Catch up with the idea behind this series here.
1931 was the first time the Academy Awards were broadcast on the radio. Can you imagine having to tune in to Sirius channel 2174 to hear Conrad Nagel announce who won everything? I don’t even know who Conrad Nagel is. 1932 gives us my favorite Oscar story of all time. Apparently, Will Rogers was presenting the Best Director award and after opening the envelope he said, “Come up and get it, Frank!” Frank Capra jumped up and waited for the spotlight to find him before it rested on the actual winner, Frank Lloyd. Someone behind him then yelled, “Down in front!” When Capra did win Best Director the next year, the announcement was also jokingly made by saying, “Come up and get it, Frank!” But enough about what the Oscars did, let’s see what they didn’t do.
1931 – “M” (Fritz Lang)
It was a down to the wire call between Lang’s haunting film and Charlie Chaplin’s career peak, “City Lights,” as both were shamefully overlooked masterpieces. In Chaplin’s case, the sound explosion produced a bit of bias against silent films (none were nominated this year), but there’s no such obvious excuse to pass over “M.” Particularly since René Clair’s “À Nous la Liberté” became the first foreign film to garner any nomination in this year (Best Art Direction). Perhaps it was due to the subject matter, a child murderer as protagonist, that caused Hollywood to balk. Whatever the case, history has proven that Fritz Lang’s first sound film is a treasure worth preserving and watching again and again.