Movie Management Award for Oscar Challenge 1927-1928

Special Entry : 002

Last year, I started to take on a challenge: The Oscar Challenge.  I will review all films that are nominated for the Best Picture category for each year and I will give each movie my rating.  Based on the rating I will decide which film should have won the Oscar for that year.  I now have the results but before anything else let me have a little disclaimer…

In May 1929 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored the best movies of 1927 and 1928.  That time the award for the best movie is not yet called Best Picture instead there were two major awards, Outstanding Picture and Unique and Artistic Production.  The following year the Academy decided to drop the latter category and announced that the Outstanding Picture was the highest honor that could be awarded.

The following were the nominees for the Outstanding Picture:

1. Wings (1927) - Winner

2. The Racket (1928)

3. 7thHeaven (1927)

And the following were the nominees for Unique and Artistic Production:
1. Sunrise:A Song Of Two Humans (1927) - Winner
2. Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927)
3. The Crowd (1928)

Technically, the Outstanding Picture is the equivalent of today’s Best Picture, but in 1929 that was not clear so I decided to include in my Oscar Challenge for this period the winner of Unique and Artistic Production, which is Sunrise (1927).  This is based on my assumption that the movie could have been a nominee for Outstanding Picture if the Academy was not foolish enough to create a second category that they eliminated after a year.

The Story

It is no wonder that there is a small difference between the The Racket (1928) and Sunrise (1927) in terms of story.  Both movies have a clear storyline and premise which makes the movie easy to follow and understand.  The Racket (1928) has several sub-conflicts that makes it more compelling to watch than Sunrise (1927).

On the other hand, Wings (1927) and 7th Heaven (1927) have scattered stories and the genres of both films are hard to categorize.  Both films can be considered an all-in-one romantic comedy, action and drama movie.  The shifts from one genre to another makes the film less cohesive in terms of plot and give a confusing viewing experience.

The Direction

Direction includes acting, cinematography, editing, costume, etc.  There are a lot of factors that could make the score in direction vary from high to low but the top considerations are acting, cinematography and editing.  I would say that acting levels are almost the same for the four films but Sunrise (1927) excelled in cinematography, editing and production and these help boost the film’s rating on direction.

The Entertainment Value

All films are boring in today’s standards and I do not have any plans in watching these films again.  But if I were to get stuck in an island and asked to choose from these four films that I can watch forever, it would be between The Racket (1928) and Sunrise (1927).  Most likely I will choose Sunrise (1927) because of the cinematography and it’s a shorter film.

The Winner

Movie Management picks Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (1927) as 1927-1928 Oscar Best Picture.

I'm not a big fan of Sunrise (1927) but it’s much better than Wings (1927).