Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 102: The Soldiers Coming Back and The Women that Wait for Them

So we're back in the saddle, and as it's Oscar Weekend I'm guessing I'm going to have carry over the Oscar challenge for another year as at the moment we're still straddling around in the 1940s.

First up is The Long Voyage Home, a nominee from 1941, which looks at a group of men journeying back from service in the West Indies firstly to Baltimore and then to England. This is very much a film about men trapped in an enclosed space as one-by-one they become increasingly suspicious that the Englishman Smitty is actually a German spy. When they finally confront him and torture him it turns out that he is no more than a recovering alcoholic who has run away from his family and is concealing his true identity because he is ashamed. The scene in which he breaks down is made even more poignant when Smitty is killed shortly after by a German plane making all the other men decide not to sign up for another tour of service on the ship and instead decide to help the mild-mannered Ole return home to Sweden. However, in the final part of the film, Ole is drugged and kidnapped and forced onto another ship so his shipmates help him escape but in the confusion the ship sets sail with one of their number, their sort of leader the Irish Driscoll, on board and they soon hear that the ship was blown up by a German torpedo with all the men still on board. The film has a sort of a happy ending as Ole does return to Sweden but the rest of the men decide to travel on and return to the ship. I did enjoy this film, for the most part, especially the scenes in which the men are trying to occupy themselves on the voyage home. I loved Ian Hunter as the tragic Smitty and Thomas Mitchell as Driscoll who at times seemed like the only reasonable person on the ship. But the actor in the cast who surprised me most was John Wayne, so much so that at the start of the film I didn't even realise it was him. Wayne's Ole is completely different from most of the other parts he plays, he is understated, softly-spoken and feels very much like a real character. The film sort of falls down in the final third with the stupid stuff involving the drugging and Driscoll's death but other than that a solid film and a worthy nominee.

So while the men are journeying home what are the women up to? Well the answers to that are found in a nominee from the 1945 ceremony - Since You Went Away. The film has a mightily impressive ensemble cast headed up by Claudette Colbert, in what many consider her final great role. Colbert almost didn't take the part as a wife and mother waiting to hear news of her husband in the war, as she didn't think she was old enough to play the mother of two teenage girls. The story concerns the Hilton family and specifically Anne and her two daughters - Jane and Brig played respectively by Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple trying to cope during 1943. The Hiltons are short on money so take in the long-in-the-tooth former serviceman Colonel Smogget, in order to keep up with the rent. Smogget's grandson Bill comes to visit him to tell him he's joined the army, however Smogget isn't really interested but Bill does end up falling in love with Jane and the two begin a relationship which is cut short by Bill's tragic death. The other story concerns Anne herself who is faithful to her husband despite being wooed by long time friend Tony, she also has to consider he place in the war effort and what she is actually doing to help after being apalled by comments made by her snooty friend Emily. Since You Went Away was one of the famous 'women's pictures' of the 1940s and was absolutely tremendous making what could've been just a romantic drama and turning into a film about family, friendship, belonging and finding your place. Colbert was denied the Best Actress Oscar as it went to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight but she is fantastic here as are everyone in the cast which, as well as the three main actress, includes Joseph Cotten, Monty Woolley, Agnes Moorhead, Lionel Barrymore and Hattie McDaniel. Although many will be unfamiliar with the film itself, the scene in which Jane chases after Bill's train has been spoofed in many films most famously in Airplane. Overall another film that deserved all the praise it got but another film that was left out in the cold so the completely average Going My Way could scoop all of that year's prizes.

Okay so we're back on the road again, more to follow.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 77: Christmas Comes Early

They say that Christmas comes but once a year, but Christmas films can come any time you see fit. As Miracle on 34th Street was nominated at the 1948 ceremony I'd decided I would watch It's a Wonderful Life which I had to watch online, at the same time.

First up then is Miracle on 34th Street, a film I'm very familiar with but mainly due to the 1994 remake. For those who have no idea of the story it's about a department store manager, Doris Walker, who hires a new store Santa after she finds her current Santa drunk. The new Santa, Kris Kringle, believes himself to be Santa and after an altercation ends up in a mental asylum. Kringle then has to prove he is not insane and Fred Gailey, Doris' suitor, decides to defend him thanks to a batch of children's letters to Santa. Meanwhile Doris' daughter Susan is a very grown-up girl and doesn't believe in Santa but Kringle tries to change her mind. I do love this story it's all about belief and love and the true meaning of Christmas. Kringle starts to tell parents where they can get presents cheaper even if it is not in Macy's, the store where he works. The incident that leaves Kringle in a mental institution is after he is goaded by Sawyer, Macy's psychologist who believes Kringle is insane. Sawyer picks on a young Macy's employee who Kringle has befriended and once this happens Kringle strikes Sawyer with his cane and Sawyer exaggerates the injury. I felt this incident was a bit contrived and preferred the old Santa trying to get revenge which happened in the remake. Apart from that though this film is full of old-school warmth and has some great performances. As Doris, Maureen O'Hara is able to show a woman who finds it hard to trust but melts after her encounters with Kris and Fred. Edmund Gwenn won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Kris and it is a lovely natural performance while Natalie Wood shows that not all child actors have to be annoying. This is a Christmas classic whether you watch this version or the '94 remake.

The other film in this double bill is It's a Wonderful Life a film that is always associated with Christmas however only the film's last half hour is set at Christmas time. For the three people who have never seen the film it concerns James Stewart's George Bailey who has basically helped out every member of the community in Bedford Falls but after a lot of money goes missing from his Savings and Loans business he tries to commit suicide. A kindly but dithering angel named Clarence is entrusted with helping Bailey out and showing him what he meant to everyone. However this comes at the end of the film and most of it is depicting George's life from a young boy to the present day. This is shown by Clarence's superiors in order to educate him about George. We see a man who helped his brother from drowning, his boyhood boss from poisoning most of the town and from taking over his father's business rather than going to college. It also shows him marry the love of his life Mary and have four children together and his many clashes with the greedy Mr Potter. After Potter convinces Bailey that he isn't worth anything, George goes off and that's when Clarence shows him how much he helped people. This is all done on Christmas Eve accompanied by snow and renditions of various carols. And I think this is why this film has got so much of an association with Christmas and to be fair it is feel good entertainment up to a point. This is Frank Capra's last film to be nominated for an Oscar and his third collaboration with James Stewart after You Can't Take It With You and Mr Smith Goes to Washington, the latter of those will be the next entry in this blog. By this point in his career Stewart showed that he was a more than competent leading man and gives a great turn as the extremely likeable and hard-working George ably supported by Donna Reed as the loving Mary. Stewart got the only acting nomination which is a shame as there are two other brilliant performances. The first is from Lionel Barrymore, who up to this point had mainly been seen playing kindly old men, playing the villainous and callous Potter. The second is from Henry Travers as Clarence who isn't on screen very long but steals the film most of the time he is. Stewart and the movie both lost out to The Best Years of Our Lives, but out of the five films nominated this year this has stood the test of time which can only be a good thing.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 56: A Bit of Charlie

In what seems like a lifetime ago I watched two films based on the works of one of Britain's best loved wordsmiths, William Shakespeare, now I'm dipping back into the list and getting two films that follow a similar pattern as both were based on works written by another chap you may have heard of - Charles Dickens.

First off is George Cukor's massive adaptation of David Copperfield, Copperfield is probably one of the better known of Dickens' work and was obviously a good choice to be one of the first of his books to be adapted since the advent of talking movies. Cukor was also responsible for some of the 1930s adaptations that I've already looked at on this list, Little Women and Romeo and Juliet. For those unfamiliar with the story it shows the development of David Copperfield, from being born to being raised by a single mother with the help of Peggorty the maid. Copperfield's mother then remarries and he is sent first to a boarding school (not seen in the film) and then to a factory in London. There he meets the jovial but constantly in debt lanlord Wilkins Micawber but when Micawber is sent to the debtor's prison, Copperfield feels like he has nothing to live for and treks from London to Dover to live with his great aunt and her dotty companion Mr Dick. As David grows up he falls in love with the beautiful Dora while he also works as a trainee clerk alongside the devious Uriah Heap. David's old school friend Steerforth returns and seduces and absconds with Peggoty's niece Emily, this incident gives the film one of its most vivid scenes as Pegggoty's brother searches high and low for Emily in a windswept montage. In the end David married Dora but she dies in childbirth so he remarries the sensible Agnes while the bad guys all get their comeuppance.

For one of the earliest Dickens adaptations, Cukor has been able to fit in a lot of detail and filmed some rather superb sequences. David's trek from London to Dover is a brilliant sequence as comes ever nearer to his aunt. The scene in which Steerforth and David meet Dora for the first time is also rather cute and as previously mentioned the search for Emily. It's a shame then that the two actors in the lead role almost let the film down Freddie Bartholomew who was annoying in Captain Courageous doesn't change my opinion of him here, while Frank Lawton as the older David is fairly bland. Thankfully the colourful characters are given fitting actors to play them W.C. Fields is witty and warm as Micawber, Lionel Barrymore is as excellent as ever as Mr Peggoty and the Benny Hill-like Lennox Pawle brings the eccentric Mr Dick to life spectacularly. Although, at well over two hours, the film sometimes drags overall Cukor has done a good job of bringing the world of Copperfield to life.

Although both of these adaptations were released in the same year Copperfield qualified for the 1935 ceremony losing to Mutiny on The Bounty while A Tale of Two Cities had to wait till 1936 to lose to The Great Zigfield. This time Jack Conway, who we've previously met directing Viva Villa!, tries to adapt Dickens' account of the French revolution. The story sees Lucie Manette discover that her father is still alive imprisoned in the Bastille. Lucie brings her father back across the channel and while on the boat meets the charming Darnay who comes from one of France's most tyrannical aristocratic families. On entrance to England, Darnay is framed for treason, but is released thanks to the efforts of Sydney Carton a lawyer who is able to get a confession out of the men who frame Darnay. Carton falls for Lucie but Lucie has already fallen for Darnay and they marry and have a daughter. We are then taken back to Paris where the French underclasses rebel against the aristocrats but then a certain number of them what revenge against the families that have wronged them including Darnay. He is tricked in going back to Paris only to be arrested despite Lucie and Carton's best efforts he sentenced to be executed but the day before this happens Carton swaps places with Darnay and is able to end his life a hero.

Again a brilliant adaptation this time the scenes that resonate the most are those during the French revolution. A combination of dim lighting transposed with large amounts of fire is quite horrifying. Also the scenes in which Carton falls for Lucie are incredibly well done meaning that the terror is transposed with some humour. Ronald Colman as Carton is brilliant here, previously I wasn't sure about his acting ability especially in Arrowsmith, but in A Tale of Two Cities he brings the drunken, smitten and ultimately selfless lawyer to life. Also worth a mention are two actors who appeared in both of these films first of all Basil Rathbone who has played villains in both pieces as Copperfield's evil stepfather in the first film he terrifies every time he comes on screen while here as the heartless Marquise he is incredibly sinister. Meanwhile Edna May Oliver, who also played the aunt in Little Women and the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, played Copperfield's mad aunt and the loyal and eccentric maid in A Tale of Two Cities, in the latter role she is able to kick-ass and protect Lucie in the final scenes.

I think both of these films deserved their place on the nomination lists as they were able to bring Dickens' stories to an audience who had probably never read them. Although Copperfield probably wasn't a match for Mutiny on The Bounty, A Tale of Two Cities in some way was better than the overly-long spectacular The Great Ziegfeld. But both are examples of how adaptations of classic novels should be done.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 47: Just Testing it Out

And its farewell to the cosiness of LoveFilm as I reach the great abyss with at least another twenty-four films to watch, and maybe more if I can find them somewhere. And we're kicking off with a reunion of San Francisco's leading men Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable and that film is Test Pilot.

The relationship between Gable and Tracy is similar to that in the disaster flick they filmed a couple of year's previously. Gable is the reckless womaniser and Tracy is the more grounded sage who worries about him. Here Gable plays Jim the eponymous test pilot who is tasked to try planes out before they are ready to fly and try and break speed records, Tracy plays mechanic Gunner who finds Jim reckless and often has to get him out of tricky situations. Near the beginning of the film, Jim crashes a plane in Kansas and meets Myrna Loy's Ann who is excited by his lifestyle and leaves her fiancée to be with him. Soon we have three relationships the romance between Jim and Ann, the friendship between Gunner and Jim and the relationship between Gunner and Ann which is based on knowing that Jim's job means that he often faces death. When a fellow test pilot dies in a plane that was meant for Jim, Jim gives all his money to the widow and then goes on a drunken bender. The finale sees Jim quitting the test pilot life after Gunner is crushed during one of Jim's test runs, Jim decides he has to spend time with his wife so decides to train the next generation of test pilots instead.

One thing that really stood out for me in Test Pilot was the cinematography, the shots of the planes were particularly fantastic. However there was no nominations for cinematography instead the editing did get nominated as did the original screenplay. All of the acting talent was well represented and of all of his performances I have to say I have enjoyed Spencer Tracy the most in this film and his double act with Gable was probably the highlight of the film. Myrna Loy didn't really have a lot to do in terms of plot but she is a fine actress as proved in her roles opposite William Powell. Overall a great little film but not one that ever stood the test of time especially in that list at the 1939 ceremony but it's an admirable effort. However at the next year's ceremony the next collaboration between Clark Gable and director Victor Fleming would clean up, that film being of course Gone With the Wind.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 35: Sailing with Spencer

Various computer issues have stopped me from having a fruitful week of watching and now I'm desperately trying to get up to at least forty films before I go to Portugal on Thursday. Last time I watched my first film starring the iconic Bette Davis and this time was no different as I watched the first film in the list starring another icon - Spencer Tracy. Of the early screen men (Bogart, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda) I was less familiar with Tracy's work than I was any others. I'm not sure how good it was to start off with Captain Courageous while, although this won Tracy his first of two consecutive Best Actor Oscars, he is also given second billing as child-star Freddie Bartholomew's name is top on the poster. In fact Tracy doesn't appear for at least the first twenty minutes of the film as first we follow Bartholomew's Harvey a very spoilt and obnoxious child whose father is incredibly rich and Harvey uses this to try and bribe his way through life. When his father finally wises up to this fact he takes Harvey away with him to Europe, to try and introduce him to the world of work however Harvey starts messing around and ends up falling out of the ship but is soon rescued by Tracy's Portuguese fisherman Manuel. Manuel is part of the crew on a fishing ship and Harvey has to quickly learn how to be productive and how he has to work for his money. He becomes less spoilt and looks to Manuel as a father figure as he spends more time with him than his father normally does (Harvey's mother never features in the film and we assume she died in his childhood). The film is mainly about fathers and sons and growing up and it's those two films that are seen throughout the film. There is quite an emotional scene towards the end of the film where things change up but at the end Harvey's father learns to appreciate his son and vice versa.

While I thought Tracy did a good job as Manuel, I'm not sure whether it was an Oscar winning performance. I think mainly its due to the kind of family-adventure nature of the film because while it is a naval adventure movie it never kind of explores any adult themes in the way something like Mutiny on The Bounty did although as you can see from the poster it is just as good. But I think Tracy is only that good because he is backed up by a very good almost all-male cast, at the beginning of the film I did want to dropkick Bartholomew but at the end of the film I'd warmed to him, it must've been so hard as a child actor in the early days of cinema to know how to pitch yourself between precocious and annoying. Another child star on board is Mickey Rooney who has a supporting role as the Captain's son while Lionel Barrymore again steals every scene as the ship's Captain. Very well made and well-paced I wish a lot more non-animated family films were as good as this these days, but I don't think we'll ever seen Brendan Fraser or Steve Martin nominated for their roles in their PG friendly films.

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.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 12 & 13: A Load of Old Screwballs

A staple of the 1930s, the screwball comedy genre produced a couple of winners and more nominees during that decade. Having already watched the 1935 winner - Frank Capra's It Happened One Night I am familiar with the screwball comedy format - quick dialogue, one upmanship between the male and female leads and almost a clash between the upper and lower classes. In It Happened One Night Clark Gable was very much in control and had to look after Claudette Colbert's heiress however the two female leads in my next two screwballs were more than a match for their male counterparts. First up was The Awful Truth, a 1938 Best Picture nominee, which lost out to The Life of Emile Zola. Despite that loss director Leo McCarey took home that year's Best Director Oscar and overall the film had six nominations. One of those was for Irene Dunne who more than deserved to win, as she plays Lucy who decides to divorce her husband Jerry, played by Cary Grant who didn't get a nomination. Lucy is able to wrap all the men in the film around her little finger, she is able to get custody of their dog through manipulative means and then starts romancing the reliable but dull Dan (Ralph Bellamy who inexplicably was nominated for Best Supporting Actor despite having no charisma whatsoever), even though she contemplates marrying Dan she realises she still loves Jerry but then Jerry finds love and Lucy manages to ruin this relationship. Dunne is probably the strongest female lead I have seen so far, even though there is a hint that a woman needs to be married and get be the one who initiates the divorce, Lucy is definitely the more dominant of the pair. The film is perfectly timed and brilliantly executed and right up my street, the final few scenes set in a cabin are a bit odd as the pair ponder a reconciliation. Although there is no real comment on social standing or econmic wellbeing - Lucy, Jerry and Dan are all fairly well off and dress fancily and get afford servants no real mention of money apart from in the divorce.


That's a complete contrast of the other film and the last winner from a 1930's ceremony - You Can't Take It With You. It won Frank Capra his third Best Director Oscar and it was the second of his films to win Best Picture after the aforementioned It Happened One Night. I think this more than any film sees the female lead be a lot stronger than her male counterpart. The film sees Jean Arthur's Bank Worker fall in love with the boss' son played by James Stewart in one of his first lead roles. Stewart's family are straight-laced his father wants to buy up the entire town and his mother is very prim and proper. Meanwhile Arthur's family are all odd and eccentric - a father who designs and tests fireworks, a mother who rights plays on a typewriter that was wrongly delivered to the house, a sister who dances atrociously despite having a live-in Russian dance coach and a brother-in-law who likes playing the xylophone along to his wife's dancing and also likes printing slogans and sticking them inside candy. The heart of the family, and of the neighbourhood, is Lionel Barrymore's Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, who is the owner of the house that the bank wants to buy. So it is the clash between the banker and the eccentric heart of the neighbourhood as they meet as potential family members. The film is full of fancy farce and plenty of witty dialogue (the script got a nomination) and also a great ensemble cast. Surprisingly Barrymore didn't get a Supporting Actor nomination instead the only acting nomination went to Spring Byngton as the family's matriarch which was a decent performance if nothing else. But it is Arthur who decides to turn down Stewart's proposal after their families clash, Stewart indeed seems quite closeted and not as worldly wise as his female counterpart. At the time of the depression it was great for people to see a comedy which applauded the little man for leaving boring jobs and doing what they loved rather than racking up lots of money. The bankers are seen as unhappy and unfeeling while the Sycamore family are seen as loving and happy throughout, although they are not completely penniless as they can afford two members of staff in their home. Also a little side-note is that this is the first film I've seen in which the African American staff members have had a little bit more to do than simply greet their masters (seen in The Great Ziegfeld, Three Smart Girls and The Awful Truth) and instead feel more a part of the family.

Both of these films greatly cheered me up and I thought they were great, especially You Can't Take it With You which I think is better than most modern comedy films. I think we had two films with very powerful female leads - Jean Arthur and Irene Dunne, who could teach the leading ladies of today's Hollywood a thing or two about how to keep a man in his place.