1927-1937: Oscar’s First Decade – A Look Back

As we reach the end of the first decade of Oscars, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the first ten Best Pictures and see what conclusions could be drawn about what the Academy saw as the “Best” pictures of its early sound era. Even more so than today, trying to determine trends is difficult because some of the Oscars were outright rigged (Louie Mayer turned away support for his movie The Crowd in return for getting the win for The Broadway Melody the next year, for example). The voting process had numerous kinks compiled by groups of people leaving and entering the Academy throughout the tumultuous decade. Still a few trends are evident. Here’s a look at some recurring themes I noticed in the first decade of Best Pictures and then a look at how those trends fit into the past decade’s Best Picture.

1927-1937

	Block-buster	War	Modern- ity	Bio-Pic	True Story	Based on a Book	Epic	Period Piece	Awards Won
Wings	X	X					X		2
Broadway Melody	X								1
All Quiet on the Western Front	X	X				X	X		2
Cimarron			X				X		3
Grand Hotel	X								1
Calvacade		X	X				X		3
It Happened One Night	X								5
Mutiny on the Bounty	X				X	X	X	X	1
Great Ziegfeld	X			X	X		X		3
Life of Emile Zola				X	X				3

2002-2011

	Block- buster	War	Modern- ity	Bio-Pic	True Story	Based on a Book	Epic	Period Piece	Awards Won
Chicago	X							X	6
Lord of the Rings	X					X	X		11
Million Dollar Baby									4
Crash									3
Departed									4
No Country for Old Men									4
Slumdog Millionaire									8
Hurt Locker		X							6
King’s Speech				X	X	X		X	4
Artist								X	5

Two trends immediately stick out: the onslaught of modernity (i.e. how technologically advanced society has become at such a rapid pace) and World War I were obviously at the forefront of voters’ minds. Movies dealing with these two subjects won four of the Best Pictures, and Emile Zola, although not specifically about either topic, was also set between 20 and 40 years in the past.   Movies about semi-recent history remain strong contenders today (Social Network in 2009, The Queen in 2007, Argo being a presumptive Best Picture nominee for 2012), but also aren’t usually big winners. By contrast, period pieces, which I am defining as movies about history greater than 50 years before the movie was released, had very little impact on the early Oscars. Even though these types of movies are generally considered Oscar bait today, not just for Best Picture but the various technical categories like costumes and set design, only one “period piece” movie, Mutiny on the Bounty, won best Picture in the first ten years.  Three movies I would designate as “period” films have won in the past ten years.

The Oscars were also quite clearly a popularity contest in their initial outing (with the caveat that any award based on subjective voting is to a great degree a popularity contest). The majority of the early Best Pictures were huge moneymakers. It Happened One Night literally rescued its studio from bankruptcy. Many of these Best Pictures were also trailblazer in the art – Broadway Melody was the first talkie musical; Wings was the biggest war-themed production ever undertaken at that time; Grand Hotel was the first “all-star Ensemble”; It Happened One Night was the first screwball comedy. Many of the last ten movies to win Best Picture, when adjusted for inflation, are among the lowest grossing Best Pictures in history. And while its arguable that there aren’t nearly as many trails to blaze in the medium today, a few that did “change the game” notably the technological advances of Avatar (also the highest grossing movie of all time), got a best picture nomination (after the Academy expanded the Best Picture nominees to ten), it instead lost the Best Picture to The Hurt Locker, the lowest grossing Best Picture ever (from a purely artistic standpoint, I’m still on the fence as to which really deserved to win. A topic I will tackle sometime in 2016). The outlier in this scenario is Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which was a huge moneymaker with an epic scope, technological advances (Gollum) and in many ways a game changer in terms of how movies could be made. But in the 2010s, a quiet, high-browed movie like the King’s Speech is more likely to win than a big, epic loud Inception. One Best Picture that is hard to categorize in this sense is 2011’s The Artist, which was very groundbreaking in its embrace of the old ways (a silent movie in 2011 – preposterous!) But it is also exceedingly clever (it’s a silent movie about the onslaught of sound) and very intellectual in its approach (Check out the litany of references to “sound” and “talking” throughout the movie). But not everything can be easily cataloged.

True stories and biographies in particular also gained traction as the Oscar’s first decade wound to a close. The last three Best pictures were all true stories, and the last two biographies. Interestingly, despite the academies predilection for period pieces today, only one true story, The King’s Speech, took home the gold in the last ten years. In the 2011 Oscars, one true story (Moneyball) and one story with a root in truth (Hugo) were nominated.

Finally, a rather surprising statistic I came across in my research. Even though the early Oscars had less awards than today’s standard 24, the awards tended to be distributed more evenly. The first ten Best Pictures won an average of 2.4 awards total. Three movies, Broadway Melody, Grand Hotel and Mutiny on the Bounty only won one each. The most any movie won was 5. By contrast, the last ten Best Pictures won an average of 5.5 Oscars, with Crash winning the least of the ten with three. Even if you remove Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which tied a record with eleven wins, the average is 4.9 awards per movie.  Basically, if you are winning Best Picture, you can expect some more hardware, typically in the director, writing, editing, some of the technical awards and at least one acting statue (Five of the last ten Best Pictures each won at least one acting award).  I assume this is partially an attempt by early voters to be more equitable and perhaps even some rigging of the system whereas today’s voters are more likely to latch onto one movie and hold on for dear life.

1928-1929: The Broadway Melody

“It’s cream in the can!” – Hank Mahoney, Broadway Melody

“Broadway actors and writers were imported to Hollywood by the trainload to create “canned drama” in which the camera, immobile and positioned inside a soundproof, asbestos-lined booth, simply recorded the action and dialogue in one take. The inventiveness of the silent cinema was instantly jettisoned in favor of the “all-talking” film…But quality, for the moment, didn’t matter. The actors spoke, the dialogue was clearly recorded, and audiences were trilled.” (A Short History of Film, Pg. 51, Dixon and Foster)

The Broadway Melody is caught up in the transition between silent and sound films mentioned above. Whereas both Wings and Sunrise had innovative camera work, Broadway Melody pretty much points a camera at the actors, like in a play, and lets the film role. There are a few cuts to close-ups or dialogue go-betweens, but nothing as innovative as strapping a camera to a plane.

The storyline follows the somewhat (for its time) scandalous goings on behind the scenes of a Broadway musical revue. The story centers on the Mahoney Sisters – Queenie (Anita Page) and Hank (short for Harriet, apparently) (Bessie Love). The two are small-time vaudevillians, as noted by their pronunciation or words (world becomes woild) and constant usage of “ain’t.” Hank is the business manager and brains of the outfit, while Queenie is softer and prettier and usually follows her sister’s lead. Hank believes she has an ace-in-the-hole to break into Broadway because she is engaged to songwriter/performer Eddie (Charles King) who has just written “The Broadway Melody,” a song everyone thinks will soon be the toast of the town.

Problems arise when Eddie starts having feelings for Queenie and even writes her a love song. Queenie, who secretly sticks up for her sister, (getting Hank a role in the revue even though the producer only wanted Queenie) starts taking up with Jacques Warriner, a sleazy playboy, in an effort to drive Eddie away. Despite being a musical, the whole plot is a little depressing with Hank finally realizing what’s going on and telling Eddie to go after Queenie. The latter two marry while Hank returns to a life on the road, a life she had earlier talked of despising.

Unlike the more common musical where people just break into song, here the only songs are presented as rehearsals or as part of the musical revue. There aren’t very many songs, but the producers throw in two totally unrelated musical numbers that are part of the fictional revue. A portion of the film was even made in a primitive two tone color film, but no copies of that are believe to exist. Also notable is the first Oscar-winning cat-fight between Hank and an embittered chorus girl who tries to sabotage the sisters’ audition.

As a musical fan, I thought Broadway Melody was just ok.  As noted above, the idea of the musical and the idea of talking cinema were just taking shape as this film was being made so it’s interesting to see the left-overs of the silent days (over-exaggerated gestures from the actors, title cards to set the scenes). The story moves slowly at times and could have used more music to pep it up.

Final query: Several sources cite The Broadway Melody as one of the first “Talking Musicals” which begs several questions. Were there silent musicals? How was this possible? Or were all silent films in some sense “musical” as most had musical accompaniment?

1927-1928 Bonus Review: Sunrise

The “Other First Best Picture”

The very first Academy Awards actually gave out two awards that could be considered Best Picture. Besides the aforementioned “Best Production” award that went to Wings, the Academy offered a second one-time-only award for “Best Unique and Artistic Production.” Although it seems weird and somewhat random, I actually think this is a good idea. The dual awards basically split movies into two categories, awarding a film for most impressive use of the medium in terms of spectacle, innovative camera work, special effects, etc. and a second category based on the story being told. Think back to two years ago when the Best Picture Award came down to The Hurt Locker and Avatar. Hurt Locker told a superior story and had better performances but Avatar literally changed how movies were made, re-popularizing 3-D in a way that’s rarely been duplicated. How do you compare those two movies? Heck, the Academy had to add extra nominations to the Best Picture category to try and get the big blockbusters some respect. If they were to split the awards again in this way, you could really have the best of both worlds. But I digress…
The solitary winner of “Best Unique and Artistic Production” was Sunrise, the first American effort from famed German director F. W Murnau, who directed the early vampire movie Nosferatu. The story centers around a Man (George O’Brien) (you know you are watching an arty movie when the characters are identified as Man, Wife, Woman from City – and these are the leads!) who, while married to his sweet-natured Wife (Janet Gaynor -the first Best Actress) in the country has fallen under the spell of a vampy Woman From the City. (Margaret Livingston)  WFTC wants the husband to straight up murder his wife and come live with him in the city (they appear to live in a village of 5 houses and somehow 100 occupants). Somewhat surprisingly, the Man decides to go along with this plan, inviting his suffering wife on a boat ride where he plans to toss her overboard. However, he wusses out at the last minute.

The Wife is understandably miffed about this near murder and flees into the city, where she and the Man reconcile. The strange part (for current film watchers) is this all takes part in the first thirty minutes of a 90 minute film. The couple then renew their love for the next third, before all is nearly lost on the boat ride back when a disastrous storm nearly kills them. And the Man decides to nearly kill the Woman From The City instead, which, oddly, doesn’t seem morally questionable in the filmakers eyes.

The most notable thing to me about Sunrise, besides its unusual story pacing, is its very innovative photography. Murnau uses camera tricks like a double exposure of the Man sitting alone but a superimposition of the Woman from the City practically clawing him to show the torment he feels. It’s pretty riveting stuff.  Another scene has the Woman From The City described the City life, while city-scape dances over her head in the county setting. While technically a silent movie, the film used a then innovative accompanying sound track of city noises and other sound effects.

Overall, Sunrise is an intriguing movie that definitely feels different from anything you’d see today and in many ways fits the mold of what we think of as “Best Picture.” The movie also made the list of AFI’s Top 100 Films, while Wings failed to, so you can see how critics ultimately compare the two.
Next week, we’ll look at the first of (many) musical Best Pictures, The Broadway Melody of 1929.

1927-1928: Wings

The Oscars are ready for lift off

The very first Academy Awards, held in 1929 for films released between August 1927 and July 1928, were very different from the ceremony we all know and (mostly) love. For one thing, the winners were announced well in advance. Most people think that Wings was the first “Best Picture” and thus most people are wrong. In the first few years, there was no “Best Picture” but a “Best Production” award. In fact, the 1927-28 awards arguably awarded two best pictures, but we’ll open that can of worms next week.

In other interesting Oscar trivia, acting awards at the first year were presented for a body of work during the 12 month period and not necessarily one particular film. Thus Emil Jannings became the first Best Actor for roles in both The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. The Way of All Flesh has the dubious distinction of being the only lost film that won an acting award (meaning no known copies of it exist). Wings, the “best production” winner was considered lost until a copy was located in a French theater some years later.  So with that segue way, let’s talk about Wings.

Since last year’s The Artist, I’ve developed a fascination with silent movies. The lack of sound, the accompanying music and the exaggerated pantomime movements of the actors give the films an ethereal quality to them. Wings is no exception as it feels like it exists in a black and white (or sepia toned) dream to me. Despite the Academy’s reputation for saluting arty-farty movies, Wings was actually a huge big-budget blockbuster for its day, with amazing aerial shots where the cameras were mounted to the planes and the actors themselves acted as stunt flyers in some instances.

Wings is the story of a love square – Tom-boy Mary (1920s sex pot Clara Bow) is in love with poor Jack (Charles Buddy Rogers (not the pro-wrestler (only 3 people will get that joke))) who fancies “Big city girl” Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston) who is in love with and loved by rich boy David (Richard Arlen). Jack and David both go off to fly planes in World War I, and despite initial dislike of each other over the whole Sylvia thing, eventually bond over some homoerotic training camp sparring. Mary herself joins the war effort as a driver, while Sylvia disappears from the movie except as a plot device.

The movie moves kind of slowly, especially in its big battle sequences. Once you’ve seen one plane catch on fire and slowly spiral to the ground, you’ve seen every plane catch on fire and slowly spiral to the ground. The director also hand tinted the gun shots and fires as a bright orange which is oddly distracting from the black and white film (It’s no Schindler’s List girl in a red coat). There is a L.O.N.G. set piece where a drunken Jack sees bubbles everywhere and starts shaking everything and everyone in sight to create more of these animated bubble. It’s a bizarre fantasy-like sequence that goes on way t0o long and seems out of place in a movie about the hardships of war.

Eventually Jack and David get to the real fighting, both against the lousy Germans and each other, not unlike the plot of Pearl Harbor. The movie also contains some of the most overwrought title cards in silent film history, including this personal favorite: “Like a mighty malestrom of destruction, the war now drew into its center the power and the pride of all the earth.”

I found Wings to be a so-so film with the story behind it actually more interesting than what shows up on screen. It’s worth a look as a historical piece but not really a blow away movie.

Final Trivia: Wings is also the one of only two silent movies to win Best Picture (and the only *real* silent movie if you take a look at The Artist) and one of only three movies to win Best Picture without its director being nominated. Next week we’ll look at the “lost Best Picture” of the first academy awards, Sunrise.