Forty Is a Dangerous Age

"I've never seen six hours rush by so fast," quipped Bob Hope. He had a point. Last week's Academy Award ceremonies took 21 hours, but they seemed twice as turgid and ten times as tasteless.

Part of the fault was Hope himself, the Academy's perennial and usually excellent M.C. It was difficult to be funny under the circumstances. The Academy had postponed its awards by 48 hours, to honor the period of mourning for Dr. Martin Luther King. Judging by Hope's monologue, it would have been better not to try. "About the delay of two days," he began cheerfully, "it's been tough on the nominees. How would you like to spend two days in a crouch?" His final assignment was even more painful: the recital of Academy self-congratulation comparing such movie pioneers as Jesse Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn to "the man from Atlanta" because "they, too, had a dream."

What was sandwiched in between seemed more like a nightmare. Tepid repartee was met with jittery tittering in the audience; microphones and material failed regularly; lack of distinction was the order of the night. Hardly anyone could quarrel with Rod Steiger's Oscar for best actor in In the Heat of the Night, but Katharine Hepburn's award for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner seemed simply a sentimental tribute to a career more remarkable than her latest performance. George Kennedy's recognition as best supporting actor in Cool Hand Luke was long overdue. But naming Estelle Parsons best supporting actress for Bonnie and Clyde was only quirky: hers was the least significant characterization in the movie. Though Bonnie and Clyde was nominated for ten awards, the Academy ultimately gave it the back of its handout: the most distinguished film of the year won only one other Oscar--for Burnett Guffey's cinematography.

Mike Nichols has had an unbroken string of hits--seven plays and two films --and it was no surprise when he was voted best director. Yet the movie he won it for--The Graduate--received not one other award. The best picture was In the Heat of the Night, whose fine if somewhat melodramatic treat ment of racial conflict seemed stirringly topical (the selection, of course, was made long before the King assassination); with five Oscars it was the most honored film of the year. One of the weakest choices involved the year's other major race picture, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; William Rose's gummy screenplay outranked Bonnie and Clyde, La Guerre Est Finie and Two for the Road.

At the close, Hope's script had him intone the news that "rioting and indifference" are equal sins; he was also made to congratulate the industry on coming to grips with contemporary problems' and abandoning the old cliches. In doing so, he reminded audiences that, as the old bromides go, there are always new ones to take their place. The evening offered many reminders that this was the end of the Academy Awards' fourth decade. Having reached supposedly mature middle age, the Academy might do itself and everyone else a favor by abandoning its annual orgy of puffery--or at least by doing it in style.

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