Prize Package

The Oscar. Even at its awful best, this mindless Joseph E. Levine epic will hardly win anything but booby prizes. One can easily imagine the scene next year at the famous ceremonies in Santa Monica: the pit orchestra bravely muddling through Percy Faith's flail-it-with-music themes from The Oscar while an Academy spokesman announces that all categories have been hastily revised to permit a few special awards. The probable Oscar winners:

Worst Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium: to Harlan Ellison, Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene for dunking Richard Sale's crimson novel about the Hollywood prize scramble into a vatful of whitewash. The book described a rat race in which the victors were merely the best of breed. The movie describes a demiparadise besmirched by Stephen Boyd as a vicious nominee ("That rot inside" is his tragic flaw) who forgets that truth and beauty are the Only Real Rewards.

Most Diversionary Direction: to Russell Rouse, who apparently decided that hopeless dialogue can ring funny when played as high tragedy. "Do you bleed? Do you cry?" moans trampled Talent Scout Eleanor Parker. "I'm not some sort of garbage pail you can slide a lid on and walk away!" she adds. The less raunchy lines are disposed of in rounds of verbal pingpong. Let Boyd say "My head is splitting" (ping) and Wife Elke Sommer is sure to answer "So is our marriage" (pong). Milton Berle, Joseph Cotten, Jill St. John, Peter Lawford and Edie Adams all prove expert at the game.

Least Tedious Performance by a Supporting Actress: to Designer Edith Head, who doggedly plays herself in a party sequence for a second or two.

Least Believable Performance by a Supporting Actor: to Singer Tony Bennett, who plays the star's stooge as though someone had half-persuaded him that a crooner can burst into tears as easily as he bursts into song.

Least Performance by an Actress: Elke Sommer, who gets big fat roles and plays them thinly.

Least Performance by an Actor: Stephen Boyd, who literally wrings his hands in moments of crisis. His portrait of a snaky, sniveling contender at the Oscar countdown should be shown exclusively in theaters that have doctors and nurses stationed in the lobby to attend viewers who laugh themselves sick.

Worst All-About-Hollywood Picture of the Year: Here comes the Price Waterhouse man with the envelope, and it looks like a clean sweep.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.