- TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” series continues on Feb. 8 with six Best Picture Academy Award contenders and five Oscar-nominated/-winning titles revolving around movie mothers, among them Mildred Pierce, Mrs. Miniver, and the TCM premiere of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
TCM’s ‘31 Days of Oscar’: Day 8 showcases 6 Best Picture contenders and 5 features focused on ‘mothers’
Turner Classic Movies’ 2025 edition of “31 Days of Oscar” continues on Saturday, Feb. 8, with the airing of an eclectic group of six Best Picture contenders/winners, in addition to five Oscar-nominated/-winning titles (in different categories) about mothers dealing with the vicissitudes of life while, deep down, asking themselves why they ever decided to have children. (See TCM’s Feb. 8 schedule further below. Most titles will remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
Below are brief comments about each TCM presentation.
Flirtation Walk (1934)
It would be a mind-boggling mystery as to why something as mediocre as Frank Borzage’s sausage-factory-produced Flirtation Walk – singing U.S. Army cadet Dick Powell becomes enmeshed with general’s daughter Ruby Keeler – earned a Best Picture Academy Award nomination if it weren’t for the fact that far worse stuff has actually won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ top award (e.g., Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator).
Note: Despite what literary and online sources affirm, Tyrone Power, 21 at the time, can’t be spotted anywhere in the film.
Here Comes the Navy (1934)
Considering the two leads – James Cagney and Pat O’Brien, doing their usual shtick – and the theme (just read the title once again), it’s shocking that Lloyd Bacon’s Here Comes the Navy is as (however modestly) entertaining as it is.
Gloria Stuart, Old Rose in James Cameron’s Titanic, is Cagney’s fair-haired object of desire.
Captain Blood (1935)
Warner Bros.’ Michael Curtiz-directed Captain Blood turned Tasmanian import Errol Flynn into a bone fide Hollywood star. The movie itself lacks that extra something found in Curtiz and William Keighley’s The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), but it’s enjoyable enough.
Captain Blood also marked Flynn’s first pairing with future two-time Best Actress Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949), who spent most of her time at Warners being relegated to “pretty young thing” roles.
Cimarron (1931)
Some call Wesley Ruggles’ Cimarron the worst movie ever to have received the Best Picture Oscar. Those people should check out, to name two titles, the previously mentioned Braveheart and Gladiator.
Besides, Cimarron has a lot going for it, including silent era veteran Estelle Taylor in the role of a self-assured sex worker; George E. Stone, delivering what may be the most affecting performance of his career, as a Jewish peddler; Best Actress nominee Irene Dunne, who capably takes over during the movie’s second half; and the sensational Oklahoma land rush of 1889.
Cimarron became the first Western to win Best Picture. It would be followed by Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves (1990), Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992), and Joel and Ethan Coen’s Westernish No Country for Old Men (2007).
A costly – but unsuccessful – 1960 remake stars Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, and Anne Baxter. Anthony Mann directed.
How the West Was Won (1962)
Directed by veterans Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall, the multistoried blockbuster How the West Was Won was one of the mega-productions of the 1960s that – whether great, good, watchable, bad, or atrocious – found their way onto the Oscars’ Best Picture roster.
See also (partial list): The Alamo (1960), West Side Story (1961), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Cleopatra (1963), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), The Sand Pebbles (1966), Doctor Dolittle (1967), Funny Girl (1968), Anne of the Thousand Days (1969).
How the West Won is one of the Academy Awards’ cheesiest Best Picture nominees, but it is still worth a look because of its all-star cast (Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, Carroll Baker, George Peppard, etc.) and the fantastic color work of Oscar-nominated cinematographers William Daniels, Milton Krasner, Charles Lang, and Joseph LaShelle.
TCM has been showing a pristine print that attempts to recapture the look (if not the feel) of the Cinerama format. Do check it out.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Lewis Milestone’s masterpiece, All Quiet on the Western Front – the Best Picture of the period 1929–1930 – possibly remains the greatest antiwar film ever made. In fact, it would be an ideal double bill with Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan: Just imagine that the German soldiers in that 1998 Best Picture nominee are the same ones you see in the 1930 movie based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel.
Also of note, All Quiet on the Western Front would turn out to be Universal’s lone Best Picture winner until George Roy Hill’s The Sting 43 years later.
Edward Berger’s German-made 2022 version of All Quiet on the Western Front was shortlisted for the Best Picture Oscar but ended up winning Best International Feature Film. Felix Kammerer stars in the old Lew Ayres role.
Places in the Heart (1984)
Sally Field won her second Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a Texas farmer’s wife who takes charge of her family’s land after her husband’s unexpected death in writer-director Robert Benton’s sentimental Places in the Heart.
The movie does look great (cinematography by Nestor Almendros), but the narrative, including the final scene, and most of the performances, including Field’s, feel as genuine as your average Oscar acceptance speech.
Of note, Field was one of three rural women in the running that year. The other two were Sissy Spacek for The River and Jessica Lange for Country. The Best Actress Oscar should have gone to either Judy Davis for A Passage to India or Vanessa Redgrave for The Bostonians.
Sally Field had previously won for a far superior performance in Martin Ritt’s Norma Rae (1979).
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Frances McDormand won her second Best Actress Academy Award for writer-director Martin McDonagh’s psychological crime drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The title refers to roadside billboards rented by a denizen of the titular fictional town so she can keep reminding everyone of her daughter’s unsolved rape and murder seven months earlier.
The billboards: “Raped While Dying,” “And Still No Arrests?” “How Come, Chief Willoughby?”
McDormand’s previous Oscar win was for Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo (1996). She would take home a third Best Actress statuette for Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland (2020).
Now, see if you can process this:
Frances McDormand has won more Best Actress Oscars than anyone excepting Katharine Hepburn.
Frances McDormand has more Best Actress Oscars than Meryl Streep, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland, Joanne Woodward, Ingrid Bergman, Susan Sarandon, Sissy Spacek, Jessica Lange, Jane Fonda, Maggie Smith.
Imitation of Life (1959)
Lana Turner never suffered more glamorously than in Douglas Sirk’s blockbuster Imitation of Life, the former MGM star’s biggest (Universal-made) box office hit. Considering that Turner had been shortlisted for Mark Robson’s Peyton Place two years earlier, it’s a bit surprising she wasn’t included on the 1959 roster.
Susan Kohner (mother of filmmakers Paul and Chris Weitz) and Juanita Moore, however, were two of that year’s Best Supporting Actress contenders. They both lost to Shelley Winters for George Stevens’ The Diary of Anne Frank.
That’s unfortunate. Juanita Moore should have won.
And no matter what you think about Imitation of Life’s visual and thematic gaudiness, get your handkerchiefs ready for that funeral sequence at the end.
Mildred Pierce (1945)
For having audience members wish she was a crocodile in Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce, Joan Crawford won her one and only Best Actress Oscar.
Louis B. Mayer must have eaten his own bow tie that Oscar night: Crawford had been at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer since 1925, having never received as much as a nomination. In the mid-1940s she relocates from Culver City to Burbank and is handed an Oscar statuette – delivered at her Beverly Hills home (she claimed to have been ill) – for her first star vehicle at Jack Warner’s studio.
Ann Blyth, who is still around at age 96, received a Best Supporting Actress nod for her portrayal of Mildred’s vixenish daughter but ultimately lost to Anne Revere for a less interesting performance in Clarence Brown’s National Velvet.
Blyth’s fellow nominee Eve Arden is the one who gets to plant in viewers’ minds the idea of Croc Mildred.
Mrs. Miniver (1942)
TCM’s final movie mom is Best Actress winner Greer Garson in William Wyler’s blockbuster Mrs. Miniver. This British propaganda drama has plenty of detractors, but whatever you may think of MGM’s never-never version of England and English families, Garson was one of the best, most charismatic actresses of the 1940s. She is a good enough reason to visit – or revisit – Mrs. Miniver.
Teresa Wright, who plays Garson’s daughter-in-law in the film, was shortlisted for two 1942 Oscars: As Best Actress for Sam Wood’s The Pride of the Yankees and as Best Supporting Actress for Mrs. Miniver. She wanted to win for the former (as seen in interview snippets shown on TCM itself) but won for the latter.
Of note, in 1943 Greer Garson married her Mrs. Miniver son, Richard Ney. The couple were divorced in 1947. Three years later, Garson and Pidgeon were reunited in the far less successful The Miniver Story.
Immediately below is TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” movie schedule on Feb. 8.
‘31 Days of Oscar’: TCM schedule (EST) – Feb. 8
6:15 AM Flirtation Walk (1934)
Director: Frank Borzage.
Cast: Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Pat O’Brien, Ross Alexander, John Arledge, John Eldredge, Henry O’Neill, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams.
97m8:15 AM Here Comes the Navy (1934)
Director: Lloyd Bacon.
Cast: James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Gloria Stuart, Frank McHugh, Dorothy Tree, Willard Robertson, Eddie Acuff.
86m10:00 AM Captain Blood (1935)
Director: Michael Curtiz.
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone, Ross Alexander, Guy Kibbee, Henry Stephenson, Robert Barrat, Donald Meek, Jessie Ralph.
119m12:15 PM Cimarron (1931)
Director: Wesley Ruggles.
Cast: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor, George E. Stone, Nance O’Neil, William Collier Jr., Roscoe Ates, Edna May Oliver.
124m2:30 PM How the West Was Won (1962)
Directors: Henry Hathaway, John Ford, George Marshall.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, Carroll Baker, George Peppard, Richard Widmark, Robert Preston, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Massey, Agnes Moorehead, Russ Tamblyn, Walter Brennan.
Narrator: Spencer Tracy.
155m5:30 PM All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Director: Lewis Milestone.
Cast: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, Russell Gleason, John Wray, William Bakewell, Raymond Griffith, Beryl Mercer, Ben Alexander.
140m8:00 PM Places in the Heart (1984)
Director: Robert Benton.
Cast: Sally Field, Lindsay Crouse, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Danny Glover, John Malkovich, Ray Baker, Bert Remsen.
111m10:00 PM Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Director: Martin McDonagh.
Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, Lucas Hedges, Zeljko Ivanek, Caleb Landry Jones, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage, Kerry Condon.
115m12:15 AM Imitation of Life (1959)
Director: Douglas Sirk.
Cast: Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner, Juanita Moore, Robert Alda, Dan O’Herlihy, Karin Dicker, Ann Robinson, Troy Donahue, Jack Weston.
125m2:30 AM Mildred Pierce (1945)
Director: Michael Curtiz.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Ann Blyth, Eve Arden, Bruce Bennett, Lee Patrick, Moroni Olsen, Veda Ann Borg, Butterfly McQueen.
113m4:30 AM Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Director: William Wyler.
Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Henry Wilcoxon, Richard Ney, Henry Travers, Helmut Dantine, Peter Lawford.
134m
“TCM Oscar Movies: Eclectic Best Picture Contenders, Mothers” notes
“31 Days of Oscar” movie schedule via the TCM website.
Greer Garson and Teresa Wright Mrs. Miniver image: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
“TCM Oscar Movies: Eclectic Best Picture Contenders, Mothers” last modified in February 2025.