Favorite of '68

This film is one of my favorite movies of all time. But can we get real for a moment? Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke completely deserved their nominations, but NEITHER deserved to win the Oscar. Arkin lost to Cliff Robertson's performance as the mentally handicapped Charly Gordon, who undergoes an experimental surgical procedure that makes him superintelligent, but which fails after a brief period, and he reverts to his original state, in the movie Charly, based on the novella "Flowers for Algernon," by Daniel Keyes (later expanded into a weaker novel). The other very worthy nominees were Alan Bates as the oppressed, ambivalent Russian Jew in The Fixer, Ron Moody's iconic performance as Fagin in Oliver!, and Peter O'Toole in The Lion in Winter. The Academy voters managed to overlook the various bits of horrific pop-art crap and heavy-handed anticorporatism that was troweled over the sweet, simple, powerful story in Charly, and gave the award to Robertson for his fine performance. But who could possibly have complained if the award had gone to O'Toole's amazing turn as Henry II opposite Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine? What would be wrong with giving Ron Moody an Oscar for what is probably the single greatest male performance in a movie musical of all time? Does that assessment surprise you? Well, who beats him? Rex Harrison - marvelous, but he DIDN'T SING. Robert Preston in The Music Man? Probably the only one who comes close. Joel Grey in Cabaret? A worthy Oscar winner - but a supporting role. Yul Brynner in The King and I? Wonderful, but more of a strut than a performance. Sinatra in On The Town? Or Kelly? Nowhere near the depth or pathos of Moody. Also, Ron Moody did something that only Preston matched - he gave THE definitive performance of his role, besting the many other notables who played the part, and he did it on film. (Most critics who saw Harrison onstage as Dr. Henry Higgins say that his film performance was flat by comparison.) Perhaps Bates is the also-ran in this crowd, but let us be honest. Alan Arkin is, at best, the second or third-best performance of this year. Let us also note those who were snubbed for nominations - George C. Scott in Petulia, Zero Mostel in The Producers, Walter Matthau AND Jack Lemmon in The Odd Couple, Steve McQueen in Bullitt AND in The Thomas Crown Affair, Trevor Howard in Charge of the Light Brigade, Lee Marvin in Hell in the Pacific, the electifying debut of Malcolm McDowell in If . . . , Henry Fonda as a villain in Once Upon A Time in the West, Max von Sydow in Shame, Sergei Bondarchuk in War and Peace, Charlton Heston in his favorite role as Will Penny. No, Arkin's was NOT the best performance of 1968.

As for Locke, she lost to Ruth Gordon's superb performance in Rosemary's Baby. We should note that Mia Farrow as Rosemary was not nominated; one presumes she would have been a Best Actress nominee. The other nominees were stage actress Kay Medford as Barbra Streisand's mother in Funny Girl, Estelle Parsons in Rachel, Rachel, and Lynn Carlin in John Cassavetes's Faces. An award for Locke, Gordon, or Parsons would have raised no eyebrows; Carlin or Medford winning would have been a miscarriage of justice. Snubs that may have been considered include Claire Bloom in Charly, Kim Hinter in Planet of the Apes, Susannah York in The Killing of Sister George (my choice), Rita Moreno in Night of the Following Day, and Vanessa Redgrave in The Sea Gull. The argument for Locke's performance as the best supporting actress of the year is better than the argument for Arkin, but it's hard to see why it should be considered better than the veteran Gordon, who lifted the pulpy material she had to work with to the level of greatness.

[deleted]