Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 147: Going Stir Crazy

Basically all of the films on this list are coming from either LoveFilm or various YouTube sources so if I can't reference a movie on either of those then I probably won't get to watch it. A nominee from the 1956 ceremony, Mister Roberts, was one such film which I had already banished to the unwatchable pile so imagine my surprise when it suddenly appeared on the T.V. listings for a Channel Five Saturday afternoon. Thanks to that I was able to watch the film whcih it turned out was a comedy-drama set during the final days of World War 2 on a naval Cargo Ship. To me it reminded me of The Caine Mutiny which I recently watched as it was about mundane life on a ship featuring a quartet of impressive performance from big names - Henry Fonda as Mister Roberts, James Cagney in his final MGM performance as the tyrannical Captain, William Powell in his final performance as the world-weary ship Doctor and Jack Lemmon winning the Supporting Actor Oscar here as the jovial ensign in charge of morale and laundry. For me this was one of Henry Fonda's best turns, apart of course from 12 Angry Men, playing a man who is desperate to serve properly and writes weekly letters to be let off the ship however Cagney's Captain sees him as an asset so keeps him around and he is well liked by his crew members whom he doesn't impose strict rules on. As time goes on the Captain is frustrated by Roberts and feels he isn't respecting him so he grants the crew their leave as long as Roberts tows the line and agrees with his orders. When the crew finally find out about this they decide to forge a letter from the Captain and get him transferred from the ship and he finally gets to serve in Japan the film tragically ends with the news that Roberts died when a suicide bomber killed all the crew of his new ship. While the death of your main character would usually be a downer in the case of Mister Roberts it was slightly more poignant and uplifting as he died getting what he always wanted to do and that was serve properly during the war.

I have to say I really enjoyed Mister Roberts mainly how easily it was able to demonstrate how not all men had heroic jobs during the war some of them just were there to ship cargo from one port to another and weren't happy about it. There are a lot of comic segments throughout the film demonstrating this including one where the men try and spy nurses on a nearby island while they are in the shower while one long scenes sees Fonda, Powell and Lemmon try and knock up some home-made scotch. These segments are transposed with some truly heart-wrenching moments such as Cagney opening up to Fonda about his life before he became a captain which was fairly reminiscent of Bogart's speech to his crew in The Caine Mutiny and also the scene in which Fonda goes crazy after he realises that he might not serve when peace in Europe is announced. Lemmon's performance is indeed great combining his comic timing with more dramatic moments of clarity personally his ways of getting revenge over a captain he's scared of are particularly memorable. All in all a great quartet of performances coupled with John Ford's skilled direction and a great script means that Mister Roberts is one of the better Oscar nominees never to take home the prize.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 57: Some Light Relief

After bubonic plagues, evil stepfathers and French revolutions dominating the last three films I watched on the challenge I thought it was time to indulge in a bit of light-hearted relief so here we go with another screwball comedy, bizarrely directed by the guy who directed the Tale of Two Cities adaptation, Libelled Lady. The film sees Connie a millionaire heiress played by Myrna Loy sue a newspaper after a they print a scandalous rumour about her. The newspaper's editor, played by Spencer Tracy, decides to hire ladies' man Bill, played by William Powell, to get Connie to drop the suit. He does this by getting the editor's fiancée Agnes, played by Jean Harlow, to marry him and then manoeuvre it for Connie to fall for him and Agnes to catch them together. Of course this being a screwball comedy things don't go to plan, and Agnes begins to fall for Bill much to the editor's displeasure. Things come to a head as Connie and Bill get engaged and Agnes reveals that she and Bill are actually married and then Connie and Bill have to convince her that she and the editor belong together.

Unless Frank Capra is involved I find these romantic screwball comedies incredibly lightweight. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing and this one trots along at a nice pace. William Powell and Myrna Loy have proved that they have great on-screen chemistry and indeed the scenes featuring Connie and Bill are probably the film's best. Despite Powell and Loy's chemistry, it was Powell and Harlow who were involved at the time of the film's release. This is in fact Jean Harlow's first appearance in the challenge, she accounts herself well in quite a small role but she is still strong enough to contend with the other actors while Tracy excels at doing something a bit lighter than what I have usually seen him in. Not really an Oscar contender per se, this is still an amiable enough comedy that wiles away an hour and a half quite easily.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 40: Getting the Skinny

One of the elements of 1937 winner The Great Ziegfeld that I enjoyed the most was the interplay between male lead William Powell and final love interest Myrna Loy in the final third of the film. Little did I know that this was their third film together and they were actually married in a franchise of films known as The Thin Man series. In the film they play Nick and Nora Charles a married couple he a retired detective her a girl-about-town both trying to settle down when Nick is pulled back into action after an old friend of his disappears. His old friend Claude Wynant is the Thin Man of the series but he didn't really strike me as terribly thin. At the same time Claude's girlfriend and personal secretary is killed, possibly by him for taking money that didn't belong to her, so Nick has two cases to solve. Then follows a lot of scenes with Nick interviewing low lives, comic gangsters and almost being killed himself. The final scene sees Nick and Nora host a dinner party with all the suspects present before Nick reveals the culprit. This plot device has been used over and over again in Agatha Christie novels so it seems a bit passé here.

I have to say I wasn't much for The Thin Man, aside from William Powell's wise-cracking razor sharp performance there wasn't a lot to write home about. It wasn't a particularly bad film but the central mystery never grabbed me and one of the best characters, Natalie Moorhead's Julia Woolf, is murdered early on in the film. As well as Best Picture, Powell was nominated for Best Actor (he wasn't for Ziegfeld) and it was also nominated for direction and screenplay but rightfully didn't win any of those either. The film also spawned four sequels which may have been a lot better but I have to say this one left me feeling rather flat.