That's a Wrap on 1927-28

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.

Tempest (1927-28)

 

One of the key delights of watching Tempest is seeing the great John Barrymore on film. He does, indeed, have a great profile, and he’s also a wonderful film actor. Why he was never considered for an acting Oscar remains a mystery. In this film, which is most definitely not an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Barrymore plays Sgt. Ivan Markov, a dragoon who is ambitious to receive a commission as an officer, an unlikely event given that he is a “peasant” and the officers all seem to be aristocrats. The film pivots on the transitional era from the tsarist era to the revolutionary era in Russia, and there’s even a socialist recruiter – for lack of a better phrase – who looks like a dried-up version of Rasputin and who sports a big gap where a tooth should be. Markov gets his commission on the day that he meets Princess Tamara (Camilla Horn), who just happens to be the daughter of the general who has been his champion (George Fawcett) and the fiancée of the captain who has been his biggest antagonist (Ullrich Haupt). She’s not particularly fond of Markov, thinking his status as a peasant is beneath her attention. He winds up in her bedroom, drunk, with a bouquet of flowers and a locket that he’s engraved “I Love You, Ivan.” Why he’s fallen in love with her is not quite clear; she’s been very condescending and exhibited nothing but disdain for him. And, yet, we all know that she’s probably either also in love with him or at least intrigued by him. These plots are easy to follow now that we’ve seen them replicated hundreds of times. Markove gets stripped of his commission and sentenced to prison as a result of his actions. Silent film actors had to master the art of closeups, and Barrymore was exceptionally good at facial expressions. For example, he’s much more subtle playing drunk than most actors tend to be. When his character is left behind, alone, in the prison after everyone else has been “recruited” for battle, he becomes more haggard and delusional. When Markov and the Princess find their roles reversed after the revolutionaries win, Barrymore is very tender and sweet in his scenes with Horn. Louis Wolheim plays Sgt. Bulba, Ivan’s best friend who gets himself kicked out of the army so that he can join his friend in prison and do hard labor. I know that Wolheim’s character is meant to be comic relief, but getting yourself sentenced to hard labor is going a bit far for a friendship, isn’t it? Tempest features a number of interesting camera tricks, such as when writing in Russian dissolves into English and when the camera looks through the bottom of the glass that Markov has emptied (again) at the Princess’ birthday party. The film is satisfying entertainment on many levels, and it’s certainly a good choice to watch if you’d like to see why Barrymore got so much attention.  

Oscar Win: Best Interior Decoration

Best Actor of 1927-28

Initially, the Academy nominated three men for Best Actor in the first year of the awards, but after one of them (Charlie Chaplin) was removed for consideration, it became a two-person race. Both of the remaining nominees were mentioned for performances in two movies each. That would never happen again in Oscar history.

 

A copy of The Noose is preserved at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, so unless the museum partners with someone to release a copy of this film, Richard Barthelmess’s performance as Nickie Elkins is almost impossible to see these days. Elkins is a criminal who learns that his mother, whom he has never met, is the wife of the governor. He tries to protect his mother from the machinations of his father, a gangster who tries to blackmail the governor. Barthelmess was one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was nominated for two of his performances during the first year of the awards.

Barthelmess plays the title role in The Patent Leather Kid, a film about the aftereffects of World War I on those who served in battle. Barthelmess’ character, who is referred to most often as “The Kid,” is a boxer, a particularly handsome and conceited one, but a talented one nonetheless. He falls for a rather tough-talking woman called Curly (played with gusto by Molly O’Day) and takes her away from her boyfriend at the time, a guy named Breen who’s going to show up later in the plot. The Kid, as played by Barthelmess, is clearly afraid of being drafted to serve in the military, and when he gets his draft notice, he winds up serving under Lt. Hugo Breen (Lawford Davidson). Barthelmess lets us see the fear that the Kid has underneath all that bravado and bluster, and it’s easy to see how much he truly cares for Curley, who’s also in France working as a nurse. In the wake of his friend Puffy’s death – I know, Puffy? – the Kid saves Breen’s life and manages to destroy a German stronghold, only to have the building collapse on top of him. Thanks to Curley’s pleadings, the doctor agrees to operate even though he thinks the Kid’s prognosis is dire. Of course, he’s probably never going to box again due to his injuries, but the film leaves that question unanswered. I’m not sure why the character named Puffy has to have a stutter that must then be replicated on the intertitles, making them harder to read, and I’m certainly confused as to why the one African American character has to be nicknamed Molasses although he does collect a lot of medals during the war. By the way, I thought the character was known as the Patent Leather Kid because of his penchant for wearing a leather trench coat and/or for having leather elements on his boxing robe. However, after reading some reviews online, I’ve come to realize that it’s his slick hair that earned him the nickname. Perhaps this was covered at some point in the film, but to be honest, the print that I was able to see was so bad, I couldn’t even tell at times who was on the screen. There’s one print of the film at the Library of Congress and another one at an archive in Wisconsin, and I hope they’re in better shape than the versions available on YouTube.

Charles Chaplin’s performance as the Tramp in The Circus was removed as a nominee before the first Academy Awards were handed out, but the film serves as a delightful reminder of just how deft Chaplin was at physical comedy. Whether he’s trying to walk a tightrope while several monkeys are interfering with his ability to move or even keep his pants on or he’s trying to learn a routine for the clowns involving barbers fighting over a client, his Tramp is always an active, engaged presence. The quieter moments are lovely too, such as when he’s making himself a meagre breakfast or listening to the woman he’s fallen in love with confess her love for someone else. There’s a great deal of sadness underpinning the more outrageous and happy moments. This film features the Tramp in a series of circus acts, but one of the most memorable sequences involves him and a pickpocket for whom he’s been mistaken. They’re running away from the police and wind up in a fun house early in the film. They have to pretend to be automatons, and Chaplin gets to hit the pickpocket over the head and laugh several times. It must have been quite funny to Chaplin to get to play someone who makes everyone else happy without knowing how or why he does so. This would be the only nomination Chaplin would receive for his acting, and it’s the only nomination for one of the most iconic characters of the silent era. Sadly, the Academy no longer considers it a nomination since Chaplin instead received an honorary award for acting, writing, directing, and producing the film.

Emil Jannings plays Grand Duke Sergius Alexander in The Last Command, the commanding officer of the Russian army during the 1917 Revolution and a cousin to the czar (don’t we spell it tsar now?). Although he only plays one character here, Jannings actually has to give two rather different performances in the role. As the younger Grand Duke, the one who falls in love with a revolutionist and keeps her as his lover, Jannings has to be arrogant and quick-tempered and demanding. He also does a lot of “business” with his cigarettes during the extended flashback to the 1917 era. However, he is also tender and emotionally sensitive in his interactions with Natalie Dubrova (played by Evelyn Brent, his equal on the screen). His heart seems to ache when he fears she’s betrayed him, which actually happens several times. In the framing sections of the film, those set in Hollywood a decade after the revolution, Jannings plays an old man who has been weakened by Natalie’s death and his escape from Russia. He has to keep shaking his head throughout these sequences, a consequence (according to the Grand Duke) of an unpleasant experience in his past. We know what that experience is, of course, from watching the film, but seeing him walking in a stupor at the film’s beginning is not quite as powerful as seeing him do the same after we have watched the extended flashback sequence. Jannings also gets a very long death scene at the film’s end after he seems to regain a bit of his former strength. It’s not quite a dual role that he plays in The Last Command, but it is certainly two very distinct performances, and perhaps that explains his win for the very first year of the Oscars.

Only about 5 ½ minutes still exist of  Jannings’s performance in The Way of All Flesh. We have, basically, just two scenes from the film, both of them featuring interactions between August Schilling (Jannings) and his son August Jr. (Donald Keith), who thinks his father has died years earlier. The first of the two remaining fragments shows the elder Schilling, now a beggar, discovering that his now-grown son has become an acclaimed violinist. He buys the cheapest possible balcony ticket to watch his son play and is moved to tears when the younger Schilling plays a “cradle song” taught to him by his father. The second intact scene is the film’s ending, where the two men are in front of the family’s home during a snowstorm. The younger man, still unaware that he is face-to-face with his father, offers the old man a warm drink and then a dollar before returning inside to celebrate Christmas with the family. The film’s frequent use of close-ups in these two scenes gives the audience an opportunity to concentrate upon Jannings’ face. He wears a lot of old-age makeup in the role, but his eyes truly convey emotions so powerfully. He doesn’t need to speak in order for the audience to sense the anguish and remorse and sense of loss that Schilling feels. Even his posture, primarily demonstrated by a stooped, shambling walk, shows how much pain he feels. Sadly, the rest of Janning’s Oscar-winning performance is lost, a fate suffered by large numbers of silent films that were made on flammable nitrate stock.

Oscar Winner: Emil Jannings left Hollywood soon after he received the first Oscar for Best Actor for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. His thick German accent reportedly made him unemployable during the Hollywood sound era. After starring in several Nazi propaganda films, Jannings was never to act again after the end of World War II.

My Choice: Charlie Chaplin gives an iconic performance as The Tramp in The Circus. I’d choose him over the other talented nominees. It’s odd that he received an honorary award for this film; it would have been interesting to see if he won any of the categories for which he was nominated. He was a multi-hyphenate before we even coined the world.

The Last Command (1927-28)

 

The Last Command is really a long flashback within a movie about the making of a movie. William Powell plays a Russian director who’s casting a film about the Russian Revolution of 1917 (or, at least, that what it appears to be about). He finds a photo of an older Russian actor who claims to be the former Grand Duke and cousin to the czar (tsar?), and he’s played by Emil Jannings, who won the first Academy Award for Best Actor for this role and another role in a movie that has sadly been mostly lost, The Way of All Flesh. Grand Duke Sergius Alexander shows up for casting and gets his costume in a delightfully funny sequence about how appallingly extras were treated in Hollywood at the time, but then he has a flashback when someone asks him to stop shaking his head so much, a tic he says he developed after something bad happened to him in his past. During the Revolution, he was a very powerful leader, and he uses his position to, in essence, imprison a woman who is considered to be a revolutionist (the beautiful Evelyn Brent as Natalie Dobrova). She’s friends with Powell’s Leo Andreyev, so now we know why the director was so anxious to cast Alexander in the role of a general. Much of the flashback then follows the relationship between the Grand Duke and Natalie, as she slowly begins to fall in love with him, or perhaps she’s falling in love with the power that he holds or the many expensive gifts he can obtain for her. That’s never quite clear, but I suppose you can criticize the imperialist waste of money until someone gives you a strand of pearls, and then maybe you reconsider. By the time they’re on a train that gets hijacked by the revolutionists, she lies (or says she lies) to protect him and allow him to escape. He does so just before the train crashes and, presumably, kills everyone on board. When we return to the present day, the Grand Duke is treated more delicately by Andreyev than you might have imagined, but he’s clearly not over Natalie even though a decade has passed. He walks around in a bit of a stupor for much of his time at the studio. Recreating a battle sequence for the camera triggers some aspect of the Grand Duke’s memory of his past and he either goes mad or gives the greatest performance ever on screen… right before he dies. Either way, Jannings gets quite the extended death scene as Alexander, and we’re left wondering if revisiting his past was too much for him. It’s an oddly touching movie considering that the subject is a domineering Russian tsarist/czarist who forces a woman to be his lover. The primary appeal is watching Jannings’ Oscar-winning performance, of course, but Brent is so intriguing to watch that you have to wonder why she wasn’t considered for Best Actress, especially when you remember that she also played “Feathers” in the Oscar-winning Underworld the same year. Interesting side note: Both of those films were directed by the great Josef von Sternberg, who was one of the great visual stylists of the early film era.

Oscar Win: Best Actor (Emil Jannings)

Other Oscar Nomination: Best Writing / Original Story

Glorious Betsy (1927-28)

 

Glorious Betsy was adapted from a relatively unsuccessful play about an interesting historical moment involving Napoleon Bonaparte. Well, it’s really more about Bonaparte’s brother Jerome and his marriage to an American woman named Elizabeth Patterson. She’s nicknamed Glorious Betsy for reasons that are not particularly addressed in the film, but given that she’s a rather flirtatious Southern belle with plenty of suitors around her at all times and she’s played by the luminous Dolores Costello, you can just use your imagination. What Betsy doesn’t realize is that her French tutor is Jerome Bonaparte, so she treats him rather harshly (always a sign that a woman in a movie is in love with the man) and makes a big talk about meeting Napoleon’s brother and perhaps falling in love with him. Jerome (played by Conrad Nagel) has a habit of skipping town just when something big is about to happen that he doesn’t like; that’s how we wound up in Virginia in 1804 posing as a tutor. When the Patterson family departs for Baltimore for a party at their home there in Jerome’s honor, Betsy’s tutor shows up and demands that she agree to marry him, no matter who he is. Of course, viewers know that he’s about to reveal himself at the party as the famed Frenchman’s brother, so we just grin as she finally agrees after a series of melodramatic denials. Here’s the catch: Napoleon has already arranged a marriage for his brother to a princess from Wurttemberg (Catherina Fredericka or something similar), and he refuses to acknowledge Betsy as Jerome’s wife or even let her set foot on French soil. Napoleon (played by Pasquale Amato with a very stoic face) boards the ship bringing his brother and Betsy to France, and Betsy pleads her case to no avail. Napoleon needs the arranged marriage for political advantage. Defeated, Betsy must return to the United States, where she becomes the subject of a great deal of gossip. If they only knew that she was also pregnant with Jerome’s child, the rest of society would truly have something to talk about. At first, she refuses to let her husband know, but after the marriage is annulled by Napoleon and the wedding to the princess nears, she shares this little tidbit about him having a son. This being a Hollywood ending, Jerome, as is his habit, ditches the princess and heads back to America to be reunited with Betsy. Of course, that’s not what happened at all in real life. The real Jerome married the princess and stayed in Europe. I’ve mentioned before, though, that one should never turn to the movies for history lessons. The movies are good at drama, but often that drama isn’t historically accurate. Glorious Betsy was originally a part-silent/part-talkie movie, and you can tell that some sequences are meant to demonstrate talking and singing. However, the sound discs (Warner Bros. Vitaphone) have been lost, so we only have a mute print available. The talking/singing portions are relatively brief, though, so it’s not difficult to imagine some of what might have been said. Unfortunately, the current prints have intertitles that are often too dark to read, and this poses as much of a difficulty as trying to lipread during the sound passages. I’ll only mention in passing that since this film is set, at least in part, during the antebellum South, some actors appear in blackface, and particularly ugly blackface in one instance. It’s horribly disconcerting when you realize this, and it makes what is otherwise a perfectly innocuous little movie into something rather sad and pathetic.

Oscar Nomination: Best Writing / Adaptation

Street Angel (1927-28; 1928-29)

 

Street Angel earns an odd footnote in the history of the Academy Awards. Its star, Janet Gaynor, won an Academy Award for Best Actress in the first year of the Oscars for three films, one of them Street Angel. In the second year of the Oscars, the film itself was nominated for two other awards. Did all of the Oscar voters just forget that they had given the movie an Oscar the year before? Here Gaynor plays a poor young woman in Naples named Angela, who tries to turn to prostitution as a means to make some fast money. She needs the cash for medicine for her mother and for food. She’s caught by the police before she actually succeeds at solicitation, but she escapes and joins a traveling carnival as a way to evade a year in the workhouse. They sure knew how to make plot twists in those days, didn’t they? During her travels, Angela meets a poor but very talented painter, Gino, played by Charles Farrell, Gaynor’s costar from 7^th Heaven. They fall in love, but she spends too much of her time fearing that she will be found by the authorities and have to serve her sentence, and she doesn’t want him to know that she was arrested for solicitation. There’s a subplot involving a lovely painting that Gino does of Angela, but it’s an odd one. For some reason, the guy who buys the painting wants to change it so that it looks like an Old Master, and he can earn far more money reselling it. It’s some form of art fraud, I guess. The performances by Gaynor and Farrell are quite good, but most of the cast is stuck using stereotypical Italian hand gestures, and that gets weary after a while. The camera work in the film is outstanding, particularly when it follows a character through the part of Naples where much of the story is set. There’s also a lot of soft focus throughout the film, which keeps things pretty hazy even when there isn’t a fog settling in over the city. The film also makes very effective use of shadows, such as the larger-than-life ones that populate the entrance to the workhouse. It’s quite understandable why it was nominated for its art direction and cinematography. They’re the strongest parts of the film other than the acting by Gaynor and Farrell. You pretty much can guess how the film will end. Angela’s going to be caught, but there will be a reunion after an initial misunderstanding. Today this film is best known as one of the three for which Gaynor won the first award for Best Actress, but it is also a quite beautiful silent film. If the plot is a bit hackneyed or strange, it might have seemed quite fresh at the time of the film’s initial release.

Oscar Win (1927-28): Best Actress (Janet Gaynor)

Other Oscar Nominations (1928-29): Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography

Best Actress of 1927-28

Three women were chosen as Best Actress candidates in the initial year of the Academy Awards, but five performances were considered, giving the edge to the nominee who starred in three films that year (two of which were nominated for the top film awards). Watching their performances today is interesting because the style of performance for silent films differs so greatly from what contemporary actors do. Here are the nominees:

It’s very difficult to see what prompted Oscar voters to nominate Louise Dresser for her performance as Mama Pleznik in A Ship Comes In. Today it would most likely be considered a supporting performance since much of the film is about her character’s husband Peter, and even then it wouldn’t likely get much awards consideration. The film concerns a family of European immigrants coming to the United States and their integration into American society. Peter Pleznik (played with a great deal of vigor and joy by Rudolph Schildkraut, father of future Oscar winner Joseph Schildkraut) is optimistic about almost everything in his new home country. He makes a friend quickly, he gets a job soon after the family arrives, and he even feels like his son is becoming a real American by joining the military. Meanwhile, Dresser’s Mama sews clothes and bakes cakes and has nothing much of her own to do plot-wise. She does get to react to the news that her son is now a soldier, but seeing him in uniform just makes her walk very slowly and stay rather stone-faced. It’s an unexpected acting choice. When she runs after him as he leaves their home, she does hug and kiss him intently. All of that emotional work is shown as shadows on the wall, though, so we get no direct representation of Mama’s feelings. Likewise, when her husband is released from jail after being convicted of attempting to kill a judge – it’s just too preposterous a storyline to explain more fully than that – she tears up a bit when he returns home, but again the main reaction seems to be moving more slowly than usual. Her big scene is supposed to be when she learns that her son has been killed in battle, but she apparently hasn’t learned enough English in the years that they’ve been in the U.S., so even that realization becomes more muted. It’s similar to when she tries to convince the trial judge who sentences her husband that Peter couldn’t have done anything wrong. The judge cannot understand her, again making it seem as though she doesn’t speak English. When she buys a wreath for her son, the camera focuses on the woman who’s selling her the wreath. We mostly get the back of Dresser’s head during a scene that could have been a real showcase of emotions. The filmmakers just don’t do Dresser any favors; her actions are mostly limited to reactions to what others have done or said. I can’t truly say that it’s a bad performance; it’s not even enough of a performance to warrant much of an evaluation.

Janet Gaynor plays Diane, a poor young woman in early 20^th Century Paris, in the film 7^th Heaven. I’ve read many descriptions of her character that claim Diane is a prostitute, but I didn’t really notice much evidence of that in the movie. Gaynor plays Diane as naïve and weak at the start of the film, as she is under the control of her abusive sister Nana. When she is almost beaten to death by her sister, she’s rescued by Charles Farrell’s sewer worker Chico. He takes her to his apartment to save her from being arrested, and their love story begins to develop. At first, she’s very tentative and sad and hopeless around him, and he’s very enthusiastic and optimistic and loud. She wrings her hands a lot – I mean, a lot – during the first half of the movie, so I guess that’s supposed to indicate just how nervous and afraid she might be. It’s really Gaynor’s eyes that show her changes in character, though, not her hands. As Diane falls more in love with Chico and becomes braver, even her posture changes and her eyes show her feelings more directly. Gaynor’s big scene in the film comes near the end when Diane learns that Chico may have been killed in World War I. She’s able to convey both anger and sadness simultaneously in that scene, and her joy in learning that he’s still alive is clear. Gaynor was quite tiny next to Farrell in their scenes together, but she’s the one who got the awards attention for this performance and two others in the same year.

In her second nominated role, Gaynor plays Angela, a poor woman who’s charged with solicitation in Street Angel. She’s desperate for money to help her ailing mother, and when she sees how easily the local hooker, Lisetta (Natalie Kingston), makes money, Angela thinks she will give it a try. However, she’s terrible at it. None of the men she approaches seem interested – or even aware that she’s coming on to them. However, she swipes some food and gets charged with robbery while soliciting. She escapes custody on her way to the workhouse, though, and falls in with a carnival and later meets a talented but poor painter. For much of the plot, though, Gaynor’s Angela is afraid of being caught by the police. This leads to many sequences showing her worried face. She also tries to keep from being attracted to “vagabond” painter Gino (Farrell again), and her behavior is almost childlike at times in her attempts to get him to leave her alone. Her tantrum when he accidentally tears her costume is hysterical. Gaynor gets a range of emotions to portray in this film, and that ability to convey so many feelings was such a strength during the silent era. This may be the least challenging of her three roles for which she won the Oscar, but she still manages to combine an interesting physicality (Angela performs a balancing act while with the carnival) with that expressive face of hers.

The performance by Gaynor that is truly a revelation is as The Wife in Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. As I have written elsewhere, I didn't quite understand her charm or reputation in A Star Is Born, a film for which she would be nominated a decade later, but I get it here. She's shy and gentle and sweet. She can demonstrate great naivete, but she can also convey her growing knowledge of her husband’s plans to kill her. She shows great love for her husband in one scene and tremendous fear of him in another. She is also able to demonstrate how she begins to forgive him after they spend time together in the city and away from their home. When she goes missing during their return boat ride, you can also develop a sense of her own strength and ingenuity. Gaynor has a distinct kind of vulnerability that serves her well here. She seems almost childlike in the early scenes of the film, but you watch an evolution in her character as she gains a clearer sense of how she and her husband are going to be reunited and happy. Her character’s name (title, really) of The Wife makes her more enigmatic, perhaps, but it also allows us as viewers to project some pretty strong emotions onto Gaynor’s characterization. She’s not just a wide-eyed girl; she’s a tougher woman than she initially appears.

Gloria Swanson takes on the title role in Sadie Thompson with all the gusto and ferocity she can muster. It’s a magnificent performance, one of the best of the silent era of films. Her Sadie has arrived on the island of Pago Pago after fleeing San Francisco under suspicious circumstances. The film, especially in the character of Lionel Barrymore’s Alfred Davidson, suggests that she is a prostitute on the run from a potential arrest. She’s reportedly on her way to a new job in Apia but gets stuck in Pago Pago for at least a week and decides to have some fun while waiting for the ship to be ready. She flirts with a group of Marines who are stationed on the island and seems to fall in love with one in particular, Sgt. O’Hara. She spends her time hanging out in her room, entertaining (male) guests, playing jazz records, smoking, and chewing gum. No one can chew a piece of gum like Swanson; even though it’s a silent film, you can hear the smack of that gum chewing. She also walks with a deliciously confident, sexy swagger in the film’s first half. When Sadie inevitably comes into conflict with Davidson, the pompous reformer who tries to get her to go back to San Francisco to face her punishment, Swanson shows the discomfort and fear in Sadie’s eyes. She also knows how to deliver a slow burn with what we call “side eye.” Two scenes, in particular, elevate Swanson’s performance. She throws an epic tantrum when Davidson convinces the governor of the island to force Sadie to return to the United States. Later, she seemingly goes mad when, trapped in her room due to the torrential rain, she begins to imagine being jailed. After her supposed conversion to being a good, moral (read: Christian) person, she holds her body differently. Sadie now slouches, almost cowering when she comes into contact with anyone else, especially Davidson, a sharp contrast from the woman who left the ship at the beginning of Sadie Thompson. In many ways, the character of Sadie Thompson is an actress in her own right, as you find out at the film’s end, and Swanson takes full advantage of the opportunity to play the powerful range of emotions the movie demands. This performance ranks alongside her Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and demonstrates just why Swanson was one of the greatest stars and actors ever captured on film.

Oscar Winner: With three solid performances, Gaynor won the first award for Best Actress. Find an actress nowadays who could do what is asked of Gaynor in 7^th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise. It’s quite a feat, and she must have had an edge by starring in three films.

My Choice: Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson gives one of the greatest performances of the silent era. Here’s someone who understood the power that comes with silent film acting. Swanson would never win an Academy Award despite being nominated multiple times. I think she should have been the first winner.

Best Picture of 1927-28

 

The Winner: Wings? Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans? Both of them?

The Other Nominees: Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, The Crowd, The Racket, and 7^th Heaven

The Academy Awards had two categories for “Best Picture” in their first year. One was called “Outstanding Picture,” and the three nominees were The Racket, 7^th Heaven, and Wings. Wings, a tale of the friendship between fighter pilots in World War II, won. The second category was “Best Unique and Artistic Production,” and the nominees for that award were Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, The Crowd, and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Sunrise, the story of a couple finding their love for each other despite horrific events, won in that category. The designation of Best Unique and Artistic Production was deleted after the first year, and the Academy, in its infinite wisdom, now claims that Wings was the winner of the first Best Picture Oscar. Sure. I’m still going to consider all six movies, however, since they did choose two pictures to win different awards for “best” or “outstanding” that year.

My Choice: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans remains one of the most accomplished and powerful films of the silent era. Wings is great entertainment, certainly, but Sunrise represents the greater artistic achievement in so many ways.

7th Heaven (1927-28)

 

The film 7^th Heaven has a lot going on in its almost-two-hour run time. It’s a love story between two members of the lower classes in Paris in the early part of the 20^th century, but it’s also a war movie set during World War I. It’s also a commentary on making oneself better through hard work, the possibility that we might have to improve our lot in life. With all of that going on, the film still manages to be visually stunning and quite coherent in its characterizations of the poor and so-called downtrodden.

The two central characters are Chico (played by Charles Farrell) and Diane (Janet Gaynor, one of three award-winning roles she played that year). Chico is a sewer worker, but he has aspirations to be a street washer. He keeps telling everyone, himself included, that he’s a “very remarkable fellow.” Many online sources claim that Diane is a prostitute, but there’s little direct evidence of that in the film itself. She’s certainly poor and under the tyrannical control of her sister Nana (Gladys Brockwell, enjoying playing the part of a villain perhaps a bit too much). Nana terrorizes Diane and frequently beats her harshly with a whip.

Nana is particularly brutal to Diane after their rich aunt and uncle reappear after years away in a foreign country. The couple will take care of the girls, but the uncle wants to ensure that they’ve kept themselves “clean.” I think we all know what that means, but Diane cannot lie. They’ve not been “clean,” so perhaps that is where the implication of her being a prostitute comes from? In retaliation for losing them all the family riches, Nana beats her sister even after the young woman tries to escape to the street. That’s when Chico intervenes and rescues Diane. I suppose that’s what filmmakers of the day would have considered a “meet cute.”

Diane – who is at this point completely hopeless and full of despair – tries to kill herself with Chico’s knife, but he stops her. He also prevents her from being arrested by the police by claiming that she’s his wife. He takes her to his apartment so that she doesn’t wind up in jail like her sister, but he keeps warning her that she cannot stay with him forever. In his mind, this is only a temporary arrangement, at least at first. I think moviegoers back then were probably already guessing that the two of them were destined to be together. It’s not necessarily a new story although the setting and the particular characters are certainly distinctive.

Their journey to his attic apartment is where you can begin to appreciate the quality of the cinematography in 7^th Heaven. The camera follows them as they climb the stairs, and we get to see the different floors as they rise in the building. It’s a masterful pairing of cinematography and production design to provide such a moment. Chico’s apartment looks out over the rooftops of Paris. As he puts it, he lives “near the stars.”

Despite what you might expect, especially considering that most reviewers think she’s a prostitute, they don’t sleep together that first night – he’s quite the gentleman, as they say – but she makes him breakfast and helps him get dressed the next morning. You can tell that she’s already smitten with him. We watch as they slowly begin to acknowledge their attraction to each other. There’s a lovely moment when she mends his coat and then puts its sleeves around her as she’s sitting in a chair. It’s just charming, and Gaynor’s large expressive eyes make the scene even more charming. We get to see their love for each other increase until he causes her to cry happy tears when he lets her stay with him. Chico brings her flowers one day and a lovely dress, which turns out to be a wedding gown. He finally says he loves her after seeing how beautiful she is in the dress.

However, here’s where the narrative takes quite the sharp turn. He and his neighbor/co-worker have to go to war. Like, immediately. As in, the soldiers are starting to march through the streets of Paris, and you have to go join them or you’ll be considered disloyal. It’s a bit of a stunner to see how quickly the film pivots from this marvelous happy moment in their dismal lives. They “marry” in his apartment before he leaves at 11 a.m., and he promises that no matter where he is, he will pause at 11 every day to “talk” to her. I guess people used to say things like that when they were being separated by war.

The intercutting of the scenes of him at war with scenes of her at a munitions factory makes for some interesting juxtapositions. He’s being rather heroic, and she’s become stronger and less fearful after driving her awful sister away by beating Nana with her own whip. She’s also managed to fend off a soldier who keeps hitting on her at the factory. When it’s 11 a.m., we get to see their images superimposed as they speak to each other just as he had promised. It doesn’t matter that he’s in a foxhole and she’s in the factory; his fellow soldiers and her coworkers all know what’s going on at 11 each day. Visually, we’re able to see just how connected and close they remain emotionally even though they are far apart geographically.

7^th Heaven opts for somewhat of a Hollywood ending for Chico and Diane. She’s been told that he’s died in the war, but she refuses to believe it. When enough people tell her and she starts to think she’s lost him, she breaks down in tears. She’s sad and angry, and Gaynor gets quite the emotional scene. It’s probably a moment that like that clinched the Best Actress Oscar for this role. Of course, he arrives at their apartment at just that precise moment, and the lighting makes him seem almost ghost-like (or Christ-like, you pick). He’s alive, yes, but blinded. However, he claims that he won’t stay that way long because, as he’s stated repeatedly, he’s a “very remarkable fellow.” Having a catchphrase like that can do wonders for a somewhat underdeveloped character. It perhaps explains why Farrell tends to overplay his lines while Gaynor is much more subdued and subtle.

The film’s look, especially the scenes in the streets of Paris, is clearly influenced by German Expressionism. It was a common style at the time, as evidenced by some of the other films nominated for Oscars in that first year. The print that I watched did not seem to be fully restored, but you could tell that some of the images are almost as beautiful as those in Sunrise, another film from the same year starring Gaynor. Unfortunately, the version I saw also had a score that used the song “Manhattan” (“We’ll have Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island too…”) throughout the movie. Since the film is set in Paris, I kept getting distracted by music associated with another city and another continent. Apparently, 7^th Heaven was released with an original score and sound effects, but I certainly hope it wasn’t the one that I listened to.

Oscar Wins: Best Actress (Janet Gaynor), Best Directing of a Dramatic Picture (Frank Borzage), and Best Writing/Adaptation

Other Nominations: Outstanding Picture and Best Art Direction

The Circus (1927-28)

Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus was nominated for three awards in the first year of the Oscars, making Chaplin the first person to be nominated for multiple honors in a single year. However, he was removed from the nominee lists in all categories and was presented a Special Award instead. In the words of the Academy at the time, “The Academy Board of Judges on merit awards for individual achievements in motion picture arts during the year ending August 1, 1928, unanimously decided that your name should be removed from the competitive classes, and that a special first award be conferred upon you for writing, acting, directing and producing The Circus. The collective accomplishments thus displayed place you in a class by yourself.” Despite creating some of the true masterpieces of the silent and early sound era, Chaplin would not receive another Academy Award until 1971, another honorary award, this time for his lifetime contributions. The Circus is a charming example of Chaplin’s skill at moviemaking. It’s a somewhat thin plot, to be sure, since it’s mostly about the Tramp trying to succeed as a circus performer and falling in love with the beautiful daughter of the circus owner (she also rides a horse in the show). What makes this film stand out are the various “gags” that Chaplin and the others perform. The Tramp is hilariously funny, but only when he doesn’t try to be funny or when he doesn’t know he’s being funny. He interrupts several circus acts to riotously hilarious impact, and the crowd loves him more than anything else in the show. The owner (also the ringmaster) hires him and tries to make him conform to the established skits like the William Tell gag or the barbershop gag. However, the Tramp is so bad at doing what he's told that it becomes an even funnier act when, for example, he replaces the apple on his head with a half-eaten banana. He also winds up in a cage with a sleepy lion at one point and manages to get a lot of laughs out of the danger he faces. The Circus isn’t just about the humorous bits, though. It also mines the pathos of the characters such as the Tramp and Merna, the horse rider, as he realizes that she loves someone else and works to help the couple get married. We also get a couple of great camera tricks, such as a double exposure where we watch the Tramp imagine himself kicking Rex, the object of Merna’s affections. And the centerpiece of the film is probably a tightrope sequence where the Tramp is besieged by monkeys after losing the harness that was keeping him upright so high above the circus floor. The ending – with its famous iris in – finds the Tramp alone in the abandoned field where the circus tent had been housed. He’s by himself again. The show, as the saying goes, must go on, and it has to do so without him. Criterion released a beautiful version of The Circus a couple of years ago, and it is filled with extras like deleted scenes and interviews that place the film within its historical and personal context.

Oscar Win: Honorary Award for Chaplin’s writing, directing, acting, and producing

Oscar Nominations: Best Directing of a Comedy Picture (Charles Chaplin), Best Actor (Charles Chaplin), and Best Original Story

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927-28)

 

It’s not necessarily easy to determine if Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness is a documentary or not. It’s also not particularly easy to determine which, if any, of the scenes were staged or, more likely, reconstructed. It’s supposed to be a depiction of life in the jungles of what was then called Siam (not Thailand), but frankly, there are so many questions that arise from watching the film, that’s it’s not (again) easy to decide how much to believe as being true or accurate. It was filmed on location, so it does offer us a view into what life was like for residents of the northern region of Thailand – and perhaps, more importantly, how dangerous life was for them.

The film mostly follows one family’s adventures over the course of about a year. A man named Kru tries to make a home in the jungle with his wife (Chantui) and his children, including his eldest child, a boy named Nah. Most of the story revolves around them and their encounters with the wild animals of the jungle. In fact, the animals are listed as characters in the film (“Wild Beasts”) as is “The Jungle” itself. Even the other people in the film are noted as “Natives of the Wild.” This really isn’t a character-driven narrative. It’s an action-adventure-documentary-ish. A title card during the opening sequence of the film notes that the jungle always “wins,” and after watching the range of dangers that Kru’s family faces, it’s hard not to accept that judgment.

The family tries to build a house on stilts to offer some protection, and they start farming rice and collecting a veritable ark-load of animals around them. One of the highlights of the film is the footage of the various animals of the region. At some point during the movie, we witness cats and kittens, goats, a wolf, a dog and its pups, oxen, pigs, a little bear, a porcupine, a mongoose, an anteater (although it looks a lot more like a pangolin to me), a baby anteater, and so many others. I’ll get to the dangerous animals soon since they are central to the narrative. Of all of these pets, though, only the pups are kept inside the house in order to protect them from tigers, but the rest of the animals seem fated to have danger be a constant part of their existence.

Oh, and then there’s Bimbo, a white monkey who seems to be as much a part of the family as anyone else. Bimbo even gets his own dialog cards! It’s as if the movie really wants us to know what Bimbo is thinking as he steals the blanket from the baby’s crib or when he’s running for his life from a leopard or when he’s trying to hold on as an elephant destroys the family home with him inside. It’s tough being a monkey, obviously, and the film features Bimbo a bit more than it does Nah, the first-born son of Kru and Chantui. And, yes, he’s listed in the cast as well.

One of the first dangers that Kru and his family must face is a leopard that has gotten into the pen holding the goats. When it returns for a second meal, Kru traps it inside the pen and shoots it. Of course, that’s not the last leopard they will likely face, so Kru asks for help from the chief of the closest village. Thirty men set traps and pitfalls and snares and nets to catch leopards. They succeed in catching one leopard, but they also catch a tiger in a net and kill it as well. In fact, a lot of animals get killed onscreen throughout this film. It’s pretty deadly stuff, and it’s not easy to watch. And, as you might suspect, just because you kill one tiger or one leopard doesn’t mean that you’re done with being stalked by others. You might wind up escaping from yet another one by clambering into a boat and paddling away as quickly as possible, as Kru and his family have to do at one point later in the film.

Possibly the biggest danger emerges when it’s time for the harvest. The title animal, a “chang” or elephant, is leaving evidence of the return of a large herd to the area of the jungle where Kru lives and close to where the village is located. The villagers are reluctant to believe that the so-called Great Herd has returned after so many years, even after a baby elephant is caught in one of the pitfalls and proves very heavy to pull out of the pit. It’s also not easy to train a baby elephant or feed it. When its mother completely demolishes Kru’s home, he and his family return to the village to live and try to warn the rest of the impending arrival of the herd. Once the herd shows up and demolishes everything in sight, the villagers get the point and start setting a trap.

What a doozy of a trap it is, too. It features very high walls and an entrance designed to funnel the elephants into a central pen area. The villagers converge on the elephants with the men disguised as trees – which must have been very disconcerting for the elephants – and set fires and drive the large animals into the pen. Then, in a remarkably colonialist gesture, they force the elephants to work for them. You might suspect that this subjugation of the elephants won’t last, but by the end of the film, there’s no indication that it isn’t working.

By the time Kru and his family return to the jungle and build another house, you start to wonder if it’s truly worth all of the struggle. I mean, there are still leopards and tigers and elephants (oh my!) out there, just waiting for their chance to show up and mess with the lives of these humans who have invaded their space. Maybe it’s true, as the film says, that the jungle is unconquerable. It’s certainly tough to tame, and there’s always a new threat on the horizon. Why bother? The film doesn’t provide an answer to that question, though.

The film was directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, who would later collaborate on the 1933 version of King Kong. It’s only Oscar nomination came in that “Best Picture” category that lasted on the first year of the awards: Unique and Artistic Production. Perhaps it was Cooper and Schoedsack’s work with Bimbo on this film – he does get his own closeups, after all – that convinced them to make a movie about a giant ape a few years later.

Oscar Nomination: Unique and Artistic Production

The Devil Dancer (1927-28)

 

The Devil Dancer is presumed to be a lost film, one of many from the silent era that we are no longer able to enjoy. According to IMBD, the film’s plot goes as follows: “An English explorer disturbed by the practices of an isolated tribe attempts to rescue a native girl he has become fascinated with.” It sounds like some rather colonial attitudes being represented here, but the film was recognized by the Oscars for its cinematography, not its writing. In fact, its photographer, George Barnes, accounted for 75 percent of the films nominated that first year for Best Cinematography: The Devil Dancer, Sadie Thompson, and Tempest. Barnes would receive a total of eight Academy Award nominations in his career, winning for 1940’s Rebecca. Of course, he lost in the first year of the Oscars to the cinematographers of Sunrise, certainly one of the most beautifully filmed silent movies. The Devil Dancer stars Gilda Gray as the title character (also known as Takla), Clive Brook as Stephen Athelstan, and Anna May Wong as Sada. There’s also a character known as “The White Woman,” played by Barbara Tennant, so that doesn’t bode well for the likelihood of a non-colonial attitude toward the non-white characters (or to women either if they’re only known by one trait or characteristic). Gray apparently was best known for popularizing the dance known as the “shimmy.” Brook would later co-star with Marlene Dietrich and Wong again in Shanghai Express; he also played Sherlock Holmes three times after making a successful transition from silents to talkies. Wong was the first Chinese American movie star and was always underused (or misused) and underappreciated in Hollywood. It would be fascinating to see what Wong (and the rest of the cast) did with what sounds like a less-than-promising premise.

Oscar Nomination: Best Cinematography

The Crowd (1927-28)

The Crowd is one of the true masterpieces of silent film. It's an epic film on many levels, yet the center of the film is the simple story of an ordinary couple living ordinary lives. The director of The Crowd, King Vidor, was a master at both the small, intimate moments of life and the large-scale use of numerous actors and sets. The Crowd is one of his finest accomplishments and an intriguing choice for the first year of the Academy Awards given that it is not a typical Hollywood film.

The film begins on July 4, 1900, with the birth of John Sims. John will grow up to be the chief character of the movie, and we follow him for much of his adult life. John (played as an adult by James Murray) moves to New York City at the age of 21, telling another man on the journey to the city that all he wants in an opportunity. He gets a job at Atlas Insurance Company writing down columns of numbers all day long, but he uses any spare time he can sneak to write slogans for contests. It’s mind-numbing work, and you can tell from the way that the camera, operating from a very high crane, zooms into John’s desk area that all of these workers are really treated as little more than drones.

One night, his buddy and co-worker Bert asks him to go with him on a double date. It's there that he meets Mary (Eleanor Boardman). They hit it off immediately, and he even asks her to marry him on their first date, a trip to the Coney Island amusement park. The film’s journey to Coney Island is visually quite stunning. We get to watch various rides that the two couples enjoy, particularly the Tunnel of Love, and we are witness to some very touching moments between couples on the subway ride home from the park. It’s interesting that the two main characters have the plainest of names, John and Mary, as if to suggest that there is nothing particularly special about them; they’re just regular people. They seem to be in love, though, and the early scenes of their romance are very sweet.

Things don't go as well after the wedding, though. Their first Christmas dinner reveals how little Mary's family thinks of John, who's always talking about his prospects. Mary's brothers, though, think he's never going to be successful. The Sims family then has a series of problems with the bathroom door not closing and the bad plumbing and the furniture (the Murphy Bed, in particular) and other items in the household. They begin sniping at each other, including one particularly vicious breakfast scene. It's only after Mary reveals that she's pregnant that they reconcile and John manages to get a small raise at work.

Five years pass--or so the title cards tell us--and the Sims family now includes a daughter as well. John finally wins $500 for a slogan that he's written, but while he and Mary are celebrating, their little girl is hit and killed by a truck. John loses his ability to concentrate at work, so depressed is he by his daughter's death. The film superimposes images of what’s on his mind while he’s trying to work, and it’s a very effective way to display the distractions. He quits his job at the insurance company, revealing his decision to Mary while they are on the boat for the company picnic. John takes a series of unsuccessful jobs, including one as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, but he quickly walks away from most of the menial jobs. He just can’t seem to be a success even though he keeps reiterating throughout the film that all he needs is an opportunity.

The film was released in 1928, a year before the start of the Great Depression, but that doesn’t mean that economic conditions weren’t difficult for people like John and Mary even before the Depression. Like many other men of the time, John tries to get in line for jobs calling for 100 men, but he frequently gets shut out of even those hard-labor tasks. Mary's brothers try to give John a job, but he refuses what he considers to be charity. When the brothers arrive one day to take Mary away with them, he tells her that he's found a job he loves, wearing a clown costume and juggling balls to call attention to a sign he carries around his neck. Ironically, he and Mary had made fun of someone with the same job on their first date many years earlier.

This is a particularly bleak film in many ways. Almost every moment of success or happiness that the family enjoys is quickly undercut by another setback. Vidor, who co-wrote the screenplay as well as directed, chose to focus on what nowadays we might call the underclass of society, those people who are not often the subject of films because their lives are a constant series of struggles to survive. They are not "entertaining" to watch. The Sims family, in many ways, is just a set of faces in a crowd to most passers-by. Few would take note of them, and the film demonstrates just how isolated one can be even in a crowd of people such as you would find in New York City.

The visuals of the film are particularly striking. When John, at the age of 12, must ascend a staircase to his home on the day that his father dies, the staircase and walls form a pronounced V-shape, placing John as the center of the action, a role he takes on throughout the rest of the film. When he gets a job at the insurance company, the camera pans to his desk--he's clerk #137--allowing us to see the seemingly hundreds of other young men who are forced to do the mundane drudgework that insurance companies demand. The film had already panned up the side of the enormous building where he works, eventually stopping at the floor where the rows and rows and rows of desks are located. And there are numerous scenes of crowds of people, apparently most of them shots of actual people walking through the city. When Mary is in the hospital giving birth to their first child, John walks into a ward with dozens of beds throughout the room. A sequence at the beginning of the film shows crowds of people almost as swarms of insects. No one seems to be able to move against the flow of the crowd. The most spectacular crowd shot, though, is the end of the film. John and Mary have taken their son to the theater to see a show, and they're laughing and having a good time. The camera slowly pulls back to reveal hundreds of other people similarly laughing. It's astonishing to think how much coordination such a shot much have taken, considering how many people are within the frame.

The editing is also impressive. I’ll give just one example: John and Mary are on a train headed to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon. It’s their wedding night, and after they have finished their individual preparations for bed and are finally in the sleeper car together, the film cuts to a shot of the falls themselves. Yes, there are some moments of humor and lightheartedness scattered throughout the film, something to remind you that life doesn’t have to be dreary all the time. If you’re expecting a Hollywood ending, though, you’ll need to look elsewhere. The film does end with a happy event, but that doesn't mean that John and Mary’s struggles have ended.

The acting is still a bit theatrical at times, no doubt due in part to the rather hyperbolic dialog the performers are given. Boardman is quite lovely as Mary. She’s always forgiving of John’s mistakes and bad behavior, and she’s very encouraging of this dreams. Murray is always better when he’s playing sad moments. When John is defeated or feels lost, Murray manages to convey significant amounts of pathos. Silent film acting is certainly a different form of performing, and it can take some getting used to as a viewer.

Allegedly, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer hated The Crowd, but he allowed Vidor to make the film because the director had already made so many successful films for the studio. Mayer felt the film was too depressing and that audiences would not pay money to see it. Even the final shot, allegedly made to have a happy ending for the movie (but not succeeding at the goal, ultimately), failed to impress him. However, the studio's production chief, the legendary Irving Thalberg, went ahead with the film, and now, thankfully, we have a movie that serves as a testament to just how accomplished, both visually and thematically, silent films were. The Crowd was among the first group of films to be nominated by the Academy, but the sound era was already well underway by the time the awards were distributed in 1928. Hollywood would almost have to start over, and much of the technical achievement of films like The Crowd would be lost in order to serve the new medium of "talkies."

Oscar Nominations: Best Unique and Artistic Production and Best Directing of a Dramatic Picture (King Vidor)

The Racket (1927-28)

The Racket is a story of the police and political corruption in Chicago, a symbolic struggle between good and evil (with evil being rather dominant and predominant throughout the film). It’s a significant predecessor to such classic gangster films as Little Caesar and Scarface, but it was considered a lost film for much of the 20^th Century until a single print was found among the film collection of its producer, eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, after his death. Tracking down the film for viewing can be difficult; it’s really only available every year or so on Turner Classic Movies.

The movie primarily focuses upon the interaction between two men representing opposite sides of the law: mobster Nick Scarsi (played by Louis Wolheim, who certainly looks the part of a gangster with his broken nose) and good cop Capt. James McQuigg (a solid if uninspiring Thomas Meighan). Scarsi wants to take control of the city by eliminating his rival gang bosses and attempting to influence upcoming city elections. He already has a measure of control over the district attorney, who manages to get him released from custody numerous times. It even appears that he also has some clout, perhaps through the D.A. and judges, over the police force.

There is at least one good cop, of course, and he sets out to clear the town of its mob influence. McQuigg has a difficult time of it, though, particularly after he gets transferred to a new smaller precinct thanks to some behind-the-scenes politics. Scarsi repeatedly tries to influence McQuigg, but he’s always unsuccessful. McQuigg cannot, apparently, be corrupted. He also can’t seem to keep Scarsi in custody even though he knows the mobster has personally killed several people. It's only after the brother of the mob boss hits a pedestrian while trying to woo a nightclub singer named Helen Hayes (but not played by the actress of the same name) that he gets his best chance. Capt. McQuigg jails the brother, the nightclub singer, almost anyone he can put behind bars in order to draw out the mob and Scarsi.

Even the newspaper reporters who cover the crime beat seem to be corrupt in their own way. They make up most of the details for their stories; it takes very, very little information to send them to the phone to call the news desk with a story. One of them is drunk and sleepy all the time, and another tells a source not to give him too much after the shooting of a mobster in the police captain’s office. Only John Darrow’s naïve cub reporter Dave Ames appears to be professional until, that is, he starts to fall for the nightclub singer. The press here seems far more interested in stirring up trouble than in reporting it. Their depiction here is not a glowing testament to the fourth estate, but hardly any profession, including law enforcement, escapes the film without some measure of criticism.

This film lost to Wings the first year of the Academy Awards, and it's not really that tough to see why. The story is rather pedestrian and may have been a bit clichéd even in the late 1920s. The acting is good, but most of the cast doesn’t stand out as being particularly adept at screen acting. The exception is Marie Prevost as the quintessential tough dame. She’s quite energetic as Helen Hayes, flirting shamelessly with Scarsi’s younger brother in front of the mob boss and later with the baby-faced Ames, who seems to be unaware that she’s quite the gold-digger (and is rather upfront about it, too). The rest of the cast does a good job overall, but they aren’t asked to stretch their talents much beyond rather mannered portrayals.

Two scenes do stand out as being especially noteworthy. One is set at the nightclub (well, speakeasy might be a more accurate descriptor) during a birthday party for Scarsi’s kid brother Joe (George Stone). It's a nicely choreographed sequence involving rival gangsters and cops and the attentions of Miss Hayes. She even rides a piano to the Scarsis’ table at one point in order to get everyone’s focus to be on her. There’s a shootout at the party, too, following a series of rival gangsters slowly surrounding Scarsi’s mob by scaring away other patrons, only to have plainclothes officers then slowly surround them. The sequence occurs early in the film and nicely sets up some of the key tensions for the remainder of the plot.

The other highlight is at a funeral for Spike Corcoran, the rival mob boss who's been killed during the party at the speakeasy. You get to see (through some clever visual effects) just how likely gunfire might be during the service, as handguns become visible underneath the bowler hats sitting in the laps of the gangsters in attendance. Otherwise, the film does not feature much innovation in terms of its camerawork, so the effect here is quite charming given how unusual it is in the context of the rest of the film. A calliope later interrupts the service, interjecting another note of humor into rather somber proceedings.

The Racket is a fast-paced movie, clocking in at just a bit more than 80 minutes long, and the action sometimes happens very quickly. The first five minutes of the film involve attempts by a couple of gangsters to shoot Capt. McQuigg in order to scare him away from his goal of stopping Scarsi’s mob, and there’s even a big shootout between rival gangs within the first fifteen minutes of the movie. There are rumors that the original version of the film was longer, but what remains is quite enjoyable. Thankfully, it has been saved and restored through the efforts of Turner Classic Movies and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. It's good to know that there are still people trying to preserve silent films.

Oscar Nomination: Outstanding Picture 

Wings (1927-28)

In 2003, on the afternoon of the 75th Academy Awards, I went to the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax Avenue to see the film that is usually credited with winning the first Best Picture honors, Wings. In truth, you know that there were really two winners that first year of 1927-1928, and Wings was the one chosen for Outstanding Picture. I was thrilled to watch the movie for the first time back in 2003, and I can certainly see why it was a winner. It's got almost all of the elements that the Academy tends to love: epic in size and scope, action sequences that are relevant to the plot, somber dramatic moments and lighthearted sequences to balance the emotions, and even a romance or two thrown in for good measure. After watching several Best Picture winners, I can assure you that the formula seems to have been set from that very first year.

The plot begins in 1917 just before America’s entry into what we now call World War I. Two young men from the same town—one wealthy, the other middle class—are in love with the same woman and both join the military to fight in the war. Through a couple of misunderstandings, each young man thinks that he is the one that the girl truly loves. They become top fighter pilots during the war, and the film follows their adventures in France and their battles in the air. They also become friends…or perhaps more than that.

Jack Powell, played by boyishly handsome Buddy Rogers, carries as his good luck charm a locket with a picture of Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston). He never sees the inscription on the back of the photograph, which is written for David Armstrong, played by Richard Arlen. To further complicate matters, Jack's next-door neighbor Mary, played by Clara Bow, is in love with him and even follows him to Europe by becoming a driver for the Women's Motor Corps. Her attempts to make him fall in love with her are no more successful in Europe than they have been in the United States, sadly.

To be honest, though, the focus of the movie isn't about the romances. It's about the men's relationship with each other. This is a rather homoerotic film in many ways. Jack and David become good friends and seem to share in almost everything that happens after they leave their homes and the women. During basic training, these two are boxing and wrestling with each other, and their actions move quickly from one of jealousy to one of affection for each other. Jack even says, “Boy, you’re game!” to David after they've wrestled for a while; his statement is accompanied by a large grin and a hug. It becomes apparent that they develop a love for one another, and any subsequent "fighting" over Sylvia is merely an excuse for them to become and stay closer to each other. Just watch the many ways that David tries to return to Jack after he is shot down on the wrong side of the fighting, for example, and now how Jack becomes increasingly more reckless in his attempts to avenge David’s “death.” That would be strange behavior for someone who is allegedly your rival.

I know I may be about to spoil a key point in the plot here, but the movie is more than eighty years old, so here goes: When David lies dying in the remains of a house near the film’s end, Jack acts more like a grieving lover than he does a friend. Watch the way the two men hold each other and stroke each other's hair and face, and then tell me they're just good friends. If it weren’t a death scene, you’d easily note just how it’s shot in the same way that love scenes typically are done. They’re almost close enough to kiss each other at several moments during this last scene together. Well, they actually do kiss, but not on the mouth… but very close…

Eve Sedgwick, years ago, theorized that many of literature's great love triangles are really about the feelings that the two men in such a triangle have for each other. Wings is pretty clearly an example of that, but I'm sure that many people never quite realize it. It doesn't hurt my theory that Rogers was one of the most beautiful men in silent film. Arlen is handsome as well, but it's Rogers' Jack who must slowly help Arlen's David become more at ease, more comfortable with his "new life." David had always been somewhat sheltered by his parents; his good luck charm is a small teddy bear that his mother gave him, and he speaks of her several times while they are in Europe. There's a lot of antiquated beliefs here about masculinity, certainly, but they don't necessarily deflect attention from Jack and David's feelings for each other.

Of course, you don't have to accept my premise to find this film enjoyable (but I don't think it hurts either). The flying sequences are pretty spectacular for the time period. Some of the shots during battle must have taken a remarkable amount of planning to be executed so precisely. The mid-air collisions and the plane crashes are as thrilling as the dogfights between the Germans and the Americans. Even the sequences involving trench warfare and the bombing of a French village are very realistic. One of the most intriguing aspects of Wings is how the pilots are shot in close-up while they are flying. We get to see their faces when they feel victorious, and we even watch some of them die when their planes (and they) get shot. It makes their demise even more moving to watch it happen in close-up.

Wings was also the recipient of the first Oscar for visual effects, called Best Engineering Effects at the time, most likely for its battle scenes. However, even in smaller moments, the visual effects are exceptional. For example, while on leave in Paris, Jack becomes quite inebriated and thinks he sees champagne bubbles emerging from everywhere. In an extended sequence, bubbles come out of musical instruments and other random objects, even from Bow’s sparkly dress. (He’s too drunk and obsessed with bubbles to make love to Bow’s Mary. Make of that what you will.) It might not seem as impressive as realistically depicting the destruction of a French village or a mid-air collision between two planes, but it makes for a quite charming few moments on film and is another sign of the attention to detail that the filmmakers had.

Rogers and Arlen are both solid in their roles although Rogers is a bit more energetic than Arlen, who’s a bit less emotional. Bow is quite stunning to watch, and you can’t help but realize that she was very underrated as an actress. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s quite breathtakingly beautiful, and she makes a military uniform look sexier than it has a right to look. Even Gary Cooper, in the tiniest of roles as a doomed pilot, is eye-catching. He's so tall and thin and, really, beautiful. I think his character's death after only seconds on the screen is meant to show us just how precious our time with other people can be. El Brendel provides some great comic relief as Herman Schwimpf, a Danish draftee who has an American flag tattooed on his bicep. He takes great joy in showing others how he can make it “wave.” (However, even he realizes how much Jack misses David when everyone thinks David has died at the hands of the Germans.) One other notable performer is Julia Swayne Gordon as David’s mother, someone who clearly belongs to the “grand dame” school of acting. She’s emoting for those in the back of the theater even though she’s on camera. Some, like Rogers and Bow, were better suited for film acting while others, like Gordon, were still quite stage-bound in their acting.

All in all, this is solid entertainment and a good example of what the movie studios were capable of producing at the end of the silent era. The war scenes can be quite brutal; there are lots of deaths onscreen. The notion that all war films, by showing what wars are like, are by their very nature anti-war applies to Wings. The film’s director, William A. “Wild Bill” Wellman, even goes so far as to depict the German dead sympathetically. That had to be quite radical for a film released just a decade after the events that it depicts. It was also just one risk that the film took. Wellman and his crew mastered some amazing visual effects and corralled tons of extras to make an engrossing war movie.

Oscar Wins: Outstanding Picture and Best Engineering Effects