When I started this project, I thought I would only view the films that had been nominated for Best Picture, but as I started to see opportunities, I expanded my search to see any film that had been nominated for any of the Academy Awards. It’s led me to some interesting finds and some frustrating outcomes. I was able to watch eighteen complete (or mostly complete) films that were acknowledged during the first year of the awards, and some of them are truly gems that I enjoyed a great deal. Here’s what I was able to see:
- Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness
- The Circus
- The Crowd
- Glorious Betsy
- The Jazz Singer
- The Last Command
- The Patent Leather Kid
- The Racket
- Seventh Heaven
- A Ship Comes In
- Sadie Thompson
- Speedy
- Street Angel
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
- Tempest
- Two Arabian Knights
- Underworld
- Wings
Of course, success doesn’t come without a struggle. I’m not able to see quite a few of the other nominees because they’re lost or have been partially lost or are locked away in archives that aren’t particularly easy to access. Of the following films, I was only able to see a few minutes of The Way of All Flesh, which contains one of the Oscar-winning performances by Emil Jannings:
- The Devil Dancer
- The Dove
- The Magic Flame
- The Noose
- The Private Life of Helen of Troy
- Sorrell and Son
- The Way of All Flesh
So I got to watch about 72 percent of the first year’s nominees and winners, and considering how many films have been lost over the years – particularly ones from the silent era – that seems like a pretty good average to me. If they’re found and/or become more readily available, I’ll do my due diligence and watch them. Until then, I’m considering this my final post about the Oscar nominees of 1927-28.
By the way, the first Academy Awards had nominees and even one winner for whom there were no specific films mentioned. The eligibility period covered August 1, 1927, to July 31, 1928, and someone could be nominated for a single film or multiple films or, apparently, every film they completed that year. You can see this easily in the acting wins with multiple performances being mentioned. Janet Gaynor was honored for three films, and Emil Jannings for two.
However, what is more intriguing are the four nominations for individuals that don’t mention any particular film at all. For example, Joseph Farnham (sometimes just credited as Joe Farnham) won the Oscar for Best Title Writing. Here’s the thing: he wrote the title cards for at least eighteen films during the eligibility period, including The Crowd. However, whether he was considered for that film or for Laugh, Clown, Laugh or Telling the World or The Fair Co-Ed or for all eighteen films, we just don’t know. A fellow Best Title Writing nominee, George Marion Jr., has thirty credits listed for the same one-year period, including Oscar winners Underworld and Two Arabian Knights and Oscar nominee The Magic Flame. Again, was he being acknowledged for his work on one of those films or all three of them or other films or all thirty of the ones for which he has been credited with writing the intertitles? Perhaps this confusion is why the category only existed during the first year of the awards.
Another category, Best Engineering Effects, has two nominees with no specific film listed. However, a look at their credits reveals something quite interesting. Ralph Hammeras is credited with supplying what we now call visual effects to just one film during the eligibility window, The Private Life of Helen of Troy. Likewise, another nominee, Nugent Slaughter, is credited with just one film for visual effects during 1927-28’s eligibility period, The Jazz Singer. Now, why aren’t those single films mentioned as the reason for these two artists being nominated? The winner in the category, Roy Pomerory, got the award for his work on Wings, but his two competitors only worked on one film each during the year and have no films mentioned as leading to their recognition. Odd, isn’t it?
No one ever said Oscar history was simple and uncomplicated.
No comments:
Post a Comment