Grand Hotel was a bold move by MGM wunderkind Irving G. Thalberg to put five of the studio's biggest stars into a single picture. The result is a lavish melodrama that can still be viewed with enjoyment today, despite its trivial storyline and the uneven performances by its celebrated cast (Joan Crawford gives perhaps the finest performance of her career, but Greta Garbo sleepwalks through her turn as an antisocial ballerina and has very little chemistry with love interest John Barrymore). Compare this piece of fluff with a wildly entertaining film that deals with the Big Issue of the consequences of when a man tries to play God: Frankenstein. This film is sometimes written off even today as a mere monster movie, but was so powerful in its time that it had to be edited to avoid offending sensitive patrons (when the monster is finally animated, Doctor Frankenstein can be seen screaming a line of dialogue that was frustratingly erased from the film's soundtrack by nervous censors. The line is "Now in the name of God, I know what it feels like to be God!") Overlooked for recognition in its day, Frankenstein was one of the few early sound films to be listed by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 greatest films ever made.

Boris Karloff's iconic performance as the monster in Frankenstein failed to make the cut in the nominations in an era when only three Best Actor nominees were honored and the supporting awards were not yet given. While it's true that Karloff may have been overlooked because of the perception that he appeared in a genre film and that a good deal of his performance was achieved by makeup, this didn't hurt winner Fredric March who faced the same prejudices for his superb performance as Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Most likely Karloff was overlooked because he was an unknown whose film was made for a minor studio (Universal) and his monster was really a supporting role (Karloff was forth-billed in the cast, although that didn't stop the Academy from nominating Frank Morgan for Best Actor in a supporting role for The Affairs of Cellini in 1934), whereas March (who deserved the Oscar for his brilliant performance) was an up-and-coming star with one Oscar nomination already to his credit (for The Royal Family of Broadway) whose film was made for a major studio (Paramount). But Karloff's performance continues to make the greatest impact today, and seems especially impressive compared with the less-than-compelling work of the later actors to take on the role for Universal (Lon Chaney, Jr., Glenn Strange and especially Bela Lugosi; whose wooden performance as the monster in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man makes one shudder to realize that he was originally offered the role before Karloff in the original). The Academy looked down its nose at monster movies and to expect them to include both March and Karloff is probably asking too much, but the indelible image of Karloff was certainly worthy of a nomination.

1932/33 is perhaps the most puzzling year in Oscar history, not only because a totally forgotten film was once again awarded the Best Picture Oscar, but because one of the most original, memorable and influential films ever made failed to receive a single nomination. The lack of Oscar recognition awarded to King Kong is usually attributed to the fact that it was released by the minor RKO Radio studios. But RKO Radio had a Best Picture nominee that year in Little Women, so that argument seems unconvincing. Not only that, but the episodic and unappealing Cavalcade was by far the weakest film nominated that year, being pitted against such classics as Forty-Second Street, The Private Life of Henry VIII, Little Women, She Done Him Wrong, and the non-nominated Duck Soup,Trouble in Paradise and Dinner At Eight. Based on Noël Coward's monumental stage pageant, Cavalcade does contain some interesting sequences (the scenes depicting the bombing of London during World War I are very exciting), but they are few and few between in a rambling extravaganza that lacks relatable characters or a compelling storyline. There's a reason some films are remembered and others are not. Screen Cavalcade, and you'll realize why it's forgotten.

The original version of King Kong seems likely to never be forgotten, even in the face of many imitators that include two complete remakes: John Guillermin's ghastly 1976 version which was nominated for two Oscars and won a Special Achievement Award, and Peter Jackson's far more creditable - though undeniably overlong - 2005 attempt which won three statuettes. The virtues that set apart the 1933 original from its various pretenders are many, but one of the most overlooked highlights of the film is Robert Armstrong's wooden, humorless, and absolutely spot-on correct characterization of ultra-macho filmmaker Carl Denham. The character Denham is based on Kong's co-director Merion C. Cooper, who was a decorated military man that escaped from a Soviet prisoner of war camp before starting his film career as the producer of the type of roughhewn nature films that Denham specializes in (Cooper's second film, Chang, was a pseudo-documentary about a family of elephants that was nominated for the Artistic Quality of Production award at the first Oscar ceremony). Though a woefully limited actor, Armstrong brings exactly the right note of uncompromising masculinity to the film that later interpreters - a composite of a milquetoast Charles Grodin and a bland Jeff Bridges in 1976, and a boyish, roly-poly Jack Black in 2005 - completely miss the mark on. Armstrong was an awful actor whose only memorable films were Kong, the sequel Son of Kong and the Kong rip-off Mighty Joe Young, but he was perfectly cast as Carl Denham and brings a rugged quality to the role that it's hard to imagine many other actors being equal to.

The Academy awarded Frank Capra Best Director Oscars for It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and You Can't Take It With You (1938), as well as anointing the first and third films as Best Picture of the Year. This is ironic, since the most memorable film by far is the one that they didn't select for the award, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Capra's tale of small-town rube Longfellow Deeds' whose life is nearly ruined when he inherits a fortune was Capra's masterpiece (even moreso than the better-remembered Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life) and won the Best Picture award from the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. It remains as touching and amusing today, even with attempts to water it down by a short-lived television sitcom with the same title and a crude remake with Adam Sandler failing to fill the very large shoes left by Gary Cooper at his funniest and most sincere as the tuba-playing millionaire who finds only scorn in the big city until he meets what he thinks is a kindred spirit in the wonderful Jean Arthur. Mr. Deeds faced stiff competition as the finest film of the year from My Man Godfrey (which was nominated for Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director and Screenplay, but not Best Picture - its place in that category was taken by Libeled Lady, which was not nominated for anything else) and Chaplin's Modern Times (which received a total of zero nominations).

But this was an era when the Academy wasn't all that interested in quality for its top prize. With the wealth of comic masterpieces to choose from, the Academy blew it once again by selecting MGM's behemoth of a musical tribute to legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld, The Great Ziegfeld; a dull, poorly acted (especially by Oscar winner Luise Rainer) film that would have sank into oblivion were it not for its Oscar success. But since this was a period where Oscar selections were primarily dictated by studio politics, a big studio superproduction always carried an edge with the voters.

1939 is generally regarded as the greatest year in film history, with such memorable classics as Stagecoach, Ninotchka, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Goodbye Mr.Chips up for the Oscar for Best Picture. Any one of them would have been a creditable choice in any other year, but in the Hindsight race the choice boils down to the Academy's selection of Gone With the Wind and the perennial The Wizard of Oz. The latter is perhaps the most beloved film ever made, but our impression of it is usually formed in childhood where its simple story and black-and-white values are far more palatable than the far more complex and adult Gone With the Wind. Despite its melodramatic second half and patronizing attitude towards its black characters, GWTW is at its heart a character study of the enthralling Scarlett O'Hara, a personality that evolves more in the course of the story than almost any character in film history (with the possible exception of Charles Foster Kane). Bolstered by sumptuous production values and stellar acting (particularly by Vivien Leigh and Olivia deHavilland, who performed alchemy by turning the cartoonishly cloying character of Melanie in the novel into a relatable human being in the film) Gone With the Wind is as impressive now as ever, even when compared with the products of today's technical advances and sky-high budgets. Even if Gone With the Wind isn't your favorite film of 1939, no film come close to working on so many levels as the saga of Scarlett O'Hara.

With such a wide-open field, it's not surprising that other films had strong supporters in the awards races. David Selznick's magnum opus won the last Gold Medal ever presented by Photoplay Magazine (which had been giving the award since 1920), but The New York Film Critics chose Wuthering Heights as their Best Picture while the National Board of Review came up with the left-field choice of Confessions of a Nazi Spy. The New York critics were especially embattled, as their top award voting was a tug-of-war between GWTW and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with the Gotham scribes finally selecting Wuthering Heights in a compromise. There was no such uncertainty in the Oscar race, with Gone With the Wind receiving a then-record 13 nominations. Selznick expressed shock that Gable didn't win the Best Actor Award (even though that contest was really between James Stewart and ultimate winner Robert Donat), but the only real question was whether Victor Fleming would win the Best Director Award. Fleming had taken over the assignment from George Cukor at Gable's request and would ultimately be replaced by Sam Wood after his health broke down during shooting did a phenomenal job with the complex script, but the film was largely viewed as Selznick's achievement and the award was expected to go to New York Film Critics Award winner John Ford for Stagecoach. But the Academy finally decided that Gone With the Wind wasn't strictly a one-man achievement, and Fleming won one of the eight Oscars awarded to the film.