ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT 1930

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT 1930

1930’s Oscar-winner may be the first that people today have heard of, even if they’ve never watched it. They can see a remake in 2012, starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter).

Themes

Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel sold 2.5 million copies in 25 foreign languages, but it was banned and burned in Nazi Germany and several other countries. Why? It exposed war’s myths and propaganda.

In the opening 1914 scene, Professor Kantorek hyped the Great War to his teenage pupils – these “iron men of Germany” – that it was the duty of every gallant German to enlist, to repulse the enemy, and to heap glory on the Fatherland.

Flattered by unwarranted praise, intoxicated by heroic ideas, they rose and convinced each other – including the reluctant Behm – that they all must go to war.

Afghanistan and Iraq’s recruiting propaganda was more sophisticated. Think of the heroic pose struck by Bush when he declared “Mission accomplished!” on the aircraft carrier. Think of how Cheney and Rumsfeld demonized  Saddam Hussein and the Taliban. Think of how Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch were lionized, and how investigations later showed those official tales were just lies.

Happiness is a warm gun

After four years of battle, creative, compassionate soldier-writer Paul Bäumer inhaled poison gas and was given 14 days leave. By now, he was the only surviving classmate of Kantorek’s original students. Bäumer returned to the classroom just in time to hear the professor lecture his latest students: “In one of the schools, the boys have risen up in the classroom and enlisted in a mass. But of course, if such a thing should happen here, you would not blame me for a feeling of pride.”

The professor turned to Bäumer for corroboration, but the disillusioned veteran owed these boys the truth: “I thought maybe the whole world had been learned by this time. Only now, they're sending babies, and they don't last a week… Three years we've had of it, four years… And our bodies are earth. And our thoughts are clay. And we sleep and eat with death… War isn't the way it looks back here. I heard you in here, reciting that same old stuff. Making more iron men, more young heroes. You still think it’s beautiful and sweet to die for your country, don’t you?”

The boys called Bäumer a coward, even though they’d never fired a gun and he’d fought with comrades who’d been killed and maimed. Bäumer’s response: he was no good for “back home” anymore; he wanted to return to his mentors and comrades at the front.

The themes, then, are that glorious war is a lie, that the thrill of combat is actually the agony of killing other human beings, that returning soldiers isolate themselves from family and friends because war itself destroys soldiers, not just bullets and bombs and gas, and they’re unable to revert to civilian life after such extreme physical and mental stress. Governments know all this, of course, which makes what they do to these young men all the more dastardly. After every war, movies have hit similar themes: The Best Years of Our Lives, Coming Home, Apocalypse Now, The Hurt Locker.

Ignored

Howard Hughes was the Stephen Spielberg of his time. Hell's Angels was a technically perfect high-budget movie, but it wasn’t selected for Best Production, nor was the Marx Brothers classic “Animal Crackers.”

Norma Shearer was nominated for two movies and won for The Divorcée, but 18-year-old Hell’s Angels star Rita Hayworth was snubbed.

Greta Garbo was also nominated twice for movies largely forgotten, but Marlene Dietrich’s star-making role in The Blue Angel – still one of the all-time most sensual films – was overlooked.

BROADWAY MELODY 1929

BROADWAY MELODY 1929

Although it was the second film to win an Academy Award, Broadway Melody was a film of firsts: It was the mother of all musicals, it was the first talkie to win the Best Production award, and it was the first subject of sequels (Broadway Melody of 1936, Broadway Melody of 1938 and Broadway Melody of 1940).

1929-30 was first year for secret awards: winners were announced during a one-hour L.A. radio broadcast.

Also, the George M. Cohan classic “Give My Regards To Broadway” was the first hit song to arise from a movie.

With a $4 million take, Broadway Melody was the top grossing picture of 1929.

Here’s the story: two sisters, “Hank” and “Queenie” Mahoney, come to Broadway. Hank loves song-and-dance man Eddie Kerns. But when Eddie sees Queenie, all grown up now, he falls for her.

To brush off Eddie, Queenie dates Jock Warriner, a New York high-society swell who wants her for no-good reasons.

It’s a simple love triangle, the subject of countless movie scripts. Although Broadway Melody is considered one of the weakest films to ever win best motion picture Oscar, Stephan Eichenberg’s script has complex elements: Hank, Queenie and Eddie all recognize the danger created by the triangle, and all three sacrifice themselves for each other.

Bessie Love, who starred as Hank Mahoney, was beat out for Best Actress by Mary Pickford, America’s Sweetheart, starring in her first talkie. Insiders said Pickford’s win was actually an undeserved political honor, because Douglas Fairbanks, the academy president, was her husband and her acting was good enough for silent films but unrealistic for talkies.

It’s interesting to see how body types have changed in the past 80 years: Bessie Love, Anita Page and Janet Gaynor all had baby legs – short and chubby. They would have been considered fat by modern Hollywood.

Who didn’t win?

The Hollywood Revue of 1929, even though it cast superstars Norma Shearer, Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford and Lionel Barrymore.

Who didn’t get nominated?

A great silent film, The Wind, and its star Lillian Gish.

Erich von Stroheim was ignored as Best Director for The Wedding March.

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent film masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc received no nominations.

Greta Garbo’s last silent film, The Kiss, was not nominated, and Buster Keaton was ignored for his last independent film, Steamboat Bill Jr.

SUNRISE 1928

SUNRISE  1928

I had a thought one day: I’ve seen nearly every Best Picture film since 1952. What about the rest? I googled the first-ever Oscar film.

Actually, there were two in 1927-28: WINGS for Best Production, and SUNRISE for Best Unique and Artistic Picture, a category that was dropped after the first year.

WINGS isn’t on DVD, so I Netflixed SUNRISE, which turned out to be silent.

I gave up TV last summer (cable and satellite cost too much, TV sucks too much time, and I’d rather write), so it was my only form of entertainment that night. But voila, I liked it.

In SUNRISE, the Woman from the City convinced The Man to row The Wife – who was just too plain – to the center of the lake and overturn their boat. However, a funny thing happened on the way to her execution. They went to the city first, they drank, they ate, they danced, and in that incredible night, he realized why he loved this simple woman. He was rowing home when their boat overturned in a sudden squall. He was inconsolable.

I thought another 1927-28 film, 7^TH HEAVEN, was the better, even though its plot was simplistic: the cruel Nana regularly whips her sister, Diane. Why? Well, it’s simplistic. One day, sewer cleaner Chico stops Nana from strangling Diane to death.

Unaccountably, the gendarmes try to arrest Diane too, but Chico swears they’re married. Diane poses as his wife when a police inspector comes to Chico’s loft. They stay together for two days, they fall in love, and they really do marry.

Two 1927 classics that didn’t win Best Picture: the German film METROPOLIS and THE JAZZ SINGER.

Can the 1927-28 Oscar winners compare to 2010’s $100 million productions? Yes. They’re like today’s independent film, which we must experience to realize they’re art. You can argue the point: If you thought watching Tom Cruise kill a thousand Japanese in The Last Samurai was the highest entertainment in 2003, then you might have missed some great indies that year: LOST IN TRANSLATION, A MIGHTY WIND, SHATTERED GLASS, HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG and THE STATION AGENT.

Here’s a trivia question: name the woman who starred in SUNRISE, and also won the first-ever International Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences best actress award that same year for 7^TH HEAVEN. That was Janet Gaynor, a 21-year old who changed her name from Laura Gainor. Why she thought Janet was more glam than Laura, or why “y” was better than “i,” has been lost to history.

Anyway, after Gainor graduated from high school in San Francisco, she moved to L.A., got a job selling shoes for $18 per week, and in two years won a starring role as Anna Burger in THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD.

Four more silent film roles followed that same year, and by 1927, she was cast in two classics, 7^TH HEAVEN and SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS. For those two roles, by the way, she was paid $100 a week and $300 a week.

If you’re still wondering who the heck is Janet Gaynor, she played the title role in A STAR IS BORN. Until 1986, when Marlee Matlin won for CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD, Gaynor was the youngest leading actress to win an Oscar.

Next: 1928-29 winner THE BROADWAY MELODY