Oscars: The Parade's Gone By...

The eighty something annual Oscar show is tonight: the movie industry, "Hollywood," handing out little gold bald headed men to the "best." What began as an annual banquet to promote the motion picture business after scandal rocked the burgeoning industry in the nineteen-twenties has become a joke only taken seriously by people making money from it: advertisers, networks, style gurus, Joan and Melissa Rivers. Winning an Oscar, "talent"(artist?) in front or behind the camera can get fifteen minutes of fame and possibly larger pay checks; momentarily the winners are thought of as experts in their fields, but, daresay, does anyone remember any of the winners from three or four years ago? Can you name who won Best Actor in 1996 off the top of your head?

Okay. Not be too dismissive I'll shine light on the early awards ceremonies: the 1920's until the early 1950's. The first decade or so of the Academy's awards were held in hotel ballrooms; black and white photographs detail elegant yet casual affairs with attendees seated at dinner tables adorned with small lamps, vases with flowers, cutlery, and fine china. I love the relaxed atmosphere these old photos convey. In 1942 the AMPAS started handing Oscars in theaters where the awards continue to be held  today. As the forms of media changed so too did the awards ceremonies. Beginning in the Fifties newsreel camera footage showed attendees and nominees arriving at the Pantages theater in L.A.; millions more tuned into the broadcasts on television begun in 1953. The Oscars became an annual event.

By the 90's, marketing, advertising, the fashion industry, People magazine and the 24 television news cycle had descended.

 With the plethora of awards shows today, the Oscars has lost its distinctness. Not since 1940 have winners been announced beforehand, yet because of all the critic citations and other member voted programs devoted to movies, there is no longer any suspense in what actor or movie is going to win. Therefore, tired, overworked Americans, circa 2014, mostly gay men and straight females, just tune in to look at the borrowed dresses and baubles; and, as in the last few years, strained attempts at humor to make the telecast seem interesting. The show has become pure kitsch. I bet half the audience quits watching after the red carpet event shows like on E! channel.

Furthermore, why should we take seriously awards handed out by an organization 94% white, mostly male and over 50? Doesn't AMPAS sound like the G.O.P?

STAGECOACH

John Ford's Stagecoach is the quintessential western and one of the best ever made in the genre. After years of apprenticeship in undistinguished westerns, John Wayne broke out with his performance in this movie. He never forgot John Ford gave him his major break and the pair worked together on a number of movies, mostly westerns, despite their political differences. 

From an original short story that was published in Colliers, Ben Hecht and Dudley Nichols wrote a screenplay for Ford who had bought the rights to "Stage to Lordsburg." It had been years since Ford had made a western, even though today his westerns are what he is best known for. Producing it wasn't easy because westerns were thought of as B or even C pictures made on poverty row - Monogram and Republic studios - and John Wayne wasn't an established actor at this point. So Ford set up financing with independent producer Walter Wanger. The picture was released through United Artists. Stagecoach was an immediate hit upon release with critics and audiences and revived western moviemaking in Hollywood.

Screenwriter Dudley Nichols wrote many classics during the Golden Era of Hollywood: The Informer, Bringing Up Baby, For Whom the Bell Tolls and several John Ford directed. He won an Academy Award for The Informer but refused the award because the Writer's Guild was on strike at the time; the first award recipient to turn the golden bald little Oscar down. Despite this, Nichols was nominated three more times by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 

Everyone one in the cast is perfect, especially Thomas Mitchell playing an alcoholic doctor named "Doc." The Academy thought so too and awarded him an Best Supporting Acting award. In the same year Stagecoach was released he played Scarlett O'Hara's pa in Gone With the Wind. Claire Trevor plays the good hearted whore, Dallas,with a certain tough weariness that I guess most whores have. Trevor received top billing.When Ford was in talks with David O. Selznick to produce Stagecoach Selznick wanted Marlene Dietrich for the part of Dallas.