According to IMDB's Oscars section, this was listed as a nominee for Best Picture, Production until 1975, but no longer is. (Ditto for The Way of All Flesh.) Does anyone know what the story is here? Thanks!
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No it was not.
- This comment is most likely authentic and fairly close to what I intended to say -
I know it won best production in 1928.
shareRespectfully, bmanacles, you are mistaken. Wings was the winner for "Most Outstanding Production" in 1928. This category became what we now think of as Best Picture. Also in 1928, Sunrise won "Most Artistic Quality of Production," a category not awarded ever again.
Emil Jannings won the first Oscar for best actor in 1928. It was awarded for the excellence of both his performance in The Last Command and his performance in The Way of All Flesh.
Some lists show Last Command and The Way of All Flesh as having been "Most Outstanding Production" nominees that year, but other lists show only three nominees for that award: Wings, Seventh Heaven and The Racket. I'm not sure why the discrepancy.
I don't get it either. Was it nominated or not? It some lists show it as nominated (as even the AMPAS did so), I assume it was nominated at the time, but why did they stop listing it?
shareI own an Academy Awards Handbook, and it not only states that THE LAST COMMAND was nominated, but it states that it was tied with WINGS for the title of Best Production. I've always known this to be true, that THE LAST COMMAND and WINGS both won Best Production. I don't know why this has been stricken from a lot of sources.
"Film is an art at its highest level." Paul Joyce, REMEMBERING STANLEY KUBRICK
Okay, I just got a VHS copy of THE LAST COMMAND off ebay; it came in the mail today. The back cover states: "THE LAST COMMAND was nominated for 'Best Picture' in 1928, the first year the Academy Awards were given out." Why do sources not list it as a nominee anymore? I have no idea.
"Film is an art at its highest level." Paul Joyce, REMEMBERING STANLEY KUBRICK
The great "Inside Oscar" by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona also lists it as Best Production nominee.
Some sources don't list it as a nominee probably because the list-maker didn't know Best Production and Best Picture were the same thing.
The Academy Awards: The Complete Unoffical History (2002, Gail Kinn & Jim Piazza) does not list it as a BP nominee and makes no note of the term "Best Production."
10-YEAR BOARD MEMBER (I NEED A LIFE!)
Votes for several films nominated in that first year were counted as write-ins, I BELIEVE, but were not on the ballot, I BELIEVE, tho they were announced by the nascent Adademy as having received votes. Voila, their "nominations". I am unsure because like the rest of you i can't find the specifics. But i remember when these films were wiped off the books, the reason was something akin to the above.
~~ Native Angeleno
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