Five Star Final (1931)

Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy

Starring: Edward G. Robinson and Marian Marsh

Plot: A newspaper decides to dig up an older murder case with tragic consequences.

Thoughts: This was a really good film. People complain about tabloid (or yellow) journalism now, but it was appearently a problem back in the 1930s also. An aspect portrayed in this film was how not letting go of a scandal could end up hurting people who had nothing to do with it. The purpose of dredging up old, lurid news was solely to increase circulation and make money. The "Five Star Final" was the final issue of a newspaper for the day—this was back when multiple editions would be published, usually a morning and evening but sometimes one or two "extras" during the day.

Five Star Final would be Mervyn LeRoy's first shot at a Best Picture. The film was based on Louis Weitzenkorn's play and adapted by Byron Morgan. One of my favorite aspects was the appearance of Boris Karloff as a creepy reporter. It's odd how much he still looked like Frankenstein's Monster without the makeup. Although Edward G. Robinson shined as the newspaper editor attempting to gain respect, I felt he was slightly miscast. It's probably because of the gangster roles he later played.

The newspaper, The Gazette, was based on The New York Evening Graphic. The Graphic (nicknamed The Porno-Graphic by others in the press) was one of the most sensational papers of the day and had indeed been losing circulation at the time. It eventually folded in 1932 when, I guess, the public had grown tired of reading tabloid material day after day.

This film is not available on DVD and wasn't released on VHS or laserdisc either. The only place to see it is when it shows up on the Turner Classic Movies schedule rotation. So far, there are no plans to bring it to DVD.

Five Star Final only earned the sole nominated for Best Motion Picture, which is a shame. LeRoy's direction was certainly more interesting than Frank Borzage's work in Bad Girl and should have at least earned a Best Director nod.

Bad Girl (1931)

Directed by: Frank Borzage

Starring: Sally Eilers and James Dunn

Plot: A young couple rushes into marriage unsure about the other's feelings regarding children.

Thoughts: Bad Girl was a bit of a misnomer. Unless the "bad girl" was the young woman rushing into marriage, there wasn't really a bad girl to be found. That said, I didn't think this particular film was worthy of nomination. It was an okay film, but it was hardly a compelling story nor did it contain particularly remarkable direction.

Based on Vina Delmar's novel and the subsequent play, Fox billed this film as the "greatest love story since Seventh Heaven" (which Borzage also directed). Not sure if I'd go that far, but it wasn't a terrible way to while away an hour and a half. I really don't have much to say about this film; it was just kind of there. The acting was competent, the character relationships were portrayed well, and the dialogue was good. However, the film just felt ordinary to me. Perhaps that was the point; I don't know.

Like Seventh Heaven, Bad Girl was a film rarely seen outside of academia until December when Fox released the Murnau, Borzage, and Fox Collection. It was never released on VHS or laserdisc.

Inexplicably, Frank Borzage won Best Director, beating out King Vidor for The Champ and Josef von Sternberg for Shanghai Express (which we'll cover next week). Bad Girl also won Best Writing, Adaptation, for Edwin J. Burke's screenplay. Considering it was up against Arrowsmith and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I guess the win shouldn't be terribly surprising.

Arrowsmith (1931)

Directed by: John Ford

Starring: Ronald Colman and Helen Hayes

Plot: A medical researcher is sent to the West Indies to halt a plague.

Thoughts: This film had a lot of potential. We're allowed into the scientific world for a little while to see that there's more to it than test tubes and microscopes. However, this same world can often be cruel. In the 1930s, the practices seen in the film probably weren't unusual but would be considered criminal now. What puzzles me is just how much this film falls apart toward the end, but was still considered for Best Motion Picture. The ending alone feels like it was written as quickly as possible to beat the traffic home (a little more on what the real reason might have been below). It wouldn't surprise me if there were some peculiar politicking responsible for Arrowsmith being considered by the Academy.

Based on the 1925 novel by Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith was rumored to be Samuel Goldwyn's way of keeping John Ford from drinking. Ford allegedly was quite the alcoholic, but needed money. Supposedly, one of Goldwyn's conditions was that Ford could not have a single drop during production. Another rumor (purportedly from actress Helen Hayes) was that Ford wanted to get the film over and done with and discarded script pages and soon, entire scenes, in order to get back to drinking. I'm not sure what degree of truth these rumors had, but the finished product does feel a bit rushed, especially toward the end.

Despite its flaws, Arrowsmith does have a number of interesting aspects. One of these is that this film was the first to portray an African-American in a non-servile, non-stereotypical role. The character in question was Dr. Oliver Marchand, as played by Clarence Brooks. Dr. Arrowsmith considered him his equal and had planned to leave him in charge of the plague research. Unfortunately, whatever ground was broken would be shoveled back in again as Brooks took on familiar roles later in his career. One other aspect was a short scene straight out of the German Expressionist handbook with Helen Hayes sitting in a chair. Although earlier events had already painted the character's fate for us, it was still a very interesting visual.

Arrowsmith was nominated for four awards, including Best Motion Picture. The other three were:

• Best Art Direction for Richard Day's ability to go from rural town to big city to jungle without using standing sets;


• Best Cinematography for Ray June's mood setting framework; and


• Best Writing, Adaptation, for Sidney Howard's condensing of the novel into a screenplay.

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.

East Lynne (1931)

Directed by: Frank Lloyd

Starring: Ann Harding and Clive Brook

Plot: The trophy wife of a stodgy man of wealth yearns for a more interesting life.

Thoughts: While this film isn't lost like The Patriot, it is kept under lock and key at the UCLA Film Archive where only a recommendation and an appointment will let you look at it.

East Lynne was based on the 1861 Ellen Wood novel and portrayed Victorian mores of power and class. Some say the film is a powerful drama of a woman's struggle to find her way in society while others say it's an overwrought melodrama. Not having seen it, I can't comment either way.

As mentioned, the film is unavailable to the general public. While the novel was adapted several times for silent films, there wouldn't be another attempt to adapt the novel until 1976 when the BBC turned it into a miniseries and then a TV movie in 1982. No word on any plans to restore the film or produce a DVD.

East Lynne received a sole nomination, that for Best Motion Picture. It lost that night to the sweeping epic of the western frontier,Cimarron.

Trader Horn (1931)

Directed by: W.S. Van Dyke

Starring: Harry Carey, Duncan Renaldo, Mutia Omoolu, and Edwina Booth

Plot: Alfred Aloysius "Trader" Horn searches for a missionary's daughter amid the dangers of the African veldt.

Thoughts: My feelings on this film are a bit mixed. As an adventure, many parts of this film are quite exciting and have you glued to what's happening. However, there are many parts in this film that are overly long, such as several safari scenes that essentially function as a travelogue as Horn explains the assorted species of animals encountered. Several scenes are also rather uncomfortable to watch, for example, Horn casually throws out racial epithets and calls the local peoples "savages" repeatedly. It wouldn't surprise me if the memoirs the film was based on were replete with this sort of language, but regardless of the possible historical accuracy, it's still damn uncomfortable.

Based on the ivory trader's 1927 memoirs, Trader Horn's production was rather sordid. The sound recorded in Africa was of rather poor quality so MGM had additional footage shot (with two of the African nationals brought to the US - more on that in a moment) on their backlot, which gave rise to rumors of the location shooting being fake. Mutia Omoolu and Riano Tindama were denied entry to the Hollywood Hotel because they were black. Many of the animal scenes were later learned to have actually been filmed in Mexico where animal rights laws could be skirted to film under controlled, and sometimes brutal, situations. Many of the cast and crew contracted malaria and Edwina Booth managed to come down with a near-fatal neurological disorder. Despite all of this, Trader Horn went over huge with audiences. Many of the animal shots saw subsequent use in many of MGM's Tarzan movies.

The film is not available on DVD. It was released on VHS on 1994, but not on laserdisc. Possibly due to the objectionable content, Trader Horn isn't seen very often on Turner Classic Movies. While I'm no fan of censorship, I can certainly see why TCM might be reluctant to show it. Trader Horn was remade under less harrowing circumstances in 1973 and starred Rod Taylor. However, the remake is difficult to find.

Trader Horn was only nominated for Best Motion Picture, but it, and the rest of the nominees, lost to the epic western Cimarron.

The Front Page (1931)

Directed by: Lewis Milestone

Starring: Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien

Plot: A newspaper reporter, hoping to leave the business, stumbles into the story of a lifetime.

Thoughts: All Quiet on the Western Front was easily Lewis Milestone's magnum opus. Topping it would be difficult, if not impossible. So Milestone didn't even try, he just concentrated on making a good film. In this case, The Front Page mostly delivered. Considered the progenitor of the "newspaper" genre, the film was a rapid-fire roller coaster ride of humor and drama. This isn't the sort of film you can follow while surfing the Web and talking to your pal on the phone.

The Front Page was a direct adaptation of the 1928 Broadway play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. The characters were based on actual personnel at the City News Bureau of Chicago where Hecht and MacArthur worked for a time. Milestone's reliable standard bearer, Louis Wolheim, was intended to play newspaper magnate Walter Burns but died before he could be cast. Adolphe Menjou had been a veteran of the silent era and one of the few who made the transition to sound films.

Over the years, several other adaptations would be produced, including a one-hour radio version in 1948 for Academy Award Theater starring Menjou and O'Brien. The Front Page is available via DVD-R on-demand publishing that essentially uses the master made for the 1997 VHS release. With this film being a Howard Hughes production, it occasionally turns up in the Turner Classic Movies schedule rotation.

The Front Page garnered three award nominations. Aside from Best Motion Picture, it also earned a Best Director nod and a Best Actor consideration for Adolphe Menjou's portrayal of the weaselly Water Burns.

Skippy (1931)

Directed by: Norman Taurog

Starring: Jackie Cooper and Robert Coogan

Plot: A young lad makes trouble both in his well-to-do neighborhood and the shantytown where he likes to play.

Thoughts: I'm not entirely sure why the Academy considered Skippy to be Best Motion Picture material. It's a little more polished than Hal Roach's Our Gang shorts (commonly referred to as The Little Rascals), but feels a bit empty after seeing a film like All Quiet on the Western Front.

The film is based on the Skippy comic strip that ran in newspapers from 1923 to 1945. It was the prototype for strips like Dennis the Menace and Calvin and Hobbes. Playing the eponymous role was Jackie Cooper, who was already becoming a rising star in Hal Roach's Our Gang shorts. This film catapulted the young Cooper to the forefront, where he would be the go-to child actor for years. Despite the film's success, Percy Crosby, the comic strip's creator hated the film (not unlike Alan Moore's dislike of V for Vendetta and the rest of the films based on his works).

Seeing Skippy is somewhat difficult. Although Paramount owns the film, Universal holds the television broadcasting rights. IMDB notes legal complications keeping the film from being shown for several years, which would also explain why it was never issued on home video. The recording I have was from one of the Starz channels. To my knowledge, Turner Classic Movies has never shown it.

Skippy garnered a Best Director award for Norman Taurog. Jackie Cooper received a nomination for Best Actor and remains the youngest nominee for that category. The film's screenplay earned it a nomination for Best Writing, Adaptation, for Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sam Mintz's work in bringing the comic strip to life.