Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 28: Another Dose of Double D Action

In today's world that has lost its innocence if a film was released today called 100 Men and a Girl and the poster says of its leading lady, 'she thrills you again', you'd immediately think that it was a dodgy top shelf release. Although in the more innocent times of the mid-1930s, 100 Men and a Girl was another film in the cannon of Deanna Durbin who I previously became aware of when I watched Three Smart Girls. As Durbin had a constant stream of films released I'm guessing most of them had a similar theme in which adults got in trouble and Durbin saved the day. In Three Smart Girls she had help from her on-screen sisters here she is all on her own. The film sees Durbin's Patricia help out her father, an out-of-work trombonist by helping to organise an orchestra for unemployed musicians with the help of a rich old lady named Mrs Frost. However, the day the orchestra is about to begin Mrs Frost goes away and it is Mr Frost, who is unaware of the situation, who Patricia turns to but he turns her away thinking that it is also some kind of practical joke set-up by one of his rich friends. The film has many cases of mistaken identity and Patricia generally saving the day eventually getting famous conductor Leopold Stowtski (playing himself) to postpone a European tour so Mr Frost will be appeased and the orchestra can go on. So Durbin saves the day and everybody is happy

Just as with Three Smart Girls, there are several opportunities for Durbin to break out into song and because this film is all about music she sings quite a fair bit. There's no denying that Durbin has a fine pair of lungs on her but it just seems that it splits up the narrative structure a little bit. There is also a taxi driver who keeps popping up throughout the film and just keeps driving Patricia around and singing to himself. Although I wasn't much for Three Smart Girls I at least found it bearable but 100 Men and A Girl is shorter and has less of a plot. But for some reason it was nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture. The others were for Editing and script (both underserved) and. for a film all about music, it was nominated for sound recording and won best score for Charles Previn a composer who had almost 400 credits to his name between 1936 and 1966. I also wasn't aware at the time I watched the film, that Stowtski was actually a composer and famously conducted most of the music in Disney's Fantasia. Durbin was one of those stars who stopped working after her childhood was behind her, so thankfully I won't have to watch any more of her singing and generally saving the day.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 27: The Butler Did It

In 1934, Charles Laughton won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Private Life of Henry VIII which cemented his career and made him a big name in Hollywood. Fast forward two years and Laughton stars in two films both nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. One was eventual winner Mutiny on The Bounty which got him a Best Actor Nomination, the other was culture clash comedy Ruggles of Red Gap, a film that gives us very old school humour and presents us with several stereotypes in order to give us the desired comic effect. Laughton plays Ruggles, a man servant to an English lord who is lost in a card game to a ghastly American couple who have come into money and have ideas above their station. While the wife wants their money to improve their lifestyle, the husband would rather stay grounded and be a rich cowboy wearing completely checked suits and sporting a giant moustache. The first half of the film takes place in Paris in which Ruggles is encouraged to relax by the husband and he gets him to start drinking which doesn't sit well. Ruggles is certainly taken back to Red Gap in Washington where he meets the wife's brother-in-law who also has aspirations above his station. While the wife and brother-in-law expect Ruggles to stay true to his manservant roots the rest of the population of Red Gap are quite happy for him to become a new man. The comedy takes an unexpected turn when Ruggles falls for a local girl and also gets mistaken for an English colonel an event which leads to him being sacked by the brother-in-law. Ruggles then finally finds himself becoming more independent and, in probably the film's finest scene, is the only one in a bar full of Americans to be able to remember Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. This inspires him to open his own restaurant and at the end he is congratulated by his old boss for making a success of his life.

Ruggles of Red Gap is a very simple film and one that would never be nominated for an Oscar today although the high standard of the acting puts it ahead of any modern culture clash comedies. The Americans are either a little bit stupid or a little bit stuck-up, the French are all very randy and the British are incredibly reserved. Laughton's performance is brilliant and his transformation from obedient manservant to someone who is able to embrace Red Gap as his new home is just fantastic. Mary Boland and Charles Ruggles are also very good as the tiresome Floods, Boland especially excels as the nouveau-riche monster. Overall very enjoyable and charming comedy but one, it seems, that was used to bump the Best Picture category up to ten as it was not nominated for any other awards.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 26: Boxing Clever

Next up we have The Champ a film that I didn't really know what to expect from. I had obviously heard of the Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway picture from the 1970s but was unaware that that was actually a remake of this film that was nominated for Best Picture at the 1932 ceremony but lost to Grand Hotel. It did however win a Best Screenplay Award and a Best Actor award for Wallace Beery for playing the titular Champ. The film itself concerns the life of Beery's Andy Purcell nicknamed Champ as he was the former world heavyweight boxing champion. But Champ has fallen on bad times and trains for undercard matches so he can afford to look after his son Dink. But Champ is both an alcoholic and a gambler and therefore doesn't usually turn up in any fit state for his fight and it is often Dink who has to look after his father and not the other way around. Dink and Champ re-encounter Dink's mother Linda who has remarried to a wealthy gentleman who bribes Champ into letting Linda see Dink as the film goes on Dink is forced to stay with Linda when Champ is arrested but is then bailed out by Linda's husband. The finale of the film sees Champ and Dink reunited and Champ boxing the Mexican champion in a main event fight. In the end of the film Champ wins but later dies of a heart attack and in a heart-breaking scene he has a final heart to heart with Dink who then is comforted by his mother.

The Champ is part sports movie but mostly a film about the relationship between a father and son. Champ and Dink's relationship is more friends than father and son and Champ never once acts like a proper father towards Dink but you can't tell that he loves him more than anyone else does. There is a transposition between the seedy underworld that Champ and Dink are forced to live in and Linda' s new life of opulence. The final boxing match is also quite effective and is given ten minutes to develop while I'm sure that the fight scene in the remake is more technically sound the original has a fight scene to rival Raging Bull or Rocky. The two main performances are also brilliant Beery it seems had to share his Best Actor Oscar but this performance was incredibly well thought out and multi-layered while, as Dink, Jackie Cooper shows that he is a brilliant child actor. While I wanted to slap him when I saw him in Skippy, here Cooper gives a turn better than a lot of the more mature actors and if the Best Supporting Actor Oscar had been available this year I reckon Cooper would've been nominated also. A brilliant film about the relationships that define us and how easy it is to lose them.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 25:Bullets and Butterflies

As we all know the first time I tried to watch this film at the beginning of my quest the DVD wasn't playing ball but LoveFilm have sent me a much better copy this time around and I was able to watch it. The first thing that struck me was how modern this felt given that it won at the 1930 ceremony the film mainly deals with a group of schoolboys who are convinced into joining the army during World War I by their passionate teacher. After completing a fairly light training practise they are drafted onto the front line and into the trenches with more experienced soldiers who wonder why these boys have joined up. The film sees the boys quickly grow up as they see their friends wounded and occasionally die. A lot of the film also deals with the boredom of war and the horror of the trenches one scene in particular in which rats invade the trench is very effecting. Meanwhile the troops of 2nd company also war over food and are often depicted as very hungry indeed. The final third of the film looks at one member of the troop in particular - Paul Baurner. Paul is injured and taken to the catholic hospital where he encounters an old friend and also sees what happens when soldiers get injured. Paul returns home where he sees that people in his hometown don't realise the horrors of war instead debating it in the pub and he also criticises his old teacher for convincing him to go in the first place. Paul then returns to the front line and ends up dying after trying to rescue a butterfly.

As I said previously when I reviewed Wings its odd to look at the first film that won the Oscar and this year's winner The Hurt Locker which both look at how war effect men. All Quiet on The Western Front does this as well but seems to have had a bigger influence on most war films released since from Apocalypse Now to Saving Private Ryan to The Hurt Locker there are elements of this film in all of them. I was also taken aback by the massive difference between this and Wings despite only being separated by only three years. The battle scenes in particular look at lot less staged and go for a lot longer and therefore give more of an impression to the audience of what the war was like. As well as Best Picture the film also won Best Director Oscar for Lewis Milestone and was nominated for both writing and cinematography the latter of which it should've won. When this film won there were only four other nominees so it didn't have as much competition but I can't see it being beaten by anything in my mind certainly not The Divorcee, the only other film I've watched from this year so far. Its a shame that this film presumes that war is long gone because as we all know World War II was just around the corner.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 24: 20th Century Blues

Of all the Best Picture winners, Cavalcade was possibly the hardest to find but I finally tracked it down the other day and decided to watch it today. Based on a stage-play by Noel Coward the film tracks the lives of two English families throughout the first thirty-two years of the 20th century however the film mainly concentrates on the first 18 up to the end of the First World War. The film starts at the house of the Maryot family where the Bridges family also work as servants the first scenes look at the turn of the century as they all see in 1900 together. Soon after Mr Maryot and Mr Bridges are off to the Boer War leaving their wives and children at home. Both return home safely and the Bridges soon move out as Alf buys a pub from a man he met during the conflict but he soon becomes a drunk and is trampled by a horse. The film then turns on several years where the Maryot boys have both grown up and the eldest son Edward marries Edith, the daughter of his mother's friends unfortunately the boat they honeymoon on is revealed to be the Titanic, although we don't see them drown we hear about it in the later scenes. Then onto 1914 where younger son Joe joins the war effort meanwhile the Bridges' daughter Fanny has now grown up and is working as a singer and dancer. Joe and Fanny begin a romance whenever Joe gets leave however just before the peace treaty Joe dies and Fanny sings the song '20th century blues'. The final scenes show us newspaper headlines of various stories from 1918 onwards and it ends with Mr and Mrs Maryot seeing in 1933 together despairing at the death of their two sons.


Although it is one of the most depressing films I've seen, Cavalcade is an incredibly accomplished picture especially considering it was made in 1933. My favourite scenes were the ones with Edith and Edward on the Titanic, after they have a heart-to-heart the camera reveals where we actually are. Also the First World War is covered in a montage of a couple of minutes in a very effecting and harrowing scene which sees many men being shot which in a way works better than a 30 minute battle sequence in a way of reflecting the needlessness and tragedies of war. As well as winning Best Picture it also one Art Direction (the sets are fantastic) and Best Director for Harold Lloyd. As Mrs Marriot, Diana Wynyard was also nominated rightfully for Best Actress but unfortunately was nominated alongside Katherine Hepburn. Definitely better than the other two pictures I've watched from this year so far, The Private Life of Henry VIII and She Done Him Wrong, Cavalcade was a surprisingly enjoyable if somewhat depressing ride.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 23: Good Clean Fun

Another life story in the challenge and this time it's of Louis Pasteur, the man who challenged doctors to wash their hands and clean their instruments before operations. The film kicks of in 'A Doctor's Office in Paris' which it very blatantly isn't where a doctor is shot by an angry man who blames his wife's death on that doctor after reading Pasteur's leaflet about doctors having to wash their hands. Pasteur is banned from the scientific community but ten years later he is bought in to try and help come up with a cure against anthrax. There follows some bizarre experiment which involved killing a lot of sheep in order to prove Pasteur right or wrong. These scenes I felt were far too long given what we know already that Pasteur did succeed. The final part of the film looks at how Pasteur tried to work out a cure for rabies and hydrophobia as a lot of people were being bitten by mad dogs, thanks to an uppity scientist braggingly injecting himself with the disease, Pasteur managed to work it out. At the end of the film everyone celebrates Pasteur's achievements. There is also a nice subplot involving Pasteur's family which I think was a darn sight more interesting. As he took more time developing these cures he spent less time with his wife and daughter meanwhile Pasteur's apprentice begins a relationship and later marries, Pasteur's daughter who in turn is frustrated with her new husband's busy hours although domestic bliss is always kept and nothing ever becomes of Pasteur's negligence of his family, obviously in those days women just grin and bore it.

Although this is basically your standard biopic, the film is lifted up a notch by Paul Muni's performance in the lead role, for which he won the Best Leading Actor Award. The film also won Best Screenplay (which was okay but a bit sketchy) and Best Director, which to be fair was deserved this was a very well-directed piece. Although it lost out to The Great Ziegfeld for Best Picture which is understandable really it couldn't really compete with the spectacle of that film. But The Story of Louis Pasteur is still an accomplished film for the era with a well-judged and professional lead performance.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 22: The British Are Coming, The British Are Coming

Gandhi, A Man For All Seasons, The English Patient, Chariots of Fire and Slumdog Millionaire all British films that won Best Picture at the Oscars over the years. But the first ever British film to be nominated for Best Picture was at the 1934 ceremony and that film was The Private Life of Henry VIII. The film's plot is basically self-explanatory, as it is about Henry's relationship with his wives, well most of them anyway. To just give you an example of how historically accurate the film is the opening subtitles tell us that - 'Henry VIII had six wives, Catherine of Aragon was the first but her story is of no particular interest she was a respectable woman so Henry divorced her'. From there we get what is basically Henry VIII: The Edited highlights. The start of the film sees Merle Oberon as Anne Boleyn getting ready for her execution like she was getting ready to go for a good night out. Charles Laughton's Oscar winning performance as Henry starts off as he barks at some of his staff and then flirts with his new young wife Jane Seymour. After Boleyn's head is chopped off we flash forward 18 months were Seymour has given birth to a son while Henry is hunting but has died before he gets back. The main crux of the film though is about Catherine Howard, who is one of the more obscure of Henry's wives, and her ambition to be queen despite her having a relationship with one of Henry's courtsmen. But first Anne of Cleves the famous ugly wife, who isn't actually ugly but makes herself unattractive to Henry so she can re-marry her first love. Then Howard gets her claws into Henry but it's not long before she gets her head chopped off for her affair. There's just about five minutes of screen time left for Henry to finally get a 'good wife' in Catherine Parr who is first seen as Elizabeth and Edward's nanny and she begins to nanny Henry into his final years the last shot being one of Henry with the infamous chicken leg in his mouth.

What an auspicious start to the British film entries into the Academy Shortlist? A film full of historical inaccuracies and bawdy behaviour which gave everybody the image of a fat Henry VIII who loved to shove chicken legs in his mouth. As Henry, Charles Laughton earned his only Oscar and this propelled him and legendary British director Alexander Korda to fame. This is a very well-produced and well scripted film but there are some lines today which would cause anarchy but said by Henry they are meant to be archaic, there's a nice line about North Americans being savages which I'm sure the American audiences just loved. At just over 90 minutes it's by no means a historical epic but whatever it is this was the first time that the Brits could be proud of a film that did so well across the pond.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 21: Cagney and Navy

As someone who associated James Cagney with gangster films I was surprised to see him as Bottom in the 1936 nominee A Midsummer Night's Dream. Here Comes the Navy is another Cagney film which sees him do comedy. This film sees Cagney play Chesty O'Connor a construction worker who begins a feud with Biff Martin, a navy man who steals O'Connor's girlfriend. To get back at Martin Chesty randomly decides to also join the navy, there is an interesting sequence which sees nine months of naval training condensed into about three minutes. The main story however is about Biff and Chesty's feud which intensifies when Chesty starts dating Biff's sister. Chesty is court-martialled after going AWOL to see her but redeems himself when he injures himself to save the ship during a training mission gone wrong. But the higher-ups decide that Chesty doesn't want to stay on the ship so transfer him to the aircrafts where in a bizarre twist of events involving a parachute, he ends up saving Biff's life and then becomes Biff's superior and brother-in-law when he marries his sister.

Describing Here Comes the Navy as a comedy may be a bit of a stretch because I didn't really laugh that much. Cagney's character is a bit odd always wanting to fight and I still didn't understand the motivation to join the navy to get back at someone who will then become his superior. But this must be a comedy as Chesty has a comedy sidekick in a simpleton named Droopy Mullins who is obsessed by getting his mother false teeth so she can eat meat and resume singing her favourite song, yes that really is a subplot in this film. But there's something inherently likeable and charming about this film, Cagney is an engaging presence and everything is kept quite light. While its Oscar nomination is dubious, it was only nominated for Best Picture and didn't really have a chance against It Happened One Night. Overall this isn't a very good advert for the navy who come across as stiff and dull but it's still an entertaining movie.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 20: Comic Book Movies were different in the 1930s

When I first saw that the film Skippy had been nominated for Best Picture at the 1931 ceremony I primarily thought that I'd be in for some Bush Kangaroo fun. But instead Skippy is a film about a young tousled head youth called Skippy and is based on an early comic book. The comic book films we are used to today are often superhero fare like Spiderman or dark graphic novel stuff like Sin City but there's nothing dark about Skippy he makes Dennis the Menace look like Charlie Manson. The basic premise is about the rich and poor divide whereas Skippy and his obnoxious friends - a brother and sister are quite privileged (Skippy's father is a businessman of some distinction) there is also a look into the shanty town life of the 1930s. While not a graphic portrayal this is still the darkest and most interesting part of the film especially when Skippy strikes up a friendship with Sookie a lad from that area. The main story sees Skippy try and raise money to help Sookie try and get his mongrel dog back from a horrible pound worker. Most of the film is quite light and actually reminded me a lot of the Just William series of books although they were set during the Second World War the characters are very similar.

The main problem I had with this film was for the most part I was bored rigid, I couldn't connect with really any of the characters. The younger characters were all quite horrible Skippy in particular was very petulant and I just wanted to give him a slap, in fact Sookie was the only likeable kid in the entire film but even his likeability started to wane. The story was very thin and didn't stretch to the 90 minute runtime. I have to wonder how this film got nominated for four Oscars and actually won Best Director. Meanwhile the screenplay was also nominated but Jackie Cooper's juvenile performance was possible the least deserving of the lot. Although a child star Cooper went on to become a successful director on TV as well as numerous acting appearances most notably as Perry White in the Superman movies. Overall this was just quite a dull family film which I don't think deserved to be on the list but I'm yet to watch this year's winner Cimarron but the only other nominee I've watched from this year, The Front Page, was miles better. A family film about an obnoxious child today may only make straight-to-DVD and certainly wouldn't be on the Academy shortlist, how times have changed.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 19: Shearer Delight

Having previously watched Norma Shearer overacting as one of the oldest ever Juliets ever to be seen on screen I didn't think much of her. But rewind five or so years and we have The Divorcee a film that was nominated for Best Picture at the third ever Oscar ceremony and made Shearer the third ever Best Actress. Shearer was one of the first ever silent film stars to crack through the sound barrier and make the crossover succesfsully and The Divorcee was certainly a revolutionary film. Shearer's character Jerry get married to her fella Ted at the start of the film meanwhile another admirer of hers gets drunk and ends up crashing his car with a few passengers in it. Fast forward three years later and Jerry believes her and Ted are still happily married however she later discovers that he got drunk and cheated on her and furious she does the same. However back in the early 1930s gender politics dictated that of course the husband could have an affair but how dare the wife attempt such a thing! And that's why I found this film so revolutionary. Flick forward again and Jerry and Don are both in new relationships as the years go on, Jerry again meets her admirer Paul who is now married himself but is still in love with her so they begin a relationship. Paul's wife comes to see Jerry and begs her to stop her budding romance with Paul which Jerry agrees to and then finally there is a happy ending as Jerry and Ted are reunited.

In my opinion most of the first of the talking films seem to just be obsessed by getting sound right and most of them were jolly musical fare. However The Divorcee is very dark and very before its time in terms of the fact that Shearer portrays a woman who is able to stand up to the men and play them at their own game. The only thing I have a problem is at the end she relents and ends up with the guy that cheated on her in the first place so I'm guessing the film could only go so far to say that a woman still needed a man instead of just being by herself. Despite Shearer's nomination the film didn't win that year instead All Quiet on The Western Front, a male dominated film, took the honour. The film was also nominated for its direction and screenplay and I have to say that both nominations were deserved. And I was completely wrong about Shearer, I know find her a fascinating and engaging actress and The Divorcee definitely deserves a place in the history books as well.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 18: Doing the Deeds

As the poster says another great Frank Capra production but unlike my two previous Frank Capra viewings (It Happened One Night and You Can't Take It With You) this did not win Best Picture but he did win Best Director for Mr Deeds Goes to Town. Made in between ITHON and YCTIWY, this is possibly the least comic of the three films but like the other two is all to do with power and status and money. As in You Can't Take It With You, Capra roots for the little guy but sees what happens to that little guy when he gives him money. Gary Cooper, nominated for Best Actor, plays Longfellow Deeds a small-town man who inherits a fortune from a long-forgotten uncle and goes to the Big City to claim it. He is then looked after by the guy who played Max in Hart to Hart who is some kind of press agent for the estate but becomes Deeds' confident. Meanwhile a female journalist decides to get the story of Deeds so she pretends to faint in front of him and then starts to romance him. The journalist is played by Jean Arthur in her big break she would later go onto work with Capra on two more occasions. After he discovers her deception he starts to lapse into melancholy but decides to start donating his fortune to farmers who lost their wealth in the great depression. Although this angers the dead uncle's lawyer who tries to prove that Deeds is insane by gathering evidence from his recent behaviour and his old home town. Obviously in the end everything works out well Deeds keeps the fortune, helps the farmers and gets the girl and Capra teaches all the rich people a lesson.

In the other Capra films I have watched there has been someone to root for or someone likeable but the main problem I found was that Deeds wasn't particularly relatable. Although Gary Cooper is a fine actor there's something lacking in the script that gives Deeds any small-town charm instead he often quite easily resorts to punching people in the face which isn't a good representation of the small guy done well. He only redeems himself in the second half of the film and Cooper is very good in the final insanity hearing scenes. Jean Arthur again handles herself well as the typical woman in a man's world she is able to wrap the newspaper editor, the cameraman and briefly Deeds round her little finger. Max from Hart to Hart is also fairly decent as Deeds' sidekick. Overall I can see why this didn't win best picture as it doesn't have the charm of You Can't Take It With You or the knockabout humour and the romance of It Happened One Night. But there are still elements of greatness as this is a Frank Capra film after all. There'll be more Capra to come as his films did garner another two nominations in the decade those films being Lady for a Day and Lost Horizon.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 17: An Afternoon at The Grand

So what did beat those two Chevalier films to become only the fifth film to win the Best Picture Oscar? The answer to that question is Grand Hotel a large Broadway production that was bought to the Big Screen with a big name cast to boot. The film is set in Berlin's Grand Hotel where, according to one of its residents, people come and go and nothing ever happens but of course a lot of things do happen or there wouldn't be anything worth watching. Certainly as far I'm concerned this was one of the first films do balance several plots all the characters linking to each other in one way or another. The first is of a stenographer (typist) played by Joan Crawford who is hired to help a belligerent businessman played by Wallace Beery, who is in Berlin to finish a business transaction. Then there's Lionel Barrymore who has just found out that he is going to die so he is finally going to start living and books into the audaciously expensive Grand Hotel in order to enjoy his last days only to run into his boss who just happens to be Beery. The third story is of a Russian ballerina, played by the Swedish Greta Garbo, who is worried that people are starting to go off her performances and her large entourage is trying to bolster her confidence, she also is staying in the hotel. Linking all these stories together is Lionel's younger brother John who plays a penniless count who tries to get by by gambling away all his money and stealing from other guests in the hotel. He then strikes up a friendship with Lionel's character, falls for Crawford and tries to steal jewels from Garbo only for her to end up romancing him as well.

Having only seen the two Chevalier films that were nominated in that year, I'm not sure what the quality of film-making was like in the early 1930s but Grand Hotel is by far the best film I've seen from that period. Mostly set within the hotel it is expertly shots and there are some brilliant long shots of the entire hotel seen from above. The hotel almost kind of becomes its own character with its frantic staff members and black and white checked design. The screenwriting is top notch as are the performances. Again it's Lionel Barrymore who's a standout for me, he did actually win an Oscar the year before this was made, but both in Grand Hotel and You Can't Take It With You his performances towered over the rest of the cast. It's strange that given her name is given top billing, Greta Garbo's role is very small, she features towards the start of the film's second third and then right at the end but the main female lead is Joan Crawford who is stunning. John Barrymore meanwhile does the charming gentleman thief role with aplomb. The thing I found strange was the jump from comedy to drama, the film changes its tone drastically in the last ten minutes, but overall a great film and a thoroughly deserving Best Picture winner.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 16: Mostly Maurice

Over to the 1932 ceremony where two films starred the same leading man and had the same basic format. That man was Maurice Chevalier and those two films were One Hour With You and The Smiling Lieutenant. Of course I've heard of Chevalier but at the same time am not aware of his films that well. Just like Mae West, Chevalier was one the successful vaudeville and Broadway performers who was able to make the transition to Hollywood. With his charming voice and trademark boater hat, Chevalier was a crowd pleaser when he took to the stage and continued to charm in his films. In this case the films were both directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Firstly One Hour With You which has a very flimsy storyline indeed involving Chevalier's doctor who seems only to treat female clients who all obviously fancy him rotten but he is faithful to his wife played by Jeanette MacDonald. Both Chevalier and McDonald have perfect singing voices and basically singing seems to be foreplay to most of the characters in both of the Chevalier films that I watch. Maurice is tempted by his wife's old friend Mitzi while in turn his wife his propositioned by a man named Adolph before the name obviously became synonymous with a certain Mr Hitler. In this film Chevalier addresses the audience on a number of occasions to ask their advice on what he should do with these two beautiful women. At the end of the day even though they've both been unfaithful to an extent MacDonald and Chevalier realise they love each other most of all so it's back to the bedroom for a bit of a 'sing song'. The film is supposedly set in Paris but is obviously an American production with Chevalier the only predominant French cast member. Honestly I don't see why this was nominated for Best Picture, but that's all it was nominated for and it was obviously there to make up the numbers.
But you think the academy would only have picked one Chevalier film that year but instead The Smiling Lieutenant was also nominated. I find the plot was a little more cohesive in this film although Chevalier did essentially play the same character this time there was at least some kind of motivations for all the misunderstandings and misbehaving. This time the two women that were fighting for Chevalier's affections were Claudette Colbert and Miriam Hopkins. After watching her as the smart-talking rich girl in It Happened One Night I was surprised how little Colbert had to do here. She was Chevalier's first romantic interest a violinist who he fell for even though his friend liked her, friendship doesn't seem to stand for much in a Maurice Chevalier film. Anyway as you can guess from the title Chevalier's character is a lieutenant in the army and when Colbert's character goes to watch him welcome the ambassadors from a small Austrian suburb to Vienna he winks and smiles at her but it gets deflected towards Hopkins' small town princess. The big plot jump sees Chevalier agree to marry Hopkins because if he didn't there would be an international incident or Chevalier would lose his job. Hopkins and Chevalier have a loveless marriage at first but when Colbert comes to confront the new couple she instead helps Hopkins improve her lingerie collection (in song no less!) and bed Chevalier. At the end Chevalier gives the audience a cheeky wink before going to bed his new wife. Again the film was only nominated for Best Picture.

So what've I learnt from Maurice Chevalier films released in 1931-1932? Women don't care if you screw around, basically everyone sings or at least talks in rhymes, America is ample substitute for either Vienna or Paris and women find Frenchmen in boater hats absolutely resistable. Surprisingly there was no nomination for Chevalier in the Best Actor line-up however that year there was only three nominees. But Maurice will pop up again in this search later on when I watch the film which he was nominated for Best Actor - The Love Parade. Until then its goodbye to cheeky French chit-chat and oh so twee musical numbers.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 15: Go West

It would be unheard of today for a film of little over an hour to be released never mind be nominated for an Best Picture Oscar but that's what happened in the 1934 ceremony when She Done Him Wrong got a nod. The main reason for this is Mae West, this is basically her film as she transplants her Broadway role of Diamond Lil to the Big Screen and changes the name to Lady Lou. The story is concerned with West's Lou and her relationship with saloon boss Gus who treats her with diamonds and various other gifts, when she sings in his bar. However Gus is a shady character and traffics in prostitution as well as other illegal activities. There is a Salvation Army like mission next to the bar manned by Cary Grant's Captain Cummings. Cummings is actually an undercover fed trying to investigate the goings on in the bar and what Gus is up to. There is also a subplot involving Lou's former boyfriend who escapes from jail in order to try and reunite with her.

West owns the screen with her double entendre and sexy quips she whips up all the men into a frenzy. It's a wonder why she didn't get a Best Actress Nomination for her role in the film she even delivers a couple of lovely numbers. It's all a bit rushed and cliched but I'm guessing especially men of the time enjoyed the saucy antics of Lou (a nude picture of her in the bar is the first time she is seen) and the action in the final scenes. The film is historic in that its Box Office was enough to save Paramount from bankruptcy. West also apparently always took credit for discovering Cary Grant, however he had already appeared in several films and had a leading role in Blonde Venus opposite Marlene Dietrich. Grant is actually very stoic in the film, he has to play the straight man alongside all the antics that are going on elsewhere and you can almost sense him dying to flex those acting muscles a little more. If nothing else, She Done Him Wrong is an entertaining picture but a Best Picture Nominee it certainly shouldn't have been. 

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 14: Silence Don't Make Such A Racket

After days of living in the decadence of the Screwball Comedies of the late 1930s we journey right back to the first ceremony in 1929, won by the already watched Wings, there were two another nominees one being the gangster film - The Racket. The general gist of the film is the citywide battle between an upstanding Police Captain and a local gangster. Thomas Meighnan's McQuigg keeps trying to bring Nick Scarsi's crime empire down but because Scarsi owns most of the town, McQuigg's efforts are fruitless and he ends up getting transferred to a small country police station where nothing ever happens. He eventually gets one up on Scarsi, when Scarsi's brother is arrested in conjunction with a hit and run and thanks to a manipulative nightclub singer he is able to bring Scarsi down. Compared to that year's winner Wings, I found that The Racket was very generic and a lot of the shootout sequences in particular were very poor.

Although the film is very much a masculine affair the best performance in my opinion came from Marie Prevost as the club singer Helen Hayes. She was able to wrap her finger round most of the men in the film by pretending to be vulnerable while in actuality she was after money and fame. As a leading man Meighan was very wooden and didn't give me anything to particularly care about his fate. One thing that I did note about this film is that it played very much on the power of the press, a theme that has been seen in a couple of other films I've watched so far. McQuigg's war with Scarsi is played out through the papers, especially when he is transported to his outpost in the sticks. I just didn't really connect with The Racket, and wonder why it was nominated for Best Picture. In my opinion there was a lack of a decent story, decent actors and the music was way over the top. I think Wings surpassed The Racket by a mile and am glad that it won that year however I am yet to see the third nominee - Seventh Heaven.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 12 & 13: A Load of Old Screwballs

A staple of the 1930s, the screwball comedy genre produced a couple of winners and more nominees during that decade. Having already watched the 1935 winner - Frank Capra's It Happened One Night I am familiar with the screwball comedy format - quick dialogue, one upmanship between the male and female leads and almost a clash between the upper and lower classes. In It Happened One Night Clark Gable was very much in control and had to look after Claudette Colbert's heiress however the two female leads in my next two screwballs were more than a match for their male counterparts. First up was The Awful Truth, a 1938 Best Picture nominee, which lost out to The Life of Emile Zola. Despite that loss director Leo McCarey took home that year's Best Director Oscar and overall the film had six nominations. One of those was for Irene Dunne who more than deserved to win, as she plays Lucy who decides to divorce her husband Jerry, played by Cary Grant who didn't get a nomination. Lucy is able to wrap all the men in the film around her little finger, she is able to get custody of their dog through manipulative means and then starts romancing the reliable but dull Dan (Ralph Bellamy who inexplicably was nominated for Best Supporting Actor despite having no charisma whatsoever), even though she contemplates marrying Dan she realises she still loves Jerry but then Jerry finds love and Lucy manages to ruin this relationship. Dunne is probably the strongest female lead I have seen so far, even though there is a hint that a woman needs to be married and get be the one who initiates the divorce, Lucy is definitely the more dominant of the pair. The film is perfectly timed and brilliantly executed and right up my street, the final few scenes set in a cabin are a bit odd as the pair ponder a reconciliation. Although there is no real comment on social standing or econmic wellbeing - Lucy, Jerry and Dan are all fairly well off and dress fancily and get afford servants no real mention of money apart from in the divorce.


That's a complete contrast of the other film and the last winner from a 1930's ceremony - You Can't Take It With You. It won Frank Capra his third Best Director Oscar and it was the second of his films to win Best Picture after the aforementioned It Happened One Night. I think this more than any film sees the female lead be a lot stronger than her male counterpart. The film sees Jean Arthur's Bank Worker fall in love with the boss' son played by James Stewart in one of his first lead roles. Stewart's family are straight-laced his father wants to buy up the entire town and his mother is very prim and proper. Meanwhile Arthur's family are all odd and eccentric - a father who designs and tests fireworks, a mother who rights plays on a typewriter that was wrongly delivered to the house, a sister who dances atrociously despite having a live-in Russian dance coach and a brother-in-law who likes playing the xylophone along to his wife's dancing and also likes printing slogans and sticking them inside candy. The heart of the family, and of the neighbourhood, is Lionel Barrymore's Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, who is the owner of the house that the bank wants to buy. So it is the clash between the banker and the eccentric heart of the neighbourhood as they meet as potential family members. The film is full of fancy farce and plenty of witty dialogue (the script got a nomination) and also a great ensemble cast. Surprisingly Barrymore didn't get a Supporting Actor nomination instead the only acting nomination went to Spring Byngton as the family's matriarch which was a decent performance if nothing else. But it is Arthur who decides to turn down Stewart's proposal after their families clash, Stewart indeed seems quite closeted and not as worldly wise as his female counterpart. At the time of the depression it was great for people to see a comedy which applauded the little man for leaving boring jobs and doing what they loved rather than racking up lots of money. The bankers are seen as unhappy and unfeeling while the Sycamore family are seen as loving and happy throughout, although they are not completely penniless as they can afford two members of staff in their home. Also a little side-note is that this is the first film I've seen in which the African American staff members have had a little bit more to do than simply greet their masters (seen in The Great Ziegfeld, Three Smart Girls and The Awful Truth) and instead feel more a part of the family.

Both of these films greatly cheered me up and I thought they were great, especially You Can't Take it With You which I think is better than most modern comedy films. I think we had two films with very powerful female leads - Jean Arthur and Irene Dunne, who could teach the leading ladies of today's Hollywood a thing or two about how to keep a man in his place.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 11: Getting a Bit Bard

In the interest of getting though this challenge I decided to group together two films which have one thing in common - Mr Bill Shakespeare. Yes two Shakespeare adaptations - A Midsummers Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet, were nominated in 1936 and 1937 respectively. First of all A Midsummers Night's Dream (the fourth of 1936's nominees) I am to watch which I was very impressed with. For a film from 1935 I was impressed by the overall design of the picture and the quality of some of the scenes especially those involving the fairies. Despite losing out in the Best Picture (and Best Assistant Director) categories the film did pick up two awards for cinematography and editing and I have to say it deserved both. I was utterly enthralled by some of the sequences involving Puck when he transformed into a cloud of smoke, even though Mickey Rooney's acting completely annoyed the hell out of me. Star of the show surprisingly was James Cagney, better known for his roles in gangster movies here Cagney played Bottom - possibly the best known character for getting turned into a donkey. Of course his performance is overblown but that's what the character has to be he is of course the comic relief. The majority of the story as all English graduates know focuses on Hermia due to marry Demetrius but really in love with Lysander the three, along with Demetrius' admirer Helena are trapped in the woods and at the mercy of the spells of Puck and fairy lord Oberon. I felt this part of the story lacked panache, it is quite boring and the two actors playing Lysander and Demetrius didn't really have a lot going for them and neither seemed to be of the leading man calibre that I believe the roles need. The other big name in the cast is Olivia De Havilland the best of the quartet - her Hermia is kind of strong yet vulnerable but I didn't feel that she should really be paired with either of the men who were pursuing her. The whole thing was enjoyable enough although I felt the pace lagged in places mainly during, fairy queen, Titania's singing and the final play performed by Bottom and co. Overall enjoyable and I thought it was better than a lot of the films in the Oscars list from this year (Captain Blood, The Informer)


So we continue onto the second helping of the Bard and George Cukor's Romeo and Juliet another film that was nominated for four Oscars but failed to pick up any. Twice losing out to The Great Ziegfeld both in Best Picture and Best Actress categories, I apologise if I was a little harsh on Luise Rainer in my previous post but her performance in The Great Ziegfeld was certainly better than Shearer's Juliet. While Norma Shearer is a fine actress I found her a little flat as Juliet and much too old to play the part. Similarly Leslie Howard's age is a problem in his performance as are his looks which I thought were rather effeminate and couldn't buy his fight scenes. Luckily there are some choice support performances which keep the film flowing along. John Barrymore as Mercutio is brilliant playing it more for laughs as an aging playboy thinking that he is still a hit with the ladies. While Basil Rathbone pops up again to flail a sword around as quite a villainous Tybalt. Although I didn't think he was as great as Barrymore, it was Rathbone who got a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Although it is a good story to tell I think the film dragged out and wasn't particularly inventive and very stagy, I was really only impressed by the masquerade ball scene, I didn't really feel anything when the lovers die or when Mercutio is stabbed and just thought it was just a bit cold and didn't offer anything particularly cinematic. So at the moment with this and Three Smart Girls, The Great Ziegfeld was definitely the right choice to win that year.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 10: The (Bad) Luck of The Irish

Another nominee from 1936, and although The Informer didn't win Best Picture it won four awards at the ceremony. The most historic of those had to be Best Director for John Ford who won his first of four awards. But unlike most of his other films this wasn't a western. Instead The Informer is quite a moody thriller set in 'Ireland' about Gypo Nolan who informs the police about his fugitive friend Frankie and gets £20 for his trouble which he intends to use for two plane tickets to America for him and his girl so they can escape the life they have. But instead he spends it on booze, girls and food and at the same time incurs the wrath of the Irish rebels who want to find out who informed on Frankie and make him pay. As John Ford is known for his big shoot outs and elaborately shot sequences The Informer is quite dark and feels quite insular as we are transported into Gypo's sad and lonely life as his guilt takes over him. Although the final sequences where he has to escape the rebels are very exciting what comes before it is very mundane and at times quite boring compared to the all-action Captain Blood and the all-singing all-dancing Top Hat this is obviously the worst of the films form that year so far. Another problem was obviously a lot of the cast members aren't Irish and the film isn't filmed in Ireland and there isn't a lot done to disguise either of these issues so in a way it felt a bit sloppy.

One Oscar I think the film did deserve was Best Actor for Victor McLaglen. In a time when leading men were dashing like Errol Flynn, charming like Clark Gable or could dance like Fred Astaie, the ordinary looking McLaglen gave a performance that was ahead of its time. Quite subtle and able to convey emotions without launching into a massive monologue this was a performance by what we refer to today as a 'character actor'. In fact he beat both Gable and Charles Laughton for that year's winning film Mutiny on The Bounty, to the award. Apart from Ford and McLaglen the other two awards were for Best Score (moody and set the tone very low-key) and Best Screenplay (not the best but then definitely not the worst from that era). As for Ford he would go onto bigger and better things but we all have to start somewhere.