by Allan Fish
Straight to it as usual. Pretty much landslides in most categories.
Best Picture La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, France (9 votes)
Best Director Carl Th. Dreyer, La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (9 votes)
Best Short Un Chien Andalou, France, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dali (7 votes)
Best Actor Erich Von Stroheim, The Wedding March (6 votes)
Best Actress Renée Maria Falconetti, La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (10 votes)
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and my choices…
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Best Picture THE WEDDING MARCH, US (R.U. La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (Dreyer), Le Diable au Coeur (l’Herbier))
Best Short UN CHIEN ANDALOU, France, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dali
Best Director Carl T.Dreyer, La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc
Best Actor Emil Jannings, The Last Command
Best Actress Renée Maria Falconetti, La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc
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And on to 1929.. a lesser year for traditional chronologies of accepted canons and histories, but actually a very strong one…
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Best Picture/Director
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Alibi (US…Roland West)
Applause (US…Rouben Mamoulian)
Asphalt (Germany…Joe May)
Blackmail (silent version) (UK…Alfred Hitchcock)
Blackmail (UK…Alfred Hitchcock)
Broadway (US…Pal Fejos)
The Broadway Melody (US…Harry Beaumont)
Brother (Germany…Werner Hochbaum)
Bulldog Drummond (US…F.Richard Jones)
Cagliostro – His Life and Loves (Germany…Richard Oswald) PARTIALLY LOST
City Girl (silent version) (US…Friedrich W.Murnau) UNRELEASED
The Cock-Eyed World (US…Raoul Walsh)
The Cocoanuts (US…Robert Florey, Joseph Stanley)
A Cottage on Dartmoor (silent version) (UK…Anthony Asquith)
Dans la Nuit (France…Charles Vanel)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Germany…G.W.Pabst)
Drifters (UK…John Grierson)
Dynamite (US…Cecil B.de Mille)
Erotikon (Czechoslovakia…Gustav Machaty)
La Femme et le Pantin (France…Jacques de Baroncelli)
Finis Terrae (France…Jean Epstein)
Frau im Mond (Germany…Fritz Lang)
Fraulein Else (Germany…Paul Czinner)
Gardiens de Phare (France…Jean Grémillon)
The General Line (USSR…Sergei M.Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov)
The Ghost That Never Returns (USSR…Abram Room)
The Girl from Havana (US…Ben Stoloff)
Glorifying the American Girl (US…Millard Webb, John Harkrider)
Hallelujah! (US…King Vidor)
High Treason (UK…Maurice Elvey)
The Informer (silent version) (UK…Arthur Robison)
The Iron Mask (US…Allan Dwan)
Kitty (UK…Victor Saville)
Lady of the Pavements (US…D.W.Griffith)
Laila (Norway…George Schnéevoigt)
The Last Warning (US…Paul Leni)
The Living Corpse (USSR…Fedor Ozep)
The Love Parade (US…Ernst Lubitsch)
Lucky Star (US…Frank Borzage)
The Man With the Movie Camera (USSR…Dziga Vertov)
Manolescu, the Prince of Adventurers (Germany…Victor Tourjansky)
The Manxman (UK…Alfred Hitchcock)
La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc (France…Marco de Gastyne)
Mexicali Rose (US…Erle C.Kenton)
Monte-Cristo (France…Henri Fescourt)
Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness (Germany…Phil Jutzi)
The New Babylon (USSR…Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg)
The Organist of St Vitus (Czechoslovakia…Martin Fric)
The Other Side of the Street (Germany…Leo Mittler)
Pandora’s Box (Germany…G.W.Pabst)
People on Sunday (Germany…Edgar G.Ulmer, Robert Siodmak)
Piccadilly (UK…E.A.Dupont)
The River (US…Frank Borzage)
Seven Footprints to Satan (US…Benjamin Christensen)
Ship of Lost Men (Germany…Maurice Tourneur)
Sole (Italy…Alessandro Blasetti)
Springtime (USSR…Mikhail Kaufman)
The Strongest (Sweden…Alf Sjöberg)
Tarakanova (France…Raymond Bernard)
A Throw of Dice (India/Germany…Franz Osten)
Thunderbolt (US…Josef von Sternberg)
Turksib (USSR…Victor Turin)
Underground (UK…Anthony Asquith)
The Virginian (US…Victor Fleming)
The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Germany…Arnold Fanck, G.W.Pabst)
The Wild Party (US…Dorothy Arzner)
The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrowna (Germany…Hanns Schwarz)
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Best Short
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The Barnyard Battle (US…Ub Iwerks)
Big Business (US…James W.Horne)
Black and Tan (UK…Dudley Murphy)
Brumes d’Automne (France…Dimitri Kirsanov)
H2O (UK…Ralph Steiner)
Haunted House (US…Walt Disney)
Liberty (US…Leo McCarey)
Melody of the World (Germany…Walter Ruttmann)
Men O’War (US…Lewis Foster)
Les Mystères du Château du Dé (France…Man Ray)
Only Me (US…Lupino Lane)
Perfect Day (US…James Parrott)
Rain (Netherlands…Joris Ivens)
The Skeleton Dance (US…Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney)
Tusalava (UK…Len Lye)
You’re Darn Tootin! (US…Edgar Kennedy)
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Best Actor
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Jean Angelo Monte Cristo
George Arliss Disraeli
Warner Baxter In Old Arizona
Maurice Chevalier The Love Parade
Ronald Colman Bulldog Drummond
Gary Cooper The Virginian
Douglas Fairbanks The Iron Mask
Charles Farrell Lucky Star
Francis Lederer The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrowna
Chester Morris Alibi
Vsevelod I.Pudovkin The Living Corpse
Tatsuo Saito Days of Youth
Erich Von Stroheim The Great Gabbo
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Best Actress
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Betty Amann Asphalt
Norah Baring A Cottage on Dartmoor
Elisabeth Bergner Fraulein Else
Brigitte Borchert People on Sunday
Louise Brooks Diary of a Lost Girl
Louise Brooks Pandora’s Box
Mary Duncan City Girl
Janet Gaynor Lucky Star
Simone Genevois La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc
Brigitte Helm The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrowna
Kay Johnson Dynamite
Yelena Kuzmina The New Babylon
Bessie Love Broadway Melody
Jeanette MacDonald The Love Parade
Mona Martenson Laila
Conchita Montenegro La Femme et le Pantin
Helen Morgan Applause
Anny Ondra Blackmail (silent version)
Anny Ondra The Manxman
Ita Rina Erotikon
Alexandra Schmitt Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness
Barbara Stanwyck Mexicali Rose
Anna May Wong Piccadilly
No defying orthodoxy this time.
Picture: Pandora’s Box
Director: Pabst
Actress: Brooks
Actor: Stroheim
Short: Big Business
Pabst and Brooks for Pandora, that is — somehow haven’t seen Lost Girl.
Picture: Diary of a Lost Girl
Director: Vertov (The Man with the Movie Camera)
Actor: Lederer
Actress: Brooks (Diary of a Lost Girl)
Short: Big Business
Just to repost Joel’s choices from last week…
1929
Feature: The Man with the Movie Camera
Actor: Maurice Chevalier (Love Parade)
Actress: Louise Brooks (Pandora’s Box)
Director: Dziga Vertov (Movie Camera)
Short: La Mystere du Chateau De
Screenplay: The Love Parade
Cinematography: Asphalt
Editing: The Man with the Movie Camera
honorable mention: The Manxman
Ah, thanks. Since I dropped in sooner than expected, I was going to recast my ballot but I see it’s taken care of. Still I’d love to surreptitiously sneak in more votes for Vertov & Brooks – not that they’ll need them (I hope).
PICTURE: PANDORA’S BOX
ACTOR: Arliss (DISRAELI)
ACTRESS: Brooks (PANDORA’S BOX)
DIRECTOR: Vertoiv (MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA)
SHORT: THE SKELETON DANCE
Not a strong year indeed.
Picture: Pandora’s Box
Director: G.W.Pabs (Pandora’s Box )
Actor: Douglas Fairbanks (The Iron Mask)
Actress: Louise Brooks (Pandora’s Box)
Actually, Camolas, I was talking about this with Sam last week and in actual fact, it’s only SEEN as a weak year because too many of the great films of the era remain unknown.
In reality how many people have seen the silent version of Hitch’s Blackmail and know that it’s the best silent film he made, or that The Manxman is his most underrated masterpiece period. And while Asphalt and City Girl have excellent UK releases and the latter in particular is a masterpiece that will one day be rated worthy of comparison with Sunrise, how many people Stateside are aware? Then there’s Laila which is on R1 DVD but too few people have seen, there’s A Cottage on Dartmoor likewise, which is one of the very best British silents, La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc which may not be up to Dreyer but is better than Bresson and on a par with Rivette and has an astonishing 16 year old lead in Simone Genevois and that I have been trying to get Sam to watch for 2 years., Then there’s Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness, a masterpiece of social realism, Henri Fescourt’s Monte Cristo, which remains the best version of Dumas’ novel, The New Babylon which is one of the greatest of all Soviet masterpieces but which just doesn’t happen to have been made by Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin or Dovzhenko. Fraulein Else has one of Elisabeth Bergner’s finest performances and is a forgotten masterwork, while La Femme et le Pantin is worthy of comparison to the Von Sternberg and Buñuel versions and one of the highpoints of late silent cinema, Piccadilly is a magnificent seedy melodrama in its full silent version – like Blackmail and City Girl, talkie versions have hidden the masterpiece silents. The Living Corpse is a great Soviet silent and I’d rather have Pudovkin’s lead performance than any of his films as a diector, no matter how good. And then there’s The Wonderful Life of Nina Petrowna, which is the most Ophuls-like film made in the 1920s and worthy of comparison to the master’s work while also giving Brigitte Helm and Francis Lederer their finest roles. And best of all there’s Erotikon, which is one of the greatest silent films of them all and Machaty’s masterpiece.
And these are just the ones I rate great at ****½ or *****. Borzage’s Lucky Star is seen by many as one of his masterpieces, The Organist of St Vitus has essences of Expressionism and is a pivotal early Czech film. Raymond Bernard’s Tarakanova was long thought lost and while I haven’t seen it yet, it’s being restored by Gaumont as we speak (it was thought the equal of The Chess Player in its day).
As a year, 1929 is criminally neglected simply because ‘accepted’ directors didn’t put out many releases.
OK, the defence rests.
I just say that my current 20 favorite movies of the 20’s does not include any film from 1929.
– Sunrise, Nosferatu, Metropolis, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Battleship Potemkin, Greed, The Gold Rush, Sherlock Jr., Un Chien andalou, The Lodger, Safety Last, The Last Laugh, The wedding March, Napoleon, l’Argent, Safety last, The General, Doctor Mabuse, Foolish Wives, Haxan
I know, until now I only have seen some the more consensual ones, and I only can recall five for this year -Pandora’s Box, The Man With the Movie Camera, Blackmail (I prefer The Lodger), La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc, The Iron Mask.
Not enough I agree, so I hope I will reconsider my opinion after see the winner.
I like Pandora’s Box, mainly because of Louise Brooks, but I just think that many other similar movies have been made since, and when I finally get to it, it wasn’t an overwhelming experience.
I will try to catch up and watch the one’s you mentioned.
But ultimately, if you wanna defend your statement, is there any shallow year for you?
1989 was mediocre. I’d say 1923 was easily the weakest year of the 20s.
Votes…
Picture: The Man With the Movie Camera
Director: Vertov
Actor: I’m inclined to be difficult, and say Tatsuo Saito, in Days of Youth, the oldest intact Ozu film in existence, I think…
Actress: Louise Brooks, Pandora’s Box
Short: H2O
I have added Saito as an option, WS.
Yay for “Un chien andalou” winning best short in 1928.
I vote “The Skeleton Dance” for best short in 1929.
May i also remind everyone that starting next week, now we reach 1930, we will be nominating Best Supporting Actor and Actress as well.
For me 1929 is all about Louise Brooks, however the better film and performance is from Diary of a Lost Girl, instead of Pandora’s Box. Just rewatched Pandora’s Box and it’s creakier, overlong compared to Diary.
Picture- Diary of a Lost Girl
Director- Vertov- Man with a Movie Camera
Actor- Fairbanks
Actress- Brooks (Diary of a Lost Girl)
Jon, my own vote for Brooks is actually for DIARY, so I agree. I will rectify that on my ballot right now.
Film: Blackmail (silent)
Director: Hitchcock
Actor: Fairbanks
Actress: Brooks (Pandora’s Box)
Short: Big Business
Someone else who has seen the silent Blackmail. Excellent.
Best Picture – Pandora’s Box
Best Director – Pabst, Pandora’s Box
Best Actor – Chevalier
Best Actress – Brooks, Pandora’s Box
Short – Big Business
Film: Pandora’s Box
Director: Pabst
Actress: Brooks
Actor: Stroheim
Short: The Skeleton Dance (forgot about this Disney gem)
Film: The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrowna
Director: Vertov (The Man with a Movie Camera)
Actress: Ita Rina (Erotikon)
Actor: Fairbanks (The Iron Mask)
Always nice to see a vote for Ita Rina.
Best Film: The Man With A Movie Camera
Best Director: Dziga Vertov
Best Actress: Louise Brooks
Best Actor: Stroheim
Best Short: The Skeleton Dance
I am delighted to see your vote cast here my friend.