Oscar's Insane Land and Gold Rush

Marie Dressler:
Best Actress for Min and Bill

TUESDAYS WITH OSCAR: 1931

Now, with the Fourth Academy Awards, I find myself in near total disagreement, not just with the winners, but with the nominees. 

This is one of those years where ALL the Best Picture nominees are pretty much forgotten, and if they are remembered it is because of their association with Oscar.  Even more bizarre, given how good 1931 as a whole was in films, with some truly unforgettable classics released that year, how the Academy came up with its five nominees is one of those "are they serious?" moments.  Of course, in the future we'd have more head-scratchers (Crash, anyone?), but this year provided quite the doozies.

When was the last time anyone said, "Boy, that Skippy, what an amazing film?"

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 1931 ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS

BEST PICTURE

Cimarron
East Lynne
The Front Page
Skippy
Trader Horn

I can't explain it either.

Given the somewhat weak choices for Best Picture, you'd think the Academy couldn't find any really good films.  While I will show that this is far from the case, I think that this crop is one of the least memorable.  Certainly I don't think that people remember Cimarron, let alone any of the other nominees with the possible exceptions of Skippy and The Front Page.  In the case of the former, it is because we got the peanut butter name from it.  Curiously, Skippy is the only Best Picture nominee based on a comic book/strip (take THAT, Dark Knight!).  In the case of the latter, it was remade, with a few notable changes, as His Girl Friday.

How obscure are some of these nominees?  East Lynne is so obscure that there is only ONE complete print known to exist (and somehow, I don't think a Criterion Collection DVD release is due anytime soon).

I have nothing against Cimarron.  I thought it was an OK picture (no pun intended since it is based on Oklahoma's evolution from territory to statehood).  The opening is the best part, and even its harshest critics concede that the Oklahoma Land Rush scene is a bravura piece of cinema.  I think it is a thrilling sequence, but once that ends the film is standard, and in some ways, quite horrifying.  There is a black character in Cimarron, a young boy named Elijah.  Hearing the main male character tell Elijah that in Oklahoma, he could get all the watermelon he wants makes one cringe.   That is counterbalanced, curiously, by what I thought was a remarkably tolerant view of women, Native Americans and Jews in Cimarron from that same male character. 

However, apart from its opening and this being Irene Dunne's first major film, Cimarron is perhaps one of the weakest Best Picture winners (though I don't think one of the worst).  It is also the first, and for about sixty years, the only Western to win Best Picture.  What that says about John Ford's film legacy is up to you.

BEST ACTOR

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

Barrymore is from the legendary acting family, the 'royal family of Broadway' you might say.  There is something wryly amusing about March being nominated for basically spoofing Lionel's brother John (grandfather to Drew, showing that the legacy continued).  I have no knowledge of Barrymore's reaction at having beaten the man mocking his family, but I figure a sense of amusement and delight must have crept in somewhere.

Cooper, who people today remember as Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman films, is the youngest Best Actor nominee in history.  He was all of 9 when he was nominated, and according to Cooper his uncle, Norman Taurog, got Cooper to cry on cue by threatening to shoot Cooper's dog.  At the ceremony, Cooper fell asleep in Marie Dressler's lap. 

I think Barrymore's win was helped by what is now a standard in Oscar-bait: the big speech.  Barrymore has a long monologue near the end of A Free Soul, and even now lawyers on film, with a chance for great summation speeches, relish the temptation to show their stuff. 

BEST ACTRESS

Marlene Dietrich (Morocco)
Marie Dressler (Min and Bill)
Irene Dunne (Cimarron)
Ann Harding (Holiday)
Norma Shearer (A Free Soul)

Portly, wrinkled, a bit frumpy, and did I mention she was in her SIXTIES at this time?  Marie Dressler, along with her Min and Bill foil Wallace Berry, were oddities in the MGM roster.  The studio that boasted they had 'more stars than there are in the Heavens', which specialized in glamorous women and virile men, had as two of its box office draws two people who were no one's idea of 'glamour'.

Yet the public LOVED Marie Dressler.  I think it was due to two reasons.  One, she had the genuine acting chops to be convincing in anything.  Secondly, she was 'one of us', someone who we could imagine as our aunt, mother, family friend.  People like Dietrich and Shearer were far too sophisticated to be around, but Dressler was different.  She was unique, and if not for her death from cancer a mere three years later I think Dressler would be much better remembered than she is today.

Shearer had won last year for The Divorcee, and back then the previous winner in that category presented the award.  Had Shearer won, it would have led to the odd situation of Shearer presenting the Oscar to herself!  After this, the tradition was tweaked to having the Best ACTOR present Best ACTRESS and vice-versa to avoid this embarrassment.  It is a tradition that has continued to this day.

BEST DIRECTOR

Clarence Brown (A Free Soul)
Lewis Milestone (The Front Page)
Wesley Ruggles (Cimarron)
Norman Taurog (Skippy)
Josef von Sternberg (Morocco)

Taurog has earned a place in Oscar history: he is at 32 the youngest Best Director winner as of today (John Singleton is the youngest nominee at 24 for Boyz N the Hood, and if memory serves correct the first African-American director nominee).  Apart from this I don't think the name 'Norman Taurog' makes people leap in joy.

Now that we have that out of the way, I now present my choices in Two Parts.  The first is based on the nominees themselves, no substitutions.

BEST DIRECTOR

Clarence Brown (A Free Soul)
Lewis Milestone (The Front Page)
Wesley Ruggles (Cimarron)
Norman Taurog (Skippy)
Josef von Sternberg (Morocco)

Well, here I differ to reputation, and let's face it, the name 'Josef von Sternberg' is still one that cinephiles revere.  I think his expressionistic style, better featured in Shanghai Express, had a great hand in creating the legend we now know as 'Dietrich', and their collaboration is a legendary one.

Again, not having seen the nominees save Cimarron, directing is more than putting things in front of the camera (and it if were, Ruggles' opening Oklahoma Land Rush scene would have clinched it for him).  It is about how good the person was in putting it all together: performances, story, sets, music, editing.  I in this case, think I can trust von Sternberg with putting things together.

BEST ACTRESS

Marlene Dietrich (Morocco)
Marie Dressler (Min and Bill)
Irene Dunne (Cimarron)
Ann Harding (Holiday)
Norma Shearer (A Free Soul)

I love Dunne, and her failure to win ANY Oscar is a black mark on the Academy.  I guess even then Hollywood had a hard time rewarding Republicans (Dunne being one of the most openly Republican/conservative actresses of her era, though being Republican then was not the 'kiss of death' it is now in show-business).  Dunne is about the only thing (apart from the opening) that as far as I know has never been disparaged about Cimarron, and she gives one of her early great performances in it.

However, I see no reason to remove Dressler for any of the performances she was up against.

BEST ACTOR

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

We forget that Adolphe Menjou was a big name in the 30s through 50s.  If we remember him today, it is for two things: Paths of Glory and giving friendly testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Hollywood Blacklist era.  In his testimony, he said he would move to Texas because he thought a Texan would probably 'shoot a Communist on sight'.  I think that is still basically the case, except for Austin, which would elect him/her Mayor and probably ban Sean Hannity and/Sarah Palin if they could. 

Austin...yes, it is weird.   

Anyway, I might switch and go for Barrymore once I get a hold of A Free Soul, but nothing would move me to give it to Dix and his, shall I say, broad performance.  Not sold on Skippy, and given we have two comedies I'm going for the one I think is better. 

And Now, My Choice for Best Picture of 1931 is...

Cimarron
East Lynne
The Front Page
Skippy
Trader Horn

People, have mercy!  At this moment I'm drawing from the actual nominees.   I imagine this year the Academy gave the prize to the "BIG PICTURE", and thus we have Cimarron (again, a film I didn't hate but recognize that it hasn't aged well).   East Lynne strikes me as soap-opera material, and Skippy?  Seriously?  Well, with that let's give it to the comedy, a precursor to the screwball comedies that we would come to know and love.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

This year, I have drawn a whole new slate of nominees, which I am now presenting.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my Alternate Choices for 1931.

BEST DIRECTOR

Charles Chaplin (City Lights)
Tod Browning (Dracula)
Fritz Lang (M)
Josef von Sternberg (Morocco)
James Whale (Frankenstein)

That's right: 1931 saw two of the greatest horror films ever made and one of the greatest love stories ever made.  Yet, somehow they were passed over for Skippy and Cimarron.

Go figure. 

Each of these films is a cinematic landmark, but my choice goes to Lang for his thrilling, dark, and terrifying work in M.  Whole sequences (from the opening where we know all there is to know about the little girl who will soon be murdered, the chase of the murderer, and his 'trial') still sends thrills and chills down one's spine.  If one whistles In The Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt it still can frighten people. 

BEST ACTRESS

Virginia Cherrill (City Lights)
Marlene Dietrich (Morocco)
Marie Dressler (Min and Bill)
Irene Dunne (Cimarron)
Ann Harding (Holiday)

Ah, Marie Dressler.  You survive yet another round.  Apart from throwing Shearer out in favor of Cherrill from City Lights as The Blind Girl, I am not going to argue with 1931's choices. 

BEST ACTOR

James Cagney (The Public Enemy)
Charles Chaplin (City Lights)
Peter Lorre (M)
Bela Lugosi (Dracula)
Edward G. Robinson (Little Caesar)

Yep, 1931 was rather spoiled for choice in the Best Actor category, but while all these performances are now legendary and iconic, who can pick out Richard Dix or even Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul now? 

When we think 'gangster', we think Cagney and Robinson, and both The Public Enemy and Little Caesar are among the first great images of the gangster that come to mind.  Lugosi is what we think Dracula should look like, and despite such actors as Frank Langella, Gary Oldman, and more recently Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, it is always Lugosi we see as THE Count Dracula.  As for Chaplin, I think that few people cannot be moved by his final shot in City Lights.

However, as the terrifying yet terribly ordinary Hans Beckert, child murderer/Nazi substitute, it is Lorre who I think gave the best performance that year (and among the greatest of all time). 

How odd that I managed to knock out ALL the Academy's nominees...

And Now, MY Choice for the Best Picture of 1931 (and my nominees as well)...

City Lights
Dracula
Frankenstein
Little Caesar
M

This placing of only five forced me to knock The Public Enemy and Morocco out of the running.  I won't give anyone any argument if they wish to substitute any of my nominees here (dropping perhaps Dracula or Frankenstein for The Public Enemy or Morocco or a combination thereof). 

Each of the five films are brilliant.  How to choose?  Well, I am going for the one that had the most emotional impact, the one with the greatest heart.  I think M is extraordinary, but I also think City Lights says so much about the true meaning of love that I cannot ignore it. 

Thus, I make City Lights the Best Picture of 1931.

Sorry, Cimarron.  Between the two of you, the Little Tramp left you in the dust.

Next week, the 1932 Oscars.