{"id":7822,"date":"2010-03-16T15:07:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T19:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/?p=686"},"modified":"2010-03-16T15:07:28","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T19:07:28","slug":"a-seething-hunger-for-fame-and-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7822","title":{"rendered":"A Seething Hunger for Fame and Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week ago, the Oscars were broadcast, and TCM\u2019s own cheeky salute to that night\u2019s bloated event was airing The Oscar<\/a> <\/strong>(1966), one of the best bad movies ever made. It\u2019s a perfect example of foul elements \u2013 terrible dialogue, aggressive acting, serious miscasting, and drippy sleaze \u2013 coalescing into a giddy ride of cinematic fromage piquant<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Director Russell Rouse had enjoyed a good career run writing noirs (D.O.A.<\/strong>) as well as directing them (the dialogue-free The Thief<\/strong>, made in 1952 with Ray Milland is particularly interesting), but he stumbled in making what he may well have believed was a serious, dramatic expose of thespian greed when an egotistical actor is nominated for the gleaming bald statue.<\/p>\n

Filled with cameos and a solid supporting cast, it\u2019s a grand train wreck, but it also features acidic and often bonkers hipster dialogue co-written by Harlan Ellison. How much of it came from Ellison\u2019s nutty mind is conjecture since no one cares enough about this classic of bad cinema to release it on DVD. If Annie<\/strong> (1982), Heaven\u2019s Gate <\/strong>(1980), and Can\u2019t Stop the Music<\/strong> (1980) deserved special editions, why not The Oscar<\/strong> \u2013 a movie that actually has pacing<\/em>, and is free from vomitous musical numbers and directorial excess. (Well, Rouse did draw up a ridiculous pre-Oscar nightmare sequence, but that\u2019s it.)<\/p>\n

As a contrast to the ridiculous, I\u2019ve added a review of the 1959 teleplay based on Budd Schulberg\u2019s classic 1941 novel What Makes Sammy Run?<\/a><\/strong> Many have tried to turn the tight, slim novel into a film (including Tom Cruise), but this teleplay remains the only successful mounting.<\/p>\n

The second of the teleplay\u2019s two parts was believed lost, but it took a push from co-star Dina Merrill to get people looking deeper, and 49 years since it aired, the complete teleplay was released on DVD as part of the KOCH \/ E1\u2019s Archive of American Television series.<\/p>\n

And as good fortune would have it, E1 will be releasing Evening Primrose<\/strong>, Stephen Sondheim\u2019s 1966 musical horror tale about a lowly poet who decides to live inside the bowels of a department store, and becomes involved with a group of secret people living in the store\u2019s bowels.<\/p>\n

A limited CD <\/a>of\u00a0 the score was released by Kritzerland Records<\/a>, and the original teleplay was seemingly locked away due to apparent legal issues, but it seems good things do come to those with patience.<\/p>\n

– MRH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Film reviews of The Oscar (1966), one of the best bad movies of all-time, and the DVD release of the once-lost 1959 teleplay of Budd Schulberg’s anti-Hollywood tale, What Makes Sammy Run? \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-22a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7822"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}