Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 367-369: Days of Future Past Part Three

Sorry for those who are feeling a bit disorientated by the jumps in time but I'm back in the earlier days of the Academy Awards for three more films that I couldn't locate back when I covered the 1930s and 1940s.

We kick off with Alexander's Ragtime Band; a sideways look at the world of jazz and swing music directed by Henry King and co-written by Irving Berlin. As one would expect, the titular song by Berlin features quite heavily throughout the film and in fact the movie begins with a performance of it. Our central character is conductor Roger Grant who, by a coincidence, leads a performance of the song after he finds the music for it dropped by singer Stella Kirby. Roger is soon given the name of Alexander and tours with Stella even though each find the other hard work. Rather predictably they begin to fall for each other but she eventually gets signed to a record contract whilst the rest of the lads are forced to enrol in the army due to the start of World War I. Initially I believed that this film would be nothing more than another light-hearted musical like The Broadway Melody of 1936. However, it morphed into something a little darker as both Stella and Alexander fall in and out of the spotlight until the final performance of the hit at Carnegie Hall. Some of Berlin's most famous songs; including Heat Wave and Easter Parade, are included in the soundtrack and make for an incredibly enjoyable musical. In their roles of Alexander and Stella; Tyrone Power and Alice Faye both shine although I did find the supporting players didn't get much time in the spotlight. The ending was also a little disjointed as it appeared as if Berlin and his co-writers couldn't really devise a good way for Alexander and Stella to reunite. But despite this I felt the film wasn't as flimsy as it could've been and had a great soundtrack that got you through the movie's duller moments.

Moving on a year we find Greta Garbo in only one of the two films she starred in to be nominated for an Oscar, that being Ninotchka. As the majority of my knowledge of classic film stars is via this journey I'm not really aware of Garbo's back catalogue although she did have an incredibly powerful aura in Grand Hotel. Ninotchka was Garbo's penultimate film and was the first broad comedy film in which she starred hence the tagline 'Garbo Laughs.' I was particularly surprised how much the film made me laugh as well as it mocked the Soviet Union's rigid society and the way in which four of its patrons are corrupted when they arrive in Paris. Ninotchka's plot is wafer-thin as it involves the sale of jewellery which had been confiscated during the Russian Revolution and whose owner now wanted it back. Representing the Grand Duchess Swana is Melvin Douglas' Count Leon; a dashing cad who is able to corrupt the three Soviets who arrive in Paris to complete the sale. Garbo's Ninotchka then arrives on the scene; a beret-clad Soviet agent whose job is to complete the sale. I found Garbo to be utterly hilarious in her role as the strait-laced Soviet who is gradually won over by the smooth-talking count. Ernst Lubitsch's direction perfectly anchors the humour whilst the script is packed full of laugh-out-loud one-liners. At just under two hours, Ninotchka is perfectly paced as our two characters come together before being torn apart due to blackmail. The final scene is beautifully played and one more gag is included in the closing shot which I for one appreciated. But ultimately the success of Ninotchka comes down to the brilliant chemistry between Garbo and Douglas both of whom contribute to making this a thoroughly enjoyable satirical screwball comedy.

Entering the 1940s we find Sergeant York which is most famous in Academy Awards history for Gary Cooper's Best Actor win in a field that also included Orson Welles' powerful turn in Citizen Kane. Before going into Sergeant York I believed it to be a war film which chronicled the wartime exploits of Alvin York who won the Medal of Honour. Whilst there are war scenes towards the end of the film the majority of the picture is concerned with York's journey from ne'er-do-well to God-loving pacifist. Indeed, American's participation in World War One isn't even touched upon until the second half of the film and by that point I'd got a little bit bored if truth be told. York's Tennessee townsfolk were all a little bit backward and used phrases such as 'cash money' to resemble how simple they were. Meanwhile, I found Cooper's performance to be a little underwhelming and nowhere near as good as his turn as the steadfast sheriff in High Noon. There were some highlights amongst the cast namely the pretty Joan Leslie as the girl who made York change his way and Margaret Wycherly as his long-suffering mother. I feel my main gripe with Sergeant York though is its sense of American patriotism and the idea that God wanted an American to fight in the trenches in order to win the war. I think if I were a God-loving American I may feel differently about Sergeant York but overall I was a little bit bored during a film that run just over two hours. As well as winning two Oscars; Sergeant York was the highest-grossing film of 1941 and I have to say I'm not surprised as the Americans would've lapped up this patriotic nonsense during World War II. But, over seventy years later, Sergeant York is one of those films that feels awfully outdated.

Next time we return to the 21st Century where we focus on two films starring a hearthrob turned serious actor.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 108: Go To Hell?

Going into the future films in 1978 there is a film called Heaven Can Wait starring Warren Beatty which is a remake of a nominated film from the 1940s. Confusingly it isn't my next film, Heaven Can Wait, instead it is Here Comes Mr Jordan which I am yet to watch. This version of Heaven Can Wait sees Don Ameche as wealthy Henry Van Cleve a man who has recently passed away and has come to the 'down below', we're assuming it is hell and that Laird Creagar's character simply referred to as 'His Excellency' is Satan. Creagar doesn't believe that Van Cleve should be there so Van Cleve narrates his life story to 'His Excellency'. At first we the audience believe him to be a rogue, or a cad or a bounder from a young age he is corrupted by his young French governess Mademoiselle and given wine. He then steals the fiancée of his boorish cousin and elopes with her before cheating on her towards their tenth anniversary. But then things turn around and Van Cleve becomes both a loving husband and a good father, at one point trying to pay off the woman who is out to ruin his son's reputation. He loses his wife on the eve of their 25th anniversary and although he is swayed briefly by other women he never gives up loving her. It turns out the reason he doesn't think he belongs upstairs is that he doesn't want to run into his wife and other relatives as he thinks he's let them down therefore truly becoming a good person. 'His Excellency' points out that it won't be easy and he may have to stay on the outskirts in a small apartment but one day Van Cleve will be allowed entry.

Heaven Can Wait had a very promising start with Van Cleve's meeting with 'His Excellency' and his subsequent retelling of his adolescence. 'His Excellency's' office is very well designed almost in an avant-garde style and the first scene does promise almost a black comedy. But then after the Van Cleve character starts becoming a good person things start to lag and the whole segment after he loses his wife is very boring indeed. Despite that there are some good performances notably from Charles Coburn as Van Cleve's Grandfather the only person in his family with any sense, Alyn Joslyn as the horrible cousin and Ameche himself. It is also a very clever story a reversal of the pleading with St. Peter to be let into heaven by trying to convince Satan why you belong in hell. But overall I felt a little bit deflated and that the film didn't have enough faith in its darkly comic premise to follow through. Maybe this is the sort of film that could be remade, but then would the title have to be changed to avoid confusion?

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 42: One Disaster after Another