a blog, revisiting past award winners
EveryBestPicture.com revisits this Oscar Best Picture winner
This is much more what I expected of an aged Hollywood “Best Picture”. My hopes were high after ‘Wings’, and perhaps my inability to appreciate schmaltzy musicals is to blame, but this is definitely one for the ‘you had to be there’ pile. There was, however, much to say for The Broadway Melody at the time. It brought the magic of Broadway to a cinema near you, belters that most would previously only ever had heard over the wireless, disembodied, were now accompanied by the faces that sang them. It did suffer from more than its share of crowd-pleasing gimmicks- there were more than enough semi-clad ladies in fancy silk underwear changing backstage, or in a bathroom, or offstage, or in the hotel room, or bathing nude… come to think of it I am not sure there were any scenes that did not feature or were not bookended by scenes of chorus girls getting changed.  "You take a seat while I stand here in underwear and heels." The stand-out moment would have been the Technicolor sequence which will have wowed audiences of the 1930’s. Although it wasn’t the first to have colour. Nor sound. Nor even both. Much like Avatar, where once the 3D element is removed it becomes distinctly average, this film would have done well to be warmly received without the colour sequence. Worse still for the legacy of this picture, no colour print survives, so you will have to drift through it in black and white.  One of the many average dance numbers. The script was paper thin- simply serving to showcase the colour, sound, songs and chorus girls. There were some try-hard ‘zinger’ one-liners and yet another love triangle in this story of two sisters arriving in broadway trying to make it big. Although it does depart from the classic 3 act format (1. struggle to make it big 2. Have a modicum of success but a major setback 3. Fame and fortune abound) this may be down to the fact that the makers were too busy trying to feature all the crowd-pulling features to let the plot get in the way. With the director doing a professional by the numbers job (although much lauded by critics at the time, so maybe the lens of time I see this through does poor Harry Beaumont a disservice), scripts in their early days of evolution (this was only the first ‘talkie’ to win an Oscar- as only the 2nd Oscar this is perhaps a cheap statistic!) and camera work generally limited to “Can we get their legs AND faces in every shot?” this is one you might avoid, save to get the gist of early musicals.  A sensation when it was released It was a total victory at the box office. Many critics celebrated its sure-fire recipe to make money before general release, strong performances from the leads, technical gimmicks and a decent score cemented financial success and were even enough to win it the Oscar. The first all-colour talking movie had only come out the year before, but The Broadway Melody came with all the added magic and titillation of Broadway. “Great performances & plenty of sex!” squealed one sweaty-palmed critic for Variety. He was to be rewarded with 3 sequels over the next 10 years, whether he liked them or not. To the modern eye this ain’t no hit, it has aged badly and stands as a testament to how a film can generate money and win awards by pushing all the right buttons on the cash register. EveryBestPicture.com revisits this Oscar Best Picture winner
Despite being considered a ‘lost film’ for much of the 20th century this epic silent movie was rediscovered and restored in the 1990’s, and subsequently re-released. Wings was the biggest movie of its day, taking 9 months to put together- much longer than the 1 month generally expected of a shoot. It ran massively over-budget, featured stars of the day (Clara Bow, for whom the phrase “It Girl” was coined) and stars of the future (Gary Cooper). Cast and crew were holed up in an Arizona hotel for the duration, tales of love and lust became Hollywood legend: affairs, engagements and marriages began and ended, few lasted beyond filming. Battles in the air were shot using 300 pilots, special effects abound, many of which were created just for Wings. This movie was made to seize the mainstream by the scruff of the neck and boy, did it succeed.  Clara Bow reporting for duty What struck me about this picture was the frank, censor-baiting, sensitivity challenging thread that ran throughout this 90 year old movie: it featured a smattering of male and female nudity, one pilot giving another a passionate kiss on his deathbed and blood-spattered deaths (very rare sights in widely released early movies). A challenging variety of shots and cuts made it a genuinely entertaining watch: big tracking shots, bold triple superimpositions and humungous battle scenes shot from the air. Wings rivalled my experience of watching Citizen Kane for variety, although lacked the confident, steady hand of Orson Welles' masterpiece.  These pals are not afraid to express their love for eachother The first act of the movie shows the three protagonists in their adolescence, barely out of high school (cue lots of “gee-whizz” type dialogue). They bounce around in a love triangle of sorts, a fairly by-the-book set up. With a couple of elaborate (perhaps over-elaborate? Impressive, but distracting) shots such as filming two lovers on a swing, with the camera swinging with them, as you see someone approach behind. Cameras of the day would have been at the opposite end from the hand-held HD variety available today, so this was quite a technical accomplishment- much trickery and innovation would have been involved. The film’s story and technical ambition really get going once all three stars of the show have signed up to fight in WW1. The second and third act really take off here, the pace quickens and we see our first dogfights filmed at thousands of feet. The challenging way the camera was used once again impressed: one shot sees an escaping pilot running straight down the camera, staring the audience down, capturing the determination in his eyes in a moment that simultaneously brought you further into (yay!) while thrusting you out of (ugh) the audience experience. Other scenes see pilots filmed in the cockpit from the front, reacting to planes zipping in behind them. I would assume these were filmed in-studio with a projected background, but they were executed sublimely.  You can see why some thought 'Betty Boop' was based on Clara Bow... Enter the dramatic pilot death-faces. To a modern audience the most jarring element in all this is no doubt the over dramatic acting style, the melodrama, the prolonged deaths (zig-zag walking, flailing arms, ten seconds of woe is me and a collapse -rigid as a board). One such death even sees a soldier somersaulting down a mound which raises a chuckle and breaks the emotional connection to what was being seen on the screen. This is in contrast to moments where a much more realistic death might be portrayed and raise a lump in the throat. In one such a the soldier dies while sat on the roadside, cigarette in mouth. His comrade was unaware he had been killed and tries to rouse him unsuccessfully. The final shot of this scene is of said comrade rejoining the faceless ranks marching to the front line, having no choice but to leave his compatriots body in the ditch. I speculate that the contrast between these two ways of dealing with death may well have been to satisfy audiences more used to the large gestures, while introducing a reality they may well have been uncomfortable with. The director (a pilot) and many of those involved in the film had themselves fought in the war and certainly brought some of that with them. Overall an enlightening experience, a positive start and a re-affirmation of how quality transcends time. |
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AuthorPablo Griffiths is a man with a passion for many things. He has recently taken an interest in writing about film, and himself in the third person. |
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