Bad girl 1931 - Rare Oscar winner is a forgotten treat

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021635/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,7

Director: Frank Borzage
Main Cast: Sally Eilers, James Dunn, Minna Gombell

"Modern audiences will likely be amazed to learn that Bad Girl (Based on a novel by Vina Delmar) was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (and won Oscars for its screenplay and direction). Terribly dated, Bad Girl is not a bad film, but it hardly seems worthy of such honors. Edwin H. Burke's screenplay is overly familiar in many places, but it does attempt to tell a fairly realistic story of two poor people struggling through the challenges of the Great Depression. There's some nice, tasty dialogue served up along the way, peppered with plenty of Depression-era slang, but these alternate with patches of stilted, unconvincing dialogue. Burke also can't keep his hands off a few contrived and jarring plot twists. Frank Borzage's direction is considerably better. This is the kind of "love conquers all" material that was Borzage's meat, and very few directors had such an affinity for romance and could put it on the screen in such a heartfelt manner. Yet it's still not Borzage's best work, surprisingly stiff in a few places and not as cohesively packaged as might have been expected. The acting is generally good, with Sally Eilers and James Dunn affecting and quite realistic. While not one of the great tearjerkers, Bad Girl is worth catching for fans of the genre and for fans of the director." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/bad-girl-v68588/

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The sin of Madelon Claudet 1931 - The definitive sacrificing mother saga of the 30's

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022386/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: Edgar Selwyn
Main Cast: Helen Hayes, Lewis Stone, Neil Hamilton, Cliff Edwards, Jean Hersholt, Marie Prevost, Robert Young, Karen Morley, Charles Winninger

"Legend has it that Helen Hayes was somewhat embarrassed at winning an Oscar for a work as blatantly manipulative and melodramatic as The Sin of Madelon Claudet, but Hayes' performance overcomes the limitations of the material and, more importantly, even manages to elevate that material. Hayes is simply stunning, investing every moment of this sudsy tearjerker with an honesty that makes even its most stilted dialogue come alive. Her naïveté in the early segment of the film is endearing rather than cloying; it feels real rather than manufactured and, therefore, makes all the more powerful her strongly ambivalent feelings at the birth of her son. Hayes handles the transformations into each of the stages of her life with remarkable facility. In each stage she is practically a different character, yet the audience never once questions that they are all the same woman - nor questions whether one woman could exhibit so many different facets. While it's hard to see past the star performance, it must be noted that she gets some very solid support from the rest of the cast, especially from a wonderful Lewis Stone and an engaging Marie Prevost." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-sin-of-madelon-claudet-v44814/

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