Cinema's Wake

Once a year, Hollywood tries to kill off TV by driving all gogglebox viewers past he point where boredom becomes catatonia. This year's Oscar awards show succeeded dismally. It was the longest ever televised, and its entertainment value fell somewhere between Jackpot Bowling and the little white blip that appears in the center of the screen after the set has been turned off. Part of the torpor is by now hereditary. What was new was the annual Oscar awards' spectacular morbidity. The night dragged on as a kind of animated obituary, part Beverly Hills and part Forest Lawn, which, it was suggested, may reflect the advancing years of many Academy members and their inevitable preoccupation with the last fadeout.

Preens & Pip-Squeaks. As is customary, lighting technicians and bodice padders mumbled gratitude to their angel mothers and all the wonderful, wonderful people in the cast. As usual, the songs were mediocre and sung badly. And as usual, the M.C.--Bob Hope this time brisk, professional and apparently a little bored-- was unable to tell enough jokes to bring to life the stupefying parade of pretty, smiling people introducing other pretty, smiling people.

A funereal mood chilled the after-dinner oratory. Clark Gable, the King was dead and the beloved Gary Cooper, close friends knew, was gravely ill with cancer Jimmy Stewart's emotional tribute as he accepted Coop's special Oscar (his third) set the tone; the old stars were waning and the pipsqueaks who shook Bob Hope's hand and smiled seemed unlikely to replace them. Briefly, it was not Hollywood being photographed--Hollywood struts and preens; it was a roomful of aging show people reminiscing about better days. The mood continued as Danny Kaye read the citation of a special Oscar for Stan Laurel, the old slapsticker. Laurel is ill, and was not present.

Wickedness & Wheezes. Liz Taylor beautifully ghastly after her severe siege of pneumonia and in no mood to hide it capped the evening by staggering gracefully onstage, supported by Husband Eddie Fisher, to accept her Best Actress award (nominally for the margarinal Butterfield 8 but actually, wise guys said for the pneumonia and for such past successes as Suddenly, Last Summer). Upstaged, Burt Lancaster meekly mumbled off with his Best Actor award (for Elmer Gantry). Earlier, Peter Ustinov (Spartacus) had received the award for Best Supporting Actor and had made the evening's only parsable acceptance speech Shirley Jones (Elmer Gantry) won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and deserved another for her who-would-have-thought-that-little-me acceptance.

It was a difficult evening, but some time during the long, long night Hollywood passed its crisis. Within hours everyone was cocky. Director Billy Wilder, who won the Best Picture, Best Original Writing (with I.A.L. Diamond) and Best Directing awards for The Apartment wired wickedly to Nominee Shirley MacLaine, with Liz Taylor's tracheotomy in "You may not have a hole in your windpipe, but we love you anyway " And Actress Taylor, noticeably less shaky at a post-Oscar party than she had been earlier, thoughtfully assessed Butterfield 8: "I still think it's a piece of obscenity."

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