Fortunes, Favors, and Fearsome Filmmaking: A Brief History of Over-the-Top Oscars Campaigns

In the 1966 potboiler The Oscar, the career of actor in decline Frankie Fane (Stephen Boyd) is resurrected by an Academy Award nomination, and he will stop at nothing to make sure he wins on Oscar night. He uses and discards women, bullies and betrays his agent, and schemes to undermine his fellow nominees. Kid stuff. For more than a century, there have been aggressively suspect Oscar campaigns that have sometimes actually worked, sometimes backfired. Some have not violated any rules, others necessitated the drafting of new ones. Other Oscar campaigns seemed well-intentioned. This year, awards pundits were gobsmacked by… Read Full Article