The Champ (1931)

Directed by: King Vidor

Starring: Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper

Plot: A washed-up ex-boxer tries to raise his son in Tijuana while struggling to set up a comeback bout.

Thoughts: Holy smokes, what a tearjerker. You can't help but feel sorry for the father-son pair, especially when the dad has really bad habits like drinking and gambling. Despite this, it's both amazing and touching that a son could be so devoted to such a person. This was a well-done drama starring two former Best Actor nominees and it's no wonder the Academy considered this for Best Motion Picture.

Frances Marion turned in another terrific script (she also wrote the screenplay for The Big House) full of heart and flawed yet likable characters. While the characters were likable, it seemed that life behind the scenes was anything but. According to Jackie Cooper's autobiography, his co-star, Wallace Beery, was "the most sadistic person [he's] ever known." Given such tension, it's quite a testament to both actors that the final product turned out so well.

The Champ was first remade in 1953 as The Clown with Red Skelton where Frances Marion dusted off this film's script and changed it slightly. Of course, the 1979 remake with Ricky Schroeder is famous for Schroeder's overreaching waterworks at the end.

The Champ took home a Best Actor award for Wallace Beery as the eponymous champ (interesting side note: Fredric March also won Best Actor that year for Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde due to peculiar voting rules) and also Best Writing, Original Story, for Frnaces Marion's terrific screenplay (her second award for writing). The film also earned a nomination for Best Director (his third for directing).

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.

What's This? Another Delay?

I'm afraid time got away from me to the point where I wasn't able to finish today's article. The plan is to have it finished and posted sometime today. But, if work should interfere once again, we'll finish up the 4th Academy Awards with Cimarron over the weekend. Then, it's on to the 5th Academy Awards beginning with Arrowsmith next week.

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.

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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.