This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. Several months in 2021 have on the first Thursday have Oscar-winning movies as the theme, with a different category being selected each month. For the first of these themes, it's not surprising to pick the biggest Oscar of them all, the Best Picture. With that in mind, I decided to pick three early winners that get maligned somewhat unfairly in my view:
The Broadway Melody (1929). Anita Page and Bessie Love play a pair of sisters who go to New York to make it big on Broadway. Eventually one does, but there's also the requisite love triangle. Talkies were still relatively new, and musicals were incredibly creaky until Busby Berkeley came along. But to be fair, The Broadway Melody helped create a lot of the tropes we know today rather than repeating them. And although there was no official nomination ceremonies, the Academy's records of movies under consideration doesn't exactly have a strong lineup up against The Broadway Melody.
Cimarron (1931). Richard Dix plays Yancey Cravat, who stakes a claim in the Oklahoma land rush of 1989, with his wife Sabra (Irene Dunne) following. He has wanderlust and goes off in search of more adventures, leaving Sabra to grow up with the state over the next 40 years. Cimarron is often panned for Dix's performance, but it's not that bad and the opening land rush scene is absolutely worth a watch. Having said that, Cimarron probably should have lost to The Front Page of the movies nominated.
Cavalcade (1933). An upper-class couple (Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook) experience the first 33 years of 20th century Britain, as do a lower-class couple (Una O'Connor and Herbert Mundin). Based on a play by Noël Coward, it's easy to see why the scale of the movie would appeal to the Academy, and there are parts of it that are pretty good. But it was released in 1933, a year that had some extremely strong competition, and the decidedly old-fashioned production leads a lot of people to look at Cavalcade as a lesser movie. Of the ten nominees, I think I'd vote for 42nd Street.
5 comments:
Well we match on your first two but our feelings about them are different. I think they're two of the worst winners ever. Especially disappointing with Cimarron since I love the source novel.
Cavalcade is stodgy and undeserving of its win but has good production values and quality performers. I'd never it again though.
I went with the three films I think are the worst winners in the category, though there are plenty like Forrest Gump that are hovering just above.
The Broadway Melody (1929)-It only took two years for the Academy to award the wrong film. Glue-footed musical that came out shortly after sound changed the industry won more out of the novelty of songs being able to be heard on screen than any kind of worth the picture possesses….which ain’t much!
Cimarron (1931)-Stiff as a board adaptation of Edna Ferber’s classic novel of the settling of the Oklahoma Territory. Leaden direction, dull performances (incredibly Richard Dix won Best Actor) and a sluggish pace aren’t compensated by one great land rush sequence. The first Western to win Best Picture (in a year where The Public Enemy, Little Caesar and City Lights weren’t even nominated!) soured the pot and it took another 60 years until Dances with Wolves captured another.
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)-The title says just about all about this insufferable, tedious, tiresome and endlessly bloated adaptation of a Jules Verne adventure dealing with a balloon trip circumnavigating the globe. Stuffed with cameos of stars of the day in either passing bits or meaningless parts it made a mint on release but this is the worst film to ever win Best Picture.
One of these days I'll get around to watching all the Best Picture winners. I haven't seen any of these.
Nice post, Ted, and interesting to read your and Joel's differing opinions.
Wow, you match with Joel on 2 but differ in opinion. That is what makes film watching and discussing great. I still have to see all these films believe it or not. My watch list must run from here to Mexico by now:)
No hate for The Greatest Show on Earth, Joel? :-) I know that one has a lot of people hating it and thinking it didn't deserve to win.
For me, the one I really hate is Going My Way, which is retch-inducingly treacly and beat out so many better things in multiple categories.
I don't think there was much particularly good in 1929, as seen by the other Oscar winners, like Mary Pickford getting a career award for a dreadful performance in Coquette, and Warner Baxter in In Old Arizona.
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