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.

Oscar Winner Predictions 2021

My nomination predictions this year didn't turn out to be my best performance. In fact, it was probably one of my worst in recent memory. And to be honest, predicting the winners is going to be just as complicated. There are a lot of categories this year without a clear frontrunner. Many have slight favourites, but many more are up in the air. I'm most confident about Jane Campion becoming the third woman to win Best Director and Will Smith taking home his first Oscar, and maybe there are a couple of other sure things (or close to it), but other than that, I'll just have to hope that my educated guesses are enough.

Best Picture, which has often been my Achilles' heel recently, is once again a tough nut to crack. The Power of the Dog seemed like the frontrunner for most of the season, even if it was only a slight advantage, but CODA is now coming home strong, so could pip Dog at the post. I'm genuinely torn between the two, but I've selected The Power of the Dog without confidence. You can check out all my picks here.

Oscar Nomination Predictions 2021

Here we are once again, awaiting the announcement of the coveted Oscar nominations. It's hard to believe it's been a whole year since the last one, but that's probably because it hasn't been. The elongated 2020 season has accordingly created a slightly abbreviated 2021 season. But there was still plenty of time for filmmakers to release some entertaining and award-worthy movies.

I've still got a lot to catch up on, but my favourites so far include Being the Ricardos, CODA and Tick, Tick... Boom, all three of which could quite reasonably see their names on the Best Picture contenders list (and potentially several other categories) come Tuesday. Another film I really enjoyed this season is The Harder They Fall, though I expect that may struggle to get nominated for anything. Its best shot is Best Original Song, but even I haven't predicted it securing that nod.

Dune and The Power of the Dog are poised to be the nomination leaders and my predictions reflect that. West Side Story and Belfast will likely see a strong showing, too. As for the rest of my guesses, we'll see how it all pans out. If you're interested in assessing my powers of Oscar prognostication, here are my nomination predictions for the 94th Academy Awards.

Before I sign off, though, here's something to look out for when the nominees are announced in a little over 24 hours. For the last two years running, one of the Best International Feature (formerly Best Foreign Language Film) nominees has also found itself on the Best Documentary Feature shortlist - Honeyland in 2019 and Collective in 2020. Surprisingly, it had never happened prior to that, and perhaps even more surprisingly, it's likely to happen for a third year in a row, thanks to Denmark's Flee. And although I've only pegged it for those two nominations, there's a decent chance it'll pull a third citation for Best Animated Feature, which would make it the first film to receive nods in all three of those categories. Never thought I'd get this excited about a Danish animated documentary, but that's the effect the Oscars have on me, I guess.

1935 - The Informer

Happy New Year! Awards season is beginning to ramp up and there are a lot of exciting titles in the running, barely any of which I've seen as yet. I did get the chance to watch Encanto with my family the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it. No doubt we'll be hearing its name mentioned when the Best Animated Film nominations are announced. And with new films from Oscar-bait directors Anderson, Branagh, Campion, McKay, Scott and Spielberg, among many others, I'm looking forward to potentially adding some new favourites to my all-time list.

For now, let's begin the new year with one more of 1935's Best Picture contenders...


The Informer
Director:
John Ford
Screenplay:
Dudley Nichols

(based on the novel by Liam O'Flaherty)
Starring:
Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster, Margot Grahame, Wallace Ford, Una O'Connor
Academy Awards:
6 nominations
4 wins, including Best Director and Best Actor (McLaglen)

It's 1922 in Dublin during the Irish War of Independence and Irish outcast Gypo Nolan (McLaglen) wanders the streets in a melancholy state. He stumbles across a poster offering a £20 reward for the capture of one of his old friends, Frankie McPhillip (Ford), with whom he fought against the British. Gypo's girlfriend, Katie (Grahame), dreams of escaping her troubled life in Ireland, but moving to America doesn't come cheap. In fact, rather coincidentally, two tickets to America cost exactly £20. No points for guessing what happens next.

The Informer is a keen study in guilt, specifically the behaviour of a reluctant snitch. Director John Ford knows how to create tension and he expertly conveys the anxiety Gypo feels. Taking place over the course of a single evening, the story moves at a slow and very suspenseful pace. Joseph H. August's photography is stunning, a fine example of film noir cinematography, despite the film not really falling into the film noir genre. The moody lighting streaking across the fog, along with some superb shot composition, makes for some captivating visuals.

The performances from most of the cast are perhaps more melodramatic than average for this era - and I'm not just talking about the atrocious Irish accents. Nonetheless, despite McLaglen's overacting, he ended up winning the Best Actor Oscar. If I had the vote, I undoubtedly would have voted for any of the three nominees from Mutiny on the Bounty over McLaglen. I wonder if those three did in fact split the vote, allowing McLaglen to slip through. Then again, overacting wasn't as distasteful back then, so maybe the majority of Academy voters genuinely appreciated McLaglen's performance. For my money, Preston Foster (pictured) was the standout. Maybe he was aided by a more stoic character but he seemed to be less melodramatic than the rest.

The film garnered six nominations, though not for cinematography, sadly. Its main rival was Mutiny on the Bounty, which happened to be nominated in exactly the same six categories. The Informer was the big winner on Oscar night, taking home four awards, the most of any film that year. But Mutiny on the Bounty had the last laugh by taking out Best Picture.

1935 - The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

The Emmys, television's equivalent to the Oscars, begins voting today to select its nominees. One of the perks of all the (tiny) parts I played on American TV shows over the last few years is that I got to join the Television Academy, allowing me to vote in the Emmys. And oof, I thought it was difficult finding time to watch movies. The sheer volume of Emmy-eligible content is entirely overwhelming. It would be literally impossible to watch every episode of every show vying for a nomination, so if you have any recommendations of shows that I absolutely shouldn't miss, please help me whittle down my shortlist.

Meanwhile, here's another picture in contention for the 1935 Best Picture Oscar...

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
Director:
Henry Hathaway
Screenplay:
Waldemar Young, John L. Balderston, Achmed Abdullah, Grover Jones, William Slavens McNutt

(suggested by the novel by Francis Yeats-Brown)
Starring:
Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell, Guy Standing, C. Aubrey Smith, Kathleen Burke, Douglass Dumbrille
Academy Awards:
7 nominations
1 win, for Best Assistant Director

The recalcitrant Lieutenant McGregor (Cooper) is serving in British India with the Bengal Lancers, soon joined by newcomers Lieutenants Forsythe (Tone) and Stone (Cromwell), the latter being the son of the unit's colonel (Standing). The Lancers are attempting to prevent a potential incursion led by Mohammed Khan (Dumbrille), but their individual loyalties to the regiment are tested at every turn.

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is often classified as a war movie yet, in truth, it doesn't feature a lot of actual war. There's really only one battle scene, appearing right at the end of the film, though it's so spectacularly staged, including some impressive stunt work, that it makes up for the prior lack of thrilling combat. That said, there's plenty of adventure and drama, so it certainly remains a gripping yarn, if a little clichéd at times, exploring the conflict between military loyalty and individual morality. There are several sequences involving subordinates disobeying orders in an attempt to save their fellow soldiers from doom. Indeed, one of the main relationships in the story, that of the stereotypical military dad who doesn't know how to show emotion and his largely incompetent son who just wants to make his dad proud, is representative of the struggle between military discipline and humanity.

This film also lays claim to being the genesis of the "we have ways of making you talk" trope, often spoken by a villain excited by the thought of torturing the hero. The original line here is actually "We have ways to make men talk" and it's a testament to the excellent (and Oscar-nominated, by the way) script. Despite some of the situations and characters feeling a bit trite, the dialogue is top-notch. Subtext abounds and expository speeches are avoided, and I'm a sucker for a script that doesn't spell everything out all the time, so this was right up my alley.

I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately, but the entire cast is impressive. Perhaps I'm harbouring a latent prejudice that old movies must necessarily contain over-the-top acting so it's always a surprise when they don't. I mean, to be fair, these films obviously can't compare to the naturalism of modern acting, but it's never quite as terrible as I imagine it's going to be. Either that or I'm just getting used to the ham. In any case, the ensemble here is genuinely pleasant to watch, with Franchot Tone being the standout, in my opinion. He supplies most of the comic relief for the film, but it's all an understated tongue-in-cheek humour and not at all slapsticky. Sadly, though, none of the cast were nominated for Oscars. Of the picture's seven nominations, it only walked away with one award, namely Best Assistant Director.