I agree a million percent. King Kong is one of the best movies ever made or will ever be made. Cavalcade? Not so much.
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I did sixty in five minutes once...
King Kong is undoubtedly a better (and MUCH more influential) film, but you have to remember that Oscars are not given retrospectively. The BP Oscar is usually given to a movie with a big production and a serious purpose.
King Kong would have been seen as a thriller, at a time when thrillers were considered good for making money, but not "serious" films.
Now, if you wanted to argue for I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang or Little Women or even 42nd Street, your point would be valid, but Cavalcade was more "Oscarworthy" in 1934
I've watched 8 of the 10 nominated from 1933. Overall the nominees were weak..
I am a Fugitive in a Chain Gang is by far the best of them. Its not even close. 42nd Street is probably the next best of the group but any of them than Fugitive is just a weak Oscar winner
"King Kong," by the way, wasn't nominated for Best Picture that year.
Of the films nominated, I'd probably have voted for "Little Women." Katharine Hepburn won the Oscar for "Morning Glory" this year, but an Oscar for "Little Women" would have been far more appropriate.