Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Say Good Night, Oscar


Clark Gable:
Best Actor for It Happened One Night

TUESDAYS WITH OSCAR: 1934

The Seventh Academy Awards broke will all precedents in regards to winners.  It gave the Best Picture award to a comedy (something that had never happened before and only seven times since, and that's if one stretches the meaning of 'comedy').  It gave the Best Actor and Actress award to performers in the same picture (again, something that had never happened before and only a total of six times since).  It gave the Top Five prizes (Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) to the same film (something which has happened only twice since).  Finally, it gave the Best Picture Oscar to a second-tier studio.  No glamorous figures from MGM or gritty gangsters from Warners.  No, it was poverty-row Columbia that stunned everyone with its wins, putting the studio on the map as a major player and bringing it prestige.

It also introduced a new category, Best Original Song, which would come up with some good choices (thank you, Judy), and some 'what were they on?' choices (I'm looking at you, Adele).  Two other categories made their debut: Best Original Score and Best Film Editing, the latter a puzzling one, puzzling in that it took all this time to recognize it.  Still, progress.

These Oscars are also known for a not-so-positive incident.  There were only three official nominees for Best Actress.  Bette Davis was not one of them.  HOWEVER, her turn as Mildred in Of Human Bondage was so powerful that other Academy members (not Davis herself) led a nearly full-scale revolt against the Academy for its failure to nominate her (at the time, I think a select committee made the nominations, not the Academy membership as a whole).  Davis' lack of nomination, coupled with opera star Grace Moore's nod for One Night of Love (forgotten today), did not make things more palatable, or believable.  The Academy so panicked at the uproar that they temporarily suspended the rules and allowed write-in votes.  Davis still didn't win (she was announced as the third place winner, a dubious claim I think) but it soon became clear that things were going to change if the Academy was going to be taken seriously.

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 1934 ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS

BEST PICTURE



The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Cleopatra
Flirtation Walk
The Gay Divorcee
Here Comes the Navy
The House of Rothschild
It Happened One Night
Imitation of Life
One Night of Love
The Thin Man
Villa Villa!
The White Parade

Winners and stinkers in this hodgepodge of nominees.  Some of the nominees are still regarded as some of the great films like The Gay Divorcee, the first time Fred & Ginger had starring roles together after they were paired in featured roles in Flying Down to Rio, or The Thin Man (the first pairing of William Powell and Myrna Loy as those debonair detectives Nick & Nora Charles, the start of a franchise); then there are three Colbert films: the race-centered drama Imitation of Life, the DeMille epic Cleopatra (as if there were anything other than 'epic DeMille films'), and the winner, It Happened One Night, one of the first screwball comedies.  It Happened One Night, as stated, was the first comedy to win Best Picture, and all other comedies that have managed to win had mighty big shoes to fill, for the film is a delight from start to finish. 

Others, while perhaps good, aren't as well-remembered today, and some are thoroughly forgotten.  The White Parade (a movie about nurses of which I think only one copy survives)? Flirtation Walk (sounds risqué)?

BEST ACTOR



Clark Gable (It Happened One Night)
Frank Morgan (The Affairs of Cellini)
William Powell (The Thin Man)

Gable had the last laugh.

It Happened One Night was close to being cancelled altogether, until Frank Capra was told he had to make it.  Columbia Pictures' head Harry Cohn, a man so despised and feared that people still whispered his name in fear he would hear them even after he died, had made a deal with MGM's own tyrant, Louis B. Meyer.  Meyer sent Gable to Columbia as punishment for something, and Cohn needed to put him in a picture.  With that, Gable was ordered to report to It Happened One Night.  The end result of Gable's punishment and exile?  His only Oscar...and a chance to stick it to both Meyer and Cohn.

BEST ACTRESS



Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night)
Bette Davis (Of Human Bondage)*
Grace Moore (One Night of Love)
Norma Shearer (The Barretts of Wimpole Street)

"I just finished the worst picture in the world", Claudette Colbert reportedly told a friend after completing It Happened One Night.  She too didn't want to make the film, especially after Capra had made one of her biggest disasters earlier in her career.  She agreed to make the film in exchange for an increase in salary and if it could be finished in four weeks to accommodate a planned vacation.

Legend has it that Colbert thought she had no chance of winning and decided to skip the ceremony.  When Cohn learned she had won, he ordered someone to drag Colbert from a train station where she was waiting to board a cross-continental.  Cohn's lackey made it before the train was scheduled to leave. Colbert was rushed to the ceremony, where she accepted her Oscar in her travelling clothes, then rushed back to the train (which waited for her) for her departure.

This category was marked with Scandal.  There was shock in Hollywood when Davis' name was not announced as a nominee despite all the acclaim not just from critics but from other performers in her go-for-broke performance in Of Human Bondage.  As noted, the uproar forced the AMPAS to allow write-in votes.  Colbert still won, with Norma Shearer announced as coming in second, Davis in third. 

Even now, I demand a recount.  I find it incredible that people really favored Shearer over Davis.

However, the reason I think Colbert won is easy...


...she had a leg up on the competition.

BEST DIRECTOR

Frank Capra (It Happened One Night)
Victor Schertzinger (One Night of Love)
W. S. Van Dyke (The Thin Man)

"Come up and get it, Frank."  Remembering the previous year's debacle, the same words were used to announce Best Director.  THIS time, though, there was no mistaking which Frank won.  Capra was simply too thrilled to care that he was being made fun of again.  He had wanted to win for some time, and had made some "Oscar-bait" films like The Bitter Tea of General Yen to attract the Academy's attention.  Even the TITLE announces its grand ambitions.

Actually, this was a pretty good year for comedy directing.  W. S. Van Dyke, known as "One-Take Woody", made the comedy-mystery The Thin Man, and if you count the laughable nomination for One Night of Love (which really impressed the Academy)...

Now we go on to MY Choices, No Substitutions.

BEST DIRECTOR




Frank Capra (It Happened One Night)
Victor Schertzinger (One Night of Love)
W. S. Van Dyke (The Thin Man)

"Come up and get it, Frank".

BEST ACTRESS


 
Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night)
Bette Davis (Of Human Bondage)*
Grace Moore (One Night of Love)
Norma Shearer (The Barretts of Wimpole Street)

I still can't believe that Shearer got second place.  Who remembers either Shearer or The Barretts of Wimpole Street?  Same goes for Moore's One Night of Love?  As the Cockney harlot with the heart of brass, an irredeemable bitch who isn't ashamed of it, Davis' performance is still one of the greatest, and certainly an early highpoint in her career.  I wasn't impressed greatly with Of Human Bondage, but I can't deny the sheer power of Davis' Mildred, as great a monster as ever to appear, but who in the end does evoke a touch of sympathy at how she's thrown so much away for temporary gains.

BEST ACTOR



Clark Gable (It Happened One Night)
Frank Morgan (The Affairs of Cellini)
William Powell (The Thin Man)

Oh, William Powell sure gave Gable a run for his money, and perhaps any other year he would have been the frontrunner.  However, Gable's cynical reporter who ends up falling for the spoiled heiress is just too good to ignore.

It should also be noted that Gable's character was the inspiration for Bugs Bunny.  Gable in It Happened One Night liked to chop on carrots, and I think would call people, "Doc".  For that, Dear Mr. Gable, we are forever grateful. 

And Now, MY Choice for the Best Picture of 1934...

BEST PICTURE



The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Cleopatra
Flirtation Walk
The Gay Divorcee
Here Comes the Navy
The House of Rothschild
It Happened One Night
Imitation of Life
One Night of Love
The Thin Man
Villa Villa!
The White Parade

Flirtation Walk, eat your heart out.

There were good films in contention, but I came away from It Happened One Night highly impressed.  I laughed and was charmed by the film.  The first time I saw it was at the Plaza Classic Film Festival in order to see films I hadn't seen, and came away so thrilled to have seen it, I don't think in all the years of going had or have or perhaps will be as impressed and as delighted to have taken a step of faith to see something as wonderful and as well-crafted as It Happened One Night, a film that is still in my Ten Best Picture Winners of All Time.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
Going for my own choices based on the films released in 1934, 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


Frank Capra (It Happened One Night)
Howard Hawks (Twentieth Century)
Norman C. McLeod (It's A Gift)
Josef von Sternberg (The Scarlet Empress)
W. S. Van Dyke (The Thin Man)

Capra would go on to win three Best Director Oscars, one shy of the record.  Despite my von Sternberg fixation I think Capra did the best work of the five mentioned for the sparkling It Happened One Night, a film that still stands the test of time and holds up all these decades later. 

BEST ACTRESS



Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night)
Bette Davis (Of Human Bondage)
Marlene Dietrich (The Scarlet Empress)
Carole Lombard (Twentieth Century)
Myrna Loy (The Thin Man)

It is always surprising that Myrna Loy was never nominated in her entire career.  How Powell was when his longtime partner in crime (solving) wasn't is just bizarre.  I find three great comic performances and two great dramatic ones.  Dietrich, Lombard, and Loy would never win, which puts the Academy in the strange situation of justifying some of its decisions.  Colbert would win once, and Davis was all but ignored for one of her greatest roles.  I seek to rectify that here.

BEST ACTOR



Fred Astaire (The Gay Divorcee)
John Barrymore (Twentieth Century)
W.C. Fields (It's A Gift)
Clark Gable (It Happened One Night)
William Powell (The Thin Man)

Astaire simply made it all look too easy.  He became legendary for his lengthy rehearsals, refusing to film until he thought it was perfect (an altogether wise decision).   It took a lot of hard work to be so effortless.  Still, again I am simply not finding a reason to shift Gable from the winner's circle, though there were many now-legendary performances from which to choose from.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

A new category, Best Original Song.  There were three nominees, Carioca from Flying Down to Rio, Love in Bloom from She Loves Me Not, and the winner, The Continental from The Gay Divorcee.  I don't think any of them are spectacular (though Love in Bloom would later gain fame as Jack Benny's theme song).  The Continental is a pretty song with accompanying big dance number, but it isn't that memorable now.  Granted, none of them are, but for now, I'm working with what I got.

I'm going a little contrarian in my choice:


From Flying Down to Rio: The Carioca
Music by Vincent Youmans
Lyrics by Edward Eliscu and Gus Kahn

And Now, MY Choice for the Best Picture of 1934 (from my list of nominees)...



Cleopatra
The Gay Divorcee
It Happened One Night
The Scarlet Empress
The Thin Man

Honestly, comedies don't get much better than this.

Next Week, The 1935 Oscars.

* As Bette Davis was a write-in candidate, she is not officially listed as a nominee. 

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