Cimarron (1931)

Winner, 4th Academy Awards

Directed by: Wesley Ruggles

Starring: Richard Dix and Irene Dunne

Plot: An adventuring lawyer/newspaper editor settles down in an Oklahoma boom town.

Thoughts: It's not difficult to see why Cimarron beat out its competition for the Best Motion Picture award. It was the most polished out of the nominees and had that epic feel to it that the Academy likes so much. I enjoyed the film despite it being a bit long. Richard Dix was a bit bombastic with his acting, compared to his capable but subdued co-stars. The film's most famous sequence easily remains its best: the Oklahoma land rush scene is huge and starts things off with an energy that wasn't matched by the rest of the film. But that's okay, it's still an enjoyable way to waste a couple of hours.

Based on Edna Ferber's 1929 decade-spanning novel, Cimarron has the distinction of being a Best Picture winner that didn't make a profit during its initial theatrical run. Although liked by audiences and critics, the film was released during one of the worst periods of the Great Depression. Movies were a popular form of entertainment during the Depression, but 1931 was a particularly turbulent year for many Americans. The cost of making Cimarron made it one of the most expensive films produced at the time ($125,000 was paid for the novel rights alone).

Cimarron was released on DVD in 2006. The film was remade starring Glenn Ford in 1960 and is also available on DVD. According to IMDB, yet another remake is coming in 2010 but information on it is pretty scarce as of this writing. The 1960 remake was not nominated for Best Picture but earned Academy nods for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Sound.

Cimarron earned an unprecedented seven award nomination's, beating out The Love Parade's six nods from the previous year. In addition to Best Motion Picture, Cimarron also won Best Art Direction for Max Ree's convincing work on making the town of Osage, Oklahoma come to life and won Best Writing, Adaptation, for Howard Estabrook's screenplay. The film was also nominated for the following:

• Best Actor for Richard Dix's enthusiastic performance as Yancey Cravat;
• Best Actress for Irene Dunne's performance as Sabra Cravat;
• Best Cinematography for Edward Cronjager's work; and
• Best Director.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Winner, 3rd Academy Awards

Directed by: Lewis Milestone

Starring: Lew Ayres and Louis Wolheim

Plot: During a wave of patriotism, a young man enlists in the army and is visited time and again by horror and despair during World War I.

Thoughts: Lewis Milestone's second Academy entry (his first being the pioneering gangster film The Racket) was easily the director's magnum opus. In a year with a number of good films, it's easy to see why All Quiet on the Western Front stood out. This was, without a doubt, the Saving Private Ryan of its time. Never before had the horrors of war, both on and off of the battlefield, been portrayed in such an unrelenting fashion.

This film was, of course, based on the 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque. Some sequences were changed from the novel, most notably the ending. However, the impact was just as powerful. The film's only failings were some soft acting at times and bouts of preachiness that worked fine in prose but fell flat on film. Despite its faults, All Quiet on the Western Front was certainly deserving of Best Picture.

The widely circulated version we have now resulted from a major restoration effort by the Library of Congress. A silent version was also produced for theaters that hadn't made the transition to sound just yet. Being a controversial film, All Quiet on the Western Front was cut down to 90 minutes when it was re-released in 1934 due to the strict Hayes Codes. In 1939, newsreel footage was spliced in decrying the Nazi rise in Europe. 1950 saw the addition of swing music to the ending. The film was banned in a number of countries due to the anti-war message and perceived anti-German sentiment; the ban in Austria remained until the 1980s.

Aside from taking home Best Production, All Quiet on the Western Front also earned a Best Director award. The film was nominated for Best Cinematography for Arthur Edeson's terrific camera work (the battle sequences remain pretty jarring to this day). It also received a nomination for Best Writing, Achievement, for the screenplay's adaptation of the novel by the trio of George Abbot, Maxwell Anderson, and Del Andrews.

The Broadway Melody (1929)

Winner

Directed by: Harry Beaumont

Starring: Charles King, Anita Page, and Bessie Love

Plot: A pair of Midwest Vaudeville performers look to get their big break on Broadway.

Thoughts: This film is often considered the first modern musical despite only three occasions of spontaneous song, two of those being somewhat functional. This was apparently the best the 1928-1929 consideration period had to offer, according to the Academy. Given the other nominees, I would have to agree.

Of all the films nominated, The Broadway Melody does stand out as being the most polished out of the nominees that year. It's not a vehicle for a single actor like In Old Arizona or Alibi nor does it rely on spectacle like The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Since The Patriot was essentially a silent, that means a talking film would have an edge.

As for the film itself, it's okay. It had a fairly predictable story and decent characters. It's certainly not a terrible way to waste 90 minutes, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. Whereas in 1929, this would have been awesome. The technical achievement for the era was unmistakable. So successful was this film, that it spawned four "sequels" of sorts and was parodied in dog form as The Dogway Melody (which you can see on the 2005 DVD release).

While Best Motion Picture was the only statuette The Broadway Melody took home, the film was also nominated for Best Actress (Bessie Love) and Best Director. Best Actress that year went to Mary Pickford in Coquette while Frank Lloyd received the Best Director nod for the silent The Divine Lady (one of the few times the Best Director did not direct a Best Picture nominee).

Wings (1927)

Winner: Best Production

Directed by: William A. Wellman

Starring: Charles Rogers, Richard Arlen, and Clara Bow

Plot: Two young from the opposite sides of the tracks come of age as pilots during World War I.

Thoughts: It's easy to see why the Academy chose this as Best Production; because it's one ginormous production. This film begins the Academy's adoration with epics. While tastes would certainly change over time, epics seem to almost certainly wind up in the nominee lists. The popularity of Charles Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight the previous year certainly helped (Lindbergh was the biggest non-Hollywood celebrity at the time).

William Wellman based Wings on his own experiences as a World War I pilot. He had fought in the war and flew as a barnstormer (local daredevil pilot) before moving on to the world of motion pictures.

The massive scale of warfare is captured incredibly well given the technology at the time. Wartime footage is combined with model shots and studio footage almost seamlessly. The $2 million budget ($23.7 million in 2007 dollars) for a production of this size would be impossible today. While the story is as old as time itself, it's one that's put together fairly well here. However, some of the romantic subplot I felt detracted from the film and helped make it a bit long. That said, there's a ton of great stuff here.

So far, Wings has only been released on VHS and laserdisc. The various DVDs you see on eBay have been mastered from the laserdisc, so caveat emptor. Paramount is allegedly in the process of restoring the film for some kind of release, be it DVD or Blu-Ray.

Although Wings took home Best Production (it is often, erroneously, called the only silent film to win Best Picture; see Sunrise), it was only nominated for one other category, that being Best Engineering Effects for Roy Pomeroy's amazing work with models and animation effects.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Winner: Best Unique and Artistic Presentation

Directed by: F.W. Murnau

Starring: George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor

Plot: A philandering husband rediscovers his love for his wife.

Thoughts: I have a distinct feeling that the Academy pretty much made this award so Sunrise could win it. The film certainly embodied the phrase "artistic presentation" and was rather unique in American cinema at the time.

F.W. Murnau had produced a number of films in Germany before William Fox brought him to America after being impressed with The Man Who Laughs (one of the original inspirations for the Joker of recent Dark Knight fame. Fox wanted a decidedly different film than what audiences were used to at the time. Well, he got what he wanted and then some.

Almost every shot in Sunrise was a deliberate crafting of symbolism and emotion. Forced perspectives on the sets and effective use of lighting set the tone of each scene quite well. This style was quite evocative of what has become known as the German Expressionist movement in film. The aforementioned symbolism and use of sets in a deliberate fashion (sometimes called mise en scene to add additional depth to a story became the preferred style in German films after World War I when monetary issues forced many a filmmaker to be more creative.

Runners-up Chang and The Crowd were both well made and works of art in their own right but the Best Unique and Artistic Presentation award rightfully went to Sunrise. As mentioned in other entries, this award was folded into the Best Motion Picture category for the second Academy Awards. Janet Gaynor took home Best Actress (which also reflected her work on Seventh Heaven). Also won was the Best Cinematography award by Charles Strosser and Karl Struss. Although nominated for Interior Decoration (eventually to become Best Art Direction) for Rochus Gliese's artsy sets, it and Seventh Heaven lost to William Cameron's work on The Dove and Tempest.