1937--The Year in Review

It's a tight race here. Against impossible odds, Walt Disney and his chosen director David Hand spearheaded among the first animated features, and did so perfectly--so much so that they shook film history forever. But French mastermind Jean Renoir contributed the smartest and most emotional anti-war statement ever committed to film (that's at least true for the first half of the 20th century). Meanwhile, the romantic comedy genre got its crown gem with Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth, commanded by a kingly team of Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, who managed to be ridiculously funny, argumentative, and sexy (the film has a GREAT supporting cast, including the hilariously clueless Ralph Bellamy). Still, Bellamy could not brook the contribution of the inimitable Erich Von Stroheim, who stands as one of the most complexly heroic villains in cinema history (so much so that he famously became "The man you love to hate"). Alice Brady fully inhabited the horror of the great Chicago fire, and the animation short prize came to a surprising tie, with both Disney and Oskar Fischinger making terrific strides in that field (I believe Fischinger, with his wonderfully visual translation of musical beats, greatly influenced Disney to later craft the animation milestone Fantasia). And, among live action shorts, a strange and amateur amalgamation of narrative and experimental ideas takes hold and becomes something of immense wonder--it feels like the greatest 48-hour film challenge result ever. Finally, Gregg Toland--later the cinematographer of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane--makes strides with his moody, ahead-of-its-time cinematography for the early crime drama Dead End--a film which would reverberate for years to come in surprising ways.  NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and they are in no way reflective of the choices made by the Oscars.

PICTURE: GRAND ILLUSION (France, Jean Renoir)
(2nd: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (US, David Hand and Walt Disney, followed by:
The Awful Truth (US, Leo McCarey)
Make Way for Tomorrow (US, Leo McCarey)
Nothing Sacred (US, William Wellman)
Lost Horizon (US, Frank Capra)
A Star is Born (US, William Wellman)
Stella Dallas (US, King Vidor)
Dead End (US, William Wyler)
Easy Living (US, Mitchell Leisen)
The Life of Emile Zola (US, William Dieterle)
Way Out West (US, James Horne)

ACTOR: Cary Grant, THE AWFUL TRUTH (2nd: Victor Moore, Make Way for Tomorrow, followed by: Paul Muni, The Life of Emile Zola; Fredric March, Nothing Sacred; Fredric March, A Star is Born; Jean Gabin, Grand Illusion)



ACTRESS: Irene Dunne, THE AWFUL TRUTH (2nd: Carole Lombard, Nothing Sacred, followed by: Beulah Bondi, Make Way for Tomorrow; Barbara Stanwyck, Stella Dallas; Jean Arthur, Easy Living; Janet Gaynor A Star is Born)

SUPPORTING ACTOR:  Erich Von Stroheim, GRAND ILLUSION (2nd: Ralph Bellemy, The Awful Truth, followed by: Joseph Schildkraut, The Life of Emile Zola; H.B. Warner, Lost Horizon; Roland Young, Topper; Thomas Mitchell, Lost Horizon)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Alice Brady, IN OLD CHICAGO (2nd: Eve Arden, Stage Door, followed by: Billie Burke, Topper; Claire Trevor, Dead End; Anne Shirley, Stella Dallas)

DIRECTOR: Jean Renoir, GRAND ILLUSION (2nd: Leo McCarey, The Awful Truth, followed by:
David Hand, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Leo McCarey, Make Way for Tomorrow; William Wellman, Nothing Sacred; Frank Capra, Lost Horizon) 

SCREENPLAY: Vina Delmar, THE AWFUL TRUTH (2nd: Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir, Grand Illusion, followed by: Vina Delmar, Make Way for Tomorrow; Dorothy Parker, William A. Wellman, Robert Carson, and Alan Campbell, A Star is Born; Ben Hecht, Nothing Sacred; Robert Riskin, Lost Horizon)



LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: EVEN - AS YOU AND I (US, Roger Barlow, Harry Hay, and LeRoy Robbins) (2nd: Calling Mr. Smith (Poland, Stefan Themerson), followed by: Grips, Grunts & Groans (US, Preston Black, The Three Stooges))



ANIMATED SHORT FILM: TIE: THE OLD MILL (US, Wilfred Jackson and Walt Disney) and AN OPTICAL POEM (US, Oskar Fischinger) (2nd: Trade Tattoo (US, Lenny Lye), followed by: Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s 40 Thieves (US, Dave Fleischer); Clock Cleaners (US, Ben Sharpsteen and Walt Disney)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Gregg Toland, DEAD END (2nd: Karl Freund, The Good Earth, followed by: Christian Matras, Grand Illusion; W. Howard Greene, Nothing Sacred) 

ART DIRECTION: LOST HORIZON, The Awful Truth, The Prisoner of Zenda, Wee Willie Winkie, In Old Chicago

COSTUME DESIGN: LOST HORIZON, The Awful Truth, The Prisoner of Zenda, Topper, The Hurricane

ORIGINAL SCORE: Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline and Paul J. Smith, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (2nd: Dimitri Tiompkin, LOST HORIZON, followed by: Joseph Kosma, Grand Illusion; Alfred Newman, The Hurricane; Marvin Hatley, Way Out West; Max Steiner, The Life of Emile Zola; Erich Wolfgang Korngold, The Prince and the Pauper)

ORIGINAL SONG: "Whistle While You Work" from SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (Music by Frank Chuchill, lyrics by Larry Morey) (2nd: "Someday My Prince Will Come" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Music by Frank Chuchill, lyrics by Larry Morey), followed by: "They Can't Take That Away From Me" from Shall We Dance (Music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin); "Heigh Ho" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Music by Frank Chuchill, lyrics by Larry Morey); "Whispers in the Dark" from Artists and Models (Music by Frederic Hollander. lyrics by Leo Robin)

Master List #30: The 101 Greatest Films About Childhood

In determining this list for the upcoming overview of The Cinema of Childhood on the estimable website Wonders in the Dark, I had to juggle a few things. First of all, how did the idea of childhood (and often the transition from such a stage into adulthood) most figure into the story. Sometimes, childhood (or, more often, the teen years) ventured too closely into maturity, and so I had to negate such titles (which made it difficult for films like West Side Story, The Last Picture Show, Dazed and Confused, and American Graffiti to make the cut, and made it impossible for the inclusion of films like Breaking Away or Ghost World, which are really films about newly minted adulthood). Sometimes I had to figure out whether a film was about a specific child performance (as in, say, Tatum O'Neal's turn in Paper Moon, which made the list, versus Justin Henry's turn in Kramer Vs. Kramer, which didn't) versus whether it had something to impart about childhood in general. I had to balance how some of these films had as much or more to say about adulthood as they did about being a kid (so, for instance, Anna Paquin's performance in The Piano didn't help Campion's film onto the list). As always on this sort of list, I was forced into determining what films reminded me of my own childhood (which is why, for instance, I really wanted to include one TV series, Freaks and Geeks, into the mix but ultimately only mentioned it in the final caveat). I really wanted to balance out the number of female-oriented films with the male ones, and the films that dealt with radically different childhoods than I had experienced (and in considering that, I had to think about those films that were more about the experience the child in question was feeling, rather than childhood itself--thus, something like Come and See is negated, because it's more about wartime). And, of course, I had to consider simply what were the best films of them all...so, with all this in mind, here are my choices:

1) The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 59, US)
2) To Kill A Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 62, US) 
3) Seven Up and Seven Plus Seven (Paul Almond / Michael Apted, 64-71, UK)  
5) A Little Romance (George Roy Hill, 79, US/France)
6) Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 83, Sweden)
7) The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 71, US) 
4) ET The Extraterrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 82, US) 
8) The Fallen Idol (Carol Reed, 48, UK) 
9) Zero for Conduct (Jean Vigo, 33, France) 
10) Ponette (Jacques Doillon, 96, France)
11) The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011, US)
12) The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 55, US)
13) Small Change (Francois Truffaut, 76, France)
14) Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen, 2015, US)
15) Hope and Glory (John Boorman, 87, UK)
16) Lady Bird (2007, Great Gerwig, US) 
17) Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014, US) 
18) Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001, US)
19) American Graffiti (George Lucas, 73, US)
20) The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 73, Spain) 
21) Toy Story (John Lasseter, 95, US)
22) The Bad News Bears (Michael Richie, 76, US)
23) Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 55, US)
24) Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 55, India) 
25) Over The Edge (Jonathan Kaplan, 79, US)
26) Los Olvidados (Luis Bunuel, 50, Mexico)
27) A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (James Ivory, 98, US/France) 
28) The Tin Drum (Volker Schlondorff, 79, Germany)
29) Kes (Ken Loach, 69, UK)
30) Moonbird (John and Faith Hubley, 59, US)
31) The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (Roy Rowland, 53, US)
32) Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 74, US)
33) Forbidden Games (Rene Clement, 52, France)
34) Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011, US)
35) Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003, US)
36) Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 67, France) 
37) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart, 71, US)
38) The Long Day Closes (Terrence Davies, 92, UK) 
39) The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 61, UK)  
40) Gregory's Girl (Bill Forsyth, 81, Scotland)
41) Pollyanna (David Swift, 60, US)
42) George Washington (David Gordon Green, 2001, US)
43) West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 61, US)
44) Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, 48, Italy) 
45) Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 75, Australia)
46) Pixote (Hector Babenco, 81, Brazil)
47) Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 61, US) 
48) The Black Stallion (Carroll Ballard, 79, US)
49) Sundays and Cybele (Serge Bourguignon, 62, France)
50) Au Revoir Les Enfants (Louis Malle, 87, France)
51) Let The Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008, Sweden) 
52) The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017, US) 
53) Little Women (Gillian Armstrong, 94, US) 
54) We Are the Best! (Lukas Moodysson, 2013, Sweden)
55) Streetwise (Martin Bell and Mary Ellen Mark, 82, US)
56) Bugsy Malone (Alan Parker, 76, UK)
57) Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 44, US)
58) To Be and To Have (Nicolas Philibert, 2002, France)
59) Oliver! (Carol Reed, 68, UK) 
60) The Diary of Anne Frank (George Stevens, 59, US)
61) A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001, US) 
62) Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 48, Italy)  
63) Nobody Knows (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2005, Japan) 
64) King of the Hill (Steven Soderburgh, 93, US) 
65) Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 71, Australia) 
66) My Life as a Dog (Lasse Hallstrom, 85, Sweden) 
67) Europa Europa (Agnieszka Holland, 90, France/Poland) 
68) The Window (Ted Tetzlaff, 49, US) 
69) Invaders from Mars (William Cameron Menzies, 53, US) 
70) The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013, UK) 
71) Shoeshine (Vittorio De Sice, 46, Italy) 
72) This is England (Shane Meadows, 2006, UK) 
73) The World of Henry Orient (George Roy Hill, 64, US) 
74) Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 80, US) 
75) Election (Alexander Payne, 99, US) 
76) The Fall (Tarsem Singh, 2008, US/France) 
77) Kikujiro (Takeshi Kitano, 99, Japan)
78) The Man in the Moon (Robert Mulligan, 91, US)
79) Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 93, US)
80) C'est La Vie (Diane Kurys, 90, France) 
81) Clueless (Amy Heckerling, 95, US) 
82) Marvin and Tige (Eric Weston, 83, US)
83) Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 99, US)
84) The Grand Highway (Jean-Loup Hubert, 87, France) 
85) The Other (Robert Mulligan, 72, US)
86) Lord of the Flies (Peter Brook, 63, UK)
87) Eve's Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 97, US) 
88) Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg, 87, US) 
89) Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Amy Heckerling, 82, US)
90) Whistle Down the Wind (Bryan Forbes, 61, UK)  
91) The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2011, Belgium) 
92) The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 46, US) 
93) What Maisie Knew (Scott McGehee and David Siegel, 2012, US) 
94) The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley, 90, Canada) 
95) Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009, UK) 
96) Phantasm (Don Coscarelli, 79, US) 
97) The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse, 56, France)
98) Fresh (Boaz Yakin, 94, US) 
99) The Cowboys (Mark Rydell, 72, US) 
100) My Bodyguard (Tony Bill, 80, US) 
101) The Member of the Wedding (Fred Zinnemann, 52, US)

The movies I'm sad I had to leave off: 

Little Men (2016), Out of the Blue, National Velvet, Shane, Yi Yi, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Valarie and Her Week of Wonders, Somers Town, Lady Bird, Dope, God Bless the Child, Heaven Help Us, Beautiful Thing, Ratcatcher, Little Fugitive, Old Enough, After Lucia, The Miracle Worker (62), Mon Oncle, The White Balloon, Rosetta, The Piano, Careful He Might Hear You, Ghost World, Breaking Away, Freaks and Geeks (US TV series), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Kid (21), Jeremy, Foxes, City of God, Fame, Heavenly Creatures, Come and See, Leave It to Beaver (US TV series), Pelle the Conqueror, Cooley High, Goodbye First Love, Conrack, Puberty Blues, Play, Bambi, The Parent Trap (62), Pinocchio, Kipperbang, The Iron Giant, Sixteen Candles, A Nos Amour, Peppermint Soda, Big, Vagabond, Never Let Me Go, Monsters Inc., The Ice Storm, 20th Century Women, A Little Princess, These Three, Radio Days, Shadow of a Doubt, Spellbound (2002), Mad Hot Ballroom, Dogs is Dogs, Easy A, Our Mother's House, The Grand Highway, Peter Pan (Disney), Mary Poppins, How Green Was My Valley, The Tribe, Lassie Come Home, The City of Lost Children, The Squid and the Whale, Alice in the Cities, Leon, La Petit Amour, The Little Colonel, Tex, The Outsiders, Moonlight, The Witch, Village of the Damned, A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street (46), Paperhouse, The Chalk Garden, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Tiger Bay, The Search, The Night of the Shooting Stars, David Copperfield (35), Oliver Twist (48), I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Thirteen, Smooth Talk, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Killer of Sheep

1936--The Year in Review

Charles Chaplin remains king, even after the advent of sound and after he so steadfastly refused to adhere to such progress. Even so, his newest film is resolutely improved with sonics, being adorned with his brilliantly crafted score.Yet this particular movie is actually a silent one, as labels go, just as it's also a work that looks baldly forward, vision-wise. Fritz Lang's well-informed blitz against mob rule is Chaplin's clearest competitor for the top spot, sporting some of the year's best acting with the superb Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney. Then we see the first glimpse of a glowing, gem-like shine--Sweden's Ingrid Bergman--who'd adorn filmmaking for some time to come, recreating her own debut performance for Hollywood (and in English) only a few years later. Bubbling under are works by masterful directors like Frank Capra, William Wyler, and George Stevens. Somehow mirroring the top narrative feature, experimental filmmaker Lenny Lye contributes work that's insanely ahead of its time--to the point where it would be rebooted (without note) for Apple computer commercials in the late 90s (even looking at it now, it seems absolutely nuts--it's the most brilliant movie of the year). Meanwhile, the forward-thinking FDR administration delivers one of the finest and most famous documentary shorts ever made. It should be noted that Disney and Warner Brothers (headed here by the great Tex Avery, whose catchy I Love to Singa is a fan favorite) make terrific strides this year. And I love the villainous play by the young and supremely dupicitous Bonita Granville and, yep, that boldly iconic supporting turn by Paul Robeson as he sings the only version of "Ol' Man River" that could ever really be sung. Meanwhile, both the disaster movie San Francisco and the futuristic Things to Come are instant landmarks for the special effects craft. And it should be noted that William Cameron Menzies' art direction for Things to Come would clearly influence architecture in real life for decades to come. The future, it seems, was electric in the 1936 air.  NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and they are in no way reflective of the choices made by the Oscars.

PICTURE: MODERN TIMES (US, Charles Chaplin)
(2nd: Fury (US, Fritz Lang), followed by:
Dodsworth (US, William Wyler)
Mr Deeds Goes to Town (US, Frank Capra)
Swing Time (US, George Stevens)
Things to Come (UK, William Cameron Menzies and Alexander Korda)
Intermezzo (Sweden, Gustaf Molander)
Show Boat (US, James Whale)
The Petrified Forest (US, Archie Mayo)
The Green Pastures (US, William Keighley and Marc Connelly)

ACTOR: Spencer Tracy, FURY (2nd: William Powell, My Man Godfrey, followed by: Charles Chaplin, Modern Times; Walter Huston, Dodsworth; Gary Cooper, Mr Deeds Goes to Town; Rex Ingram, The Green Pastures; Charles Laughton, Rembrandt)
 

ACTRESS: Ingrid Bergman, INTERMEZZO (2nd: Carole Lombard, My Man Godfrey, followed by: Sylvia Sidney, Fury; Jean Arthur, Mr Deeds Goes to Town; Irene Dunne, Theodora Goes Wild; Greta Garbo, Camille; Luise Rainer, The Great Ziegfeld) 

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Paul Robeson, SHOWBOAT (2nd: Humphrey Bogart, The Petrified Forest, followed by: Walter Brennan, Come and Get It; Mischa Auer, My Man Godfrey; Oscar Homolka, Sabotage; Akim Tamiroff, The General Died at Dawn)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Bonita Granville, THESE THREE (2nd: Alice Brady, My Man Godfrey, followed by: Gale Sondergaard, Anthony Adverse; Mary Astor, Dodsworth; Helen Morgan, Showboat; Elsa Lanchester, Rembrandt)

 

DIRECTOR: Charles Chaplin, MODERN TIMES (2nd: Fritz Lang, Fury, followed by: William Wyler, Dodsworth; George Stevens, Swing Time; William Cameron Menzies and Alexander Korda, Things to Come; Frank Capra, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town)



SCREENPLAY: Fritz Lang, Bartlett Cormack and Norman Krasna, FURY (2nd: Charles Chaplin, Modern Times, followed by: Lillian Hellman, These Three; Morrie Myskind and Eric Hatch, My Man Godfrey; Robert Riskind and Clarence Budington Kelland, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town; Charles Kenyon and Delmer Daves, The Petrified Forest)



LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS (Pare Lorentz, US), followed by: Disorder in the Court (The Three Stooges; Preston Black) ; Night Mail (Harry Watt and Basil Wright, UK)



ANIMATED SHORT FILM: RAINBOW DANCE (Lenny Lye, US) (2nd: I Love to Singa (Tex Avery, US) (2nd: Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor (Dave Fleischer, US), followed by: The Country Cousin (Wilfred Jackson, US); Thru the Mirror (David Hand, US); Elmer Elephant (Wilfred Jackson, US)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: David Abel, SWING TIME (2nd: John J. Mescall, Showboat, followed by: Ira H. Morgan and Roland Totheroh, Modern Times; Joseph Ruttanberg, Fury; Tony Gaudio, Anthony Adverse)



ART DIRECTION: THINGS TO COME, Dodsworth, The Great Ziegfeld, Anthony Adverse

COSTUME DESIGN: SWING TIME, The Great Ziegfeld, Anthony Adverse, Rembrandt
  
ORIGINAL SCORE: Charles Chaplin, MODERN TIMES (2nd: Heinz Provost and Robert Henning, Intermezzo)

VISUAL EFFECTS: THINGS TO COME (2nd: San Francisco)

1935--The Year in Review

Easily the most entertaining film of a nondescript year, Hitchcock's The 39 Steps is a constant surprise. It begins and ends in stunning fashion, and even though Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will is clearly the most influential movie of its time, Hitchcock's finest British production is obviously the narrative movie of the year--it's just as exciting now as it was when it was made. But James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein came close to eclipsing it with the sheer force of its performances and design (it's at the top as one of the greatest sequels produced). With animation, Disney continues to contribute beautiful work with The Band Concert, which would prove to be among Mickey Mouse's finest moments. Still, in the end, it is Riefenstahl's images that will live forever, even if they live in infamy. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and they are in no way reflective of the choices made by the Oscars.

PICTURE: THE 39 STEPS (US, Alfred Hitchcock)
(2nd: The Bride of Frankenstein (US, James Whale), followed by: 
Triumph of the Will (Germany, Leni Refenstahl)
Top Hat (US, Mark Sandrich)
Captain Blood (US, Michael Curtiz)
Mutiny on the Bounty (US, Frank Lloyd)
A Night at the Opera (US, Sam Wood)
Ruggles of Red Gap (US, Leo McCarey)
Sylvia Scarlett (US, George Cukor)
David Copperfield (US, George Cukor)
The Man on the Flying Trapeze (US, Clyde Bruckman)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (US, William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt)
A Tale of Two Cities (US, Jack Conway))

ACTOR: Charles Laughton, RUGGLES OF RED GAP (2nd: Ronald Colman, A Tale of Two Cities, followed by: Boris Karloff, The Bride of Frankenstein; Peter Lorre, Mad Love; Victor McLaglen,  The Informer; W.C. Fields, The Man on the Flying Trapeze; Groucho Marx, A Night at the Opera; Clark Gable, Mutiny on the Bounty; Charles Laughton, Mutiny on the Bounty; Paul Muni, The Story of Louis Pasteur; Will Rogers, Steamboat Round the Bend)

ACTRESS: Katharine Hepburn, SYLVIA SCARLETT (2nd: Jean Arthur, The Whole Town‘s Talking, followed by: Bette Davis, Dangerous; Ginger Rogers, Top Hat; Katharine Hepburn, Alice Adams; Greta Garbo, Anna Karenina; Miriam Hopkins, Becky Sharp)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ernest Thesiger, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (2nd: Mickey Rooney, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, followed by: W.C. Fields, David Copperfield; Franchot Tone, Mutiny on the Bounty; Basil Rathbone, Captain Blood; Edward Everett Horton, Top Hat)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Elsa Lanchester. THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (2nd: Edna May Oliver, David Copperfield, followed by: Mary Boland, Ruggles of Red Gap; Florence Eldridge, Les Misérables; Zasu Pitts, Ruggles of Red Gap; Jessie Ralph, David Copperfield)

DIRECTOR: Leni Riefenstahl, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (2nd: James Whale, The Bride of Frankenstein, followed by: Alfred Hitchcock, The 39 Steps; Michael Curtiz, Captain Blood; George Cukor, Sylvia Scarlett; John Ford, The Informer)

SCREENPLAY: Charles Bennett and Ian Hay, THE 39 STEPS (2nd: William Hurlbut and John L. Balderson, The Bride of Frankenstein; W.P. Lipscomb and S.N. Behrman, A Tale of Two Cities; George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, James Kevin McGuinness, A Night at the Opera; Dudley Nichols, The Informer; Gladys Unger, John Collier, and Mortimer Offner, Sylvia Scarlett)



LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: CAB CALLOWAY'S JITTERBUG PARTY (Fred Waller) (2nd: Tit for Tat (Laurel and Hardy; Charles Rogers); Uncivil Warriors (Three Stooges; Del Lord); Three Little Beers (Three Stooges; Del Lord)




ANIMATED SHORT FILM: THE BAND CONCERT (Wilfred Jackson and Walt Disney) (2nd:  Colour Box (Lenny Lye), followed by: Three Orphan Kittens (David Hand and Walt Disney)



CINEMATOGRAPHY: Hal Mohr, A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM (2nd: Sepp Allinger, Triumph of the Will, followed by Bernard Knowles, The 39 Steps)

ART DIRECTION: TOP HAT, The Dark Angel, Anna Karenina, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Bride of Frankenstein

COSTUME DESIGN: CAPTAIN BLOOD, Top Hat, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Anna Karenina, David Copperfield