The Oscar-winning Songs Countdown: 1967

Hello and welcome to a new thematic unity! Always willing to try something new for your pleasure, every Saturday we'll revisit the Oscars, by way of a countdown of the Oscar-winning songs. At the same time we'll also be presenting the main Oscars of that year, as well as relevant stories of interest.

A few things that need explaining: first of all, the year; when people refer to the Oscars of a certain year, they either use the year which is honored by the Oscars, or the year which the actual ceremony takes place. For example: the last Oscars were given in the beginning of 2016, but were honoring films made in 2015. The "traditionalists" would refer to them as Oscars 2015, while the "modernists" would refer to them as Oscars 2016. I am part of the traditionalists. So the year we're presenting today is about movies made in 1967, while the ceremony took place in 1968. If this is confusing now, give it time.

Another thing: when two songs are more or less of equal merit, the one that unjustly prevailed over worthier opponents will be lower down my list. Because, justice. Enough foreplay. Let's get on with the action!

In 1967, the big studios were on their way out. Warners attempted to replicate the success of My Fair Lady by taking another Lerner and Lowe musical from Broadway and once again cast another actress in the Julie Andrews' role. This time it was Vanessa Redgrave who became Warner's Guinevere in Camelot, an expensive production that opened to dreadful reviews and failed to earn back its cost. The only noteworthy thing that came of it was Vanessa's real-life love affair with the film's Lancelot, Italian actor Franco Nero. It led to Redgrave's separation from her then husband, director Tony Richardson.

The same thing over at the Fox studios. The success of The Sound Of Music was too sweet to not try to create lightning in a bottle for a second time. They mounted a big budget production of a musical version of Doctor Dolittle. Tough luck: terrible reviews and the movie garnered only a third of its cost at the box office. It turned out to be more disastrous for the studio than even Cleopatra.

Losing the role in Camelot proved to be a blessing in disguise for Julie Andrews, who starred alongside Carol Channing in a modestly budgeted musical called Thoroughly Modern Millie, which was well-reviewed and made a decent profit.

It was really Sidney Poitier's year though: he starred in three of the year's most successful films: To Sir With Love, a hit movie, with an even bigger hit in the shape of its theme song, was one. Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, the final movie starring the legendary pair of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, was another. Tracy died just 10 days after filming was completed.

Poitier's third hit of the year was also the best reviewed. A crime melodrama called In The Heat Of The Night, in which he portrayed a Philadelphia police detective stranded in a small town when a murder is comitted and having to deal with the bigoted small town sheriff played by Rod Steiger. The film's highlight comes when Rod Steiger's sheriff remarks that "Virgil is a pretty fancy name for a black boy like you," and asks what people call him at home, Virgil Tibbs (Poitier's character) forcefully responds "They call me Mister Tibbs!"

In The Heat Of The Night wasn't the only film that year that produced memorable quotes: The highest grossing film of the year had a number of them. From the one-word career advice: "plastics" to the phrase "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me.", The Graduate offered plenty of funny and memorable one-liners. The film also sported Simon & Garfunkel's iconic soundtrack. It also had Anne Bancroft perfectly cast as Mrs. Robinson, as well as two young actors who caused a sensation. Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross. Hoffman in particular received career-making reviews, although not about his looks: the New York Daily News said "he's rather plain-looking, resembling both Sonny and Cher."

The most controversial film of the year was Bonnie And Clyde. Reportedly Warren Beatty got down on his knees to beg Jack Warner to finance the film after two other studios had turned him down. The critics were divided: the younger ones praised the film, while the older ones attacked it for glamorizing violence and criminal behavior. In fact, the film caused an esteemed film critic to lose his job: the editorial board of The New York Times persuaded Bosley Crowther to step down, after 30-odd years at his job, because he couldn't relate to Bonnie And Clyde.

Another very successful film was Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman as a cocky convict who defied authority and took off his shirt a lot. The film's ads capitalized on the comment Strother Martin's prison guard uttered every time Newman misbehaved - "What we have here is a failure to communicate" - and the line became a rallying cry for both sides of the generation gap.

Newman's costar, George Kennedy, playing a fellow inmate, was worried that the studio wasn't interested in doing any campaigning for him, so he spent $5000 of his own money on trade-paper ads to goad Academy members to see his performance.

That, however, paled before Fox's "operation Dolittle". The studio made Doctor Dolittle its prime target for Academy Award consideration and provided champagne and coctails and a luscious buffet dinner before every Academy screening.

The Nominations

The wining and dining paid off for Fox: Doctor Dolittle received 9 nominations, including Best Picture. "It's outrageous!", Truman Capote screamed: The film based on his best-seller In Cold Blood, a movie with excellent reviews, received 4 major nominations, including Best Director, but lost out the fifth Best Picture slot to Doctor Dolittle. The other four films that were nominated for Best Picture as well as for Best Director were Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (10 nominations), Bonnie And Clyde (10 nominations), In The Heat Of The Night (7 nominations), and The Graduate (7 nominations, including one each for Hoffman, Bancroft and Ross).

George Kennedy's campaigning paid off, as he received a Supporting Actor nomination. Paul Newman, the score and the screenplay of Cool Hand Luke also received nominations.

Sidney Poitier received no nominations, possibly his movies cancelled each other. His costars did, however: Rod Steiger in In The Heat Of The Night and all of Tracy, Hepburn, Cecil Kellaway and Beah Richards in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. The most acting nominations for a film in 1967, however, went to Bonnie And Clyde, which received five: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Michael J. Pollard and Estelle Parsons.

Camelot received 5 nominations in the Arts & Crafts categories, while Thoroughly Modern Millie did better with 7 nominations, including one for Carol Channing as Supporting Actress.

Another memorable fact was that this was the first year that the Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design categories gave one award each; before that, they each gave awards for black-and-white and color movies separately. The reason was that black-and-white movies were hardly being made anymore, because TV networks preferred to broadcast color movies - and the studios counted on selling their movies to TV.

The five Best Song nominees were:

The Bare Necessities from The Jungle Book • Music & Lyrics: Terry Gilkyson:

The Eyes of Love from Banning • Music: Quincy Jones • Lyrics: Bob Russell:

The Look of Love from Casino Royale • Music: Burt Bacharach • Lyrics: Hal David:

Talk to the Animals from Doctor Dolittle • Music & Lyrics: Leslie Bricusse:

Thoroughly Modern Millie from Thoroughly Modern Millie • Music and lyrics: Sammy Cahn & Jimmy Van Heusen:

Not a thoroughly remarkable batch: the only song that stands out, well above the rest, is The Look of Love from Casino Royale, a classic.

There were some incredible omissions from the list. I mean, OMG, no To Sir With Love?!?:

No theme from Valley Of The Dolls?!?:

No theme from The Happening?!?:

All three of the above certainly should have been nominated. But those were the times...

The Oscars

The ceremony almost didn't happen, and for a very sad reason: four days before the scheduled date, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated. The then President of the Academy Gregory Peck called an urgent meeting of the Board of Governors and they decided to postpone the ceremony for after the funeral and cancel the annual Governors' Ball altogether.

Finally, the ceremony took place and the Academy spread the wealth: In The Heat Of The Night got Best Picture, Best Actor for Rod Steiger, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Sound. Best Director went to Mike Nichols for The Graduate. Katharine Hepburn received her second Best Actress Oscar for Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, which also got Best Original Screenplay. Bonnie And Clyde secured a Best Supporting Actress award for Broadway actress Estelle Parsons, as well as Best Cinematography. George Kennedy's $5000 were well spent, for he won Best Supporting Actor for Cool Hand Luke. Camelot won Best Scoring of Music (Adaptation or Treatment), as well as Best Art Direction and Costume Design. Thoroughly Modern Millie was rewarded for Best Original Music Score for Elmer Bernstein, his only Oscar. The Dirty Dozen, a violent war movie starring many familiar faces which was a great box office success and a template for war movies to come won Best Sound Effects. The Best Foreign Movie award went to the good Czechoslovakian film by Jiri Menzel called Closely Watched Trains.

You could hear the "Oh, nos" loudly in the theater when Barbra Streisand announced the winner for Best Song: Doctor Dolittle. My #82 favorite Oscar song in a list of 82. The same movie also won for Best Visual Effects.

As an epilogue, I want to say that this is a labor of love and there's a lot of work in it. If you like it and want me to continue, please write something in the comments section. It can be something very short and it can be in any language, if you're not comfortable writing in English. I will seriously not continue this thematic unity if I get no comments, it will probably mean that you don't like it won't it? I will also think seriously about continuing altogether. Thank you for your attention.