The Fifth Academy Awards was the place for screen history: movie debuts, ties, and the one trivia piece everyone gets a kick out of, Grand Hotel winning Best Picture with no other nominations.
What's funny about that Grand Hotel bit is...it wasn't the only lone Best Picture nominee. Of the eight films competing, four were unnominated elsewhere. In addition to the ensemble drama Grand Hotel, there was Five Star Final, about a tabloid ruining the life of a woman trying to get her life back on track; One Hour with You, a musical-comedy in which a happily married couple find their marital bliss threatened by the wife's best friend; and The Smiling Lieutenant, a musical-comedy in which a lieutenant merrily living in sin with a female orchestra leader finds himself betrothed to the princess of a small nation. It's a curious mix of loners, especially alongside based-on-a-bestseller Arrowsmith, two-time Oscar winner Bad Girl, hit weepie The Champ, and dangerously sexy Shanghai Express. So let's talk about it!
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Arrowsmith (1931)
also nominated: Best Adaptation, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction
produced by Samuel Goldwyn for Samuel Goldwyn Productions
***
Decades of a doctor's life as he tries to balance his responsibilities as a medical man with his zeal for scientific research. It is said that ten minutes of the film were lost thanks to the Production Code's subsequent cuts for its re-release. You never feel this except in scenes with Myrna Loy, obviously meant to be a temptation for the good doctor away from his wife...though there is a moving bit of business, where they wordlessly stay up in their separate rooms, each painfully aware of the other. On the whole, an excellent example of Golden Age studio filmmaking.
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Bad Girl (1931)
also nominated: Best Director (won), Best Adaptation (won)
produced by Winfield Sheehan for Fox Film Corp.
**
A guy and a gal reluctantly meet, fall in love, wed, try to live up to each other's imagined expectations. Fine chemistry between the leads, some well-shot scenes, I do not remember anything past their courtship. Full blank. I know I watched the whole thing, but couldn't tell you what happens.
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The Champ (1931)
also nominated: Best Director, Best Actor (won), Best Original Story (won)
produced by King Vidor for MGM
***
Boxer on the wane struggles to keep his son, especially once the boy's wealthy, remarried mother returns. A heartbreaking movie, even if you can see where it's all headed. Beery is great, but Jackie Cooper is the star of the film as the boy caught between a life he knows and loves, and one that could provide greater opportunities. Does it lay it on a little thick? Honestly, no; it could, it has every element that says it must, but it's handled respectfully enough that it never falls into the realm of artifice. well worth the watch.
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Five Star Final (1931)
produced by Hal B. Wallis for First National
**
The editor of a tabloid finds himself caught between his morals and the sensationalistic demands of his boss. Comes alive in the scenes with Frances Fuller as a woman whose past secrets are coming to light - just as her daughter's about to get married! But only with Fuller and H.B. Warner as her husband. The newspaper stuff, despite being anchored by Edward G. Robinson, Aline McMahon, Oscar Apfel, and Boris Karloff, rings false. A puzzling nomination.
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Grand Hotel (1932)
produced by Irving Thalberg for MGM
****
Various people cross paths and enact their human dramas in the rooms, restaurant, and lobby of Berlin's Grand Hotel. Has all the hallmarks of a great ensemble film: a stunningly-constructed set, shots that are complex but not distracting, overlapping dialogue that forces you to catch new asides with each viewing - and, of course, That Cast! A handsome movie that gives you glamor while still discussing exploitation of the working class and, simultaneously, the joys of staying in an expensive hotel!
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One Hour with You (1932)
produced by Ernst Lubitsch for Paramount Publix
****
The faithful and horny marriage between a doctor and his wife is threatened by the wife's roundheel best friend. Frank and sexy, the romantic title tune a rare break from songs about necking in the park, insatiable sex drives, the terrible pressures of infidelity...and so on. wickedly funny.
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Shanghai Express (1932)
also nominated: Best Director, Best Cinematography (won)
produced by Adolph Zukor for Paramount Publix
*****
International passengers bound for Shanghai find themselves the hostages of Chinese revolutionaries. what you might call a movie movie, one whose merits and crafts are writ in all caps - the LIGHTING, the COSTUMES, the PERFORMANCES - and yet! Never is it over-the-top. No, rather, the expressionistic visuals and the subdued acting (especially from Marlene Dietrich, warner Oland, and Anna May wong) make for a perfect tension, familiar people in a strange place. I think it might be one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen.
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The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
produced by Ernst Lubitsch for Paramount Publix
*****
A soldier with a live-in girlfriend winds up betrothed to the virginal princess of a tiny nation. Like One Hour with You, it's a musical-comedy about Maurice Chevalier's prowess, with some political-ish humor thrown in. I wonder if which you watch first determines which you prefer, because while I'm a fan of One Hour with You, I can't stop thinking about The Smiling Lieutenant. Every element, from the game performances to the luscious sets to the "Jazz Up Your Lingerie" number, is perfection. And it contains my favorite performance of the year!
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we all know, or at least should by now, that Grand Hotel won. It's very close to my own heart. But my vote would not go that way - non! were my ballot being counted at the Ambassador Hotel that November evening, the box that would have been marked would belong to:
SHANGHAI EXPRESS
produced by
ADOLPH ZUKOR
That's the end of the Fifth Academy Awards - but it's not the end of our 1931-32 coverage. Monday comes my Top Ten, then it's time for the Retro Hollmann Awards!
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