Academy Vs Audience

It's 1945, and with the war wrapping up, the Academy is done with comfort viewings, and hands the top prize to Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend. Audiences, however, are not yet done with joy as an emotion, and flock to the continuing adventures of Father Chuck O'Malley in The Bells of Saint Mary. In one corner, a bleak no-holds-barred look at addiction, or what passed for it under th...

It's our second Joint Champion of the 1940s, and what Dan calls "The Yancey Cravat of the 40s," as Claire, Erin, and Dan dive into Going My Way with Bing Crosby. Father Chuck O'Malley rolls into town with military grade love and tolerance, and no supporting character will escape without their lives being improved through uncut Mr. Rogers belief in their best selves. Is Father C...

1943... the world's at war, and the film world is reacting, but in ways good and bad. For you see, inside all of us are two wolves: Rick's Café American, and the Stage Door Canteen. And the Academy and Audience fed very different wolves. The Oscars hand the top trophy to Casablanca, about as correct a choice as can be made, while the audience turned out for army fundraiser This is the Ar...

It's 1942, America has joined the war in Europe, and so both Academy and Audience flock to the sweet, pastoral, hard-hitting propaganda picture Mrs. Miniver. The Miniver family navigates life and love and also the Blitz. Which of our hosts get caught up in it all? How do they react to the vignette-based narrative? Was 1942 too early to make a movie about a war that was very much still happeni...

It's 1941: the valleys are green, the accent work is shoddy, and nobody's cast age-appropriate. Erin, Claire, Dan, and special guest Olav Rokne (co-runner of the Hugo Book Club blog) take on How Green Was My Valley, one of the more infamous Best Picture winners, to figure out if Film History gives it more hate than it deserves. Some find simple beauty, some find subtle anti-capitalist th...

Academy Vs Audience enters a new decade, and celebrates with improved audio quality over last episode (albeit some internet issues from a host). It's Alfred Hitchcock's only Best Picture winner with the gloomy, creeping dread of Rebecca, giving us our first appearance of Sir Laurence MF'n Olivier; meanwhile the audience embraces old familiar friends doing old familiar things. Our Cl...

The time has come; Erin, Claire, and Dan take on the most successful movie ever made. As we reach the end of the 1930s, it's time for the big show, the absolute unit of filmmaking, the OG Blockbuster, Gone With the Wind. Four hours of movie with so much to unpack: does this movie love the Confederacy? Does it want you to love the Confederacy? Or is the amount of self-delusion among our core c...

1938: fascism is on the march, Europe is on the brink of a devastating global conflict, and Hollywood says "Let's just chill, okay?" Frank Capra takes his first swing at "No man is poor who has friends" with You Can't Take It With You, taking a chance on young actor James Stewart, while audiences turn out in unprecedented droves as Walt Disney's first feature-len...

In 1937, The Life of Emile Zola takes on real French scandal the Dreyfuss Affair... eventually... and by winning Best Picture sets the unfortunate precedent of "A biopic doesn't HAVE to be about the most interesting person in the story." Meanwhile, the Gable Renaissance continues as audiences flocked to rom-com Saratoga, the final movie of Jean Harlow, which makes Erin ask "Was...

1936 sees the first Great Man Biopic take Best Picture in a highly, HIGHLY sanitized biography of Broadway legend Florenz Ziegfeld. Clare and Erin get swept up in the showmanship of the musical numbers, while Dan can only see a grim portent of empty calorie actor showcase biopics to come. Meanwhile, audiences turn out to see Clark Gable attempt to survive the San Francisco earthquake of 1936. One&...

Our second Joint Champion, and our Clark Gable renaissance continues! The third attempt at Mutiny on the Bounty both snags the big trophy and the hearts of the crowds, with Charles Laughton as a cruel Captain Bligh and Clark Gable bringing the charm as Fletcher Christian. Claire, Erin, and Dan dig into the movie, the true history of the titular mutiny, the futility of shipping breadfruit, how Blig...

Laughs and love from Frank Capra, DeMille style overindulgence, and learn about a cinematic queen as Academy Vs Audience hits 1934. The team bounces back from the rough ride of 1933 with The Great Year of Claudette Colbert, as Claudette dominates both the Oscars and the box office. And on top of that we begin our multi-episode examination of the golden age of Clark Gable, as he and Claudette squar...

Is 1933 the worst year in cinema? Dan certainly thinks so, and Erin, Claire, and special guest Munsi Parker-Munroe don't have compelling arguments to the contrary. The Academy hands the big trophy to historical flyover drama Cavalcade, or in Dan's words "Boring Cimarron," and the team is once again haunted by the attempted comedy and racial hate crimes of repeat box office cham...

It's 1932, and one of the first all-star casts snags the top trophy at the Oscars... and also an inauspicious place in Oscar history. Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and two Barrymores join forces in Grand Hotel... but audiences instead drifted to a musical comedy that's hardly comedic and barely musical. That's right, our nemesis arrives as Eddie Cantor stars in The Kid From Spain, and...

Academy vs Audience reaches 1931, where we encounter the bonkers, ridiculous, near-plotless majesty that is Cimarron, first western to win Best Picture, and the glory of its almost cartoonishly righteous lead, Yancey Cravat. Erin and Claire experience Yancey for the first time, while Dan explains how Frontier Journalist and Vigilante Preacher Yancey Cravat, Attorney at Law, became his new icon.  A...

Academy Vs Audience enters the 1930s! War! Huh. Good god, y'all, what is it good for? Well, World War One stories snag the Best Picture Oscar through the gripping, harrowing, anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front, while Howard Hughes conquers the box office with his tale of World War One aviators, Hell's Angels... and still manages to lose money. Who tackled the war better, the Os...

As we exit the 20s, we hit our very first Joint Champion. Erin, Claire, and Dan examine The Broadway Melody, first talkie to win Best Picture, and theorize that it won both Best Picture and the box office crown because the 20s weren't great at good choices. There are songs, supporting characters who should have resulted in lawsuits, and almost a plot or character worth caring about: as they s...

Welcome to Academy Vs Audience, a journey through Oscar history looking at the Academy's Best Pictures, the Box Office Champions, and where award ceremonies or public opinion went right or very, very wrong. To begin, a little bit of both, as your freelance film historians Dan, Erin, and Claire dig into the very first Oscars. The only year with two Best Pictures celebrates the silent era, whil...