Review of the 30s

The 30s - The Beginnings of the Oscars

With the epic technicolor dramatics of Gone With The Wind we end the first full decade of the Academy Awards (ok, technically we're talking 12 years and 13 films, but the first three needed to be tagged on somewhere!).

We began with the end of the Silent era and ended with the beginnings of mega-budget Technicolor blockbusters - a decade of many changes....

When we started I had seen three of these films before (the two Capras and Gone With the Wind). The other ten have varied from just being "historically interesting" to being surprisingly compelling and, in a couple of cases, really quite brilliant.

My Top Ten (as they stand today!) is as follows:

Film of the Decade! 

1. Grand Hotel
2. Gone With The Wind
3. It Happened One Night
4. Sunrise
5. Mutiny On The Bounty (that one surprised me!)
6. You Can't Take It With You
7. All Quiet On The Western Front
8. The Life Of Emile Zola
9. Cimarron
10. Wings

(the other three are mentioned below.....)


Here's my Awards of the decade. Apart from the "non-winners" category, only the Best Picture winning films were eligible.

Best Picture

Nominees:   
Sunrise
Grand Hotel
It Happened One Night
Mutiny on the Bounty
Gone With The Wind

And the winner is.....

Grand Hotel - it's the one that I wanted to watch again, it had great performances and a cracking story. I loved it!


Best Director

Nominees:   
Frank Capra (It Happened One Night, You Can't Take It With You)
Lewis Milestone (All Quiet On The Western Front)
Frank Lloyd (Cavalcade, Mutiny On The Bounty)
FW Murnau (Sunrise)
Victor Fleming (Gone With The Wind)

And the winner is.....

Frank Capra - of course. He was nominated five times as Director in the 30s and he won three of them. I know he's a bit marmite for film buffs, but I really like him!


Best Actor

Nominees:   
Clark Gable (It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, Gone With The Wind)
John Barrymore (Grand Hotel)
Lionel Barrymore (Grand Hotel, You Can't Take It With You)
Lew Ayres (All Quiet On The Western Front)
Paul Muni (The Life Of Emile Zola)

And the winner is.....


Lionel Barrymore - with an honourable mention to his fabulous brother! Clark Gable is everywhere but, as Andy says, he generally just plays Clark Gable in different settings. LB on the other hand is totally different in his two roles here, and completely brilliant in both.

Best Actress

Nominees:   
Janet Gaynor (Sunrise)
Joan Crawford (Grand Hotel)
Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night)
Vivien Leigh (Gone With The Wind)
Olivia de Havilland (Gone With The Wind)

And the winner is.....

It took the Academy 14 more
years to give Joan an Oscar!

Joan Crawford AND Vivien Leigh - because ties have happened before, and they are so different and both fab. (Andy would have gone for Janet Gaynor btw). If I really had to I'd probably have to say Joan Crawford, mainly because I was really surprised at how good she was - especially as most of my reference points for her are Mommie-Dearest-era melodrama. But Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara is also an all time classic.






Best Non-Winning Picture

Nominees:    

42nd Street
Top Hat
Mr Deeds Goes To Town
A Star Is Born
Mr Smith Goes To Washington

And the winner is.....

42nd Street - mainly because of what it lost out to (Cavalcade) and because it would have meant that a properly good Broadway-based musical would have won an Oscar in a decade where there were some great ones (and two not so great winners!)

Hooray for Fanny Brice!

Worst Picture

Nominees:    
The Broadway Melody
Cavalcade
The Great Ziegfeld

Just three duds - and I'm not sure I can separate them. The Broadway Melody suffered from the time in which it was made (and was just about redeemed by Bessie Love!), Cavalcade was just too stiff and wooden and weirdly paced (and was just about redeemed by Fanny Bridges!). And The Great Ziegfeld was an hour too long with a story too slight (and was just about redeemed by Fanny Brice!)