Honorary Awards, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

Charles Chaplin, for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus

The Academy first announced that Chaplin had been nominated as an actor and for comedy direction, but a dispute arose on the Board of Governors. Chaplin was perhaps the most famous person in the world at that time, and an acknowledged genius among film pioneers. What chance did anyone stand in competition with him? So they removed his name from competition and voted him a special award. His "collective achievements," the Academy told Chaplin in the citation, "place you in a class by yourself." Chaplin didn't show up to collect the award, which he may have interpreted as a snub. Which it may have been: Chaplin's next two films, City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) were ignored in the nominations.

Warner Bros., for producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry. 

Although Hollywood was in the throes of converting to sound by the time the first Academy Awards were presented in May 1929, the Academy decided to rule The Jazz Singer ineligible for competition for best picture, believing it unfair to let sound films compete with silents. The movie was nominated for Alfred Cohn's story adaptation, and Nugent Slaughter's nomination in the "engineering effects" category was primarily for his work on the film. 

Best Special Effects, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

The award was called "Engineering Effects" this year only. 

The nominees were ...

• Ralph Hammeras, no specified works 
• Roy Pomeroy, Wings
• Nugent Slaughter, no specified works 

And the Oscar went to ... 

Roy Pomeroy

Pomeroy was one of the founders of the Academy. As a pioneer in special effects, he used gelatin to simulate the parting of the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMille's first version of The Ten Commandments (1923) and devised the rigging that made Betty Bronson and the children fly in the 1924 film of Peter Pan.

Charles "Buddy" Rogers in Wings

Best Art Direction, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

• Rochus Gliese, Sunrise
• William Cameron Menzies, The Dove and Tempest
• Harry Oliver, 7th Heaven

And the Oscar went to ...

William Cameron Menzies 

Starting in 1921, Menzies became an enormously influential production designer, helping move films out of the era of flimsy painted backdrops and into realistic, often opulent, three-dimensional sets. In the '30s he moved into directing and producing as well as art direction. He received an honorary award from the Academy for his work on the production design of Gone With the Wind, on which producer David O. Selznick said he went beyond art direction and into planning camera angles and movements, work that might typically be that of the director.

The Dove

Tempest

Best Cinematography, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

• George Barnes, The Devil Dancer, The Magic Flame, and Sadie Thompson
• Charles Rosher and Karl Struss, Sunrise

And the Oscar went to ...

Charles Rosher

 Born in England, Rosher was a Hollywood pioneer, beginning his career in 1911. He was cameraman on many of the most successful films of Mary Pickford. He spent a year in Germany working with F.W. Murnau before filming Sunrise. His later career was spent at MGM, shooting many of the Technicolor musicals of the late '40s and early '50s, and won a second Oscar for The Yearling (1946).

Karl Struss in 1976

Struss had been a still photographer in New York City, working with Alfred Stieglitz, before he was hired in 1919 by Cecil B. DeMille. He spent most of his career at Paramount, and worked with Charles Chaplin on The Great Dictator (1940) and Limelight (1952). 

Sunrise

Best Writing, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...
(Adaptation)

• Alfred Cohn, The Jazz Singer
• Anthony Coldeway, Glorious Betsy
• Benjamin Glazer, 7th Heaven 

(Original Story) 

• Lajos Biró, The Last Command  
• Ben Hecht, Underworld 

(Title Writing) 

• Gerald Duffy, The Private Life of Helen of Troy
• Joseph Farnham, no specified works 
• George Marion Jr., no specified works 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Adaptation) 

Benjamin Glazer

The Irish-born writer also did the screenplay for the 1932 A Farewell to Arms and received a second Oscar for the story for Arise, My Love (1940). 

(Original Story) 

Ben Hecht

Hecht was drawn from Chicago to Hollywood by an oft-quoted telegram from Herman Mankiewicz that promised, "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around." He started grabbing his millions with the screenplay for Underworld, and won an Oscar for what he considered minimal efforts. And over the years he kept grabbing with his work on the adaptation of his own play with Charles MacArthur, The Front Page (1931, and several remakes including His Girl Friday, 1940), as well as work, sometimes credited, sometimes not, on Scarface, A Star Is Born, The Prisoner of Zenda, Gunga Din, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, Gone With the Wind, Notorious, and many more.   

(Title Writing) 

Joseph Farnham

For obvious reasons, Farnham was the only person to win an Academy Award for writing title cards for silent films. Though the Academy specified that his nomination for was the totality of his work, some sources indicate that he was singled out for the films The Fair Co-Ed, Laugh, Clown, Laugh; and Telling the World. His other Oscar distinction was that he became the first Oscar winner to die, when he suffered a heart attack in 1931. 

Best Director, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

The division of the directing category into comedy and drama was abandoned by the Academy after this year.

The nominees were ...
(Comedy Picture)

• Lewis Milestone, Two Arabian Knights
• Ted Wilde, Speedy

(Dramatic Picture) 

• Frank Borzage, 7th Heaven 
• Herbert Brenon, Sorrell and Son
• King Vidor, The Crowd 

... when they should have been ... 

• F.W. Murnau, Sunrise
• Charles Reisner, Steamboat Bill, Jr. 
• King Vidor, The Crowd
• William A. Wellman, Wings
• Ted Wilde, Speedy

And the Oscar went to ...
Lewis Milestone, Two Arabian Knights. Milestone's Oscar two years later for All Quiet on the Western Front is the one that really counts. The comedy direction would be abolished after this year, leaving Milestone its sole winner. The film itself, starring Louis Wolheim (whom Milestone would use to more lasting effect in All Quiet) and William Boyd (yes, he'd become Hopalong Cassidy), was almost lost, but has been restored.  
Frank Borzage, 7th Heaven. Borzage would win another Oscar three years later for Bad Girl, but his films aren't much remembered today, perhaps because they tend to be on the romantically mushy side. He also made the mistake of going to work in the 1930s for MGM, where directors were under the heavy thumb of producers and were usually unable to develop their individual strengths.   

... when it should have gone to ...

F.W. Murnau 

Movies would not see the fluidity of Murnau's direction of the camera in Sunrise again until the studios mastered sound recording. But the fact that his first American films were box-office flops (and perhaps some squeamishness on the part of the studios about his homosexuality) made Hollywood nervous, despite his distinguished career in Germany. It also perhaps cost him a nomination for Sunrise. He went off to collaborate with the documentarian Robert Flaherty on Tabu in the South Pacific. But Flaherty didn't get along with Murnau and quit the film. Murnau returned to Hollywood and was about to begin his first sound work for Paramount when he was killed in an auto accident at the age of forty-three. 

Best Actress, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

• Louise Dresser in A Ship Comes In 
• Janet Gaynor in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise
• Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson 

... when they should have been ...

• Greta Garbo in Love
• Janet Gaynor in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise 
• Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson

And the Oscar went to ...  

Janet Gaynor 

Gaynor's touching performance helped make Sunrise one of the enduring classics of silent film. Only twenty-two when she won, she remained the youngest best actress winner until 1987, when twenty-one-year-old Marlee Matlin won the award for Children of a Lesser God. Gaynor was the perfect ingenue, but she grew tired of the way the studio, Fox, handled her career, and she retired in 1938 and married the dress designer Adrian. Their marriage is said to have been a cover-up for their true sexual orientations, including Gaynor's relationship with Mary Martin.   

Best Actor, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

• Richard Barthelmess in The Noose and The Patent Leather Kid 
• Emil Jannings in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh

... when they should have been ... 

• Buster Keaton in Steamboat Bill, Jr. 
• Harold Lloyd in Speedy

And the Oscar went to ... 

Emil Jannings in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. After he had established a career in Germany and gained acclaim as one of the greatest film actors in F.W. Murnau's 1924 The Last Laugh, Paramount signed Jannings to a contract in 1927. But the arrival of sound made it impossible for Jannings, with his thick German accent, to have a career in Hollywood film, and he was gone even before it was announced that he had won the first ever Oscar for acting. He made bad luck worse when he became a supporter of the Nazis, effectively ending his international career. If he is remembered at all today, other than as the first Oscar winner, it's for his performance opposite Marlene Dietrich in 1930's The Blue Angel.   

... when it should have gone to ... 

Buster Keaton in Steamboat Bill, Jr. 

You know what's about to happen here: The façade of the building behind Keaton is about to collapse, and the attic window will fall neatly around him, sparing his life, in only one of the potentially fatal stunts that Keaton performed in his long career. Keaton was one of the great comic actors who crafted films so brilliant that they are among the handful of silent movies that still seem fresh and alive today. Thirty-two years later, the Academy would give Keaton an honorary Oscar, but because of its persistent undervaluing of comedy, his achievement went unnoticed in the year when it was eligible for a competitive award.  

Best Picture, 1927-28

Awards presented May 16, 1929
(Films released from August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...
(Production)

• The Racket
• Seventh Heaven 
• Wings

(Unique and Artistic Picture)

• Chang 
• The Crowd 
• Sunrise

... when they should have been ...

• The Crowd 
• Metropolis
• Sunrise

And the Oscar went to ... 
Wings (Production) and Sunrise (Unique and Artistic Picture). The Academy actually got off to a good start in a bad year. With the industry in turmoil over the coming of sound, it decided to limit the awards to silent films only. This was a wise decision in that we have come to realize how different sound films are from silent ones -- so different that silent film is almost an entirely distinct medium. By avoiding that apples/oranges clash, the Academy gave some consistency to its choices. This decision also removed the year's most talked-about film, The Jazz Singer, from competition, though it received one of the first honorary award as "the pioneer talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry." 

But then the Academy muddled things: It gave two best picture awards. One was for "best production," the other for "unique and artistic picture" (the category label is inconsistent in Academy records, and is sometimes listed as "artistic quality of production"). The former award went to Wings, which is usually cited as the first "best picture" winner, though Sunrise, a superior film in all respects, really deserves at least equal acknowledgment. 

Of course, the problem lies in distinguishing whether a movie is "unique and artistic," and the separation into two categories rather suggests that the "best production" is by comparison neither of those, so the Academy wisely abandoned the attempt. But the point is that neither film is an embarrassment to the Academy. Wings is a rousing entertainment that introduced moviegoers to an up-and-coming actor in a small role: Gary Cooper.

... when it should have gone to ...  

Sunrise

An acknowledged masterpiece, one of the last great silent films. In the poll conducted in 2012 by Sight and Sound magazine, to determine the best films in history for the British Film Institute, Sunrise placed fifth. It is the last great film from director F.W. Murnau, who failed to be nominated. Rochus Gliese was nominated for his memorable production design, but lost. Oscars went to Janet Gaynor for her touching performance (she was also cited for Seventh Heaven and Street Angel), and to Charles Rosher and Karl Struss for their magnificent cinematography -- we would not see camerawork like theirs again until the industry mastered sound recording.