Costume Design in 1938. A Discussion with Nathaniel and Cláudio

by Nathaniel R and Cláudio Alves

Holiday, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Great Waltz

For the first time ever as a Smackdown supplement -- the 1938 event arrives tomorrow night -- we're giving you two entire additional categories: we discussed Best Picture and now we bring you Best Costume Design. 'But wait,' the Oscar experts amongst you instantly protest. 'Best Costume Design didn't exist yet in 1938. The category wasn't created until 1948!.' This is true so Cláudio and I, who are both obsessed with this particular craft, thought we'd just create it early. Which films should have been nominated for this prize back in 1938 since the category should have existed from the very first ceremony. (You can't make movies without costumes. At least not ones that hope to find MPAA favor or, in '38, approval from the Hayes Code.)

At the end of this discussion we'll each present our two ballots for "should haves" and "would haves" to reflect our own preferences and how we think The Academy might have voted...

Click to read more ...

Vintage '38

The Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1938 arrives on Monday (and the voting is close) so get your votes in by Sunday morning! Before we get there it's time for more context of that year in history. The minimum wage was 40¢ an hour, the economy was in recession, and Howard Hughes was busy breaking aviation records. In sports Seabiscuit was the fastest horse, and Joe Louis was the Heavyweight champion of boxing. Meanwhile there was great unease in Europe with Hitler on the march and already claiming Austria and Czechoslovakia for Germany (the US turned a blind eye and European leaders were still trying to appease the madman).

Things were happy at the movies, though, where screwball comedies and adventure films were all the rage. If there's a link on a title, we've already written about the movie. Ready?  

When do you think "hung" changed its meaning in the popular vernacular?

Great Big Box Office Hits:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and In Old Chicago, both of which competed for the 1937 Oscars, weren't actually available to general audiences until 1938 and both became huge hits...

Click to read more ...

1938's Best Picture Nominees Ranked

by Nathaniel R

A behind-the-scenes factoid: We've been recording the Smackdowns much earlier than we've been publishing them this year. That's because we figured with everyone social distancing or locked down at home this past summer it would be easier to corral guests for the panels. That was true. They're all recorded now and though the pace has been brutal that also gave me a personal headstart on 1938 (your votes are due by this coming Sunday morning, September 13th!) and since it was a year I was weak on I thought: why not watch ALL the Oscar nominated movies from the year since there were fewer categories? It seemed doable with a three month headstart but I'd forgotten that Oscar hadn't yet come to the conclusion that five was the perfect number and there were up to 11 nominations in some categories! Alas, I didn't complete the assignment but I did manage to watch or rewatch 21 movies. My goal is to hit 30 key films from this year before a tentative "retro film bitch awards" which we've always wanted to do for the older years for fun. Should we? Does that sound fun to you?

BEST PICTURE NOMINEES OF 1938, RANKED
All but one are available to rent at various platforms. If currently streaming for free somewhere, though, we've mentioned that...

Click to read more ...

The Furniture: Fantasies of Castle and Forest in The Adventures of Robin Hood

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Eleven films were nominated for Best Production Design in 1938. And a number of them would be a great subject for a column, from lavish period pieces set in France (Marie Antoinette and If I Were King) to screwball comedies about class (Holiday and Merrily We Live). And four musicals.

Yet it’s hard to look past The Adventures of Robin Hood, which won. Warner Bros' first big budget Technicolor feature drops Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland into a lavish, colorful fantasy of Medieval England. Happily, it’s worth quite a bit more than its price tag. Its primary virtue is playfulness...

Click to read more ...