by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
Welcome back to another Oscars: What If, a deep dive into an alternative movie history where we look into Oscar awards that could have been. It’s easy to ponder what should’ve won Best Picture, or who should’ve taken home the gold for acting performances. It’s more interesting to assess what movie could’ve taken home an award… that didn’t even exist. So join me as we look back at the Academy Awards of 1977, honoring the films from 1976, where we shine a light on some wishful Oscar categories.
Best Stunts and Choreography
Given to the best achievement in dance, stunts, related performances, and overall choreography for film.
And the nominees are… Bugsy Malone, Freaky Friday, Logan’s Run, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Silver Streak
And the winner is… Freaky Friday!
Freaky Friday?! I know! We’re starting off with a shocker, but trust me when I say that this is deserved. Freaky Friday barely sneaks into the eligibility for these Oscars by getting in a limited release at the end of ‘76 before going wide in ‘77. Most of this movie doesn’t even involve stunts in the slightest. But, this finale is wicked, and packed with a boatload of stunts that puts most movies of the era to shame. There’s a massive event on the waterfront that leads to a hectic car driving sequence with jumps, crashes, and more. Additionally, there’s a giant water skiing aquacade that has a dozen people piled on top of each other performing stunts and jumps. There’s even a hang glider above the whole event who eventually flies in low and crashes into the aquacade. Sure, there’s a decent amount of seeing our actors doing these scenes in front of a green screen, but the glimpses we get at the actual stunt workers performing these elaborate stunts is marvelous. Hang gliding and water skiing might not sound intense, but trust me, go back and watch the final 20 minutes of this movie; you’ll instantly understand.
Best Performance by Voiceover or Motion Capture
Given to the best off screen voice performance, or on screen motion captured performance, for film.
And the nominees are… Chantal Akerman as Narrator in News from Home, Roscoe Lee Browne as Box in Logan’s Run, Osami Nabe as Pero/Pussty in Puss ‘n Boots Travels Around the World, Lee Richardson as Narrator in Network, Meryl Streep as Stage 6 in Everybody Rides the Carousel
And the winner is… Lee Richardson as Narrator in Network!
This was tougher than you might’ve imagined, between options you probably didn’t consider. The runner up here is Roscoe Lee Browne as he really does a great job of delivering an eerie robotic voice. The word ‘plankton’ has never been so creepy. But this has to go to Lee Richardson. His line deliveries are perfect. At surface level it comes off as cold and distant. But it’s more than that. He offers subtle inflections that make his voice come off like an esteemed historian talking about long past events. Almost as if he was coming right out of a Ken Burns documentary. Even more than that, there’s a sly wit to his words. Richardson locks up the gold here with his dry delivery of, “The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings” alone. You can’t help but laugh at the darkness.
Best Performance by an Ensemble Cast
Given to the best overall ensemble cast performance for film.
And the nominees are… All the President’s Men, Murder by Death, Mikey and Nicky, Network, Taxi Driver
And the winner is… Network!
Welcome to the closest category of the year! The list of ensemble greats from this year is stacked. You could make a solid argument for any of these five movies, but in the end it really came down to All the President’s Men and Network, with Network squeaking it out. The fact is that this movie embodies what an ensemble movie should feel like. It has a wide range of cast members who are all delivering, and everyone gets their moment in the spotlight. Of course, your stand out is Peter Finch. He’s giving one hell of an unhinged performance, and he delivers one of the most famous monologues in film history as he brazenly tells us all to shout, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” Faye Dunaway is a charismatic figure who gets lost in her own ambition. Robert Duvall is the embodiment of capitalist corporate greed. William Holden stands vigilant as our moral compass through all the craziness, even though he is still a personally flawed character. We even have Ned Beatty in his limited role giving a powerful diatribe about the importance of corporations above nation states. Across the board, everyone here is terrific. There’s not a single second of screen time in which all of the actors aren’t giving their all. This is about as good as it gets.
Best Directorial Debut
Given to the best achievement in direction by a debut directing talent for film.
And the nominees are… John Badham for The Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars & Motor Kings, Krzysztof Kieslowski for Personnel, Robert Moore for Murder by Death, Alan Parker for Bugsy Malone, Frank Schepisi for The Devil’s Playground
And the winner is… Alan Parker for Bugsy Malone!
Much better known for later works like Mississippi Burning and Pink Floyd: The Wall, Alan Parker made his directorial debut back in ‘77 with Bugsy Malone, and he crushed it. Put it bluntly, it’s very difficult to direct good performances out of child actors. I don’t think people yield enough credit to movies of this nature, whether it’s Steven Spielberg and the kids from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Richard Donner with The Goonies, J.J. Abrams and Super 8, or many others. Here we have Parker telling a serious adult story about mobsters, betrayal, and death, with an entirely adolescent cast with the likes of Jodie Foster and Scott Baio. A children’s gangster musical comedy sounds like such a mistake on paper, but Parker’s vision pulls it all together. Parker excellently gets all these kids to portray the right emotions at the right times. He competently films some lively dance choreography just as well as hilarious “shootouts” in which the kids shoot each other with whipped cream cannons. Scenes like the final confrontation that turns into a giant food fight work so well because it perfectly captures the passion of childhood. Bugsy Malone is a fun movie, and almost all of that is due to Parker’s efforts to pull together a film that shouldn’t really work. It’s no wonder he went on to have a solid career.
Best Popular Film
Given to the best audience supported motion picture that earned a spot as one of the top 25 box office films of the year.
And the nominees are… All the President’s Men, The Bad News Bears, Marathon Man, The Omen, Rocky
And the winner is… Rocky!
Don’t lie, you saw this coming. But as predictable as it may have been, it is entirely earned. The bigger surprise might actually be in the nominees with big hits like King Kong and A Star is Born being pushed out. But I contest these aren’t snubs. This is Best Popular Film after all, not just Popular Film. But on to the Italian Stallion. Rocky was a massive commercial and critical success. It won the box office in ‘76 bringing in over $117 million domestically. It won three Oscars including Best Director for John G. Avildsen, as well as the coveted big prize in Best Picture. The soundtrack became iconic and widely recognized throughout pop culture. It’s still played as an anthem in stadiums across the country. Scenes such as Rocky punching slabs of meat in a freezer locker, or shouting out, “Adrian!” at the top of his lungs, are memorable to all who’ve seen this picture. The incorporation of montages in film alone were transformed by this movie. It has gone on to hold an endearing legacy, spawning seven sequels with another one due to release later this year. Rocky was the talk of the movie world, and even when you take a surface level look at the film it’s easy to understand why. There was no other option for this year.
So there we have it! Another year, another Oscars in the bag. As always, it was fun doing the research into this year. Gilding and nominating all of these movies is just as much of a treat as discovering all of these movies in the first place. I’d recommend going back to revisit a lot of these movies from this year; there’s great stuff out there. Enjoy your movie watching. We’ll see you back here next month for the Oscars of ‘78, cataloging movies of ‘77!.
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