Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 104: Not Many Laughs

Today if you watched a film with the word comedy in it you would expect a laugh out loud romp, not so in 1944 and that year's Best Story Winner - The Human Comedy. The film deals with the adventures of the Macaulay family during World War II primarily focusing on the middle son Homer played by Mickey Rooney. I wasn't so sure about this film because of Rooney's previous performances in the two Spencer Tracey movies I'd seen him in, Captains Courageous and Boys Town, in which he'd either failed to make an impression or he'd gone over the top. However in The Human Comedy, in which he was nominated for Lead Actor, his wide-eyed innocence and over the top spirit were used well in the character of Homer. Despite the war raging and his brother fighting in battle he keeps a bright expression as he helps out his mother and goes to work at the telegram station. His relationship with the two other men he works with, Frank Morgan's Willie Grogan and James Craig's Tom Spangler, form some of the film's better scenes forming almost a surrogate family as the two men take the place of the father Homer has lost and the brother who is away. We also see the older brother, Marcus, at war conversing with a friend Tobey and reminiscing about how much he misses his hometown of Ithaca. While the youngest brother Ulysses is always seemingly getting into mischief but then he only seems to be about four. The whole thing is narrated by the deceased father of the Macaulay clan as he looks over to see that his family are alright.

Obviously shot and shown during the war this film would've been seen by people who were missing their loved ones while they were away fighting and it obviously gave them hope. There are some nice little scenes here including Spangler finding love and Rooney gaining the approval of his stern school mistress. However there are also some missteps for one part there is far too much singing and there is also a segment that lasts about ten minutes in which Ulysses and other boys from the town go to steal some apricots from an apricot tree, I'm sure this is what happened regularly in that neighbourhood but we still really don't need to see a blow by blow account of fruit theft. The end of the film is quite sad, but I suppose that's the point, things never go exactly as we plan them and if this set out to portray an accurate account of what life was like for families in the early 1940s in small town America then I think it did a good job and Rooney's performance in the last couple of scenes were deserving of his nomination, the film itself lost out to the far superior Casablanca but I think it was more than deserving of a place in that year's top 10 list.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 38: This Town is Our Town

After starring in Captain Courageous, Spencer Tracy would get back to back Best Actor Oscars the second at the 1939 ceremony for his performance in Boys Town. Boys Town is one of those 'based on a true story about inspirational mentor' films that seem to always crop up around awards season (Dead Poets Society for example). Boys Town looks at Tracy's Father Flanagan who decided to start a society for young boys who would otherwise be getting into fights and ending up in young offender's institutes. After several successful years with the Father almost going bankrupt the society becomes a success but Flanagan gets a call from a gang boss asking him to look after his younger brother before he turns to the gang life. That boy is Mickey Rooney's Whitey the stereotypical bad lad stirring up trouble by smoking and fighting in the peaceful society. Although Whitey tries to escape something always keeps dragging him away and that gets him into more trouble finally getting in the way of one of his brother's mob hits but ultimately he is saved by the boys from boys town.

The thing that surprised me with Boys Town was how little impact Spencer Tracy had. Sure he was the inspirational figure but a lot of the time he sat back and watched the boys slug it out. Obviously this happened in real life but for a performance that won Tracy the Best Actor Oscar I really didn't think it was up to much. The film itself was much as you'd expect in a film where the majority of the performers are teenage boys. Mickey Rooney for his part wasn't as annoying as other films that I'd seen him in up to this point and was almost bearable in the other lead role. But I just felt this lacked something and especially in a year where La Grande Illusion and The Adventures of Robin Hood were both nominated and You Can't Take It With You won this almost feels a little stuck in the past compared to the modern feel of those other films.

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 11: Getting a Bit Bard

In the interest of getting though this challenge I decided to group together two films which have one thing in common - Mr Bill Shakespeare. Yes two Shakespeare adaptations - A Midsummers Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet, were nominated in 1936 and 1937 respectively. First of all A Midsummers Night's Dream (the fourth of 1936's nominees) I am to watch which I was very impressed with. For a film from 1935 I was impressed by the overall design of the picture and the quality of some of the scenes especially those involving the fairies. Despite losing out in the Best Picture (and Best Assistant Director) categories the film did pick up two awards for cinematography and editing and I have to say it deserved both. I was utterly enthralled by some of the sequences involving Puck when he transformed into a cloud of smoke, even though Mickey Rooney's acting completely annoyed the hell out of me. Star of the show surprisingly was James Cagney, better known for his roles in gangster movies here Cagney played Bottom - possibly the best known character for getting turned into a donkey. Of course his performance is overblown but that's what the character has to be he is of course the comic relief. The majority of the story as all English graduates know focuses on Hermia due to marry Demetrius but really in love with Lysander the three, along with Demetrius' admirer Helena are trapped in the woods and at the mercy of the spells of Puck and fairy lord Oberon. I felt this part of the story lacked panache, it is quite boring and the two actors playing Lysander and Demetrius didn't really have a lot going for them and neither seemed to be of the leading man calibre that I believe the roles need. The other big name in the cast is Olivia De Havilland the best of the quartet - her Hermia is kind of strong yet vulnerable but I didn't feel that she should really be paired with either of the men who were pursuing her. The whole thing was enjoyable enough although I felt the pace lagged in places mainly during, fairy queen, Titania's singing and the final play performed by Bottom and co. Overall enjoyable and I thought it was better than a lot of the films in the Oscars list from this year (Captain Blood, The Informer)


So we continue onto the second helping of the Bard and George Cukor's Romeo and Juliet another film that was nominated for four Oscars but failed to pick up any. Twice losing out to The Great Ziegfeld both in Best Picture and Best Actress categories, I apologise if I was a little harsh on Luise Rainer in my previous post but her performance in The Great Ziegfeld was certainly better than Shearer's Juliet. While Norma Shearer is a fine actress I found her a little flat as Juliet and much too old to play the part. Similarly Leslie Howard's age is a problem in his performance as are his looks which I thought were rather effeminate and couldn't buy his fight scenes. Luckily there are some choice support performances which keep the film flowing along. John Barrymore as Mercutio is brilliant playing it more for laughs as an aging playboy thinking that he is still a hit with the ladies. While Basil Rathbone pops up again to flail a sword around as quite a villainous Tybalt. Although I didn't think he was as great as Barrymore, it was Rathbone who got a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Although it is a good story to tell I think the film dragged out and wasn't particularly inventive and very stagy, I was really only impressed by the masquerade ball scene, I didn't really feel anything when the lovers die or when Mercutio is stabbed and just thought it was just a bit cold and didn't offer anything particularly cinematic. So at the moment with this and Three Smart Girls, The Great Ziegfeld was definitely the right choice to win that year.