Soaring losers in best picture race

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences summer screening series celebrates films that lost the best picture Oscar. But please don’t refer to the retrospective, which kicks off Monday at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, as the “loser” festival.

“Great to Be Nominated” features movies that received the most nominations in a given year but failed to win the best picture award. And there are some great losers in the bunch, including Ernst Lubitsch’s delightful 1929 musical, “The Love Parade”; Frank Capra’s Damon Runyon-esque 1933 comedy “Lady for a Day” and his beloved 1939 comedy-drama “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”; the first version of “A Star Is Born” from 1937, directed by William Wellman; the exhilarating 1935 action adventure “Lives of a Bengal Lancer”; and the rousing Irving Berlin 1938 musical “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”

Several of the films are so rare that they are not available on VHS or DVD and rarely show up on television, like 1928-29’s Cisco Kid western, “In Old Arizona,” the 1930-31 Jackie Cooper comedy “Skippy” and the 1934 musical drama “One Night of Love,” with opera star Grace Moore.

“I had no idea ‘One Night of Love’ was such a big deal,” says program coordinator Randy Haberkamp. “Everybody remembers ‘It Happened One Night’ sweeping the Oscars that year, but nobody talks about the fact that Columbia not only had the No. 1 film but also the No. 2 film.”

The 12-week screening series -- the second half of the series is scheduled to resume next summer is a sequel to the academy’s well-attended 75th anniversary celebration, “Facets of the Diamond: 75 Years of Best Picture Winners.” The success of that festival even surprised the academy. “The thing about the ‘Facets’ series is that the audiences evolved,” Haberkamp says.

“There were some people who came who were in the mood for old movies; toward the end, I thought we would have nobody coming because everybody had seen ‘Gladiator’ and ‘Chicago.’ But they love seeing them on the screen.”

“Great to Be Nominated” gets off to a sentimental start with the 1927-28 romance “7th Heaven,” which is best known as one of the three films for which Janet Gaynor won the first best actress Oscar. Set in Paris just before the outbreak of World War I, “7th Heaven” finds Gaynor playing a destitute Parisian girl who is taken in by a street cleaner. The silent film will feature live musical accompaniment.

Haberkamp ran into real problems with print availability, especially because some of these titles are so obscure. In the case of “Skippy,” Haberkamp had planned to screen a nitrate print from the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Unfortunately, it won’t be available in time for the festival, which will screen a “beautiful” 16-millimeter print. “With ‘Lady for a Day,’ UCLA had the best print and the Capra family is letting us run it,” he says. “I had to get their permission because they own it. Columbia is making me a new print of ‘One Night of Love.’ ‘Love Parade’ and ‘Star Is Born’ have been preserved by UCLA. ‘Mr. Smith’ has been restored by the Library of Congress.”

And the Academy Film Archive, in collaboration with 20th Century Fox, newly restored “In Old Arizona.”

Just as with “Facets of the Diamond,” the programs will also feature animated and live-action short subjects, trailers, outtakes and newsreels. “I am lucky UCLA has done a lot of restoration on shorts,” Haberkamp says, “and the Warner Bros. library is extremely rich.”

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‘Great to Be Nominated’

When: Mondays to Aug. 16 (except for May 31 and July 5) at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Samuel Goldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

Price: A commemorative pass for 12 films is $25 for general public, $15 for Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members; individual tickets are $5 for general public, $3 for academy members

Contact: (310) 247-3000, Ext. 111, or visit www.oscars.org

Schedule

Monday: “Seventh Heaven”

May 24: “In Old Arizona”

June 7: “The Love Parade”

June 14: “Skippy”

June 21: “The Champ”

June 28: “Lady for a Day”

July 12: “One Night of Love”

July 19: “Lives of a Bengal Lancer”

July 26: “Anthony Adverse”

Aug. 2: “A Star is Born”

Aug. 9: “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”

Aug. 16: “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”