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Show No big surprises are expected but, with the Oscars, you never can tell Rivals: Shirley MacLaine (I) and Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment. OMORROW NIGHT IS THE BIG one here in Hollywood. The ma- jor event of the year. The gala of all galas. The Academy Awards. For the 56th time since it was founded in 1927 during a Sunday-dinnconversation in the Santa Monica beach house of tyrannical MGM chief Louis B. Mayer and three of his guests actor Conrad Nagel, director Fred Niblo and producer Fred Beetson the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will bestow its coveted Oscars. ABC-Twill telecast the proceedings live for three hours, more or less, starting at 6 p.m. in the West (9 p.m. in the East). The Hollywood superstars, in their rented stretch-ou- t limousines (S200 per hour), will begin arriving at 5 p.m. in downtown Los Angeles. Outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, in which the celebration is staged, TV reporters will attempt to interview them. Many of the major stars avoid these er V interviews (favorite one-minu- te question: Who do you think will win tonight?") because the natural lighting reveals too clearly the w rinkles they have spent so much time and money trying to hide. The lighting inside the theater is much better. Three hours is too long for almost any TV program, and tomorrow's Oscar show w ill doubtless prove no exception. But as one Academy official explains: The $4 million we get from ABC for the TV show is by far the single largest source of the Academy's gross annual income. It costs us about S3 million to put the show on. so we net a little more than a million bucks on the deal." This same official, who understandably prefers not to be named, concedes that the TV show is probably two hours too long for the general public. "All that are basically inter- most moviegoers and rs ested in." he grants, are five of our awards those going to best actors and actresses in leading and supporting roles, and one for best picture. The vast majority couldnt care less who directed Terms of Endearment or wrote Reuben, Reuben or who receives Oscars for set design, art direction, sound effects and all the rest. ABC. however." he continues, is primarily interested in selling commercial time. Obviously, the network can sell more advertisements in a two- - or three-hoshow' than in a one-hoshow. ABC charges on the average 5275,000 for each spot and sells 18 minutes of commercials on the Oscar show, for a total of 59.9 million. The Academys job, of course, is to strategically spot the award segments throughout the entire program (however long it runs), usually saving the Best Picture Oscar for the finale. Our objective is to keep the TV audience entertained and in suspense for about three hours, which is no easy job. In tomorrow's Oscar derby, the suspense element will likely be in short supply, diminished by the runfavorites. ning of so many odds-o- n Shirley MacLaine. for example, has been touted for w eeks to win as Best Actress for Terms of Endearment. as has Jack Nicholson as Best Supporting Actor for the same film. Robert Duvall is the Hollywood favorite to gamer a Best Actor award for his portrayal of a recovered alcoholic country singer in Tender Mercies. Best Picture will doubtless go to Terms of Endearment, which has won 1 nominations. So the only close race should be for Best Supporting Actress, between Glenn Close in The Big Chill. Cher in Silkwood and Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously. Unfortunately, the five films nominated for Best Picture The Big Chill. The Dresser. The Right Stuff. Tender Mercies and Terms of Endearment constitute a relatively lackluster lot. All were photographed away from Hollywood to keep down production overhead, and only one The Right Stuff, which cost 540 million. including prints and promotion can be classified as a film with major production ur ur 1 "big-budge- t" BY values. Sad to say. The Right Stuff is at this writing a disappointment. It deals with the historic flights of America's astronauts and the development of this countrys space program, two subjects of comparatively little interest to moviegoers aged 9 to 25, who comprise the largest segment of todays film audience. Although Warner Bros, and The Ladd Company, w hich produced The Right Stuff, are spending additional millions advertising the fact that it won eight Oscar nominations (six of them technical), they realize their film must sell at least 5100 million worth of tickets in the U.S. alone to show a small profit. The chances of The Right Stuff achieving that figure at the box office are remote, unless miracle of miracles the movie should happen to win as Best Picture tomorrow. In the early Hollywood days. Jack Warner, who ran Warner Bros., could dictate such miracles. He would conspire w'ith the other studio chiefs to influence their employees' votes, and the deal would be done. But those days of the fixed vote" via coercion and have long since passed. At last count, the Academy boasted 4053 voting members. Its 1155 actors and actresses, 363 writers and 313 producers comprise the three largest voting blocs. Less than 5 percent of these men and women are under contract to any studio for feature movies. This means no studio can successfully pressure Hollywood's actors, writers and producers to vote for its product on economic or loyalty grounds, since these Academy members no longer have a home studio." What they do have is their integrity, w hich they are not about to compromise for a free studio dinner. The Academy does not reveal the median age of its members a key statistic when one is trying to predict how they will vote. A reasonable guesstimate would be 50 to 55. Members in that are often more knowledgeable, conservative, understanding and sympathetic than those who are considerably younger. The tend to vote for the traditional on a sentimental basis, rather than a pragmatic one. box-offi- self-intere- st age-brack- et old-time- rs LLOYD SHE PAGE A R E R 4 APRIL 8, 1984 PARADE MAGAZINE |
