Monday, 7 June 2010
Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 42: One Disaster after Another
Throughout the 1930s the film industry was mainly run by the studios who
contracted various stars to appear in their movies. Two of the biggest
studios at the time were MGM and 20th Century Fox and in the late 30s
they were run by Louis B Mayer and Darryl F Zanuck respectively. Over
the years of 1936 and 1937 both studios produced big budget films
concentrating on two separate famous historical disasters that occurred
in U.S. States.
First
up was MGM's San Francisco a film that looked at 1906 era San Francisco
in the build up to the famous earthquake. It sees Clark Gable corrupt
nightclub owner Blacky Norton who hires and later romances Jeanette
MacDonald's club singer Mary Blake. MacDonald is eventually tempted away
from Norton and his Paradise Club and ends up singing at the opera and
dating a wealthy opera scion. Meanwhile Norton's childhood friend, now a
priest, tries to get his old friend to change his ways and also tries
to convince Mary that Norton isn't all bad. In the end Mary returns to
Norton with a performance of the song San Francisco that wins The
Paradise Club an award. Just after this however the earthquake hits and
the final 15 or so minutes of the film sees the specially constructed
scenes as the quake followed by the fire as Norton tries to find Mary
and he has to pray to God, something he's refused to do up to now,
eventually finding her alive. In the impressive final scene the
survivors of the earthquake march hand in hand singing as the shot of
the wreckage of the earthquake dissolves into the San Francisco of the
1930s. The final earthquake montage sequences were the most impressive
and obviously cost the most to make, the film also made a star out of
MacDonald, who had previously been noted for her work with Maruice
Cheavlier. However Clark Gable didn't seem to have a good time filming
the movie clashing with MacDonald and also almost refusing to deliver
the final breakdown scenes claiming that he would make him come off as
soppy. Despite putting in a great performance it was actually Spencer
Tracy, as the priest, who got a Best Actor Nomination even though he was
the support to the Gable character. The film also won the award for
Best Sound and was nominated for director, assistant director and
original screenplay. But this was the year that over-hyped Great
Ziegfeld won Best Picture so there was no chance for San Francisco
despite in being a pretty impressive picture.
A
year after the release of San Francisco, Fox decided they were also
going to release a disaster picture and picked the Chicago Fire as their
backdrop. They tried to cast Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in the lead
roles however they were both tied to MGM so in the end the roles went to
Tyrone Power and Alice Faye . The film starts with the O'Leary family
travelling to Chicago when the father dies, the mother becomes a
washerwoman and with her three sons begins running a farm. Years later
Dion is a dodgy club owner, Jack is a respectable lawyer and Bob helps
his mother out. Dion begins a relationship and later marries club singer
Belle despite his mother's protests. Dion then helps Jack run for
council in Chicago and pays off a lot of his underworld friends to make
this happen so Jack can do Dion's bidding however Jack finds out and the
two brothers go to war. Again disaster strikes as the fire starts
thanks to an incident provoked by Mrs O'Leary's cow, the fire sequences
themselves were said to cost over $150,000 and the set is said to have
burned for three days. Although up to this point the film hadn't been up
to much the final disaster is what everyone had been waiting for. In
terms of Oscars it won one more than San Francisco as Alice Brady as
Mrs O'Leary was the second woman to win the Supporting Actress award
and the Assistant Director was also honoured. The Life of Emile Zola
beat the film out for Best Picture and In Old Chicago also received nods
for its score, sound and original screenplay.
Of
the two films I think I preferred San Francisco I think the plot had
more to say it was glamorous, had big musical numbers and I enjoyed the
themes of greed vs. religion and the relationship between Spencer Tracey
and Clark Gable while I thought In Old Chicago was a film that was just
waiting for its expensive conclusion and didn't really care about the
rest of the plot despite some good performances from Alice Brady and Don
Ameche as Jack. Both of these films should be watched to see what big
budget disaster movies looked like back in the 1930s and I reckon both
certainly deserved their places in the Best Picture list.
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