Norma Shearer, The Barretts of Wimpole Street

as ELIZABETH BARRETT

Another year, another melodramatic romance starring Norma Shearer. The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a film I didn't quite enjoy save for its rather shocking final act revelation. While the dynamics of the storyline is certainly interesting at times and kinda-sorta-maybe based off the real lives of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, this is a drama done dull. I mean, I can't garner much excitement over a film that sees Shearer basically locked in a house the entire time and features two scenes in which the viewer has to guess whether or not Shearer can make it up/down a flight of stairs--very much a filmed play and not really cinematic. At the end of the day, this is an average to above-average picture with performances that are good but hardly worth fussing over.

Grace Moore, One Night of Love

as MARY BARRETT

If there was anything I took away from One Night of Love, it was learning that Grace Moore was an opera singer. That's the beauty of old school Hollywood--studio heads were actually interested in recruiting famous people from outside the realm of film to take part in their movies. Interestingly enough audiences would go and see these movies, and Oscar would reward these people with nominations. That doesn't happen anymore--we now live in world where all juicy female roles will automatically be given to Meryl Streep, and the idea of putting acclaimed stage stars much less opera stars in lead roles in feature films is not realistic by any means. So in a way, Moore's inclusion in the Oscar race is one of the more interesting ones out there. Whether or not it was worthy is an entirely different question.

1934 - 7th Academy Awards

and the nominees were:

Clark Gable, It Happened One Night

Frank Morgan, The Affairs of Cellini

William Powell, The Thin Man

Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night

Grace Moore, One Night of Love

Norma Shearer, The Barretts of Wimpole Street

(plus a special appearance by write-in candidate)

Bette Davis, Of Human Bondage

M and Peter Lorre

as HANS BECKERT

What is there to say about M that hasn't already been said? It is a magnificent cinematic achievement crafted by a legendary filmmaker. Gripping, ballsy in its subject matter, and explicit in its subtlety, the film's only flaw was that it was a product well ahead of its time. Hollywood filmmaking was on the cusp of entering the Hays Code era at the time of M's release. American pictures then usually followed a succinct set of guidelines--endings were to be happy, all that is evil is to be vanquished. The beauty of M was it simply couldn't be bothered by the traditional storytelling conventions of Hollywood--instead it is a picture that is riveting storytelling from start to finish all the while encompassing a disturbing character study that challenges conventional norms as well as the viewers.

Katharine Hepburn, Little Women

as JO MARCH

Won: Gold Medal Winner for Best Actress - Venice Film Festival

"As vital, sympathetic and full of the joie de vivre as one could hope for...Miss Hepburn goes darting through this picture without giving one a moment to think of her as other than Jo," praised Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times at the time of Little Women's release. Trusty ol' Wikipedia says joie de vivre "may be seen as a joy of everything, a comprehensive joy, a philosophy of life..." This is a more than accurate assessment of Katharine Hepburn, whose luminosity spearheads Little Women and whose performance is just as joyous if not more than that of her role as Eva in Morning Glory.