Saturday, August 3, 2024

Best Picture of 1928-29

 

The Winner: The Broadway Melody

The Other Nominees: Alibi, The Hollywood Revue of 1929, In Old Arizona, and The Patriot

 

My Choice: The Patriot! Just kidding. It’s a lost film, so we have no idea how to judge its quality these days. To be honest, this is a very tough choice because this may be one of the weakest groups of nominees in the history of the Academy Awards. Each of them has flaws, some larger than others, but none of them are particularly ideal. The Broadway Melody has more of a storyline than The Hollywood Revue of 1929, but the fluency with the camera isn’t there yet. Alibi and In Old Arizona keep inserting singing and dancing into the plot just to make use of the newfangled sound equipment filmmakers were dealing with then, but that makes for some very distracting moments. I guess I’ll stick with the Academy’s choice for this year, The Broadway Melody. At least, the production numbers are fun and interesting to watch.

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