The Oscar is a 1966 film directed by Russell Rouse adapted by Harlan Ellison from a 1963 novel by Richard Sale. The All-Star Cast includes Stephen Boyd, Elke Sommer, Milton Berle, Eleanor Parker, Joseph Cotten, Jill St. John, Edie Adams, Ernest Borgnine, and Tony Bennett.
The film centers around Frankie Fane (Boyd), a Jerkass actor nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. At the ceremony, his former buddy Hymie Kelly (Bennett) recalls the events that got him there. Once, he had a girlfriend named Laurel (St. John), whom he dumped for Kay (Sommer). With the support of Hymie, he breaks into show business. After getting the Oscar nomination, he becomes an even bigger Jerkass than ever.
Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson listed this as one of the most entertaining bad movies ever. Parodied on SCTV in "The Nobel", about a Jerkass surgeon nominated for the Nobel Prize.
This work features examples of:
- Assumed Win: Frankie stands up when presenter Merle Oberon announces "the winner is Frank Sinatra!"note
- Curse of The Ancients: One of the few works where one can see someone use "Birdseed!" as a curse non-ironically.
- Drama Bomb: Hymie reveals to Frankie that Laurel died years ago miscarrying Frankie's baby. One suspects the plot twist was going to be a botched abortion but there may have been a reluctance to mention abortion in a 1966 film.
- Horrible Hollywood: Tries a little too hard to invoke this trope and ends up as
Narm. - Jerkass: Frankie Fane, especially in the novel where he deliberately tries to sabotage his fellow nominees' chances for success.
- Melodrama: So much that upon release reviews were considering the movie an unintentional comedy.
- Narrator: Hymie tells the story of his ex-buddy Frankie.
- Non-Actor Vehicle: Tony Bennett, a singer by trade, has a supporting role as Hymie Kelly. This was Bennett's only acting role.
- Oscar Bait: A melodrama about Hollywood itself? It's pretty obvious what they were gunning for here.
- Real Award, Fictional Character: Frankie Fane is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, only to see the Oscar be awarded to Frank Sinatra instead.
- Two Decades Behind: It's a 1966 movie set in the present day, when the New Hollywood was starting to emerge, but its depiction of Hollywood as a tight-knit community of actors, publicists, studio honchos and gossip columnists by day that indulges in swingin' Rat Pack-type shenanigans by night feels more like 1946 or so.
