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.