Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 112: Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel

I remember when I was still at school and pulling a sicky I was allowed to rent a couple of videos from the local shop and one I chose was The Preacher's Wife starring Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington. As a 12 year old I didn't really get it and of course at the time I wasn't aware that it was a remake of a film nominated at the 1948 Oscars starring Cary Grant and David Niven. The Bishop's Wife tells the story of Henry Brougham a Bishop with a lot of things on his mind. He needs money to renovate the cathedral, he fears he is losing his parishioners and he is worried that his wife and child no longer love him. Loretta Young's Julia the titular wife is also having problems and seems to look glum wherever she goes. So Henry prays for divine intervention and gets it in the form of Dudley the Angel played by Cary Grant. Dudley is a hit with all around him, he convinces the wealthy Mrs.Hamilton to donate the cathedral funds to the poor, he gets the atheist Professor Wutherington to open up about how he lost his faith and he also puts a smile on Julia's face but he gets a bit too close to her for comfort. The only person who isn't happy when Dudley is around is Henry who feels that Dudley is trying to outplay him and trying to steal his wife and child from him. Obviously everybody learns lessons before the film ends and the film does tackle some interesting themes about faith, love and how much we take life for granted sometimes. The end of the film sees Henry and his family reunited with Dudley wiping all the memories of him away before leaving.

For me the one fatal flaw of The Bishop's Wife was that I really didn't sympathise or like Cary Grant's Dudley. I found at times he was abusing his position for his own good at one point stopping Henry from attending a carol concert with his wife and then taking her skating. Although he does end up putting things right I just did find him a little bit slimy for an angel and someone who had too much charm. David Niven was first choice to play the angel but when Grant came on board he was the bigger star so got his choice of roles and demanded to play Dudley. However that plays to Niven's advantage as I felt sympathy towards Henry and his lot in life trying to juggle family with the ferocious women of the parish. I found one scene between him and the always excellent Monty Wooley's Professor Wutherington to be fairly compelling where they talk about outer world beings and what they need to be happy in fact if one character changes the most for me it was Wutherington. Overall the ensemble cast, with the exception of Grant, probably make the film what it is with Young also doing what is needed of her which is mainly smiling and looking beautiful. It is nice to look at as well seeing the city all done up for Christmas but the finish is almost too neat as Dudley heads off once again. I really can't cast my mind back that far to remember if Whitney and Denzel did a better job but I can't imagine they did, they certainly didn't get an Oscar nomination that's for sure.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 58: Two Different Houses

Back to the serious stuff once again with two films that have nothing in common apart from the word house in the title. First of we have The House of Rothschild which was nominated for the Oscar in 1935. The film is basically a propaganda film bigging up the Jews in response to the start of the Anti-Semitic movement coming from Hitler's Germany. At a time when most of the heads of the major studios were Jewish they decided to fight back in film form. It basically looks at the Rothschild family who grew up on 'Jew Street' a place where the Jews had to stay and keep in from 6 in the evening till 6 in the morning. The family is headed by patriarch Meyer who convinces his five sons to each start banks in Europe's major cities but to always consult each other on major matters. Later on the Rothschild boys are all grown-up and together helped finance the fight against Napoleon, however once Napoleon is captured, because of the Rothschilds being Jewish, their contribution to the success of the war is glossed over and they are once again ignored. When Napoleon escapes the brothers retreat back to see their mother on Jew Street they think about allying themselves with Napoleon but in the end they decide to stay on the side of the allies this portrays the Rothschilds as caring as they help the people who wouldn't help them. The final scene of the film, for some reason, is presented in three-strip Technicolor and sees Nathan Rothschild meet the Duke of Wellington who finally congratulates him on his help during the war-effort. Personally I didn't really 'get' The House of Rothschild, I thought the performances were perfectly adequate especially George Arliss in the dual role of Nathan and Meyer Rothschild. But the story itself was weak there was a horrible subplot in which Nathan's daughter wanted to marry a non-Jew which was just insipid. Also although I got the point in the films which promoted the goodness of the Jews I felt it wasn't really strong enough to constitute being considered as propaganda. I also found the three-strip Technicolor a little gimmicky and I really didn't see the point in it. This was never going to be a match for that year's winner, It Happened One Night.

A better film comes from the third ever Oscar ceremony and could possibly be considered the first ever proper prison film. The film follows Kent Marlowe as he is imprisoned, supposedly wrongly, for manslaughter. He is forced to share a cell with Wallace Beery's fearsome Butch as well as Chester Morris' sensible and good-natured thief John Morgan. Kent quickly becomes a snitch and plants a knife on Morgan. Morgan escapes anyway and meets up with Kent's sister who he falls for but the rest of the family ring the police and Morgan gets put in jail once again. He then finds out that Butch is planning a breakout and Kent is thinking of joining him but, after meeting Kent's family, Morgan tries to talk him out of it. In the end Morgan gets involved in the breakout to stop Kent breaking out but in the process also helps out the guards apprehend the escapees and his release is granted as he leaves the prison hoping to reunite with Kent's sister and live on an island. Although the plot is quite slight, The Big House seems like a revolutionary film, the scenes of the prisoners moving from their cells, to the yard, to the dining hall are filmed very well for an early talking picture. Wallace Beery was the star of the show as the menacing Butch but Chester Morris made a pretty good leading man as the likeable Morgan. This well written film was rewarded for an Oscar for its screenplay as well as being the first ever film to win the Best Sound Oscar. It's just a shame that it came up against the realistic war picture All Quiet on The Western Front because this film really did give you a feel for what life must be like in prison from the first shot in which Kent comes into prison up to the riot itself this was a very good film indeed.