skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The poll for best song of 1932-33 is shaping up as a two horse race between "We're In The Money" from Gold Diggers Of 1933 and "Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf" from Three Little Pigs. The other three songs between them don't have as many votes as either of the top two contenders.
Which really means this is a two man race between dance wizard Busby Berkeley and entertainment genius Walt Disney.
Yeah, yeah, technically the award will go to one of the songwriting teams of Harry Warren and Al Dubin or Frank Church and Ted Sears, but the fact is the guys who really figured how to sell these songs were Busby Berkeley on the one hand and Walt Disney on the other.
So who you got, Berkeley or Disney?
The tale of the tape:
Busby Berkeley
Birth Name: William Berkeley Enos
Nickname: Buzz
Born: November 29, 1895 (Los Angeles, California)
Died: March 14, 1976 (Palm Springs, California)
Height: 5'9"
Marriages: 4
Trademark: Grandiose dance choreography featuring overhead camera shots
Films: 36, including 42nd Street, Gold Diggers Of 1933 and Footlight Parade
Awards: 3 Oscar nominations for Best Dance Direction; no wins
Other Notable Achievements: single-handedly revived the movie musical
Little-Known Fact: never took a dance lesson in his life
Walt Disney
Birth Name: Walter Elias Disney
Nickname: Uncle Walt
Born: December 5, 1901 (Chicago, Illinois)
Died: December 15, 1966 (Los Angeles, California)
Height: 5'10"
Marriages: One, to Lillian Bounds, from 1925 until his death in 1966
Trademarks: innovative animation; making dreams come true
Films: produced 641 feature-length films, shorts, and television programs
Awards: 59 Oscar nominations, 26 wins (including 4 special awards), both records; Congressional Gold Medal, Légion d'honneur, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Special Katie Award
Other Notable Achievements: along with brother Roy, founded the Walt Disney Company, the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate
Little-Known Fact: was a model train enthusiast
You've got until Sunday to cast your vote.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of Douglas Fairbanks, I thought I'd mention that today is Katie-Award winning actor Lon Chaney's birthday today. He is a robust 127.
I've written about him many times, and his dust-ups with Fairbanks in the pages of this blog are legendary. Perhaps you can take this as an opportunity to use the nifty search feature on the right hand side of the page and read all about it. You won't be disappointed. Unless, of course, you are.
In his honor, here is a public domain copy of perhaps his greatest performance, 1925's The Phantom Of The Opera. Enjoy.
Striving always for balance in our coverage of the ongoing feud between silent film greats Lon Chaney and Douglas Fairbanks, we here at the Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards present a movie poster of the latter's nominated feature, The Iron Mask.
While I've been busy working on essays about F.W. Murnau, Jean Hersholt and Clara Bow, as well as researching the Katie awards for 1928-29, two of my most famous readers, Lon Chaney and Douglas Fairbanks, have been engaged in a bit of verbal smackdown in the comments section. Fairbanks claims Chaney "couldn't carry my saddlebags," while Chaney says Fairbanks "couldn't act [his] way out of a paper bag."
I invite all my faithful readers to weigh in on this most vital debate.
The Tale Of The Tape:
Lon Chaney
Birth Name: Leonidas Frank Chaney
Nickname: Man Of A Thousand Faces
Trademark: Master of early makeup techniques
Born: April 1, 1883
Height: 5'9"
Films: 161, including The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom Of The Opera (1925) and Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
Katie Awards: 1 win for Best Actor of 1927-28, 1 nomination for Best Actor Of The Silent Era
Other Awards: twice commemorated on U.S. stamps; first actor to be made honorary member of U.S. Marine Corps for his portrayal of a drill instructor in Tell It To The Marines (1926)
Other Achievements: directed 6 movies, wrote 6
Marriages: 2
Famous Children: Lon Chaney, Jr.
Salary: $3,750 per week The Unholy Three (1930)
Douglas Fairbanks
Birth Name: Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman
Born: May 23, 1883
Trademark: Stunt work
Height: 5'9"
Films: 49, including The Mark Of Zorro (1920), The Thief Of Bagdad (1924) and The Gaucho (1927)
Katie Awards: 1 nomination for Best Actor Of The Silent Era
Other Awards: Honorary Oscar (1940); Photoplay's Medal of Honor for Robin Hood (1922)
Other Achievements: co-founded United Artists, first president of AMPAS, produced 24 movies, wrote 18, directed 2.
Marriages: 3, including to Katie Award winner Mary Pickford
Famous Children: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Salary: $300,000 for Reaching For The Moon (1930)
Analysis: The film record indicates Chaney had tremendous upper body strength and likely could have carried anybody's saddlebags, let alone Fairbanks's. On the other hand, I have yet to see any movie where Fairbanks began a scene in a bag, so I can't say definitively whether he ever acted his way out of one. He did make one movie with Mary Pickford, though, 1929's The Taming Of The Shrew, so draw your own conclusions.
My personal opinion? A well-rounded film collection contains the work of both.
Keep it clean, gents.
