Hollywood Studio Magazine (May 1972)

of ’42,” Michel Legrand, a Robert Mulligan - Richard Alan Roth Production, Warner Bros. Best Scoring (Adaptation and Original Song Score) - “Fiddler on the Roof,” adapted by John Williams, Mirisch-Cartier Productions, United Artists. Best Achievement in Film Editing - Jerry Greenberg for “The French Connection,” D’Antoni Productions, 20th Century-Fox. Best Achievement in Documentary Production (Short Subjects) - Manuel Arango and Robert Amram for “Sentinels of Silence,” Proaucciones Concord, Paramount. Best Achievement in Documentary Production (Features) - Walon Green for “The Hellstrom Chronicle,” David L. Wolper Productions, Cinema 5 Ltd. Best Achievement in Costume Design - Yvonne Blake and Antonio Castillo for “Nicholas and Alexandra,” a Horizon Pictures Production, Columbia. Best Achievement in Art Direction - “Nicholas and Alexandra,” John Box, Ernest Archer, Jack Maxsted and Gil Parrondo. Set Decoration by Vernon Dixon, a Horizon Pictures Production, Columbia. *** A Star to walk on Now that the hoopla about Oscar is over for another year, movie historians can sit back in leisure and reflect on some fascinating firsts. The Chaplin caper, for instance. A couple of decades ago, the Little Tramp abandoned the U.S. for a number of reasons, many of them personal. It took a special invitation to lure him back. However, once he indicated that he would indeed return, all kinds of honors were heaped upon him. The Writers Guild presented an unprecedented Medallion Award which may never be handed out again. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences built an evening around him. And at last he was able to achieve that weird kind of immortality which could only be bestowed with the cooperation of the Los Angeles City Council, to wit: Charles Chaplin would have a brass star with his name on it imbedded in the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard! But even that honor didn’t come easily. The vote was 11 to 3. The three dissenters were reluctant to explain their disapproval publicly. Privately, however, they complained that since the comedian had earned his money here he should not have left the country to live in Switzerland. The Writers Guild, on the other hand, selected Chaplin as the recipient of the singular Medallion because (as the citation reads, in part)” ... the seriously funny little fellow . . . has symbolized the least of us, fighting back, with instinctive wit and cunning the forces that would have him - and us - conform to rigid rules imposed by a faceless authority...” So much for L.A. City Councilmen Nowell, Wilkinson and Lorenzen. *** Odd and Incidental Statistic In 1927, Cecil B. DeMille released an epic film called “King of Kings.” The Hollywood Ministerial Association liked it so well it offered to show it free during Holy Week. This year, 25 years later, the Hollywood Ministerial Association still likes the film so well it showed it free again, for the 25 th time, in a once-daily screening at Pacific Pantages Theater for the week of March 27 through April 1. Same week, same city, two new films had eager audiences lined up around the block to help create some historic box office grosses — “The Godfather” and “Clockwork Orange.” Stash those non-sequitors away in your memory bank as some sort of commentary on entertainment in this changing world. *** New age of humor Speaking of changing worlds, while the big screen seems to woo the largest audiences with a neat combination of nudity and violence, television is laboriously coming of age with humor. Not the old-fashioned stand-up kind of gag so much as the sly jab of satire. It’s the apparent dawning of an age of chuckles, not yoks. At a time when Women’s Lib is very serious indeed, Flip Wilson dons a dress and romps all over the chauvinism of both sexes. “All in the Family” needles bigotry— and sometimes draws blood. “Laugh-In” strikes across almost every social and political “sacred cow.” And so it goes. Even television itself is not immune from this new wave of satiric fun-poking, with the rash of take-offs on its own daytime programming by such comedy-stylists as Carol Burnett and her able coworkers. Even in such shows as Mary Tyler Moore’s situation-comedy, the pomposity of TV announcers is attacked. All of this “new” humor has a wry bit. But what makes it so refreshing to some people is that it has its base in the revelation of plain ordinary garden-variety human weaknesses. Unlike the old-fashioned pie-in-the-face pratfall type of comedy, this kind of humor fits into a self-examining society. We may be dumb, even ignorant, but Turn to Page 24 and Galpins Gofdm! BRAND NAMES FOUNDATION NATIONAL RETAILER OF THE YEAR 1S505 Roscoe Blvd. Sepulveda, CaliS. 91343 (Just oil San Diego Fwy.) Tek 787-3800 5