For those who will climb it, there is a ladder leading from the depths to the heights - from the sewer to the stars - the ladder of Courage.
7th Heaven (1927) - watched 6/1/24
Director: Frank Borzage
Writer: Benjamin Glazer
Starring: Janet Gaynor & Charles Farrell
Available to watch: Tubi, YouTube
First Time Watch? Yes
I’m very sorry for being such a little fiend for the Oscars. I know it’s not very cool, I know the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Academy Awards specifically are very corny and archaic and problematic in myriad ways. I wish this wasn’t something I cared about, but unfortunately I do. I like it when the people I like win and I like being mad when the people I don’t like win or when the people I like lose. Truth is, I’ve always envisioned myself winning an Academy Award. As a little kid I thought I’d win one for acting. Then later in life I thought I’d win one for writing. Then for a brief spell in film school I thought I had the goods to win one for directing (this is probably the most delusional of the three pipe dreams). I’ve always known exactly what I would say and who I would thank.
My interest in the Oscars only intensified once I moved to Los Angeles, almost nine years ago. The Stars, they’re walking the red carpet practically right down the street! It’s both a surreal thing and also a very mundane, borderline annoying thing. I hosted my first-ever Oscar party this year and it was a blast. I devoured Michael Schulman’s extremely engrossing and impeccably researched book about the Oscars, which I will more than likely reference many, many times in this newsletter. The Academy Museum is currently one of my favorite museum experiences in L.A., and I’ve even splurged to buy myself the experience of holding an Oscar for approximately 15-seconds to pretend I just won. I still tear up when I think about Barry Jenkins saying “To hell with dreams, I’m done with it, because this is true,” in his acceptance speech for Moonlight’s chaotic but wonderful Best Picture win (an event that I WILL discuss at length once we get there in… many, many weeks’ time).
Without getting too deep into it, I’ve lived a life that’s been pretty un-glamorous. Child of divorce, grew up fast taking care of a disabled family member, always broke, abysmal self-esteem, various childhood traumas, etc. So once a year I like to bask in the glamor, the pure indulgence of the Oscars. I also just like to see people like Da’Vine Joy Randolph achieve their dreams! So sue me!!
I’m far from being the Academy Awards Scholar™ that I strive to be, but I think by the end of this project I’ll be pretty close. I want to wow absolutely no one with my encyclopedic knowledge! I want to take this otherwise worthless skill to the new pop culture version of Jeopardy!
But I have to start somewhere. And what better place to start than the first Oscars ceremony?
The first Academy Awards ceremony took place on May 16, 1929, and covered films released between August 1, 1927 and July 31, 1928. These dates don’t make any sense to me, but go off, Academy! I admire the chaos of it. Why would you simply group together movies that were released within a traditional calendar year when you can make the cutoff point a random date in the summer?
The ceremony, unfathomably, lasted only 15 minutes, and included a mere 12 categories, not including the two honorary awards for Charlie Chaplin and… for Warner Brothers, the studio, as a whole, for producing the pioneering The Jazz Singer. The Jazz Singer, by the way, didn’t win any Academy Awards of its own. Take THAT, Talkies!
Winners could be recognized for a single work, for multiple works within the same year, or just kind of for the hell of it. Winners were revealed three months before the ceremony, rendering the ceremony even more pointless than they currently are. I tell ya what, one thing that has remained unchanged with the Academy is that they truly did not know what the hell they were doing, at any point in time, and probably never will. That’s part of the excitement of it all, right? Frustration does count as excitement, by the way!
You mustn't be afraid. I'm never afraid. Never look down - Always look up. I always look up. That's why I'm a very remarkable fellow!
Unfortunately, this project has already hit a snag - watching all Best Picture-nominated films in chronological order means that the first handful of movies I watch will be silent films. The silent film era is a bit of a blind spot for me - I like hearing people talk I guess, sorry!
Really it has everything to do with my dogshit attention span, and the memory of watching many a silent film in my media studies class in college and just getting oh so sleepy and deciding it was the perfect time to take a midday nap. Not to mention, modern day distractions and modern day exhaustion make it nearly impossible for me to sit through a full two-hour long silent movie all in one go. Case in point: During my viewing of the first film in this series, 7th Heaven, I had to continually pause and rewind the movie because I kept getting distracted by texts from my mom about joining her wine club. I set my phone to “Do Not Disturb,” only to then be distracted by my pets, by errands and tasks that I would randomly remember needing to get done, by researching the movie as I was watching the movie, and so on and so forth. I’m not sure that the modern brain is well wired for movies in full sound and color anymore, let alone old silent movies in black and white.
Also, if it’s possible to have a phobia of the weird, jerky, sped-up way that people move around in silent films, then I have that phobia. Early films have always looked unsettling to me, like I’m not watching real human people, but rather some kind of animatronic or marionette. Don’t even get me started on the nightmare fuel that is A Trip to the Moon.
The thing that I may find most frustrating about silent films is how the title cards rarely match up to what the characters are actually saying. You’ll watch a scene with several clear lines of silent dialogue going back and forth, only for the corresponding title card to simply say, “No thank you!” Sure, part of acting is what’s left unsaid between the actors. But I’m nosy!! Don’t portray the characters as having had a full conversation, only for me to get one tiny snippet of that conversation. What did you say? Fill me in! Especially when the dialogue looks to be delivered with passion - at times, especially as a “writer,” lol, I feel robbed of some potentially profound, emotionally resonant dialogue. Or maybe a fart joke? Did they tell fart jokes in silent films? Maybe not, since you couldn’t hear the fart anyway? I’m here to ask the important questions.
Despite my personal misgivings about silent movies, I know that I have to dive deeper into the genre if I want to even sniff at the idea of being an authority on cinema. I recently rewatched The Gold Rush (on the gift that is the Criterion 24/7 channel) for the first time in many years, and the last time was undoubtedly a half-assed, snoozy viewing. And you know what? The Gold Rush is a great movie! That Charlie Chaplin was onto something! So, with silent movies now in my good graces, let’s dive in.
Not bad, eh? I work in the sewer - but I live near the stars!
7th Heaven (1927)
In 1910s Paris, set against the backdrop of World War 1 (I love when shit is set against a backdrop) Chico1 (Charles Farrell) is a poor sewer worker with aspirations of becoming a street cleaner, and honestly? Good for him. Keep your goals realistic, Chico. One day he meets Diane (Janet Gaynor) as he rescues her from her abusive sister. When Diane’s sister returns with the police, intent on arresting her for prostitution, Chico intervenes and tells them she is his wife. To keep up the ruse and avoid suspicion from the police, Diane moves in with Chico, and over time they fall in love for REAL for real. They have an impromptu wedding after Chico is recruited to fight in the war. When Chico is badly injured and presumed dead, Diane is close to giving up all hope. But Chico saves her one more time by returning from the war, not even a little bit dead, but blinded from his injuries.
And they all lived happily ever after! Including me, because I thought this movie was quite lovely and good!
Aside from some length and/or pacing issues (did people in the 1920s ever express a preference for a “tight 90”?) and the overt religious messaging, I liked 7th Heaven just fine, and I can see why it was a success in its time.
One of the things I’m growing to appreciate about silent films is that, while at times it can feel overdone, the actors have to really emote. And Janet Gaynor has an incredible emoting mug. At 21 years old, she fully sells the role of the poor, wounded, fragile, and helpless Diane. The first time you see Diane, she is lying on the ground, with her nasty sneering sister looming over her, hurling abuse at her. You’re immediately pulled to sympathize with Diane — because what exactly was her sister’s deal, anyway? Instead of portraying two sisters who band together and make the most out of a bad situation, Diane bears the brunt of her sister’s anger, which makes the moment of Diane’s rescue and her love story with Chico all the more gratifying.
My only (very minor) gripe with the sisters’ relationship was that we never got a sense of the abusive sister’s motivation — did she treat Diane this way because she was jealous? Because she had been abused, herself? The story hints that the sister could be an alcoholic, but it’s not made explicit in the text. It’s not super crucial to the story, but the sister was so brutal to Diane that it really left me going “Huh?” and “What the hell?”
I’m not sure if underdevelopment of characters is a common trait of silent movies — I think this project will help me to better determine that, so time will tell! I can see it being A Thing. Or at least having some character development get lost in translation. But overall I did find that we didn’t know enough about the characters and what motivated them. I don’t need a full-blown origin story, but give me something! What happened to Diane and her sister’s parents? What led to Diane and her sister’s circumstances? Why were their aunt and uncle just showing up for them now?
Even without a glaring lack of context, I still found this to be a compelling love story. Charles Farrell is swoon-worthy, even with the knowledge that his character smells like a sewer. His performance as a loud and proud atheist himbo, in contrast to Gaynor, borders on hammy, but he makes it work.
And as much as I adored Janet Gaynor’s performance, ultimately I found myself connecting most with Farrell’s character, Chico, the sewer rat who merely wanted to ascend to the street above. A love story between Two Poors is something I appreciate on a deep level, having grown up on rom-coms featuring unattainable Nancy Meyers kitchens and glamorous magazine editor jobs. Seeing a character like Chico aspire to something as simple as becoming a street cleaner was refreshing, and honestly something I can relate to all too well.
I started my life dreaming big, thinking about that Oscar I would inevitably win some day. But as I got older, and the realities of my upbringing, the limitations that my circumstances set for me began to sink in, those dreams only felt further away, borderline impossible. So it made more sense, to me, to tone down my ambitions. Maybe better things would come eventually, maybe not (spoiler alert: they did), but at least I could still feel like I did something, even if it felt small. I just needed to get out of the sewer.
Quick Facts:
Most nominated film at the first Academy Awards, with 5 nominations (Outstanding Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Art Direction)
Won for Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
The 13th highest grossing silent film, raking in more than $2.5 million at the box office in 1927 (almost $58 million in 2024 dollars. Wowee zowee!)
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Next Up: The Racket (1928)
The amount of times I wanted to type “Chino” instead of “Chico” is truly embarrassing. If I let one “Chino” (*Summer Roberts voice* Ew!) slip through, please don’t tell me