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    Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
    Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
    Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
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    Award-Winning Films of the 1930s

    By John Howard Reid

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    Mathematicians will argue that the term, 1930s, applies to the years 1931 through 1940. The author, however, has taken the popular view that the decade extends from 1930 through 1939. As a special bonus, however, he has also included the award-winners of 1927, 1928 and 1929! So what we have here is an account of most of the generally released movies that won awards presented by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1927 through 1939. Unlike other books that cover this topic, this book includes more than just the main winners. Most books, even those that claim to be complete, always exclude those films associated with honorary award winners such as Judy Garland's Babes in Arms, Mickey Rooney's Hold That Kiss and Judge Hardy's Children, Edgar Bergen's Goldwyn Follies, Shirley Temple's Baby Take a Bow and Bright Eyes, Charles Chaplin's The Circus, etc. Yet these awards were not given lightly or surreptitiously, but were voted by the Academy's Board of Governors. Their recipients have every right to be honored, praised and remembered for their achievements as have the winners of awards that were voted by the members. Arranged alphabetically for easy reference, the honored and award-winning movies from 1927 through 1939 are here, complete with full cast lists, complete technical credits, copyright and release information, plus running times, a brief synopsis, extensive background notes, including awards, nominations and recipients, plus comments and reviews.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Howard Reid
    Release dateFeb 24, 2011
    ISBN9781458122520
    Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
    Author

    John Howard Reid

    Author of over 100 full-length books, of which around 60 are currently in print, John Howard Reid is the award-winning, bestselling author of the Merryll Manning series of mystery novels, anthologies of original poetry and short stories, translations from Spanish and Ancient Greek, and especially books of film criticism and movie history. Currently chief judge for three of America's leading literary contests, Reid has also written the textbook, "Write Ways To Win Writing Contests".

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      Book preview

      Award-Winning Films of the 1930s - John Howard Reid

      HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS: NUMBER THREE

      AWARD-WINNING FILMS OF THE 1930s

      From Grand Hotel to Gone With The Wind

      THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE

      By

      John Howard Reid

      Smashwords Copyright 2011 by John Howard Reid

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All rights reserved. Inquiries: johnreid@mail.qango.com

      OTHER FILM BOOKS BY JOHN HOWARD REID

      CinemaScope One: Stupendous in ’Scope

      CinemaScope Two: 20th Century Fox

      CinemaScope 3: Hollywood Takes the Plunge

      Books in the Hollywood Classics series:

      1. New Light on Movie Bests

      2. B Movies, Bad Movies, Good Movies

      3. Award-Winning Films of the 1930s

      4. Movie Westerns: Hollywood Films the Wild, Wild West

      5. Memorable Films of the Forties

      6. Popular Pictures of the Hollywood 1940s

      7. Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Support Program

      8. Hollywood’s Miracles of Entertainment

      9. Hollywood Gold: Films of the Forties and Fifties

      10. Hollywood B Movies: A Treasury of Spills, Chills & Thrills

      11. Movies Magnificent: 150 Must-See Cinema Classics

      12. These Movies Won No Hollywood Awards

      13. Movie Mystery & Suspense

      14. America’s Best, Britain’s Finest

      15. Films Famous, Fanciful, Frolicsome and Fantastic

      16. Hollywood Movie Musicals

      17. Hollywood Classics Index Books 1-16

      18. More Movie Musicals

      19. Success in the Cinema

      20. Best Western Movies

      21. Great Cinema Detectives

      22. Great Hollywood Westerns

      23. Science-Fiction & Fantasy Cinema

      24. Hollywood’s Classic Comedies

      25. Hollywood Classics Title Index to All Movies Reviewed in Books 1-24

      Mystery, Suspense, Film Noir and Detective Movies on DVD: A Guide to the Best in Cinema Thrills

      Silent Films & Early Talkies on DVD: A Classic Movie Fan’s Guide

      WESTERNS: A Guide to the Best (and Worst) Western Movies on DVD

      British Movie Entertainments on VHS and DVD: A Classic Movie Fan’s Guide

      For

      FRANK CAPRA

      President of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1935-1939, who has contributed no less than three magnificent films to this volume: It Happened One Night, Lost Horizon, and You Can’t Take It With You.

      Contents

      The Adventures of Robin Hood

      All Quiet on the Western Front

      Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever

      Anthony Adverse

      The Awful Truth

      Babes in Arms

      Baby Take A Bow

      Bad Girl

      The Big Broadcast of 1938

      The Big House

      Boys Town

      Bright Eyes

      The Broadway Melody

      Broadway Melody of 1936

      Captains Courageous

      Cavalcade

      The Champ

      Change of Heart

      The Charge of the Light Brigade

      Cimarron

      The Circus

      Cleopatra

      Come and Get It

      Coquette

      The Cowboy and the Lady

      A Damsel in Distress

      Dangerous

      The Dark Angel

      The Dawn Patrol

      Disraeli

      The Divine Lady

      The Divorcee

      Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941)

      Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)

      Dodsworth

      The Dove

      Eskimo

      The Fair Co-Ed

      A Family Affair

      A Farewell to Arms

      Folies Bergere

      A Free Soul

      The Garden of Allah

      The Gay Divorcee

      Gold Diggers of 1935

      The Goldwyn Follies

      Gone With the Wind

      Goodbye Mr Chips

      The Good Earth

      Grand Hotel

      The Hardys Ride High

      Hold That Kiss

      The Hurricane

      The Informer

      In Old Arizona

      In Old Chicago

      It Happened One Night

      Judge Hardy and Son

      Judge Hardy’s Children

      Kentucky

      Little Women

      Lives of a Bengal Lancer

      Lost Horizon

      Love Finds Andy Hardy

      Naughty Marietta

      One Way Passage

      Out West with the Hardys

      San Francisco

      Spawn of the North

      Stagecoach

      Sweethearts

      Swing Time

      Tabu

      Underworld

      Viva Villa!

      Wings

      The Wizard of Oz

      Wuthering Heights

      You Can’t Take It With You

      You’re Only Young Once

      Index

      The Adventures of Robin Hood

      Errol Flynn (Sir Robin of Locksley a.k.a. Robin Hood), Olivia de Havilland (Maid Marian), Claude Rains (Prince John), Basil Rathbone (Sir Guy of Gisbourne), Ian Hunter (King Richard), Eugene Pallette (Friar Tuck), Alan Hale (Little John), Melville Cooper (High Sheriff of Nottingham), Patric Knowles (Will Scarlet), Herbert Mundin (Much the Miller’s Son), Una O’Connor (Bess, the maid), Montagu Love (Bishop of The Black Canons), Harry Cording (Dicken Malbete), Robert Warwick (Sir Geoffrey), Robert Noble (Sir Ralfe), Kenneth Hunter (Sir Mortimer), Leonard Willey (Sir Essex), Colin Kenny (Sir Baldwin), Lester Matthews (Sir Ivor), Howard Hill (Captain of Archers), Ivan F. Simpson (Proprietor of Kent Road Tavern), Charles McNaughton (Crippen), Lionel Belmore (Humility Prin, the tavern-keeper), Janet Shaw (Humility’s daughter), Crauford Kent (Sir Norbert), Ernie Stanton, Olaf Hytten, Peter Hobbes, Sidney Baron (Robin’s outlaws), Hal Brazeale (High Sheriff’s squire), Leonard Mudie (town crier), Phillis Coghlan (Saxon woman), Leyland Hodgson (Norman officer), Reginald Sheffield (herald), Holmes Herbert (referee), Wilson Benge (monk), Nick de Ruiz (executioner), Dick Rich (soldier), Austin Fairman (Sir Nigel), John Sutton (Richard’s knight), Marten Lamont (Sir Guy’s squire), Herbert Evans (seneschal), Val Stanton, Alec Harford, Edward Dew (Robin’s outlaws), Paul Power, Ivo Henderson, Jack Deery (Richard’s knights), Denis d’Auburn, Cyril Thornton, Gerald Rogers, Charles Irwin (Saxon men), Connie Leon (Saxon woman), Frank Hagney, James Baker (men-at-arms), Thomas R. Mills (priest), George Bunny (butcher), Dave Thursby (archer), Joe North (friar), Jack Richardson (serf), Claude Wisberg (blacksmith’s apprentice), Harold Entwhistle (tailor), Harold Howard (beggar), Bob Stevenson (soldier), Bob St. Angelo (Pierre de Caan), Frank Baker (turnkey), Lowden Adams (old crusader), Charles Bennett (pedlar), James Baker (Philip of Arras), D’Arcy Corrigan (villager), Fred Graham (Rathbone’s double), Hal Baylor (merry man), Michael Hordern (Norman thug), Gil Perkins, Bert Le Baron, Fred Kennedy (stunts).

      Directors: MICHAEL CURTIZ, WILLIAM KEIGHLEY. Screenplay: Seton I. Miller and Norman Reilly Raine. Contributor to screenplay treatment: Rowland Leigh. Based upon ancient Robin Hood legends, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, De Koven and Smith’s Robin Hood, and Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper. Photographed in Technicolor by Sol Polito and Tony Gaudio. Technicolor photographer: W. Howard Greene. Technicolor color consultants: Natalie Kalmus, Morgan Padelford. Camera operator: Al M. Greene. Assistant cameraman: George Dye. Film editor: Ralph Dawson. Art director: Carl Jules Weyl. Costumes: Milo Anderson. Music composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, directed by Leo F. Forbstein. Orchestrations: Hugo Friedhofer, R.H. Bassett, Milan Roder. Archery supervisor (and actual performer of the archery stunts): Howard Hill. Fencing master: Fred Cavens. Assistant fencing masters: Albert Cavens, Bob Anderson. Technical advisor: Louis Van Den Ecker. Dialogue director: Irving Rapper. Assistant directors: Lee Katz, Jack Sullivan. Exterior action scenes with horses: B. Reeves Eason. Music orchestrations: Hugo Friedhofer, Milan Roder. Make up: Perc Westmore. Make-up artist: Ward Hamilton. Production manager: Tenny Wright. Unit production manager: Al Alleborn. Stills: Mac Julien. 2nd unit director: B. Reeves Eason. Sound recording: C. A. Riggs. Associate producer: Henry Blanke. Executive producer: Hal B. Wallis. In charge of production: Jack L. Warner.

      Copyright 14 March 1938 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall, 12 May 1938 (ran 3 weeks). U.S. release: 14 May 1938. Australian release: 15 September 1938. 11 reels. 9,177 feet. 102 minutes.

      SYNOPSIS: England, 1194. Loyal outlaw defeats the ambitions of usurping Prince John.

      NOTES: "Following a disagreement over production methods, William Keighley withdrew from the direction of Robin Hood on November 30th, 1937. He had been shooting the picture for eight weeks. At least five more were needed to complete the film, but with Hollywood suffering from one of its periodic economy waves, the Warners became impatient. Regarding the assignment as one of the more important of the year, Keighley declined to be rushed, and was therefore replaced by Michael Curtiz."

      —The New York Times.

      Mike Curtiz had been with Warners long before Bill Keighley. Curtiz was a fine director who had the best scripts given to him. He was surprised when Bill got the assignment. I think he got around Jack L. Warner somehow.

      —Genevieve Tobin Keighley (quoted in Films In Review, October 1974).

      "Unfortunately, the action scenes were not effective, and I had to replace the director in mid-production, an unheard-of event at that time. I felt that only Mike Curtiz could give the picture the color and scope it needed. The reason we hadn’t used him in the first place was because Errol had begged us not to. He preferred the elegant and civilized William Keighley [who had directed him in The Prince and The Pauper]."

      —Hal B. Wallis (quoted in Starmaker).

      The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at its 1938 awards ceremony (held on 23 February 1939) honored film editor Ralph Dawson, art director Carl Jules Weyl, and composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The movie was also nominated for Best Picture (lost to You Can’t Take It With You).

      Number 8 on The New York Times Ten Best list. Number 7 on The Film Daily Ten Best, for which just about every movie critic in the USA/Canada was polled.

      Shooting commenced 27 September 1937, finished 15 January 1938. Negative cost: $1,900,000.

      COMMENT: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), like Captain Blood, is as good as anything of its kind ever made and probably a little bit better. Warners outfitted Sherwood Forest, California, with a team of Merrie Men that included Alan Hale (repeating his Little John role from the Fairbanks version), Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck (One of us! He looks like three of us!) and a singing Patric Knowles as Will Scarlett. The baddies include Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Melville Cooper as the High Sheriff of Nottingham, Montagu Love the Bishop of Black Canons, and Claude Rains, in a red wig, turning Prince John into a deliciously light-weight heavy. Flynn, of course, was Robin, and Olivia de Havilland, Maid Marian. Curtiz shares direction credit with William Keighley and it is a permanent tribute to the Warner’s production team that the work of stylish Curtiz is integrated with that of the more nondescript Keighley so perfectly. How many viewers have noticed the irrational comings and goings of the soft-edge mask of Tony Gaudio’s camera? As a generalization, Keighley did the exteriors and Curtiz the studio footage which includes some really superb scenes like that when Robin of Locksley, the king’s deer slung across his shoulders, forces his way through the enormous doorway to the banquet hall, past the men at arms in Siegfried formation; or the abortive coronation of John and the tremendously exciting battle climax it provokes, with Flynn and Rathbone dueling all over the immense set, hurling tables, candelabra and stray daggers at one another. (Rathbone had become genuinely interested in fencing since Captain Blood and had taken many lessons, in his own time and at his own expense, from Fred Cavens). The script is unworthy of the talent lavished on it (surely Seton I. Miller’s collaborator, Norman Reilly Raine, creator of Tugboat Annie, was an unfortunate choice!). The dialogue is particularly inept, though under Irving Rapper’s supervision, Claude Rains can explain, I’ve kicked Longchamps out, without jumping a few centuries. Flynn, telling the bowmen to Hold it! is a little less at ease, but the real ordeal is that of the retainer who has to complain; Why, a tax gatherer can’t put a hot iron near the eye of a Saxon dog without getting a black arrow in the throat!

      Being in color, the design was trusted to Carl Jules Weyl whose work is superbly grotesque. The sumptuous costumes, with their silver and gold inlaid on black and dark green under scarlet and purple cloaks, are photographed against the somber background of the stonework of Nottingham Castle or the sunlit yellow greens and browns of the forest. The design was all the more impressive for alternating its scenes of dazzling color with simple blue or brown-dominant visuals, as so many color spectacles fail to do. The camerawork, split between Sol Polito and Tony Gaudio (Technicolor photographer: W. Howard Greene), has seldom been equaled, and Ralph Dawson’s cutting, of the action material particularly, was impeccable. Korngold got the music award for his score and earned it.

      When realized with this taste, skill and verve, we can even accept such scenes as that in which the Merrie Men renounce the captured gold to ransom their king, Richard Coeur de Lion (Ian Hunter); or Maid Marian is found in her spotless white satin gown after spending the night in a grimy dungeon. More than any other Curtiz film (possibly through Keighley’s participation), this has the wholesome extrovert quality which holds up after repeated viewings (five in my case), though there is never any doubt that handsome Robin will eventually slice up evil Sir Guy, or that, while Maid Marian’s life may be in peril, her virtue will always remain unscathed.—Barrie Pattison.

      We can be thankful that Warners saw the error of their ways. Fortunately, there is far more Curtiz than Keighley in the picture. It starts off with Curtiz in the great castle confrontation between Flynn and Rains and then goes into the weaker Keighley stuff in which Una O’Connor is allowed to put on her usual tiresome antics as Maid Marian’s maid and Herbert Mundin is encouraged to overact atrociously. Olivia de Havilland is extremely wet too—a fact that Keighley seems to have realized. He tries to give her some extra allure by soft lensing her reaction shots. Patric Knowles is far too colorless a Will Scarlett and even Rathbone seems somewhat bland in the Keighley segments. He’s much more powerful under Curtiz where he really delivers his lines with as much relish as he wields his sword. What a pity Curtiz wasn’t permitted to re-shoot more of the Keighley material! Richard is weak too, while Little John and Friar Tuck are also disappointing—Curtiz would have given them far greater impact. (Alan Hale played Little John no less than three times in his movie career. We have already mentioned the Fairbanks version. In 1950, Hale played the role again in Rogues of Sherwood Forest, which turned out to be his last film

      But Flynn is always perfect—a dashing Robin Hood whom it takes no less than three villains to balance: Rathbone as the fastest swordsman in the north, deliciously blustering Melville Cooper, sublimely egocentric Claude Rains. Fed with some marvelous lines, these three are absolutely admirable in nastiness.

      As for all the action with its stupendous climactic duel between Flynn and Rathbone, and as for the sumptuous music score, the gorgeous sets, pacy film editing, exuberant color…Robin Hood is simply unbeatable.

      Commencing with The Adventures of Marco Polo in 1938, Basil Rathbone enjoyed a remarkable succession of memorable roles in some of the finest movies of the late 1930s and early 1940s: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), If I Were King (1938), The Dawn Patrol (1938), Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), The Sun Never Sets (1939), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), Rio (1939), Tower of London (1939), Rhythm on the River (1940), The Mark of Zorro (1940), The Mad Doctor (1941), The Black Cat (1941), International Lady (1941), Paris Calling (1941), Fingers at the Window (1942), Crossroads (1942), then thirteen films as Sherlock Holmes, plus Above Suspicion (1943), Bathing Beauty (1944), Frenchman’s Creek (1944), and Heartbeat (1946). Truly an astonishing achievement!

      All Quiet on the Western Front

      Lew Ayres (Paul Baumer), Louis Wolheim (Katczinsky), John Wray (Himmelstoss), Raymond Griffith (dying French soldier), George Slim Summerville (Tjaden), Russell Gleason (Muller), William Bakewell (Albert), Scott Kolk (Leer), Walter Browne Rogers (Behm), Ben Alexander (Kemmerich), Owen Davis, Jr (Peter), Beryl Mercer (Mrs Baumer), Edwin Maxwell (Baumer), Harold Goodwin (Detering), Marion Clayton (Miss Baumer), Richard Alexander (Westhus), G. Pat Collins (Lieutenant Bertinck), Yola D’Avril (Suzanne), Renée Damonde, Poupée Androit (French girls), Arnold Lucy (Kantorek), Bill Irving (Ginger), Edmund Breese (Herr Meyer), Heinie Conklin (Hammacher), Bertha Mann (Sister Libertine), Bodil Rosing (watcher), Joan Marsh (poster girl), Tom London (orderly), Vince Barnett (cook), Ellen Hall (young girl), Arthur Gardner (student), Fred Zinnemann (student), Wolfgang Staudte, Jack Sutherland, Robert Parrish, Daisy Belmore.

      Directed by LEWIS MILESTONE from an adaptation by Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott and Lewis Milestone of the novel by Erich Maria Remarque (pseudonym of Erich Paul Remark). Dialogue: Maxwell Anderson and George Abbott. Additional dialogue: Del Andrews. Photographed by Arthur Edeson and Tony Gaudio. Dialogue director: George Cukor. Supervising film editors: Lewis Milestone and Maurice Pivar. Film editors: Edgar Adams, Edward L. Cahn and Milton Carruth. Art directors: Charles D. Hall and W. R. Schmidt. Additional photography: Karl Freund. Special effects: Harry Lonsdale, Frank H. Booth. Foley artist: Jack Foley. Boom operator: Jack Bolger. Music synchronized and scored by David Broekman. Assistant director: Nate Watt. Story editor: C. Gardner Sullivan. Titles for silent version: Walter Anthony. Sound recording engineer: C. Roy Hunter. Sound mixer: William Hedgcock. Associate producer: George Cukor. Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr.

      Copyright by Universal Pictures Corporation 17 May 1930. U.S. release date: 24 August 1930. New York opening at the Central: 29 April 1930. U.K. release date: October, 1930. 14 reels. 140 minutes.

      SYNOPSIS: German youths find war is neither glorious nor adventurous.

      NOTES: Won the annual awards for Best Picture and Best Director, presented by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Also nominated for Best Writing (lost to Frances Marion for The Big House), and Best Cinematography (lost to Joseph T. Rucker and Willard Van Der Veer for With Byrd at the South Pole).

      Winner of the Photoplay Gold Medal—Best Film of the Year—voted by the moviegoing public of America.

      Winner of the Film Daily poll of American film critics for 1930.

      Winner of the National Board of Review citation for Best Film of 1930.

      Winner of the Picturegoer Seal of Merit for an Outstanding and Exceptional Motion Picture.

      Second place (to With Bryd at the South Pole) on Mordaunt Hall’s Ten Best in The New York Times.

      ZaSu Pitts was originally cast as Paul’s mother. Regarded by Erich Von Stroheim (who had directed her in Greed and The Wedding March) as the world’s greatest actress, Miss Pitts had fallen on lean times in 1929 and was reduced to playing feeble-minded characters in low comedies. When All Quiet was first previewed, audiences greeted Miss Pitts with gales of laughter. The next day, all her footage was re-shot with Beryl Mercer. The role of Miss Baumer had been given to Lucille Powers, but she was unavailable to act with Beryl Mercer at such short notice, so Marion Clayton was substituted. However, prints had already been shipped to Europe with Pitts and Powers. I’m informed that these prints still exist.

      COMMENT: Erich Maria Remarque’s semi-autobiographical novel, Im Westen Nichts Neues, was first published in Berlin in 1927. Half a million copies were sold in Germany alone within three months of publication. European and American publishers quickly purchased the foreign rights and sales soared abroad. Remarque’s book incurred the wrath of the fast-growing Nazi Party, whose leaders accused him of besmirching the name of the Fatherland. When the movie version opened in Berlin, Nazi storm-troopers picketed the theatre and let loose first white rats and then snakes in the auditorium. Stink bombs were also thrown and as a result the chief censor of Berlin eventually banned further screenings. Sensing that the Nazis would soon take over, Remarque fled to Switzerland even before Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933. Nazi fanatics burnt his books in public and in 1938 he was stripped of his German citizenship. Other Remarque books that have been filmed include Drei Kameraden as Three Comrades, Der Weg Zuruck as The Road Back, Flottsam as So Ends Our Night, a short story Beyond as The Other Love, Arch of Triumph as The Arch of Triumph, Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben as A Time to Love and a Time to Die.

      In its original form, All Quiet on the Western Front ran 140 minutes. This has now been restored. Continuity, however, is still somewhat jerky and abrupt. The film is constructed along the lines of a stage play with a fade-out at the end of each scene replacing the curtain fall. There is a tendency to make the individual scenes run too long, and despite the large amount of action footage—fully half-an-hour of the film would be solid action—the accent is firmly on dialogue. The pace is slow, sometimes excruciatingly so by modern standards, though this was contrived quite deliberately both for contrast with the sudden bursts of action and also to emphasize the dreariness and monotony of front-line sub-existence.

      What a pity that Milestone’s ending was not used as well as Laemmle’s! As it is, there is no reference in the film whatever as to what the title signifies!

      Over 80 years later, this film has a powerful impact that Delbert Mann’s lavish made-for-TV remake completely missed in 1979. Lots of colored explosions and bursting shells cannot make up for the drive and vigor and remarkable sweep of the original battle scenes. Mann makes no attempt to employ Milestone’s famous device of tracking his camera across advancing columns of tanks and troops,—a device that generates such "an overwhelming

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