Best Picture Winners: 1927-1928

Last year I started watching all the Oscar Best Picture winners chronologically and will pick up where I left off last year. The goal is to watch as many as I can up through the 2009 Oscar ceremony. I’m enough of a film geek to admit I love watching the Oscars and all that goes with it, including letting out audible shrieks and curses during the telecast. I also enjoy looking at Oscar’s history and trying to figure why certain films and performances received awards when future film scholars would later scoff at the selections. I know I’m going to be watching great movies over the next two months, as well as wondering, “What the heck were they smoking?” This is a recap of the films watched in 2008.

Wings (1927)

The first official Best Picture winner, Wings is an enjoyable if formulaic picture that lessens the impact of its impressive aerial sequences with its soap opera –ish center story. Both Jack Powell (Charles 'Buddy' Rogers) and David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) are in love with Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston). While Sylvia truly loves David, she cannot bring herself to tell Jack of her feelings, knowing it will crush him. Meanwhile, the girl-next-door Mary Preston (top-billed Clara Bow) loves Jack. Both Jack and David end up serving together as fighter pilots in World War I. How will the rivals put their animosity behind to serve their Country? That is center story that drives (and sometimes stalls) the story during its two hour and twenty minute running time.While the cast is overall quite good, the necessity of the filmmakers to add comedic elements to the story (the Swedish recruit who must prove his love of America, the extended “drunk sequence” where Jack sees bubbles coming out of everything and everyone), probably due to the grim subject matter, really weighs the film down and sometimes brings the story to dead stop. Clichés (the two rivals become friends) and coincidences (Mary is assigned security duty to location where Jack goes on his drinking binge) abound as the love triangle plays itself out amidst the brutality of war. Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I got a bit chocked up in the final scenes where a shocking turn of events leads to guilt and forgiveness for one of the main characters. In fact, nearly every scene in the movie has some payoff moment in the end, so the director (William A. Wellman) wasn’t just marking time with the comic interludes. Some trimming though could have helped the pacing.Where the film really shines is in its depiction of war, especially the aerial battle sequences. These are realistic and thrilling. Wellman shoots in wide-angle and close-up so you really experience the danger of being alone amidst the enemy’s fighters. What’s more, there are several scenes where the pilots are hit, and we seen blood spurt and flow from their wounds. I certainly wasn’t expecting that from a film made in 1927. These scenes are what people remember and talk about today, and it’s understandable why such a film – which ultimately is about the tragedy and ugliness of war – won a Best Picture statue.While Wings is not a great film in the way one would expect from a Best Picture winner, it nevertheless delivers enough entertainment value and poignancy to make it recommend viewing for any classic film fan.

Sunrise (1927)

The first Academy Awards actually had two Best Picture categories, the second one being “Unique and Artistic Production.” Sunrise was the first and last film to ever win this honor as the category was dropped after the first awards. Sunrise lives up to its status as a classic: a romantic, suspenseful, stirring, original, and haunting story about a man who re-discovers the love he has for his wife in a most unusual way.Billed as the Man (George O'Brien), the husband is having an affair with a Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston) who wants him to leave his rural home and return with her to the city. What about his wife (Janet Gaynor in an Oscar-winning turn)? Drown her and make it look like an accident is her solution. (It’s never made clear what’s to become of the couple’s infant child.) But just as the Man is about to commit the crime, he is overcome with guilt and the realization he truly loves his wife. What follows is probably one of the couple’s most wonderful days together. But there are still more obstacles to overcome.While George O’Brien is excellent in the role of remorseful husband, it’s Janet Gaynor’s turn as the Wife that sells the picture. As the film opens the Man leaves his home for an illicit rendezvous as the Wife prepares dinner. When she realizes what has happened (apparently the affair is town gossip) her face registers every emotion she is feeling, and one cannot help be moved. Later, Gaynor must navigate the emotional arc of fear, betrayal, pity, forgiveness, and joy upon realizing what her husband really intended to do during their boat ride. Gaynor has to sell us on the fact she’d forgive, let alone want to stay with, her husband after a murder attempt. But she pulls it off beautifully. We find ourselves cheering for her and the couple’s return to happiness.Charles Rosher and Karl Struss’ Oscar-winning photography captures the film’s various moods, from the ominous opening sequences in the deserted marsh lands, to the busy city streets, and ultimately the final shot of the film. Director F.W. Murnau guides all this with a sure, confident hand, pulling us into what we think will a knuckle-biting thriller (it is) only to turn into a heartfelt romance (it is). Not many directors could have managed such a shift in tone, so well. But it works here and results in one of the most unique stories ever brought to film.Sunrise is a must for fans of classic films. It deserves it place as one of the truly great silent films.