1935 - A Midsummer Night's Dream

Despite my lack of confidence, my Oscar predictions this year (20 correct out of 23 categories) turned out to be my best ever. (Well, I once correctly picked 21 categories, but that was when there were 24 categories total, so as a percentage, this year was better.) I'd like to say it was all skill, but in the end, it turns out all the favourites and slight favourites came out on top, so there really weren't any major surprises... (I mean, there was obviously one big surprise on the night, but that's not what I meant.) The two main categories that I missed (Picture and Original Screenplay) were also gettable, to be honest, but for whatever reason, I ignored the late rise of CODA and Belfast, respectively, and stuck to my guns with The Power of the Dog and Licorice Pizza. If I'd gone ahead and chosen the slight favourites in those two categories, then Animated Short would have been the sole mistake.

Now, here's the final nominee in 1935's Best Picture competition...


A Midsummer Night's Dream
Director:
William Dieterle, Max Reinhardt
Screenplay:
Charles Kenyon, Mary C. McCall, Jr.
(based on the play by William Shakespeare)
Starring:
James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Mickey Rooney, Dick Powell, Ross Alexander, Jean Muir, Victor Jory, Anita Louise
Academy Awards:
4 nominations
2 wins, including Cinematography

Shakespeare's enduring romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream follows four lovers (de Havilland, Powell, Alexander & Muir) as they succumb to the magic of hidden fairies in the forest. Under orders from King Oberon (Jory), mischievous sprite Puck (Rooney) uses an enchanted flower to cause the humans to fall in love with each other. Meanwhile, the fairy queen Titania (Louise) is bewitched into falling for a man named Bottom (Cagney) who has, in turn, had his head transformed into that of a donkey.

While Midsummer is arguably one of Shakespeare's most overdone plays (certainly his most overdone comedy), there's a reason it's been so popular among producers, both theatre and film alike. There are elements of magic and fantasy and slapstick and word play and romance, all rolled into one. And this production executes each of those elements very well, adding its own spin on a few things but in a way that matches the tone of the source material and doesn't feel out of place.

Clearly, the production's focus here was the fantasy side of things. They've pulled out all the stops to deliver some solid entertainment, cleverly adapting the story to include plenty of music and dance and magical special effects, which I'm sure were awe-inspiring at the time. In fact, while the myriad fantastical sequences are entertaining in their own right, they also shrewdly serve as a way to break up the dense Shakespearean dialogue. Indeed, the extravagant establishing scene of the forest is quite the  mesmerising spectacle, something stage versions of the play could only hope of achieving.

James Cagney is clearly having a ball as Bottom the Weaver and his cheerful enthusiasm is infectious. A teenaged Mickey Rooney plays Puck with such wild abandon that I can't decide whether the performance is brilliantly quirky or just embarrassingly over-the-top. In more than a couple of scenes, it almost seems like he's having a drug-induced trip. Also worth mentioning is rubber-faced comedian Joe E. Brown, who a couple of decades later would deliver possibly the most famous last line of any movie.

A Midsummer Night's Dream holds the unique distinction of being the only film to win a competitive Oscar in a category for which it wasn't even nominated. At the time, the Academy allowed write-in votes, so despite the film not receiving a nod for Hal Mohr's enchanting cinematography, it garnered enough support that it ended up taking home the trophy. The Academy changed its rules the following year.