OVP: Director (1931-32)

OVP: Best Director (1931-32)

The Nominees Were...

Frank Borzage, Bad Girl

King Vidor, The Champ

Josef von Sternberg, Shanghai Express

My Thoughts: Coming off of yesterday's Best Actress field, I am happy to report that we are in much better territory for Best Director.  Unlike Best Actress, this features at least one truly worthy nominee, and one nominee that is no slouch.  It also features three distinctive film directors.  King Vidor & Frank Borzage would gain reputations as some of the better "directors for hire" of Hollywood's Golden Age, sometimes getting lost in their reputations the fact that they had gifts.  Vidor's The Crowd and Borzage's Moonrise, for example, are pretty much perfect films, and their best work (in my opinion).  But only one of these guys is generally given the title of "auteur" and given his cinematic output in the early Sound Era, it's easy to see why.

Josef von Sternberg is that director, who from 1927-1935 was one of the most interesting filmmakers working in cinema, first in Germany, then in the United States.  In that time, he made seven movies with Marlene Dietrich, two of which won him Best Director nominations (the other one was Morocco).  Watching Shanghai Express, it's sometimes confusing how good the movie is because it looks so incredible.  Von Sternberg did impossible things with a camera, giving us a beautiful depth in his films that no American filmmaker would be able to achieve until Orson Welles.  I love the way he moves the camera from different shots, sometimes giving us the action at the center, sometimes moving it to the side, playing with the script visually to the point where you don't really care that the story doesn't make a lot of sense.

Frank Borzage's work in Bad Girl isn't nearly as stylized or sophisticated, and that's especially true when it's paired with such a defanged screenplay.  For a movie literally called Bad Girl, it's quite prudish in its approach, and Borzage doesn't know how to make the weakest of film setups (just a series of misunderstandings between a married couple) elevate into something special.  I know there are people who are champions of this movie, and lord knows in 1932 there were given its Oscar history, but I don't get it at all.  It's less bad and more just confusing in its critical acclaim.

The final nomination is much easier to understand.  Vidor does a superb job of framing the fighting scenes against the action outside of the ring.  I loved the way that the story is built around "the big fight" but by the time it's come, the stakes of what it's supposed to be about have completely changed.  Vidor knows that this movie is not just about economy (and it so easily could've been only about that), but instead about the ways that masculinity (and how it is valued over love) can weaken the resolves of even the strongest of men.  Watching Beery lose his battles to his former glory is heartbreaking.

Other Precursor Contenders: Of the five films that didn't get a Best Director nomination, but did get in for Best Picture, we have Ernst Lubitsch directing two (likely cancelling himself out), and while it would be tempting to pick the Best Picture winner, Edmund Goulding has no Oscar history and Grand Hotel is more of a call sheet film.  Therefore I'm going to assume it was either John Ford for Arrowsmith or Mervyn LeRoy for Five Star Final, and given Ford has the longer Oscar history, he'd be my guess.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Howard Hawks is one of the most consistent filmmakers in Classical Hollywood, directing classics in every genre from film noir (The Big Sleep) to screwball comedy (Bringing Up Baby) to westerns (Red River) to Science Fiction (The Thing from Another World).  He somehow only got one nomination, for the total snooze Sergeant York.  A perfect time to honor him would've been for 1932's Scarface with Paul Muni, a total achievement and the best early gangster film of the 1930's.
Oscar's Choice: I cannot explain it, but Frank Borzage won.  Given he already had a statue and Vidor & von Sternberg would never win one, it feels like a particularly stupid indulgence from the Academy.

My Choice: It's absolutely von Sternberg, who is in another class with Shanghai Express.  Behind him is Vidor, and then Borzage is forgettably in third.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are you sticking with me and giving this statue to von Sternberg (his personal life aside) or do you want to go with AMPAS and Frank Borzage?  What would you consider to be the best film of these three men, all quite prolific directors in their day?  And was it Ford, LeRoy, Goulding, or Lubitsch in fourth place?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 1931-32: Actress, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Story, Art Direction, Cinematography, Previously in 1931-32

Past Best Director Contests: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

Secrets (1933)

Film: Secrets (1933)

Stars: Mary Pickford, Leslie Howard

Director: Frank Borzage

Oscar Nominations: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Shirley Temple: click here to learn more about Ms. Pickford (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

(Editor's Note: I'm aware it's not Saturday, but we're not going to short-change Miss Pickford because I didn't time my Saturday particularly well this week and over-booked myself...next month's star I've already written half of her articles already, so we'll be back on schedule)

As we talked about with our last article, Mary Pickford had experienced the first high-profile flop of her career with The Taming of the Shrew in 1929, her second sound film and a bad time to be having flops as the studios were nervous about any Silent Era star that couldn't translate.  This was the beginning of the end of Pickford's film career.  No longer able to play teenagers or child roles (by 1929, Pickford was already 27), the kind that made her a star, studios didn't know what to do with her, and increasingly actresses like Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, & Joan Crawford began to succeed her as the most important women in Hollywood.  Her final film & our movie today, Secrets, was released in 1933.

(Spoilers Ahead) Secrets is about a couple, and it takes place in four acts.  The couple are Mary (Pickford) and John (Howard), and initially the power dynamic between them is inverted to what it would eventually become.  She's the daughter of a prominent businessman, he is a lowly clerk in her father's office.  But they begin to romance, and after John is fired from said job, they decide to run away into the American West together rather than her marrying another man.  There, they encounter hardship initially, but after a while great success, with John fulfilling his promise and becoming a governor, and then a senator, and Mary raising four of their five children to adulthood.

The movie is weirder than it sounds, and not because it's intended to be weird.  The four-act structure feels very regimented (you can tell this was based on a play), much to the film's chagrin as it makes it feel like four little movies rather than one big one.  After all, between Act 2 & 3, we go from these two being inseparable pioneers to John repeatedly cheating on Mary with a woman named Lolita (they were not subtle with the character monikers in this movie), and because this is Pre-Code, this is said straight out.  While John obviously stays with Mary, this weirdly doesn't cast a pall on the rest of the film, and I'll be honest, Pickford isn't a strong enough actress in sound to pull this tricky balance off.  It feels like she goes from being hurt to "oh well, my husband cheats on me, but at least he loves me" a little too quickly.  Pickford's inability to adapt to sound in terms of her acting style probably mattered more than her age & her speaking voice...I get why she retired after this, because there wasn't really room for this style of acting in the 1930's.

Pickford, as I mentioned above, would never headline another movie, though she'd sneak into a couple of short films as a cameo in the years that followed.  She would also continue to produce films in the years that followed, including 1949's Love Happy, a Marx Brothers picture which featured a small cameo from a very young Marilyn Monroe, but I'll be honest, most of Pickford's post-America's Sweetheart life is pretty sad.  She became an alcoholic, and divorced Douglas Fairbanks in 1936.  Both of her younger siblings died of alcohol-related illnesses in the 1930's, and she became reclusive, only seeing a handful of friends & family (including longtime pal Lillian Gish).  She was considered for the lead role in Sunset Boulevard (director Billy Wilder even went to meet with her at Pickfair), but by that point, isolated with memories of her stardom and faded glory in an aging house...Mary Pickford had basically become Norma Desmond.

Next month, we will talk about the actress who would succeed Mary Pickford as America's Sweetheart, someone whose career would also go south after she got too old...but would end up with a second career & a much happier ending than America's first Sweetheart.  We'll start our conversation about her on Thursday.

Top 10 Films of 2021 (that aren't from 2021)

All right, we are officially going to be doing two days to close 2021 today.  While we won't be bidding adieu to the year exactly (Oscar predictions are to come, and of course we'll eventually get to the 2021 OVP when Oscar gives us his nominees), but today we'll be doing my Top 10 lists of the year.  As is tradition for a blog that focuses a lot on classic movies, we're not going to start with movies from 2021's calendar year (that's tomorrow), but instead we're going to focus on movies that I saw for the first time in 2021.  As you can imagine if you've been playing along this year, our Saturdays with the Stars project (which focused principally on the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock) meant that the Master of Suspense is going to be well-represented here (I saw, for the record, 351 movies in 2021, a personal best, but Hitch was by far my most-watched director).  Weirdly, though, our series of Saturday with the Stars also resulted in a different director getting a double dip below.  I won't keep you waiting any longer-here are the (alphabetical...choosing this lot was hard enough) list of the films I saw for the first time in 2021:

The Children's Hour (1961)

dir. William Wyler

More modern than I expected, and definitely more sympathetic than I'd have guessed, The Children's Hour is a splendid achievement.  The whole cast is giving it their A-Game, though none more than Shirley MacLaine (criminally snubbed at the Oscars) for a woman who increasingly cannot tell truth from fiction.

Dead End (1937)

dir. William Wyler

Weirdly modern given its release date & studio, Dead End is a wonderful ensemble look at the day in the life of a series of jaded New York City slums, as every character faces consequences & realities that they aren't prepared for.  Best of the lot are Humphrey Bogart & Claire Trevor, the latter in just a few minutes of screen-time giving us decades of history in every urgent stare.

The Innocents (1961)

dir. Jack Clayton

Completely shocking, and genuinely terrifying (not just 1960's scary...watch this alone at your peril).  This might be the best performance I've ever seen from Deborah Kerr (leave it to Oscar to nominate her regularly for routine work & then skip when she's seismic), and the sound is of another dimension.  You won't be able to forget it.

Journey to Italy (1954)

dir. Roberto Rosellini

A deceptively simple, but persistently devastating look at a marriage on the rocks.  Sanders is perfectly cast as an insecure cynic, Bergman is mesmerizing as a woman at a crossroads, but perhaps the best part is the way that Rossellini consistently uses a war-ravaged (real world) Italy as a metaphor for their fractured union.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

dir. Alfred Hitchcock

A genuinely compelling mystery, one that starts out as a Grand Hotel-style ensemble before giving us one of Hitchcock's funniest thrillers.  The mystery will keep you guessing, the cast never disappoints...this is perhaps Hitchcock's earliest true masterpiece.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

dir. Preston Sturges

Genuinely wonderful little charmer, with great (dare I say Oscar-worthy?) performances from Hutton, her sister Diana Lynn (a riot), and her father William Demarest.  Madcap (this is not an "on in the background" screwball), but totally worth it.

Moonrise (1948)

dir. Frank Borzage

Moodily lensed by cinematography legend John Russell, Moonrise is a bleak, gorgeously-shot film noir with a cascade of marvelous performances.  If you've always thought Ethel Barrymore was a bit too "stage-y" in her film roles, watch this-it'll make you a believer (here is the role she should've won that Oscar for).

Rope (1948)

dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Totally fascinating editing, completely gay-Dall & Granger are flawless together as killers (and probably lovers) with very different agendas.  Hitchcock rarely shied away from implied sex, and this movie has it in a ticking clock mystery where the cast is so good even Jimmy Stewart sometimes finds himself upstaged.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

dir. Alfred Hitchcock

One of the many undersung Hitchcock deep cuts I watched this year, Shadow of a Doubt is a nasty, delicious affair where Joseph Cotten (marvelous) ruthlessly torments & manipulates his confused niece (a never better Teresa Wright).  Everything about this movie works.

La Strada (1954)

dir. Federico Fellini

A glorious, foundational movie, one that continues to reverberate after you leave the theater, understanding the cruel ways that the film's plot doles out reality (cause ultimately that's what this movie is about, the reality of what matters and how we don't understand it until it's gone).  Masina is otherworldly as the tragic Gelsomina.

OVP: Three Comrades (1938)

Film: Three Comrades (1938)

Stars: Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young

Director: Frank Borzage

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Margaret Sullavan)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Hey there!  First off, I want to say sorry about the relatively scant offerings on the blog over the past two weeks.  A combination of events both expected (and welcomed) and unexpected (and less welcomed) kept me busy with real world events, and as a result, I've been unable to do much writing beyond our Saturdays with the Stars series.  I am hopeful that we'll be able to get some semblance of normal, though in the next week or two we'll likely be a bit more sporadic before we settle back into our daily routine.  Today, we're going to get back into at least something of a groove by looking at another film from 1938 (I'm not sure of the exact date of when I can reveal why we've been focusing so much on 1938 lately, but there is a reason & I'm hopeful I'll be able to share it by the end of the month) and with a unique film not because of its actors or its director, but because of its writer.  Three Comrades is the only film to ever be written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the most influential novelists of the 20th Century.  I enjoy Fitzgerald's look at the anguish of modern life, and have a particular sense of pride that he's from my home state, so I was curious what a man who has written a lot of novelists that are basically pronounced as "unfilmable" would do with his sole cinematic output.

(Spoilers Ahead) Three Comrades is the story of three soldiers, Erich (Taylor), Otto (Tone), and Gottfried (Young) and their time in the years coming up toward World War II (though obviously made in 1938, they don't know that's about to break out, neither character nor actor).  The movie largely focuses on their movements as they try to battle fascism in Germany, while also each of them being drawn to a young woman named Patricia (Sullavan), who ultimately lands on Erich (Robert Taylor is the lead for a reason) as her primary love interest, but there's a catch: Patricia is dying from tuberculosis, and as a result their romance has a tragic sell-by date.  Still, they continue on, and we see their struggles to keep their romance alive while also seeing the cost of fighting against the Nazis & the toll it takes on the friendship (it won't be just Patricia who dies in this movie) before the film comes to its inevitable, melancholy fate.

The film is quite melodramatic, and the direction initially is off-putting.  All of the figures are meant to be playing Germans, set against the rise of fascism in World War II, but all of the main actors are American, and none of them attempt an accent.  This is particularly galling for Taylor, who speaks in a deeply Midwestern intonation and is an odd fit for this story (which is weird, because Robert Taylor with his curt demeanor and intense handsomeness, was always at-home in melodramas).  The film's politics (all taking place on the eve of World War II) also feel strange in how insightful they are, showing the growing discord ravaging the European continent.

But the film works-I liked it.  Fitzgerald knows story structure, and isn't afraid to have his characters dying to serve the story (note the plural-as I mentioned above several characters die here), and Sullavan's work is strangely effective.  Other than Shop Around the Corner I didn't know a lot about her as a performer, and I found her deeply-affected work here quite transportive.  She plays Patricia as a woman who knows she's doomed, but has fallen in love anyway (perhaps with all three men in her way).  This sort of romantic figure could be frustrating, but I think she gives her a wide-eyed pessimism that I liked.  Patricia in her hands is less a victim of circumstance and more someone who doesn't want to be a saint.  In a different life she was the gay life force of a party, not the woman stuck in a disease that will claim her...and she knows that the illness has affected her ability to be that person, forcing her to choose the life of a martyr.  It's delicate stuff, and sometimes too much (the death scene is overly dramatic, and perhaps too indulgent though it worked on me), but Three Comrades is a great time, and she bolsters it.

OVP: Moonrise (1948)

Film: Moonrise (1948)

Stars: Dane Clark, Gail Russell, Ethel Barrymore, Rex Ingram, Lloyd Bridges

Director: Frank Borzage

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Sound Recording)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Next week I'll be publishing a review of a different film I have seen recently (I've been watching a lot of truly random movies lately, hence the reviews on the blog being all-over-the-place...hopefully you're picking up a recommendation or two in the process), that will talk more about this, but the Sound Recording nominations, particularly those before 1960, don't really follow the rules we think of for the sound category at all.  Today the category is dominated by action movies, musicals, animated films, and Best Picture nominees...anything outside of that is truly out-of-the-ordinary (the only movie in the past ten years that strays from that methodology at all is All is Lost, and that still is about a man's survival on the open ocean so plenty of sound design work to highlight).  But before that era, you would run into movies that are relatively run-of-the-mill in terms of Oscar bait...comedies, social issue pictures, romantic dramas...that would get cited for their sound work, making it difficult to judge as we're so used to looking at sound design through our modern Oscar lens.  Next week, the film that we'll discuss left me flummoxed.  Today it was more shock at Oscar's remarkable good taste, finding a hidden craft gem that totally lives up to its sole Oscar nomination (and should've gotten a few more).

(Spoilers Ahead) Moonrise is a short film from Republic Pictures, but it's not a western (despite the studio & title giving you hints that it should be).  It's instead a dark film noir, one about obsession & destiny.  Danny Hawkins (Clark) is the son of a murderer who was hanged for his crimes, a burden he has borne his whole life (and been bullied incessantly for).  Danny, during the film's opening moments, is harassed by Jerry Sykes (Bridges), one of his former classmates now grown up & living a life of inherited success that Danny envies.  In a fight, Danny accidentally kills Jerry in self-defense, and flees the scene in fear.  As the film progresses, Danny tries to run from the law (with increasing failure), and romances Jerry's (now former) girlfriend Gilly (Russell), whom he is in love with, and as the film continues, she falls for him.  Eventually, after a long discussion with his grandmother (Barrymore), Danny decides to turn himself in, and proving that owning his crimes will ensure he is not, in fact, his father.

The film is brief (90 minutes), and as a result has little fat on it.  Despite coming from Republic Pictures, it appears that it was filmed with a larger budget than the studio would usually give its westerns (random explanation if you don't live-and-breathe Old Hollywood-Republic Pictures was a mini-major film studio, which is what they called smaller studios in that era that weren't places like Fox or MGM...it's most famous for creating westerns, and many of the movies of John Wayne, Roy Rogers, & Gene Autry from the era you may know were produced by Republic).  This money is well-spent.  The film is moodily lensed by John Russell (most famous for doing cinematography on the shower scene in Psycho), with it living up to the title (moonlight is awash many of the film's most pivotal scenes), and it has a great story, even if the ending is probably sunnier than it needed to be.  Danny as portrayed is not a bad guy, but someone consistently abused by his peers & desperately struggling with trauma, and he is sensitively portrayed by Dane Clark.

The movie is actually littered with great performances.  Ethel Barrymore spent most of the 1940's getting Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominations, frequently for playing grand dame roles that don't even require her to get out of her chair.  For some reason, with Moonrise, she wasn't nominated despite this being maybe the best thing I've ever seen her do onscreen.  Her gigantic soliloquy to Danny, carrying the burden of a mother who has not just seen her son turn to crime, but now her grandson, is harrowing stuff, and she contains all of the shame of that in her face & vocal tone.  Rex Ingram is also excellent as Mose Jackson, a stereotypical role (cinema oftentimes leans into the trope of the wise, all-knowing African-American figure who helps the white protagonist), but one that he elevates.  There's a great scene where he is talking, looking distantly away from Clark, alternating between offering riddles through song & trying to guide Clark's character down a different part...it's moody & terrific, and he just nails the performance.

This is the first moment that comes to mind for me in terms of the film's A+ sound work.  The film eschews a traditional background score in key scenes like this one between Mose & Danny, instead letting Ingram's solemn guitar playing & the croaking of frogs in the background give a darker, more harrowing backdrop to the scene.  This is the way the entire movie approaches its sound design.  Every scene is shot with care, never trying to over-dramatize an already dramatic picture.  That devotion to rich realism pays off.  Moonrise is a terrific noir, one that sits in your stomach & stays with you long after the picture has ended.

OVP: Mannequin (1938)

Film: Mannequin (1938)
Stars: Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy, Alan Curtis, Ralph Morgan, Mary Philips
Director: Frank Borzage
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Always and Always")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

One of the biggest problems with the concept of a movie star is that it takes longer for me, as an avid film-watcher, to connect with the actor or actors onscreen as someone other than the movie star.  When I see Reese Witherspoon, for example, I don't see her as a character at the beginning of a film-I see her as "Reese Witherspoon-Movie Star."  It's only later in the film, as I become immersed in the story, that she becomes Tracy Flick or Elle Woods or June Carter Cash.  This is particularly difficult and striking for older film stars, as they have never been anything other than movie stars to me (whereas I remember the moment that Reese Witherspoon started to become famous).

(Spoilers Ahead) This was a particular problem for me during the movie Mannequin, with two of the most iconic stars of Classical Hollywood at the center, Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy.  At this point in their careers Crawford had been famous for over a decade, Tracy was about to take his first Oscar, and both were major headliners, so having them together is a bit of a moment (this is the only film they ever starred together in), but the film itself asks that, particularly with Crawford, that she be a character that's down-on-her-luck and just some sweet girl from Hester Street that wants to find a way out of her terrible life.

The problem lies in the fact that modern audiences never really ever buy that Joan Crawford is anything other than Joan Crawford, Grade-A movie star and longtime star of the silver screen.  Crawford is one of my favorite actors, to be sure, but she's always at her best playing someone that conceivably could be Joan Crawford-a movie star or heiress, or at least someone with nerves of steal who is willing to do what it takes to survive.  Here we have her in Mannequin, surely self-sufficient as Jessie, but trying to be a girly girl who wants to be whisked away and is smitten with a low-life scum even if she's clearly meant for bigger and better things.  Crawford was 33 at the time, hardly an ingenue anymore even if she's supposed to play one and while she gives it her all (Crawford was always the consummate movie star, never letting things like bad material get in the way of a potential dose of spotlight), she's never really believable as this down-on-her-luck worker.  It's hard to believe that she'd be willing to settle for her louse of a first husband Eddie (Curtis), or that she couldn't convince Spencer Tracy that she loved him unconditionally as the film progressed.

This lack of believability hurts the movie immensely, particularly since without it all we have is Crawford's strong movie star chops.  I've talked on here multiple times about my dislike of Spencer Tracy, and while he's usually slightly better as a romantic lead than a dramatic one, he can't quite compete with Crawford (she feels too good for him too), and his behavior seems more about conquering her and less about being in love with her.  The movie feels terribly slight-the title itself is a reference only to a quick throwaway scene where Crawford is modeling, though she does get a good aside in about lingerie-and the nomination for Best Original Song falls into that category.  "Always and Always" is a trite little number that Crawford and Tracy dance to twice in the movie, including a scene where Crawford sings to him, but it's a bit slow and not at all memorable.  Much like this picture.

Those are my thoughts on this movie, but I'm curious about yours.  This was a relatively successful film during one of the bleaker portions of Crawford's career-anyone want to defend it, or are we all fine saying it's mediocre, and she's the best part?  Does anyone else think it's weird that two films named Mannequin were Oscar-nominated for Best Song (and only Best Song)?  And if you haven't seen it, can someone tell me what movie am I finally going to love Spencer Tracy in?  He's nominated for nine Oscars-he must have deserved it for one of them, right?!?