Best Pictures #23: 1928-29 Academy Awards, My Pick for Outstanding Picture

by A.J.

Best Pictures #23: 1928-29 Academy Awards
My Pick for Outstanding Picture

No film won more than one award at the 2^nd Academy Awards for films released between August 1^st 1928 and July 31^st 1929. The ceremony was held on April 3^rd, 1930. It was broadcast over the radio and every Academy Awards ceremony to follow would be broadcast on either radio or television. Like the rest of the film industry, it seems that the Academy didn’t quite know what to do about talking pictures. According to 85 Years of Oscar by Robert Osborne by Robert Osborne, the official history of the Academy Awards, there was serious debate about having separate categories for sound and silent movies. Ultimately there would not be separate categories and no nominations were publicly announced. The films and persons listed as nominees for the 2^nd Academy Awards have been determined by historians using in house records.

It is clear that the Academy still acknowledged the quality work being done in silent films but they overwhelmingly favored the talkies with nominations and wins. Many theaters at this time were still only equipped to show silent films, so there was still a demand for silent movies. Many films at this time, The Broadway Melody included, had a silent version made simultaneously as the sound version.  Movie posters advertised “100% ALL TALKING” and “HEAR WHAT YOU SEE!” to distinguish them from silent movies with some bits of sound added in like The Patriot and the previous year’s Unique and Artistic Picture winner, Sunrise. That demand however would drastically wane and by the time of the 3^rd Academy Awards silent movies would be a thing of the past.

The language of cinema would now contain an audio element, but this new tool would take time to master. The technical sophistication achieved by cinema thus far would be set back dramatically. Noisy cameras had to be housed in giant immobile metal boxes so their sound wouldn’t be recorded by the microphones. Those microphones had to be hidden in the set and actors could not be too far away from that area of the set. Cinema would bounce back and continue to grow and mature thematically and technically but not for a few years. It would be many years before the camera once again had the freedom of movement as it did during the silent era. Just a year before the 2^nd Academy Awards there was no such thing as the “silent era,” there was only “the movies.” Now, a distinct new era of cinema had begun.

My Pick for Outstanding Picture 1928-29: The Broadway Melody

For the 2nd Academy Awards there was only one Best Picture category, still called Outstanding Picture. The selection board of judges, still made up of only 5 people, chose the MGM musical The Broadway Melody for Outstanding Picture, and I once again agree with the Academy. The musical is a type of movie that could not exist before the advent of sound. Though the musical had by this time achieved a maturity on stage, it would take years to mature on screen. The Broadway Melody is a good start for the genre. I can’t give a full and complete judgement of the nominees since The Patriot is sadly lost, but of the films I was able to see the most entertaining and enjoyable was The Broadway Melody, though it is an uneven film.

The Broadway Melody is not without its share of flaws, including a less than likable leading male character, flimsy character motivations, and a mostly stationary camera. It feels a bit unfair to criticize the immobile camera of early sound films given the technical limitations of sound recording, but it is difficult not to compare the cinematography of these early sound movies to the limitless movement of camera in the silent movies from the previous year. That is still only a minor complaint for me. I’d rather watch a still camera shot with entertaining content than visually interesting but meaningless camerawork. This movie moved along at a steady pace since scenes did not drag on just for the sake of hearing the actors speak as they did with In Old Arizona. The Broadway Melody is filled with great songs, written by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, that have since become classics. However, my favorite thing about The Broadway Melody is that with Hank, played wonderfully well by Bessie Love, it has the most competent, interesting, and quasi-independent female character I’ve seen in any early Best Picture nominee thus far.

While watching The Broadway Melody, you are aware that you are watching the root of the movie musical. It has a simple story, but this movie is really about the musical numbers. If its plot and set pieces seem clichéd now, it is only because they have been repeated, reworked, and improved in musical after musical. I would recommend ignoring the unfairly low score on RottenTomatoes.com and seeking this film out, especially if you are a fan of musicals.

Classic Movie Picks: July 2016

by Lani

Each month, I scour the Turner Classic Movies schedule for upcoming films that I can't miss. The highlights are posted here for your reading and viewing pleasure! (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)

7/7, 8 PM - All the President's Men (1976)
This film is showing as part of a series on Thursday nights: America in the 70s - The Films that Defined a Decade. All the President's Men certainly fits the bill since it deals with the Watergate scandal, one of the defining events of the 70s which led to the first and only time in history that a sitting President resigned from office. The plot follows Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) as they look into the Watergate break-in and uncover the shocking details -- shocking not only because it went to the highest levels of the executive branch, but also because of the unbelievable stupidity and ineptitude of some of the players. Dramatic and suspenseful, but also surprisingly funny, I think it's pretty close to perfect. The film received Academy Awards for art direction, sound, screenplay, and supporting actor Jason Robards. What beat it out for best picture? Another decade-defining film: Rocky.

7/15: Starring Olivia de Havilland 
8 PM - The Snake Pit (1948)
10 PM - The Heiress (1949)
12:15 AM - To Each His Own (1946)
Olivia de Havilland, one of the last surviving stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, is the Star of the Month for July in honor of her 100th birthday this year. As an ingenue in the 30s, her beauty was undeniable and she was paired with the equally attractive Errol Flynn in nine films. But she wanted to be more than a pretty love interest and desired to gain respect for her acting ability by taking on more challenging roles. Eventually de Havilland received five Oscar nominations, winning Best Actress twice, and three of those performances are featured tonight. 
In The Snake Pit, a "social issues" picture about the state of mental hospitals, Olivia plays a young woman who is institutionalized. With greasy hair and no makeup, this character is a far cry from her more glamorous roles, but she does a good job portraying someone whose sense of reality is at odds with the world around her. As the title character in The Heiress, Olivia is once again de-glamorized to play a plain, lonely woman who longs to escape from her overbearing father and falls for a handsome fortune-hunter (as played by Montgomery Clift one can hardly blame the girl). In To Each His Own, our leading lady finally gets to wear some lipstick to play an unwed mother who must give up her son, then encounters him later in life. The combination of her natural beauty, expressive face, and ethereal manner make de Havilland a wonderful screen presence. I'm looking forward to seeing many more of her films on Friday nights this month.

Walter Matthau: Man of Action
7/16, 10 PM - Charley Varrick (1973)
7/21, 8 PM - The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) 
Walter Matthau's most familiar roles tend to be in comedies as an irascible slob, seedy fast-talker, or grumpy old man. However, in his long and varied career Matthau was also an unlikely romantic lead several times, as well as the star of several crime/caper films in which he played both the heavy and the hero. 
As the title character in Charley Varrick, Matthau is an anti-hero, "the last of the independents." After his gang of small time bank robbers accidentally steals the mob's money, Matthau must use all his wits to outrun a mob hit man (played with hammy glee by Joe Don Baker) and get away clean. Though he won a Best Actor BAFTA (the British Academy Award equivalent) for this role, Matthau was very vocal about not liking the film because he thought it wasn't understandable. There are definitely some twists, but whether you can anticipate the plot or not, it is still a fun ride.

In Pelham, Matthau is on the right side of the law as a NYC transit police lieutenant up against Robert Shaw as the leader of a criminal gang who holds a subway train hostage. As the hilariously over-the-top poster tells us, the gang will kill a passenger a minute until they get the $1 million ransom -- but even if they get the money, how will they possibly get away? This one also has it's share of surprises and sets the bar for clever crime thrillers. 
These two picks are great examples of a type of crime film which had a bit of a renaissance in the mid-70s. These films featured intelligent criminals and, though violent, kept the action on a human scale. They are filled with the mundane locations of everyday life - subways, trailer parks, modest apartments - and everyone, from cop to criminal, looks like a regular guy off the street. Just contrast this with a film in the same genre from the 1980s, Die Hard (which is also great, by the way). Instead of the likes of Matthau, Robert Shaw, and Martin Balsam, you have the dapper Alan Rickman and his crew of body builders pulling off a heist in a fancy LA high-rise. It's still a good movie, but one with an entirely different aesthetic which favors spectacle over realism.

Best Pictures #22: 1928-29 (2nd) Academy Awards Outstanding Picture Winner, The Broadway Melody (1929)

by A.J.

Best Pictures #22: 1928-29 (2^nd) Academy Awards Outstanding Picture Winner

The Broadway Melody (1929)

In the first scene of The Broadway Melody, also known as The Broadway Melody of 1929 (there would be two sequels), there is a bevy of sounds for the ears: musicians tuning up various instruments, singers practicing, chatter here and there. We are in a music publishing office in New York City and eventually the din dies down so a young songwriter can sing his new song, “The Broadway Melody.” This isn’t just a talkie, it is a musical, and there will be a lot of the audience to hear. The Broadway Melody was the first musical and first sound picture to win Best Picture (then called Outstanding Picture). It is also the first movie to win only Best Picture. Reviews at the time were generally favorable, but reviews by modern critics and online reviewers are not as positive. As of 2016, The Broadway Melody is the lowest rated Best Picture winner on the website RottenTomatoes.com with an average score of 35%. I think that rating is a bit unfair since modern viewers can’t help but measure this movie by the decades of musicals that have been made since. While The Broadway Melody is undeniably dated, it is still not without some entertainment value.

The story is pretty basic for a backstage musical—a musical about making a musical—and will no doubt seem familiar to fans of the genre. Eddie Kearns (Charles King) has written a song, “The Broadway Melody,” for big shot producer Francis Zanfield’s new review and he wants to get the Mahoney sisters cast in the production. He’s dating one sister, Hank, but is in love with the other, Queenie, who is dating rival producer Jock Warriner (a play on the name of the Warner Bros. boss Jack Warner, just as Francis Zenfield is a reference to real life producer Florenz Ziegfeld). As you might imagine, the backstage lives of Eddie, Hank, and Queenie become complicated. Queenie, played by Anita Page, is chosen to be the star of the show, but her dancing consists of little more than just slightly moving her body around while standing in place on stage. Despite this, everyone thinks Queenie is great and it seems that the movie wants us to feel the same.

The story is thin but there is enough of it to fill out the film’s runtime so no one scene feels too stretched. Bessie Love plays Hank, the older and more business minded sister, and gives what is easily the best acting performance of the movie. Love was under consideration for the Best Actress award that year. The other acting performances were not especially noteworthy but are good enough to keep the movie entertaining. The characters themselves feel basic and thin. Queenie’s main character trait is being beautiful and desirable. Her other trait is that she doesn’t want to be thought of as a child anymore by her sister. Eddie, like every other man in the movie, seems to be in love with Queenie just because of her looks and, overall, does not come across as a likable character. The girls’ Uncle Joe is a stock comic relief character with a stutter like Porky Pig. Hank is by far The Broadway Melody’s most interesting character since her motivations give Bessie Love more to work with allowing her to give Hank some sense of personality and depth.

The Broadway Melody has many scenes and plot points that would become tropes and clichés in backstage musicals to follow. There are several scenes rehearsal scenes, most of which are comedic. The Mahoney sisters perform their number for Zanfeild on their first day on stage and, through no fault of their own, many, many things go comically wrong. We see chorus girls exchange quips with the choreographer. A stagehand literally throws the spotlight at an actor who asks for more light. The sister act reaches a breaking point, and Mr. Warriner’s intentions toward Queenie become more and more lascivious. What dates the film more than its checklist of musical plot points, is its normal for the time but now out dated values. The female characters in this movie all face the same dilemma: career or marriage, not both.

The show being produced in The Broadway Melody is a revue so there are several different themed songs, sets, and costumes. At times his movie feels like a play since most of the action takes place in a series of rooms with people entering and exiting. The camera moves very little, a problem with all early sound pictures, but the costumes and songs keep the static shots from being dull. There are enough peculiarities in The Broadway Melody to make it a curio for musical fans and film buffs in general. The song “Broadway Melody” is sung four times. The song “You Were Meant for Me” is sung by Eddie to Queenie. He says he wrote it for her, his girlfriend’s sister, making that song’s film debut unfortunately creepy. Most curious of all is the use of title cards in place of exterior establishing shots. This is no doubt a holdover from silent movies. This was MGM’s first musical, and for a studio that would become synonymous with the genre, it was a good start. If you decided to check out The Broadway Melody, I recommend watching the DVD, readily available, which includes in the special features Dogway Melody, a loose remake short of The Broadway Melody but with dogs. It is quite entertaining to say the least.

Nominee: MGM

Producer: Irving Thalberg, Lawrence Weingarten, Harry Rapf

Director: Harry Beaumont

Screenplay: Story by Edmund Goulding, Dialogue by Norman Houston and James Gleason, Continuity by Sarah Y. Mason

Cast: Charles King, Anita Page, Bessie Love

Release Date: February 1^st, 1929

Total Nominations: 3, including Outstanding Picture

Win(s): Outstanding Picture

Other Nominations: Actress-Bessie Love, Director-Harry Beaumont