Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 45: The Silent War

The final film in the opening Best Picture category is next up. In 1929 at the first ceremony, only three films were nominated - eventual winner Wings, patchy gangster film The Racket and Seventh Heaven, a film about love and war.

As with all of the first these pictures, Seventh Heaven is also a silent film and is directed by Frank Borzage whose movies have shaped my viewing habits over the last few days. The film is set in Paris and is essentially one of two halves, the first half follows the romance between sewer worker Chico and young prostitute Diane who has run away from her violent sister. To save Diane from arrest Chico pretends to be her husband and the two start to fall in love. But in the second half the love story is interrupted by World War One and Chico has to go off and fight leaving Diane alone and waiting for updates from Chico's fellow soldiers starts to get depressed. The end of the film sees Diane believe Chico has died in the war and she is about to commit suicide when he returns just as the war is won. Although he is not dead, Chico has been blinded but he and Diane agree to stick together once and for all now he is back and free.

For a film from the early days of cinema, Seventh Heaven is technically impressive. I found the scenes depicting World War One a lot better than some of the amateurish ones in the first Best Picture Winner - Wings. Gaynor and Farrell was also fairly moving in their roles, Gaynor especially was able to display emotion easily and I she gave as a fully-rounded performance and was rewarded with a Best Actress award, Borzage also won best director and the film picked up the prize for adapted screenplay. However I believe that Wings was ultimately the best film to win, I found Seventh Heaven somewhat disjointed and a bit dull in parts, while it was better than The Racket I think that it didn't make enough of the filmic techniques available to it to create a truly memorable picture. Saying that it still more than deserves its place on the list of the first three films nominated for Best Picture.