(Note: THIS CATEGORY IS NOT FINISHED. I still need to watch one of the nominees. I still have not been able to find The White Parade in any cheap/acceptable format. If anyone has it or knows where it can be procured, let me know, so this category can be finished.)

All right, now we have “The” Oscars. Now the Oscars are a man. Baruch atah adonai. None of that foundation stuff anymore. Now they know what these awards are about and what the criteria for them are, they can just start voting the way we do now. This year really solidified that. They got rid of the double years, all films nominated were for that singular calendar year, and they also gave a film the “big five,” which is like wiping the slate clean and saying, “Okay, now we know what we’re doing.”

It Happened One Night won everything this year. Best Picture, Best Director for Frank Capra (talked about here), Best Actor for Clark Gable (talked about here) and Best Actress for Claudette Colbert (talked about here). And of course, Best Screenplay. Hence the big five. I have absolutely no problem with any of these decisions, and they were all well-deserved. Though my favorite film of all time (The Thin Man) was on almost all those lists (still kind of upset about that Best Actress snub), so despite me being okay with the result, I still won’t vote for it. Still though, this is one of the best Academy years.

Two things to point out — this year and the year after this were the only two years in Academy history in which they allowed write-in candidates (that is, on the final ballot. After nominees were announced). These two years also happen to be the two years with the most Best Picture nominees (12).

BEST PICTURE – 1934

And the nominees were…

The Barretts of Wimpole Street (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Cleopatra (Paramount)

Flirtation Walk (First National)

The Gay Divorcée (RKO Radio)

Here Comes the Navy (Warner Bros.)

The House of Rothschild (20^th Century, United Artists)

Imitation of Life (Universal)

It Happened One Night (Columbia)

One Night of Love (Columbia)

The Thin Man (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Viva Villa! (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

The White Parade (Fox) Read the rest of this page »

I consider 1935 the first year where the Academy can truly be critiqued. All of the double years are really just them figuring stuff out, and then 1934 was when they came out and were like, “We got it!” That sweep of It Happened One Night in 1934 was basically them really stating what they felt they were all about. So, to me, this is the first year where you can really say, “You know, I don’t agree with that.” From here on out, you can disagree with the decisions the way we do now.

Mutiny on the Bounty is a great film and a classic film, and it makes sense that it won Best Picture. Though it is a bit strange that it didn’t also win Best Director (or maybe the other way round, that The Informer didn’t win Best Picture). Best Director went to John Ford for The Informer (talked about here), which was totally deserved (and it kept Frank Lloyd from winning a third Oscar. He’s not exactly Capra, you know?). Victor McLaglen also won Best Actor for the film (talked about here), which was definitely deserved (plus his competition was Charles Laughton, Clark Gable and Paul Muni, who, respectively, won Best Actor the year before this, the year before that, and the year after this, so it worked out just fine). And Best Actress was Bette Davis for Dangerous (talked about here), which I don’t like at all, but don’t care about because the person who should have won based on performance (Katharine Hepburn) already had an Oscar.

The other note about 1935 is that is was (outside of it being one of only two years in Academy history in which write-in votes were allowed, the other being 1934) that this is the year that led to the creation of the Supporting categories. Franchot Tone, nominated for Best Actor this year, was really no more than a supporting character in Mutiny on the Bounty, but there was no category for supporting performances. So I feel like that led to them creating the Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress categories, to better fit performances like that. That’s probably not true, but as a screenwriter, I like making connections like that, that seem to fit easily enough. So I’m going with it.

Other than that — 1935 was a pretty good year. There were really only two films that were gonna win, and they split Picture and Director, so really it comes down to personal preference.

BEST PICTURE – 1935

And the nominees are…

Alice Adams (RKO Radio)

The Broadway Melody of 1936 (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Captain Blood (Warner Bros. Cosmopolitan)

David Copperfield (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

The Informer (RKO Radio)

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Paramount)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Warner Bros.)

Mutiny on the Bounty (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Les Misérables (20^th Century, United Artists)

Naughty Marietta (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Ruggles of Red Gap (Paramount)

Top Hat (RKO Radio) Read the rest of this page »

This is another one of those years where the Academy established what they really consider to be a Best Picture. The Great Ziegfeld has everything you’d expect to see in a Best Picture. Though they were still figuring things out, despite that. Until this point, Best Picture and Best Director only synched up three times, which is the opposite of how we know it to be nowadays. (And it wouldn’t start synching up until 1941, with only 5 of the first 14 Best Director winners synching up with Best Picture.) It seems as though they were still equating Best Director with Best Screenplay at this point (since you’ll notice that a lot of the Best Director winners had stronger writing in their films than they did noticeably superior direction. With exceptions, of course), which explains how they could give Best Director this year to Frank Capra for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (talked about here). That film isn’t so much well-directed as well-written, especially next to something like San Francisco or even Dodsworth and The Great Ziegfeld. But even so, at least they knew, for the most part, what they were doing with Best Picture.

This year was also the first year in which the Supporting Categories were introduced. The first Best Supporting Actor Oscar was given out, which went to Walter Brennan for Come and Get It (talked about here), which — who better to be given the first Supporting Actor Oscar than Walter Brennan? Even though they were still figuring out what “supporting” actually meant here. The category was insanely weak. And the first Best Supporting Actress winner was Gale Sondergaard for Anthony Adverse (talked about here), which I don’t much agree with, but, just like the pre-1934 years, you can’t really fault them, since they didn’t yet establish the category. You can tell they didn’t really know what constituted a supporting performance, since they gave Best Actress to Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (talked about here). Her performance is definitely what we’d consider nowadays to be a supporting performance, even though she was good in it.

The other winner was Paul Muni as Best Actor for The Story of Louis Pasteur (talked about here), which seems too much like a rush to get Muni a statue, since William Powell and Walter Huston had much better years (and performances) than he did (plus, he could have easily won the year after this for The Life of Emile Zola, which would have helped legitimize that film as a Best Picture winner).

In all, though, 1936 is a strong year. One of those years with several potential winners in most categories. That’s always a good year to have.

BEST PICTURE – 1936

And the nominees were…

Anthony Adverse (Warner Bros.)

Dodsworth (Goldwyn, United Artists)

The Great Ziegfeld (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Libeled Lady (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Columbia)

Romeo and Juliet (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

San Francisco (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

The Story of Louis Pasteur (Warner Bros.)

A Tale of Two Cities (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Three Smart Girls (Universal) Read the rest of this page »