Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1928-1929

The Contenders:

Alibi
The Broadway Melody (winner)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929
In Old Arizona
The Patriot

The Hollywood Revue of 1929

Film: The Hollywood Revue of 1929
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is going to be rough. I’ve reviewed films that feel plotless before, but here is a case where I have a film that literally has no plot. The Hollywood Revue of 1929 is pretty much literally what the name says it is. This is vaudeville show presented on celluloid. It’s presented as if it were a show on a stage, complete with scripted gags and skits between musical numbers. A couple of these still work but most are horribly dated. There’s no behind-the-scenes romance, no villain. There’s just two hours of variety acts with a couple of camera tricks tossed in for fun, or possibly to prove that this was indeed on film and not live.

What’s more, the bulk of the acts here are people who may well have been famous in 1929, but whose fame has not managed to carry into the modern era. There are a couple who are still well-known enough to be interesting here, but the bulk of the singers and dancers have been lost to the ages. Joan Crawford, who belts out a song of dubious quality and then dances pretty well is an exception. Jack Benny, who acts as something like a master of ceremonies is another. Laurel and Hardy put in an appearance with a failed and mildly comic magic act and Buster Keaton does a slightly more comic dance routine. Beyond these, though, most of the names involved in this are not ones that roll trippingly off the tongue of most dedicated film viewers—even classic lovers.