87 years ago today... Katharine Hepburn & the Academy began their one-sided romance.
Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 7:30PM 
On this day, March 16th in 1934, the 6th annual Academy Awards were held honoring the films of 1933. The event was little like it is today, not yet televised, and with only 13 categories (3 of them for short films). There were only six acting nominees. Cavalcade won Best Picture and it shared the "most nominations" stat, four in total, with the war drama A Farewell To Arms and the Capra comedy Lady for a Day...
Have you ever seen Cavalcade? We'd rank it as one of the very worst winners in Oscar history but apparently people thought it profound at the time!
Today in 2021 we can look back on this for a more actressy reason. This was the first time Katharine Hepburn snubbed the Academy who ever after couldn't get enough of her. She won her first of four Best Actress Statues for Morning Glory (1933). Despite the studio system reigning at the time (a system which was more controlling of its A list stars) and this being being her very first nomination, she didn't bother to show at the ceremony. She stubbornly stayed home for each of her 12 nominations.
We haven't ever done a deep dive on '33 but of our three favourite pictures of that year King Kong, 42nd Street, and The Invisible Man... only 42nd Street scored with Oscar nabbing Best Sound Recording and Best Picture nominations.
Reader Comments (17)
I know I've seen Cavalcade but it's been years (decades?). I just looked it up and I think it's available for free on YouTube and it doesn't seem illegal to watch it. Maybe I'll do that now. I remember it as being more boring and earnest than anything else, i.e. not offensive.
I've seen Morning Glory more recently and it's not all that either. I prefer Little Women as a movie, but I guess Morning Glory does show off what Hepburn does best. I guess the Academy sometimes likes to be ignored.
Cavalcade was a snooze. Near the bottom of my BP winner list.
Hepburn was only OK but she partially won because she was also in Little Women, where she was terrific.
Cavalcade is a product of its time. At the end family members who survived the Great War grimly sit, aware that something worse is most likely very close. I find it fascinating as a historical film and what people were thinking at the time.
As for quality, it's ok. I found the ending memorable but not much else. It's more forgettable then terrible.
The winner should have been I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, one of the most powerful films ever to come out of Hollywood. I think it's a nice contrast with Shanghai Express, a completely artificial concoction.
My next favorites are non-nominees Gold Diggers of 1933 (a better film than 42nd Street) and Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch's masterpiece).
The other nominees I'm very fond of are She Done Him Wrong, 42nd Street and Little Women. Cavalcade is pretty awful, but I can't get upset about it. Its Anglophilia is rather endearing, and its surprisingly pessimistic ending is an enlightening insight into the spirit of the times after World War I.
Also, this was the longest period covered by the Academy Awards - 18 months - even longer than this year's.
My first paragraph isn't quite clear. I was contrasting I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang with Shanghai Express, my choice for Best Picture from the previous year, and almost the complete opposite type of movie. I love both of them.
I've wanted to see I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang forever!
I like Cavalcade. It's a little creaky and the acting dated but I like the montages and transitions between years. I even like the cheesy Titanic scene. I'd watch it any day over, say, My Fair Lady or Gandhi.
Amy - Totally agree on Trouble in Paradise! A brilliant movie that I could actually see having a really fun modern remake. Lady for a Day and Little Women are pretty great too.
I saw Cavalcade 30 years ago for the first time and was disappointed. I watched it again a few years ago and just did not like it. I prefer many other films from that year, including Little Women.
Out of all the nominees in the running for Best Picture they pick Cavalcade?! I found it to be an incredible slog and stiff as a board. If they had to go with British prestige The Private Life of Henry VIII was right there! Almost anything would have been better! My choice would be Chain Gang.
I agree with the suggestions of King Kong and Invisible Man as being misses, Trouble in Paradise as well and I’d add M.
Of the actual nominees I’d rank them this way:
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang-Winner
The Private Life of Henry VIII
42nd Street
She Done Him Wrong
Little Women
Lady for a Day
Smilin’ Through
State Fair
A Farewell to Arms
Cavalcade
I’m a Kate Hepburn fan but I think she is borderline terrible in Morning Glory, an early manifestation of the hated Manic Pixie Girl trope. Of the three actual nominees my vote would have gone to May Robson. Hepburn should have competed for Little Women but even then, I wouldn’t give her this Oscar.
There were so many other possibilities who would have made more sense. Also no reason for only three nominees in a period when the studios were churning out movies with strong women roles right and left. Some of these ladies didn’t stand a chance since their films weren’t high profile enough but every single one is better than Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade.
Barbara Stanwyck-Baby Face or The Bitter Tea of General Yen
Clara Bow-Hoop-La
Greta Garbo-Queen Christina
Jean Harlow-Bombshell
Jeanette MacDonald-Love Me Tonight
Joan Blondell-Footlight Parade or Gold Diggers of 1933
Laura Hope Crews-The Silver Cord
Miriam Hopkins-The Story of Temple Drake
Ruth Chatterton-Female
Sylvia Sidney-Pick-Up
Wynne Gibson-Aggie Appleby-Maker of Men
This should have been Garbo’s award in a walk.
Katharine Hepburn agreed that Little Women was a superior performance to Morning Glory. She is quoted as saying that the life led by Jo March was much like her own. She understood the character well. “I defy anyone to play the role as well as me,” she later remarked. “They just couldn’t be, they really couldn’t be, because I came from the same general atmosphere, enjoyed the same things. And I’m sure Louisa May Alcott was writing about herself and that kind of behavior that was encouraged in a New England girl; and I understood those things. I was enough of a tomboy myself; and my personality was like hers. I could say, ‘Christopher Columbus! What richness!’ and believe it totally. I have enough of that old-fashioned personality myself. Coming from a big family, in which I had always been dramatic, this suited my exaggerated sense of things.”
I've heard the nicest words said about Cavalcade in all my time online in this comment section today!
Amy --- oh, TROUBLE IN PARADISE would be my #1 if it were 1933 but i didn't tmention it because it's actually from 1932.
Ten non-nominated 1933 titles I like much better than the stodgy "Cavalcade"
Flying Down to Rio
Ecstasy
Goodbye Again
I'm No Angel
Peg O' My Heart
Mystery of the Wax Museum
She Had to Say Yes
Footlight Parade
Wild Boys of the Road
The Ghoul
And as far as Best Actress goes Loretta Young would have been my choice for "She Had to Say Yes". But I'd also have nominated Joan Blondell(Footlight Parade), Glenda Farrell(Mystery of the Wax Museum), and Marion Davies(Peg o My Heart).
Cavalcade has not withstood the test of time. Actors standing shoulder to shoulder looking forlornly into space and expressing their latest moment of concern. Compare that to next year's BP winner, It Happened One Night, which remains a classic.
Nathaniel, you're right, Trouble in Paradise is a 1932 release. I'm always sketchy about release years back in these early years because of the weird eligibility periods. Trouble in Paradise, by being a late 1932 release was eligible for the 1932-33 Oscars. For that matter, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is also a 1932 release, so there you are. Whatever release year they belong in the main theater in heavy rotation of my personal Cinematheque! And after checking the eligibility list I see that Love Me Tonight and Blonde Venus are two more shoulda-been nominees for this period from 1932! Where does it end?
Amy -- omg.. Blonde Venus, too. Confusing. also lovelovelove that one. Maybe '32 was a better film year than '33.
Okay, this is late but I did in fact rewatch about 90 percent of Cavalcade on YouTube until my man insisted I turn it off for literally anything else. I maintain that it's not really a bad movie, it's just painfully boring. The best parts are probably the musical bits scattered throughout which is not surprising because, well, Noel Coward.
The movie does look expensive still. I found myself wondering if paying for all this during the Depression is what caused Fox Films to merge with 20th Century, and basically turn the studio over to Darryl Zanuck.
I also thought it was interesting that here is the third movie in about five years to deal with WW1, at least partially (after the superior Wings and even better All Quiet On The Western Front). If the Depression and WW2 didn't come along Hollywood might have kept working on dealing with the aftermath of the war.
But the most interesting thing to me is that it feels like SUCH a period piece and yet the movie is only dealing with events from 30 years previously, and mostly with events from about 20 years before. That would be like making a movie dealing with historical events from 1995 to 2005 or so. What would that be like? Maybe something like The Social Network? I wonder if at the time it felt like "current events" or not.
But in any case, not much has changed really. The Academy still has a bad case of Anglophilia and loves to reward movies with "big scope" and "bittersweet" family drama.
PS Diana Wynyard and Uno O'Connor are certifiably terrible. So so phony and shallow. No wonder Katharine Hepburn won for playing something with a little bit of energy.