The Oscar (1966)

 

The Oscar features one of the most ruthless and arrogant and nasty leading characters ever put on film (and this was in the same year as Alfie!). Some claim that this intensely bad movie is camp, but honestly the main character is so despicable, it’s hard to enjoy the rest of the movie or find any humor in the awful situations in which the characters find themselves. Stephen Boyd plays Frankie Fane, an actor who is one of the five nominees for Best Actor. Boyd, as I have mentioned elsewhere in talking about Fantastic Voyage (also released in 1966) was certainly a handsome fellow, but in this film, he’s a hothead, prone to violence, rude to women, always ready with his fists and a sharp tongue. It's supposed to be a sort of rags-to-riches tale about how Fane makes his way from essentially nothing to being a star. It would be easier to sympathize with Frankie’s rise to fame, though, if the character wasn’t such an ass to everyone he meets (and discards) along the way. The singer Tony Bennett plays Frankie’s best friend Hymie Kelly; they used to work in seedy joints with a stripper played by Jill St. John. Bennett provides the voiceover for the film, but he was reportedly so displeased with his performance that he never acted again, returning to the career at which he was one of the best, singing. The cast is full of former Oscar winners and nominees in small parts. Broderick Crawford plays a small town sheriff, Ed Begley is the owner of one of the strip joints the three worked together, Ernest Borgnine plays a private detective Frankie inexplicably hires to help him get the sympathy vote from Academy members. Edith Head, who was Oscar-nominated for her costume design for the film, also makes a cameo appearance; it’s tough to believe there were no other films with costume design more worthy than this stinker. The film eventually becomes a who’s-who of Hollywood stars. It becomes a guess game of “who is that?” Milton Berle does a fine job in a dramatic role as Frankie’s agent, Joseph Cotton is the head of a movie studio who’s initially reluctant to hire Fane, and Elke Sommer plays his love interest, a designer named Kay Bergdahl who he cheats on almost immediately after they finally marry.  Even Hedda Hopper, sans one of her famed hats but with piles of hair instead, shows up just in time to watch Frank be rude to his “date,” Jean Hale’s Cheryl Barker, an actress chosen by the studio to make Frankie get some publicity. Of course, Frankie is mean to every single person in the film, including his friend Hymie and his wife Kay, the last two people who seem to care about him. His acting career fades quickly because no one wants to work with him. When Fane reaches what he considers his lowest point, working to get a part in a TV western, he’s nominated for the title award and thinks he’s about to see a career rebound. It’s all rather silly stuff, particularly since the role for which Fane is nominated is basically just his awful self. By the time Cotton’s studio chief makes an impassioned speech about how important the Academy Awards “really” are, you’re rooting for any of the other Best Actor nominees to win (and for this film to be over). It’s quite a list of talented nominees, really, including Burt Lancaster, Richard Burton, and Frank Sinatra. It’s up to Merle Oberon, of all people, to announce Sinatra as the eventual winner, and then everyone else in the movie, all of whom strangely seem to be in the audience for the awards ceremony, takes great joy in Frankie’s defeat. If his character weren’t so unlikeable, the audience might wonder what happened to him after his loss, but at this point, the less we see of Frankie Fane, the better. How something as silly as The Oscar, with its cast of former stars and B-list performers and its reliance on the language of beatniks, got any awards attention is a mystery to me.

Oscar Nominations: Best Color Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Color Costume Design