Best Picture/Director 1927/28

1927/28 through 1997

Please vote for one Picture and one Director

Chang
0
No votes
The Crowd
3
8%
The Last Command
0
No votes
The Racket
0
No votes
7th Heaven
1
3%
Sunrise
15
42%
The Way of All Flesh
0
No votes
Wings
0
No votes
Frank Borzage, 7th Heaven
4
11%
Herbert Brenon, Sorrell and Son
0
No votes
Charles Chaplin, The Circus (nomination withdrawn)
0
No votes
Lewis Milestone, Two Arabian Knights
0
No votes
King Vidor, The Crowd
13
36%
Ted Wilde, Speedy
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 36

Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19319
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by Big Magilla »

The only Brenon film I've seen is Laugh, Clown, Laugh, but I've read Sorrell and Son and I've seen the excellent 1984 British mini-series.

If the 1934 sound remake, also starring H.B. Warner, has ever shown up on TCM or elsewhere, I've missed it. According to the Times review, the "mute" version had better continuity.
The Original BJ
Emeritus
Posts: 4312
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 8:49 pm

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by The Original BJ »

I finally made it over to the Academy Film Archive to watch Sorrell and Son. I've found these sorts of viewings of rare films to be a unique experience -- on one hand, it wasn't remotely difficult to make an appointment, and it cost nothing. At the same time, there's something about screening a movie that you literally can't see anywhere else that makes it feel momentous no matter what.

I was surprised, too, by how complete the film was. I'd been led to believe it was a partial print, which technically it is, but it's actually only missing the last couple scenes of the movie, which are summarized through on-screen text and dialogue recreated from the script, along with a few still images. The quality of the copy, overall, isn't spectacular -- the Blu-Ray I watched basically looks like someone filmed a projection of a deteriorated print, and depending on the scene, some of the faces are quite a bit whited out. But in cases like this, you make do with what you have.

It was also interesting to hear the archivist tell me this is one of their most popular titles -- suggesting that Director nomination intrigues quite a few people to check out the movie in the only place it's available.

I haven't seen any of Herbert Brenon's other films to know how Sorrell and Son fits into his filmography, but nothing in this movie jumps out at me as even approaching the visual wow of the year's other major nominees -- Sunrise, The Crowd, 7th Heaven, Wings. It wouldn't say it's as awkwardly stiff as the earliest sound movies, but it's more like a standard silent drama. Watching it, I realized this genre -- a family drama -- just doesn't lend itself as excitingly to silent cinema as some of the more visually dazzling genres (action, comedy, horror), so you really would need a director with real spark to make material like this feel noteworthy. The film is based on a novel that I understand was quite popular in its time, and was remade as both a movie and TV miniseries down the road, and you can understand why -- the story of a WWI hero who returns home with no job to find that he's the sole caretaker of his only child has a dramatic pull to it, and the decades-long story of the father-son relationship highlights the kinds of joys and tragedies that many family epics do. This adaptation, though, definitely feels like it's trying to cram in a lot of story from a sprawling work, and some of the subplots seem to branch out in directions that can sometimes feel disconnected from the narrative spine.

On the whole, it has its moving moments, though it's decidedly not special, even allowing for the circumstances of the print. Murnau certainly deserved this directing spot, and you have to assume if he'd gotten it, this curio would have been entirely swallowed up and lost to film history forever.
mlrg
Associate
Posts: 1747
Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by mlrg »

Mister Tee wrote:Why's everybody giving Magilla such a hard time? It was going to be impossible to do this year cleanly no matter how he laid it out, for the simple fact there were no actual nominations. All these lists are just what Louis B. Mayer and a couple of cronies decided on sitting in a room together -- picking a winner, and listing runners-up (with L.B. putting his thumb on the scale as much as he could get away with). The Production/Artistic Quality split definitely didn't go into history equally, as I said below; but it was intended that way, so why not play by the rules of the time? As far as I can see, those few of us who've justified our opinions have all indicated about where we'd have fallen had we voted the categories separately.. so it's not as if the results are hopelessly opaque.

And, really...from next year on, it'll be a standard 5-and-5, picking one film and one director. So why all this hoopla?

My point also!!
Mister Tee
Tenured Laureate
Posts: 8637
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by Mister Tee »

Why's everybody giving Magilla such a hard time? It was going to be impossible to do this year cleanly no matter how he laid it out, for the simple fact there were no actual nominations. All these lists are just what Louis B. Mayer and a couple of cronies decided on sitting in a room together -- picking a winner, and listing runners-up (with L.B. putting his thumb on the scale as much as he could get away with). The Production/Artistic Quality split definitely didn't go into history equally, as I said below; but it was intended that way, so why not play by the rules of the time? As far as I can see, those few of us who've justified our opinions have all indicated about where we'd have fallen had we voted the categories separately.. so it's not as if the results are hopelessly opaque.

And, really...from next year on, it'll be a standard 5-and-5, picking one film and one director. So why all this hoopla?
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19319
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by Big Magilla »

It seems pretty clear to me that 12 people voted for Sunrise for Best Picture; 8 voted for King Vidor for Best Director, 2 for Frank Borzage and 2 abstained.

What's to say if we were voting in the real Oscars we wouldn't have abstained from voting both Best Picture categories and both director categories? Besides which vote-ins were allowed for several years. Shouldn't that mean we have an option for write-ins in those years beginning with 1928/29 when there were no actual nominations - Academy records listing those that received the most votes in the day?
User avatar
OscarGuy
Site Admin
Posts: 13668
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:22 am
Location: Springfield, MO
Contact:

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by OscarGuy »

A poll like this might be more interesting if it had the option to display split votes between picture and director. Our regular polls don't show whether people voted for one or the other or both, so having options like:

Film A / Director A
Film B / Director B
Film A
Director B

etc...you only combine the like ones, but also make them separately selectable.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
FilmFan720
Emeritus
Posts: 3650
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 3:57 pm
Location: Illinois

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by FilmFan720 »

Also, if the point of these threads is to reflect how we would have voted at the Oscars, is it fair to combine categories into one heap like this?
"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."
- Minor Myers, Jr.
User avatar
OscarGuy
Site Admin
Posts: 13668
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:22 am
Location: Springfield, MO
Contact:

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by OscarGuy »

From everything I see come out of the Academy, they consider the Wings award to be the one that carried forward and the Sunrise award to be defunct. Matter of fact, if I recall correctly, even their search enging puts Wings into the Best Picture list and Sunrise into the Archaic categories section. Even the poster designs that have come out listing Best Picture winners (like the statuette of Best Picture winners) includes Wings but not Sunrise. So, regardless of what would be historically accurate, the Academy itself does not consider the award to Sunrise of equal merit to that of Wings, which is unfortunately quite telling.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19319
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by Big Magilla »

OscarGuy wrote:Isn't this poll a bit disingenuous. The Academy has never recognized Sunrise as a Best Picture winner even if it was chosen in the compromise category of Artistic Quality of Production. Other than for the interest of what people select, should this really be our official poll?
Technically there was no "Best Picture" winner the first year, the top awards given Wings and Sunrise were supposed to be equal, so what's disingenuous is any record, including the Academy's, that paints it otherwise.

As noted in Wikipedia:

Winners at the ceremony included Seventh Heaven and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, each receiving three awards, and Wings, receiving two awards. Among its honors, Sunrise won the award for "Unique and Artistic Production," and Wings won the award for "Outstanding Picture, Production." In every subsequent Academy Awards, these two awards categories were eliminated, replaced by a single award to honor the Best Picture of the year, usually seen as the Academy's top prize. In the first year, with no Best Picture award, Sunrise and Wings shared this highest honor, the former for artistic strength, the latter for production quality.
User avatar
OscarGuy
Site Admin
Posts: 13668
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:22 am
Location: Springfield, MO
Contact:

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by OscarGuy »

Isn't this poll a bit disingenuous. The Academy has never recognized Sunrise as a Best Picture winner even if it was chosen in the compromise category of Artistic Quality of Production. Other than for the interest of what people select, should this really be our official poll?
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Reza
Laureate Emeritus
Posts: 10031
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 11:14 am
Location: Islamabad, Pakistan

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:7th Heaven is easily Borzage's best silent film as well as one of his overall best.
I agree. It has a wonderful dreamy quality to it. One of the great romantic films helped enormously by the acting of both Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor as well as the superb cinematography.
Reza
Laureate Emeritus
Posts: 10031
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 11:14 am
Location: Islamabad, Pakistan

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by Reza »

Voted for Sunrise and Frank Borzage.

What a wonky eligibility period for the awards.

My picks for 1927:

Best Picture
1. Sunrise
2. 7th Heaven
3. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
4. Wings
5. The Lodger

The 6th Spot: My Best Girl

Best Director
1. F.W. Marnau, Sunrise
2. Frank Borzage, 7th Heaven
3. William A. Wellman, Wings
4. Ernst Lubitsch, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
5. Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger

The 6th Spot: Sam Taylor, My Best Girl

My picks for 1928

Best Picture
1. The Last Command
2. The Wind
3. The Crowd
4. The Docks of New York
5. Show People

The 6th Spot: The Circus

Best Director
1. Josef Von Sternberg, The Last Command
2. King Vidor, The Crowd
3. Victor Seastrom, The Wind
4. Josef Von Sternberg, The Docks of New York
5. Charles Chaplin, The Circus

The 6th Spot: King Vidor, Show People
Last edited by Reza on Mon Aug 27, 2012 1:59 am, edited 3 times in total.
The Original BJ
Emeritus
Posts: 4312
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 8:49 pm

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by The Original BJ »

It's worth noting that the Academy really lucked out by starting this whole shebang with the last year of the silent era -- a lot of these movies hold up quite well, which isn't something you can say of the slates in the years just ahead.

I don't know entirely the eligibility time-frames of these split years, but, if they were eligible, The General and Metropolis would be the most notable total shut-outs.

The Academy's website doesn't list The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh as nominees. Can anyone explain why some sources list them but others don't? I didn't know they counted, so I didn't watch them (or, rather, the available one) in preparation for this poll.

A forty-something minute incomplete print of Sorrell and Son does exist -- the Academy Film Archive screened it publicly in LA a number of years back, but I didn't see it. And I haven't made it over the Archives to view it either, though given Herbert Brenon's lack of reputation, and the high quality of the other Dramatic Director nominees, I feel comfortable casting a vote anyway.

To start with the comedy directors, which really do feel like adjuncts to the main race...I don't think Two Arabian Knights is very funny at all. A lot of the plot developments struck me as REALLY silly -- we escaped wearing white sheets, so people think we're Arabs! -- and the whole thing just feels laboriously put together, lacking the panache of the best of silent comedy. Pound for pound, I actually think this is one of the worst films to ever win Best Director.

I actually think Speedy is a lot of fun. It's not up to par with Safety Last or The Freshman, but it's nice that a Harold Lloyd film was enshrined by the Academy in this way. Director Ted Wilde mounts a lot of clever set pieces, many of which involve a streetcar bouncing through New York City. If you're in any way a fan of Harold Lloyd, I definitely recommend checking it out on Netflix.

But in the comedy field, Charlie Chaplin is tops. True, The Circus isn't up to the level of The Tramp's all-time classics, but it's got a lot of memorable bits -- my two faves involve the lion and the tightrope -- and plenty of heart. In Oscar terms, this is the only place to honor Chaplin as a director, so he gets my endorsement as the best of the comedy lot as recognition for his career.

The Racket is the kind of movie that pops up here and there in these early years -- it feels so utterly trivial you can't fathom something like it making a Best Picture run in today's era. It also is the kind of movie that would NEVER be remembered but for the Oscars, and the reason is clear: it's just not all that compelling a policier.

Chang is definitely a curio -- another movie that would never be remembered but for this nomination -- but I kind of like that it earned this footnote in film history. It's a strange movie, billed as a documentary but full of moments that seem suspiciously staged, but it's pretty engaging and it's not like we have that many movies that showcase footage of this time and place, making it memorable in that regard.

Wings is not what you might call high art, but it's solid enough. Those air battles are technically very impressive, in an era when "special effects" meant crashing planes into one another, and the movie has both a visual grace to it (that restaurant tracking shot stands out most) and some emotional power at the end. It definitely makes sense that it would fall on the best "production" side of the Best Picture equation, but it's an unobjectionable choice.

Of those Best Production nominees, though, I'd pick 7th Heaven. The stairway tracking shot Magilla mentions is eye-popping, and the entire movie has an artful visual look that perfectly fits its heart-on-its-sleeve romantic melodrama. The narrative isn't as strong as the two remaining films, but Frank Borzage certainly deserves credit for giving 7th Heaven the ethereal quality that makes it memorable today.

But he doesn't get my vote in the Best Dramatic Director field, which goes to King Vidor, who gets my literal vote in this poll as well. The Crowd was the first Vidor film I saw, and I found it both incredibly powerful in the dark depths it took its characters and absolutely visually eye-popping, that I couldn't wait to see Vidor's later movies. But, in film after film from the sound era, I couldn't find anything else of Vidor's that even came close to that spark -- excluding his silent work, I don't think he's that much more than a generic studio director. But here, I think he made an all-time great, and I'm happy to salute him this time. (It's also worth noting that I had a totally different reaction to the ending than Mister Tee did -- I think the conclusion has some really dark undercurrents, as our hero becomes almost overwhelmed by his immersion into "the crowd" -- but I think the movie's deeply complicated ambiguity throughout is what makes it such a noteworthy film.)

The Crowd, though, loses my vote in the Most Unique and Artistic Picture category to Sunrise, which also got my vote in this poll, and which would have gotten my vote for Best Director had F.W. Murnau rightly been nominated. I saw the film on the big screen, in a class on early film history in college. Many of the movies in that class would fall under what Mister Tee referred to as "duty cinema." But then, late in the semester, we watched Sunrise, and I was taken aback by the glory that unfolded on screen. It's a visual marvel above all -- so evocatively photographed and dazzlingly art directed. But it's also noteworthy for being one of the first films to use an actual soundtrack, and I think the beautifully romantic score helps the movie soar as well. Like The Crowd, it also has some very dark undertones -- George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor's memorable date in the city begins with him nearly drowning her in the lake! -- and this subtext gives the movie great weight even beyond its dazzling images. For me, this is the pinnacle of silent cinema, and an unforgettable piece of film art.
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19319
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by Big Magilla »

Big Magilla wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:Magilla, you glided over the subject of Sorrell and Son, the third (mystery) nominee in the standard directing slot. Have you somehow seen this film (of which I’ve never seen the slightest evidence), or are you just voting on the presumption no one ever will?
Sorry, I didn't mean to gilde over Sorrell and Son, but no, I've never seen it. Nor I have seen the 1933 remake or the 1984 (1987 in the U.S.) British mini-series made from theWarwick Deeping novel.

I'm more partial to The Big Parade as Vidor's silent masterpiece than The Crowd but 7th Heaven is easily Borzage's best silent film as well as one of his overall best.
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19319
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: Best Picture/Director 1927/28

Post by Big Magilla »

Mister Tee wrote:Magilla, you glided over the subject of Sorrell and Son, the third (mystery) nominee in the standard directing slot. Have you somehow seen this film (of which I’ve never seen the slightest evidence), or are you just voting on the presumption no one ever will?
I didn't mean to gilde over Sorrell and Son. No, I've never seen it, nor I have seen the 1933 remake or the 1984 (1987 in the U.S.) British mini-series made from teh Warwick Deeping novel.

I'm more partial to The Big Parade as Vidor's silent masterpiece than The Crowd but 7th Heaven is easily Borzage's best silent film as well as one of his overall best.
Post Reply

Return to “The Damien Bona Memorial Oscar History Thread”