1936 Oscar Watch

This is as far back as my Oscar knowledge goes.  When I started doing my GABBY awards I started here because this was the first year of the supporting actor categories.  The years before this only had 2 acting categories and had weird eligibility years that I didn't understand.  So for me this is the first official Oscar year.  They had 8 years to figure stuff out but this is where it really started.  As for the race itself, I don't agree with but I understand all of their choices.  The Great Ziegfeld wins Best Picture which is the type of film that was rewarded during this time.  Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Brennan and Gale Sondergaard win their first Oscars and Frank Capra wins his 2nd.  Nothing incredibly exciting outside of Brennan starting his eventual dominance.

You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

Best Picture

10. Three Smart Girls is not a movie that should be nominated in this category.  It's a Deeana Durbin musical, her first in fact, and follows three daughters who try to stop their father from remarrying so he can get back with their mother.  Think The Parent Trap except with 3 girls instead of 2.  It's not terrible but it's also not great.  I compare it to the boring parts of a Marx Brothers movie.  You ever watch A Night At The Opera and fast forward through the parts with the young lovers?  This movie is like all those scenes I usually skip.

9. A Tale Of Two Cities is a filmed adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel of the same name.  If that sounds like something you would want to watch then this is probably a good film for you.  I would much rather read Dickens than see the story condensed so I was pretty bored with this.

8. Anthony Adverse is another sprawling literary adaptation.  This one is apparently only based on the first part of the novel, which after watching the movie makes sense because the plot is kind of aimless.  I'm sure the book probably gives a lot of back story into the characters but I got too much from some characters and not enough from others.  It starts with Claude Rains, who kills the guy who impregnated his wife.  It was a forced marriage and she was in love with another man previously.  The woman dies in childbirth and the baby is left on the steps of a convent.  So it's a story of a guy who doesn't know his heritage.  It's got nice sets and costumes but that's about all I can say for it.

7. Romeo And Juliet is a Shakespearean adaptation of the story of the doomed teenage lovers.  This movie has an impressive cast, Leslie Howard, Norma Shearer, John Barrymore, Basil Rathbone and one of my personal favorite character actresses Edna May Oliver.  The sets and costumes are lavish and it's a pretty decent film except for the fact that Romeo is 43 and Juliet is 34 and you can really tell.  They're playing teenagers but they are so...not teenagers.  Other than that it's a pretty good film.  I'm not going to vote for it for the same reason I didn't vote for Hamlet in 1948, this is a stage production that was filmed.  The Oscars should be about movies.

6. Libeled Lady is a screwball comedy and one of 14 films starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, who played Nick and Nora in The Thin Man series.  Of the ten movies nominated in this category this year there is one film that seems to be missing and that's My Man Godfrey.  It earned nominations in all 4 acting categories as well as director and screenplay but failed to get a nomination for Best Picture.  An omission like that wouldn't be so unusual (comedies are routinely overlooked) except for the fact that this other William Powell comedy did get nominated.  My Man Godfrey is obviously a better film but this one is enjoyable too and includes Powell, Loy, Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy.  A movie with a pleasant cast is always going to be a pleasant watch.

5. The Great Ziegfeld is 3 hours long so right there I can tell you that it's too long.  It's a musical biopic of prolific theatrical producer Florenz Ziegfeld played by William Powell.  It goes through his life pretty much from birth to death and in between there are insane production numbers.  The production elements of the film are incredible but the film is really two movies.  You have the Busby Berkley type musical and the standard biopic.  It's a good film but I prefer the story telling of the next 4 movies.

4. The Story Of Louis Pasteur was not a film I expected to like but ended up enjoying it quite a bit.  It's a biopic of Louis Pasteur which does not sound like an ideal film for me.  I hate biopics and I didn't think that Pasteur was going to be an interesting subject.  What I liked about this film is how the portray Pasteur as a forward thinker and everyone around him as idiots.  I can imagine that's how people act when a new idea comes around.  Pasteur claims that microbes are causing infections during surgeries and leading to deaths.  He theorizes that if doctors start washing their hands and sterilizing their instruments then less people will die.  Everyone thinks he's crazy.  It's got some of the boring biopic tropes I don't like but the story was engaging enough for me to recommend this biopic.  I don't think I've ever recommended an Oscar nominated biopic before.

3. San Francisco is pretty much Titanic but with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake instead of an iceberg.  Clark Gable plays a gambler who owns a nightclub and Spencer Tracy is his childhood friend who is now a priest.  We get about 90 minutes of melodrama and then BOOM earthquake, lots of people die and the city is devastated.  I was amazed with how well the visual effects in this movie hold up.  The earthquake sequence at the end is really impressive.  I wish the movie had the earthquake in the middle and the third act would have been the aftermath.  Still, due to the technical aspects at the end, this wouldn't be a bad Best Picture winner.

2. Mr. Deeds Goes To Town is a Frank Capra classic.  His films are always life affirming and positive and leave you feeling good.  It's the Great Depression and Gary Cooper plays Longfellow Deeds, a small town greeting card writer and tuba enthusiast who inherits 20 million dollars from his late uncle.  He decides to give it to the needy while his lawyers try to declare him mentally incompetent.  It's a great film and would have been a worthy Best Picture winner.  The only problem is that It Happened One Night just won and You Can't Take It With You is gonna win next year.  Capra can't win every year.

1. Dodsworth is a wonderful little romantic drama starring Walter Huston and directed by William Wyler.  Huston plays Dodsworth, a retired auto magnate who is taking a cruise with his wife.  While on the cruise he starts to realize that him and his wife have little in common.  He's been spending all his time working and now realizes that they both want different things in life.  She meets a count on the cruise and starts a romance with him while Huston meets an American divorcee and starts a relationship with her.  It's a really great film about the end of a relationship which is something we don't see in a lot of movies because it can be depressing.  This movie plays it like the start of a new life instead of the end of an old one.

I always forget that The Great Ziegfeld won Best Picture.  Certainly it's the biggest film on this list so if that's what you think an Oscar winner should be then I understand voting for it.  It's not the best film but it's good.  It's kind of a forgettable winner.  Actually, anything here would be forgettable.  I'm voting for Dodsworth because it was my favorite watch but I could just have easily picked Mr. Deeds, San Francisco, Louis Pasteur, Libeled Lady, even the movies I didn't like would hold up as winners just as well.  It was the 1930s and I would expect something like Romeo And Juliet or A Tale Of Two Cities to win.  Now that I'm thinking about it, The Great Ziegfeld is a good winner.  It's a big fun musical, Dodsworth is kinda small, The Story Of Louis Pasteur is basically just a standard biopic, San Francisco drags in parts and Mr. Deeds would be too much Capra winning.

Oscar Winner: The Great Ziegfeld

My Vote: Dodsworth

GABBY Winner: My Man Godfrey

Best Actor

5. Spencer Tracy is in the wrong category here.  He plays a priest in San Francisco who was childhood friends with Clark Gable, who is now a gangster.  He tries to get Gable to stop being an atheist and he also acts as a friendly ear to him.  Gable is definitely the lead of the film and Tracy is more of a supporting role.  Actors don't seem to care now but back then there was a stigma attached to the supporting category.  A star would not be caught dead being referred to as a supporting actor.  This was also the first year for the category so I can forgive the confusion.  I'm not sure why he got nominated at all though, he doesn't really do anything in the film.

4. Gary Cooper plays Longfellow Deeds, a small town hick who inherits a large sum of money in Mr. Deeds Goes To Town.  I always found Cooper a very limited actor but when given the right part he can be rather charming.  When he's playing characters of, how to put this, below average intelligence, he can be quite charismatic.  Longfellow Deeds is not a dumb man but he is a simple man and that is right in Cooper's wheelhouse.  I can't vote for him here as he's going to win 2 Oscars in his career and that's more than he really deserved.

3. Paul Muni won the Oscar this year for playing Louis Pasteur in The Story Of Louis Pasteur.  That's not a bad decision as he is good in the film as the scientist who discovered that microbes invisible to the naked eye were causing infections in surgeries.  The only problem with him winning is that next year he is going to star in another biopic The Life Of Emile Zola, which will win Best Picture.  So, if he doesn't win here he wins for that, Spencer Tracy doesn't win for his borderline racist caricature in Captains Courageous and all the wrongs have been righted.  More on that later.  The movie is mostly about Pasteur fighting with fellow scientists to get them to wash their hands but also deals with his personal life as well.  Muni is charismatic enough to hold together an other wise run of the mill biopic.

2. Walter Huston plays Sam Dodsworth, an auto tycoon celebrating his retirement on a cruise with his wife in Dodsworth.  Huston was an incredible actor who was capable of playing big broad characters and down to earth men.  He won the Oscar for Treasure Of The Sierra Madre as an old, dancing prospector, he got nominated for playing the devil in The Devil And Daniel Webster but he also excelled at playing quiet men in films like Yankee Doodle Dandy and here.  He is a married man who has worked his whole life and is fearful of the lack of motivation that may come with retirement.  On the cruise he discovers that the woman he is married to wants different things out of life from him.  He wants to travel the world and see the sights while she wants to hobnob with the social elites.  It's a great performance and if it weren't for the next guy on this list he would be my vote.

1. William Powell was in 2 of the Best Picture nominees, The Great Ziegfeld and Libeled Lady.  He also reprised his character of Nick Charles in the sequel After The Thin Man and gets an Oscar nomination for playing the title character in My Man Godfrey.  So, right away I'm voting for Powell just for output of quality.  Not only was he in 4 movies, he starred in 4 good movies.  Godfrey is a homeless man who becomes the butler of a wealthy family.  The family is rich and eccentric and kooky and Godfrey is very matter of fact and critical of their frivolity.  It's a terrific comedy performance that deserved the win, even if this was the only William Powell movie released this year.

I gotta look at this category historically.  Cooper and Tracy are both going to win 2 Oscars, Huston is going to win 1.  Muni won this year but could just have easily won next year for The Life Of Emile Zola which would still give Tracy 1 Oscar.  That leaves William Powell as the only guy here without a win so he's my vote for that fact alone.  Aside from that, Powell was a terrific comedic actor who could nail the laugh lines and the heart of his character.  He could have been nominated for any of the movies he did this year and still be my winner.  The dude was that good.

Oscar Winner: Paul Muni

My Vote: William Powell

GABBY Winner: William Powell

Best Actress

5. Gladys George apparently plays a prostitute who starts a laundromat in Valiant Is The Word For Carrie.  I could not find this movie to watch so I have to put Gladys in the 5th spot.  If I'm ever able to actually see the film I will update the list.

4. Norma Shearer was way to old to play the teenage lover, Juliet in Romeo & Juliet.  She was 34 at the time and it is very apparent.  So she's unbelievable in that aspect, the rest of her performance is okay but I find it hard to vote for actors in Shakespearean adaptations.  The role has been played thousands of times already I doubt Shearer could bring anything new to the character.

3. Luise Rainer does not belong in this category.  Calling her a lead for her performance in The Great Ziegfeld is very generous but much like with Spencer Tracy, I can understand the confusion.  This was the first year for the supporting categories so it is probably to be expected.  She plays Anna Held who was Ziegfeld's first wife.  He made her a Vaudeville star then they got divorced.  When he marries another woman she has a heartfelt scene where she calls him on the phone and pretends to be happy but you can see she is crying on the inside.  This is an effective scene but not enough for me to vote her Best Actress.  Also, she's gonna win next year.

2. Irene Dunne is one of my favorite actresses of all time.  She was gorgeous, radiant and talented and unfortunately never won an Oscar despite 5 nominations.  In Theodora Goes Wild she plays a small town woman who publishes a salacious novel under a pen name that causes an uproar in her tiny community.  This was her first comedy after appearing primarily in drama films.  After this she began appearing in more and more comedies like The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife.  I just love her so much, she can make me laugh and cry just with her eyes.

1. Carole Lombard plays the hilariously daffy Irene Bullock in My Man Godfrey.  She's a rich socialite who finds Godfrey, a so called "forgotten man" in the dumps and takes him on as a "protégée" and a butler.  Lombard is very funny in the film but also walks a fine line between playing a dumb girl and a silly girl.  She's certainly not the brightest character but you never feel bad for her for being uneducated.  She's not dumb, she's daffy and kooky.  She's also incredibly funny.

So I'm not voting for George because I haven't seen the film, I can't vote for Shearer because she's wrong for the part, I can't vote for Rainer because she's in the wrong category.  That leaves Irene Dunne and Carole Lombard, two of the finest screen comediennes ever.  Neither of them won an Oscar so who do I vote for?  Well, there was a reason Lombard never won an Oscar as she tragically died in a plane crash in 1942 so knowing that makes me want to vote for her.  I try not to look into the future when casting my votes but sometimes it's inevitable.  Also, I know The Awful Truth is coming out next year and I'm fairly certain Irene Dunne will be my vote for that so I'm going with Lombard.  One thing is for certain, I don't think Luise Rainer deserved this one.  We'll talk soon about her 2nd win.

Oscar Winner: Luise Rainer

My Vote: Carole Lombard

GABBY Winner: Carole Lombard

Best Supporting Actor

5. Stuart Erwin.  When I’m watching a movie like Pigskin Parade I immediately think, how did this get an Oscar nomination?  This is a pretty lifeless film about a ragtag college football team trying to win a big game.  About 40 minutes in we’re introduced to Amos Dodd, a shoeless hillbilly who can throw a watermelon across a field, played by Erwin.  That’s when I start to think, oh this guy is gonna be the comic relief and save this stinker.  That’s not the case, he’s as dull as the rest of the film.  This was a very questionable nomination to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if Stuart Erwin’s uncle was the guy counting the ballots.

4. Akim Tamiroff was not Chinese but he played one on screen.  He was an Armenian actor playing a Chinese general.  I know it was a different time but I can't vote for a guy in yellowface.  It's a shame really because The General Died At Dawn is a pretty good movie, the performance is pretty good and the role is really great.  If an actual Chinese actor played this part I would probably vote for him.  It just hasn't aged well and does cast a racist shadow over an otherwise very enjoyable film.

3. Mischa Auer has very little to do in My Man Godfrey but he does leave an impression.  He plays Carlo a “protégée” to a wealthy socialite.  He basically just hangs out in the background of scenes until one moment where he pretends to be a gorilla.  I don’t really know why he got nominated when they could have picked Eugene Pallette from the same film.  The only reason I endorse the choice is because it gives the film another nomination.

2. Basil Rathbone plays the antagonistic Tybalt in Romeo And Juliet.  He is Juliet's cousin who does not approve of the two main lovers.  If you've seen West Side Story he is the George Chakiris role.  You should probably be at least familiar with Romeo And Juliet though, it's pretty famous.  Rathbone is really good in the role and it allows him to display his sword fighting skills but I don't like voting for Shakespearean adaptations.

1. Walter Brennan plays Swan Bostrom, a Norwegian lumberjack in Come And Get It.  The movie is pretty boring mostly because it stars Edward Arnold who was a good character actor but lacked the charisma of a dynamic leading man.  Arnold plays a power hungry lumberjack who refuses to let romance get in the way of his quest for power and money.  He has a romance with a woman, dumps her and then years later comes back, finds the woman married Brennan and had a daughter that looks exactly like her.  It's not a very good film but Brennan is the most interesting character in the movie.  He's both funny and sweet.

So this being the inaugural Best Supporting Actor category it is only fitting that Walter Brennan won.  He was the quintessential supporting actor.  He lost his teeth at a young age which let him play roles much older than his actual age.  He was able to pop the teeth out and play an old man or put in fake teeth and play younger.  Come And Get It is not a great film and Brennan would go on to win 2 more of these awards but seeing that this is the first, I have to vote for him.  He's also the best in the category.  Erwin shouldn't be here, Tamiroff is playing a racist caricature, Auer seemed to have floated in on the popularity of the film and Rathbone would be a good winner except for the fact that he's playing a character that's been played a thousand times.  Gotta pick Brennan here.

Oscar Winner: Walter Brennan

My Vote: Walter Brennan

GABBY Winner: Humphrey Bogart for The Petrified Forest

Best Supporting Actress

5. Maria Ouspenskaya only has one scene in Dodsworth.  She's fine in the film but I can't really call it Oscar worthy due to the amount of screen time.  She plays a baroness whose son wants to marry Dodsworth's wife.  They ask her permission and she refuses.  What's really weird is that she plays almost the exact same character in Love Affair and she got nominated for that too.

4. Beulah Bondi only has slightly more screen time in The Gorgeous Hussy than Maria Ouspenskaya.  She plays Andrew Jackson's wife and she has a very lively presence.  She dies pretty early on in the film.  Bondi was a wonderful character actress probably best known for her role as George Bailey's mother in It's A Wonderful Life.  It would be nice to see her have an Oscar but this role is too slight.

3. Gale Sondergaard plays Claude Rain's evil housekeeper in Anthony Adverse.  I already talked about how I wasn't a fan of the film but the parts I did like involved Rains and Sondergaard.  Rains is the sort of father of Anthony.  He married his mother when she was pregnant, killed his father and left Anthony in a convent.  Years later he tries to screw Anthony out of his inheritance.  Sondergaard is right there behind him kind of as his henchwoman.  She's fine in the film but doesn't really do anything that warrants an Oscar.

2. Alice Brady plays the eccentric matriarch of the wealthy family in My Man Godfrey.  She is appropriately daffy and kooky in the role.  One thing I really liked about her performance is how it really seems like her and Carole Lombard's character are related.  That may be due to the script or the director, great casting or Lombard but you can see flashes of Lombard in Brady's performance and vice versa.  It's almost like Brady's performance rubbed off on Lombard and they influence each other.

1. Bonita Granville was 13 years old when she received her first and only Oscar nomination for These Three.  This film is based on the Lillian Hellman play which was based on a real event where two female school teachers were involved in a scandal when they were accused of being in a lesbian relationship.  This is a Hollywood film during the Hays Code era so they of course had to cut all mentions of gay stuff.  Now it's about two women in a scandal because a kid says they are both smooching the same guy.  I think smooching might be too dirty for a Hays Code picture actually.  Granville plays the evil little girl who accuses her teachers of being inappropriate for no other reason other than she's just a little snot kid.  I was very impressed by her performance.  Usually I don't like when kids win Oscars but I would definitely vote for this.

Nothing really leaps out at me as something that needs to win so I had to vote by process of elimination.  Ouspenskaya and Bondi aren't in their movies enough, same can be said for Sondergaard to a lesser extent.  Brady and Granville are both good and I liked Granville better.  Alice Brady is also going to win this category next year so that gives me another reason to vote the way I am.

Oscar Winner: Gale Sondergaard

My Vote: Bonita Granville

GABBY Winner: Bonita Granville

Best Director
Frank Capra wins his 2nd of 3 Oscars for Mr. Deeds Goes To Town.  I'm actually cool with this decision seeing as how the category is kind of weak.  Gregory La Cava got a nomination for My Man Godfrey without a Best Picture nomination.  William Wyler would have been a good choice for Dodsworth but he ended up winning 3 himself.  W.S. Van Dyke staged an impressive climax for San Francisco but the rest of the movie drags.  The final nominee was Robert Z. Leonard for The Great Ziegfeld but the production design team is the real star of that show.

Best Original Story/Best Adaptation
I've discussed many times that the writing categories didn't make much sense in the early days and this one takes the cake.  We have two categories, Best Original Story and Best Adaptation.  Seems easy enough.  One is for original, one is for adaptation.  Then how does The Story Of Louis Pasteur win both?

Best Scoring

Anthony Adverse wins over 3 movies I've never seen and The General Died At Dawn.  The music in the film was a highlight.

Best Song
A couple of future standards get nominations like I've Got You Under My Skin and Pennies From Heaven.  The winner is the superior The Way You Look Tonight from the all around delightful Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical Swing Time.

Best Sound Recording
Of course you give it to San Francisco.  Did you see that earthquake scene?

Best Art Direction
For some reason Dodsworth is able to beat out some heavy hitters like Romeo And Juliet, Anthony Adverse and The Great Ziegfeld.  All of which would probably make more sense as winners.

Best Cinematography/Film Editing
Anthony Adverse wins both of these.  For cinematography I would have picked The General Died At Dawn just because it was the most inventive with its camera work.  Editing is always hard with movies in the 30s.  Film was expensive so there are a lot of master shots and very little cutting.  I guess Anthony Adverse is a worthy winner.  Looking over the nominees, none of them leap out to me as being especially well edited.

Best Dance Direction
This is a now defunct category which I kinda wish they would bring back.  There are gonna be some years where there aren't enough nominees but it would be fun to see something like Showgirls get an Oscar nomination.  This year The Great Ziegfeld wins.  I understand that it's got the most dancing in it but did the Academy watch Swing Time?  Fred Astaire dances with 3 shadow versions of himself that took 3 days to film.  The movie is filled with incredible sequences like that.

Best Assistant Director
Sometimes I have a hard time judging who should win Best Director because so many other factors go into a film.  I have no idea how you choose who the Best Assistant Director should be.  I would probably pick San Francisco since I'm sure a lot of it was shot with a second unit crew.  They give it to The Charge Of The Light Brigade which I'm assuming was a good decision.

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1944