The Best Picture win at the Oscars is the highest prize in the film industry. However, some films manage to take home the top award, yet they still don’t manage to stand the test of time. There are some Best Picture winners that no one talks about, even though they’ll always be a part of Academy Award history.
‘The Broadway Melody’ (1929) L-r: Charles King as Eddie Kearns, Bessie Love as Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney, Mary Doran as Flo, Anita Page as Queen Mahoney, and Nacio Herb Brown as Pianist | John Springer Collection/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney (Bessie Love) and Queenie Mahoney (Anita Page) are vaudeville sister performers looking to break into the Broadway scene. However, romantic melodrama quickly overshadows their attempt to pursue fame as a duo.
The Broadway Melody is the second film to win the Best Picture Oscar, with only Wings coming before it.
‘The Broadway Melody’ (1929) L-r: Charles King as Eddie Kearns, Bessie Love as Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney, Mary Doran as Flo, Anita Page as Queen Mahoney, and Nacio Herb Brown as Pianist | John Springer Collection/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney (Bessie Love) and Queenie Mahoney (Anita Page) are vaudeville sister performers looking to break into the Broadway scene. However, romantic melodrama quickly overshadows their attempt to pursue fame as a duo.
The Broadway Melody is the second film to win the Best Picture Oscar, with only Wings coming before it.
- 2/28/2023
- by Jeff Nelson
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Patrick Hamilton's play "Gas Light" debuted on the London stage in 1938. It was about Jack and Bella, characters who had recently married but whose relationship is immediately rocky. She hates his flirtatious ways and mishandling of money. Most frustratingly, he seems to disappear from their home for hours at a time without explanation. During this time, the gaslights in the house would dim. Whenever Bella brought up this odd quirk or mentioned any missing objects, Jack would assure her that she was imagining it -- indeed, that she might be going insane. It is from Hamilton's play that the modern vernacular has taken "gaslighting" as a verb.
"Gas Light" was first adapted to film in 1940 by director Thorold Dickinson. That version starred Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard, and it was a modest hit. The 1940 version, however, is not nearly as well-remembered as George Cukor's far more popular remake only four years later.
"Gas Light" was first adapted to film in 1940 by director Thorold Dickinson. That version starred Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard, and it was a modest hit. The 1940 version, however, is not nearly as well-remembered as George Cukor's far more popular remake only four years later.
- 10/11/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Creepy isn’t the same as scary.
Of course horror movies can be scary simply by using loud noises and sudden movements to make their audiences jump, but creepy is harder to pull off. To be effectively creepy, a film needs to establish a certain atmosphere; it needs to draw you in and make you care. It needs to give you something to think about when you’re trying to drop off to sleep at night; to make you wonder whether that creaking noise down the hallway was just the house settling or something lurking in the shadows. Creepy stays with you. It gives you goosebumps.
Here are 85 of the best horror movies (in no particular order) to chill your bones. Enjoy the nightmares.
Us (2019)
Jordan Peele’s follow up to his award winner Get Out is another social horror. While it might not be quite as accomplished or coherent...
Of course horror movies can be scary simply by using loud noises and sudden movements to make their audiences jump, but creepy is harder to pull off. To be effectively creepy, a film needs to establish a certain atmosphere; it needs to draw you in and make you care. It needs to give you something to think about when you’re trying to drop off to sleep at night; to make you wonder whether that creaking noise down the hallway was just the house settling or something lurking in the shadows. Creepy stays with you. It gives you goosebumps.
Here are 85 of the best horror movies (in no particular order) to chill your bones. Enjoy the nightmares.
Us (2019)
Jordan Peele’s follow up to his award winner Get Out is another social horror. While it might not be quite as accomplished or coherent...
- 10/31/2020
- by jbindeck2015
- Den of Geek
Diana Serra Cary, the child silent film star known by the nickname Baby Peggy, died on Monday in Gustine, Calif. She was 101.
Born on October 29, 1918 as Peggy Jean Montgomery, Cary began her career in the film industry at the early age of 19 months. During a visit with her mother and a friend to Century Film Studio in Hollywood, director Fred Fishbach became impressed with Peggy’s well-mannered behavior that led to her co-starring in short films. She soon began starring in her own series of films, becoming a major Hollywood celebrity and appearing in more than 100 shorts. She starred in a short film as Little Red Riding Hood in 1922 and in Hansel and Gretel in 1923. She starred in five feature-length films including “Captain January” in 1924 that was later remade as a musical starring Shirley Temple.
Her father, Jack Montgomery, was a cowboy who worked as a stuntman and an extra in cowboy films.
Born on October 29, 1918 as Peggy Jean Montgomery, Cary began her career in the film industry at the early age of 19 months. During a visit with her mother and a friend to Century Film Studio in Hollywood, director Fred Fishbach became impressed with Peggy’s well-mannered behavior that led to her co-starring in short films. She soon began starring in her own series of films, becoming a major Hollywood celebrity and appearing in more than 100 shorts. She starred in a short film as Little Red Riding Hood in 1922 and in Hansel and Gretel in 1923. She starred in five feature-length films including “Captain January” in 1924 that was later remade as a musical starring Shirley Temple.
Her father, Jack Montgomery, was a cowboy who worked as a stuntman and an extra in cowboy films.
- 2/25/2020
- by Klaritza Rico
- Variety Film + TV
CineSavant obsesses over yet another obscure bit of cinematic sociology: a glossy pre-Code MGM melodrama about mothers and war, which half-debates issues like pacifism, the losses of world war one, military vigilance, cowardice, chemical WMDs and foolish idealism! But don’t worry, the title statement is the ultimate answer to everything. Oh, it’s also political sci-fi: it takes place in the future year of 1940, when New York City comes under aerial attack, with skyscrapers bombed to bits and poison gas dropped in the streets. No, this is not new, it was released in 1933.
Men Must Fight
DVD
The Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 72 min. / Street Date January 15, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 191.99
Starring: Diana Wynyard, Lewis Stone, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, Ruth Selwyn, Robert Young, Robert Greig, Hedda Hopper, Donald Dilloway, Mary Carlisle, Luis Alberni.
Cinematography: George J. Folsey
Film Editor: William S. Gray
Written by C. Gardner Sullivan...
Men Must Fight
DVD
The Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 72 min. / Street Date January 15, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 191.99
Starring: Diana Wynyard, Lewis Stone, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, Ruth Selwyn, Robert Young, Robert Greig, Hedda Hopper, Donald Dilloway, Mary Carlisle, Luis Alberni.
Cinematography: George J. Folsey
Film Editor: William S. Gray
Written by C. Gardner Sullivan...
- 5/14/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
CineSavant obsesses over yet another obscure bit of cinematic sociology: a glossy pre-Code MGM melodrama about mothers and war, which half-debates issues like pacifism, the losses of world war one, military vigilance, cowardice, chemical WMDs and foolish idealism! But don’t worry, the title statement is the ultimate answer to everything. Oh, it’s also political sci-fi: it takes place in the future year of 1940, when New York City comes under aerial attack, with skyscrapers bombed to bits and poison gas dropped in the streets. No, this is not new, but from 1933.
Men Must Fight
DVD
The Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 72 min. / Street Date January 15, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 191.99
Starring: Diana Wynyard, Lewis Stone, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, Ruth Selwyn, Robert Young, Robert Greig, Hedda Hopper, Donald Dilloway, Mary Carlisle, Luis Alberni.
Cinematography: George J. Folsey
Film Editor: William S. Gray
Written by C. Gardner Sullivan...
Men Must Fight
DVD
The Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 72 min. / Street Date January 15, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 191.99
Starring: Diana Wynyard, Lewis Stone, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, Ruth Selwyn, Robert Young, Robert Greig, Hedda Hopper, Donald Dilloway, Mary Carlisle, Luis Alberni.
Cinematography: George J. Folsey
Film Editor: William S. Gray
Written by C. Gardner Sullivan...
- 5/13/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
On Jan. 5, 1933, the Diana Wynyard-starring drama Cavalcade made its world premiere in New York and was greeted with acclaim. The film went on to win three Oscars at the 6th Academy Awards ceremony, including best picture. The Hollywood Reporter's original review is below:
Fox Film's Cavalcade is a fine, splendid document of the folly and resultant decline of civilization through the tragedies of war. It is Noel Coward's contribution to the cause of peace and, as such, it is effective historic pageantry.
It is made human and compelling by virtue of the exquisite and well nigh perfect...
Fox Film's Cavalcade is a fine, splendid document of the folly and resultant decline of civilization through the tragedies of war. It is Noel Coward's contribution to the cause of peace and, as such, it is effective historic pageantry.
It is made human and compelling by virtue of the exquisite and well nigh perfect...
- 1/5/2018
- by THR Staff
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
By Patrick Shanley
Managing Editor
The long wait is almost over, as tomorrow the Academy will announce the official nominations for the 88th Academy Awards. Those who have been following this season’s race are well aware that things are as knotted up as they have been in a long time, with no clear-cut front runner having emerged.
The Golden Globes may have been a bit of an indicator to Oscar’s decisions, but with a race this tight Globe wins may not be as solid of indicators as one might think.
Even films that once seemed like major Oscar contenders in multiple categories are now looking to be limited to a much smaller number of noms due to stiff competition. One such film is Spotlight, which lit up the Oscar landscape not too long ago with its strong cast and direction, but it now seems that the number of legitimate supporting actor candidates,...
Managing Editor
The long wait is almost over, as tomorrow the Academy will announce the official nominations for the 88th Academy Awards. Those who have been following this season’s race are well aware that things are as knotted up as they have been in a long time, with no clear-cut front runner having emerged.
The Golden Globes may have been a bit of an indicator to Oscar’s decisions, but with a race this tight Globe wins may not be as solid of indicators as one might think.
Even films that once seemed like major Oscar contenders in multiple categories are now looking to be limited to a much smaller number of noms due to stiff competition. One such film is Spotlight, which lit up the Oscar landscape not too long ago with its strong cast and direction, but it now seems that the number of legitimate supporting actor candidates,...
- 1/13/2016
- by Patrick Shanley
- Scott Feinberg
'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...
- 11/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ingrid Bergman ca. early 1940s. Ingrid Bergman movies on TCM: From the artificial 'Gaslight' to the magisterial 'Autumn Sonata' Two days ago, Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” series highlighted the film career of Greta Garbo. Today, Aug. 28, '15, TCM is focusing on another Swedish actress, three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman, who would have turned 100 years old tomorrow. TCM has likely aired most of Bergman's Hollywood films, and at least some of her early Swedish work. As a result, today's only premiere is Fielder Cook's little-seen and little-remembered From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1973), about two bored kids (Sally Prager, Johnny Doran) who run away from home and end up at New York City's Metropolitan Museum. Obviously, this is no A Night at the Museum – and that's a major plus. Bergman plays an elderly art lover who takes an interest in them; her...
- 8/28/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
1. The term "gaslight." The Ingrid Bergman thriller "Gaslight" -- released 70 years ago this week, on May 4, 1944, wasn't the original use of the title. There was Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play "Gas Light," retitled "Angel Street" when it came to Broadway a couple years later. And there was a British film version in 1939, starring Anton Walbrook (later the cruel impresario in "The Red Shoes") and Diana Wynyard.
Still, the glossy 1944 MGM version remains the best-known telling of the tale, with the title an apparent reference to the flickering Victorian lamps that are part of Gregory's (Charles Boyer) scheme to make wife Paula (Bergman) think she's seeing things that aren't there, thus deliberately undermining her sanity in order to have her institutionalized so that he'll be free to ransack the ancestral home to find the missing family jewels.
This version of Hamilton's tale was so popular that it made the word "gaslight"into a verb,...
Still, the glossy 1944 MGM version remains the best-known telling of the tale, with the title an apparent reference to the flickering Victorian lamps that are part of Gregory's (Charles Boyer) scheme to make wife Paula (Bergman) think she's seeing things that aren't there, thus deliberately undermining her sanity in order to have her institutionalized so that he'll be free to ransack the ancestral home to find the missing family jewels.
This version of Hamilton's tale was so popular that it made the word "gaslight"into a verb,...
- 5/9/2014
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
(Thorold Dickinson, 1940, BFI, PG)
Although he only directed eight features, Thorold Dickinson (1903-84) had as remarkable and wide-ranging a career in the British cinema as his close contemporaries David Lean and Anthony Asquith. Like Lean, he served a long apprenticeship as an editor. Like Asquith, a fellow liberal, Oxford-educated son of the establishment, he had an early interest in the avant-garde and played a significant role in organising Act, the film industry trade union.
As film critic of the Spectator, Graham Greene praised The High Command and The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, Dickinson's first two films, both thrillers. But there were long absences from commercial cinema. In the late 1930s he spent several years making leftwing documentaries supporting the Spanish government. Much of his second world war was devoted to public information pictures, and for several postwar years he produced pictures for the United Nations. In the 1960s he became Britain's...
Although he only directed eight features, Thorold Dickinson (1903-84) had as remarkable and wide-ranging a career in the British cinema as his close contemporaries David Lean and Anthony Asquith. Like Lean, he served a long apprenticeship as an editor. Like Asquith, a fellow liberal, Oxford-educated son of the establishment, he had an early interest in the avant-garde and played a significant role in organising Act, the film industry trade union.
As film critic of the Spectator, Graham Greene praised The High Command and The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, Dickinson's first two films, both thrillers. But there were long absences from commercial cinema. In the late 1930s he spent several years making leftwing documentaries supporting the Spanish government. Much of his second world war was devoted to public information pictures, and for several postwar years he produced pictures for the United Nations. In the 1960s he became Britain's...
- 12/15/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Joss Whedon's California-set Much Ado, filmed in black and white over 12 days, is a charming and witty triumph
Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch video
There was a great fear in the 1960s and 70s that various respected directors who'd moved into making epics and blockbusters would be unable to return, even occasionally, to more modest productions. Some of them didn't, most notably David Lean. Some of them did, most impressively John Huston with Fat City, Wise Blood and The Dead. The same query was raised over Francis Ford Coppola and, more recently, hangs over Christopher Nolan. But the 49-year-old Joss Whedon has triumphantly answered the question.
After scripting Buffy the Vampire Slayer for TV and the first Toy Story for the cinema, Whedon rose fairly rapidly to direct The Avengers with a budget of $220m. His producers apparently insisted that between the long shooting schedule on...
Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch video
There was a great fear in the 1960s and 70s that various respected directors who'd moved into making epics and blockbusters would be unable to return, even occasionally, to more modest productions. Some of them didn't, most notably David Lean. Some of them did, most impressively John Huston with Fat City, Wise Blood and The Dead. The same query was raised over Francis Ford Coppola and, more recently, hangs over Christopher Nolan. But the 49-year-old Joss Whedon has triumphantly answered the question.
After scripting Buffy the Vampire Slayer for TV and the first Toy Story for the cinema, Whedon rose fairly rapidly to direct The Avengers with a budget of $220m. His producers apparently insisted that between the long shooting schedule on...
- 6/17/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Paulette Goddard: An Ideal Husband and Paris Model on TCM Paulette Goddard height: Supposedly 5’4″. Paulette Goddard age: Well… Goddard would have turned 108 today. Or 103. Or 102. Or 98. It all depends on the source, though Goddard herself apparently — and not at all surprisingly — preferred the 1915 birth date, which would have made her 98 years old in 2013. Whether a centenarian or a nonagenarian, Paulette Goddard is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Day. TCM has already shown several Goddard movies, among them Charles Chaplin’s Modern Times and the Luise Rainer star vehicle Dramatic School, and it’s currently showing An Ideal Husband. (Picture: Paulette Goddard publicity shot, ca. 1940.) Made in England for London Films, An Ideal Husband (1947) was quite a prestigious production so as to justify the presence of a top Hollywood star in a British film. No less a figure than London Films founder Alexander Korda directed this movie adaptation of...
- 6/3/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Sarah Dobbs Rosie Fletcher Oct 30, 2019
These horror movies don't use cheap thrills to get scares. They rely on atmosphere and suspense rather than gore and jump-scares.
Creepy isn’t the same as scary. Of course horror movies can be scary simply by using loud noises and sudden movements to make their audiences jump, but creepy is harder to pull off. To be effectively creepy, a film needs to establish a certain atmosphere; it needs to draw you in and make you care. It needs to give you something to think about when you’re trying to drop off to sleep at night; to make you wonder whether that creaking noise down the hallway was just the house settling or something lurking in the shadows. Creepy stays with you. It gives you goosebumps.
I love most kinds of horror movies, but creepy films are probably my favorite. Or rather, my least favorite,...
These horror movies don't use cheap thrills to get scares. They rely on atmosphere and suspense rather than gore and jump-scares.
Creepy isn’t the same as scary. Of course horror movies can be scary simply by using loud noises and sudden movements to make their audiences jump, but creepy is harder to pull off. To be effectively creepy, a film needs to establish a certain atmosphere; it needs to draw you in and make you care. It needs to give you something to think about when you’re trying to drop off to sleep at night; to make you wonder whether that creaking noise down the hallway was just the house settling or something lurking in the shadows. Creepy stays with you. It gives you goosebumps.
I love most kinds of horror movies, but creepy films are probably my favorite. Or rather, my least favorite,...
- 10/17/2012
- Den of Geek
Paulette Goddard, Modern Times Paulette Goddard on TCM Part I: Modern Times, Reap The Wild Wind I've never watched Alexander Korda's British-made An Ideal Husband, a 1948 adaptation (by Lajos Biro) of Oscar Wilde's play, but it should be at least worth a look. The respectable cast includes Michael Wilding, Diana Wynyard, C. Aubrey Smith, Hugh Williams, Constance Collier, and Glynis Johns. George Cukor's film version of Clare Boothe Luce's hilarious The Women ("officially" adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin) is definitely worth numerous looks; once or twice or even three times isn't/aren't enough to catch the machine-gun dialogue spewed forth by the likes of Goddard, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Mary Boland, Phyllis Povah, Lucile Watson, et al. A big hit at the time, The Women actually ended up in the red because of its high cost. Norma Shearer, aka The Widow Thalberg, was the nominal star; curiously,...
- 8/2/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Cavalcade (1933) Direction: Frank Lloyd Cast: Clive Brook, Diana Wynyard, Herbert Mundin, Una O'Connor, Beryl Mercer, Irene Browne, Merle Tottenham, Frank Lawton, Ursula Jeans, Margaret Lindsay Screenplay: Reginald Berkeley, Sonya Levien; from Noel Coward's 1931 play Oscar Movies, Pre-Code Movies Herbert Mundin, Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook, Una O'Connor, Cavalcade Synopsis: Upstairs, Robert and Jane Marryot (Clive Brook, Diana Wynyard), and downstairs, Alfred and Ellen Bridges (Herbert Mundin, Una O'Connor), in a British household, from 1900 to 1933. The Pros: Cavalcade won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for the period 1932-33 (basically from Aug. '32-Dec. '33) and was reportedly the biggest box-office hit of 1933, grossing more than $3.5m (approx. $121m today*). That makes it a historical curiosity. Best Actress Oscar nominee Diana Wynyard has one remarkable moment, walking among armistice revelers but not feeling at all like celebrating after having lost a son to the Great War. Noel Coward, for his [...]...
- 2/11/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.