Swing (Jan-Dec 1953)

196 "Bright eyes as yours, believe me, "Steal my priceless jewels. "In fancy's storehouse cherished "Your roguish eyes have robbed me "Of all my dreams bereft me "Dreams that are fair yet fleeting." This sort of dusty velvet poesy was replaced with: "My gold and silver song words "Porcelain jars of long words "My tiaras of poetry — "Necklaces made of dreams." This sort of slick lyricism outraged a good many people but I find it infinitely preferable to the other type of thing. In fact, Dietz's very skill as a rhymester seems to have got him a lot of undeserved censure. Musetta's first entrance, for example, in the old version goes like this: "Look, 'tis Musetta. "She, Musetta " 'Tis she, Musetta. "Yes, yes, 'tis Musetta." The Dietz version is again slick as a silver whistle: "Here's "A "Thing 'To "Trim the tree with. "It's Musetta. "Who is she with?" Is such formidable coherence a bad thing? I don't think so. If opera is to be in English, let's have it in English, not in second-rate Maxwell Anderson. Now if we could just find singers who could sing English as if it were my native tongue! Streamlined and Sponsored IN the old days, just about every Academy Award winner unloosed a speech and it was always pretty much the same speech. "I want to thank ..." and then came the list — the producer, the director, the wardrobe mistress, the head cameraman, the second assistant cameraman, Max Factor and just possibly Max Factor's mother. But then NBC moved in with its filthy money ($100,000) and the great affair was streamlined which took some of the fun out of it for your afficionado of "thank you" oratory. The recipients — all except two, Cecil B. De Mille and Shirley Booth — were restrained to simple "thank yous." No elaboration. The two award winners, whose mouths were briefly unbuttoned, followed the classical tradition, Mr. De Mille extending his thanks to thousands who helped him make "The Greatest Show On Earth." I believe that's a world's record for Academy Award winning "thank yous." "I am only one little link in the chain which made this picture," he declared. Truly a i fine line. The Academy Awards are for the best performances in pictures during the year. It is my custom to hand out awards for the best performance at the award ceremony. Over the years there have been some truly splendid exhibitions and this, the first sponsored ceremony, was no exception. The Crosby Award for the most triumphant swagger down the aisle goes without question to Gloria Grahame, the best supporting actress, who looked as if she could use a little support herself at the moment. The Crosby Award for the most overdressed woman is always close. For these affairs the girls bring out all the spangles they own. This year, I should say Ginger Rogers won out by an eyelash over Mary Pickford and Joan Fontaine. There was also a nip-and-tuck contest for the best reader of names off slips of paper. Ronald Colman, I thought, was easily the most suave name-reader. There are, of course, a great many technical awards and always these are glamorized by getting a screen name to hand them out. The most glorious marriage between glamor and technology was the award made by Ann Baxter for "a device to measure sound distortion" — a phrase she read in pear-shaped tones more suitable to a boudoir than to the laboratory. Now for award speeches, a branch of oratory almost as formalized and rigid in tradition as "thank you" oratory. Well, sir, Dore Schary did a fine upstanding job there. "The writer," he said, "is a lonely man. But they make of their aloneness a credit to their craft." After this salute to the lonely fellows, Schary