in 1936,the studio launched massive write-in campaignsfor every category in which they didn’t already have a nomination. Several of these campaigns came close to succeeding, andone actually did: Hal Mohr, Best Cinematography.
Mohr was already a seasoned cinematographer at the time, having worked in Hollywood since 1915 and shot therevolutionary talkieThe Jazz Singerin 1927. Though his win forA Midsummer Night’s Dreamwas unprecedented, it wasn’t undeserved. Much of the movie takes place in a mystical forest, and the production (which was shot in black and white, of course)had serious difficulty lighting the complicated set— the proofs were consistently far too dark to see the scenery or follow the action. Though co-directorWilliam Dieterle’s meddling with the set was primarily to blame, it was principal photographerErnest Hallerwho paid the price. He was fired, and Mohr took over his role.
As Scott MacQueen writes inThe Moving Image, Mohr devised several solutions to the lighting problem. He removed some of the trees and brought in a crew of painters to cover everything with aluminum paint and high-gloss shellac, to reflect as much light as possible. He then draped cobwebs over the entire set and sprayed them with particles of glass and mica to create a glittering, fairy tale-like effect. Mohr’s ingenuity not only saved the film,it gave the forest set a stunning, ethereal quality that audiences had never before seen on screen.
The Academy Banned Write-In Votes Again in 1937
But as much as industry insiders were indignant at Davis’s snub,they were outraged at Mohr’s surprise win— deserved or not. In its report on the results,Varietynotedthat Academy members worried stunts like the one pulled by Warner Bros. cheapened the honor of winning an Academy Award. As Kristin Hunt wrote inVulture, those working in the technical categories, who had been caught off guard by Mohr’s surprise victory, began an immediate push to reverse the rule change. The Academy — recognizing that write-ins made it too easy to manipulate the votes — concurred, and the following year write-in voting was once again banned.
Mohr would win another Oscar in 1944 forThe Phantom of the OperastarringClaude Rains, becoming thefirst cinematographer to win for both a black and white film and a color film. With no sign that the Academy has any inclination to reinstate write-in voting, he’s likely to remain the only write-in Oscar winner in history.
A Midsummer Night’s Dreamis available to rent on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.
