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 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.