ka-ching!

Fun Movie if you like old movies. However, it won the second best picture award. "Wings" won the first for the years 1927-1928 in a ceremony held May 16, 1929. Broadway Melody won for the year 1929 in a ceremony held April 3 1930.

How confusing. I just remember the website I was using said Broadway Melody won the 1st place. Now, I'm going to have to buy Wings too.

Brian, believe Jack.


He was there.

Maybe that website meant Broadway Melody was the first talkie to win the award. Wings was the only silent movie to win the best picture award. No biggie either way and I'm delighted you are interested in these old movies. They have been around so long, and the acting styles can be so different from today's, that younger folk, understandably, can find it difficult to identify with them.

Wings is pretty cool for a silent movie. For all the excellent flying stunts, battle scenes, and explosions, it was quite fortunate that there were only two accidents. Regrettably, one was fatal.

Not so! Not so! Although, the way I feel this morning, I could believe I was there .

I haven't watched old movies like this in a long time. I didn't watch it straight through. I took a few breaks because I'm not used to the style. But overall, it was interesting seeing how people acted back then. Very hammy. All of the acting looked so fake. That one girl went into a crying fit for like 2 minutes straight, which didn't look all that real. Then the stuttering man, you just wish someone would shoot him after a while to get him to shut up.

I was also surprised at the amount of partial nudity for a film in that era. One woman wore a dress that fit her body tightly and was skin color. They kept showing her from the backside that made her look nude down to her waist.

Yeah, that is exactly what I meant in my previous post. The acting style seems exaggerated by today's standards.

It's not easy to do, but if you can try to imagine yourself back in the same era, and judge the movie as if you were, it helps.

Also, it can help, as you pointed out, if you are able to look at the movie with a historical eye ("ah, this is how they acted back then," look at the style of dress, look at what they considered "handsome" in a male and "beautiful" in a female, dig the cars, the slang, etc.).

RE: The nudity. Broadway Melody was made "pre-Motion Picture Production Code (scroll down far enough to click on the photo from "Sign of the Cross"). There were some pretty zesty movies made pre-code.

Turner Classic Movies has two pre-code collections:

Forbidden Hollywood, Vol. 1
Forbidden Hollywood, Vol. 2

Vol.2 has a documentary that sounds interesting. "THOU SHALT NOT: SEX, SIN AND CENSORSHIP IN PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD (2008): Over seventy years later, they've lost none of their power to shock, entertain, and titillate. So-called pre-Code movies remain among the most vital films America has ever produced. But why were these films so much more sexually free and socially critical than what came before or after? Who created the Code, and what did it forbid? And why did it finally become a Hollywood commandment? The answer is a fascinating mix of scandal, big business and social history - a unique collision of events that resulted in one of the most dynamic - and delicious - periods in Hollywood history."

Romancing style today is nothing like these movies. In the movies, it is the man saying, "Darling, I want you, I need you.". If you said that today, it would be the kiss of death to the relationship.

Also, most of the men are using a higher pitched and effeminent voice.

The women seemed to have more masculine qualities, and one of them was named Henry in this movie and she kissed another woman on the lips.

Fixed.

Link to Best Picture awards list.