The Jones Family in Hollywood (1939)

Film: The Jones Family in Hollywood (1939)

Stars: Jed Prouty, Spring Byington, Kenneth Howell, George Ernest, June Carlson, Florence Roberts

Diretor: Malcolm St. Clair

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Spring Byington: click here to learn more about Ms. Byington (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As we mentioned in our kickoff article about Spring Byington, the actress was never really a leading star in the way that many of her era were.  Even compared to a character actress like Marie Dressler, she wasn't a leading woman in a traditional sense, and mostly spent her career playing mothers-and-wives until her big break in December Bride in the 1950's.  That doesn't mean, though, that she wasn't at one point a household name, and that came about rather early in her film career.  While Byington was in big movies throughout the 1930's that are remembered today like the 1933 Little Women (with a young Katharine Hepburn) and the 1938 Best Picture You Can't Take It With You (for which she won her only Oscar nomination), Byington's chief fame during this era was actually in a series of pictures that are almost nonexistent today: The Jones Family movies.  We're going to talk about why these were such a big deal in a second, but I'm going to unorthodoxly kick off our film first, today's being the 13th of the seventeen films that were made in the series.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts out in a small town where Mr. Jones (Prouty), an important member of the American Legion and seemingly the town's mayor, has been invited to go to Hollywood.  Initially he has only intentions of taking his wife Mrs. Jones (Byington), but soon his entire family, including children Jack (Howell), Roger (Ernest), and Lucy (Carlson), as well as his mother Granny Jones (Roberts) are along with him.  Once there, Lucy and Jack both fall for movie stars, but neither realize these relationships aren't on the up-and-up.  Jack's girlfriend is trying to use him to better understand how small town girls think for a role she's playing, while Lucy's beau, is well, he's trying to get laid but obviously a movie from 1939 isn't going to be that overt.  The film ends with them all realizing, after a lot of confusion, that they're better off back in their small town life than trying out the big wheels of Hollywood.

The movie has a couple of fun gags (Roberts as the grandmother gets all of the good one-liners...Byington, our June star who normally would get this type of part, is mostly just window dressing), perhaps because it was written by Buster Keaton, at this point in the twilight of his film career.  But for the most part it's pretty banal (though I want to point out for the record that if Roger wasn't meant to read as gay, the filmmakers failed in that enterprise with my modern lens).  In a lot of ways this recalls something like the Blondie pictures over at Columbia or MGM's successful Andy Hardy movies.  In a couple of decades, this would've been an Ozzie & Harriet style sitcom, but without the advent of television, this was just a second feature for some of Fox's more successful films in a double billing.

You might ask why I watched this film, nearing the end of Byington's time with the series (she'd appear in all 17 of the films, and in fact Prouty was the only actor of the main family who didn't appear in all of the movies).  The reason is that the Jones Family movies are basically forgotten, in a way that the Andy Hardy and Thin Man movies of the era have not been.  It has never been released on home video, and I watched this one on YouTube.  If there's a copy of Every Saturday Night, the first film in the series, I can't find it online, and these have such little cultural cache that The Jones Family Go to Hollywood is about to get its first review ever on Letterboxd as soon as I click publish on this.

OVP: Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Film: Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
Stars: Cantinflas, David Niven, Shirley MacLaine, Robert Newton
Director: Michael Anderson
Oscar History: 8 nominations/5 wins (Best Picture*, Director, Cinematography*, Film Editing*, Score*, Adapted Screenplay*, Costume Design, Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

As I start to work my way through my "Quarantine To Do List," one of the tasks I'm working on is finally starting to make my DVR manageable again.  Right now, if I had to guess, there have to be at least 70 Oscar Viewing Project films on that thing (not to mention three episodes of Westworld, which I tend to stockpile as I genuinely like the show, but it can be convoluted if you don't have a few in a row to watch), and I keep putting more random films on there, so it's high-time I start conquering it (like many of you, I suspect, I'm working on a lot of projects that I've put off for a while, and this is a big one for me).  We're going to kick off this clean-up (expect a few truly random movies to be headed your way in the next couple of months) with a bit of a bang-the rare (for me) unseen Best Picture winner, Around the World in 80 Days.

(Spoilers Ahead) When I mentioned that I was seeing Around the World in 80 Days to a friend yesterday, their reaction was one of "eek!" more than anything else, as the Jules Verne adaptation is notoriously one of Oscar's least-celebrated top prize recipients.  The film itself is, in fact, very long, which is rarely a good sign for a movie that enjoys a bad reputation.  Essentially, for those who didn't read the book as a kid, the story is about Phileas Fogg (Niven), a punctual English gentlemen with something of a stubborn streak, and his manservant Passepartout (Cantinflas), whom he hires for an expedition around the world.  Fogg has made a bet with men at his club that he can circumnavigate the globe in under 80 days, and as he continues all of the United Kingdom begin tracking his expeditions.  Along the way he and Passepartout get into a series of adventures, including bullfighting, riding an elephant, and a train robbery.  They are accompanied for much of the trip by Princess Aouda (MacLaine, in an unfortunate case of brown-face from my favorite actress) and Inspector Fix (Newton), who is determined to prove that Phileas Fogg has robbed the Bank of England, but is continually thwarted in his efforts to arrest him.

Around the World in 80 Days isn't as bad as its reputation, but it's not a good movie & it's laughable in the same year as The Searchers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Written on the Wind, The Wrong Man, The Ten Commandments, and Giant that the Academy chose this of all movies to be its standard-bearer.  It's fun to watch, even if it's not funny at all, and I think it's meant to be.  At the time Cantinflas (who would get a Golden Globe win but no Oscar nomination, a rarity for a Best Picture winner) was a huge star in Mexican cinema, and was enjoying here his breakthrough into mainstream American film, but so much of his humor is based on either physical tricks that aren't particularly funny in hindsight (mistreatment of animals is a bigger part of this movie than you'd think, and it feels kind of icky in hindsight) or trading on racial humor.  I get what he's trying to do here, but it doesn't work sixty years after the fact, and no one else in the movie, not even Niven or MacLaine (both very good actors with the right material), are able to make much of the film.

The enjoyment in hindsight are the cameos and the sets.  Producer Mike Todd filmed a lot of the movie on-location, so you literally see scenes across the world that are actually quite wonderful.  Despite the story being a snore, the set designs are fun (especially in Spain & Japan), and the cinematography is expansive & lovely; I rarely have this complaint, but the only thing you can really fault the cinematography for is a lack of closeups.  It explores expansive vistas & makes sure that Todd got his money's worth.  The other Oscar nominations are less inviting.  Costumes are fine, but repetitive & not breaking new ground, while the editing is lacking (three hours without enough laughs is a struggle).  And the score is reliant on too many stereotypes and cliches when it comes to the music of the country they're in to really be interesting.

But the movie is nearly saved by the sheer volume of cameos.  This was one of the first films to employ a plethora of "guest appearances" from major stars of the era, and it keeps the otherwise humdrum plot ticking as you play "I Spy."  Some of these figures aren't as famous today, so it's a bit of a guessing game, but if you know even the remotest bit about classic Hollywood, you'll recognize a few figures.  Chief among my favorites were Marlene Dietrich as a saloon girl, Frank Sinatra as a piano player, Buster Keaton playing a train conductor, and John Carradine as an easily-vexed colonel, but there's enough here to keep you intrigued even while the movie slogs.  The film was a massive hit, proved Mike Todd a boy wonder (who was cut down in his prime), but it's really only the cameos and the location shooting that should be celebrated here.  After a long wait, I can confirm this is no "best" picture.

The General (1927)

Film: The General (1927)

Stars: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack

Directors: Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton

Oscar History: Predated the Academy Awards

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Oh, the classics, in particular the Silent Era classics, have so much iconography in them the first time you catch the movie you can't help but feel like you've already seen the flick, and this is certainly true of The General.  The film, considered by many to be the greatest triumph of Buster Keaton's storied career, is a wonderful combination of incredible special effects (nothing can quite compare with the Silent Era in terms of "they actually did that!" awe) and great action-adventure sequences.  While the film lacks the obvious interest that something like Sherlock Jr. has for me, as a movie fan, I have to admit that I left The General even more enraptured in this particular picture and it is likely to become my favorite Keaton film-a wonderfully spry, occasionally heartfelt look at one man's quest to find relevance and win his lady's respect.

(Spoiler Alert) There really isn't a large need, quite frankly, for the spoiler alert here as this is a story as old as the movies itself and you know where it's headed pretty much from the beginning.  We have Johnnie (Keaton), a bumbling engineer who is in love with a girl named Annabelle (Mack).  We are on the eve of the Civil War, and after an attack on Fort Sumter, all of the young men of the village, including Johnnie, rush off to enlist.  Small caveat here-every single Civil War film I've ever seen, almost all of which are about the South for the record which I've always found quite strange considering they, well, lost, has every eligible young man in the village rushing off to war.  There had to have been at least one guy who thought "well, maybe I'll wait a week or two to see if this thing is really happening"-right?  Where is that guy's movie?

Anyway, Johnnie is rejected because it is thought that as a train engineer, he's more valuable for the Confederacy in his current job than in the army.  Due to a misunderstanding, Annabelle thinks Johnnie didn't sign up because he got rejected, but because he was a coward and refuses to speak to him again until he is in uniform.  The film unfolds with Johnnie eventually stopping an impending attack by the Union army and saving the day for the confederacy, finally being accepted into the army and winning Annabelle's love and respect.

The film's middle is of course where it gains its legend, particularly the incredible action set-pieces involving the General (which is the name for Johnnie's locomotive).  The film had the most expensive and elaborate stunt of the entire Silent Era in the back-half of the movie (and if you've seen a DW Griffith film, you know this is saying something), and it's unbelievable to think of how this happened.  You can see it here and I mandate you check it out, but it's the Texas (a locomotive) crashing into an actual river.  This is one of those "you only get one take" sorts of situations, something I'd have to think would never get approved in today's film budgets, and the engine itself actually stayed in the river until the 1940's when it was eventually cleaned up.  The film is filled with these sorts of classic sequences, chase scenes and gigantic shots of the trains going after each other, and while the comedy is really funny and I laughed-out-loud quite a few times, it's these technical pieces that really had me flummoxed and wowed.  Frequently I hate when people say "they don't make them like they used to," but this is true here.  We wouldn't want a train crashing into an actual river (we have enough environmental issues these days to not go adding pollution to the mix), but it's still thrilling and insane to watch it actually happen in these pre-CGI films.

That being said, I was a big fan and see the appeal here-do you?  Are you a fan of this, the penultimate film on the AFI list that I haven't seen (the last to go is unfortunately not on DVD but I'm looking into it for the next couple of weeks)?  Where does it rank compared to Sherlock Jr?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

AFI's 25 Greatest Actors, Part 3

This Article is part of a 15-Year Anniversary series commemorating the American Film Institute’s 25 Greatest Stars.  For the Actresses, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  For the Actors, click the numbers for Parts 1 and 2.

So far we've chronicled six of the biggest legends of cinema, and as a whole they were fairly uniform-the leading men of their eras, whether romantic, dramatic, or comedic.  Here we get a few more of the classic leading men, as well as someone who went on to become a character actor, and while we deceptively will get nine winners, it's really a dozen fellas.  Let's take a look at the final set of the AFI's 100 Stars honorees...

17. Kirk Douglas (1916-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Douglas would receive a trio of Oscar nominations in his career, all for Best Actor, but would lose every time (he probably came the closest to winning for 1956's Lust for Life).  Douglas would deservedly win an Honorary Award in 1996 from the Academy.
Probably Best Known Today For: Living forever?  Hopefully that's the case-it clearly helps your star exponentially to have some longevity around it (unless you do what the next guy on this list did, though that doesn't seem like as enjoyable of an alternative).  Douglas has been one of those great, enduring links to Hollywood's classical age, and as recently as 2010 (when he famously handed the Oscar over to Melissa Leo) he has been in the public eye (he still blogs for the Huffington Post).  Douglas also, of course, is known for his work in Spartacus and for being Michael Douglas' father.
My Favorite Performance: I have to admit that I like the idea of Kirk Douglas more than I like him in practice as an actor.  I love that there's still a great film actor out there from Hollywood's Golden Age remaining active and as a link for today's audiences into the Hollywood of the past, and I do hope that Kirk Douglas just continues living forever.  That said, I've never had that moment of adoration with one of his films (I admittedly have a few to go with this particular gentleman), so I'll go with his Oscar-nominated work in The Bad and the Beautiful for now.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: As I stated above, there's a few to go here, including his iconic work in Spartacus, his near miss with the Academy in Lust for Life, and his work in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece Paths of Glory.  Anyone up for a marathon (actually-that goes for any of these articles; in hopes of getting more comments going I'll offer up a weekend of reviews on some of the missing links on a few of these actors if we can get some discussion going)?

18. James Dean (1931-1955)

Oscar Nominations: 2 nominations, both posthumously, for East of Eden and Giant
Probably Best Known Today For: Being the quintessential "live hard and die young" star.  Eternally youthful (it's always a weird moment the first time you realize you're older than James Dean ever was), he made three classic movies, and then died in an automobile accident.  Since then, in a similar way to Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, he has become an icon of the 1950's, frequently featured in poster art and 50's nostalgia and becoming synonymous with being "cool."
My Favorite Performance: It's also a weird moment when you actually see Dean onscreen for the first time-it's kind of like seeing Marilyn for the first time in a movie.  It's an odd juxtaposition because you have become so used to seeing them, almost as cartoons in poster art for so many years that to realize that this beautiful creature actually was a person at one point-it's a tad bit jarring.  That said, my favorite performance of Dean's would be his troubled, sensitive young man in Rebel Without a Cause, a marvelous movie and one of the most nuanced performances of the 1950's.  It's one of those performances where you say "what might have been..."
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: While he technically had uncredited roles in a handful of movies (that's what happens when you become hyper-famous: they find the random tiny roles you did when you were just trying to make rent), he was only billed in three films: Rebel, East of Eden, and Giant.  The only one of these I haven't seen is East of Eden, so clearly that's the miss here.

19. Burt Lancaster (1913-1994)

Oscar Nominations: Lancaster received 4 Oscar nominations, winning for 1960's Elmer Gantry
Probably Best Known Today For: Being awash in the suds with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity.  That image, of them making out in the sand, is one of the most iconic in film history, and if he hadn't had anything else in his career that alone would keep him forever in the public memory.  That said, he was an actor with an extraordinarily long career (spanning four decades), and he's also pretty memorable from his work in Field of Dreams and his late career comeback in Atlantic City.
My Favorite Performance: Like Kirk Douglas, I am missing a few pieces here but haven't been wild about what I've seen so far.  I actually quite liked his tiny role in Field of Dreams-it's probably my favorite performance in that movie.  I'll go with that, though From Here to Eternity is an appropriate if not all-together inspired choice (he's like the fourth or fifth best performance in that movie-the Monty Clift/Donna Reed story has always intrigued me more from that picture).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Elmer Gantry, clearly, with his Oscar win for that film, though seeing him with a young Susan Sarandon in Atlantic City is definitely keeping that movie pretty high up on my to-watch list.

20. The Marx Brothers (1887-1979)

Oscar Nominations: None of the Marx Brothers ever received an Oscar nomination in their careers, though Groucho won an Honorary Oscar in 1974.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being one of the great comic teams of classic cinema.  The brothers: Chico (1887-1961), Harpo (1888-1964), Groucho (1890-1977), and Zeppo (1901-1979) appeared in a number of classic comedies together in the 1930's and 40's and are famous for their madcap antics in some of the era's most celebrated comedies (there was a fifth brother named Gummo that was part of the act but left when he was drafted during World War I and didn't appear in any of their films; I couldn't find a quality photo with Zeppo, who isn't pictured to the left, but he wasn't as significant of a part of the Marx Brothers as his three older brothers).
My Favorite Performance: In my opinion you can't really go wrong with a Marx Brothers comedy, particularly with Duck Soup or A Night at the Opera (I will admit that I get these two particular films mixed up as the whole point of a Marx Brothers film is not the plot but seeing the madness that comes out of what's happening onscreen).  If forced to pick between the two...maybe A Night at the Opera.
Glaring Miss in Their Filmography: I have never gotten around to Animal Crackers-this is noted as one of Groucho's funniest performances, so I'd probably go with that.

21. Buster Keaton (1895-1966)

Oscar Nominations: Keaton would never win a competitive nomination or win from the Academy, but he did win an Honorary Oscar in 1960.
Probably Best Known Today For: ...not being Charlie Chaplin?  That's cruel, though it's worth noting that the rivalry that cinematic fans of their work have long fueled has decidedly come out in Chaplin's favor through the years, at least in terms of enduring fame (if it makes you feel better, Buster, Harold Lloyd clearly got the shaft of the three of you).  That said, his work as the great stone-faced comedian of the Silent Era is still known today and celebrated by many critics, a number of whom argue (vociferously) that he was better than Chaplin.
My Favorite Performance: I've only seen one Keaton film, and while I didn't love it (so far, I'm more on the Chaplin side of things), Sherlock Jr. is hard to argue with in terms of certain incredible scenes in the movie, particularly the scene where Keaton enters the movie during the dream sequence.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I mean, I haven't seen The General.  If I were going to create a list of classic movies that I haven't seen, the number one title on that list would be The General, so you know that my head is pretty damn low right now.  It's currently at Number 12 on my Netflix list-provided I don't get to re-arranging too much, we'll hit this by the end of the year.

22. Sidney Poitier (1927-Present)

Oscar Nominations: Poitier received two Oscar nominations in his career, winning Best Actor for Lilies of the Field (becoming the first black man to win Best Actor).  Poitier also won an Honorary Award in 2002.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being an iconic and celebrated figure in the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and along with Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and Harry Belafonte, being one of the very first black movie stars (he's also Ambassador from the Bahamas to Japan, as he actually has dual citizenship with both the Bahamas and the United States-random fact!).  Poitier is one of the most widely-respected actors in the industry, and one of its most enduring stars.
My Favorite Performance: I know that some like to quibble about how Poitier never received an Oscar nomination for In the Heat of the Night, but part of me thinks it was more to do with vote-splitting (he also had Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and To Sir, with Love out that year) than racism.  Still, he certainly deserved an Oscar nomination for his iconic Virgil Tibbs.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never actually seen the movie that landed Poitier his Academy Award.  For whatever reason Lilies of the Field has never made it to the top of my queue, though I've seen a lot of Poitier films through the years.

23. Robert Mitchum (1917-1997)

Oscar Nominations: Mitchum received an Oscar nomination for The Story of GI Joe, but didn't win.  Mitchum is noteworthy on this list because, aside from James Dean who died at age 24, he's the only person to have never won either a competitive or an honorary Oscar.  Clearly AMPAS dropped the ball on that one.
Probably Best Known Today For: All right, I'm going to go there-Robert Mitchum is most well-known today for wearing his high-pants and being an "out-of-shape, in-shape" guy (you can thank Seth MacFarlane for introducing Mitchum to a new generation of filmgoers, albeit with a series of Mitchum cliches, and if you don't know what I'm talking about you don't watch Family Guy).  Mitchum was one of those great, enigmatic tough guys-frequently finding himself on the wrong side of the law but on the right side of a dame.
My Favorite Performance: Hands down this is Night of the Hunter.  Mitchum's creepy Harry Powell in this movie is one of the most chilling villains ever brought to the screen, and definitely a strong introduction to his work if you're not particularly familiar with him as an actor (he's one of the least known of this list of 25 men).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never seen Cape Fear, the original production with Gregory Peck and Polly Bergen-that would probably at the top just over his work in The Winds of War (a giant miniseries for ABC back when broadcast television invested in giant miniseries and it wasn't just something the History Channel and HBO created).

24. Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973)

Oscar Nominations: Robinson never received a competitive nomination in his long career, though he did win an Honorary Award in 1973 (though, sadly, it was given posthumously).
Probably Best Known Today For: Saying the phrase "see" a lot?  Robinson's persona is what is well-known today, most notably being parodied by Chief Clancy Wiggum on The Simpsons.  Robinson is also well-known as one of the cinema's most famous portrayer of gangsters, with Little Caesar coming to most people's minds.
My Favorite Performance: I actually would go with Double Indemnity, when he was starting to shift into supporting performances (he's one of those rare actors who did that shift during that era, rather than just petering out in terms of what work they were doing).  I love the calculating way that his character draws out scenes, getting more and more information (though there's not really a "bad" part of that movie).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I can never remember if I've seen Little Caesar-I feel like I have, but that might just be because that is one of those films that you see so many clips of that you are sure you've seen it.  As a result, I'll go with Orson Welles' The Stranger here, though I should clearly probably re-view Little Caesar just to make sure I've enjoyed it.

25. William Holden (1918-1981)

Oscar Nominations: Three nominations, he won Best Actor for 1953's Stalag 17.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being face-down in a pool.  I always wonder if actors sort of hate the fact that they become most well-known for an early role, constantly living in its shadow.  If William Holden did, at least he can take comfort in knowing that his work as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard is a truly splendid piece of work, and established him as the easy-going, cool but potentially more below the surface handsome man that the 1950's desperately needed (as he became a major star as a result of that movie).
My Favorite Performance: I'll go with Sunset Boulevard.  With one big exception, I've actually seen most of the major movies of Holden's career, but I (like the public) liked him best early-on, charming Norma Desmond as a boy toy certain he'll be a great screenwriter, and then finding his way into a nightmare (this is also one of my all-time favorite movies just in general).
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never seen the film that won Holden his Oscar, oddly enough. Stalag 17 has for whatever reason stayed off my radar, but as it was a major player in that year's Academy Awards, we'll get to it someday with the OVP.

And there you have it-we're done with the official entrants in the AFI's 100 Stars list.  We'll get into the also-rans tomorrow, but in the meantime-who are your favorites of these nine gentlemen?  Do you have a performance you gravitate toward?  Which of their films are you ashamed to admit you've never seen?  And which would you like me to discuss more in-depth on the blog?  Share in the comments!

OVP: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)

Film: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
Stars: Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford, Buster Keaton, Michael Crawford
Director: Richard Lester
Oscar History: 1 nomination, 1 win (Best Scoring of Music)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

There are a few characters so big and bold that even their modest filmography cannot stop them from being an instantly recognizable star.  Zero Mostel is most definitely one of those characters.  Though his temperament off-screen precluded him from getting a large amount of roles (including Fiddler on the Roof, a role Mostel originated on Broadway and a role for which Topol, his on-screen replacement, received an Oscar nomination, something Mostel was never able to achieve), that doesn't mean that he didn't make an indent on the silver screen.  His most famous cinematic role is that of Max Bialystock in The Producers, but his work as Pseudolos runs a close second in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

The film opens with the musical number "Comedy Tonight," and Mostel is able to introduce all of the principle players.  One of the sad things about the movie is that, since the movie was made in the late 1960's and musicals were starting to go out of vogue, a number of the Broadway numbers, including Mostel's "Free," are not featured in the film.  No matter, though, as we are treated to a madcap ride after the opening number where Mostel's slave is given a chance at freedom if he can unite Michael Crawford (yes, the Phantom of the Opera himself) with a virgin courtesan whom he has fallen in love with.  Hilarity continues to ensue and I couldn't even begin to explain all of the twists and turns of the movie.  Suffice it to say, Stephen Sondheim's brilliant lyrics, though sidetracked, still shine through and you're treated to a host of comic interludes between Mostel, Silvers, and Gilford, all three of whom are in drag at some point during the film if memory serves me right.

The play also has time for some hilarious side-characters, most notably Leon Greene in his screen debut, as a swoon-worthy, but blood-thirsty Roman general who is constantly threatening to burn everyone to the ground. There's also a bit part for Silent Era star Buster Keaton, as a befuddled and nearly blind man searching for his long lost children.  Keaton's talent for physical comedy is on full-display here, and he is not silent, so this is surprisingly the first time I've ever heard his voice, though I've seen many of his movies.  This would be Keaton's last film; he would die months before the film was released theatrically.

The film received one nomination, for Best Scoring of Music (okay, that's not the technical name of the category, but it's essentially the idea and that category changed its name every single year, so we're just going to go with it for continuity's sake).  I haven't seen any of the other films (I've actually barely heard of the other films), but it's hard to believe that anyone will top the fun of this (albeit brief) score.  I actually believe this category is still on the books, and I'm a bit surprised considering the influx of musicals in the last decade (Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Dreamgirls, amongst others), that it hasn't returned.  It allowed for non-original scores to make it into play, and I truly wish the Academy would bring back the category, if only to inspire the studios to bring on more musicals.  If they could make them of the quality of this film, that'd be a reward to us all.

What about you-do you wish we had more musicals each year?  Do you share my fondness of Zero Mostel?  And can you imagine him putting on the dramatics of Fiddler on the Roof, rather than Topol?

OVP: The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

Film: The Hollywood Revue of 1929
Stars: Conrad Nagel, Jack Benny, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Anita Page, Marie Dressler, Buster Keaton, John Gilbert, Norma Shearer, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy
Director: Charles F. Reisner
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Picture)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars (with a caveat below)

Contrary to what it says below, this is not my first Best Picture nominee-it's actually my 275th.  But it is the first nominee since I've started chronicling the OVP on the blog, so hooray for Best Pictures!  And what a strange but spectacular film to start with.

There's a part of me that wants to address the caveat right now, and so I will (hell, I'm the one who is writing here).  This film is not a narrative film in the traditional sense, and so therefore it's difficult to rank it alongside the other films of the year, and indeed, alongside other Best Pictures).  There are parts of the film, which I'll get to in a minute, that are pure and utter joy-a 5/5 star cavalcade if there ever was one.  But this is essentially a variety program-it's not the sort of film you'd ever see today, because you'd see it on television (or you would, if we still did variety programs instead of just results night on American Idol and The Voice).  So I'm going with a 3/5 because some of the musical numbers work well, some are horribly dated and probably weren't that great to begin with, and that seems to be a solid compromise.  I've seen none of the other 1928-29 nominees (and one of them is purportedly lost for all time-The Patriot by Ernst Lubitsch, check your attics!), but if none meet the 3/5 star ranking, this will almost certainly be my strangest Best Picture choice.

But let's get into the movie.  A musical revue, our masters of ceremony are Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel, though Nagel seems to disappear after about twenty minutes (being one of the studio's biggest stars at the time, he was probably rushed off to a different film), and so Benny does most of the heavy lifting in his film debut.  From a retrospective angle, the fascinating thing for me was the sort of, "where are they now?" aspect of the movie.  Not the actual question (this film is from 1929-they are all long gone), but the celebrity status of everyone.  In 1929, these were some of the biggest stars in the world, largely on equal footing from the poster.  Over eighty years later, Joan Crawford and Buster Keaton are still huge names, and Laurel & Hardy and Norma Shearer are somewhat familiar at least to cinephiles, but Marie Dressler, Conrad Nagel, and John Gilbert are names only known to the most devoted of film fans.

Crawford, by the way, does a song-and-dance to start the film, which is thoroughly enjoyable for the sheer sake of seeing Joan doing her flapper routine for the world to see.  Crawford, one of the biggest stars in film history, was always a trooper, doing whatever a film required, and she dances and sings with the best of them at the beginning of the film.  The bits with Keaton and Laurel & Hardy are slightly less adventurous, as anyone familiar with them have seen these bits a zillion times before.  The truly amazing performances are the ballet contortions and extended sequences, which include, and I'm not kidding here, a woman being used as a jump rope by three other men in a scene that OSHA would have killed in a nanosecond decades later.  There's a number of random song-and-dances, including hammy late-in-life success Marie Dressler (who was about to have two of her biggest career successes and her only two Academy Award nominations in the next couple of years).

And of course, there's the technicolor sequences, so vibrant and bold, and the two scenes that were ripped off by the most classic of musicals, Singin in the Rain.  The first, the balcony scene from Romeo & Juliet (played by Norma Shearer and John Gilbert), which Jean Hagen and Gene Kelly would memorably spoof, which isn't nearly as awful as you would think-Gilbert would be the most high profile of actors to lose their career from the silent-to-sound transition, and though he has a serviceable tenor, it is markedly different from the strong lady's man he was trying to portray on-screen.  Shearer, of course, would find mad success in the "talkies" and become one of MGM's biggest stars in the coming decade, with an incredible six Oscar nominations.

And finally, the film ends with the classic Hollywood song "Singin in the Rain," with the entire cast coming out for the number (if you ever wanted to see Joan Crawford channel Gene Kelly, here's your chance, and notice Buster Keaton, who was not yet allowed to speak on screen, being the only person on stage not singing).  I do have to admit that it would have made the film twice as nice had they figured out a way to get Garbo into the movie (can you even imagine Garbo in a vaudeville act?!?), but as I stated above, a fun but hit-and-miss movie the likes of which you wish you could see again today, if only for the nostalgia of it all.

What about you-do you have a favorite number from this movie?  Are you, like I, not as well-versed in the late 1920's cinema or are you secretly listing the filmographies of Marion Davies and Bessie Love right now?  And what do you think Garbo would have done had she been in the picture (she was scheduled to star, but was pulled due to scheduling)?