OVP: Best Adapted Screenplay (1931-32)
The Nominees Were...
Sidney Howard, Arrowsmith
Edwin Burke, Bad Girl
Percy Heath & Samuel Hoffenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
My Thoughts: We are moving into the adapted screenplay race, which unlike the Best Original Story category, is the modern equivalent of the category, though we once again have only three nominations. If you were going to expand any of these categories, this would've been the place to do it, given that circa 1932, virtually all screenplays were adapted. For some reason (perhaps because sound was so new), screenplays of this era were almost always plucked from the Broadway stage or from the shelves of your local bookshop. The three this cycle were all based on books, two by famed authors and one largely forgotten by history.
We'll start with the title I'm confident you all know, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (by Robert Louis Stevenson), the only one of these that I've actually read in addition to seeing the film. The movie itself is quite wonderful, and a visual feast. The legendary transformation effects (using camera filters to make it look like Fredric March is changing in front of you) is what draws you into the movie. The adaptation is not really the most impressive part of it (that's the acting and the effects), but it's serviceable, giving you most of the high notes of March's novella, and I like the ways that it handles Miriam Hopkins, specifically, in making her the audience's entry point into the story.
We've insulted Arrowsmith a lot this season, which is weird because it's mostly been foreshadowing, but now we've finally arrived at the reason why-the adaptation is truly poor. The film is a slog, frequently getting caught in its own machinations, and not leaning in hard enough to its Pre-Code status. The film gets away with things that wouldn't be possible a few years later (i.e. the hint of an affair), but without saying outright that Ronald Colman & Myrna Loy are clearly having sex (I would assume/hope the book is more explicit about this), it feels jumbled, and totally gives Helen Hayes the world's most boring wife role.
For Bad Girl, I'm going to quote my Letterboxd review "communication is key to a marriage...but it's more crucial in a screenplay." I know that Bad Girl has its champions, and indeed it's a better movie than Arrowsmith, but it's also one of those movies where even the most basic of conversations could sort out mountains of misunderstandings. The film would work better as a straight-up comedy (at least then the misunderstandings would feed into the subject), but it's a drama and the lack of any actual "bad girl" behavior from Sally Eilers made me feel like I was cheated.
Other Precursor Contenders: There were no precursors in 1931-32, so I'm guessing that fourth place was maybe something like Five Star Final, which is a fast-talking picture, and also one that was based on a hit Broadway play that many Academy members likely would've seen the year before.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I will be adiosing all of these nominees, even the best one, with my own five-wide field. Something like Frankenstein, which takes what could've been an unadaptable book and makes it so universal that most people assume that's what happens in the book, is at the top of the list.
Oscar's Choice: Oscar loves a Bad Girl, especially one who isn't actually bad, and gave the film the statue that Arrowsmith probably got the closest on.
My Choice: I'm going to go with Dr. Jekyll, as it's the only movie I liked, and I'm going to attribute at least part of that to the screenplay. I'll do Arrowsmith next, then Bad Girl.
Those are my thoughts-what about you? Are you finding yourself drawn to a bad girl like Oscar, or would you rather hang with an (actually) bad boy with me? Why do you think there are so few adaptations of Sinclair Lewis novels today (does anyone even read Sinclair Lewis anymore)? And why were adaptations all the rage in the early Sound Era? Share your thoughts below!
No comments:
Post a Comment