The lowest-rated Oscar-nominated film ever on Rotten Tomatoes

The films nominated for the 1936 Academy Award for Best Picture contained a few cold classics and a large handful of duds. The Academy nominated 10 films for Best Picture that year, with the top prize going to Robert Z. Leonard’s compelling musical biopic “The Great Ziegfeld” (a film about famed musical theater impresario Florenz “Flo” Ziegfeld, Jr. played by William Powell). Visually stunning but somewhat mushy as a melodrama, “The Great Ziegfeld” is more of a sweet farewell to its subject (who died in 1932) than a legitimately great film.

Legitimate bangers who were nominated that year are included “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” by Frank Capra. One of the most notable comedy films by the master director. Also good are William Dieterle’s “The Story of Lois Pasteur” starring Paul Muni, and Jack Conway’s wonderful “Libeled Lady” with Powell and Myrna Loy. Conway also directed a useful adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, which many readers may have seen in their middle school classrooms.

But 1936 also saw a lot of unpleasantness at the Oscars. One might think that George Cukor’s direction of Romeo and Juliet would be good, but leads Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer were too old to play the star-crossed lovers, and the director was too fond of Andy Devine (!) as a random servant named Peter. Henry Koster’s “Three Smart Girls” is good, but not exceptional, and the disaster epic “San Francisco” doesn’t really come alive until the 1906 earthquake strikes at the end of the film.

At the bottom of the barrel, at least critically, were industrial captain William Wyler’s very dull drama “Dodsworth” and Mervyn Leroy’s historical epic “Anthony Adverse.” The latter also has the dubious honor of being the least approved nominee for Best Picture On rotten tomatoesWith a rating of only 18%.

Based on Hervé Allen’s 1933 novel, “Anthony’s Adversaries” begins in 1773 when the titular character is born. Being the result of an affair between his married mother and her dashing lover, Anthony was raised in a monastery after his stepfather, a Spanish marquis, insisted that baby Anthony be removed from the family. By sheer coincidence, when Anthony is 10 years old, he begins working as an apprentice for his biological mother’s father, not knowing that they are related. Fortunately, Grandpa is smart enough to put it all together. It’s all very Dickensian (à la “David Copperfield”).

The bulk of the film follows Anthony as a young man, played by Fredric March. He falls in love with Angela (Olivia de Havilland), the daughter of his grandfather’s live-in cook. They separated for a long time and she became an opera singer. They are briefly reunited a few years later, but circumstances keep them apart. Anthony has only one recourse…and this is where the movie gets bad: he becomes the manager of the family’s slave trading post on the Bongo River in Africa.

The “Anthony Adverse” continues apace from there, with more international travel and an eventual reunion expected between Anthony and Angela. More lovers are taken, more children are born, and no one is affected.

There are only 11 reviews for “Anthony Adverse” on Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them are negative. in Old review of the New Republiccritic Otis Ferguson sarcastically believed that the effort put into making the film was not balanced by any entertainment value. “It had no life and no flow to the story. It tries to dramatize as many episodes of the book as possible; but in the dramatization, it shows no joy or conviction.”

Critics were harsh, even 88 years ago.

An old review from Esquire magazineWritten by Patterson Murphy, he agreed with Ferguson’s review that “Anthony’s Adverse” was beautiful to look at, the costumes and production were lavish, but the narrative was dull. “There’s a ‘do your best,’ you’re in a classic, ‘go for it’ vibe about acting which is great,” Murphy wrote.

frank s. Nugent of the New York Times He was familiar with the original “Anthony Adverse” novel, and was upset that the film adaptation changed too much of the source material. However, Nugent was most angry about the book’s loss of tone. “We found it to be a huge, confusing, inconclusive play,” he wrote, “that broke not only with the text of the original but with its spirit.”

Having seen “Anthony Adverse”, I can agree with how boring the movie is. Rather than depicting the excitement of growing up, the struggles of the wealthy, or taking any perspective at all on slavery, Leroy’s film simply simplifies the events, dictating events to the audience rather than telling an interesting story. It’s also a shame that Olivia de Havilland didn’t appear in more of the film, as she has so much more life and energy than any of the other players. Overall, “Anthony” looks like Oscar bait. It’s a very long historical epic, clearly made for a lot of money, based on a successful novel, and starring well-known Hollywood stars. One can almost feel the cynicism of the whole thing, knowing that some Warner Bros. executives They knew this movie would get them awards attention. It seemed that no one had any kind of passion for this material.

Watch “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” instead. Or “A Tale of Two Cities.” They’re better movies.