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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."