Alternate Oscars 1931-32

As the Depression, now its third year, ground on with no end in sight, movie goers and Oscar voters alike flocked to a big budget spectacle about rich people behaving badly.

Starring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford and Lionel Barrymore, Grand Hotel is the story of five very different people — a ballerina, a thief, a factory owner, his secretary and a dying man — who cross paths at a luxury hotel in Berlin with tragic consequences.

With its sumptuous art Deco sets and its foreign locale, Grand Hotel was about as far removed from the daily lives of the audiences who paid to see it as a movie could get, yet it was the highest grossing film of the year for MGM, one of the few studios to turn a profit during this particularly harsh year of the Depression.

On November 18, 1932, the Academy named Grand Hotel the best movie of the year, a triumph for producer Irving Thalberg who had bought the rights to Vicki Baum's 1929 novel and shepherded it through every stage of production, honing the screenplay, choosing the cast and putting his personal stamp on the film's every detail.

Grand Hotel won for best picture despite failing to receive a single nomination in any other category.

The award for best actor went to both Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Wallace Beery (The Champ), the first tie in Oscar history.

It almost didn't turn out that way.

During the ceremony itself, Norma Shearer announced March alone as the winner. Moments later, the president of the Academy, Conrad Nagel, came on stage to announce that under Academy rules, candidates for an award who finished within three votes of each other were deemed to have tied. Beery, who had finished a single vote in back of March, came up on stage and accepted a second best actor trophy.

The only problem was, while such a rule had been in place the year before, it had been discarded before the 1932 ceremony. Stories abound regarding the backstage shenanigans that resulted in the tie, the most fun of which is that Beery was so incensed at losing to March, he went to MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer and insisted he be given an Oscar, too.

Whatever the truth, by 1935, the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse would begin tabulating and certifying the results, another step out of Louis B. Mayer's smoke-filled office into the fresh air of Oscar democracy.

The best actress trophy went to Helen Hayes, a Broadway legend making her film debut in The Sin of Madelon Claudet, a 75-minute super-soaper about a woman who has a child out of wedlock and then endures unimaginable hardships to care for a son who doesn't know she exists. Her performance was a bit stagy and theatrical, not bad, not great, but her pedigree appealed to Oscar voters who were eager to promote movies — thought of as lowbrow entertainment for the masses — as the equal of the "legitimate" theater.

We here at the Monkey have no such agenda.

The only real horror among the major winners was Frank Borzage who picked up his second career Oscar, this time for directing Bad Girl, the story of a couple struggling through Depression-era difficulties — a jaded girl meets a cranky radio salesman, gets pregnant, then gets married — that turns into an idiot plot and fizzles, a damp squib now deservedly forgotten.

Oh, well, that's what alternate Oscars are for.

Lot of good movies came out between August 1, 1931, and July 31, 1932, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, Freaks, the aforementioned Grand Hotel, Monkey Business, The Music Box, Private Lives, Scarface, Waterloo Bridge ...

My picks:

1931-32
PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Frankenstein (prod. Carl Laemmle, Jr.)
nominees: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (prod. Rouben Mamoulian); Freaks (prod. Tod Browning); Grand Hotel (prod. Irving Thalberg); Scarface (prod. Howard Hughes); Waterloo Bridge (prod. Carl Laemmle Jr.)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: The Music Box (prod. Hal Roach)
nominees: Monkey Business (prod. Herman J. Mankiewicz); Private Lives (prod. Irving Thalberg); The Smiling Lieutenant (prod. Ernst Lubitsch)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: À Nous La Liberté (prod. Frank Clifford)
nominees: La Chienne (prod. Pierre Braunberger and Roger Richebé); I Was Born, But ... (prod. Shochiku); Mädchen in Uniform (prod. Carl Froelich and Friedrich Pflughaupt); Marius (prod. Robert Kane and Marcel Pagnol)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde)
nominees: John Barrymore (Grand Hotel); Lionel Barrymore (Grand Hotel); Wallace Beery (The Champ); Colin Clive (Frankenstein); Paul Muni (Scarface); Edward G. Robinson (Five Star Final); Warren William (Skyscraper Souls)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (The Music Box)
nominees: James Cagney (Blonde Crazy); Maurice Chevalier (The Smiling Lieutenant and One Hour With You); The Marx Brothers (Monkey Business); Robert Montgomery (Private Lives)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Mae Clarke (Waterloo Bridge)
nominees: Constance Bennett (What Price Hollywood?); Joan Crawford (Grand Hotel); Marlene Dietrich (Shanghai Express); Greta Garbo (Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise), Mata Hari, Grand Hotel and As You Desire Me); Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madelon Claudet and Arrowsmith); Barbara Stanwyck (The Miracle Woman); Dorothea Wieck (Mädchen in Uniform)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Norma Shearer (Private Lives)
nominees: Joan Blondell (Blonde Crazy); Claudette Colbert (The Smiling Lieutenant); Lynn Fontanne (The Guardsman); Jean Harlow (Platinum Blonde and Red-Headed Woman)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Tod Browning (Freaks)
nominees: Edmund Goulding (Grand Hotel); Howard Hawks (Scarface); Rouben Mamoulian (Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde); James Whale (Frankenstein and Waterloo Bridge)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: René Clair (À Nous La Liberté)
nominees: Sidney Franklin (The Guardsman and Private Lives); Ernst Lubitsch (The Smiling Lieutenant and One Hour With You); Yasujirô Ozu (I Was Born, But ...); James Parrott (The Music Box)

SUPPORTING ACTOR (Drama)
winner: George Raft (Scarface)
nominees: Boris Karloff (Frankenstein); Lewis Stone (The Sin of Madelon Claudet, Mata Hari and Grand Hotel)

SUPPORTING ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Roland Young (The Guardsman and One Hour With You)
nominees: Raimu (Marius)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Miriam Hopkins (Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde)
nominees: Ann Dvorak (Scarface); Aline MacMahon (Five Star Final); Anna May Wong (Shanghai Express)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Thelma Todd (Monkey Business)
nominees: Miriam Hopkins (The Smiling Lieutenant); Una Merkel (Private Lives and Red-Headed Woman)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Ben Hecht; continuity and dialogue by Seton I. Miller, John Lee Mahin and W.R. Burnett; from a novel by Armitage Trail (Scarface)
nominees: René Clair (À Nous La Liberté); Frances Marion (story), Leonard Praskins (dialogue continuity) and Wanda Tuchock (additional dialogue) (The Champ); Garrett Fort and Francis Edward Faragoh (screenplay), adaptation by John L. Balderston, from the novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and the play Frankenstein: An Adventure in the Macabre by Peggy Webling (Frankenstein); Christa Winsloe and Friedrich Dammann (as F.D. Andam); from the play by Christa Winsloe (Mädchen in Uniform); S.J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone (screenplay); Arthur Sheekman (additional dialogue) (Monkey Business)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Lee Garmes (Shanghai Express and Scarface) (Cinematography); C. Roy Hunter (Frankenstein) (Sound); Charles D. Hall and Kenneth Strickfaden (Frankenstein) (Art Direction-Set Decoration); Jack Pierce and Pauline Eells (Frankenstein) (Makeup); Wally Westmore (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) (Special Effects)

The Ox Is Slow, But The Earth Is Patient

And the Monkey is even slower—the question is, how patient are you?

After a long creative break, I'm getting back to work on my Silent Oscars series. Remember that? It's a history of silent movies, one made-up award at a time Up next, either something about Cecil B. DeMille, or Mary Pickford's Stella Maris or maybe a reposting of all the previous winners, or—well, we'll find out, won't we.

By the way, the line "The ox is slow, but the earth is patient" is an ancient Buddhist proverb, made up, I believe, for the 1983 Tom Selleck movie High Road to China. A rip-snorting action-adventure rom-com about a World War I flying ace who ferries a rich, young, beautiful socialite to China to rescue her missing father, High Road to China was supposed to be Selleck's consolation prize for missing out on the starring role in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Instead, critics mostly ripped it because it was clearly inferior to the aforementioned Raiders and it flopped at the box office.

Now we know, of course, that everything is inferior to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the best rip-snorting action-adventure rom-com ever made. High Road to China ain't Raiders, but it is entertaining: Selleck is appealing as always, Bess Armstrong as the socialite is the girl-next-door you wish lived next door, and John Barry's score is gorgeous, one of the best of an Oscar-winning career that included Dances with Wolves, Out of Africa and the James Bond movies.

If you haven't seen it, don't blame yourself—the film's been tangled up in rights-litigation/bankruptcy hell for nearly thirty years and was never even released (in this country anyway) on VHS much less DVD. Until now, that is. Circle April 17 on your calendars for the release of the Blu-Ray edition. (It's available as a DVD as well.)

And what does any of this have to do with silent movies? Um, well, Tom Selleck's character, Patrick O'Malley, owns two airplanes, "Dorothy" and "Lillian," a couple of French Stampes biplanes named for—yes, you guessed it—the Gish sisters, two of the silent era's greatest stars.

Whom I have also written about (here and here and here), and will be writing about again.

So there.

Rejected Banners #2

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards Redux (1932-1933)

In 1933, the Academy finally got wise to itself and decided to stop with the silly split-award year business. Starting with 1934, the film eligibility year would run from January 1 to December 31, just like you'd expect.

But in order to pull that off, the Oscar season in 1932-33 ran for a record length of time, from August 1, 1932 to December 31, 1933—seventeen months, a record unlikely to be broken. The result was potentially one of the best Oscar years in history, in terms of what was actually eligible: Duck Soup, King Kong, Trouble in Paradise, Dinner at Eight, Design For Living, Red Dust, Boudu Saved From Drowning, The Invisible Man, Queen Christina, Sons of the Desert, Baby Face, The Bitter Tea of General Yen. And on top of that, Fritz Lang's classic M arrived in the United States in 1933, making it eligible for an award come Oscar time. Boy, what a year!

And how many of those films won an Oscar or were even nominated? None. Not a one. The actual winner that year was a high-toned snoozer, Cavalcade, from the usually reliable Noel Coward. It's not a terrible movie, but for my money it's the worst one ever to win the top prize. Which is saying something.

No wonder people like me start alternate Oscar blogs.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: King Kong (prod. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack)
nominees: The Bitter Tea Of General Yen (prod. Frank Capra); I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (prod. Hal B. Wallis); The Invisible Man (prod. Carl Laemmle, Jr.); Red Dust (prod. Hunt Stromberg and Irving Thalberg)
Must-See Drama: Baby Face; The Bitter Tea Of General Yen; Blonde Venus; Counsellor At Law; Downstairs; I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang; The Invisible Man; Island Of Lost Souls; King Kong; Little Women; The Most Dangerous Game; The Mummy; The Old Dark House; One Way Passage; Peg O' My Heart; Queen Christina; Red Dust

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Duck Soup (prod. Herman J. Mankiewicz)
nominees: Dinner At Eight (prod. David O. Selznick); 42nd Street (prod. Darryl F. Zanuck); Gold Diggers Of 1933 (prod. Jack L. Warner and Robert Lord); Trouble In Paradise (prod. Ernst Lubitsch)
Must-See Comedy/Musical: Design For Living; Dinner At Eight; Duck Soup; Footlight Parade; 42nd Street; Gold Diggers Of 1933; Horse Feathers; I'm No Angel; Love Me Tonight; The Private Life of Henry VIII; She Done Him Wrong; Sons Of The Desert; Three Little Pigs; Trouble In Paradise

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Zero For Conduct (prod. Jean Vigo)
nominees: Boudu Saved From Drowning (prod. Michel Simon); Liebelei (prod. Herman Millakowsky); The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse (prod. Fritz Lang and Seymour Nebenzal); Vampyr (prod. Carl Theodor Dreyer and Julian West)
Must-See Foreign Language: Boudu Saved From Drowning; Fanny; Liebelei; The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse; Vampyr; Zero For Conduct

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Paul Muni (I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang)
nominees: Nils Asther (The Bitter Tea Of General Yen); Claude Rains (The Invisible Man); Paul Robeson (The Emperor Jones)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: The Marx Brothers (Horse Feathers and Duck Soup)
nominees: James Cagney (Footlight Parade); Charles Laughton (The Private Life Of Henry VIII); Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (Sons Of The Desert); Herbert Marshall (Trouble In Paradise); Michel Simon (Boudu Saved From Drowning)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Greta Garbo (Queen Christina)
nominees: Kay Francis (Jewel Robbery and One Way Passage); Katharine Hepburn (Little Women); Barbara Stanwyck (The Bitter Tea Of General Yen and Baby Face); Fay Wray (The Most Dangerous Game and King Kong)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Jean Harlow (Red Dust, Dinner At Eight and Bombshell)
nominees: Joan Blondell (The Gold Diggers Of 1933); Miriam Hopkins (Trouble in Paradise and Design For Living); May Robson (Lady For A Day); Mae West (I'm No Angel)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: James Whale (The Old Dark House and The Invisible Man)
nominees: Frank Capra (The Bitter Tea Of General Yen); Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack (King Kong); Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vampyr); Fritz Lang (The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse); Mervyn LeRoy (I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang); Rouben Mamoulian (Queen Christina)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Ernst Lubitsch (Trouble In Paradise and Design For Living)
nominees: Lloyd Bacon (42nd Street and Footlight Parade); George Cukor (Dinner At Eight); Victor Fleming (Red Dust and Bombshell); Leo McCarey (Duck Soup); Jean Renoir (Boudu Saved From Drowning); Jean Vigo (Zero For Conduct)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner:John Barrymore (Dinner At Eight)
nominees: Edward Everett Horton (Trouble In Paradise and Design For Living); Edgar Kennedy (Duck Soup); Guy Kibbee (Gold Diggers of 1933, Lady For A Day and Footlight Parade); Adolphe Menjou (A Farewell To Arms)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Margaret Dumont (Duck Soup)
nominees: Billie Burke (Dinner At Eight); Marie Dressler (Dinner At Eight); Elsa Lanchester (The Private Life of Henry VIII); Una O'Connor (The Invisible Man)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin (Duck Soup)
nominees: Jean Renoir and Albert Valentin; from a play by René Fauchois (Boudu Saved From Drowning); Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz; additional dialogue Donald Ogden Stewart; from a play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber (Dinner At Eight); Howard J. Green and Brown Holmes, from the autobiography by Robert E. Burns (I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang); Grover Jones and Samson Raphelson; from a play by Aladar Laszlo (Trouble In Paradise)

BEST SONG (Reader Voted)
winner: "The Gold Diggers Song (We're In The Money)" music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin (Gold Diggers Of 1933)
nominees: "Forty-Second Street" music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin (42nd Street); "Isn't It Romantic" music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart (Love Me Tonight); "Remember My Forgotten Man" music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin (Gold Diggers Of 1933); "Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf" music and lyrics by Frank Church and Ted Sears (Three Little Pigs)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Busby Berkeley (Career Achievement); Three Little Pigs (prod. Walt Disney) (Short Subject/Animated); Murray Spivak (King Kong) (Sound); Max Steiner (King Kong) (Score); Willis O'Brien, Marcel Delgado and E.B. Gibson (King Kong) (Special Effects); Willis O'Brien, Sydney Saunders and Linwood Dunn (King Kong) (Visual Effects); Carroll Clark and Alfred Herman (King Kong) (Art Direction/Set Decoration); Ted Cheesman (King Kong) (Film Editing); Rudolph Maté (Vampyr) (Cinematography); John Armstrong (The Private Life Of Henry VIII) (Costumes); Jack P. Pierce (The Mummy) (Makeup)

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards Redux (1931-1932)

Universal Studio's cycle of classic horror movies officially began in early 1931 with Bela Lugosi's Dracula, but for me, it's Frankenstein that really kicked it off. Boris Karloff and James Whale only made three movies together—Frankenstein, The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein—but it feels like more than that, maybe because this trio of movies established so many of the conventions of the genre. Or maybe because they're just that good.

1932 also saw the release of Scarface, the best gangster movie made before The Godfather despite starring Paul Muni rather than James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart or Edward G. Robinson. But Howard Hawks directed it and given that he makes a serious claim to the title of best American director ever, maybe I shouldn't be surprised after all.

As for the actress awards, I was tempted when I expanded the Katies to the "Golden Globe" format to bump Joan Crawford up from supporting to lead and give her the award for drama. But I like Mae Clarke, the girl who got the grapefruit in the face in The Public Enemy, and I've got a later award in mind for Joan. Feel free to argue with me. My mind is subject to change.

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Frankenstein (prod. Carl Laemmle, Jr.)
nominees: Freaks (prod. Tod Browning); Grand Hotel (prod. Irving Thalberg); Scarface (prod. Howard Hughes); Waterloo Bridge (prod. Carl Laemmle Jr.)
Must-See: The Champ; Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde; Emma; Five Star Final; Frankenstein; Freaks; Grand Hotel; Scarface; Shanghai Express; Skyscraper Souls; Tabu: A Story Of The South Seas; Waterloo Bridge; What Price Hollywood?

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: The Music Box (prod. Hal Roach)
nominees: Monkey Business (prod. Herman J. Mankiewicz); Private Lives (prod. Irving Thalberg); The Smiling Lieutenant (prod. Ernst Lubitsch)
Must-See Comedy/Musical: The Guardsman; Monkey Business; The Music Box; One Hour With You; Private Lives; Red-Headed Woman; The Smiling Lieutenant

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: À Nous La Liberté (prod. Frank Clifford)
nominees: La Chienne (prod. Pierre Braunberger and Roger Richebé); I Was Born, But ... (prod. Shochiku Film); Mädchen in Uniform (prod. Carl Froelich and Friedrich Pflughaupt); Marius (prod. Robert Kane and Marcel Pagnol)
Must-See Foreign Language Pictures: À Nous La Liberté; La Chienne; I Was Born, But ...; Mädchen In Uniform; Marius

ACTOR (Drama)
<winner: Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde)
nominees: Wallace Beery (The Champ); Paul Muni (Scarface); Edward G. Robinson (Five Star Final); Warren William (Skyscraper Souls)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (The Music Box)
nominees: James Cagney (Blonde Crazy); Maurice Chevalier (The Smiling Lieutenant and One Hour With You); The Marx Brothers (Monkey Business); Robert Montgomery (Private Lives)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Mae Clarke (Waterloo Bridge)
nominees: Constance Bennett (What Price Hollywood?); Marlene Dietrich (Shanghai Express); Barbara Stanwyck (The Miracle Woman); Dorothea Wieck (Mädchen in Uniform)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Norma Shearer (Private Lives)
nominees: Joan Blondell (Blonde Crazy); Claudette Colbert (The Smiling Lieutenant); Lynn Fontanne (The Guardsman); Jean Harlow (Platinum Blonde and Red-Headed Woman)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Howard Hawks (Scarface)
nominees: Tod Browning (Freaks); Edmund Goulding (Grand Hotel); Rouben Mamoulian (Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde); James Whale (Frankenstein and Waterloo Bridge)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: René Clair (À Nous La Liberté)
nominees: Sidney Franklin (The Guardsman and Private Lives); Ernst Lubitsch (The Smiling Lieutenant and One Hour With You); Yasujirô Ozu (I Was Born, But ...); James Parrott (The Music Box)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Lionel Barrymore (Grand Hotel)
nominees: John Barrymore (Grand Hotel); Boris Karloff (Frankenstein); Raimu (Marius); Roland Young (The Guardsman and One Hour With You)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Miriam Hopkins (The Smiling Lieutenant and Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde)
nominees: Joan Crawford (Grand Hotel); Ann Dvorak (Scarface); Aline MacMahon (Five Star Final); Anna May Wong (Shanghai Express)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Ben Hecht; continuity and dialogue by Seton I. Miller, John Lee Mahin and W.R. Burnett; from a novel by Armitage Trail (Scarface)
nominees: René Clair (À Nous La Liberté); Frances Marion (story), Leonard Praskins (dialogue continuity) and Wanda Tuchock (additional dialogue) (The Champ); Christa Winsloe and Friedrich Dammann (as F.D. Andam); from the play by Christa Winsloe (Mädchen in Uniform); S.J. Perelman and Will B. Johnstone (screenplay); Arthur Sheekman (additional dialogue) (Monkey Business)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Lee Garmes (Shanghai Express and Scarface) (Cinematography); C. Roy Hunter (Frankenstein) (Sound); Charles D. Hall and Kenneth Strickfaden (Frankenstein) (Art Direction-Set Decoration); Jack Pierce and Pauline Eells (Frankenstein) (Makeup); Wally Westmore (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) (Special Effects)