Oscar Checks In

TIE
Wallace Beery (left): Best Actor for The Champ
Fredric March (right): Best Actor for
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

TUESDAYS WITH OSCAR: 1932

If we are to be technical there was no actual "tie" in the Best Actor category at the Fifth Annual Academy Awards.  Fredric March had one vote over Wallace Beery, but for reasons still a bit perplexing, there were TWO Best Actor Oscars awarded.  From what I understand, the Academy declared a tie if someone came within three votes of the person with the most votes.  With Beery one vote behind, ergo...a tie.   I also read that Conrad Nagel unilaterally declared that tie because Beery was one vote off without bothering to consult anyone and the Academy was simply too embarrassed to take it back.  Also, with a brawler like Beery, one didn't know WHAT his reaction would be to losing.  Even then these little gold statues were causing egos to burst.

What poor Alfred Lunt, the third and last Best Actor nominee this year, thought about being the only guy to go home without an Oscar, is as far as I know, unknown.  Still, to think that out of three people, TWO of them win and you're the odd man out, it must not have been a happy feeling.

Just think what all the Best Picture nominee producers must have felt when Grand Hotel, which had only ONE nomination, was announced as the winner.   To this day Grand Hotel holds the distinction of being the only Best Picture winner without receiving a nomination in any other category, a batting average never to be equaled again. 

The Fifth Annual Academy Awards had their fair share of firsts: first 'tie', first time a Best Picture winner won without other nominations.  On the whole, I don't think the winners or nominees were terrible (which is not always the case). 

As always this is just for fun and should not be taken as my final decision. I should like to watch all the nominees and winners before making my final, FINAL choice. Now, on to cataloging the official winners (in bold) and my selections (in red). Also, my substitutions (in green).

THE 1932 ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS

BEST PICTURE

Arrowsmith
Bad Girl
The Champ
Five Star Final
Grand Hotel
One Hour With You
Shanghai Express
The Smiling Lieutenant

While other categories had a mere three nominations, the big prize had more stars than any of them.  Grand Hotel was the genesis of the term 'all-star cast', and it did have just about every major star on the MGM lot.  We had both established stars (like Greta Garbo) and up-and-comers (Joan Crawford).  To its credit Grand Hotel manages to tell all its stories well and tie them together into one, and I thought it was a very good film. 

I can't say that the nominees are a bad lot, though some, like Bad Girl, are pretty forgotten.  The Champ, One Hour With You, and Shanghai Express are still remembered.  Curiously, two of the films (One Hour With You and The Smiling Lieutenant) starred Maurice Chevalier.  Just a random thought.

Still, one can't really fight the lavishness of Grand Hotel for Best Picture here, can one?

BEST ACTOR

Wallace Beery (The Champ)

Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

Wallace Beery (The Champ)
Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
Alfred Lunt (The Guardsman)

As stated earlier, there was an official tie declared in this category, though if one is to be technical March actually won for his dual role of the good doctor and his bad side. 

Again, I can't help wonder what Lunt thought of being beaten by not one but two people, leaving him the only one empty-handed on his sole Oscar nomination.

The Academy I think stumbled here, not on the nominations themselves, but on allowing the idea of hurt feelings to cloud their judgment.  Even this little Oscar tidbit could be forgiven if there were no other good performances, but I hope to prove that the Academy did have some choices that would have kept both March and Beery from having to share the prize.

BEST ACTRESS

Marie Dressler (Emma)
Lynn Fontaine (The Guardsman)
Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madelon Claudet)

Nothing like some good sinning to get you some Oscar gold, wouldn't you say, you First Lady of the American Stage?

Hayes was and I think still known primarily for her theater work (hence her title of FLOTAS).  Still, she did venture into film, and was rewarded for it.  She also has a few other distinctions; she won the Oscar for her screen debut (the first acting Oscar winner to do so). Hayes is also among the few people who became an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony winner) and of having one of the longest stretches between Oscar wins.  It would be 32 years before she appeared in the winner's circle again.

BEST DIRECTOR

Frank Borzage (Bad Girl)
King Vidor (The Champ)
Josef von Sternberg (Shanghai Express)

I figure time has not been kind to either Borzage or Bad Girl.  Neither is remembered, even by cinephiles.   He is a two-time Oscar winner, but now...

Curiously, his competition (Vidor and von Sternberg) ARE more remembered than Borzage, and with his win Borzage now joins Lewis Milestone with two directing Oscars after both won the first year of the Academy Awards when there was a Dramatic and Comedic Directing Oscar.  I'd say Milestone showed more range: he won for Comedy Directing with Two Arabian Knights, then for Best Director for the highly downbeat All Quiet on the Western Front.   Borzage won his two Oscars for dramas, Bad Girl and Seventh Heaven. 

One last tidbit: Vidor has the unfortunate distinction of having lost to the same man twice, and von Sternberg is the second person to lose Best Director two years straight.  The first?  Ernst Lubitsch, which means Oscars had a hard time with foreigners.

Now, we got to MY Choices, NO Substitutions.

BEST DIRECTOR

Frank Borzage (Bad Girl)
King Vidor (The Champ)
Josef von Sternberg (Shanghai Express)

I'm a von Sternberg freak, OK?

Seriously, while I have nothing against King Vidor or The Champ, I think the visual splendor of Shanghai Express would make it a better directed film.

I could be wrong, but for now I'm holding steady with this choice. 

Also, Frank Who?

BEST ACTRESS

Marie Dressler (Emma)
Lynn Fontaine (The Guardsman)
Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madelon Claudet)

Having seen most of Emma, I could not help reacting emotionally to this woman's kindheartedness despite how badly her stepchildren, whom she raised and cared deeply for, treated her (especially over money). 

Sadly, Dressler was to die two years later, just a terrible, terrible shame.

BEST ACTOR

Wallace Beery (The Champ)
Alfred Lunt (The Guardsman)
Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

Well, I'm going to have no ties in this case (and will work to avoid them, though I know of at least one future Tuesdays With Oscar where it will be inevitable).  Here, March is playing dual characters, and this gives him a chance to show off his range.  Despite the passage of time and the various incarnations of the not-so-good doctor, March's interpretation of Jekyll and Hyde is still remembered apart from the fact that he won the Oscar.

Not bad, I'd say.

And Now, MY Choice for Best Picture of 1932...

BEST PICTURE

Arrowsmith
Bad Girl
The Champ
Five Star Final
Grand Hotel
One Hour With You
Shanghai Express
The Smiling Lieutenant

Let me say for the record that I thought highly of Grand Hotel.  It's appropriately lavish without it being a 'costume' picture.   This crop is a mixed bag.  Some nominees are now totally or near-totally forgotten (Bad Girl, Five Star Final), some have stood the test of time (the rest).  However, out of all them I would have put the main competition between Grand Hotel and Shanghai Express.  In this Battle of the European Divas, the German wins over the Swede.

 

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Going for my own choices based on the films released in 1932, I have found a mixture of official and personal nominees in these categories (and I managed to find five nominees for each...isn't that exciting?).

BEST DIRECTOR

Tod Browning (Freaks)
Cecil B. DeMille (The Sign of the Cross)
Victor Fleming (Red Dust)
Howard Hawks (Scarface)
Josef von Sternberg (Shanghai Express)

No, I'm not into the weird.  I'm a perfectly bourgeois individual.   However, out of all of my choices it is Browning's directing that impressed me the most.  To take this really bonkers story and make it both terrifying and even somewhat rational takes a great deal of talent.

The scene when the 'freaks' take their revenge is still chilling, and there is a somewhat documentary feel to how we see all these sideshow performers live.  I do have some issues with how broad the 'normal' people's performances were, but their end is quite shocking, I daresay horrifying, and can one really argue with "Gooble-gobble, we accept her, one of us"?

BEST ACTRESS

Joan Crawford (Rain)
Marlene Dietrich (Shanghai Express)
Marie Dressler (Emma)
Greta Garbo (Grand Hotel)
Jean Harlow (Red Dust)

There were some really strong performances in 1932, which makes the failure of some selections curious to say the least.  Crawford really came into her own this year, giving two brilliant turns, first as the scheming but good-hearted secretary in Grand Hotel and as fallen woman Sadie Thompson in Rain.  Rain's box office failure spooked Crawford into not stretching as an actress, but I think history has proven that she could pull of a great performance thanks to Rain and Grand Hotel.

However, I'm making this another Battle of the European Divas, and my decision is to go for the German "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lilly" from Shanghai Express over the Swede's  "I want to be alone" from Grand Hotel. 

There is nothing like European women's world-weariness, is there?

BEST ACTOR

John Barrymore (Grand Hotel)
Lionel Barrymore (Grand Hotel)
Clark Gable (Red Dust)
Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
Paul Muni (Scarface)

As the criminal Baron who woos the Russian ballet diva and ultimately pays a high price for his general goodness, John Barrymore gives a total performance and makes Grand Hotel such a beautifully acted film.  He is matched by his brother Lionel as the meek bank clerk living it up as he lives out his last days.

However, it is Muni and his evil turn as Tony Camonte in Scarface that people still remember (it was Muni, not Al Pacino in the remake, who was listed as one of the 50 Greatest Screen Villains by the American Film Institute).  Long before Pacino asked us to "say hello to his little friend", it was the irredeemable Camonte who thrilled audiences and horrified censors with his murderous and cold-blooded ways.

My brother Gabe LOVES mobsters and gangster movies (one of his great dreams is to go "on pilgrimage" to Corleone, Sicily), but he wasn't familiar with the old-school gangsters (Cagney, Bogart, Raft, Robinson).  He LOVES the Pacino Scarface (whose cult I confess not understanding at all), so he was intrigued by the idea that it was really a remake.   I had the pleasure of showing him the original Scarface, and he loved it, and especially all the references he recognized (especially "The World Is Yours"). 

And Now, MY Choice for the Best Picture of 1932 (from my list of nominees)...

Freaks
Grand Hotel
Red Dust
Scarface
Shanghai Express

We have another great selection to draw from in 1932.  Therefore it makes it hard to find fault with the choices I present.  However, despite it being banned in Britain for 30 years (and at least once was accused of being so horrifying that it caused a miscarriage...though I wonder why a pregnant woman would want to see something called Freaks), my choice has stood the test of time and is more than the sum of its parts (no pun intended)

Freaks is really about what makes people human.  Is it their appearance, or is it their hearts?  The 'freaks' are actually good people, while most of the 'normals' are monstrous in their greed and cruelty.  Freaks makes its case strongly: appearances aren't everything, and it's unfortunate that it was so shocking that we had to have an alternate (happy, or happy-ish) ending when the original I think would have been better.

There is also something quite delicious about the fact that Freaks, this lurid and twisted tale of circus folk deformed in ways both physical and spiritual, slipped through MGM and Louis B. Mayer, a studio and mogul who prided themselves of their sophistication and glamour.  I am astonished that Mayer didn't shut Freaks down immediately.  For a man whose idea of an average family was the Hardys, thinking that HIS studio brought us Freaks is one last bizarre bit from perhaps the craziest film released by a major studio BEFORE the Production Code went into full effect.  

Next Week, the 1933 Oscars.

Duck, Duck, Lose...