Awards presented March 16, 1934
(Films released from August 1, 1932 through December 31, 1933 were eligible.)
The nominees were ...
... when they should have been ...
... and the Oscar went to ...
Frank Lloyd, Cavalcade. The oft-told story goes that on Oscar night, when Will Rogers presented the award for best director, he chatted on about his friend Frank before calling out, "Come up and get it, Frank!" Whereupon Frank Capra, who had expected to win for Lady for a Day, which had been a big hit, leaped from his seat and headed for the dais, only to realize that the spotlight was on Frank Lloyd instead. Capra slunk back to his seat in embarrassment. It was Capra himself who told the story in his autobiography, so there's no reason to doubt it except that no contemporary accounts of Oscar night mention it. This was Lloyd's second Oscar, but after a third nomination, for Mutiny on the Bounty, his career began to slump into mediocrity.
... when it should have gone to ...
Is it a tribute to Mamoulian that I always forget that this film was directed by him and not by Ernst Lubitsch? It's a wonderfully giddy musical, with the Rodgers and Hart songs ("Isn't It Romantic?," "Mimi," "Lover" and the title song) seamlessly and wittily woven into the texture of the film. It's also probably the best of the four musicals starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. (The other three
were directed by Lubitsch.) Mamoulian became a celebrated stage director, helming the premieres of
Porgy and Bess,
Oklahoma! and
Carousel, but
Love Me Tonight shows that he had a fine touch with movies, too, though the Academy never took note of him. He seemed to get crosswise with the studios: He was hired to direct
Laura (1944), but fired from the picture because his ideas were so different from those of the producer, Otto Preminger, who took over directing it. In 1959 he was set to direct the film version of
Porgy and Bess, but disagreed with producer Sam Goldwyn, who replaced him with (again) Preminger. And he was the first director hired for what became Elizabeth Taylor's
Cleopatra (Mamoulian wanted Dorothy Dandridge instead) and quit when it became clear that the project was going to be uncontrollable.
