Oscar Musicals from the 1930s
16 Musicals Received Nominations for Best Picture - Two Won
The Academy Awards chose two musicals in the 1930s as best picture. One has not aged well, but is still interesting. The other has survived mainly because of its acting.
Depression era movies provided a variety of entertainment. In the early 1930s, gangster films were popular and, later in the decade, biopics. But, perhaps the most popular genre was the musical which provided audiences an escape from the reality of those days. Among them, two were declared best picture.
The First Musical Winning Oscar as Best Picture
The Broadway Melody. This M-G-M film topped the box office in 1929 and was honored with an Oscar the following year for best picture. Today, the film is a curiosity piece, albeit an interesting one for movie buffs and for those wanting to see how far movies have progressed.
Its story of two sisters (Bessie Love, Anita Page) trying to make it big on Broadway is actually a melodrama which, along with their theatrical aspirations, involves a “quadrangle" romance between the siblings and two men. Like most musicals from that period and unlike the 1960s, there is little actual singing and dancing. When there is, it is mediocre at best.
The movie has not aged well, but it does have some good features. Although the male leads were not noteworthy and Love and Page were not very good singers, the two women were attractive, perky, and capable actresses. There are also two memorable songs: "You Were Meant for Me" and the title song.
As was typical during the transition from silent to talkie, the camera work is often static and sound quality is poor, but there is one innovative scene where the camera and microphone follow Love and her partner across a dance floor. The pre-Code era in which the film was made also allowed for some “scandalous” scenes. There are scantily clad women, hints of homosexuality (albeit stereotypical ones), and sexual innuendoes such as “Those guys aren’t gonna pay 10 bucks to look at your face."
Bessie Love and director Harry Beaumont also received nominations, but did not win.
The Man Who Helped Create Broadway
The Great Zeigfeld. This 1936 film is actually a biopic of legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld (1867-1932), but has enough singing and dancing to classify it as a musical also. It is worth watching today primarily for two fine performances.
Ziegfeld was a complex man who over the course of his life made several fortunes in the theater and also lost several, largely because of womanizing, bad investments, and gambling. Along the way, he created the famous Ziegfeld Follies and staged early Broadway musicals. He also brought attention to future stars such as humorist Will Rogers, comedian W. C. Fields, dancer Ray Bolger, and entertainer Fanny Brice.
William Powell and Luise Rainer as the producer and his common law wife, Anna Held, are the two main reasons for watching the film. Powell, who resembled the real Ziegfeld, was a highly talented actor who was able to make the audience accept both the good and bad sides of his character. Rainer with little actual screen time makes good use of it, most notably when she phones Powell to congratulate him on his upcoming marriage. It is a poignant scene that has rarely been matched.
There are other reasons for viewing as well. The production numbers border on the spectacular, there are some good songs (“A Pretty Girl Is like a Melody”) and the viewer is treated to an excellent dance number by Ray Bolger. Fanny Brice also makes an appearance.
The movie does have flaws. It lasts nearly three hours and seems longer. Part of this is due to the production numbers, which despite their excellence, often drag on longer than necessary. Also, Myrna Loy is miscast as Ziegfeld’s “second” wife, Billie Burke. Despite her many excellent performances during her career, Loy is just not a convincing Burke. Part of this may be due to the fact that the real Burke’s persona is often associated today with Glinda, the good witch, in The Wizard of Oz.
Ziegfeld won two other Oscars: best dance direction; and best actress went to Rainer, her first of back-to-back Oscars. Powell also won best actor that year, but it was for My Man Godfrey.
