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1936: The Great Ziegfeld

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Another somewhat fictionalized autobiographical film, this is a musical (rather long &emdash; three hours) chronicling the life of Florenz Ziegfeld from his start exhibiting the strongman Sandow in the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 to his very successful runs of extravagant musicals, Ziegfeld Follies, and his veentual death in 1932, just a few short years before this movie was produced.

He is depicted as a talented producer, alternating between wealth and near-bankruptcy, and as quite a ladies man, and his relationships with Anna Held and Billie Burke.

The film itself is mostly a display of many of his famous musical productions, which are quite impressive for the time. As I was watching it, I was struck by how lavish and over-the-top these productions were, and how they've been parodied ever since. For example, there's a number closing out the first half of the film which shows a slowly rotating spiraling staircase, with men in top hats standing on the stairs, and dozens of dancing women, which I suppose is now a bit of a trope and object of parody, but this may have been where it started.

All in all, very glamorous, but I found it somewhat boring as the focus is not the plot, but the musical productions. The second half with the intrigue of his breakup with Anna Held and his subsequent relationship with Billie Burke, and the failure of his shows during the Great Depression and his death add some plot and excitement and help bring the movie together.

1934: It Happened One Night

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This one might be the least flashy of the movies I've watched so far, but still quite entertaining. The basic plot is a romantic comedy, and follows the pampered daughter, Ellie, as she tries to escape from her father to be with her love, King, who her father does not approve of.

She escapes from their yacht in Miami, and attempts to head home to new York to be with King, which she does by taking a Greyhound, and evading his detectives on the way. At the beginning of her trip, she meets up with an out-of-work newspaper reporter, Peter, who helps her stay hidden in exchange for the story. They end up falling in love, antics and hardships occur, things almost fall apart, etc. etc.

This was the first movie to win all of the big 5 Academy Awards (Best Actor, Actress, Picture, Director, Screenplay), which is actually quite amazing given the conditions it was made under. It wasn't a huge budget film, and it was filmed in only a month as Claudette Colbert (Ellie) had a vacation planned. She also thought the movie was terrible, but a great chemistry between Claudette and Clark Gable (Peter) develops, and despite the limited budget, they do really well with what they have. Apparently it wasn't originally a huge critical success either.

There are parts that are hilariously funny (the mock old-married-couple-fight in the cottage, the hitchhiking scenes). Quite entertaining!

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Interestingly, a movie I watched just recently, Changeling, which takes place in 1934 mentions this film, and it was interestingly coincidental that this was the film zip.ca sent me next.

Next up is 1936's 3 hour musical, The Great Ziegfeld, which might stretch my attention span. :)

1932: Grand Hotel

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People coming, going. Nothing ever happens declares the doctor at the beginning of this film. But that wouldn't be much of a movie, would it?

This movie appears to have popularized two different things: one, the plot device of having several unrelated characters in one setting and exploring the antics that befall them, and two, having an ensemble all-star cast.

Apparently, they were quite successful at the time, having won an academy award and bringing in oodles of money, and have been replicated over and over, so it doesn't seem original to modern eyes (my personal favourite of the unrelated characters being brought together device is Magnolia...). And because I've never seen them before, it doesn't have the star power for me that it had then (but it stars Drew Barrymore's grandfather, John. Heh!) Because of this, this movie doesn't seem to hold up quite as well as the other films I've reviewed thus far.

There's nothing really negative to say about the movie. The actors all have good performances (although, in a very 30s way; I quite enjoyed Joan Crawford as the stenographer, and John Barrymore as The Baron), the plot is interesting enough not to be boring and not too predictable, and the music is typical for the time. I laughed at the appropriate times, but otherwise there wasn't a large emotional pull or excitement to really pull it together to make it fantastic.

This is the raciest film of the early Academy Awards I've seen to date, and probably on the last for quite a while, as not long after Hollywood adopted the The Motion Picture Production Code, a set of self-imposed censorship guidelines, apparently to dodge government censorship. There's drunkenness, glamorization of gambling and thievery, lewdness, and suggestions of adultery, and these themes won't be seen much until the 60s, when the code is dropped in favour of the MPAA rating system.

So, summarized: good film, but wouldn't suggest going out of one's way to see it.

As part of both my 1001 in 101 days project, and to become more familiar with older cinema, I've taken it upon myself to watch all the Best Picture Academy Award winning films, starting with the oldest. There's a couple not available, but I got my first one last week, which I just watched last night.

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1931: Cimarron
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In general, I didn't find Cimarron to be gripping or exciting, but it was certainly interesting, especially seeing the late 1800s through 1930 eyes through my 2009 eyes. Apparently it was quite the high budget film for the time ($1.5M!)

The story roughly chronicles one family through the development of Oklahoma. It opens in 1889 with Yancey Cravat trying to stake a claim during the first Land Rush, but he is not successful, and returns back to Wichita where his wife Sabra, and his young son, Cim are waiting with her family. Sabra comes from a well-to-do family[1] who are quite resistant to the idea of Sabra going out to such uncivilized areas. Yancey's background isn't explored much, but he's portrayed as an extremely charismatic character, with a severe case of wanderlust, and a lawyer background.

They shortly move to an up-and-coming boomtown (Osage, said to have a population of 10,000 already) and he sets up a newspaper, and they seem to make a reasonably good go of it.

There's a bit of traditional western shooting it up, as there's some unsavory elements in the town.

What makes the film more interesting is the exploration of their lives it goes from there: Sabra is shown to be conservative, a bit racist, and very image conscious, and she gains status with other well-to-do women in the town (Mrs. Wyatt in particular is a hilarious stereotype of the snooty woman[2]). Yancey however, afflicted by his wanderlust, runs off to participate in the 1893 land rush, leaving her and his now two children behind, and is not seen for several years.

( Generalities about the rest of the film here, slightly spoilerish )

So, there was definitely more to the film than I expected out of a Western, and it's definitely interesting to see how filmmaking has changed (there were short flavor scenes included that in a modern movie I'm sure would have been left on the cutting room floor), and even more, the change in attitudes. When this film was made, the land rushes were still recent memory, and the themes of racism I imagine were quite pervasive...

[1] There's a scene shown in her parents house, where they have a... ceiling fan. It's shown to be a young black boy servant, with stereo-typical grammar and mannerisms, on a small bench suspended from the ceiling, waving something like a palm leaf. It was so unexpected my brain asploded a little.
[2] In one scene, Mrs Wyatt is talking to a man who has just bought himself a new automobile, and she invites herself for a ride.
Mrs. Wyatt: "Is this a three cylinder?"
Man: "(slightly sheepish) No, it's a two cylinder."
Mrs. Wyatt: "Oh, I've just ordered a four-cylinder, myself."