The 7th Academy Awards Assessed (1935)

Besides two deviations in the COVID era, the Academy Awards became a strictly calendar year evaluation with the 7th iteration, hosted by Irvin S. Cobb on February 27, 1935. Well, mostly; I’ll get to that in some applicable circumstances in specific categories. In any event, this recognition of the best films of 1934 ended up having a lot of significant firsts and developments. Most notably, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT swept the top five awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. This feat has only been accomplished again by ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975) and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991). Ultimately, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT would end up the most winningest film at the 7th Academy Awards, with those five wins. ONE NIGHT OF LOVE was the most nominated, however, with six nominations.

The Academy also bolstered the amount of categories from 13 to 16 by adding Best Film Editing, Best Score, and Best Song. Write-ins were allowed due to the outcry that Bette Davis wasn’t nominated for her performance in OF HUMAN BONDAGE. In spite of this “controversy,” Davis of course didn’t win the award; Claudette Colbert did for IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. The 7th Academy Awards also featured the first Juvenile Award, a special category awarded intermittently over the first few decades of the ceremony’s life. It was given to Shirley Temple, who had taken the nation by storm in 1934 with a series of films that I see as representative of the turning point of Hollywood into the Hays Code era. The “Pre-Code” allowances ended in the middle of 1934, as the limply enforced rules inaugurated a few years earlier were now rigorously being applied in reaction to scandals, mostly from religious groups. It changed the whole arc of Hollywood film, but that’s perhaps a subject for another piece.

As for snubs: foreign films were still not quite on the table. At the 6th Academy Awards, British film THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1933) was nominated for a number of awards. And a short at the 7th also came from England. But foreign languages were still seemingly not under consideration. Two of my 1934 favorites, LES MISÉRABLES and ANGÈLE, are French. But in a different Hollywood vein, the seedy films HEAT LIGHTNING and SCARLET EMPRESS also went unrecognized in any way (although I definitely wouldn’t expect it for the grittier former).

As always, this exercise isn’t to relitigate something that ultimately doesn’t quite matter. There were many more great films than what was nominated here, American or otherwise. And there certainly isn’t any true regret or disappointment that a group of Hollywood figures from many decades ago didn’t pick something I like more, which still holds true for contemporary awards ceremonies. But it’s a fun journey and thought experiment to reflect on what the industry felt it should self-congratulate at the time, especially since many of these nominated and winning films have fallen out of the film history spotlight. In any event, I’ll rank the films in each category from top to bottom, bolding my “what should have won” choice and marking the actual winner with a * and lost films/films that are not easy or possible to track down with a ~, removing the latter from consideration.

Best Picture

• IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT*
• THE GAY DIVORCEE
• CLEOPATRA
• IMITATION OF LIFE
• THE THIN MAN
• VIVA VILLA!
• FLIRTATION WALK
• THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET
• THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD
• ONE NIGHT OF LOVE
• HERE COMES THE NAVY
• THE WHITE PARADE~

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT happens to be my second favorite film of 1934, and my favorite American one, so I actually happen to be in complete agreement with its success at the Academy Awards, not just within the scope of reality’s nominees. The romantic comedy that set the template for so many more to come deserves its reputation as an incisive Depression-era exploration of duty and freedom. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT comes at the top of a pack of Best Picture picks that are nearly as much good as they are not. THE GAY DIVORCEE, the second pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, is actually a close second, as it nearly cracked my top five for the year. It is heightened musical comedy with a touch of compelling emotion, driven home by great songs and production design (more on those topics in a bit). CLEOPATRA is a great example of Cecil B. DeMille’s showmanship, a delirious bit of mythmaking full of incredible images, both sexy and grotesque. This IMITATION OF LIFE isn’t as well known as its 1959 remake and perhaps it’s a bit more restrained than Douglas Sirk had it. But its attempt to tell a story about race, one that is not without its problematic elements, but also one with positive portrayals of Black women, is impressive. Between this, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, and CLEOPATRA, Colbert starred in three Best Picture nominees. Big year for her! On to THE THIN MAN: I am not quite as taken in by the seminal mystery-comedy as many others. William Powell and Myrna Loy are indeed a dynamic duo, but something about how the story unfolds doesn’t quite take hold of me, which is a statement relative to the effusive praise the film receives, to be sure. VIVA VILLA! is a good piece of classical Hollywood mythmaking. It doesn’t really matter that it’s not historically accurate because the heart of the story is how mythmaking overtakes the real thing. Now here’s where things get dicey: FLIRTATION WALK. This Warner Bros./Dick Powell/Ruby Keeler musical is typical of those of this era. It starts out promisingly enough with a beautiful Hawaii-based number and typically accentuating shadows from director Frank Borzage, but then it devolves into military farce with lackluster final songs. THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET would be the usual ineffectual attempted adaptation fare if it wasn’t for Charles Laughton’s truly threatening presence, but that performance also cuts two ways, making the sheer villainy so cartoonish it’s hard to take seriously. THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD attempts to build genuine sympathy for its banking family through criticism of anti-Semitism. The latter aim is laudable for its time but the former is too ridiculous for anyone but those terribly in service to aspirational wealth and capitalistic dream stories. ONE NIGHT OF LOVE is a stodgy musical focused squarely on Grace Moore’s operatic voice, a style I just can’t bring myself to appreciate, in a story full of eye-rolling melodrama. While I haven’t liked a number of these films, I somewhat understand why they were nominated by the Academy at the time. But HERE COMES THE NAVY, a pretty rote military comedy featuring James Cagney, is an especially puzzling pick. Perhaps it’s because I simply find it not very funny. Finally, THE WHITE PARADE, a nurse drama starring Loretta Young, has to be excluded from my evaluations, as it only sits in the UCLA film archive, apparently in pretty rough shape. You’ll notice the amount of nominees for every category fluctuate a bit, but the 12 for Best Picture certainly overwhelm!

Best Director

• Frank Capra — IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT*
• W.S. Van Dyke — THE THIN MAN
• Victor Schertzinger — ONE NIGHT OF LOVE

It wasn’t quite a sure thing up to this point, but as is now expected from the Academy Awards, all of the Best Director nominees helmed Best Picture nominees. Frank Capra’s win for IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT is deserved, as he shaped the romantic/screwball comedy into something extremely satisfying, providing humor and heart in equal measure to maximum Hollywood artifice. As mentioned, THE THIN MAN doesn’t totally do it for me, but I’ve started to come around on how many diverse and generally good movies W.S. “Woody” Van Dyke directed. His journeyman talents are applied admirably to the suave and dizzying tone of THE THIN MAN. Finally, while the stodginess of ONE NIGHT LOVE is especially concentrated in its music and specific plot progression, the general look and tone of it isn’t exactly electrifying. Victor Schertzinger pulls out some interesting framings and sequences here and there, but his direction is reflected in the weak final product.

Best Actor

• Clark Gable — IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT*
• William Powell — THE THIN MAN
• Frank Morgan — THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI

In IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, the transformation of Clark Gable’s typically self-serving reporter to earnest lover is developed so wonderfully. It’s not that it’s exactly subtle; you see the exact moment where his character has the revelation of his love for Colbert. But the shading leading up to it, and indeed after in the dramatic conclusion, feels genuine. By contrast, William Powell’s Nick Charles isn’t as rich, but Powell plays a wisecracking and slick detective so well, as he had many times before and would continue to do. Frank Morgan’s part in THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI, a Fredric March-led historic swashbuckler, feels totally slight in comparison to either of his peers. As a totally oblivious duke, Morgan gets some laughs, but he’s not nearly as funny as Powell or Gable and certainly not given as much opportunity to stretch a bit within the role. It’s a bit of a deviation that all actor nominees for this year were in essentially comic parts!

Best Actress

• Claudette Colbert — IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT*
• Bette Davis — OF HUMAN BONDAGE
• Norma Shearer — THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET
• Grace Moore — ONE NIGHT OF LOVE

Where Gable’s somewhat rudderless report learns to have an anchor in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, Colbert’s socialite yearns to break free from what is expected of her and find comfort in more modest environs. Like Gable, she communicates that transformation beautifully, and perhaps with more subtlety than he. Bette Davis in OF HUMAN BONDAGE is a distant second. It’s not that she’s not technically good in the part of a deteriorating and cold woman, but the film itself isn’t exactly good. Its themes and message are woefully overplayed and its support of Leslie Howard’s questionable actions are questionable. But sure, Davis’ famed monologue is thrilling to watch. It just can’t have quite the intended effect as it doesn’t fit into a really compelling emotional arc. As for Norma Shearer in THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET and Moore in ONE NIGHT OF LOVE, both give much more static performances. Shearer quite literally does as a shut-in, but this career transition point of sorts, where she would play more refined figures throughout historical periods, is a lapse from the more eccentric roles of the early sound era. When Moore isn’t singing in ONE NIGHT OF LOVE, she’s not glaringly bad. But she certainly isn’t truly compelling to watch, and to an even more extreme degree than Davis, her part in a generally poor movie makes it even lesser.

Best Original Story

• HIDE-OUT — Mauri Grashin
• THE RICHEST GIRL IN THE WORLD — Norman Krasna
• MANHATTAN MELODRAMA — Arthur Caesar*

HIDE-OUT totally surprised me. What starts out as a so-so story of a gangster fleeing the city for a countryside, well, hide-out becomes a heartfelt, tender, and nuanced romance between Robert Montgomery and “farmer’s daughter” Maureen O’Sullivan. The progression of developments is wisely plotted, intriguing, and at times enrapturing. This is another great example of how Van Dyke has curried more of my favor, even if HIDE-OUT isn’t a truly great film. Its competitors in this category are in a similar class. The mistaken identity romantic comedy THE RICHEST GIRL IN THE WORLD is as fun as it is to watch because of the great interplay between Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea and the dialogue they’re given. Hopkins and McCrea’s chemistry is also sexy in its restrained way, but it doesn’t necessarily cohere into the most remarkably moving picture. MANHATTAN MELODRAMA has a bit more of a poignant point to make and I appreciate the gall it has to stick to a not-so-happy ending. But its weakest moments are solidly in the tropes of the titular genre, making its twists and turns less earned in spite of the well-portrayed relationships between William Powell, Clark Gable, and Myrna Loy. And it’s another Van Dyke film; the guy was prolific and the films he helmed were feted like crazy in 1934!

Best Adaptation

• IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT — Robert Riskin*
• THE THIN MAN — Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
• VIVA VILLA! — Ben Hecht

The beautiful thing about IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT is every facet of it coheres into a incredibly moving film. But you have to give the atta boy to Robert Riskin for providing the written framework for its greatness. As usual, my evaluation of Best Adaptation is not the film that best adapted its source material (in this case the short story “Night Bus” [1933] by Samuel Hopkins Adams), but the best writing that happens to be an adaptation. There are so many wonderfully funny lines and recurring motifs (like the walls of Jericho business), and while one shouldn’t necessarily praise “the screenplay” through the lens of the finished product, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT’s is undoubtedly as strong as can be. In spite of my relatively minimal reservations about THE THIN MAN, it too has streams of clever dialogue and a mystery that is resolved satisfyingly. VIVA VILLA! benefits from Ben Hecht’s clever pen (er, typewriter?), which oversimplifies the revolutionary’s story as much as it evocatively expands the spirit of the stories Pancho Villa himself told.

Best Live Action Short Subject, Comedy

• MEN IN BLACK
• LA CUCARACHA*
• WHAT, NO MEN!~

While MEN IN BLACK isn’t the best Three Stooges short of 1934, it nearly is. Its medical setting allows for many morbid gags, even if their pacing and the space between them sometimes feels a bit awkward. MEN IN BLACK is certainly funnier than LA CUCARACHA, although it has tremendous novelty value as one of the first live action uses of three-strip Technicolor. It looks a little more like two-strip in its existing form, but it’s pretty to look at at times. LA CUCARACHA isn’t exactly a comedy, though, and more of a musical exhibition. WHAT, NO MEN! was apparently another Technicolor comedy, but it doesn’t seem to be accessible anywhere online.

Best Live Action Short Subject, Novelty

• CITY OF WAX*
• STRIKES AND SPARES
• BOSOM FRIENDS~

The distinction between the Novelty and Comedy short categories are a bit blurred. A film like CITY OF WAX falls more squarely into former interpretation. This nature documentary uses semi-micro-cinematography to examine a beehive. It’s pretty cool stuff even if it sets me on edge a bit. CITY OF WAX is certainly more educational than the comedic exhibition of trick bowler Andy Varipapa that is STRIKES AND SPARES. STRIKES AND SPARES is narrated by Pete Smith in his trademark snarky way; even if you don’t know who Smith is, you’ve probably experienced something that was either directly inspired by his campy delivery or unwittingly tapped into its pop culture wavelength. BOSOM FRIENDS is another “missing” short (although it does survive in the Academy’s archive), apparently showcasing various animals doing funny things.

Best Short Subject, Cartoon

• THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE*
• JOLLY LITTLE ELVES
• HOLIDAY LAND

THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE is one example of how the 1934 calendar year eligibility seemed to have been stretched a bit. This Disney Silly Symphony was released in January 1935, but perhaps there’s some unreliability in that date or was screened somewhere previously. Regardless, it’s a great installment in Disney’s groundbreaking series. Because it was featured in a picture book adaptation using still images of a number of the cartoons which I had as a child, it is almost impossible for me to separate an adjacent form of nostalgia from any viewing of THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE. But even evaluated in its own right, it showcases a growing proficiency in defining characters and playing with the “camera angle” of two-dimensional drawings. The two other nominees in this category are nowhere near as good as THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE or even many other cartoons of 1934, but they reflect the new recognition of color film technology. JOLLY LITTLE ELVES is an installment of Walter Lantz/Universal’s Cartune Classics series, which at this point were using two-strip Technicolor rather than the three-strip of Disney’s cartoons. Its character designs are uncanny and the movement is relatively fluid; certainly a step up from Universal’s contemporary Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts. HOLIDAY LAND was the first Color Rhapsody cartoon for Columbia and features Scrappy, the star of the studio’s other animated series. It features a nexus of realms based on various holidays, foreshadowing the concept of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993). HOLIDAY LAND is generally pretty cute but doesn’t really cash in on its high-concept premise.

Best Scoring

• THE GAY DIVORCEE
• THE LOST PATROL
• ONE NIGHT OF LOVE*

The need for a Best Scoring category at the 7th Academy Awards in 1935 reflects the change in approach to film audio as the earliest days of the sound era wore away. KING KONG (1933) was not the first film to have a dedicated thematic score, as opposed to diegetic (in-universe) music, but it broke new ground with Max Steiner’s incredible and pervasive compositions that augmented the adventure of the movie. The sudden popularity of the musical, after the genre apparently died off in the wake of the first year or two of the “talkies,” also changed the tenor of sound in film. In any event, THE GAY DIVORCEE is the clear winner, with a score that fittingly accompanies the whimsical and humorous romance of Astaire and Rogers. THE LOST PATROL is kind of a dark horse pick, but I appreciate its recognition in this category. John Ford’s great exploration of militaristic paranoia and the flimsiness of men’s minds is indeed augmented by its Steiner score. As has already been mentioned, ONE NIGHT OF LOVE is lackluster in essentially every category. However, the sweeping sound of its instrumentation is not outright disappointing, just its deployment for weak drama.

Best Song

• “The Continental” — THE GAY DIVORCEE*
• “Carioca” — FLYING DOWN TO RIO
• “Love in Bloom” — SHE LOVES ME NOT

“The Continental” essentially became an instant standard after appearing in THE GAY DIVORCEE. And for good reason. It’s an incredibly catchy song and the use of it in the big concluding number is absolutely dizzying. “Carioca” also became a big hit from its origin in FLYING DOWN TO RIO, the first introduction of Astaire and Rogers together. This is another stretch of “1934 film;” it premiered in New York in December 1933 but it must have gone wide in the early months of 1934. Anyways, “Carioca’s” Latin inspirations are energetic and moving, if slightly less immediately catchy than “The Continental.” But “Love in Bloom,” from the strange and disappointing Bing Crosby comedy (Miriam Hopkins in drag should have been played to greater effect!), is the clear loser here. I can’t even recall how it goes right now and I watched the movie not too long ago. I can remember it’s a traditional pop ballad with no staying power, though.

Best Sound Recording

• THE GAY DIVORCEE
• CLEOPATRA
• FLIRTATION WALK
• VIVA VILLA!
• ONE NIGHT OF LOVE*
• IMITATION OF LIFE
• THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI
• THE WHITE PARADE~

I’m not always sure how to evaluate this category. To be sure, there was a greater disparity of audio fidelity even at this point of sound film technology, although that could also be chalked up to the varying print qualities of the movies online and elsewhere. But I can safely say that the sound of THE GAY DIVORCEE is intoxicating and lush, of course afforded by Steiner’s reliably great contributions. From there on down, the criteria is basically this pairing: the appeal of the intended sounds (including spoken dialogue) and how faithfully it seems to be captured. CLEOPATRA has a lot of soaring musical moments and cacophonous crowd scenes, but they’re all legible. FLIRTATION WALK, as a musical, fittingly has attention paid to its sound. As with CLEOPATRA, its ability to effectively capture many voices on top of score and songs is laudable, especially in the beautiful first number as described above. VIVA VILLA!’s weaving of, again, crowd scenes but also firearms and other sound effects create a relatively powerful wall of sound. ONE NIGHT OF LOVE in the middle of the pack may betray my bias against the film as a whole, because not only did it win in this category, it also received a special scientific award for its innovation of vertical cut recording. As opposed to horizontal cut, this smooths out peaks and valleys and essentially creates a rounded out sound. I don’t really hear the distinction, as I’m not an audiophile, so Moore’s kind of irksome voice isn’t rendered suddenly beautiful for me with ONE NIGHT OF LOVE. IMITATION OF LIFE and THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI don’t have remarkable displays of skillful sound recording in my view, even if they’re good to OK movies as mentioned earlier. Also as mentioned earlier, THE WHITE PARADE is not viewable unless I travel to Los Angeles and set up an appointment at the UCLA film archive. Something strange about this category is how many nominees it has; everything but Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Sound Recording have only three.

Best Art Direction

• THE GAY DIVORCEE
• THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI
• THE MERRY WIDOW*

There are many more 1934 American films with more stunning production design than those nominated here. THE GAY DIVORCEE is legitimately in that conversation, however. Its scale and otherworldly recreation of a oceanside hotel befits its heightened romance (both in terms of the literal human connection and its sound and choreography). The other two nominees have interesting aesthetics in moments but don’t come close to crafting the same kind of intoxicating artifice. THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI often has pretty rote period designs, especially in the quarters of the royalty, but two key locations offer distinct looks. Cellini’s (Fredric March’s) home has a strange multiple level structure and the architecture weaves between them with a strange oblong shape. And the dungeons in which Cellini finds himself are totally morbid, which complicates the darker humor of the scene. Of course, an Ernst Lubitsch film like THE MERRY WIDOW has lush aristocratic settings and they are generally gorgeous, but almost in a too technical or sterile way. The movie itself doesn’t feel like that, but perhaps I’m just a bit tired of the “ultimate palace” aesthetic.

Best Cinematography

• CLEOPATRA — Victor Milner*
• THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI — Charles Rosher
• OPERATOR 13 — George J. Folsey

CLEOPATRA should have also been nominated for Best Art Direction because of its intricate and mammoth sets, but the recognition for its cinematography is also deserved generally and especially in this set of nominees. Victor Milner’s play with light and shadows accentuate both the film’s seediest and most grandiose moments. As with the nod to it for Best Art Direction, I find that THE AFFAIRS OF CELLINI’s cinematography isn’t superbly notable. But as was the case with that category, I have to give some extra credit in the dungeon scene, with flames casting shadows every which way. OPERATOR 13 is a pretty despicable film; Marion Davies is in blackface for much of the runtime as a Union spy during the Civil War. But even evaluating just its cinematography, it’s not anything incredibly special, beyond a few nighttime scenes depicting the horizon, stars, and pastoral sets with impressive depth.

Best Film Editing

• ESKIMO — Conrad A. Nervig*
• CLEOPATRA — Anne Bauchens
• ONE NIGHT OF LOVE — Gene Milford

Best Film Editing was one of the 7th Academy Awards’ three new categories and it was about time. As many have theorized and illustrated, editing is essentially filmmaking. In this case, ESKIMO just barely edges out CLEOPATRA. ESKIMO (another case of a film premiering in New York, this time in November 1933, but releasing wide in 1934) uses impressive montages and well-timed intertitles to translate the Inupiat language of its (mostly) native stars. In general, it’s notable that a major Hollywood film, and from MGM no less, committed to such “authenticity.” On the other hand, the dissolves, transitions, cross-cutting, and more of DeMille’s epic CLEOPATRA contribute to its tremendous sense of scale. I suppose I’ll have to reiterate one last time that I didn’t find any particular element of ONE NIGHT OF LOVE impressive and the same could be said for its editing, which serves its purpose in the classical Hollywood mode.

Best Assistant Director

• Cullen Tate — CLEOPATRA
• John S. Waters — VIVA VILLA!*
• Scott Beal — IMITATION OF LIFE

Thankfully, the 7th Academy Awards recognized much fewer individuals for Best Assistant Director than the 6th and also specified the project for which they should be lauded. The role of an assistant director can kind of vary and I don’t have much knowledge about any of the men nominated here, but I can appreciate that wrangling the scale of CLEOPATRA would be no small task. Cullen Tate’s apparent skill in doing so is above John S. Waters and VIVA VILLA!, but the arrangement of huge scenes full of extras and lots of action is also praiseworthy. I don’t quite know how to interpret Scott Beal’s contributions to IMITATION OF LIFE. But if there was any element to coaxing out the blocking and performances of its stars, then he assisted quite well, if not as obviously as the other nominees.

While I agree with the Academy of 1935 that IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT should have been the winningest film of the night with five awards, I don’t neatly align with them on every category. Indeed, I agreed with the winning choice ten out of 16 times. That reflects, I think, the assortment of not-so-good nominees, a common charge that has been leveled against this process and group ever since the beginning. The 7th Academy Awards is no different.