My Own Private Oscars: 1930-31

Showing posts with label 1930-31. Show all posts

Best Sound, 1930-31

Awards presented November 10, 1931
(Films released from August 1, 1930 through July 31, 1931 were eligible.)

For some reason, the Academy seemed to throw up its hands when it came to the sound category this year. Perhaps the innovations were coming so fast that they couldn't keep up. In any case, they decided not to single out any particular films for nominations this year, and simply nominated four studio sound departments, not even including the names of the department heads, in the category of Sound Recording.

The nominees were ...

Samuel Goldwyn-United Artists Studio Sound Department
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio Sound Department
Paramount Publix Studio Sound Department
RKO Radio Studio Sound Department

And the Oscar went to ...

Paramount Publix Studio Sound Department.

Best Art Direction, 1930-31

Awards presented November 10, 1931
(Films released from August 1, 1930 through July 31, 1931 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

Richard Day, Whoopee!
Hans Dreier, Morocco
Stephen Goosson and Ralph Hammeras, Just Imagine
Anton Grot, Svengali
Max Rée, Cimarron

And the Oscar went to ...
Max Rée, Cimarron. Danish-born, Rée spent most of his film career as a costume designer, but he is also often credited, as on Cimarron, as a production designer. It was a film that demanded attention to period detail, as the boom town of Osage passes from its Wild West period through the oil boom and into the late '20s.

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

Stephen Goosson

Ralph Hammeras

Just Imagine:

This otherwise clunky sci-fi musical, starring El Brendel, a long-forgotten Swedish-dialect comedian, still holds some fascination today because of the way Goosson and Hammeras imagined in 1930 the way things would look fifty years later, i.e. 1980. Goosson had been an architect in Detroit before coming to Hollywood, and the outlandish "moderne" look of Just Imagine would be toned down and refined when he created Shangri-la for Lost Horizon in 1937, work that won him an Oscar. He was head of the art department at Columbia for twenty-five years. Hammeras had been nominated for "engineering effects" in the first year of the Oscars, primarily for his work on The Private Life of Helen of Troy, and would receive a third nomination, again for special effects, for Deep Waters (1948). He specialized in miniatures and matte work.

Best Cinematography, 1930-31

Awards presented November 10, 1931
(Films released from August 1, 1930 through July 31, 1931 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

And the Oscar went to ...

Floyd Crosby, Tabu. This was the third cinematography Oscar winner in a row -- after White Shadows in the South Seas and With Byrd at the South Pole -- to have been shot in an exotic location. And like the previous Oscar winners, it was shot as a silent, with sound effects dubbed in later. Moreover, it was the first movie ever shot by Crosby, who had been a still photographer before being hired by documentarian Robert Flaherty to go with him and director F.W. Murnau to Tahiti as cameraman. For these reasons, it caused controversy among cinematographers, some of whom contended that the Academy voters had been more impressed with the exotic subject matter than with the technical skill of the cinematographer. So for the following year, eligibility for the cinematography award was narrowed to films "photographed in America under normal production conditions." Crosby remained a documentary filmmaker for some years after Tabu, but in the 1950s moved into feature film work, most notably on High Noon in 1952. He was also the father of rocker David Crosby.

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

Lee Garmes

Morocco

Along with director Josef von Sternberg, Garmes is one of the chief creators of the Marlene Dietrich mystique -- this was the first of three films they made together. Garmes began shooting films in 1916, and became known for his artful lighting, departing from naturalism for dramatic and poetic effects. He is said to have shot as much as a third of Gone With the Wind, though the credit (and the Oscar) went to Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan. Morocco, like most of Sternberg's Dietrich films, is dreamy trash, transcending all notions of taste and art and dramatic credibility -- and completely enjoyable as a result. Garmes is responsible for a lot of its dreaminess.

Best Writing, 1930-31

Awards presented November 10, 1931
(Films released from August 1, 1930 through July 31, 1931 were eligible.)

Writers have always been, or at least thought themselves to be, rather low on the totem pole of Hollywood, below studio heads, stars, producers, directors, cameramen, and even costume designers and makeup artists. Hence the old joke about the starlet who was so dumb she slept with the writer. But in the Academy, especially since the formation of the Screen Writers Guild in 1933, they have tended to throw around whatever weight they possess. So it was probably in response to writers' complaints that this year the Academy decided to subdivide the writing awards into "Adaptation" and "Original Story." This distinction was present at the first awards, when there was a third division, "Title Writing," that became obsolete with sound. The distinction was dropped for the next two years. But even the reinstated division, or at least the Academy's way of defining it, has never really satisfied the writers, as we shall see in the various permutations and definitions of the sub-categories over the years to come.

The nominees were ...

(Adaptation)

Howard Estabrook, Cimarron
Francis Faragoh and Robert N. Lee, Little Caesar
Horace Jackson, Holiday
Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sam Mintz, Skippy
Seton I. Miller and Fred Niblo Jr., The Criminal Code

(Original Story)

John Bright and Kubec Glasmon, The Public Enemy
Rowland Brown, The Doorway to Hell
Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast, Douglas Doty, and Donald Ogden Stewart, Laughter
Lucien Hubbard and Joseph Jackson, Smart Money
John Monk Saunders, The Dawn Patrol

And the Oscar went to ...

(Adaptation)

Howard Estabrook

Cimarron

Turning a 400-page Edna Ferber novel about the 1893 land rush and settlement of Oklahoma, plus the marital and political fortunes of Yancy and Sabra Cravat, into a 123-minute film is a large order, especially since screenplays now demanded dialogue and not just intertitles. Admittedly, some of the dialogue is of the rather ripe order: "Wife and mother, stainless woman, hide me ... hide me in your love." Estabrook did what he could, and even if the resulting film is one of the weakest best-picture winners, the fault lies probably with Ferber more than Estabrook. He began his film career as an actor, worked as a studio executive, and directed several films before settling on screnwriting. He was nominated a year earlier for the screenplay of Street of Chance, and continued to work as a screenwriter until the 1950s. Among his later work is collaboration on the 1935 David Copperfield, another big book boiled down to its essence.

(Original Story)

John Monk Saunders

The Dawn Patrol

The original "you can't send a kid up in a crate like that" film, about World War I flying aces, was directed by Howard Hawks, whose contributions to the dialogue are probably more significant than Saunders's story in keeping the film watchable today. Saunders was a flier himself, though he spent World War I -- to his regret -- as a flight instructor in Florida. He wrote the story for the first best-picture winner, Wings, but went unnominated for it. He continued to contribute story ideas of movies about flying -- The Last Flight, Devil Dogs of the Air, and so on -- until his death in 1940.

Best Director, 1930-31

Awards presented November 10, 1931
(Films released from August 1, 1930 through July 31, 1931 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

... when they should have been ...

And the Oscar went to ...

Norman Taurog, Skippy. Really? From such stylish directors as Clarence Brown (Garbo's favorite director) and Josef von Sternberg (Dietrich's star-maker), not to mention Lewis Milestone, who had already won two directing Oscars, and even Wesley Ruggles, who had handled the sweep of Cimarron, the Academy chose to give the award to the director of a family movie based on a comic strip? Taurog had been a child actor and began directing short films when he was twenty years old, then moved into features with the arrival of sound. A capable lightweight, he directed Spencer Tracy in his Oscar-winning performance in Boys Town, but his later career was spent working on movies starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis -- Jumping Jacks, The Stooge, The Caddy, Living It Up -- and Elvis Presley -- G.I. Blues, Blue Hawaii, Girls! Girls! Girls!, It Happened at the World's Fair, and others.

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

Charles Chaplin, City Lights

Four years after sound arrived, Chaplin was sticking to what he knew: silent comedy with a thick overlay of pathos. He had actually begun City Lights in 1928 and, unconvinced that the talkies were here to stay, resisted the pressure to add dialogue -- though he did add music and some synchronized sound effects -- as all around him the film industry was converting to sound. The movie met with critical praise when it was finally released in January 1931, and has since been elevated to the status of a classic. The Academy, however, took no notice of it in any category. Perhaps there was widespread animus against Chaplin, but it's more likely that the Academy felt that honoring his film would be looked on as a step backward, an acknowledgement of the still-primitive state of talkies when compared with the finesse of the greatest silent films.

Best Actress, 1930-31

Awards presented November 10, 1931
(Films released from August 1, 1930 through July 31, 1931 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

... when they should have been ...

... and the Oscar went to ...

Marie Dressler

Dressler with Wallace Beery in Min and Bill

Dressler's warmth and peerless comic timing made her a top box-office star in the early '30s, but she died at the peak of her success in 1934. She had been a Broadway star before the turn of the century and moved from vaudeville into movies, making her debut in 1914 opposite Charles Chaplin in Tillie's Punctured Romance. But her career faded in the '20s, and she spent some time in France making comedy shorts before she was spotted by director Alan Dwan and cast in The Joy Girl in 1927. It was screenwriter Frances Marion, however, who revived Dressler's career, writing roles specifically for her, including Min and Bill. Nowhere is Dressler seen to better advantage than in the concluding moments of Dinner at Eight (1933) when Jean Harlow tells her, "I was reading a book the other day." Sailing along like the Queen Mary, Dressler comes to a stumbling halt, as if the ocean liner had suddenly jammed on the brakes, and in surprise asks, "Reading a book?" Yes, Harlow burbles, the author says that machinery is going to replace people in every profession. "Oh, my dear," Dressler replies, soothingly, "that's something you need never worry about."

Best Actor,1930-31

Awards presented November 10, 1931
(Films released from August 1, 1930 through July 31, 1931 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul
Jackie Cooper in Skippy
Richard Dix in Cimarron
Fredric March in The Royal Family of Broadway
Adolphe Menjou in The Front Page

... when they should have been ...

And the Oscar went to ...

Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul. The oldest (and hammiest) of the three Barrymores, he began his career, like John and Ethel, on stage, but by 1923 was devoting himself entirely to the movies -- he made his first film in 1911. Virtually all his career was spent at MGM, except for an occasional loan-out like the one to RKO in 1946 for It's a Wonderful Life. He also directed several features, both silents and talkies, and was nominated for directing Madame X (1928-29). For that movie, he claims in his biography, We Barrymores, that he persuaded the sound engineers to rig a microphone to the end of a fishing pole, which could then track a moving actor around the set -- in short, that he invented the boom microphone. His claim to the innovation has been disputed. After 1938, he was confined to a wheelchair by steadily worsening arthritis, as well as a series of accidents in which he broke both hips. But he continued to make movies until 1952.

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

Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar

Hard to believe, but Robinson never received an Oscar nomination, even for a supporting role. The Academy tried to make amends by giving him an honorary award in 1973, but he died before he could accept it at the Oscar ceremony. His Rico in Little Caesar made him a star -- and the object of caricature by impressionists everywhere -- and along with James Cagney's performance in The Public Enemy the same year and Paul Muni's in Scarface a year later, launched Warner Bros. on a profitable series of gangster films. It stereotyped Robinson for a while, but he was a strong enough actor to break free of the image and give memorable performances in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945), and John Huston's Key Largo (1948) -- all of which should have earned him notice from the Academy. He made his last film appearance in 1973's Soylent Green as the scientist who helps Charlton Heston uncover the truth: It's people.

Best Picture, 1930-31

Awards presented November 10, 1931
(Films released from August 1, 1930 through July 31, 1931 were eligible.)

The nominees were ...

... when they should have been ...

And the Oscar went to ...
Cimarron. For a long time (until 1991, in fact, when Dances With Wolves won the 1990 best picture Oscar), Cimarron was known as the only Western to win the best picture award. It really isn't much of a Western, however, based as it is on one of Edna Ferber's galumphing best-seller epics. At best, it has a few good moments of well-shot action, most memorably the great Oklahoma land rush of 1888. But the long-drawn-out melodrama of the marriage of Sabra (Irene Dunne) and Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) grows tiresome.

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

The Public Enemy

The Public Enemy launched the indispensable career of James Cagney, gave us the memorable grapefruit scene, made Jean Harlow a star, and helped Warner Bros. become a leader in the gangster film genre. The Academy couldn't have known this, of course, and it would have been justified in giving the best picture Oscar to Little Caesar for introducing Edward G. Robinson, or to Charles Chaplin's defiantly non-talking City Lights, or Josef von Sternberg's Morocco for making stars of Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, or even to the only deserving nominee, the first screen version of The Front Page. The other real nominees, as well as the bloated Cimarron, are deservedly neglected today.