THE OSCAR Has Cheese to Please

This all-star Hollywood-on-Hollywood movie is brilliantly bad. Something that should be on a double bill with SNAKES ON A PLANE or VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. I'm talking about the 1966 drama, THE OSCAR, starring the handsome and underappreciated Stephen Boyd as a ruthless actor nominated for an Oscar. He uses and abuses friends and Hollywood industry figures so he can win the Oscar. No actor in THE OSCAR got an Academy Award nomination for the film -- but Edith Head got a well-deserved nomination for the fabulous fashions she designed for Jill St. John, Elke Sommer and Eleanor Parker, among others, to wear. I saw THE OSCAR at the movies when it was new. I was in middle school and a Stephen Boyd fan. 1959's BEN-HUR got 11 Oscar nominations. I still feel today that should have received 12. Stephen Boyd should've been in the Best Supporting Actor category for his "loved HUR, hated him" performance as Ben-Hur's former best friend-turned rival. By then, my deep film love was known in the family. I entered a local radio contest and I was one of the winners. I won tickets for family members and me to attend a sneak preview screening on the 20th Century Fox lot of the sci-fi fantasy thriller, FANTASTIC VOYAGE starring Stephen Boyd and Raquel Welch. I still have the 8x10 autographed photo of Raquel Welch that I got. Mom, my sister, our little brother and I had big fun on the Fox lot seeing FANTASTIC VOYAGE. On a Saturday afternoon, Mom let me go to the movies alone to see THE OSCAR. She drove me to the local theater and told me she'd pick me up after the show. If we'd had a middle school newspaper, and I'd have written reviews for it, I would've given THE OSCAR two out of four stars. A line in my review would've been "Oy. Two hours of my life that I could've spent in my room doing homework. This movie is a colorful waste of time. And talent." Since then, I have seen it several times -- mostly during the week heading into the Oscars telecast on network TV. It's so bad, it's good for laughs at pre-Oscars festivities.

Not only that. I'd memorized some of the cheesy dialogue. Tony Bennett (yes, THAT Tony Bennett) made his film acting debut in THE OSCAR. The 1966 potboiler also marks the last acting role Bennett ever did in a film. He plays Hymie Kelly, the former best friend of Frankie Fane, asshole actor. Hymie, at the Oscars, flashes back to the real story of how Frankie clawed his way to the top from working in low bars and getting in trouble with the law.  There's history in THE OSCAR. The story happens when the Oscars were still held in Santa Monica. Later, they moved to downtown L.A. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. My favorite line of bad dialogue was spoken by Bennett. In the late 80s, he was a guest on VH1. I had to meet him. My parents had his albums, I grew up loving his records, and I just had to shake his hand. I broke him up laughing when I did my imitation of him as Hymie Kelly in his big dramatic scene saying "She died under the knife! She died having your baby!"

Elke Sommer plays the woman who believes she can change and redeem Frankie. Her hairstyles must have inspired future Southern mothers of little girls they'd enter into pageant competition. We would see similar hairdos styled on the heads of 10-year old girls named Amber and Tiffani.

I wasn't kidding about the all-star cast in this movie. THE OSCAR stars Steven Boyd, Elke Sommer, Eleanor Parker, Jill St. John, Edie Adams, Ernest Borgnine, Joseph Cotten, Milton Berle, Merle Oberon, Peter Lawford and Walter Brennan. This movie was a Joseph E. Levine production. Levine was a guy who believed that "sex sells." His movies usually had sex and this one was no exception. There's sex, broken hearts, some good acting and a cowpie of a script. The Oscars are this coming Sunday. Now for a clip from the brilliantly bad 1966 movie I'll be watching later this week before Sunday. Here's Stephen Boyd with Jean Hale.

The screenplay was co-written by Harlan Ellison.

There's a current article about THE OSCAR in The New Yorker magazine. The movie's now available on home video and comedian/actor Patton Oswalt viewed it for the article entitled "The Return of THE OSCAR, an Unseeable, Unwatchable Flop."

Well... it was a flop. It's not a good movie. But it's so chock full of Hollywood cheese that it is watchable. It's a camp classic. It's not great, yet it sure is memorable. Especially that final scene.

THE OSCAR is now available here:  www.kinolorber.com.