The Oscar (1966)

[Bogie]

Well what can I say that hasn't already been mentioned?

Let's do it THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY way then....


THE GOOD

I can't believe that the best performance in the whole movie was by a comic who was known for being broad and a bit hammy! Milton Berle was actually quite good in this movie. His character was a pretty good guy as well and I liked the fact his character remained true to form throughout the film.

Another good thing about the movie was the last 30 or so minutes. Now i'm not saying the actual content was good as that would be a stretch but the basic story and setup to the finale of the film was actually interesting and would've worked in a better movie then this. I think the story of a selfish Hollywood star trying everything he/she can to get an Oscar would make for an interesting study of Hollywood in this day and age.


THE BAD

It's a bit unfair of me to put him in this category as I think he had potential but yes Tony Bennett wasn't given many favors with his role. At times Tony sounded flatter then unbaked bread dough but at other times he put a little emotion into his part and he came across pretty good. He was also not given many favors with the way he was photographed especially near the end with his confrontation with Stephen Boyd. Tony tried his best but even an accomplished actor would have a helluva time making the role seem believable.

Stephen Boyd's date in the movie, the big star (I forget her name) Man that was laughably bad! I hated Boyd's character throughout the movie but I loved how he basically treated her like crap when he was the big star and she was struggling.

The Cameos: Oye, well i'm sure most of those people regret having their names associated with this turkey and most of the cameos were hamfisted and stupid.


THE UGLY:

The Plot: This movie was like A Star is Born on drugs. Way too implausible and then the big "revelation" near the end was just out of nowhere. It was just a big pile of poo. At least, like I said the actual idea of the last 30 minutes of the movie was good.

Stephen Boyd's Frankie Fane character: I don't get why he was just a jackass? It's like the guy had the whole world on his shoulder and just kept pushing people away. I absolutely hated how he treated people who cared about him and his misogynistic ways. Now normally hating a character because of those reasons in a movie about a star who rose too quickly is good but not in this way. We didn't really get a good sense of who he was. All we got was some crap about hsi mother that Tony Bennett mentions almost casually near the beginning of the movie. Oh and I kept thinking "John Cena is that you?" Google his name and look at a pic you'll see there's a facial resemblance.

Musical score/cues: OH...MY...GOD... I had to laugh out loud at that fight Boyd had with that guy with the knife. The guy pulls out the knife and we get a ZING! cue and other overblown music cues throughout. If that doesn't show how bad this movie was nothing else would.


Elke Sommer's introductory scene: Wow talk about overblown! I love how they overdid it with the glazed vaseline look on her closeups. Then you got the dialogue between her and Boyd that was just well...hilarious.


Stephen Boyd: I dunno what to say, the man acted like a complete a-hole throughout the movie. You know how film can often capture the true personality of stars...well I have to wonder if he was not playing some aproximation of himself in this movie. It sure seems like a lot of the antics seemed like 2nd nature to him. I don't know how one could center a movie around such an unlikeable b******. I mean i've seen movies with unsavory characters as the main focal point but they always had some kind of redeeming quality that made you want to watch. This Frankie Fane character had nothing redeeming at all.


Last but not least, the acting of the laurel girl: I don't know who played her but by God, everything she said is either yelling or so completely cringe worthy because she couldn't get the correct timing of how to speak well on film. It was quite sad seeing that performance.


All in all this movie was as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face but boy did it ever entertain in a guilty way!

[Lzcutter]

Bogie,

The Laurel gal was Jill St. John. I can see why a young Bill Maher enjoyed the film as a young boy (anyone know how old he is? I always thought he was mid-century modern like me but now I realize he might be a few years younger???). Lots of racy stuff from Jill's dancing to Elke's see through pajamas.

The knife fight on stage when Frankie accompanies Elke to the theater. Fighting off a guy with a knife with a small waste basket had Mr. Cutter on the floor laughing out loud.

The gauzy way they shot Eleanor Parker was telling.

I agree that Milton Berle may have given the best performance in the film. Joe Cotten was very good too as the head of the studio.

Imagine the irony of a guy like Frankie with all his problems losing the Oscar to a guy like Sinatra who was probably more like Frankie than anyone cared to admit.

Why did Percy Faith have a career as a writer of film scores? Am I forgetting some big score he made his career? Because this music was bad.

Anne, all us gals are coming to Chicago to have you do our hair!

Moira, this might be one to blog about!

[movieman1957]

Percy Faith was more of a recording artist. His imdb bio shows a couple of movies (I'd Rather Be Rich" and "The Sex Goddesses") he scored but he hit easy listineing hits. He didn't write anything memorable.

He had his "Theme From 'A Summer Place" cover that was a hit. (He even did a disco version in 1976 or so.)

I want to come to Chicago and watch all of you get your hair done like that. There's a "Mystery Science Theater" moment if ever there was one.

[mrsl]

This film so intrigued me, I looked it up on imdB. I already knew that it was Jill St. John as the hapless Laurel, but the other blonde actress he dated in the beginning of his Hollywood sojourn, was Jean Hale (wife of Dolly Parton's horrible boss, I can never think of him in any other way except hanging from that harness, Dabney Colman).

Anne

[mahlerii]

I agree that Percy Faith was an unusual choice as the composer of music for this film. He made so many "easy listening" recordings on Columbia in the 50's and 60's it seems maybe they had a limited budget and could only afford to hire someone of his caliber. The music does seem incongruous at times and doesn't seem to fit. It's not easy listening, but he seems to borrow from the TV scores of the day rather than the classic film scores. I thought what would Hugo Friedhofer had done if he scored the picture? He could have given it a grittier feel rather than the rather brash and Las Vegas-y sound Faith gave it. Perhaps it also has something to do with the orchestrators, which were unknown to me.

[ChiO]

Lzcutter said with enthusiasm (and with no detectable sense of irony):

Anne, all us gals are coming to Chicago to have you do our hair!

Please let me know when. I want to set up a concession stand.

[Lzcutter]

Hey if I could have hair like Elke Sommer's?

I'm there.

Do they still make Aquanet?

[mrsl]

C'mon all of you non-believers. I really can still do it. Recently I did a friends just to show a young hair dresser (friend of my daughter) exactly HOW to make a full looking French Twist! and I included all of the banana curls at the top as well! A customer had asked her if she knew how to do a French Twist and my dear daughter offered my expertise, upon which I showed her how.

Anne

[moira finnie]

Anne, please forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is a "banana curl"??

Do you think that if I let you do my hair like Elke's I could go from being a 5'3" shrimp to a towering amazon??

[mrsl]

They're those great big fat curls at the top of her head, between her bangs and the twist in back.

Anne

[srowley75]

If you liked The Oscar, I have it on good authority that the upcoming Legend of Lylah Clare (1968), another movie about sleazy Hollywood dealings, should be an equally trashy treat. Though I admittedly haven't seen the film, I am looking forward to it, given what I've read about it.

Can't remember the exact date, but I know it's slated for TCM sometime in the next month or so.

-Stephen

[moira finnie]

You make a good point about the similarities of these two movies, Stephen. You might want to see The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) strut her tawdry stuff on Aug 13th at 1:30AM ET on TCM to judge the depth of badness of this Robert Aldrich movie for yourself.

While The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) covers similar territory and has some good laughs, especially when it tries to present itself as an homage to and exposé of a Marilyn Monroe type, as played--in what is surely Kim Novak's worst performance--and I say that despite the fact that I like the actress--it doesn't really approach The Oscar in terms of oh, let's call it, the smell test. Lylah's other star, Peter Finch, who I don't think ever cracks a smile throughout the movie, just doesn't bring real commitment to his truly awful dialogue or loopy character logic. One of the fun-trashy things both films have in common, aside from "pulling the lid off the Hollywood sewer" is the presence of Ernest Borgnine, who has a fine time hamming it up beautifully in both, though he's a greater sleazebag in The Oscar, (but at least Ernie gets a promotion in Lylah, thanks to director Robert Aldrich, who cast him as a ruthless mogul in Lylah). At least to me, Lylah seemed to be a wonderfully drawn cartoon, while The Oscar was an oil painting, imho.

The Oscar, as Robert Osborne so astutely pointed out the other night between giggles, had a level of talent and high seriousness brought to the ripe story material that very few other movies gave their audiences--perhaps with the exception of The Carpetbaggers and some would say, Valley of the Dolls. Though it might be fun to contemplate a double, triple or quadruple feature of all these flicks, I'm not sure if it would really be as much fun as seeing The Oscar was the other night.

[mahlerii]

Thanks for telling me that this movie will be on TCM! Ever since I read about this movie in "Screened Out" I have been very interested in seeing it. I really enjoyed the film "The Killing Of Sister George" which was also directed by Robert Aldrich, who also directed "Kiss Me Deadly". What a versatile actor Peter Finch was, and so many different roles in good and bad movies. I mostly remember "Lost Horizon" but I have seen parts of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" and "Network".

[egolden]

Gosh, that was hilarious: the bad writing, the bad acting, the wonderful pale-orange bouffant wiglets! I want me a pale-orange bouffant wiglet now. At least a foot and a half high.

The only thing that could have improved it would have been casting Ethel Merman rather than Edie Adams as Ernest Borgnine's divorcee.

"Take one from column A and one from column B. Either way you get eggroll." Now, that's writin'!

[knitwit45]

Re the pale orange bouffant hairdos: I am embarrassed to admit it, but in the late 60's, I sported one of those... my hairdresser at the time loved the "champagne" blonde look, and to be honest, around here anyway, it was all the rage.

Oh, the things we do when we are young and stupid!