If any of the reviews on IMDb say that "The Oscar" is a good film, you can safely assume that they either wrote the screenplay for this film or they are insane (or both). However, despite being a very bad film, I can see folks liking it, as it IS entertaining in a sleazy, over-the-top and awful sort of way--much like the film "Valley of the Dolls".

Frankie (Stephen Boyd) is a vulgar, self-absorbed jerk. At the beginning of the film, he's basically pimping out his girlfriend (Jill St. John) instead of working. But when he sees someone who can help him move up the food chain, he quickly dumps her for the new girl...and pretty much this pattern is repeated throughout the movie. Frankie hurts people, uses people and charms the right people in order to become the Oscar-nominated jerk.

During the course of this film, you hear the worst dialog ever recorded on celluloid. Oddly, however, despite being nothing but god-awful dialog and over-acting, the film has been given the full Hollywood treatment. It has a HUGE cast of stars and guest stars and obviously producing trash took a LOT of money! The likes of Eleanor Parker, Joseph Cotten, Milton Berle, Bob Hope and MANY others make appearances in the movie...presumably because the checks from the studio cleared! They obviously did NOT make the movie because of its artistic merits or quality!! Perhaps the producers were holding family members hostage to get them to appear in this dreck-fest.

If anyone follows my reviews one will note that I always use the expression hero/heel when talking about Tyrone Power. He could be a full blooded hero or he was a hero/heel, a likable sort of guy, but one who was ruthless in getting what he wanted. You need someone of Power's ability and charm to play such a part. And sad to say that was something Stephen Boyd just doesn't bring to The Oscar.

Even when one is an anti-hero there has to be certain qualities brought out that make you root for the guy. Two minutes into watching The Oscar and I wanted to punch out Stephen Boyd. This guy is all heel with no charm and uses people like toilet paper.

Joseph E. Levine assembled quite a cast to support Boyd and I don't think I've ever seen so much talent squandered on such a mediocre picture. Try counting the number of Oscar winners in it. Just Edith Head's Oscars and she plays herself in the film must bring the total to over 20. She got a nomination here for costume design, one of two The Oscar got, the second was for Art&Set design.

Tony Bennett is the hero's best friend who is similarly used and abused doesn't give a half bad performance and this was to be a breakthrough for him as a dramatic actor like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. I also liked Milton Berle as his agent.

Some of the women in Boyd's life in this film are Eleanor Parker, Elke Sommer, and Jill St. John. The one I liked best was Jean Hale as a star who the up and coming Boyd is sent on a publicity date with. She's a female version of him so there is one great moment where she gets dumped on literally.

One woman who was in Stephen Boyd's life and who always tried to promote his career in her column appears her as herself in one of her last appearances. Rumor has it that Boyd made old Hedda Hopper's life particularly memorable in her golden years.

In the old My Favorite Martian series there was an episode where Ray Walston uses a special light bulb in the room and it gives off a benevolence bulb. You just become inexplicably likable to all around. Bill Bixby sees this as a great way to score with women and he uses it. But Walston tells him that on earthlings it gives you a hate me glow and the two spend the rest of the episode trying to find the antidote.

That's what Boyd projected here, a two hour hate me glow. And in fact this review is dedicated to an attorney I knew back in Brooklyn, a man who had ambitions for a great political career, but had a hate me glow that made Boyd look like Albert Schweitzer. No names of course, but Ronald J. D'Angelo this film is for you.

The Oscar is a campy all star look at an ambitious actor and if you can stand the hate me glow that Boyd projects, you'll like looking at the stars.

Atrocious film from producer Joseph E. Levine, here ripping the lid off the Hollywood can but getting nothing out of it except hot air. Ruthless, snarling Stephen Boyd scratches his way up from seamy strip joints (as manager for the non-blushing Jill St. John) to the top of the H-wood heap as the world's most constipated actor. Laughable backstage melodrama is high camp, but how can one laugh without feeling sorry for all the embarrassed personalities on the screen--none more so than Tony Bennett, looking like a basset hound in a tuxedo. The fifth-rate screenplay is full of now-legendary fruit-loop lines, boiling over with 'significance', while the surroundings (once considered plush) now look tatty. Elke Sommer (as a sketch artist for Edith Head!) is the one cast member who doesn't bulldoze her way through the picture. Otherwise, it ain't for the squeamish! *1/2 from ****