Joseph Farnham - Best Title Writing Award

[gscottrobinson]

Hi!

I'm not sure if anyone could help with this, but I thought I'd give it a go.

Joseph Farnham, a title card writer at MGM, won the first and only Academy Award for title writing. Newspapers from the time don't seem to link the award to any one film, but he did work on King Vidor's The Crowd and appears to have also done some titling for Greed (although he is uncredited.)

My question is: why did he win the award?

The title cards I've seen that are attributed to him are fine, and often funny, but they seem basically standard. Furthermore, most reports suggest that Marion Jr. (also nominated) was higher paid, in greater demand, and was linked with more successful films. Furthermore, neither Farnham nor Marion Jr. seemed to have the kind of celebrity status that Ralph Spence obtained.

I thought perhaps someone with a greater knowledge of Hollywood in the late 20s might be able to help. Thanks in advance..

Gregory

[Mike Gebert]

Initially the Academy Awards were given to an individual, and then their work during the eligible period was listed. That's why three films are listed next to Janet Gaynor's name (Sunrise, Seventh Heaven and Street Angel). It's also why, when they wanted to honor the two guys who shot Sunrise (Karl Struss and Charles Rosher), they wound up listing five films total between them, the one they collaborated on and the four others they shot separately that year, revealing the obvious problem with this system.

It would get even more confusing-- the records list, for instance, Norma Shearer being nominated in 1929, and two films being listed with her nomination, but the award going to her only for one of those films, a de facto recognition that people were making the choice based on one standout performance, not deciding that gosh darn it, Norma Shearer sure is swell right now. After that, they finally went to the nominated-for-a-specific-movie system. (Imagine the things that would have happened in subsequent years if they hadn't changed the system-- Sally Field winning for both Norma Rae and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, that sort of thing.)

So I'm sure Farnham could have had 30 films listed behind his name, under that system, but no one bothered.

As for why MGM's guy won it first, well, they won a lot of early awards-- especially before the voting system was democratized in the 30s they had huge influence over it. (In the first few years there was a panel of judges which MGM leaned on pretty heavily, though interestingly, it was often to promote the kinds of films Mayer approved of, more than to favor MGM product-- Mayer actually pushed for Fox's Sunrise to win the "artistic quality of production" award over MGM's The Crowd, because he didn't want to encourage more downbeat, independent-minded films from his own studio.)

[gscottrobinson]

Thank you for the quick response - it is very helpful.