Of Memorable Moments and Those Forgotten

When Johnny Carson hosted the 1978 Academy Awards ceremony, he quipped that the show was “two hours of sparkling entertainment, spread out over a four-hour show.”

Carson was being diplomatic. Audiences and critics have always had a love-hate relationship with the Oscars. The same will hold true with Monday night’s presentation. Nearly everyone will tune in and nearly everyone will complain the next morning that is was an overlong, silly and kitschy affair.

But there have been high points over the decades. The recently released video, “Oscar’s Greatest Moments” ($19.95, Columbia Tristar), features some of those highlights from 1971 to 1991. The two-hour video is hosted by Karl Malden, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and a best supporting Oscar winner for 1951’s “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

The video features one of the most memorable Oscar moments of the past two decades: David Niven being upstaged by a streaker running across the stage. “The only laugh that man will probably get in his life is stripping off and showing his shortcomings,” the unflappable Niven told the howling audience.

Also included in the video is an appearance by a frail John Wayne on the 1979 telecast, just a few months before his death from cancer. “I’m mighty pleased I can amble down tonight,” he said, adding that he and Oscar “plan to be around for a whole lot longer.”

Another eloquent sequence is an appearance by “The Little Tramp,” Charlie Chaplin, who returned to Hollywood after a 20-year exile in Europe for the 1972 Oscar ceremony, where he was given an honorary Oscar. Malden says Chaplin’s appearance was the “single most emotional moment in modern Academy Awards history.”

A visibly moved Chaplin told the standing audience: “Oh, thank-you so much. Words seem so futile, so feeble. I can only say thank you for the honor of inviting me here.”

Controversy, of course, has surrounded the ceremonies over the past two decades. The video features Sacheen Littlefeather informing a booing crowd that Marlon Brando would not accept his best actor Oscar for 1972’s “The Godfather” because of the country’s mistreatment of American Inidians.

Boos and hisses also greeted Vanessa Redgrave when she assailed “Zionist hoodlums” during her acceptance speech for her 1977 best supporting Oscar for “Julia.” Oscar-winning writer Paddy Chayefsky’s response to Redgrave also is included on the video: “I would like to say I’m sick and tired of people exploiting the occasion of the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own political propaganda.” The audience cheered.

When Jane Fonda received the 1971 best actress Oscar for “Klute,” during the height of her anti-war activities, the world waited to see if she’d use the Oscars as a platform for her political beliefs. As the video reminds us, she didn’t.

“Thank you very much, members of the Academy and those of you who applauded,” Fonda said. “There’s a great deal to say and I’m not going to say it tonight.”

Of course, there were some wonderful, moving acceptance speeches, most notably Louise Fletcher’s touching thank you in sign language to her deaf parents when she won best actress for 1975’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Much of the video is pretty tacky. There are far too many clips of those dreadful overblown musical numbers, which tend to grind the show to a halt. Does one really need to see Sally Kellerman, Burt Lancaster, Ricardo Montalban and Petula Clark performing the 1970 Oscar-nominated song, “Thank You Very Much,” from “Scrooge”? Or Teri Garr valiantly trying to keep her dignity in a “Flying Down to Rio” takeoff from the 1985 ceremony?

It would have been far more interesting to relive the late Laurence Olivier’s rambling, but poetic, acceptance speech for his 1979 honorary Oscar or Mrs. Peter Finch’s moving tribute to her late husband when accepting his best actor award for 1976’s “Network.”

“Oscar’s Greatest Moments” is the first in a three-cassette series. A second tape will cover Oscar history from the first televised show in 1953 through 1969; a third video will highlight the pre-television years, 1927 through 1952.

MORE OSCAR: Everything you want to know before the big night. In Calendar.