Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 420-422: Days of Future Past Part Six

Welcome once again to our time-travelling trip through the decades as we attempt to fill in the gaps of the challenge.

First of all apologies for jumping around the timeline a bit but at the last minute I managed to get my hands on a copy of 1931 nominee Five Star Final. Although the film was released around the same time as Trader Horn, I found that the newspaper drama felt a lot more contemporary. Mervyn La Roy's film focuses on editor Joseph Randall who finds himself under pressure to increase the distribution of his tabloid. He's talked in to producing a series of articles focusing on the twentieth anniversary of a murder committed by the notorious Nancy Voorhies. Little does he know that Nancy is now happily married and has a daughter who herself is about to tie the knot. The revelation in the papers soon spoils the family's happiness and results in both Nancy and her husband Michael committing suicide. What I initially thought was going to be a drama in the same vain as previous early nominee The Front Page turned dark very quickly. The double suicide coupled with the general reaction to the event meant that Five Star Final was one of the earliest examples of a press satire. It was quite easy to deduce that Five Star Final's origins lay on the stage however LaRoy at least went out of his way to use the cinematic techniques available to him. Most notably he employed some clever editing during a sequence in which Nancy is desperately trying to get Randall to drop the story about her family. As Randall, I thought Edward G. Robinson was brilliant as he conveyed his character's guilt perfectly and his final speech was brilliantly delivered. Although The Front Page is definitely of its time I think it holds up a lot better than the three films in the previous post and I found it to be an incredibly easy watch. It's also no surprise to learn that the film was one of the two that made Robinson a star and I'm only surprised that he hadn't been a big name before Five Star Final was released.

We now move in the right direction for probably the last 1930s film I'll review for as part of this blog. The Citadel is an interesting film that almost feels like three episodes of a miniseries featuring Robert Donat's trainee Doctor Andrew Mason. The first part of the film looks at Mason's training in a small Welsh town in which he meets resistance from the senior doctor's wife but at the same time is able to help out several villagers. The second part of the movie looks at Mason's move to a Welsh mining village and his marriage to beloved schoolteacher Christine. Once again Andrew faces opposition, this time from the miners who don't want him to change the way they've been doing things for years. Andrew refuses to punch their unfit for work cards and wants to explore the troubling coughs that the miners develop. Eventually frustrated he leaves Wales for London but he struggles to find patients for his burgeoning clinic. The final third of the film looks at Mason's corruption at the hands of the Harley Street set and the fact that he makes a lot of money from doing very little. I personally found the general structure of The Citadel to be quite frustrating as, just as one plot starting to develop, director King Vidor changed the action to another location. The one memorable moment of the film comes halfway through when Mason helps rescue several people from a collapsed mine. However, the film then gets a little dreary as we see Andrew become more and more enchanted with the superficial London lifestyle. I have to say that the point The Citadel was making was quite an obvious one and I found the ending completely anticlimactic. In fact the only thing that saved it was the central turn from Robert Donat who certainly showed qualities that would later see him cast in his Oscar-winning role in Goodbye Mr. Chips. Aside from Donat though there was very little about The Citadel that was memorable and at the end of the day it feels like yet another also-ran nominee.

But describing our next film; The Yearling as an also-ran nominee would almost be giving it too much credit as its one of the most inconsequential pieces of cinema I think I've ever seen. Set in 1878, The Yearling follows the adventures of the Baxter family - former Civil War soldier Penny, his withdrawn wife Ora and their son Jody. Throughout the film Ora's emotional state is explained away by the fact that she'd lost all of her other children and only Jody remained. I have to say if I was in Ora's position I'd be a little annoyed to as Jody is especially annoying. Films like The Yearling only work if the cute child star isn't annoying and unfortunately in this movie that isn't the case. It's particularly annoying as the majority of the film deals with Jody's relationship with a young fawn named Flag who he tries to raise. But, when the time comes to set him free, Jody doesn't take it and instead experiences proper loss for the first time. Whilst I can see what director Clarence Brown was trying to achieve with The Yearling the results are incredibly mediocre. Aside from Claude Jarman Jr's cloying performance as Jody, the cast are uniformly forgettable. Most surprising was the fact that Jane Wyman, who was so superb in Johnny Belinda, made little impression in her role as Ora. To be fair to Wyman the role didn't require much of her apart from sitting sour-faced whilst performing some menial task. Though Gregory Peck tried his best to make us warm to Penny, I found him a little too squeaky clean and didn't think he came down hard enough on his son. Surprisingly The Yearling was nominated for seven Oscars including for the performances given by Peck and Wyman. The fact it won in the colour cinematography and art direction categories leads me to believe that its main appeal to the Academy was its bright colours. Indeed, when films were primarily still shot in black and white, I'd feel that The Yearling would definitely stand out in the crowd. But it's a film that hasn't aged well and at the end of the day I don't think it would've been nominated at all were it not for the fact that it had been filmed in colour.

The only good think about watching The Yearling was the fact that it was the last Best Picture Nominee of the 1940s that I was yet to watch. To that end the next post looks at my completion of both the 1950s and 1960s.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 141: A Double Bill of Biblical Proportions

During the 1950s we saw the dawn of big pictures being made in Cinescope and Techincolor. To this effect some of the old sword and sandals epics from the early period of cinema started to be updated using these new techniques two of which are the biblical epics we will cover in this blog post.

We start with The Robe which was nominated for Best Picture at the 1954 ceremony adapted from the novel by Lloyd C Douglas it tries to tell the story of what happened to the Roman soldier who won Jesus' robe. The soldier turns out to be Tribune Marcellus Gallio, played here by Richard Burton, a well-liked man who at the beginning of the film takes on a slave Demetrius. Gallio treats Demetrius well but then one day the latter glances upon Jesus and starts to believe in him so refuses to take orders from one of the men who is overseeing the crucifixion. After winning the robe Marcellus starts to get fits and egged on by his love interest Diana and the Emperor Tiberius he starts to discover Jesus' works and his miracle and himself becomes a Christian. However when Tiberius dies and Caligula takes his place Marcellus is forced into taking trial as a conspirator against the empire as Caligula and Marcellus are enemies after Diana left the former for the latter. At the end of the film Marcellus is sentenced to his death and Diana walks with him as the screen fades out they are both walking into clouds with angelic music playing behind them. That final scene displays all you really need to know about The Robe in that its main motive is pro-Jesus and even if you die you'll find happiness in the next life. There's no denying that the film is well made and well shot and fully takes advantage of the Technicolor aspect of the picture. The opening scene in which Marcellus walks through the market just before meeting Demetrius is the film's most spectacular taking in all manner of animals and people later on however the film loses its epic feel as it becomes a lot of people talking in rooms but mind you they are well furnished rooms and all the people in them are well-costumed. Richard Burton was nominated for Best Actor here however I feel the best performances come from Victor Mature as Demetrius and Jean Simmons as Diana. Overall a good example of the 1950s swords and sandals epic that peters out towards the end of its run as its religious message really begins to kick in.

Three years after The Robe and four years after he won Best Picture, Cecil B DeMile presented his final picture The Ten Commandments a nominee in 1957. As you can probably garner from the film's title it deals with the story of Moses and how The Ten Commandments came to be. However that part of the story takes part in the film's final half hour, before that there are three and a half hours explaining Moses' entire life and his need to let his people go. As I really feel there's no need to go over the story of Moses in detail I instead want to focus on how visually spectacular this film is. From Moses discovering the Burning Bush, to the various plagues of Egypt and the famous scene in which Moses parts the water every effect is delivered perfectly which at that time was quite hard to do. In addition there was a 'cast of thousands' involved in the film as a lot of The Ten Commandments see the Egyptians whipping the Hebrews into shape in order to get their cities built. Of the main cast members Charlton Heston ages and grows hair superbly here to play Moses he has much more personality than he did in The Greatest Show on Earth and is able to carry the film although I did think Yul Brynner did a good job as Ramses making him both a forceful and later sympathetic character. However some of the supporting roles, especially Edward G Robinson's Dathan did lapse into pantomime at points as did the part of the film in which the Hebrew people are corrupted and start to worship false idols. Of course the big problem here is that the film does not need to be four hours long and there's easily an hour or so, most of it around the point where Moses meets his wife, that could be cut out to make the film flow a lot more steadily. But at the end of the day this is a visual spectacle that definitely deserves its Oscar nomination and its place in history and indeed both this and The Robe are still in the top 100 grossing films of all time including inflation adjustment. So it just goes to show that there is big money to be made from Bible-based movies so I'll have to grab my copy of The Great Book and start adapting now!

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 99-101: Catch-up Part 7

And to end two Film Noirs that possibly should've won the Best Picture award. Firstly Mildred Pierce which lost to The Lost Weekend at the 1946 ceremony. The film sees Joan Crawford's Mildred Pierce recount the story of her life after her second husband is murdered. As the story is told its seems that Mildred will do anything for her oldest daughter Veda but just can't seem to please her. When Mildred divorces Veda's father she has to become a waitress something that infuriates Veda and she can't even be pleased when Mildred starts to make money by owning her own restaurant. Mildred's second husband Monty starts to spend all the money that Mildred makes so much so that she loses her restaurant. It is then revealed that Veda and Monty have been conducting an affair but it is in fact Veda who shot Monty after she found out that he never loved her and like eveyrone else in his life he was simply using her, in the end Mildred fails to protect her daughter and Veda goes to jail. I thoroughly enjoyed Mildred Pierce and in particular Joan Crawford's central performance as Mildred a role that won her a Best Actress Oscar. Everything about the film from the story, to the camerawork, to the twists and turns made it a classic and I think it had a little bit more going for it than The Lost Weekend.

There was also One Foot in Heaven a film starring Frederic March that I actually forgot I watched originally which gives you some kind of idea how memorable it was. The long and the short of it is that March stars as a preacher who journeys to a town, clashes with the parishioners and has to face several trials with his children. While the film did have things to say about religion and family it really didn't seem like it should've featured in the Top 10 films of that year.

But possibly won of the biggest Oscar injustices happened the year before at the 1945 ceremony where Best Picture was won by the jovial but lightweight Going My Way. The film that probably should've won that year is Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity a film that is so perfectly plotted and executed that the fact it failed to win any of the six Oscars it was nominated for is a travesty. The film, like Mildred Pierce, is told in flashback by Fred MacMurray's insurance salesman Walter Neff who is confessing all that he has done to his colleague played by Edward G Robinson. MacMurray narrates the tale of how he got dragged into the murder of Mr Diectrechson so his young wife could collect on his life insurance. The plot thickens when Neff realises that the lovely Phyllis may not be the innocent victim that he once felt when he gets to know Diectrechson's daughter Lola and finds out that Phyllis may've been instrumental in the death of the original Mrs. Dietrechson. As Robinson's Barton Keyes starts his investigation Neff begins to worry more and more and in the end thanks to Phyliss' deviousness, Neff's part in the plot is finally revealed. I thoroughly enjoyed Double Indemnity and thought that even the six nominations it received were too few as there was nothing for either MacMurray who led the whole story or Robinson who has a few cracking scenes in which he acts his socks off. Although this is Barbara Stanwyck's film and she did deservedly get a nomination for her role but lost out to Ingrid Bergman for Gaslight. Stanwyck's Phyllis is the total embodiment of the classic femme fatale - innocent when she needs to be but with a dark side. Although it went home empty handed at the Oscars, Double Indemnity has certainly gone on to be a classic and is certainly a lot more well-known than the film that won that year.

Okay catch-up done, Oscar Challenge will return with more winners and nominees from the 1940s.