Best Picture of 1929-30

The Winner: All Quiet on the Western Front

Other Nominees: The Big House, Disraeli, The Divorcee, The Love Parade

My Choice: All Quiet on the Western Front remains one of the most powerful war films ever made. None of the rest of the nominees rise to its level of greatness. The only one that comes close is The Big House, so that would be my second choice. 

The Love Parade (1929-30)

 

The Love Parade is a charming musical presentation of the consequences of a reversal of gender roles. It seems to ask, what if men were the powerless ones in relationships? Until the ending, it makes some good points about what might happen if partners were truly equals rather than having an imbalance in importance or power or authority. The ending cheats the audience a bit because it seems so retrograde in its implications, but until that point, we’re given some opportunities for moments of reflection.

Maurice Chevalier plays Count Alfred Renard, a military attaché to the ambassador to France from the country of Sylvania (no relation to the television set, apparently). While in Paris, he’s had numerous affairs, including one with the ambassador’s wife. He’s sent back to his home country to face the queen for punishment. By the way, even his servant (played by the delightful Lupino Lane) and the dog had flings with numerous partners. All of this is related through the song “Paris, Stay the Same,” suggesting that the French city is perhaps more open-minded than Sylvania. Everyone, save the ambassador, seems to have had a good time.

Jeanette McDonald, in her first major film role, plays Queen Louise of Sylvania, and she gets a nude bathing scene that’s quite shocking considering the image of most of her late films. She comes across as so prim and proper in her career that it’s a surprise to see her starting this film with such a sequence. Everyone in the government and, really, in the country wants her to marry someone, but she’s not interested in any of the options that are presented to her. When Renard shows up, she gets intrigued by reading the report about his escapades. It must be pretty racy stuff, after all.

She must punish him, of course, but cannot think of a suitable way to do so. He vetoes her plan to make him grow a beard, certainly an odd way to show your displeasure with someone. When he suggests instead that he be forced to remain at her side, she seems quite happy even though she wonders aloud if that’s truly a punishment. The song “Anything to Please the Queen” (which sounds like the title of a great anthem for a drag performer) accompanies this sequence, and it’s a rather charming romantic number.

Everyone in the queendom, it seems, watches the Queen and the Count’s first dinner together. In fact, this is the most voyeuristic country in history. Almost everyone seems to be either watching the two through the windows or gossiping about what they’ve seen or heard from others. The Queen and the Count do seem to have immediate chemistry, and why not? It is a romantic comedy musical after all, and it was the first sound film directed by Ernst Lubistch, who had such a wonderfully light style for these kinds of films.

They get married quickly, and the count becomes the prince consort. Unfortunately, that means he has no power because he’s not the king and most definitely not her equal in decision making. He realizes this when the wedding vows are all about her. He has to obey her, for example, no sharing of that aspect of marriage. The phrase “I now pronounce you wife and man” is a clear and clever reversal of how it is commonly phrased. The wedding night is continually interrupted by cannon fire, which is quite suggestive for a film so early in the sound era. He cannot stop the noise so that he can concentrate upon lovemaking, though, because he has no power or authority, and besides, the Queen has asked for it. I suppose even she appreciates a good metaphor.

Each day she gets to go out and do queenly tasks, like inspecting the grenadiers, and he only has activities like tennis and bridge. He even has to wait for her to eat breakfast, so he feels like he is not useful to anyone.  The song “Nobody’s Using It Now” suggests just how useless he feels, and exactly what “it” is makes for quite a naughty song. He tries to be helpful, even creating a budget for the country that would be self-supporting rather than depending upon a loan from other countries, but because he is the prince consort, it’s rejected. He tells her that he’s going back to Paris on the night she’s supposed to attend the opera because he serves no purpose in Sylvania. They fight because their appearance together has implications for the country’s success at raising money and for its reputation among other nations. He shows up after all, of course, because this is romance, and he gets a standing ovation from the audience. Why they applaud him so vigorously is a source of confusion. What exactly has he done to deserve such a response? Why is he so much more popular than the Queen? Does everyone really know what’s been going on in their private chambers?

When they return to the palace after the opera, he makes her beg him to stay. They discuss a suitable punishment for her, and what do you know? She has to stay by his side the way he stood by hers. This is the second Oscar nominee from this year that starts with an interesting premise about women’s equality but ends with the men resuming control over a relationship. It must have been very tough to be a feminist in this era.

There’s a cute subplot involving his loyal servant (Lane) and one of the queen’s maids (played by Lillian Roth). They have a comic number entitled “Let’s Be Common” that verges on slapstick or burlesque. It’s very physically demanding, and they are both more than able comic actors. That moment is perhaps only topped by “The Queen Is Always Right,” which involves numerous supporting cast members in a debate over the nation’s future, but Roth and Lane are the highlights of that number as well.

The filmmakers don’t translate the occasional use of French in the dialog. There’s even a joke about it. Chevalier asks someone if they know French, and when he replies no, Chevalier clearly says something quite derogatory. Later, when another person replies yes, Chevalier simply shrugs and says, that’s too bad.

Here’s a bit of Oscar trivia for you: The Love Parade was the first film to be nominated for six Academy Awards, but it lost all of them. As I’ve noted earlier, it was MacDonald’s first feature film in a leading role and Lubitsch’s first sound film. As slight an entertainment as this appears to be to a viewer nowadays, it certainly has a place in Oscar history.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Lubitsch), Best Actor (Chevalier), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Sound Recording

The Divorcee (1929-30)

 

The Divorcee is an intriguing Pre-Code examination of double standards. A married couple break up not because the husband cheats on his wife, which he does first, but because she later cheats on him and he cannot accept her infidelity. The script makes a rather impassioned plea for fairness in the ways that the different genders are treated when it comes to these kinds of behaviors, but the story fails women, in particular, with its rather retrograde ending.

We first meet Jerry (Norma Shearer) and Ted (Chester Morris) with their group of wealthy friends at some sort of cabin retreat. They get engaged during this trip, but their friend Paul (Conrad Nagel) gets jealous because he’s in love with Jerry himself. He gets drunk and then has a horrible car accident that leaves another one of their friends, Dorothy (Helen Johnson), disfigured. Out of guilt, Paul marries Dorothy in her hospital room while intercutting scenes show us Jerry and Ted’s wedding. You might think that Jerry and Paul will later have an affair, but you’re already off base. That would be too simple.

On the day of their third anniversary, Jerry and Ted seem very happy together, but when their friends show up with a woman named Janice (Mary Doran), Ted gets very uncomfortable. He’s leaving for Chicago the same day for business, but Jerry quickly realizes that he’s upset because he was unfaithful with Janice. He tells Jerry all the usual lies: he was drunk, it wasn’t planned, it doesn’t mean anything, blah blah blah. She’s angry and disappointed with him, and he leaves for a week.

Ted does try to get in touch with her to apologize, but she manages to avoid or ignore his attempts. Their friend Don (Robert Montgomery) takes her home, and he’s a little bit drunk like Ted was with Janice. Don takes her to a club where she’s clearly thinking about what she’s going to do with Don later on. There’s a very determined look on her face. Initially, she’s tearful over her own fidelity, but she gets angry quickly when Don asks her not to tell Ted. How does she tell her husband? “I’ve balanced our accounts. That’s all.” That certainly seems like one of the coldest announcements possible, and he winds up angrier over her infidelity than she did over his own infidelity. It’s quite a double standard, and she points it out to him directly.

One of the wildest scenes follows. Ted shows up drunk at a friend’s wedding, demolishes the cake, and punches a man that he thinks might have been the one she slept with (he’s wrong, of course). He then goes home to pack so that he can leave her. Morris is particularly good in this sequence, and he’s especially strong when Jerry is pleading for forgiveness out of a sense of fairness. He cannot see that what she did is no worse (or better) than what he did, and she witheringly condemns his male pride.

After they divorce, Jerry dates a series of men in a brilliantly edited sequence that only shows pairs of hands (one male, one female) in the shots. The dialog establishes that she’s seeing men from a wide range of nationalities based upon the accents. She’s also acquiring quite a bit of jewelry, it appears. Her hair has gotten looser, curlier than before, suggesting the freedom that she now feels, and she claims to be having a good time even if she admits that none of these relationships are serious.

You remember the unfortunate Paul from earlier, yes? Well, Jerry and Paul meet on a train, and he tells her that he still loves her. She breaks down at his admission and admits that she’s very tired of all these so-called good times. His marriage to Dorothy has been an unhappy one for them both, and he wants to divorce his wife and marry Jerry. He’s got a new job in Japan, so it could be a fresh beginning for them both. She accepts his proposal only to be confronted by Dorothy, who comes to see Jerry and finds Paul there. She tells Paul that she wants to stay married because he’s all she has at this point. This scene is a bit tough to watch because the actress playing Dorothy is wearing a very dark veil to cover her disfigured face. How could she even tell who she’s talking to? Can she see through all that black fabric?

Jerry decides that she wants to reunite with Ted. Remember what I said about the movie’s ending unraveling its premise that women might have as much right to have an affair as men do? Of course, everyone who does so must still be punished, and this was before the Production Code went into effect. She moves to London for a new job and keeps going out in Paris with the hopes of finding Ted. They do meet again, and the film provides its happy Hollywood ending for two people who have, I suppose, both realized that they’ve each done the other wrong. It still seems rather unrealistic given all that’s happened.

Shearer was chosen as the Best Actress for her performance, it’s quite easy to see why. She does get to show a wide range of emotional responses, and her face is very expressive about what’s happening to her. She doesn’t need dialog all the time; she can convey emotions very directly. I know that the Academy had not yet started awarding Best Supporting Actress yet, but if they had, I’d fully expect that Zelda Sears as Hannah, the maid who remains loyal to Jerry through the film, would have been nominated. She’s great comic relief and knows how to deliver her lines with a lot of zing. When she tells Jerry at one point that she has a date with the butcher, Jerry asks if he has “honorable intentions.” Hannah’s reply: “I’m afraid they are. He just wants to keep a good customer.” It’s nice to have these moments of fun.

Oscar Win: Best Actress (Norma Shearer)

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Z. Leonard), and Best Writing

Hello, Dolly! (1969)

 

Hello, Dolly! is the film adaptation of the enormously successful Broadway musical, which was based upon a 1954 play from Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker, which had already been adapted into a non-musical film in 1958. I say all of that because the film itself is such an old-fashioned picture that you have to remember that the source material had already been quite thoroughly worked over for decades. Besides, the whole plot is set in 1890 and involves a widowed matchmaker (the title character of Dolly Levi) trying to help others get married but also focusing on landing herself a rich husband. It’s not exactly breaking new ground in storytelling.

Much of the criticism of the film nowadays has to do with the selection of a young Barbra Streisand, just 26 at the time of the film’s release, to portray the lead character, Dolly Levi. The Broadway musical famously starred Carol Channing, who was apparently not even considered for the role because the studio was going to spend so much money on the film and she wasn’t a big enough “name” to carry it. I think the criticism of the casting choice is a bit unfair even if I would enjoy seeing what Channing’s legendary performance might have been like on film. Perhaps Streisand was too young for the part as originally written, but young women become widows too and she certainly brings a great deal of energy to the part. Yes, she borders on slapstick at times, but the story itself is so… wild? that it fits.

Besides, when you hired Streisand in the 1960s, you got that voice. She was already a music superstar, and all you have to do is listen to “Before the Parade Passes By” or the title song to realize how much she truly brings to the enjoyment of the film. Her voice is perfect for all of the Jerry Herman songs from the Broadway musical that are included here, and I enjoy the range she brings to “So Long, Dearie” near the end of the film. She had just made her film debut in Funny Girl the year before, a role that won her the Oscar for Best Actress, and she was as reasonable a choice for the time as any other person besides, perhaps, Channing.

By the way, if you want to talk odd casting decisions… Walter Matthau was certainly an odd choice to play the male leader, Horace Vandergelder, a half-a-millionaire from Yonkers who becomes the object of Dolly’s attempts to get married again. He’s certainly no singer, as his big number, the misogynistic “It Takes a Woman,” proves beyond a doubt. He’s also not a dancer, as the production number associated with the song ably demonstrates. Throughout most of the film, Matthau wears that typical hang-dog expression of his, and it doesn’t really do much to help us understand what Dolly sees in him. He does know how to deliver a punchline, though, so perhaps that was in his favor.

Director Gene Kelly (yes, that one) and his team of filmmakers take a very slow pace to the plotting of the film. As delightful as some songs are, they just seem to go on forever. Take “Put on Your Sunday Clothes,” which was used to such great effect in WALL-E (2008). It’s certainly a fun song, but as I was rewatching the film, I kept thinking that it could be half as long and would maybe be twice as effective. It’s not a sung-through musical, but you might be mistaken in believing it is after watching “Before the Parade Passes By” amid the 14^th Street Parade and all of the intertwining storylines that merge there.

The filmmakers do pay great attention to detail, particularly the costumes and the sets. Streisand wears some magnificent gowns, which I dubbed “the red one” and “the purple one” and “the gold one.” The spectacular gold beaded number during the climactic musical moment in the film is certainly worthy of the Oscar nomination for costume design. Besides, you can’t miss the succession of impressive big hats that she gets to wear. The production design justifiably won an Oscar, and all you have to do is look at the details in Irene’s millinery shop or the Harmonia Gardens restaurant to see why. Even the sheer scale of the production is impressive. I can’t imagine who difficult it was to wrangle all of the extras for the parade or for the restaurant sequence.

The supporting cast is filled with talent, and the secondary plots sometimes become much more interesting than the central one. Tommy Tune, here in his first film role before he became a Broadway legend, plays an artist in love with Horace’s niece, Ermengarde (Joyce Ames). The pairing of the tall Tune and the not-so-tall Ames is used to great comic effect, especially in a sequence involving a dance contest. As Cornelius Hackl, a clerk in Vandergelder’s store, Michael Crawford, pre-Phantom of the Opera, is a comedic delight. He’s also a very gentle singer, bringing a nice delicacy to “It Only Takes a Moment.” and he acquits himself nicely in all of the many dance numbers he’s in. It’s tough to see how the sexy Phantom emerged from the skinny fellow in this film, but you can tell he’s already a talent.

Marianne McAndrew makes an impressive debut as Irene Malloy, the owner of the hat shop who was Horace’s initial choice for a prospective wife. McAndrew is quite charming and funny. She knows how to deliver a line with the right amount of delicacy or sarcasm, and she makes for a solid secondary romantic lead here. Barnaby, the other store clerk, is played by Danny Lockin, who is a fantastic dancer. He steals whatever number he’s featured in. He’s well paired here with E.J. Peaker as Minnie Fay, who isn’t given much more to do than giggling and dancing, but she’s still delightful to watch at both.

Dolly’s job is to find Horace a wife (she already has, but he doesn’t know it’s her), get Cornelius and Barnaby together with Irene and her assistant Minnie Fay, and get Horace to support the marriage of Ambrose Kemper (Tune) and Ermengarde. No small feat, certainly, given all of the moving parts. Everyone shows up together at the Harmonia Gardens for a sequence that serves as the highlight of the film. It has it all—music, dancing, slapstick, energy—and it moves more quickly than much of the rest of the film.

The title song for the movie takes place in the restaurant and is the biggest production number of them all. Since all of the plotlines lead to it, it takes up quite a bit of time. The dancing waiters have their own number first, and the choreography by the great Michael Kidd is just astonishing—so energetic and precise. At one point, Cornelius and Barnaby get caught up in all the dancing and help with putting on quite a floor show. If all the restaurants did this nowadays, it might be more fun to dine out although you’d likely be quite hungry if you’re waiting for someone to serve you while they’re busy prancing about the restaurant.

And then Streisand as Dolly makes her grand entrance at the top of the restaurant’s grand staircase. She’s in that stunning golden dress and has long feathers of gold and green in her hair. It’s just her and the male dancers (quite a handsome group) for almost eight full minutes. She even encounters the delightful Louis Armstrong as the orchestra leader and duets with him for a few lines, even providing a little jazz vocalizing with one of the greatest jazz artists of all time. It’s interesting to note that Armstrong had a number one hit with the title song in 1964 and even won a Grammy Award for it. It is wild to watch once again as an entire restaurant comes to a halt while she belts out a song and dances around the place. Is no one impatient for their food? I guess realism isn’t the point, though, is it?

The film was released in a so-called roadshow version that included an intermission with music. That must have made for quite a long day. It’s not a great film overall, honestly, despite being fun to watch. Streisand and the supporting cast and the production design are all worth some attention, but it certainly seems odd that in the year that saw Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy, the Academy was still nominating old-fashioned films like Hello, Dolly! I think the exclamation mark is mandatory, by the way.  

Oscar Wins: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Sound, and Best Score of a Motion Picture—Original or Adaptation

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Film Editing

The Smashing Machine (2025)

The Smashing Machine is based upon the life of Mark Kerr, an amateur freestyle wrestling champion and mixed martial arts fighter. Kerr (played here by Dwayne Johnson, who certainly knows his way around a wrestling ring) becomes more addicted to pain drugs as he keeps subjecting his body to some pretty brutal treatment. The difficulty is that very few people try to stop him or help him, and he’s constantly fighting with his girlfriend (the always reliable Emily Blunt) over his drug use. Johnson seems to have bulked up even bigger than he normally is for this role, and he looks very different with hair and facial prosthetics. This movie might be remembered as the one where viewers started to consider that Johnson is a good actor, but honestly, who didn’t already know that he was a good actor? He’s very skilled at showing the difficulty Kerr has in getting sober and staying sober; he becomes very difficult to be around because he’s so very careful about his sobriety. Blunt’s Dawn gets mad because he’s changed so much; they’re really just too different from each other to be successful in this relationship. The fight sequences – and there are many of them – can be quite bloody and tough to watch, and I never quite grasped why so many of the tournaments were in Japan, but that just might be due to my own lack of knowledge about this sport. Perhaps the film’s lack of success was the result of Johnson trying to branch out as an actor, but isn’t that what we want to see of actors?

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

I’ve never missed any of the movies in the Jurassic Park/World/Universe franchise, and I must admit that I enjoyed Jurassic World: Rebirth more due to the actors than the dinosaurs this time. The setup is a little silly, but it follows the formula much like a Bond film always features an opening stunt. Yet another human goof leads to disastrous results with a particularly gruesome and ugly mutant, the D Rex, but more on that later. As we know from previous movies, the dinosaurs are loose now from the islands that contained them, but they can only live in certain temperate zones or they die. Rupert Friend’s pharmaceutical rep Martin Krebs is trying to develop a breakthrough drug to treat heart disease, and he needs blood and tissue samples from three different species of dinosaurs: one that lives on the land, one that lives in the sea, and one that flies through the air. All bases covered, I suppose. So he assembles a team that includes Scarlett Johansson at her baddest-ass self as a former covert operative, Mahershala Ali as a former member of her team, and Jonathan Baily at his most adorable (slutty little glasses and all) as a paleontologist. Added to the mix are a family sailing near the latest dinosaur island: a father, his two daughters, and the slacker boyfriend of the older daughter. Xavier, the boyfriend, seems to be the comic relief until he actually turns into a bit of a hero. Once everyone has been connected, it’s just a danger-filled journey to find a means to get someone to rescue them after all of the ships have been wrecked. Along the way, the team tries to collect its samples, and we get to see just how adept Bailey is at showing the wonder of seeing dinosaurs in the wild. His facial expressions – and what a face it is – are almost childlike with joy. The youngest daughter, Isabella, acquires a cute little dinosaur companion that she calls Dolores, but most of the creatures are downright scary. A Tyrannosaurus Rex that can swim? A Distortus Rex that looks like a misshapen blend of a T Rex and a xenomorph from Alien and a bunch of leftover parts from other dinosaurs? No thank you. I’ll still with more familiar ones; they’re scary enough for me. There are some clever links to the earlier movies and to TV shows with dinosaurs scattered throughout the narrative, and the bad guy gets his comeuppance in a deliciously brutal way. I keep wondering just how many dinosaur islands are there? How many more islands with dinosaurs can there be to keep the sequels going? Given its box office success, it probably won’t be long before we find out.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

 

Avatar: Fire and Ash is the first film in the Avatar series not to be nominated for Best Picture, and it’s probably not too difficult to ascertain why. It’s mostly the same story arc as the previous films, just with a new villain. Well, a new additional villain. A lot of the same themes get covered: there’s another environmental crisis, and there’s the same struggle between the native people and the colonizers. There’s a big confrontation between the native people and the colonizers, of course, and the visual effects are the primary focus throughout. The twist, if there is one, is that this time there’s a group of Na’vi, the Mangkwan, who are participating in the destruction of their own world and attacking other Na’vi because The Mangkwan have rejected the worshiping of Eywa. They also start partnering with Stephen Lang’s Quaritch, the villain from the two previous movies, and he and the other colonizers introduce guns to this tribe of Navi, and it’s not going to end well for anyone. Anyone who’s ever seen a Western film knows where this is headed. The film spends a lot of time focusing on the young human with white skin, Spider (Jack Champion), who left his awful father (Quaritch) in the previous film to join the Na’vi. Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) is reluctant to accept him and welcome him into their home because of his skin color, so it’s possible that the filmmakers are trying to make a point about racism in a movie mostly populated by tall blue people. It’s not particularly clear what that point might be, though, since everyone seems to have enemies who have the same skin color and enemies who have a different skin color. Kiri (voiced by Sigourney Weaver) saves Spider after his oxygen mask fails by connecting him to the earth and undergoing the ritual that revives him and allows him to breathe the air of Pandora. This change leads the colonizers to capture Spider to see if they can reverse engineer his DNA so that they too could benefit from the secret to living without a mask. As you might expect from a James Cameron directed film, the visuals are stunning. This is the third film in the franchise to win for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, and they go hand-in-hand with the cinematography. I’m still not a fan of wearing those stupid 3D glasses over my regular prescription glasses, but eventually I adjust and just feel like I’m immersed in the world of Pandora again. I’m just not certain what message or messages we are meant to take from this film. Is this a movie cautioning the viewers about ruthless leaders? Is it an attempt to be subversive by suggesting that we combat their ideas even if they align themselves with people who might seemingly be on our side become of our common traits? The filmmakers, sadly, are not fully effective in making any of these points. I’m also troubled by the depiction of the Mangkwan in the film; they appear very similar to native tribes from, say, the Amazon or other parts of South America or Central America. It’s not a flattering depiction either. By the way, here’s another piece of Oscar trivia for you. Avatar: Fire and Ash is the first film directed by Cameron in 31 years not to be nominated for Best Picture. If the series continues, as he says it will, perhaps he should comfort himself with all the money he makes rather than expecting more Oscar glory.

Oscar Win: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Other Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Costume Design