1930/1931: Cimarron

The fourth film to win Best Picture was 1931's "Cimarron," produced by RKO Radio Pictures.  It also won Oscars for Best Writing, Adaptation (Howard Estabrook) and Best Art Direction (Max Ree).  Other nominations that did not win were Best Director (Wesley Ruggles), Best Actor (Richard Dix), Best Actress (Irene Dunne), and Best Cinematography (Edward Cronjager).  It was the only western to win Best Picture until 1990's "Dances With Wolves".

The story takes place over 40 years, beginning in 1889.   Yancey (Richard Dix) and Sabra (Irene Dunne) Cravat are living in Wichita with Sabra's parents, when President Harrison opens up the Oklahoma Territory to white settlement.  At the appointed hour, Yancey - and thousands of others - rush in to stake their claims.  Yancey has his sights set on a tract of land called Bear Creek, but he is outwitted by Dixie Lee (Estelle Taylor), a prostitute hoping she can change her life by starting a ranch.  With his dream of ranching on Bear Creek gone, Yancey goes back to Wichita and announces that he and Sabra, along with their young son Cimarron, will be moving to the frontier town of Osage.

On the way to Osage, a group of bandits rides in to the Cravat's camp, but it turns out their ringleader - The Kid (William Collier, Jr.) - is an old acquaintance of Yancey's.  How they know each other is never explained, but in any event, the bandits ride off without harming or robbing the Cravats.

In Osage, Yancey establishes a newspaper, the Osage Wigwam.  The publisher of the town's previous newspaper had been murdered by Lon Yountis (Stanley Fields), who Yancey confronts and kills.  Later, after Sabra has given birth to a daughter, The Kid and his gang come to Osage and terrorize the town.  In order to protect his family and the town, Yancey kills The Kid.

When another land rush is announced - this time in an area known as the Cherokee Strip - Yancey decides once again to embark on an adventure, and leaves his family behind in Osage for five years. Sabra runs the paper in his absence.  When Yancey returns, he represents Dixie Lee in court (it's not stated what she's charged with, but presumably it was prostitution) and gets her acquitted.  This does not set well with Sabra, until Yancey makes her realize it's not Dixie that's guilty, it's "the social order."

In 1907, President Roosevelt makes the Oklahoma Territory a state, and Yancey writes an editorial suggesting that the Indians should be treated more fairly than they had been by the US government up to that point, and that they should, in fact, be given full US citizenship.  This is too much for Sabra, who has very bigoted anti-Indian views.  When oil is discovered on the Osage Indian Reserve, Yancey decides to run for governor, but is defeated when he refuses to participate in a scheme to rob the Indians of the income the oil is providing them.

Irene Dunne and Richard Dix

And then, for no apparent reason ("struck by wanderlust" is the only statement made), Yancey decides to up and leave his family again for several years.  He does not stay in touch, but Sabra maintains the belief that he's alive.  Meanwhile, she becomes a member of the US House of Representatives, the first woman from Oklahoma to do so.  At a reception held in her honor, she introduces her children, and speaks warmly of Cimarron's Indian wife.

Before Sabra leaves for Washington, there is an explosion at one of the oil fields.  A man was gravely injured while saving several of the oil workers, and an ambulance is called.  When Sabra asks who the brave man was who risked his life, she is told it's an old drifter some people call "Ol' Yance."  Realizing it's her husband, she rushes to his side.  He declares his eternal love for her, then dies in her arms.

I enjoyed "Cimarron," but it's definitely got some strange things about it.  First off, it's odd that it's titled after a relatively minor character.  And, as noted, there are some plot developments that aren't fully explained.  Still, it's interesting to see a frontier town deal with racism, classism, and anti-Semitism.  Although Yancey is something of a schmuck for leaving his family over and over, he is noble in is treatment of other people.   William Dix's has a strange rhythm to his voice, but the acting of all the leads was very good.   The Category of Best Supporting Actress hadn't yet been established, but if it had, Edna May Oliver certainly would have been nominated.  She turns in an absolutely hilarious performance as Mrs. Tracy Wyatt, a snooty society matron.

1929/1930: All Quiet on the Western Front

The third Best Picture winner was 1930's "All Quiet on the Western Front, " released by Universal Pictures.  It also won Best Director (Lewis Mileston).  It was nominated for - but did not win - Best Writing (George Abbott, Maxwell Anderson, and Del Andrews) and Best Cinematography (Arthur Edeson).

"All Quiet on the Western Front" is another film about World War I, from the perspective of young German soldiers.   The actual plot is pretty minimal: a group of young German boys get caught up in patriotic fervor and sign up for duty during WWI.  Turns out war sucks.

There's more to it than that, of course, but that really is the basic premise.  It's a film about the horrors and futility of war.  To that end, it's quite a graphically gruesome movie.  Most of the main cast ends up dead after living through horrific scenes of carnage.  It's scene after painful scene of young men being slaughtered.  Seriously.

Lew Ayres and Raymond Griffith                       

One particularly painful scene involves a soldier named Paul (Lew Ayres).  He stabs a French soldier and then is trapped in a hole with the dying man for the rest of the night.  He tries desperately to help the Frenchman, but is ultimately unable to do anything to save him.   As the Frenchman lays dying, Paul realizes they have a shared humanity, which the war asks them to ignore.  He begs the corpse to speak and forgive him: "we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony. Forgive me, comrade, how could you be my enemy?"

Later, Paul goes back home on leave and is angry at how little the people know about what the war is really like on the front lines.  He hears the professor that inspired him and his comrades to "fight for the fatherland" make the same speech to a new class of boys.  Angry and disillusioned, he returns to the front lines.  In the final, iconic scene, Paul sees a butterfly just beyond his trench.  As he reaches out for it, he is exposed to the enemy.  He is shot and killed.

This is a film that's hard to like, honestly.  It's easy to appreciate - the cinematography, the realism, the acting, the message - but it's very, very depressing.   Of course, it would be next to impossible to make an anti-war film that wasn't.

1928/1929: The Broadway Melody

The second Best Picture winner was "The Broadway Melody," released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1929.  It was also nominated for, but did not win, Best Director (Harry Beaumont) and Best Actress (Bessie Love).

Only the second Academy Awards, and already we have a clunker.  "The Broadway Melody" is the story of the Mahoney sisters (Hank and Queenie), performers from the vaudeville circuit who have come to New York to try to make it on Broadway.  The film is one giant cliche.  Hank ("the smart one") is engaged to Eddie Kearns who is already on Broadway, and imagines he has enough star power to get the sisters parts in the revue he's performing in (he doesn't).  But when the sisters arrive in  New York, Eddie sees Queenie ("the pretty one") for the first time since she was a girl, and is instantly smitten.

When the girls audition for the revue's producer, he is only interested in Queenie.  Queenie says she and her sister will perform for one salary if Hank can be in the show, too.  She also asks Zanfield to pretend that it was Hank's business acumen that convinced him.  This endears her even more to Eddie.

During rehearsals, Hank and Queenie are cut from Eddie's number ("The Broadway Melody").  Meanwhile, another girl falls and is injured, and Queenie is chosen to replace her.  The role is literally nothing more than standing on stage as essentially a set-piece.  No lines, no singing, no dancing, no movement of any kind.  Absurdly, Broadway is captivated by her.  Her "performance" particularly catches the eye of notorious playboy Jock Warriner, who Queenie begins dating in an attempt to deny the feelings she's developed for Eddie.

Anita Page and Bessie Love

Jock buys Queenie her own apartment, and holds a big party for her.  Jock gets amorous, Queenie resists, Eddie confronts Jock, Jock punches Eddie, Eddie and Queenie confess their love for each other and leave the party.

Jump to Eddie and Queenie returning from their honeymoon.  Queenie announces that she's done with show-business and is going to settle down.  The film ends with Hank rehearsing with a new partner, telling her she's sure they'll be on Broadway any day.  The end.

"The Broadway Melody" is a musical, but the music is instantly forgettable.  The dialogue is flat, the characters are cliches, and the story just isn't that compelling.  Given what she had to work with, I will concede that Bessie Love (Hank) gave a solid performance.

I tried to imagine this film through the eyes of the audience of the day.  Curiously, it was the top-grossing film of 1929, and was favorably reviewed.  Perhaps it's because talkies - not to mention musicals - were still so new (a silent version of the film was also released, as not all theaters were equipped with sound equipment).  There was also apparently a Technicolor sequence, but no color prints are still in existence, only black-and-white.  So maybe the combination of talking, music, and color was enough to thrill 1929 audiences.  Or maybe then, as now, the Oscars was an industry popularity contest.

But in 2017, I'd skip "The Broadway Melody" if I were you.

1927/1928: Wings

The first film to win the Best Picture Oscar was 1927's "Wings," directed by William A. Wellman for Parmount Pictures.  It was the only silent film to win the award.  It also won for Best Engineering Effects (Roy Pomeroy).

Prior to seeing "Wings," I don't think I'd seen a feature-length silent film before.  I'd seen plenty of silent short films, but at almost two and a half hours, I didn't know if was going to be able to get into "Wings."

Well, I did, and all I can say is "WOW!"   This is a phenomenal film.

Jack (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) and David (Richard Arlen) live in the same small town.  David's family is wealthy, and Jack's is more working-class.  Both boys vie for the affection of Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston), who in fact loves David, but humors Jack and leads him to believe she loves him.  Meanwhile, Mary (Clara Bow), is in love with Jack, but Jack considers her "just a friend."

When the US enters WWI, both Jack and David sign up to become fighter pilots.   Assigned to the same squadron, they are at first enemies, but eventually become best of friends, both serving with distinction.  Mary joins the war effort as an ambulance driver and encounters Jack while he is on leave in Paris, but he is too drunk to recognize her.  Mary gets Jack back to his hotel room, and after Jack passes out, she changes her clothes.  It is at that moment that two military policemen enter the room to tell Jack that his leave has been cancelled.   Of course, they make the wrong assumption, and Mary is forced to resign and returns to the states.

It is interesting to note that Clara Bow received top-billing for the picture.  Granted, she was the box-office draw at that point, but by no means is she the star of the movie.   It's not too much of an exaggeration to say she's barely in the movie.  "Wings" is a wartime buddy-picture, and it belongs to Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen.

The climactic sequence centers around the Battle of Saint-Mihiel.  Jack and David have a spat about Sylvia before they take off.  During the battle, David's plane is shot down, and he is presumed dead. Devastated by the loss, Jack goes wild, gunning down Germans at a fevered pitch, even swooping down and killing a German general in his car.   Once the battle is over and the squadron is returning to their base, Jack spies one lone German plane still in the sky, heading towards the Allies.  Vowing to kill one more German for his dead best-friend, Jack shoots the plane down.  When he lands in the field to take a war souvenir from the plane, he makes a sickening discovery: David survived when his plane was shot down, and he was able to steal a German plane to get back to the Allied base.  The plane Jack just shot down was piloted by David, who now lays dying.

Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers

Heartsick, Jack rushes to David's side, holding him in his arms.  The scene is meant to be fraternal, but I have to say, it's the most romantic scene in the film.  The two friends swear their undying friendship to each other as they caress each other's face and hair.  Jack kisses David, in what is one of the first same-sex kisses in cinematic history. Finally, David dies in Jack's arms.  It's a heartbreaking scene.

Jack returns home a hero, and begs forgiveness from David's parents.  David's mother absolves him of blame, saying it was war that killed David, not Jack.  And finally, Jack realizes that Sylvia loved David, and that he (Jack) really loves Mary after all.

I really enjoyed "Wings."  My only complaint was that it was a bit long, and some of the scenes could have been tightened-up a bit.   But some of the longest scenes were also the most thrilling: the aerial combat scenes.  Contemporary audiences must have been blown away!  The film was lauded for it's combat realism (meaning it's pretty gruesome), and the acting was outstanding, particularly Buddy Rogers.  And I'll say it right now: Buddy Rogers was adorable!  I've developed a 90-years-too-late crush on him!

I highly, highly recommend "Wings."  You can rent the 2012 remastered version on Amazon.