Last week I went on a rant about the three worst performances to have won Best Actress Oscars. This week I want to concentrate on a more positive note, showcasing the best actresses never to have won an Oscar despite multiple award-worthy performances. There are five that come quickly to mind: Irene Dunne, Deborah Kerr, Rosalind Russell, Barbara Stanwyck and Marlene Dietrich.

Irene Dunne had been a Broadway star from the early 1920s and burst onto the national scene leading the touring version of Show Boat in 1929. Brought to Hollywood by RKO as the “new Ann Harding” even though she was three years older than Harding, Dunne was an immediate sensation. By 1931 she already had her first Oscar nomination for Cimarron in which she played the first of many roles in which her character aged from a young girl to an old lady. It was also one of the many films she made that were so good Hollywood remade made them and suppressed the originals. Cimarron having won the Best Picture Oscar was never really suppressed, but aside from its great opening scene and Dunne’s magnificent performance, is one of the least revered Oscar winners.

Dunne’s best films were slow to emerge on DVD, but we now have a good if incomplete catalogue of her work available. Her excellent performance in the original 1935 version of Magnificent Obsession can be found as an extra on Criterion’s release of the better known 1954 version with Jane Wyman. Her breakthrough comedy role in 1936’s Theodora Goes Wild is available as is her best known comedy role in 1937’s The Awful Truth which brought her back-to-back second and third Oscar nods. You can still get a thrill from her lilting soprano in 1935’s Roberta even as Warner Bros. continues to sit on the great 1936 version of Show Boat which is only available as a bootleg..

Dunne’s much loved performance in 1939’s Love Affair, which brought her a fourth Oscar nomination, is available in numerous public domain versions while her 1941 classic Penny Serenade has recently been rescued from public domain hell. 1940s’s marvelous screwball comedy, My Favorite Wife has never really been out of circulation despite having been remade in 1963 as Move Over Darling. Her legendary World War II classics, A Guy Named Joe and The White Cliffs of Dover are available through the Warner Archive. Her always popular portrayal of Anna Leonowens in 1946’s Anna and the King of Siam and the Norwegian-American mother in 1948’s I Remember Mama, which brought a fifth Oscar nomination remain available and Fox Cinema Archives has recently released her 1950 triumph as Queen Victoria in The Mudlark.

Deborah Kerr quite literally took over where Dunne left off, remaking two of Dunne’s classics after Dunne retired from the screen in 1953. Anna and the King of Siam was remade as 1956’s The King and I and Love Affair was remade as 1957’s An Affair to Remember, both highlights of Kerr’s career as the earlier versions had been highlights of Dunne’s.

Kerr was, of course, much more than simply a successor to Dunne, having already established a chameleon ability to play just about anything in such films as 1943’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; 1945’s Vacation From Marriage; 1947’s Black Narcissus and I See a Dark Stranger and her first two Oscar nominated performances in 1949’s Edward, My Son and 1953’s From Here to Eternity, all of which are available on DVD.

Kerr’s four remaining Oscar nominated performances in the previously mentioned The King and I as well as 1957’sHeaven Knows, Mr. Allison; 1958’s Separate Tables and 1960’s The Sundowners have long been available on DVD as well. Her equally fine work in 1956’s Tea and Sympathy and 1964’s The Chalk Garden, though more difficult to find, as well as 1964’s The Night of the Iguana are also available as is some of her lesser post-1964 work.

Rosalind Russell, like Irene Dunne, was brought to Hollywood as a back-up to another reigning star, in her case MGM’s Myrna Loy. Initially given the roles Loy passed on, Russell worked her way to stardom in such classics as 1937’s Night Must Fall; 1938’s The Citadel; 1939’s The Women and 1940’s His Girl Friday, finally receiving her first Oscar nominations for 1942’s My Sister Eileen, all of which are available on DVD. Curiously her 1946 Oscar nominated performance in Sister Kenny is not available while her 1947 Oscar nominated performance in Mourning Becomes Electra is. Her later acclaimed work in 1955’s Picnic; 1958’s Auntie Mame (her signature role for which she received her fourth and final Oscar nomination); 1961’s A Majority of One; 1962’s Gypsy and 1966’s The Trouble With Angels is all available on DVD.

Barbara Stanwyck was out of the chorus and into starring roles at the dawn of sound. As her husky voice and no nonsense approach deepened over the years, so did her abiding popularity with the public. She was a star throughout her career, as big on TV in later years as she was in her movies, most of which are available on DVD. You can lose yourself in such early Stanwyck triumphs as 1931’s highly dramatic Night Nurse and The Miracle Woman through 1933’s The Bitter Tea of General Yen and Baby Face and her first Oscar nominated performance in 1937’s Stella Dallas to her triple comedy triumphs of 1941 in The Lady Eve; Meet John Doe and Ball of Fire for which she received her second Oscar bid.

You can further follow Stanwyck on DVD through 1944’s film noir classic, Double Indemnity for which she received her third Oscar nomination through 1945’s holiday favorite Christmas in Connecticut and 1948’s suspense filled Sorry, Wrong Number for which she received her fourth and final Oscar bid through 1954’s Executive Suite in which she stands out amid an all-star cast all the way to 1983’s The Thorn Birds, the TV mini-series for which she won a well-earned Emmy.

Marlene Dietrich was also out of the chorus and into starring roles in the early days of the talkies. No star before or since has ever been given the build-up that Dietrich was given. A cabaret star in Berlin, she had been in German films since 1919 when she was discovered by Josef von Sternberg on a scouting trip for the female lead in The Blue Angel and brought to Hollywood. Filmed in both German and English, 1930’s The Blue Angel was only shown in Berlin and Paris before Dietrich’s second Hollywood film, Morocco, for which she would receive her only Oscar nomination, introduced her to the rest of the world. These iconic films as well as her biggest hit, 1932’s Shanghai Express, along with that same year’s Blonde Venus, remain the films for which she is best known. Later 1930s box office flops derailed her Hollywood career, but the 1939 western comedy classic, Destry Rides Again made her more popular than ever.

Dietrich’s tireless work entertaining the troops during World War II further enhanced her popularity. Following the war she played the second lead in two films in which she completely overpowered those film’s leading ladies, formidable actresses though they may been. She completely overwhelmed both Jean Arthur in 1948’s A Foreign Affair and Jane Wyman in 1950’s Stage Fright. An enormous concert star from 1953 through the late 1970s when she retired, Dietrich made sporadic appearances in films during the period, receiving some of her best notices for 1957’s Witness for the Prosecution; 1958’s Touch of Evil and 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg. These are but some of the many Dietrich films available on DVD.

This week’s new releases include 42 and TV’s Masterpiece Mystery: Endeavour Series 1.