The nominees were ...
- George Folsey, The Gorgeous Hussy
- Gaetano Gaudio, Anthony Adverse
- Victor Milner, The General Died at Dawn
... when they should have been ...
- Gaetano Gaudio, Anthony Adverse
- Bert Glennon, The Prisoner of Shark Island
- John J. Mescall, Show Boat
And the Oscar went to ...
Gaetano Gaudio, Anthony Adverse.
Gaudio, usually billed as Tony Gaudio, and sometimes in the early years as Antonio, was a pioneering cameraman, making films as early as 1903 in his native Italy. He came to the United States in 1906 and became one of the most prolific cinematographers of the silent film era, shooting the early films of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, among others. He spent most of his career at Warner Bros., and received five nominations in addition to the award for Anthony Adverse.
Gaudio, usually billed as Tony Gaudio, and sometimes in the early years as Antonio, was a pioneering cameraman, making films as early as 1903 in his native Italy. He came to the United States in 1906 and became one of the most prolific cinematographers of the silent film era, shooting the early films of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, among others. He spent most of his career at Warner Bros., and received five nominations in addition to the award for Anthony Adverse.
... when it should have gone to ...
Bert Glennon, The Prisoner of Shark Island.
Glennon went into the movie business right out of Stanford, working as a camera operator starting in 1916. He was cinematographer on Cecil B. DeMille's 1924 version of The Ten Commandments, and shot several features with Josef von Sternberg. The Prisoner of Shark Island was the first of several collaborations with director John Ford, two of which, Stagecoach and Drums Along the Mohawk, earned him Oscar nominations. His work on The Prisoner of Shark Island shows his skill at lighting for atmosphere, both on closeups and on the shadow-haunted prison. In the sequence shown below, the death of Abraham Lincoln is filmed through a curtain; as Glennon gradually pulls the focus back, the curtain veils the dead president's face, an effect more dramatic than a standard fade-out. Shark Island is one of Ford's lesser-known films, no thanks to the Academy, which gave it no nominations, but its telling of the unjust imprisonment of Dr. Samuel Mudd (Warner Baxter), who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg after the assassination, is well handled. Among other things, Baxter's performance almost justifies the Oscar he was rather prematurely given for In Old Arizona.
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| Bert Glennon |
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