Grand Illusion

"Regrettably, each year a few nave resorted to outright excessive and vulgar solicitation of votes," said the booklet sent out to the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "This becomes a serious embarrassment to the Academy and our industry."

It also can become the shortest line to an Oscar--as Cliff Robertson proved at this year's Academy Awards show. Competitors like Alan Arkin and Alan Bates may have been content to rest on their performances; Robertson knew better. Starting in October 1968, ads on his behalf were placed in the trade papers. "Best actor of the year--the National Board of Review" they reminded readers. "Cliff Robertson is CHARLY," they trumpeted in full-page splashes. The campaign culminated in a giant double foldout inserted in Daily Variety. Its contents: 83 favorable reviews of Robertson from a spectrum of journals.

Publicly, the Academy frowned. Privately, many members agreed that Robertson's award was based more on promotion than on performance. Nor is there any reason to expect otherwise. Ads sell movies, runs the Hollywood rationale, why shouldn't they sell movie actors? Politicians run for office and executives finesse for the corner offices; performers ought to be allowed a little jockeying for position.

Wrong Reasons. The trouble is that a large portion of those 30 million viewers who watched the Academy Award ceremonies last week still cling to the Modern Screen belief that the Oscars are given for merit. Sadly, they are sometimes not even given in gratitude. For all his contributions to the industry, Gary Grant has never won an Oscar. Nor has Charlie Chaplin, nor Orson Welles, nor Paul Newman. Even when the Oscar is given to a deserving recipient, it is frequently for the wrong reasons.

Jimmy Stewart's Oscar for The Philadelphia Story was workman's compensation for losing the year before in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Rod Steiger's was actually for The Pawnbroker instead of In the Heat of the Night, as announced. Walter Matthau's Oscar came, he admits, "because I had a heart attack. They hate to give you anything when you're dead."

If you don't play the game, they hate to give you anything when you're alive. This year Ruth Gordon deserved her Oscar for best supporting actress in Rosemary's Baby, but Mia Farrow, the lady she supported, was not even nominated. The reason: the Academicians dislike her barefoot hippie attitudes. Barbra Streisand's performance in Funny Girl was far less skillful than Vanessa Redgrave's in Isadora, but the Academy has never been able to separate performer from politics. A picket sign once symbolized the town's hostility to her leftist leanings: "A vote for Vanessa Redgrave is a vote for the Viet Cong."

Baroque Speeches. The ceremonies onstage were scarcely more delicate. Gower Champion's miscued staging was reminiscent of The Ed Sullivan Show on an off night. The dancing was strictly St. Vitus, the hollow banter almost made one hunger for the elaborate thanks of yesteryear.

Though senior citizens like to recall the good old days when the Academy Awards had dignity and style, that, too, is illusion. "At my first Oscars presentation," recalls Director Joseph Mankiewicz (All About Eve), "Jackie Cooper fell asleep in Marie Dressler's lap. The president of the Academy suggested that everybody toast his wife." In the days before television's time limitations, baroque speeches thanking everyone from the star's mother to the wardrobe mistress were de rigueur. Greer Garson's Mrs. Miniver acknowledgment took 40 minutes.

Since those windy days, the speeches have been cut down--and the Oscar built up. In a business founded on insecurities, the statuette now seems more solid than the studios, more enduring than art. In the past, there have been recipients who put down the Oscar, and meant it. When George Bernard Shaw won one for his screenplay of Pygmalion, he boomed: "It's an insult." Director John Ford has won Oscars four times and has never attended a single ceremony.

Still, winners have every reason to respect even the most dubious award. For a film it can mean more than $1,000,000 in increased grosses. For an actor the impact is greater: Walter Matthau's salary quintupled after he received his Oscar. George Kennedy's story is twice as good: his fee went from $20,000 to $200,000 per film. "Before Cat Ballon," recalls Lee Marvin, "I was what they call a good back-up actor. I was getting money in five figures before the Oscar. For the last one, Paint Your Wagon, I got a million dollars, plus 10%. From 1965 to 1969, that's a pretty nice climb." Climbs like that are sufficient reason to let the Academy carry on its business as usual.

Please Come. Or are they? Stanley Kramer, whose films have won nearly 100 nominations, admits: "Frankly, the people in the Academy don't know what the hell they're voting for. Not any more than a clothing salesman from Dayton, Ohio." Paramount's production chief Robert Evans concurs: "There are people in the Academy who haven't worked in years. How can they know what the industry is about anymore?" Perhaps Joseph Mankiewicz is correct when he says: "A film academy that includes financiers and publicity men and does not include Fellini, Bergman and Truffaut, can hardly be called an academy. Somewhere there should be a place where film creators decide for themselves matters of merit." Says Paul Newman: "There must be something wrong with a group that hands out awards and then has to send telegrams saying, please come."

There is, of course, something wrong --profoundly so. But, "to change it would be like reforming Indianapolis," claims Lee Marvin. "The world's records have been set on that track. They have to remain that way or create a whole new race."

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