6th Academy Awards

• We have a year and a half period to go with Hollywood churning out a lot of movies.
  Looking at the Oscars list. I have seen
  Cavalcade
  and did not think much of it. It seems like a really strange (and poor) choice for best picture. Looking at the other nominees,
  I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
  is really good. While not my type of movie
  42nd Street
  is probably worthy.
  Little Women
  is a nice rendition of Alcott's classic story, so I might keep it. I have seen a number of the other movies, most are good movies but not at the level that I would put on the nominee's list.
  Looking at your list:
  King Kong
  is certainly impressive for its special effects and is also one of the more iconic movies of the 1930's. I imagine the Oscar selection committee was a little too snooty to nominate it.
  Dinner at Eight
  is very good, and I'm a little surprised it wasn't nominated - perhaps they didn't like the suicide in it.
  Wild Boys on the Road
  is certainly an interesting movie, giving us a real feeling of life during the depression for the masses. I, of course, like the Marx brothers' movies.
  My Ten nominees would be:
  I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
• Mervyn LeRoy
  King Kong
• Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack
  Dinner at Eight
• George Cukor
  Wild Boys on the Road
• William Wellman
  Horse Feathers
• Norman Z. McLeod
  Only Yesterday
• John M. Stahl
  Employee's Entrance
• Roy Del Ruth
  Hold Your Man
• Sam Wood
  Little Women
• George Cukor
  Heroes For Sale
• William Wellman
  ->
  Man's Castle
• Frank Borzage
  There are 10 or so other movies that I really like from this period, and a number of other good ones that I have seen. Further, there are probably a number of other good ones that I haven't seen yet.
  For best picture I might go with
  I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
  , although I also would consider choosing
  King Kong
  .

The 6th Academy Awards covered films released from August 1, 1932 to December 31, 1933.
…
My alternate selections:
Any love for
Ecstasy
(1933), with then-unknown Austrian actress Hedwig Kiesler, who would go on to Hollywood fame as Hedy Lamarr?

Just finished watching another very good movie released January 24, 1932:
Broken Lullaby
directed by Ernst Lubitsch
which I will add 5th academy awards nominee list.

I like
Scarface
well enough, but I'd pick
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
as the best Paul Muni film that year.
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026

5th Academy Awards
Looking at the original list.
Grand Hotel
is pretty good.
Five Star Final
and
The Champ
are fairly good.
Amongst your choices: I'd keep
Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
and
Frankenstein
.
Scarface
is fairly well liked on IMDB, but I wasn't too high on it.
Some others I've seen and liked a lot from the period:
Street Scene

• King Vidor
  Waterloo Bridge
• James Wale
  Union Depot
• Alford E. Green
  Taxi!
• Roy Del Ruth
  What Price Hollywood?
• George Cukor
  Guilty Hands
• W.S. Van Dyke
  Platinum Blonde
• Frank Capra
  Monkey Business
• Norman Z. Mcleod
  ->
  Broken Lullaby
• Ernst Lubitsch
  I think I'd be between
  Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  and
  Street Scene
  for the top movie of that period.

I don't know that I think
Blackmail
(1929) is up there with the better Hitchcock movies. It is decent, watchable.
The Virginian
(1929) is a good western. I like Gary Cooper in the lead role and Walter Huston in the role of the bad guy, Trampas. Richard Arlen and Mary Bryan are good in supporting roles.
As I said, I like
The Devil to Pay!
. I think you really have to like Ronald Colman's schtick to like the movie a lot. You also get Loretta Young and Myrna Loy, and Frederick Kerr is very good as Colman's dad.

It's a major oversight on my part, but I've not watched many of the very early Hitchcock films. I have seen nearly everything he made from 1934 onward, but I really should watch his first films at some point. I'm especially curious about
The Lodger
. I saw a version of it from 1944 with Merle Oberon and Laird Cregar that has stuck with me for more than a decade.
Likewise
The Virginian
. I actually read the novel as a kid and my dad was always watching reruns of the TV version. Victor Fleming and Gary Cooper seem like a good fit for the material.
The Big Trail
and
Morocco
are definitely good additions!
The Devil to Pay
is a new one to me, but if you'd put it ahead of all of those classics, it sounds like one I need to add to my watch list.
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026

The only movie I've watched recently in the 2nd academy award period was
Blackmail
(1929) - Alfred Hitchock
For the 3rd Academy award
All Quiet on the Western Front
is a good choice for Best Picture. The
Big House
is a good prison movie.
Others I'd add:
The Virginian
(1929) Victor Fleming
For the 4th Academy Award, I watched
Cimarron
once and didn't think it was particularly good. Your additions of
Public Enemy
,
Little Caesar
, and
M
all seem good. I'd add
City Streets

• Rouben Mamoulian (Another gangster movie, with Gary Cooper)
  The Devil to Pay!
• George Fitzmaurice
  Morocco
• Josef von Sternberg
  The Dawn Patrol
• Howard Hawks
  The Big Trai1
• Raoul Walsh
  Chances
• Allan Dwan
  ->
  The Last Flight
• William Dieterle
  I imagine that
  M
  would be the popular favorite. I do like
  The Devil to Pay!
  the most myself.
  I'll work on the 5th tomorrow.

I would agree with all of that!
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026

for the 2nd, i'd go with Man with a Movie Camera
the 3rd got it right
the 4th and 5th must have been political, because any of those alternates were better than the winners.
for the 6th, i'd go with King Kong. i want to reward proper risk taking.

Wikipedia has a release date of May 11 for M, but I'll trust IMDb where there is (or at least used to be) some oversight of proposed edits. Either way, it was good that they eventually dropped the August-July thing. Although if I'm not mistaken the Emmys and Grammys still have some arbitrary cut-off date rather than a full calendar year.
I've been meaning to watch Vampyr for a while!
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026

#2 and 3 I haven't seen any alternatives
#4 Dracula and City Lights are the only thing I've seen. On IMDb it says M came out August 31 so it just missed the deadline.
#5 is where I'd have to add M, Frankenstein and Vampyr because it's all I've seen.
#6 Duck Soup and King Kong are the only non winners I've seen so they'd get nominated by default