Men of the Thirties: 1931-32

1931-32

The Nominees Were:

Wallace Beery - The Champ
Alfred Lunt - The Guardsman
Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

And the Winner Winners was were...

Wallace Beery - The Champ
Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

In an extraordinary year, the majority of the Leading Actor nominees actually won, with Beery and March sharing the accolade. Fredric March is the true winner, since he got just one vote more than Wallace's Champ, but the then-rules stipulated that if a competitor was within a certain number the contest would be deemed a tie. After frantically searching for a spare statuette for Beery, he too got a speech, and Alfred Lunt remained the only bridesmaid of the trio.

My Ratings (in order of preference):-

**** Wallace Beery in The Champ (1931)

One half of the gentle giant-cute kid partnership Champ demonstrates paternity in different ways, caught between a desire to ingrain Dink into the only way of life that he knows (as an attempt to keep up a "legacy" that's paper thin anyway), and a realisation that Dink needs a more stable and (for lack of a better word) childish childhood. Beery's reaction to suggestions the kid would be better off with his mother is stubborn but with a hint of conciliation, and he conveys the esteem issues of Champ and his failed boxing career without giving the audience too strong a sense of where the film is going. His chief scene comes after admitting to himself that Dink would be better off elsewhere, and in true macho fashion Champ cannot bear to seem weak in front of his child, opting instead to admonish him and make him seem like a burden. Beery plays this scene incredibly well, and after slapping the kid gives a devastatingly effective wince, the obvious regret halting every ounce of anger you could have had for this troubled but ultimately noble man.

**** Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Rouben Mamoulian's Jekyll and Hyde would undoubtedly be a multiple winner had the make-up category been introduced sooner. March's transformation between Professor and monster is a cosmetic feat for the time and surely contributive to the effect and popularity of his performance. The manneristic qualities of March, however, are perhaps more striking and integral to his double-persona; the arrogant delight that transcends from the welcome danger and escape of the Doctor to the aggressive primordial revelling of his creation. And the rather obvious switch-up from physical refinement to ape-ish predictability serves him well as it feels particularly parallel to the literary tone of the film. March seems very aware of Robert Louis Stevenson's orginal narrative and the storytelling style of director Mamoulian, and is dynamic without ever taking over the film, becoming an example of the fine line between genius and madness and the increasingly powerless victim of his own dark desires.

Nominees Unseen:

Alfred Lunt - The Guardsman (1931)

The Snubbed

**** Jackie Cooper in The Champ (1931)

If Cooper's performance in Skippy was a mini-revelation it's blown right out of the water in The Champ, a film in which he's largely let down by his irresponsible drunken father. Cooper gives Dink a similarly caretaking mentality, and in reacting to disappointment his pet lip runs into overdrive. Yet these moments are only brief, and it soon becomes clear that Dink is incapable of being truly broken like his father, instead reacting to every situation with the faux-common sensical approach of Champ. The fact that the boy only ever refers to his father as "Daddy" in one scene solidifies the sense of them as unified through circumstance rather than obligation. The final scene of The Champ is hard-hitting, and Cooper absoloutely nails it, devastatingly effective as someone finally failed by something completely beyond his control.

**** Robert Williams in Platinum Blonde (1931)

I'm somewhat surprised that Frank Capra's Platinum Blonde did not receive a single nomination, since it certainly feels to me in the same level of quality and similar in theme to his other thirties films. A story of culture and class clashes and the questionable morals of the newspaper business, Platinum Blonde provides a great deal for leading man Robert Williams to eschew over (two women and his diminishing masculinity for a start) and he gladly channels this into a charismatic character that has perhaps been entrenched in his work for too long.

Williams handles his arc well, reluctant at every step, and while the film treats his decline into a position under the thumb of the insistent Jean Harlow a little too swiftly and severely, he helps us to understand the man's belief in his own infallability as inherently working class and independent. He underplays his concessions and diminishes their effect with redundant sarcastic protests and faux-'Jack the lad' charm, and ably expresses the cultural naivety with which his newspaperman approaches his first relationship with a socially-superior woman.

*** Paul Muni in Scarface (1932)

If you've seen Muni's nominated performances, most of which feature after this, it's difficult to believe that they actually rate as comparatively restrained. In Scarface he twists his face with sour putrid, and undoubtedly performs the part of Tony Ferino with a 'MORE is more' attitude, making every aggressive outburst feel like some kind of seizure. It would be fair to say that, to an extent, it works: Muni gives us smugness, possessiveness, and paranoia with the flagrant generosity of a man that knows he's there for show, menacingly apt when you consider the dangerous reputation of his volatile gangster. But there's always such a nagging methodology to Muni that extends to other performances (allbeit in a banal, less valuable context) that makes Tony appear too outrospectively emotive, treating every situation too dramatically, to the point where I don't trust that he fully considers Tony's desire to hold onto his untouchable status.

Early Hawks Blogathon: Scarface (1932)

This post is part of the Early Howard Hawks Blogathon over at Only the Cinema. Enjoy and check out the interesting posts there.

Firstly I'm gonna list the Howard Hawks films that I have seen, and then I'm gonna start discussing Scarface, which I caught the other day. Incidentally, I like all of these films, although I'd say that they get worse throughout the chronological list:-

Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
Monkey Business (1952)

It's incredibly poignant that Scarface should end with a closeup of the slogan "The World Is Yours", a statement displayed on the lit sign of a travel company. Howard Hawks' 1932 original tells the story of a man who thought the world was his, Tony Camonte, played here by Paul Muni and later most famously by Al Pacino. It's clear throughout the 90-minute wave of death and corruption that Tony has an obsession with obtaining more and more power, respect, authority -- he seems most proud of his "possessions" (guns, women, bulletproof vehicles, steel window covers), which collectively encourage him to buy into his own invincible aura. The aforementioned slogan takes pride of place in view of Tony's apartment and, as far as he's concerned, he owns that as well. In fact, he owns the world. Hence the slogan.

But this isn't the only reason why the slogan emerges as one of the most resonant features of Scarface, a film that Howard Hawks frames with messages in order to hammer a point home about crime and social problems in post-depression era America. It begins with a preface about these problems, and as such proceeds to address them, but the lingering directness and clear purpose of its style did surprise me as the Hawks films that I've seen feel a lot freer in theme. The screwball comedy was to an extent formulaic but I suppose a lot easier to manage, given the responsibility that Scarface seems to pose as both a spectacle and a statement. Tying in with that idea is the IMDB listing of The Shame of a Nation as an alternatively used title for the film, which brazenly wraps both the drama and the message into one.

The plot itself is very repetitive; that familiar pattern of brotherhood, betrayal, and death rearing its ugly head on more than one occasion, much like we've come to expect from imitations such as The Godfather etc. Scarface isn't as together, grand, or epic in scope as Coppola's film (this was 1932, so really, how could it be?) but the legacy it has created is plain for all to see. Having said that (and in part because of such imitations) it often feels a little too predictable and melodramatic, and the absence of sound for large pockets does hurt the effect of Scarface and make its violent sequences feel more cheeky than pulpy. Still, the stolid rules about blood etc. on screen makes the film often feel more visually enthralling in that it forces Hawks to think of new ways to capture death. Much to do with light and shade (like silent films), but you can't really beat a good silhouette murder, can you? There's just something wonderfully gothic and clever about watching someone's shadow disappear.

Amongst all the burly men vying for control Tony has a couple of women to consider. His mother, whom we actually don't see a lot of (and he doesn't seem that bothered about her, honestly), his 18 year-old sister Cesca, whom he is fiercely protective of, and love interest Poppy, who begins the film romantically involved with Tony's boss but switches allegiances when it's clear who the top dog is going to be. By far the most interesting of these relationships is his love for Cesca, which extends to turfing her out of every social event she dares to attend, giving her money to stay away from men, and murdering those men that she does take a fancy to. Although never overtly addressed (again, this is 1932) there's a hint of incestuousness on the part of Tony, as he seems to revere her and keep her to himself in a way that perhaps surpasses brotherly love. In one heated scene she accuses him of not treating her like a sister and "more like a...". If we're supposed to fill in the blank, my vote goes to "mistress", or something of that ilk. It feels it to me anyway. But regardless of their tempestuous relationship a scene towards the end demonstrates their affection for each other, and reminded me a lot of Bonnie and Clyde.

Hawks wants a little too desperately at times for us (or 30's America) to see the world's failures. Sometimes it's distracting but largely it's more than a preface and a closing remark. We're encouraged to see the world through Tony's eyes; expansive, a commodity, rather than looking on at his actions and shaking our heads in disapproval. If Scarface was all about the message then Muni's leading man wouldn't feel so close-to-the-heart and irretrievable. He wants the world to do what Tony can't -- wake up before it's past the point of no return.