The Oscar 01/25/20
What an honor it is to host a review of a genuine cinematic monument: Charlie Largent dares to tell the truth about the movie that both Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick said they’d give anything to have directed. Screenwriter Harlan Ellison digs below Hollywood’s lust and venality to reveal a core of heartwarming humanism. This soaring achievement was the only film to be awarded both the Medal of Freedom and a Nobel Peace Prize. To make room in its storage vaults for priceless The Oscar outtakes, Embassy Pictures tossed worthless cans of negative for Greed and The Magnificent Ambersons into a furnace. And who would ever have guessed that Russell Rouse ghost-directed for the auteur Edward D. Wood, Jr.? Career-best performances are committed to film by Stephen Boyd, Elke Sommer, Milton Berle, Eleanor Parker and the immortal thespian Jill St. John. The long wait is over — it’s finally available at popular prices. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
01/25/20