The Oscars 1927/28
Did They Get It Right?
The Academy Awards (Oscars) covered two years of releases when they first began. 1932/33 was the last two-year awards ceremony.
The films nominated this year were: The Racket, 7th Heaven, and Wings. Wings was the winner and it also won Best Effects, Engineering Effects; which it most certainly deserved.
The Racket received no other nominations. 7th Heaven was nominated for Best Actress, Janet Gaynor (Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ).
Frank Borzage (The Mortal Storm, Lucky Star), won Best Director. Benjamin Glazier (The Budoir Diplomat, Flesh & The Devil) won Best Writer.
Harry Oliver was nominated for Best Art Direction. Not a small number of nominations and wins.
The Best Picture in my opinion should have also gone to 7th Heaven which was by far the better film. Out of ten, I rank the films as follows: 7th Heaven – 8; Wings – 6; The Racket – 2.
7th Heaven was such a well-told story of a sewer cleaner wanting to make his way up in the world. He falls for Diane and saves her from arrest by claiming to be her husband.
They then have to keep up the pretence, but both affections grow until they fall in love properly.
The subtly required to show us this complex story when there is virtually no dialogue (silent film of course) is no mean feat.
Great story well shot and well acted.
Wings was a story about two men, David and Jack, fighting over Sylvia’s affection. They both go off to war and are fighter pilots. One of the men, Jack, is loved by another woman, Mary.
Jack and David become fast friends during pilot training. David is shot down and Jack is distraught.
David steals a German plane and flies home. Jack attacks him desperate for vengeance.
After shooting down David he lands to take a trophy from the victory only to realise it was his friend.
A lot has been made of this kiss but you cannot label this kiss as homosexual in any way. They are great friends and Jack has just gone through a rollercoaster of emotions.
He has watched his friend die. Then he has had another harrowing fight for vengeance – only to realise that he now has killed his friend.
He returns home and is forgiven. Realises that he indeed loves Mary – who was looking out for him in Paris while he was on leave.
What made this film stand out was the spectacular dog fights. The filming was amazing and I cannot think of a way it could have been filmed without them shooting down planes in some cases.
This is the reason that it won. The plot itself was rather benign and some non-war scenes – especially those in Paris – went on and on.
So, an average story with a nice ending and spectacular action sequences.
The third film The Racket was not very good. It follows a gang war but it is the war between a police captain, Quiggly, and one of the mob bosses, Nick.
There is a lot wrong with this film. The story is just an unconnected series of events that happen around the main characters.
There is no inciting incident. The entire film is Quiggly’s ordinary world. Quiggly takes no action in either the Crisis or the Climax of the movie.
He does take some small steps throughout the film but mostly he is just reacting to outside events. This is so bizarre for a hero not to be instigating the action.
There are some well-constructed scenes and some very funny things happen but the central story is bad.
I can see why Wings won and it isn’t terrible but 7th Heaven would have been my pick for sure.
