The Oscar-winning Songs Countdown: 1972 (The Long Goodbye?)

Hello, my friends, old and new! Before I dive in today's story, allow me to get personal for a paragraph or five: during the last few months, it has become increasingly difficult for me to continue writing these stories. Maybe it's burn-out, maybe it's my depression kicking in, maybe it's the fact that these stories have not jump-started the conversation that I was hoping for, maybe it's because I have already covered (most of) my favorite artists and lack the enthusiasm of covering those who don't mean much to me...

Whatever the reasons, I've been feeling it since the beginning of summer. The fact that I chose to present the Billboard list was because it allowed me to write stories that were not personal. Friends have suggested that I continue with the Rolling Stone top 500 songs of all-time list. It's a great list, much more representative of my taste than the Billboard one. But it's still not personal. It would also take GayCultureLand further away from... well, gay culture. The thing is, I named this blog for a reason.

In short, I'm thinking of calling it quits. There are enough stories that I'm proud of - and I'm also proud that without any sort of advertising other than Facebook links on my page and on the pages of my favorite Facebook groups, this blog has grown and has found an appreciative audience.

But let's not get out the hankies just yet. I'm not a man who likes loose ends, so I don't intend to leave either the Motown countdown or the Oscar-winning songs countdown half-finished. I will also probably complete the Gay Icons list. I may even do a kind of greatest hits list, my favorite songs from past stories presented in some form. The thing is, I don't have neither the time nor the energy for those 4,000-6,000-word stories that have become my trademark during this blog's peak. There will be much less researching and background stories. You'll still get to listen to all the songs, though.

To complete all these countdowns, I need a few months, maybe even a year. The parenthesis in the title is "The Long Goodbye" with a question mark, meaning that I may get to decide not to stop writing. I can only speak of my frame of mind at this moment, who knows what I'll be thinking in six weeks, much less in six months. If I decide not to continue, I will publish all the gay artists' names that I have discovered and not yet presented so you can discover them yourselves. Before all that, however, let's get on with today's story...

1972 was a landmark year in movies, for many reasons: one of which being that the three best English-speaking movies of the year were both the major players at the Oscar race, as well as being in the top 6 highest-grossing films of the year. This unexpected complete synergy between quality, box-office success, and Oscar recognition is a rare bird indeed. Which are these three movies?

One of them is The Godfather: a movie that became what it became in spite of everything. Paramount's wunderkind producer, Robert Evans, had bought the rights to make the movie for $35,000 - that was before Mario Puzo's novel became a best-selling phenomenon. Evans chose a little-known director, Francis Ford Coppola, whose last two movies had been bombs. Evans' reason: "He'll be easy to control." No sooner was Coppola signed than he began to argue with the Paramount brass about raising the budget and turning The Godfather into an epic instead of what the studio envisioned - a low-budget gangster thriller with an exploitable title.

Then there was the casting merry-go-round. For the title role, Coppola wanted one of the world's two greatest actors: Laurence Olivier wasn't available and Marlon Brando wasn't even a contender as far as Paramount was concerned - the troublemaker hadn't had a hit in a dozen years. But when Brando stuffed tissue paper in his mouth to make his own screen test, studio executives were impressed by his humility; Brando was in.

The hunt for Corleone's sons was tantamount to finding four Scarlett O'Haras. The studio conceded to three little-known friends of Coppola's, James Caan, Robert Duvall, and John Cazale taking over as Sonny, Tom, and Fredo respectively, they even allowed for Coppola's sister, Talia Shire to be cast as Connie and for unknown Diane Keaton to be cast as Kay - but they wanted a big name to be cast as Michael. They scoffed at Coppola's suggestion of Al Pacino, a stage actor who hadn't made much of a splash playing a drug addict in The Panic In Needle Park. A few screen tests later - and with Coppola's insistence - Paramount relented.

What happened next is more or less known. The movie was received enthusiastically, both by the critics (the film has a perfect 100% Metascore and is considered by many to be among the top three, if not the best American movie of all-time. The public loved it: it was the year's highest grosser, a good 40% more than the film at #2.

The Oscars were equally enthusiastic: the film received 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor (Brando), and three nominations for Supporting Actor (Pacino, Caan, and Duvall). The film's monumental score by Nino Rota was also nominated but was eventually deemed ineligible: a good part of it was used before by Rota, on the Italian movie Fortunella (1958). A real pity, one of the best scores of all-time to be deemed ineligible on a technicality. Those were the rules, however. Here's, for your pleasure, part of the score:

The melody was then given lyrics and turned into a popular song called Speak Softly Love. Here's Andy Williams' version:

The second film in question is Cabaret. When John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the Broadway musical Cabaret, they designed it as a showcase for their friend, Liza Minnelli. Producer-director Hal Prince thought Judy Garland's daughter too awkward and inexperienced for the show, and so, the musical version of Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories" went on to become the biggest hit of the 1966-67 season starring Jill Haworth. By the time Cabaret was being made into a movie, Minnelli had turned into a star - the role of Sally Bowles was hers.

First-time producer Cy Feuer signed Broadway whiz Bob Fosse as director and the whole troupe took off to Germany for location shooting. Liza had high hopes for the movie - and she was right: The film was a triumph. The critics loved it, audiences flocked to see it, making it the year's #6 grosser, and the Academy showered it with love, giving the film 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actress (Minnelli), and Supporting Actor (Joel Grey). It was also nominated for Song Score, but none of the two eligible songs were nominated for Best Songs, which is a crying shame.

The movie begins with Willkommen:

Mein Herr was one of the songs that were eligible for the Best Song Oscar:

... The other was Money, Money:

Maybe This Time wasn't eligible, but it was a great moment for Minnelli:

My favorite, goosebump-inducing moment was the scene where Tomorrow Belongs To Me is heard: a beautiful teenager with Arian features starts singing with an angelic voice. The camera reveals that he's a Nazi - and the song is one of those patriotic, rousing ones. Pretty soon, just about everyone has joined in. It's a wonderful way to explain the seductive power of Nazism to the German people at the time, with just a song, camera work, and editing. Watch it here:

The third movie in question is Deliverance. When Burt Reynolds took off his clothes for a centerfold in the April 1972 issue of Cosmopolitan, he became one of the biggest names in the business. Now that he had parlayed himself into a hot item, he wanted to be taken seriously as an actor. Deliverance helped him do it.

Based on poet James Dickey's bestseller and starring Jon Voight, the film followed four suburbanites out to prove how macho they are by canoeing in the backwoods of Georgia. The film was directed by Englishman John Boorman, who had already shown his ability to make impressive, tough, male-oriented movies like Point Blank and Hell In The Pacific. The critics gave Deliverance their thumbs up (82% Metascore) and so did the audience; the movie was the fifth highest-grosser of the year. It was only nominated for three Oscars, but they were major ones: Best Picture, Director, and Editing.

My favorite scene from the movie was obviously a favorite with many, since Duelling Banjos, the instrumental that frames the attempt at communication of the city-folks and country-folks, became a #2 hit in the US and Canada - and a top 20 hit in the UK. Watch how wonderfully the scene plays out:

The most harrowing scene, however, which shocked many at the time, is the "Squeal like a Pig" scene:

Speaking of the year's highest grossers: there were more great films in the year's top 10. Sam Peckinpah's classic The Getaway (Steve McQueen, Ali McGraw), Sydney Pollack's elegiac western Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford), and Peter Bogdanovich's pleasant romantic comedy What's Up, Doc? (Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal). This is the full list:

Also of note, the presence of Fritz The Cat, the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States - and Behind the Green Door, a feature-length pornographic film, widely considered one of the genre's "classic" pictures and one of the films that ushered in The Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984). Though the main focus of the film, Marilyn Chambers does not have a single word of dialogue in the entire film. The film is possibly the first US feature-length hardcore film to include an interracial sex scene. Speaking of pornography, be sure to watch "The Deuce", an excellent TV series about New York's prostitution and pornography scene in the 1970s. It's one of the best TV series on the air.

At #2 on the list is The Poseidon Adventure, one of the most successful disaster movies ever. The movie features an ensemble cast that includes five Oscar winners. Of those, Shelley Winters received another nomination for this film, as Supporting Actress. The film had seven more nominations (plus, it was awarded a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects). Among its nominations was Best Song for The Morning After. This is Renee Armand singing (dubbed over actress Carol Lynley in the film):

Maureen McGovern recorded a version that hit the top of the charts in the US and Australia and peaked at #3 in Canada:

Also, among its nominations, John Williams' score:

John Williams had a second nomination that year. It was for Robert Altman's mystery thriller, Images:

The social upheaval of the late 1960s brought forth an increased presence of black actors - and movies with a pertinent subject matter received bigger budgets and better distribution. It was long overdue. Martin Ritt's Sounder was a moving family drama with the oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers at its center, who comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food. Kevin Hooks was the son, while the parents were spectacularly portrayed by the amazing Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield (a gay man). The film received four major Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Screenplay, Best Actor (Winfield), and Best Actress (Tyson). The theme from Sounder, Needed Time, was written by Taj Mahal and performed by Lightnin Hopkins:

Diana Ross became a film actress with a bang: Lady Sings the Blues told the story of the troubled life and career of the legendary Jazz singer, Billie Holiday. Diana's amazing performance earned her a Best Actress nomination, along with four more nominations, Best Screenplay and Best Song Score among them. This is one of my favorite scenes, which showcases my favorite Billie Holiday song, Strange Fruit:

... And this is God Bless The Child:

Super Fly was one of the good black action films of the era, hot on the heels of Shaft. The film's songs were written by the great Curtis Mayfield and the soundtrack album is one of the most important albums of the 1970s. This is the title song:

The nominations in the category of Best Original Song were not announced in February with the rest of the nominations, reportedly because of "a mixup in balloting". It was later reported that the Academy had been considering whether Curtis Mayfield's song Freddie's Dead from the film Super Fly should be eligible. The song was ruled ineligible for a nomination because its lyrics were not sung in the film. (The song was released as a single with lyrics, but the version in the film was an instrumental.) This is Freddie's Dead:

From the same soundtrack, this is Pusherman:

Since Ingmar Bergman exploded on the arthouse scene, critics paid attention to movies coming from Sweden. Everything by the grand master, naturally, but also by others, like Bo Widerberg, or by Jan Troell. Troell's epic saga of a bunch of Swedish emigrants to the US in the middle of the 19th century, starring two of Bergman's heavyweights, Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, clocked in at over four hours, so it was divided into two films, The Emigrants and The New Land. The Emigrants was submitted by Sweden in the Foreign Film category for 1971 and managed to earn a nomination, but not a win. Then in 1972, it had a theatrical run in the US, so it was eligible in all Oscar categories. It managed to receive 4 more major nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actress (Ullmann), and Screenplay). Meanwhile, Sweden submitted The New Land in the Foreign Film category for 1972 and managed to earn a nomination again, so both films were nominated in the same year, but not competing against each other. A bit confusing, isn't it?

Speaking of, these are the submissions for Best Foreign Language Film:

You have probably noticed that the submissions then were only a fraction of the recent submissions. Except for Sweden's The New Land, other films of notice were France's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Luis Buñuel's sparkling surreal satire of the upper middle class; Italy's Roma, Federico Fellini's love letter to his favorite city; the Soviet Union's The Dawns Here Are Quiet, a sturdy WWII drama; Spain's My Dearest Senorita, in which a woman living in a small town discovers after fifty years that she is actually a man, starring one of Pedro Almodovar's muses, Julieta Serrano; Israel's I Love You Rosa, by Moshé Mizrahi, whose story centers on the Jewish practice that requires an unmarried brother to marry the childless widow of his dead brother. In this story the younger brother is only 12 years old when his brother dies, while his bride to be is an adult woman; Yugoslavia's The Master And Margaret by Aleksandar Petrović, based on the same novel that inspired Mick Jagger to write Sympathy For The Devil; and Switzerland's La Salamandre, by Alain Tanner, about a young woman is accused of having shot her uncle.

As usual, the British fared well in the 1972 nominations: there was Sleuth, the brilliant two-hander based on the hit play of the same name, directed by the veteran Joseph Mankiewicz and starring two of Britain's greatest actors: Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. All three received Oscar nominations, as did John Addison for the film's score (it was the score that replaced The Godfather when it was deemed ineligible). Here it is:

Now, for you, the dedicated cinephiles here's a quiz. What's the connection of that version of Sleuth with the current version of Suspiria by Luca Guadagnino? Answer in the comments. You will win my deep appreciation.

Peter O'Toole received a Best Actor nomination for The Ruling Class, a strange British comedy about a nobleman who thinks he's Jesus Christ. O'Toole also starred, alongside Sophia Loren, in the musical version of Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha. the film was nominated for Best Original Song Score. Here they are both, with the musical's pièce de résistance, The Impossible Dream:

Another British thespian who received a Best Actress nomination that year was Maggie Smith, for the British version of Auntie Mame, Travels With My Aunt. Hers was one of the film's four nominations. The song, Serenade of Love, wasn't nominated, but it could have been. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the song on Youtube.

Finally, from Britain, Churchill's early years, as depicted in Richard Attenborough's Young Winston, received three nominations.

The Heartbreak Kid was written by Neil Simon and directed by Elaine May. It received two Oscar nominations, for Supporting Actress (Elaine May's daughter, Jeannie Berlin) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Albert). The film's theme song (Music by Cy Coleman and Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, performed by Bill Dean) was pleasant enough but wasn't nominated. Here it is:

Eddie Albert's son, Edward Albert, starred alongside Goldie Hawn in the film adaptation of the hit play Butterflies Are Free. Screen veteran Eileen Heckart, who portrayed Edward's mother, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The film also received nominations for Cinematography and Sound. The title song, written by Stephen Schwartz, was part of the pre-existing play, therefore it wasn't eligible. Here it is anyway:

Pete 'n' Tillie starred Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett but it was Geraldine Page who earned an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress. The film also received a Best Screenplay nomination.

Louis Malle's sensitive portrayal of a middle-class family, Murmur Of The Heart, also received a Best Screenplay nomination, while Michael Ritchie's political drama, The Candidate was nominated for its Screenplay as well as for its Sound. Finally, John Huston's boxing drama, Fat City, nabbed a Supporting Actress nomination for Susan Tyrrell.

The Nominations

BEST PICTURE

THE GODFATHER

Albert S. Ruddy, Producer

CABARET

Cy Feuer, Producer

DELIVERANCE

John Boorman, Producer

THE EMIGRANTS

Bengt Forslund, Producer

SOUNDER

Robert B. Radnitz, Producer

DIRECTING

CABARET

Bob Fosse

DELIVERANCE

John Boorman

THE EMIGRANTS

Jan Troell

THE GODFATHER

Francis Ford Coppola

SLEUTH

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

ACTOR

MARLON BRANDO

The Godfather

MICHAEL CAINE

Sleuth

LAURENCE OLIVIER

Sleuth

PETER O'TOOLE

The Ruling Class

PAUL WINFIELD

Sounder

ACTRESS

LIZA MINNELLI

Cabaret

DIANA ROSS

Lady Sings the Blues

MAGGIE SMITH

Travels with My Aunt

CICELY TYSON

Sounder

LIV ULLMANN

The Emigrants

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

JOEL GREY

Cabaret

EDDIE ALBERT

The Heartbreak Kid

JAMES CAAN

The Godfather

ROBERT DUVALL

The Godfather

AL PACINO

The Godfather

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

EILEEN HECKART

Butterflies Are Free

JEANNIE BERLIN

The Heartbreak Kid

GERALDINE PAGE

Pete 'n' Tillie

SUSAN TYRRELL

Fat City

SHELLEY WINTERS

The Poseidon Adventure

WRITING (SCREENPLAY--BASED ON MATERIAL FROM ANOTHER MEDIUM)

THE GODFATHER

Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola

CABARET

Jay Allen

THE EMIGRANTS

Jan Troell, Bengt Forslund

PETE 'N' TILLIE

Julius J. Epstein

SOUNDER

Lonne Elder, III

WRITING (STORY AND SCREENPLAY--BASED ON FACTUAL MATERIAL OR MATERIAL NOT PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED OR PRODUCED)

THE CANDIDATE

Jeremy Larner

THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" Story and Screenplay by Luis Buñuel; in collaboration with Jean-Claude Carrière

LADY SINGS THE BLUES

Terence McCloy, Chris Clark, Suzanne de Passe

MURMUR OF THE HEART

Louis Malle

YOUNG WINSTON

Carl Foreman

MUSIC (ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE)

LIMELIGHT

Charles Chaplin, Raymond Rasch, Larry Russell

IMAGES

John Williams

NAPOLEON AND SAMANTHA

Buddy Baker

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

John Williams

SLEUTH

John Addison

MUSIC (SCORING: ADAPTATION AND ORIGINAL SONG SCORE)

CABARET

Adaptation Score by Ralph Burns

LADY SINGS THE BLUES

Adaptation Score by Gil Askey

MAN OF LA MANCHA

Adaptation Score by Laurence Rosenthal

MUSIC (SONG - ORIGINAL FOR THE PICTURE)

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

The Morning After in "The Poseidon Adventure" Music and Lyrics by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn

BEN

Ben in "Ben" Music by Walter Scharf; Lyrics by Don Black

THE LITTLE ARK

Come Follow, Follow Me in "The Little Ark" Music by Fred Karlin; Lyrics by Marsha Karlin

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN

Marmalade, Molasses & Honey in "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" Music by Maurice Jarre; Lyrics by Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman

THE STEPMOTHER

Strange Are The Ways Of Love in "The Stepmother" Music by Sammy Fain; Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster

ART DIRECTION

CABARET

Art Direction: Rolf Zehetbauer, Jurgen Kiebach; Set Decoration: Herbert Strabel

LADY SINGS THE BLUES

Art Direction: Carl Anderson; Set Decoration: Reg Allen

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

Art Direction: William Creber; Set Decoration: Raphael Bretton

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT

Art Direction: John Box, Gil Parrondo, Robert W. Laing

YOUNG WINSTON

Art Direction: Geoffrey Drake, Don Ashton, John Graysmark, William Hutchinson; Set Decoration: Peter James

CINEMATOGRAPHY

CABARET

Geoffrey Unsworth

BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE

Charles B. Lang

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

Harold E. Stine

1776

Harry Stradling, Jr.

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT

Douglas Slocombe

COSTUME DESIGN

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT

Anthony Powell

THE GODFATHER

Anna Hill Johnstone

LADY SINGS THE BLUES

Bob Mackie, Ray Aghayan, Norma Koch

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

Paul Zastupnevich

YOUNG WINSTON

Anthony Mendleson

FILM EDITING

CABARET

David Bretherton

DELIVERANCE

Tom Priestley

THE GODFATHER

William Reynolds, Peter Zinner

THE HOT ROCK

Frank P. Keller, Fred W. Berger

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

Harold F. Kress

SOUND

CABARET

Robert Knudson, David Hildyard

BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE

Arthur Piantadosi, Charles Knight

THE CANDIDATE

Richard Portman, Gene Cantamessa

THE GODFATHER

Bud Grenzbach, Richard Portman, Christopher Newman

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

Theodore Soderberg, Herman Lewis

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD (VISUAL EFFECTS)

WINNER

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

L. B. Abbott, A. D. Flowers

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE

France

THE DAWNS HERE ARE QUIET

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

I LOVE YOU ROSA

Israel

MY DEAREST SEÑORITA

Spain

THE NEW LAND

Sweden

DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)

MARJOE

Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan, Producers

APE AND SUPER-APE

Bert Haanstra, Producer

MALCOLM X

Marvin Worth and Arnold Perl, Producers

MANSON

Robert Hendrickson and Laurence Merrick, Producers

THE SILENT REVOLUTION

Eckehard Munck, Producer

DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)

THIS TINY WORLD

Charles Huguenot van der Linden and Martina Huguenot van der Linden, Producers

HUNDERTWASSER'S RAINY DAY

Peter Schamoni, Producer

K-Z

Giorgio Treves, Producer

SELLING OUT

Tadeusz Jaworski, Producer

THE TIDE OF TRAFFIC

Humphrey Swingler, Producer

SHORT SUBJECT (ANIMATED)

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Richard Williams, Producer

KAMA SUTRA RIDES AGAIN

Bob Godfrey, Producer

TUP TUP

Nedeljko Dragic, Producer

SHORT SUBJECT (LIVE ACTION)

NORMAN ROCKWELL'S WORLD...AN AMERICAN DREAM

Richard Barclay, Producer

FROG STORY

Ron Satlof and Ray Gideon, Producers

SOLO

David Adams, Producer

JEAN HERSHOLT HUMANITARIAN AWARD

WINNER

Rosalind Russell

I have presented all three Original Song Score nominees and all but two of the Original Dramatic Score nominees. Here are the missing two: this is the score for Disney's Napoleon and Samantha (starring a very young Michael Douglas and an even younger Jodie Foster) by Buddy Baker:

Now, here's an interesting story: Charles Chaplin's Limelight was a great film, made in 1952. Chaplin sailed to London for the 16 Oct 1952 world premiere, but his re-entry permit was revoked after he left because of accusations that he was tied to the Communist party - a common charge in the "Red Scare" era in the US in the 1950s made against those - especially in the arts - who raised questions or objections to American foreign or domestic policies. After showings of Limelight in New York and other East Coast cities, an anti-Chaplin frenzy whipped up by ultra-conservative politicians and organizations caused cancellation of showings in other cities.

Charles Chaplin, Ray Rasch, and Larry Russell won the Oscar for Best Original Score for this film, but it was the Oscar for films released in 1972. The picture had never played in a Los Angeles-area cinema during the intervening 20 years and was not eligible for Oscar consideration until it did. It was Chaplin's only competitive Oscar. Here's the film's theme:

Now, the songs. We've already heard the song from The Poseidon Adventure. My favorite nominee was a love song to a rat. Ben was the first #1 solo hit for Michael Jackson. It was found on the movie of the same name, about Ben, the leader of a violent pack of killer rats. Here it is:

Marmalade, Molasses & Honey was written by Maurice Jarre, Alan, and Marilyn Bergman for John Huston's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Andy Williams is singing:

Come Follow, Follow Me appeared on the little-seen The Little Ark. It is sung by the Springfield Revival:

The final nominee came from a film that had received terrible reviews, The Stepmother. However, the song, Strange Are The Ways Of Love, as sung by Manuel, was nominated. Here it is:

I have already mentioned a few songs that could've been/should've been nominated. If it were up to me, I would keep Ben and The Morning After from the existing nominees and add Mein Herr and Money, Money from Cabaret - and any eligible Curtis Mayfield song from Super Fly.

Here are a few more songs that could've been nominated: The Ballad of Jeremiah Johnson from the film Jeremiah Johnson, by Tim McIntire / John Rubinstein:

... Moreover and Me from The Biscuit Eater:

... and finally, Snoopy Come Home from Snoopy Come Home:

The Winners

In any other year, The Godfather would win at least six Oscars. In any other year, Cabaret would be crowned Best Picture. However, they were unlucky enough to have to share the spoils. The Godfather ended up with three, while Cabaret impressed with eight wins (Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, and Song Score). The Godfather's wins, however, included Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was Cabaret that set a record: the most Oscars for a movie that hasn't won Best Picture. I think that Cabaret's producer would rather not hold this record...

As for Marlon Brando not accepting the award himself, but sending Sacheen Littlefeather instead, in order to protest the treatment of Native Americans by Hollywood, I wrote about it extensively on my Marlon Brando story. Read about it here.

Otherwise, Eileen Heckart was named Best Supporting Actress, The Candidate won for Original Screenplay, and Travels with My Aunt won for Costumes. Luis Buñuel won the Foreign Language trophy for France, while the Documentary awards went to Marjoe (Feature) and to This Tiny World (Short). The Animated Short Oscar went to A Christmas Carol, while the Live Action Short award went to Norman Rockwell's World... An American Dream.

As for the music awards... Limelight won for Original Score, 20 years after it was released, Cabaret naturally won for Song Score, while the Best Song award went to The Poseidon Adventure. If you combine the popularity of the film with the popularity of the song, the result wasn't at all surprising.

Aftermath

In her autobiography, Best Actress loser Liv Ullmann recalled departing the theater, referring to herself in the third person: "Outside are hundreds of autograph-hunters and they hurl themselves at her, still remembering her from television. She has written her name a few times when she hears a screech as from a thousand gulls. There comes the winner. The autograph books are torn from her, the name half-written on a paper she is holding. She's almost trampled underfoot as they rush past her in their pursuit of the Successful One."