Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
This time last year the talk was of the Oscars that mysteriously went missing before the ceremony, only to be found by Willie Fulgear, a scrap dealer who briefly became a hero. The happy ending had a sting in its tail it transpired that Fulgear’s half-brother was under investigation for receiving the stolen Oscars.
As this year’s Oscars ceremony approaches, the talk is of a different kind of robbery. What do Citizen Kane, High Noon, Bonnie and Clyde, Dr Strangelove, Raging Bull and LA Confidential have in common? They did not win Oscars as best film. And with days to go until this year’s envelopes are opened, the traditional examination of “stolen” Oscars is under way again.
Everyone has a favourite complaint about a film or actor overlooked in favour of some temporary dross. New York magazine’s Peter Rainer says Robert Altman stands out as one director who had been unfairly ignored. “He has never been embraced by the Hollywood establishment,” he said. “He still hasn’t made it into the club and I guess he never will.” Among others ignored for top prizes are Cary Grant, Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin. “My favourite [omission] is Laurence Olivier for one of the greatest performances ever in Othello, in the year that Lee Marvin won for Cat Ballou,” he says.
Variety’s Emanuel Levy cites, among conspicuous omissions, Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina and Liv Ullman in Cries and Whispers, and notes, “Bette Davis was denied an Oscar for the greatest performance of her career, in All About Eve.”
This year, the LA Times published its own list of innovative films that lost out : Citizen Kane lost to How Green Was My Valley in 1941; Bonnie and Clyde to In the Heat of the Night in 1967; All the President’s Men to Rocky in 1976; Raging Bull to Ordinary People in 1980; Goodfellas to Dances with Wolves in 1990.
Some esteemed directors apart from Altman have never won an Oscar for best director: Alfred Hitchcock was one, Martin Scorsese another. On the acting front, there have also been puzzling choices. Neither Dustin Hoffman nor Jon Voight won best actor for Midnight Cowboy, although the movie won best film Oscar and best director for John Schlesinger. Instead the prize went to John Wayne for True Grit.
This year’s big steal? No one seems sure, although if Chocolat wins against the odds, there will be plenty of candidates. As for Willie Fulgear, well, he has made it into Vanity Fair’s special Oscars issue, but is he happy? “I wish I’d never seen them Oscars,” he is quoted as saying. “I’m taking medication! I am stressed!”
He put $40 000 of the reward money in a safe at his home but when he came back from a holiday last June both the safe and the money had gone. He would like tickets to this year’s event. So far they have not been forthcoming.