1935 - The 7th Academy Awards
Honoring movies released in 1934
Hahaha hello! Remember me, the lady with the mildly amusing newsletter about Best Picture-nominated movies? The lady with lofty goals and a habit of starting ambitious projects and never finishing them?
If you’ve stuck with me through this unannounced and most likely unnoticed hiatus, I appreciate you and thank you for continuing to be a subscriber despite my lack of output. One harsh reality I’ve come to face when taking on this project is that watching all the movies is the easy part; writing about them doesn’t always come as easily.
With that in mind, I’m changing up the format of the newsletter. Instead of dedicating an entire post to one film, I’m going to sum up the films from a given year all in one post. This will hopefully prevent me from banging my head against a wall in frustration when I can’t seem to come up with 2,000 words about a mediocre 90-year-old movie. I’m hoping this new format keeps the newsletter sharp but breezy, and perhaps more importantly easier and faster to get out into the world and my adoring fans’ eyeballs.
And if this format doesn’t work out, then back to the drawing board, I guess! No, this isn’t indecision or lack of dedication or not knowing what the hell I’m doing… it’s called evolution, honey.
With the shop talk now out of the way, let’s get into the reason why we’re all here: The films nominated for Best Picture at the 7th Academy Awards.
1934 was actually the first year where I felt like we had a solid run of genuinely good best picture nominees. In prior years there were one or two standouts amongst several duds, but this year I actually rated seven of the films with 3 stars or above which, out of twelve total nominees, is kind of crazy! This means that in my view, seven of these films are above-average quality. I still think that nominating twelve films for Best Picture is an insane and unnecessary thing to do, but at least in this case the excessive nominations could be somewhat justified.
One film from this year is particularly special to me, and it’s not likely the one that you’d expect. I’ve previously mentioned that there are three Best Picture nominees that are difficult to access due to preservation issues, with The Patriot being the one film out of all BP nominees to be considered truly “lost.” A clunky version of East Lynne is available to watch on YouTube for any fellow completionists out there. The third of these films, The White Parade, is currently only accessible to view through the UCLA Film Archive—as of this writing, it is not available to stream, and no digital or physical copies exist.
Luckily for me, I live in Los Angeles. Unfortunately for me, I am also lazy. The UCLA campus is across town from where I live, and if you know even a little bit about LA traffic you know that “across town” might as well mean “across the continent.” If I was going to seek out this film, I knew it was going to be a process. A true endeavor. Despite the daunting task, the day-long errand that this presented itself to be, my desire to feel like a Very Special Lady and acquire a new fun fact about myself ultimately won out over my lack of motivation.
I reached out to the UCLA Archive Research and Study Center earlier this year to make an appointment to view The White Parade. This required looking up the film’s inventory number in their collection and having it handy when I wrote them en email to request an appointment. This ended up being less complicated than I expected—the UCLA staff let me know that they would keep the film on hold for me until a certain date, and that I could come by and view the film at any point as long as it was before the hold expired. They also had me fill out a short questionnaire and sign a form agreeing not to record any portion of the film during my visit. Once the hold was in place, they sent directions on where and how to access the film, along with much-appreciated parking instructions and directions to the campus library where I would be screening the film.
Of course I waited until literally the last few hours before my hold expired, but the important part is that I followed through. I drove up to the UCLA campus on a gorgeous day at the beginning of June—the campus was nearly empty aside from a few students still needing to take finals, and graduates posing for photos. As a 38-year-old non-academic who had no idea where I was going, the college campus being sparsely populated was an ideal situation, as this gave me fewer opportunities to look inept in front of a bunch of zoomers, which is something I recognize I shouldn’t care about yet still care about very, very deeply.
I made my way to the (gorgeous) Powell Library, which housed the media lab on the second floor. A student signed me in and took my ID in exchange for a laminated sheet of paper which reminded me not to use my cell phone or any recording devices to take images or video of the movie while I screened it. This doesn’t seem like a particularly effective barrier, but since I’m not an asshole I of course respected the rule regardless.
I was ushered to a private screening room with a table, a few chairs, and a TV. I was given two remotes—one to turn on the television and control the volume, and one to pause/resume, fast forward, or rewind. Food and drink weren’t allowed in the screening room, which was a bummer because I wanted nothing more than to give this film the proper popcorn and Cherry Coke treatment that it deserved. So it wasn’t the most glamorous of setups for something that I saw as a special, practically holy experience, but once I turned off the lights I found myself fully immersed, and suddenly nothing else mattered, because I was getting to see a movie that not very many living people have seen.
1935 - 7th Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees:
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Cleopatra
Flirtation Walk
The Gay Divorcee
Here Comes the Navy
The House of Rothschild
Imitation of Life
It Happened One Night
One Night of Love
The Thin Man
Viva Villa!
The White Parade
Best Picture Winner: It Happened One Night
Highlights:
Only 3 people were nominated for Best Direction, vs. a whopping 12 Best Picture nominees. Seems more than a little unbalanced!
This is the first year that one film swept all five of the big awards - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Writing. All five awards went to It Happened One Night. This has only happened two other times - in 1976 with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and again in 1992 with The Silence of the Lambs.
This also means that It Happened One Night won all of the categories that it was nominated for.
The categories of Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song were first introduced this year.
This was the last time that all Best Actor nominees were first-time acting nominees until the 95th Academy Awards, and the last time until the 43rd Academy Awards where either lead acting category was entirely made up of first-time nominees.
Shirley Temple was presented with the first Juvenile Award, making her the youngest Academy Award recipient ever, at age 6 (Tatum O’Neal, at age 10, still holds the record for youngest overall winner for a competitive award)
Claudette Colbert starred in three Best Picture nominees this year - Imitation of Life, Cleopatra, and the big winner It Happened One Night, which she won the Best Actress Academy Award for
Pat O’Brien starred in two Best Picture nominees this year, Flirtation Walk and Here Comes the Navy. Slightly less impressive but impressive nonetheless.
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) - Watched 2/3/25 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Directed by Sidney Franklin
Written by Donald Ogden Stewart, Ernest Vajda, and Claudine West
Starring Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Charles Laughton
This really shouldn’t have worked for me, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that a period romance set primarily in one room was actually quite arresting! I owe a lot of this to the three fantastic leads—Shearer, March, and especially Laughton take what could have been a dull story and turn it into something compelling and emotionally resonant. Norma Shearer and Charles Laughton have quickly become my favorite actors of this era, and what they were able to accomplish with this film more than justifies that honor.
My Best Picture Winner? Not quite… but it got real close!
Where to Watch: Available to buy or rent on Prime and AppleTV
Cleopatra (1934) - Watched 3/7/25 - ⭐⭐⭐
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Written by Waldemar Young, Vincent Lawrence, and Bartlett Cormack
Starring Claudette Colbert, Warren William, and Henry Wilcoxon
Confession time: This is my first-ever DeMille. And it didn’t disappoint! This was a great introduction to what I understand to be DeMille’s signature extravagance—this film is almost all spectacle, which I didn’t find to be a bad thing. Was the acting great? Aside from Colbert, not especially. Was the storytelling any good? I mean, eh… it was kind of all over the place. But the epic, elaborate set pieces and incredible wardrobe and styling (especially for Colbert who was, dare I say, extremely sexy in this movie and in 1934 in general) made up for the flaws and kept me entertained.
My Best Picture Winner? A respectable effort, but no.
Where to Watch: On OK.ru
Flirtation Walk (1934) - Watched 6/22/25 - ⭐⭐
Directed by Frank Borzage
Written by Delmer Daves
Starring Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, and Pat O’Brien
If you’re going to have the word “Flirtation” in your title, your ass better deliver on the flirtation!! This was absolutely sauceless, to an annoying degree. It’s a shame because I really like Keeler and Powell individually, and I like them as a pair, but this story and the film’s direction did not serve them well. Much like their previous Best Picture nominated outing, 42nd Street, this movie didn’t get interesting until the third act, and by then they had already lost me.
My Best Picture Winner? No
Where to Watch: On OK.ru
The Gay Divorcee (1934) - Watched 6/1/25 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Directed by Mark Sandrich
Written by George Marion Jr., Dororthy Yost, and Edward Kaufman
Starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Alice Brady, and Edward Everett Horton
In contrast to Flirtation Walk, The Gay Divorcee is simply teeming with romance and titillation. It’s easy to see how Astaire and Rogers became such an iconic duo. Their chemistry is off the charts, even if you were to take out their seamless and breezy dance sequences. A fun story with a sexy little misunderstanding—what’s not to like about that?
My Best Picture Winner? Loved this one a lot, but still not quite Best Picture level.
Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy on Prime, AppleTV, Fandango, and YouTube
Here Comes the Navy (1934) - Watched 6/22/25 - ⭐⭐
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Earl Baldwin and Ben Markson
Starring James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, and Gloria Stuart
I think the concept of joining the Navy out of spite is very, very funny. And a promising premise. It’s a premise that could feel right at home in an early-2000s bro comedy starring Johnny Knoxville or something. Which is a compliment!! I also really enjoyed Cagney & Stuart in this. Unfortunately the story is a little too over-written than it needs to be, and there’s an incredibly jarring, unnecessary scene where Cagney uses blackface to move the plot forward. I can’t help but feel like they could have disguised Cagney’s character in literally any other way!! It’s a huge blemish on an otherwise pleasant-but-not-great comedy.
My Best Picture Winner? No!!
Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy on Prime and AppleTV
The House of Rothschild (1934) - Watched 6/22/25 - ⭐⭐
Directed by Alfred L. Werker and Maude T. Howell
Written by George Hembert Westley and Nunnally Johnson
Starring George Arliss, Loretta Young, and Boris Karloff
It’s so wild to me how much I like George Arliss as an actor, despite not liking any of the movies I’ve seen him in so far (a grand total of two, this and Disraeli, but still). This, like Disraeli, is a very dry period piece with a half-baked romance thrown in. It’s a confounding film, considering the fact that its intent was to present Jewish people in a positive light, yet they still couldn’t manage to shy away from some extremely crude antisemitic stereotypes.
My Best Picture Winner? No.
Where to Watch: On YouTube
Imitation of Life (1934) - Watched 2/26/25 - ⭐⭐⭐½
Directed by John M. Stahl
Written by William J. Hurlbut
Starring Claudette Colbert, Louise Beavers, Warren William, Rochelle Hudson, Fredi Washington, and Ned Sparks
I appreciate what they were trying to accomplish here. If I’m being realistic, I can’t expect much more than this from a pre-code film that makes an attempt at addressing racial conflicts. There is a lot to admire about this film—the performances from Colbert, Beavers, and Washington were especially stunning. But an awkward, unnecessary romance that they shoehorned into the plot completely took me out of the story, and took focus away from the real heart of the story, which was the friendship and partnership between Colbert & Beavers’ characters.
My Best Picture Winner? Unfortunately, no.
Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy on Prime, AppleTV, Fandango, and YouTube
It Happened One Night (1934) - Watched 6/5/25 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ - WINNER
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Robert Riskin
Starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert
It Happened One Night has the distinct honor of being the first Best Picture nominee I’ve reviewed here that I had already previously seen. I’d only watched this movie once, over a decade ago, and upon this watch I was struck by how much of the film had stuck with me, how well I remembered so many lines and shots and beats. I didn’t remember loving it as much as I did this first go-around, but it had clearly imprinted itself on me, unknowingly, which was such a lovely, comforting surprise. Needless to say, I love this movie. It has endless charm and rewatchability. It’s maybe a little long for your typical romantic comedy, but I barely care about the runtime when a movie is this charismatic and delightful.
My Best Picture Winner? I mean, yeah, how could it not be?
Where to Watch: Available to stream for free on Tubi; Available to rent or buy on Prime, AppleTV, Fandango, and YouTube
One Night of Love (1934) - Watched 7/2/25 - ⭐
Directed by Victor Schertzinger
Written by Charles Beahan, Dorothy Speare, James Gow, S.K. Lauren, and Edmund H. North
Starring Grace Moore, Tullio Carminati, and Lyle Talbot
I’m honestly mad about what a huge waste of time this movie was. I’ll just go ahead and say it: Opera singing is annoying. I love musicals, but I guess opera is where I draw the line. I couldn’t connect with these characters and I couldn’t make sense of their motivations. The plot, involving an aspiring singer “falling in love” with her controlling singing coach, was infuriating and puzzling. These characters don’t make sense together and the movie does very little to try to convince me that they do make sense. I also, unfortunately, find Grace Moore’s portrait on the movie poster to be terrifying. A deeply unpleasant movie that I look forward to never watching again.
My Best Picture Winner? Absolutely not.
Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy on Prime, AppleTV, Fandango, and YouTube
The Thin Man (1934) - Watched 6/11/25 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Directed by W. S. Van Dyke
Written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich
Starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O’Sullivan, Nat Pendleton, and Minna Gombell
This is a stone-cold delight. A whodunnit with the 3 H’s: Humor, horniness, and h-intrigue. I’m not sure how the follow-up films stack up against this first outing, but I’m excited to fixate on this film series now, as William Powell and Myrna Loy are just sensational to watch play off of each other. And I’d be remiss not to mention the terrier-iffic performance by Skippy, the dog actor who plays Asta. A good dog performance will always, always win me over.
My Best Picture Winner? In another year, absolutely. In a year where it’s up against It Happened One Night, sorry, but no.
Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy on Prime, AppleTV, Fandango, and YouTube
Viva Villa! (1934) - Watched 7/2/25 - ⭐⭐½
Directed by Jack Conway
Written by Ben Hecht
Starring Wallace Beery, Fay Wray, and Leo Carrillo
A lot of things about this movie work really well—the writing is solid, the set pieces are impressive, and the acting is serviceable. Unfortunately it was an extremely uncomfortable watch for me, as my 2025 brain simply can’t get past the ridiculous concept of extremely white actor Wallace Beery portraying Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. I’d love to see this story, or possibly even this exact script, given proper treatment from a Mexican director with a Mexican cast. Because it’s a shame to have such a huge blemish on what could have otherwise been a great feat in filmmaking.
My Best Picture Winner? Nope!
Where to Watch: On YouTube
The White Parade (1934) - Watched 6/6/25 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Directed by Irving Cummings
Written by Rian James, Jesse L. Lasky Jr., Sonya Levien, and Ernest Pascal
Starring Loretta Young, John Boles, Dorothy Wilson, and Muriel Kirkland
A surprisingly modern story, about a group of young nursing students as they come of age and face real-life challenges during nursing school. There’s so much to love about this movie—its shockingly progressive storyline for the time, its mostly female cast, the writing, the acting. Maybe I’m allowing the novelty of having seen this nearly-lost film cloud my judgment, but I was honestly so enamored with The White Parade that now I can’t help but feel bummed out that access to this film is so severely limited. I desperately hope that someday, in my lifetime, this film can be properly restored and released, because it’s worth saving and worth seeing. I’m also flirting with the idea of writing a modern rom-com script inspired by this story, but idk idk, don’t hold me to it. Or do, maybe! I could use the accountability!!
My Best Picture Winner? No, but there’s a case to be made for this being my runner-up.
Where to Watch: Only available to screen at the UCLA Film Archive Research & Study Center
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Welcome back! I think this way of posting is a good idea. I’m thinking of doing similar myself. Of doing “project” watches and writing about them after the fact. Loved the story of hunting down the film too. That’s dedication 🫡