All Quiet
on the Western Front Actor: George Arliss (Disraeli)
Actress:Norma Shearer (The Divorcee) Director: Lewis Milestone
(All Quiet on the Western Front)
All Quiet
on the Western Front
Actor: Lew Ayres (All Quiet on the Western Front)
Actress: Greta Garbo (Anna Christie)
Supporting Actor: Louis Wolheim
(All Quiet on the Western Front)*
Supporting Actress: Marie Dressler (Anna Christie)*
Director: Lewis Milestone
(All Quiet on the Western Front)
All
Quiet on the Western Front is the
first true masterpiece made during the sound era, and any other
choice for the Best Picture Oscar (then or now) would be ridiculous.
It is one the of the few films of the 1930s that seems to gain
power with the passage of time, as the viewer realizes the horrors
of war remain the same regardless the advances in tactics or
technology. It was the first Best Picture produced by lowly
Universal Studios, which invested an unusually large amount
of its assets into the production (Universal head Carl Laemmle
imported Broadway luminary George Abbott to cowrite the screenplay
and up-and-coming stage director George Cukor to act as dialogue
coach) which paid off dividends both in box office returns and
in prestige. In addition to the Oscar for Best Picture, it won
Lewis Milestone his second Best Director Oscar (after winning
the only Oscar ever given for Comedy Direction for Two Arabian
Knights in 1927/28); although the omission of acting nominations
for either Lew Ayres or especially Louis Wolheim (who also appeared
in Two Arabian Knights) for their unforgettable performances
seems a peculiar oversight. Wolheim was a wonderful character
actor whose brutish appearance belied an erudite intellect (he
was a professor of English at Yale before going into acting),
rising to prominence in the original Broadway production of
Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape in 1922 and finding success
in silent films (he almost certainly would have been nominated
for his intimidating supporting performance as a gangland boss
in the 1927/28 Best Picture nominee The Racket, had that
category been awarded at the time), but his sympathetic performance
as a kindly soldier in All Quiet On the Western Front
represented not only the highlight of his career, but one of
the seminal performances of the early talkie era.
Biggest Oversight
At
a time when cameras were shut up in boxes to prevent their sound
from being caught on the soundtrack (cameramen frequently fainted
from lack of oxygen) and action was static because microphones
had to be immobile, the film industry was desperately raiding
Broadway for actors who could speak and directors who were familiar
with the possibilities of the human voice. One of the first
great emigrants to Hollywood was director Rouben Mamoulian,
who appeared on the scene this year with his first film and
showed everyone how it should be done. Applause is an
entertaining backstage romp that was fluid and alive with action
(compared to the stiff and stodgy Broadway Melody) that
failed to receive a single nomination despite being hailed as
a revolutionary advance in film's use of sound. Mamoulian went
on to direct a handful of glorious films (Dr. Jeckyll and
Mr. Hyde, Love Me Tonight, Queen Christina, The Mark of Zorro),
never winning a nomination despite the supremacy of his craft.
He was as a distinguished a stage director (Porgy and Bess,
Oklahoma!) as he was with film, but he never seemed to get
the recognition he deserved.
Worst Award
This strange period when Hollywood was first trying to find
its voice with actors who could speak resulted in the one of
the most unlikely movie stars: George
Arliss, whoplayed the role of Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli for years in Britain and America and made
a silent film of the play before giving his Oscar winning performance
in the 1930 film. Arliss was described as "the greatest
living actor" (most frequently by himself), but his stagy
style has not stood up well to repeated viewings. Many stage
actors of this period recreated Broadway successes on film with
performances that can still be enjoyed today (Alfred Lunt and
Lynn Fontanne in The Guardsman, Fredric March in The
Royal Family of Broadway, W. C. Fields in Poppy),
but Arliss' celebrated turn as Disraeli has more ham than an
Easter dinner and his signature vehicle, first staged in 1911,
is a remnant of a bygone age that would have us believe that
the legendary Prime Minister spent most of his time out-witting
foreign spies who infiltrated his home to uncover secret codes.
The film does have some entertaining moments, such as when Disraeli
feigns illness to deceive a female spy, but his performance
lacks the freshness and spontaneity of Ronald Colman in Bulldog
Drummond, Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade, or
the unnominated Lew Ayres in All Quiet on the Western Front.
Cimarron Actor: Lionel Barrymore (A Free Soul)
Actress: Marie Dressler (Min and Bill) Director: Norman Taurog (Skippy)
City Lights* Actor: Charles Chaplin (City Lights)* Actress: Marie Dressler (Min
and Bill) Supporting Actor: Clark Gable (A Free Soul)* Supporting Actress: Virginia Cherrill (City Lights)* Director: Charles Chaplin (City Lights)*
Cimarron is a bloated, uninvolving epic that seems truly shocking today
because of the racist slant towards the film's one black character
(a dim-witted servant who is first seen sleeping in a chandelier).
Indeed none of the films nominated for Best Picture (with
the possible exception of The Front Page) are remembered
at all today except for their Oscar nominee status, compared
to a slew of non-nominated films that are constantly and enthusiastically
revived: Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, Dracula, The
Dawn Patrol and The Blue Angel. Towering above
all of these memorable films is arguably the greatest masterpiece
by the greatest artist in the history of motion pictures:
Chaplin's City Lights. The failure of City Lights to receive any nominations (despite its financial success
and critical acclaim) is usually attributed to Chaplin turning
his back on sound and continuing to make silent films years
after the industry had made the transition to talkies. But
the selection of the mediocre Cimarron and the omission
of the breathtaking City Lights indicates a pattern
in Oscar voting that prevails to this day: epic over simplicity,
drama over comedy, safety over risk.
City
Lights may be (along with Birth of a Nation) one
of the greatest examples of true risk in motion picture history.
A major studio hadn't released a silent film in over two years,
and the making of the "Comedy Romance in Pantomime"
proved to be a nightmare that less persistent filmmakers might
easily have abandoned. It was in production for over three
years with less than half that time being devoted to the actual
shooting as Chaplin dealt with his creative blocks and the
inexperience of ingénue Virginia Cherrill, who walked
off the film in a salary strike at one point when the contract
she originally agreed to proved to be invalid. It was all
worth it in the end, as City Lights proved not only
Chaplin's greatest box office success to that time, but an
unforgettable work of cinematic art that boasts one of the
most moving endings in movie history. Chaplin is nothing short
of magic in his penultimate appearance as the Little Tramp,
and unforgettable work is also provided by acting veteran
Harry Myers as an eccentric millionaire who is best friends
with the tramp when he is drunk, only to not have the slightest
idea who he is when sober. But most surprising of all is the
heartbreaking performance of the neophyte Cherrill, whose
painstaking work with Chaplin (the shot where the tramp first
encounters the flower girl required 342 takes) resulted in
a brilliant characterization and while her moving performance
is far more a testament to Chaplin's ability to draw good
work from inexperienced actresses than anything else, the
proof is in the pudding and Cherrill's performance is the
finest of an actress in any Chaplin film until Paulette Goddard
came along. Cherrill only appeared in about a dozen more films
after her success in City Lights before retiring to
a more fitting career as a socialite (she was married to Cary
Grant during her Hollywood period) with her most memorable
post-City Lights film being Charlie Chan's Greatest
Case. She did make a final appearance in the magnificent
1983 documentary Unknown Chaplin, and had a such an
elegant and dignified presence that it's easy to see what
Chaplin saw in her in the first place.
Biggest Oversight
While
the failure of City Lights to receive any nominations
can be explained away because of Chaplin's refusal to embrace
sound, the failure of Edward G. Robinson to be nominated
for his spellbinding, career-defining performance in Little
Caesar seems inexplicable (especially compared with the
hammy scenery chewing of nominee Richard Dix in Cimarron or winner Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul). The multifaceted
Robinson was never nominated for an Academy Award despite brilliant
performances in Double Indemnity, Dr. Erlich's Magic Bullet,
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, Key Largo and The Cincinnati Kid. He might have racked up even more impressive credits were it not for a period of blacklisting in th 1950s that made it impossible for him to get work in anything but B-Pictures until Cecil B. DeMille courageously cast him in the 1956 extravaganza The 10 Commandments, a performance that is often derided because of the preconception that he spoke with a gangterish New York accent even though his speech in the film is actually accent-free. But you can't blame anyone for associating Robinson with gangster characters and it's an intriguing "what if" to think of what he might have done with the last great role he was seriously considered for, Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
Worst Award
1930/31
is perhaps the worst year in Oscar history for overlooking classic
films for the Best Picture award. In addition to the deserving The Front Page and the undeserving Cimarron, the
Academy nominated three forgotten films for the award: Skippy (which is remembered today only because it boasted the youngest
Best Actor nominee in ten year old Jackie Coogan and for serving
as the name of a brand of peanut butter), Trader Horn (which is remembered for star Edwina Booth contracting sleeping
sickness during its shooting in Africa and successfully suing
MGM), and the hoary melodrama East Lynne (which isn't
remembered for anything). With the wealth of memorable films
released in this voting period, the selection of the bloated,
boring, and racist Cimarron ranks as the worst
choice for Best Picture in Oscar history.
Grand Hotel Actor: Wallace Beery (The Champ) and
Fredric March (Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde)
Actress: Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madeline Claudet) Director: Frank Borzage (Bad Girl)
Frankenstein* Actor: Fredric March (Dr. Jeckyll &
Mr. Hyde) Actress: Joan Crawford (Grand Hotel)*
Supporting Actor: Boris Karloff (Frankenstein)*
Supporting Actress: Miriam Hopkins
(Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde)* Director: Rouben Mamoulian
(Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde)*
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, who is magnificent nonetheles) . 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 fourth-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.
Worst Award
Frank
Borzage received his second Academy
Award for Best Director for Bad Girl (the first was for
Seventh Heaven in 1927/28). Bad Girl was a strangely
titled (there was no bad girl in it) piece of hack work that
was recognized more for Borzage's position as one of the Hollywood
Social Elite than for artistic merit. Far more deserving of
recognition were the nominated work of King Vidor for The
Champ and Josef von Sternberg for Shanghai Express
and the non-nominated work of Edmund Goulding for Grand Hotel,
James Whale for Frankenstein or Rouben Mamoulian for
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, but since they lacked Borzage's
social connections, all they had going for themselves was raw
talent - a commodity not always valued by the Academy. The film
itself is a forgettable little nonentity about the compromises
and misunderstandings faced by a young couple (played by a hammy
James Dunn and a wooden Sally Eilers) during the bumpy first
years of their marriage. Borzage's movie career dated back to
1912 and he adored implausible, melodramatic material about
young married life (Seventh Heaven followed a similar
path of showing the early stages of a young couple's marriage,
to even more dubiously melodramatic effect, although it had
the advantage of the charming Janet Gaynor and the dashing Charles
Ferrell in the leads) with simplistic conflicts (Eilers is thrown
out of her Simon Legree-like brother's apartment under the slightest
suspicion of improper behavior) and some rather crude attempts
at humor (after Eilers gives birth to the couple's first child,
a nurse inexplicably presents numerous other babies to the new
mother who assumes them to be hers, only to be told that they
are the children of other women in the ward). It is the type
of material that D.W. Griffith could do alchemy with, but Borzage
was no D.W. Griffith and his award-winning films now gather
dust as forgotten museum pieces.
Biggest Oversight
Grand
Hotel is the only film to win the Best Picture Oscar that
wasn't nominated in any other categories, a classification that
seems absurd because the film had so many outstanding aspects
to it. Edmund Goulding did a remarkable job in directing so
many high caliber, high ego names in the cast, and got particularly
memorable performances from Joan Crawford and Lionel Barrymore.
William Drake did a superb job of crafting a screenplay from
Vicki Baum's potentially episodic novel. But the most unique
aspect of the film may have been Cedric Gibbons' opulent
art deco set, one of the most formidable achievements in art
direction of the era. The Academy only named three nominees
in this period and those that they did honor -Richard Day for
Arrowsmith, Lazare Meerson for À nous la liberté
(the first foreign language film to receive a nomination)
and winner Gordon Wiles for Transatlantic - were all
fine choices for recognition. But Gibbons' work on Grand
Hotel is such a striking and original achievement that its
omission seems glaring today.
Cavalcade Actor: Charles Laughton (The Private
Life of Henry VIII) Actress: Katharine Hepburn (Morning Glory) Director: Frank Lloyd (Cavalcade)
King Kong* Actor: Paul Muni (I Am a Fugitive from
a Chain Gang)
Actress: Norma Shearer (Smilin' Through)*
Supporting Actor:
Stuart Erwin (International House)*
Supporting Actress:
Claudette Colbert (The Sign of the Cross)*
Director: Merian C. Cooper and
Ernest B. Schoedsack (King Kong)
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 far 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.
Worst Award
In
1930/31, the Academy nominated Trader
Horn for Best Picture, a film that is best known for its
star contracting sleeping sickness. In 1932/33, they gave the
Best Picture Award to a film that is so boring that it could
cause sleeping sickness. Based on a play by Noel Coward,
Cavalcade is the saga of two families, the Marryots and
the Bridges, the former upper class and the latter their servants,
from the end of the 19th Century up to 1933. While the narrative
of the film takes place over forty years, watching it seems
to take up almost as much time. Ask any movie fan to name their
favorite films, and King Kong, Duck Soup, and Forty-second
Street will likely appear on the list. Ask any movie fan
if they thought Cavalcade was the best film of 1933,
and their most likely reply would be "What's Cavalcade?"
With the wealth of superior films eligible for Best Picture,
the choice of Cavalcade must rank second only
to Cimarron as the worst selection for Best Picture in
Academy Award history.
Biggest Oversight
When
Will Rogers announced the Best Director winner, he said simply
"Come up and get it, Frank!" Nominee Frank Capra thought
that Rogers meant him, and was almost to the podium when he
realized that the winner was actually Frank Lloyd for Cavalcade.
Capra was forced to make his way back to his seat in abject
humiliation, but one can understand his confusion as Lloyd's
ponderous direction of the forgotten Calvacade is one
of the worst selections in Oscar history. There were a myriad
of overlooked accomplishments in 1932/33: the career defining
performance of Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, the manic
screenplay of Duck Soup, and the elegant production of
Dinner at Eight all leap immediately to mind. But the
groundbreaking effect of King Kong makes its shutout
the biggest mystery in Oscar history. The two individuals most
deserving of recognition were directors Ernest B. Schoedsack
and Merian C. Cooper, whose work was light years beyond
winner Frank Lloyd for Cavalcade or even nominees Frank
Capra (Lady for A Day) and George Cukor (Little Women),
whose place on the honor roll is well deserved.
It
Happened One Night Best
Actor: Clark Gable (It Happened One Night) Best Actress:Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night) Director Frank Capra (It Happened One Night)
It
Happened One Night Actor: John Barrymore(Twentieth
Century)*
Actress: Bette Davis(Of Human Bondage)* Supporting Actor: Frank Morgan (Affairs of Cellini) Supporting Actress: Zasu Pitts
(Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch)* Director Frank Capra (It Happened One Night)
The
Academy behaved very uncharacteristically in 1934, eschewing
its usual Best Picture preference for epic drama by selecting
a modest comedy made by the B-List Columbia Studios. But for
once they got it right, since the groundbreaking screwball comedy It Happened One Night was not only a major influence
on screen comedy for the next ten years, but it is as enjoyable
to modern audiences as to its original patrons. 1934 was a strong
year for Hollywood, with evergreen classics like The Thin
Man, The Gay Divorcee, and the unnominated Twentieth
Century, It's a Gift and Sons of the Desert enchanting
audiences as much today as when they premiered. But even this
heady group doesn't quite equal the magic of It Happened
One Night, whose storied creation seems like the stuff of
Hollywood fantasy in itself (Gable's casting in the role that
catapulted him into superstardom was originally meant as a punishment
to the actor, who had the audacity to ask for more money; and
Frank Capra's unprecedented dominance at the Oscars came only
a year after humiliating himself by mounting the podium to accept
the Best Director Oscar for Lady for a Day, not realizing
that the winner was actually Frank Lloyd). But as delightful
as It Happened One Night was, its Oscar success seems
an aberration in Academy history (nominees Cleopatra or The Barretts of Wimpole Street are more along the
usual preference for Best Picture), but this was a rare occasion
where the Best Picture was the most entertaining one as well.
Worst Award
The Academy gave the Best Short Subject, Comedy Oscar to La Cucaracha, a forgettable little nothing that told the story of a waitress at a Mexican café who serves a meal to a pompous customer with a propensity for overacting before getting back at a pompous entertainer in the floorshow for calling her "Cockroach" by singing the title tune and then doing a 1930s version of Dirty Dancing with him, whereupon the diner reveals himself to be a famous theater owner who's going to make them both stars. What made La Cucaracha stand out was that it was RKO Picture's first experiment in 3-strip Technicolor before committing to the first feature film with the process, Becky Sharp. La Cucaracha is undeniably pretty to look at but without the gimmick of Technicolor, there's nothing especially memorable about it. It might have been an unobjectionable choice for the award except that one of the other nominees was among the most immortal live action short subjects of the 1930s, The Three Stooges' only taste of Oscar glory Men in Black. The Stooges aren't to everyone's taste and to be honest, we at madbeast.com aren't particularly big fans of the trio. But there's no denying that in the decades since their release, millions of more people have had their lives brightened by the antics of Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine and Dr. Howard than have ever heard of Chaquita and Pancho doing the Forbidden Dance in glorious Technicolor. So while we understand why the Academy went with the choice that they did, we'll make it up to posterity by giving the Hindsight Award to the three knuckleheads.
Biggest Oversight
Bette
Davis' failure to be nominated for Of Human Bondage was
such a scandal that the Academy allowed write-in votes to put
her back in the running. But in the Hindsight Awards race, the
scandal should have been over the omission of John Barrymore,
who was never nominated for an Academy Award, claiming that
"they're afraid that I'll show up drunk if I win - and
I just might!" He might have been nominated for any number
of performances, but the one that seems like the biggest oversight
was his hilarious work as the desperate producer in the screwball
comedy Twentieth Century. The nominees that year were
Gable (who won because of the popularity of It Happened One
Night - and his own), Frank Morgan in The Affairs of
Cellini (who would have won Best Supporting Actor if that
award had been introduced two years earlier, and was only narrowly
defeated by Gable for the Best Actor award) and William Powell
for The Thin Man. All were reasonable selections, but
Barrymore's work was a tour-de-force that outdid all of them.
Mutiny on the Bounty Actor: Victor McLaglen (The Informer)
Actress: Bette Davis (Dangerous) Director: John Ford (The Informer)
Top Hat Actor: Charles Laughton (Mutiny on
the Bounty)
Actress: Katharine Hepburn (Alice Adams)
Supporting Actor: W. C. Fields David Copperfield)*
Supporting Actress: Mary Boland
(Ruggles of red Gap)*
Director: John Ford (The Informer)
Mutiny
on the Bounty is a rip-snorting adventure
film and the second Irving Thalberg production to win Best Picture.
Strangely, it did not win an award in any other category; although
it is the only film to receive three nominations for Best Actor:
for Clark Gable, Franchot Tone (who would have been up for Best
Supporting Actor if that award had been introduced a year earlier)
and New York Film Critics Award winner Charles Laughton. The
movie is carried by Laughton's definitive Captain Bligh, but
the story unfolds in a very one sided manner that lacks dramatic
power (the tale of the mutiny was told with much more drama
in 1984's The Bounty, ironically the only version of
the three films of the story not to be nominated for Best Picture).
Mutiny on the Bounty's biggest threat to the Oscar was
John Ford's The Informer, which won Best Director, Best
Actor for Victor McLaglen, and Best Screenplay (which Dudley
Nichols turned down in protest of the Academy's labor organizing
activities); but three films of the era stand out as supreme
cinematic achievements: the hilarious horror send-up The
Bride of Frankenstein (featuring stunning performances by
Boris Karloff and Ernest Thesiger), the Marx Bros. masterpiece
A Night at the Opera, and the seminal teaming of Fred
Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Top Hat.Of the three, Top
Hat was the only film to receive a Best Picture nomination
(The Bride of Frankenstein was nominated for its sound
recording), and that delightful entertainment is as enjoyable
today as when it came out. To be sure, the film is a throwback
to Broadway musicals of the 1920s before people like Richard
Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern figured out that
songs could advance a show's story rather than merely serve
as an entertaining diversion from it. But Top Hat is
an example of this type of entertainment at its most sublime
due to the Astaire-Rogers chemistry, the magnificent dancing
of Astaire, a superb song score by Irving Berlin, a delightful
bon bon of a screenplay by Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor, and
wonderful supporting performances by Helen Broderick and Edward
Everett Horton. They don't just not make ‘em like this anymore
- they never made ‘em like this!
Worst Award
The
first of three Oscars for Dance Direction were given out this
year, and the Academy mistakenly awarded Dave Gould for
the "I've Got a Feeling You're Fooling" number from
The Broadway Melody of 1936 instead of the rightful
winner Hermes Pan for the "Piccolino" (or the unnominated "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails," "Cheek to Cheek" or "No Strings") from Top
Hat. Pan's athletic and sophisticated choreography for
Top Hat continues to dazzle to this day, and should
have left the other nominees in the dust.
Biggest Oversight
The
Marx Bros. films were never nominated for Academy Awards (save
for a single nomination for Dance Direction for the disturbingly
racist "All God's Children Got Rhythm" number from
1937's A Day At the Races). It's understandable that
the brothers never received nominations as performers (since
they always played the same characters in a manner which is
not acting that the Academy Awards were designed for), but their
film's inventive and unique screenplays were certainly deserving
of recognition.This was never truer than in the case of A
Night at the Opera, penned by distinguished playwrights
George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind (Pulitzer Prize winners
for Of Thee I Sing). The Academy traditionally thumbs
its nose at broad comedy, but A Night at the Opera was
head and shoulders the finest screenplay of 1935, and should
not only have been nominated, it should have won.
The Great
Ziegfeld Actor: Paul Muni (The Story of Louis
Pasteur)
Actress: Luise Rainer (The Great Ziegfeld)
Supporting Actor: Walter Brennan(Come and Get It)
Supporting Actress: Gale Sondergaard
(Anthony Adverse) Director: Frank Capra (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town)
Mr. Deeds Goes To Town Actor: William Powell (My Man Godfrey)
Actress: Carole Lombard (My Man Godfrey)
Supporting Actor: Paul Robeson (Show Boat)*
Supporting Actress: Paulette Goddard
(Modern Times)*
Director: Frank Capra (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town)
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.
Worst Award
Luise
Rainer won the first of her back-to-back
Academy Awards for her wooden performance as Florenz Ziegfeld's
first wife Anna Held in The Great Ziegfeld before returning
to the anonymity that she was better suited for. To be fair,
the ultra-slick MGM was probably the worst place for the unpretentious
Rainer to call home, and her career might have faired better
at a less mainstream studio not so obsessed with Hollywood glamour.
But it is doubtful that a limited talent like Rainer would have
received such praise for a brief period without the power of
Leo the Lion behind her, and her Oscar for The Great Ziegfeld
remains a curious selection that seems even more puzzling when
it is compared with the nominated (and far superior) performance
of Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey. Lombard never won
an Oscar, and My Man Godfrey was the performance she
never won it for. Rainer received a second Oscar the following
year for her more effective (though somewhat monotonous) performance
in The Good Earth. The casting of the Viennese Rainer
as a Chinese peasant would result in protests today, but audiences
were impressed enough by such miscasting in 1937 to award it
with Academy Awards. Rainier would later blame the subsequent
decline in her career on the double-Oscar win, but the fact
of the matter is that she was a very mediocre actress who was
absurdly overpraised for a brief period of time.
Biggest Oversight
The
Academy had a final opportunity to honor the silent artistry
of Charles Chaplin in 1936 for his final appearance as
the tramp in Modern Times, the last silent film to be
released by a major studio until Mel Brooks' novelty comedy
Silent Movie and 2011's Best Picture The Artist. Since Chaplin once again
snubbed sound, the Academy apparently felt at ease to snub Chaplin
(Modern Times did not receive a single nomination). Chaplin
only won one Oscar in a competitive category, for Best Dramatic
Score for Limelight in 1972 (the film was eligible for
Oscars twenty years after it was made because it had not been
released in Los Angeles prior to that). It was hardly a selection
based on sentimentality though, as Chaplin was almost as distinguished
a composer as he was a filmmaker. This was never so apparent
as with the haunting and powerful score of Modern Times,
which includes the classic song "Smile." Modern
Times deserved numerous nominations, but its failure to
be honored for its score is truly a mystery today.
The Life
of Emile Zola Actor: Spencer Tracy (Captains Courageous
)
Actress: Luise Rainer (The Good Earth) Supporting Actor: Joseph Schildkraut
(The Life of Emile Zola) Supporting Actress: Alice Brady (In Old Chicago) Director: Leo McCarey (The Awful Truth)
Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves* Actor: Spencer Tracy (Captains Courageous)
Actress: Greta Garbo (Camille) Supporting Actor: Roland Young (Topper)
Supporting Actress: Margaret Dumont
(A Day at the Races)* Director: Fritz Lang (You Only Live Once)*
The
Life of Emile Zola was one in a series
of somewhat pretentious biographical films that Warner Bros.
made to suit the histrionic abilities of their prestigious star
"Mr." Paul Muni (as he was frequently billed). Emile
Zola is a film very much in the Oscar mold: a Serious film
about a Serious subject made by high pedigree talent. Zola
was a fine film for its day, but it was a safe and predictable
choice for Best Picture and a film that is virtually forgotten
today. Far better choices were Frank Capra's memorable film
of the James Hilton novel Lost Horizon or the Laurel
& Hardy classic Way Out West; but by far the most
memorable, courageous and influential film of 1937 was Snow
White and the Seven Dwarves. Walt Disney completely dominated
the animation business when he decided to risk everything on
a brand new art form: the feature length cartoon. Failure might
have meant the end of his studio, but Snow White's success
was so overwhelming that it began a series of films that are
among the most memorable and beloved in the history of film.
The Academy honored Snow White with a Special Oscar for
Disney as well as a nomination for its score (although not,
strangely, for Best Song for the perennial Whistle While
You Work). You may argue that it's not fair for an animated
film to win the Best Picture Award and you may be right, but
if one looks at the films released in 1937 and asks which made
the biggest impact not only for that year but in terms of its
importance in the evolution of film, Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves stands head and shoulders above all its rivals.
Worst Award
The
extras branch of the Screen Actors Guild were permitted to vote
for some awards in this era, and they created a major controversy
when it was decreed that they swayed the Best Song Award to
the hackneyed crowd-pleaser "Sweet Leilani"
from the Bing Crosby musical Waikiki Wedding in favor
of the superior and more sophisticated "They Can't Take
That Away From Me" by George and Ira Gershwin. Nebraskan
composer Harry Owens composed the songs for only a handful of
films (winning his dubious Oscar on his only nomination) before
returning to his true calling as the front man for the Hawaiian-influenced
big band Harry Owens and His Royal Hawaiians, which popularized
the hapa haole style of Hawaiian music.
Biggest Oversight
No one would argue that Margaret Dumont was a great actress since the only role she seemed capable of playing was a wealthy dowager who Groucho Marx was always trying to con out of her fortune (her one memorable non-Marx Bros. film was in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break in which she played a wealthy dowager who W.C. Fields was always trying to con out of her fortune). But in that role she had no equal and this was never more true than in her performance of the well-heeled but affectionate Mrs. Upjohn in A Day at the Races. The role was not on the surface any different from what she was asked to do in Animal Crackers or A Night at the Opera, but through some alchemy she managed to raise the bar on her performance in this comic masterpiece to a level she had never reached before and none of her countless imitators would ever reach again. There were better actresses who might have been selected for this honor in 1937, but there was no performer who made such an immortal impact on her audiences than Margaret Dumont.
You Can't Take It With
You Actor: Spencer Tracy (Boys Town)
Actress: Bette Davis (Jezebel) Supporting Actor: Walter Brennan (Kentucky) Supporting Actress: Fay Bainter (Jezebel) Director: Frank Capra (You Can't Take It With You)
The Adventures of Robin
Hood Actor: James Cagney(Angels With Dirty
Faces) Actress: Bette Davis (Jezebel)
Supporting Actor: Mickey Rooney (Boys Town)* Supporting Actress: Fay Bainter (Jezebel) Director: Michael Curtiz and Willian Keighley
(The Adventures of Robin Hood)*
You
Can't Take It With You was the biggest
hit of the 1936 theatre season, winning the Pulitzer Prize for
authors George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. But when it was adapted
to the screen two years later, it was billed as Frank Capra's
You Can't Take It With You. Screenwriter Robert Ryskind
made a game try at opening up the play for the screen, expanding
the secondary roles of the young lovers in the play to leads
in the film (wonderfully played by Jean Arthur and particularly
the young James Stewart, who provide the most memorable performances
in the film), but as a result the Kaufman/Hart laughfest is
whittled into a moderately charming romantic comedy/drama and
not the biting satire that it was in the original Broadway production
and as a mainstay of summer stock theatres in the decades since.
Capra was one of the only comedy filmmakers the Academy took
seriously in the 1930s (along with Leo McCarey), and after deservedly
anointing him as Best Director in 1934 and 1936, they got carried
away by giving him a hat trick for his frustratingly stagebound
comedy in a surprise decision. The film that was expected to
win was the delightfully exciting and cinematic The Adventures
of Robin Hood, still one of the most adventurous and enjoyable
films ever made and the seminal teaming of actor Errol Flynn
and director Michael Curtiz (who strangely received two nominations
in the Best Director category this year, but not for this, his
finest venture into the adventure genre - possibly because he
took over from William Keighley early in the filming and shared
credit with Keighley in the final film). Viewed today, it seems
inconceivable that Robin Hood didn't sweep the Oscars.
Worst Award
With
the extras still having the strongest voice in the Oscar race,
anyone who could sway their vote had an unfair advantage in
the balloting. This was never so true as it was with Walter
Brennan, who was beloved by the extras because he started
out as one. This resulted in his winning the Best Supporting
Actor Oscar in 1936, 1938 and 1940. Brennan was a wonderful
character actor who appeared memorably in many classic films,
but all three of his Oscars were considered major upsets that
were swayed by the extras in the voting. Had a more objective
panel been voting, Brennan probably wouldn't have won any Oscars,
and his 1938 award for Kentucky would be the first to
go. It's a tiresome Romeo & Juliet story about a tiresome boy and girl (played by tiresome Richard Greene and Loretta Young) from feuding horse-breeding families who get together over the objections of her lovable but crotchety old uncle (inevitably played by Brennan, who specialized in playing old men, even though he was only 44 at the time). The story might have been from a Clyde Fitch play written at the turn of the century and its attitude towards its black characters is disturbingly patronizing. Brennan did his usual entertaining and professional job but the character doesn't have a trace of the complexity he showed in classics like My Darling Clementine (1946) or Red River (1948); performances that failed to win any Academy recognition after the boost he got from the extras went away after their vote was rescinded. For Brennan for be honored for sterotypical work in Kentucky over vastly more interesting nominated performances by John Garfield in Four Daughters (the anticipated winner), Basil Rathbone in If I Were King and Robert Morley in Marie Antoinette and overlooked gems by Mickey Rooney in Boy's Town, Erich von Stroheim in Le Grande Illusion and Wilfrid Lawson in Pygmalion, it's easy to see why the extras lost the vote.
Biggest Oversight
Spencer
Tracy became the first actor to win back-to-back Best Actor
Oscars for his bland performance as Father Flanagan in MGM's
smash hit Boy's Town. But the performance of the film
came from the show business machine Mickey Rooney, who
caught the public's eye in Captains Courageous and A
Family Affair in 1937 and would go on to become a superstar
in everything from musicals like Babes in Arms to sentimental
dramas like The Human Comedy, as well as his most famous
role as Andy Hardy in the studio's spectacularly popular series
of the 1930s and 1940s. At the height of his talents, Rooney
was one of the most versatile actors who ever lived and his
magnificent performance as a young hoodlum who evolves into
a straight arrow continues to pack an emotional wallop in an
otherwise dated and manipulative film.
Gone With the Wind
Actor: Robert Donat (Goodbye, Mr. Chips)
Actress: Vivian Leigh (Gone With the Wind) Supporting Actor: Thomas Mitchell (Stagecoach) Supporting Actress: Hattie McDaniel
(Gone With the Wind) Director: Victor Fleming (Gone With the Wind)
Gone With the Wind
Actor: James Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington)
Actress: Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind) Supporting Actor: Bert Lahr (The Wizard of Oz)* Supporting Actress: Hattie McDaniel (Gone With the Wind) Director: Victor Fleming (Gone With the Wind)
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, and by Hattie McDaniel who richly deserved her Academy Award for her indelible performance) 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 selected Confessions of a Nazi
Spy, the first major Hollywood film to spotlight the Nazi Menace. 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. Fleming 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 show, and Fleming won one of the eight Oscars
awarded to the film.
Worst Award
With
awards going to such classics as GWTW, The Wizard of Oz,
Goodbye Mr. Chips, Wuthering Heights and Mr. Smith
Goes To Washington, the selection of the forgottenThe
Rains Came for Special Effects seems out of place. The
flood sequences were impressive,
but hardly etched as deeply in
the memory as the burning of Atlanta or the Wicked Witch
of the West's flying monkeys. The adaptation of Louis Bromfield's
novel failed to make its costs back at the box office due to the mounting expenses of staging the flood and
earthquake sequences in an otherwise interminable story which
ironically depended on its expensive flood scenes to keep it
afloat.
Biggest Oversight
There
were a myriad of unrewarded performances
by actors in supporting roles in 1939: John Barrymore in Midnight,
Lon Chaney, Jr. in Of Mice and Men, Nigel Bruce in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and John Carradine
in Stagecoach were snubbed
in favor of lesser
work by Harry Carey, Brian Aherne and Brian Donlevy. And while
the Academy showed a great deal of taste in presenting
The Wizard of Oz with six nominations (including Best
Picture) and two awards (for Best Song and Best Original Score)
considering that in its initial release it was a commercial
flop, the single
most entertaining aspect of the film was overlooked: the unforgettable
performance of Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion. Lahr's
broad style was more suited to the musical stage than to film
(he won a Tony Award for his performance in Foxy) and
he appeared in only eight more minor feature films after his dazzling work as the chicken-hearted king of the forest, devoting himself to a stage career that would ultimately include the United States premiere of Beckett's Waiting for Godot and go on to see the one-time Burlesque stalwart in performances of plays by Shakespeare and Molière. But it was his
performance in The Wizard of Oz that won him immortality
as one of the most memorable and beloved characterizations in
the history of the movies. When Lahr's son, noted critic John Lahr, sat down to pen his father's official biography, it was inevitably titled Notes on a Cowardly Lion.
BEST PICTURE *All Quiet on the Western Front Anna Christie Applause The Big House The Love Parade
BEST DIRECTOR *Lewis Milestone for All Quiet on the Western Front
Clarence Brown for Anna Christie
Ernst Lubitsch for The Love Parade
Rouben Mamoulian for Applause
King Vidor for Hallelujah
BEST ACTOR
* Lew Ayres in All Quiet on the Western Front*
George Arliss in Disraeli
John Barrymore in The Man from Blankley's
Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade
Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond
BEST ACTRESS *Greta Garbo in Anna Christie
Nina Mae McKinney in Hallelujah
Helen Morgan in Applause
Norma Shearer in The Divorcée
Gloria Swanson in The Trespasser
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Louis Wolheim in All Quiet on the Western Front
Wallace Beery in The Big House
George F. Marion in Anna Christie
Lupino Lane in The Love Parade
Robert Montgomery in The Big House
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Marie Dressler in Anna Christie
Florence Arliss in Disraeli
Joan Peers in Applause
Lillian Roth in The Vagabond King
Fay Wray in The Four Feathers
BEST PICTURE *City Lights The Dawn Patrol The Front Page Little Caesar Min and Bill
BEST DIRECTOR *Charles Chaplin for City Lights
Mervyn LeRoy for Little Caesar
George Hill for Min and Bill
Lewis Milestone for The Front Page
Josef Von Sternberg for Morocco
BEST ACTOR *Charles Chaplin in City Lights
John Barrymore in Svengali
James Cagney in The Public Enemy
Adolphe Menjou in The Front Page
Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar
BEST ACTRESS *Marie Dressler in Min and Bill
Irene Dunne in Cimarron
Marlene Dietrich in Morocco
Ann Harding in Holiday
Norma Shearer in A Free Soul
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Clark Gable in A Free Soul
Dwight Frye in Dracula
Edward Everett Horton in The Front Page
Fredric March in The Royal Family of Broadway
Harry Myers in City Lights
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Virginia Cherrill in City Lights
Mary Astor in Holiday
Mae Clarke in The Front Page
Jean Harlow in The Secret Six
Marian Marsh in Svengali
BEST PICTURE *Frankenstein The Champ
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Grand Hotel
Scarface
BEST DIRECTOR *Rouben Mamoulian for Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Edmund Goulding for Grand Hotel
Howard Hawks for Scarface
King Vidor for The Champ
James Whale for Frankenstein
BEST ACTOR *Fredric March in Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
John Barrymore in Grand Hotel
Colin Clive in Frankenstein
Jackie Cooper in The Champ
Alfred Lunt in The Guardsman
BEST ACTRESS *Joan Crawford in Grand Hotel
Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express
Lynne Fontanne for The Guardsman
Jean Harlow in Red Dust
Helen Hayes in The Sin of Madelon Claudet
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Boris Karloff in Frankenstein
George Barbier in The Smiling Lieutenant
Lionel Barrymore in Grand Hotel
Lowell Sherman in What Price Hollywood?
Charles Ruggles in One Hour With You
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Miriam Hopkins in Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde Joan Blondell in Night Nurse
Frances Dee in An American Tragedy
Marian Marsh in Five Star Final Anna May Wong in Shanghai Express
BEST PICTURE *King Kong Duck Soup
42nd Street
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang Trouble in Paradise
BEST DIRECTOR *Merian C, Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack for King Kong
Fritz Lang for M.
Ernst Lubitsch for Trouble in Paradise
Leo McCarey for Duck Soup
Rouben Mamoulian for Love Me Tonight
BEST ACTOR *Paul Muni in I Am a Fugitice from a Chain Gang
Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII
Peter Lorre in M.
Fredric March in Smilin' Through
Herbert Marshall in Trouble in Paradise
BEST ACTRESS *Norma Shearer in Smilin' Through
Kay Francis in Trouble in Paradise
Katharine Hepburn in Little Women
Miriam Hopkins in Trouble in Paradise
May West in She Done Him Wrong
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Stuart Irwin in International House
John Barrymore in Dinner at Eight
W.C. Fields in Alice in Wonderland
Harpo Marx in Duck Soup
Charles Laughton in If I Had a Million
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Claudette Colbert in The Sign of the Cross
Joan Bennett in Little Women
Jean Harlow in Dinner at Eight Myrna Loy in The Animal Kingdom May Robson in Alice in Wonderland
BEST PICTURE *It Happened One Night The Barretts of Wimpole Street The Gay Divorcée
Twentieth Century
The Thin Man
BEST DIRECTOR *Frank Capra for It Happened One Night
Sidney Franklin for The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Howard Hawks for Twentieth Century
Mitchell Leisen for Death Takes a Holiday
W.S. Van Dyke for The Thin Man
BEST ACTOR *John Barrymore in Twentieth Century
Clark Gable in It Happened One Night
Charles Laughton in The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Fredric March in Death Takes a Holiday
William Powell in The Thin Man
BEST ACTRESS *Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage
Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night
Carole Lombard in Twentieth Century
Myrna Loy in The Thin Man
Norma Shearer in The Barretts of Wimpole Street
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Frank Morgan in Affairs of Cellini
W.C. Fields in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch Edward Everett Horton in The Merry Widow
Sam Jaffe in The Scarlet Empress C. Aubrey Smith in The House of Rothchild
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *ZaSu Pitts in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
Alice Brady for The Gay Divorcée
Una Merkel in The Merry Widow
Maureen O'Sullivan in The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Fredi Washington in Imitation of Life
BEST PICTURE *Top Hat The Bride of Frankenstein
The Informer
Mutiny on the Bounty
A Night at the Opera
BEST DIRECTOR *John Ford for The Informer
George Cukor for David Copperfield
Frank Lloyd for Mutiny on the Bounty
Mark Sandrich for Top Hat
James Whale for The Bride of Frankenstein
BEST ACTOR *Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty
Robert Donat in The 39 Steps
Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty
Boris Karloff in The Bride of Frankenstein
Victor McLaglen in The Informer
BEST ACTRESS *Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams
Elisabeth Bergner in Escape Me Never
Claudette Colbert in Private Worlds
Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina
Miriam Hopkins in Becky Sharp
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *W.C. Fields in David Copperfield
Edward Everett Horton in Top Hat
Ernest Thesiger in The Bride of Frankenstein
Franchot Tone in Mutiny on the Bounty
Roland Young in David Copperfield
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Mary Boland in Ruggles of Red Gap
Helen Broderick in Top Hat
Hattie McDaniel in Alice Adams
Una O'Connor in The Informer Edna May Oliver in David Copperfield
BEST PICTURE *Mr. Deeds Goes to Town Dodsworth
Modern Times
My Man Godfrey
San Francisco
BEST DIRECTOR *Frank Capra for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Charles Chaplin for Modern Times Gregory La Cava for My Man Godfrey W.S. Van Dyke for San Francisco William Wyler for Dodsworth
BEST ACTOR *William Powell in My Man Godfrey
Charles Chaplin in Modern Times
Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Clark Gable in San Francisco
Walter Huston in Dodsworth
BEST ACTRESS *Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey
Jean Arthur in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Irene Dunne inTheodora Goes Wild
Gladys George in Valient is the Word for Carrie
Myrna Loy in After the Thin Man
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Paul Robeson in Show Boat
Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest
Eugene Pallette in My Man Godfrey
Akim Tamiroff in The General Died at Dawn
Spencer Tracy in San Francisco
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Paulette Goddard in Modern Times
Mary Astor in Dodsworth
Alice Brady in My Man Godfrey
Bonita Granville in These Three
Gale Sondergaard in Anthony Adverse
BEST PICTURE *Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Captains Courageous
The Good Earth
Lost Horizon Way Out West
BEST DIRECTOR *Fritz Lang for You Only Live Twice
Frank Capra for Lost Horizon
William Dieterle for The Life of Emile Zola
Sidney Franklin for The Good Earth
Leo McCarey for Make Way for Tomorrow
BEST ACTOR *Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous
Charles Boyer in Conquest
Cary Grant in The Awful Truth
Robert Montgomery for Night Must Fall
Paul Muni for The Life of Emile Zola
BEST ACTRESS *Greta Garbo in Camille
Beulah Bondi in Make Way for Tomorrow Janet Gaynor in A Star is Born Luise Rainer in The Good Earth Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Roland Young in Topper
Ralph Bellamy in The Awful Truth
Humphrey Bogart in Dead End
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in The Prisoner of Zenda
Joseph Schildkraut in The Life of Emile Zola
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Margaret Dumont in A Day at the Races
Alice Brady in In Old Chicago
Claire Trevor in Dead End
Dame May Whitty in Night Must Fall Anne Shirley in Stella Dallas
BEST PICTURE *The Adventures of Robin Hood The Citadel
Le Grande Illusion
Pygmalion
You Can't Take It With You
BEST DIRECTOR *Michael Curtiz and Willian Keighley for The Adventures of Robin Hood
Frank Capra for You Can't Take It With You
Alfred Hitchcock for The Lady Vanishes
Jean Renoir for Le Grande Illusion
King Vidor for The Citadel
BEST ACTOR *James Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces
Charles Boyer in Algiers Roberty Donat in The Citadel Jean Gabin in Le Grande Illusion Leslie Howard in Pygmalion
BEST ACTRESS *Bette Davis in Jezebel
Katharine Hepburn in Holiday
Wendy Hiller in Pygmalion
Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette
Margaret Sullavan in Three Comrades
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Mickey Rooney in Boys Town
John Garfield in Four Daughters
Robert Morely in Marie Antoinette
Basil Rathbone in The Adventures of Robin Hood
Erich von Stroheim in Le Grande Illusion
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Fay Bainter in Jezebel
Beulah Bondi in Of Human Hearts
Spring Byington in You Can't Take It With You
Olivia de Havilland in The Adventures of Robin Hood
May Robson in Bringing Up Baby
BEST PICTURE *Gone With the Wind Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Wizard of Oz
Wuthering Heights
BEST DIRECTOR *Victor Fleming for Gone With the Wind
Frank Capra for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
John Ford for Stagecoach
Sam Wood for Goodbye, Mr. Chips
William Wyler for Wuthering Heights
BEST ACTOR *James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind
Charles Laughton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights
BEST ACTRESS *Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind
Jean Arthur in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Bette Davis in Dark Victory
Irene Dunne in Love Affair Greta Garbo in Nonotchka
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz
Lon Chaney, Jr. in Of Mice and Men
Thomas Mitchell in Stagecoach
Claude Rains in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
George Sanders in Confessions of a Nazi Spy
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind
Olivia de Havilland in Gone With the Wind
Geraldine Fitzgerald in Wuthering Heights
Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz