Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 26: Boxing Clever

Next up we have The Champ a film that I didn't really know what to expect from. I had obviously heard of the Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway picture from the 1970s but was unaware that that was actually a remake of this film that was nominated for Best Picture at the 1932 ceremony but lost to Grand Hotel. It did however win a Best Screenplay Award and a Best Actor award for Wallace Beery for playing the titular Champ. The film itself concerns the life of Beery's Andy Purcell nicknamed Champ as he was the former world heavyweight boxing champion. But Champ has fallen on bad times and trains for undercard matches so he can afford to look after his son Dink. But Champ is both an alcoholic and a gambler and therefore doesn't usually turn up in any fit state for his fight and it is often Dink who has to look after his father and not the other way around. Dink and Champ re-encounter Dink's mother Linda who has remarried to a wealthy gentleman who bribes Champ into letting Linda see Dink as the film goes on Dink is forced to stay with Linda when Champ is arrested but is then bailed out by Linda's husband. The finale of the film sees Champ and Dink reunited and Champ boxing the Mexican champion in a main event fight. In the end of the film Champ wins but later dies of a heart attack and in a heart-breaking scene he has a final heart to heart with Dink who then is comforted by his mother.

The Champ is part sports movie but mostly a film about the relationship between a father and son. Champ and Dink's relationship is more friends than father and son and Champ never once acts like a proper father towards Dink but you can't tell that he loves him more than anyone else does. There is a transposition between the seedy underworld that Champ and Dink are forced to live in and Linda' s new life of opulence. The final boxing match is also quite effective and is given ten minutes to develop while I'm sure that the fight scene in the remake is more technically sound the original has a fight scene to rival Raging Bull or Rocky. The two main performances are also brilliant Beery it seems had to share his Best Actor Oscar but this performance was incredibly well thought out and multi-layered while, as Dink, Jackie Cooper shows that he is a brilliant child actor. While I wanted to slap him when I saw him in Skippy, here Cooper gives a turn better than a lot of the more mature actors and if the Best Supporting Actor Oscar had been available this year I reckon Cooper would've been nominated also. A brilliant film about the relationships that define us and how easy it is to lose them.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 20: Comic Book Movies were different in the 1930s

When I first saw that the film Skippy had been nominated for Best Picture at the 1931 ceremony I primarily thought that I'd be in for some Bush Kangaroo fun. But instead Skippy is a film about a young tousled head youth called Skippy and is based on an early comic book. The comic book films we are used to today are often superhero fare like Spiderman or dark graphic novel stuff like Sin City but there's nothing dark about Skippy he makes Dennis the Menace look like Charlie Manson. The basic premise is about the rich and poor divide whereas Skippy and his obnoxious friends - a brother and sister are quite privileged (Skippy's father is a businessman of some distinction) there is also a look into the shanty town life of the 1930s. While not a graphic portrayal this is still the darkest and most interesting part of the film especially when Skippy strikes up a friendship with Sookie a lad from that area. The main story sees Skippy try and raise money to help Sookie try and get his mongrel dog back from a horrible pound worker. Most of the film is quite light and actually reminded me a lot of the Just William series of books although they were set during the Second World War the characters are very similar.

The main problem I had with this film was for the most part I was bored rigid, I couldn't connect with really any of the characters. The younger characters were all quite horrible Skippy in particular was very petulant and I just wanted to give him a slap, in fact Sookie was the only likeable kid in the entire film but even his likeability started to wane. The story was very thin and didn't stretch to the 90 minute runtime. I have to wonder how this film got nominated for four Oscars and actually won Best Director. Meanwhile the screenplay was also nominated but Jackie Cooper's juvenile performance was possible the least deserving of the lot. Although a child star Cooper went on to become a successful director on TV as well as numerous acting appearances most notably as Perry White in the Superman movies. Overall this was just quite a dull family film which I don't think deserved to be on the list but I'm yet to watch this year's winner Cimarron but the only other nominee I've watched from this year, The Front Page, was miles better. A family film about an obnoxious child today may only make straight-to-DVD and certainly wouldn't be on the Academy shortlist, how times have changed.