Oscar repeated its record twelve Best Picture nominations of 1934 the following year.

1935’s Oscar race gave us equal helpings of action, drama, comedy and music – three nominations for each genre.

Action was very much in the forefront this year with Mutiny on the Bounty; Captain Blood and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer all in the running for Best Picture. Frank Lloyd’s Mutiny on the Bounty won, of course, but Lloyd, who had already won two Oscars for Best Direction, didn’t come close to winning a third. John Ford picked up his first of four for directing The Informer with write-in candidate Michael Curtiz (The Informer) besting Lloyd and the third nominee Henry Hathaway (The Lives of a Bengal Lancer).

Presenting the true story of England’s most famous mutiny, which occurred on April 27, 1789, 221 years ago this week, Mutiny on the Bounty recounts the tale of hardship aboard the HMS Bounty counterbalanced with the charms of the island paradise, Tahiti, and the discovery of the pristine Pitcairn Island. Charles Laughton as the infamous Captain Bligh, Clark Gable as mutineer Fletcher Christian and Franchot Tone as the neutral Byam were all nominated for Best Actor, losing to fourth nominee Victor McLaglen for The Informer.

Errol Flynn who rose to fame as the doctor turned pirate in Captain Blood had begun his screen career in his native Australia as Fletcher Christian in an earlier version of the tale which concentrated on the then present day life of the descendents of the mutineers.

Captain Blood was a rousing adventure about a doctor (Flynn) who becomes a pirate in the Caribbean in 1685 in order to fight injustice. Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill and Basil Rathbone co-star.

The British Raj in 1750 was the setting for The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, another rousing adventure with stalwart performances by Gary Cooper, the afore-mentioned Franchot Tone and Richard Cromwell as the three heroes, backed by Sir Guy Standing and Sir C. Aubrey Smith.

All three of these action classics are available on DVD.

Classic drama was also very much in the forefront this year with The Informer; Les Miserables and David Copperfield all vying for Oscar’s attention.

John Ford’s The Informer, which in addition to Ford and McLaglen’s Oscars, won for Best Screenplay and Best Score and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Editing. It also had the distinction of being the first film to win the prestigious New York Film Critics Award for Best Picture and Director. A landmark film in its day, it is a bit under-appreciated now primarily for two reasons, the superiority of many subsequent Ford films and the fact that its story of the “Irish troubles” has been handled much more realistically in the years since. The film, itself, was shot on a shoestring and looks it despite Ford and company’s masterful efforts to conceal its small soundstage filming.

Having a far longer shelf life, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, directed by Richard Boleslawski, in addition to having been filmed several more times, has also been immortalized in a London and Broadway musical about the 19th Century miscarriage of justice. This, however, remains the best film version of the story with standout performances by Fredric March as Jean Valjean and Charles Laughton as Javert.

An even more celebrated tale of 19th Century injustice, however is Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, also filmed many times, but sublimely directed here by George Cukor with a cast that was seemingly born to play their parts – Freddie Barthomew as David the boy; Frank Lawton as David the man; W.C. Fields as Micawber; Edna May Oliver as Aunt Betsey Trotwood; Roland Young as Uriah Heep; Basil Rathbone as Murdstone; Maureen O’Sullivan as Dora; Madge Evans as Agnes; Lionel Barrymore as Dan Peggoty; Lewis Stone as Wickfield; Jessie Ralph as Nurse Peggoty; Herbert Mundin as Barkis; Hugh Williams as Steerforth and Lennox Pawle as Mr. Dick chief among them. It doesn’t get much better than that.

All three of these drama classics are available on DVD.

In the comedy vein, Oscar nominated three films that had been made previously as silent films.

Booth Tarkington’s comedy of manners, Alice Adams won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922 and was promptly filmed as a vehicle for Florence Vidor. George Stevens’ 1935 version, however, is the definitive version with a marvelous performance by Katharine Hepburn as the small-town girl who yearns for something more, ably supported by Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Hattie McDaniel and others. Hepburn’s Oscar nominated performance is generally considered the best of the nominees that year.

A best-seller in 1915, Harry Leon Wilson’s Ruggles of Red Gap was twice filmed as a silent, in 1918 with Taylor Holmes and again in 1924 with Edward Everett Horton. Leo McCarey’s enormously popular 1935 version with Charels Laughton is, however, the definitive version. As the English butler won by a crass American in a poker game, Laughton is outstanding in every scene, no more so than when he is the only one in a barroom full of Americans who can recite the Gettysburg Address. Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland and ZaSu Pitts are outstanding in support.

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was filmed at least three times as a silent in 1909, 1913 and 1925, and would be filmed several more times over the years, but it is Max Reindhardt’s film of his acclaimed stage production with a galaxy of stars that remains the one to see. James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, Olivia de Havilland, Dick Powell, Mickey Rooney, Ross Alexander, Jean Muir and Ian Hunter give voice to the beloved characters. The film’s exquisite cinematography was the first and only write-in candidate ever to win an Oscar. The official nominees had been Barbary Cost; The Crusades and Les Miserables.

All three of these comedy classics were released on DVD. Alice Adams has been discontinued by Warner Bros. but can still be found.

Musical tastes come and go. Of the three musicals nominated for Best Picture, one remains a classic of the genre while the other two were passing fancies.

Mark Sandrich’s elegant Top Hat was the second Astaire-Rogers film he directed. Almost a remake of The Gay Divorcee in temperament and style, it featured the same basic boy-meets girl plot as the previous year’s smash hit albeit with Irving Berlin’s music in for Cole Porter’s and Helen Broderick substituting for Alice Brady as the addle-brained wife of Edward Everett Horton. Erik Rhodes was back and Eric Blore was added to the stock company as Astaire’s acerbic butler.

Eleanor Powell’s tap dancing was the highlight of Broadway Melody of 1936, a reviewdirected by Roy Del Ruth. The teaming of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in the operetta Naughty Marietta, directed by W.S. Van Dyke, proved so successful that they made seven more through 1942.

Both Top Hat and Broadway Melody of 1936 are available on DVD. Naughty Marietta is available only as an import.

1935 films that have had a more lasting impact on audiences than either Broadway Melody of 1936 or Naughty Marietta include Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps; James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein and Clarence Brown’s Anna Karenina, all three of which are available on DVD.

New DVDs worth checking out include It’s Complicated and The Barbara Stanwyck Collection featuring amongst others, All I Desire and There’s Always Tomorrow.