Just watched this again. Hard to believe it's almost 20 years!!! Where does the time go? This was the first show in many years to be held at the Shrine Auditorium.
This was the year Cher finally got her Oscar. Everyone cheered (except Sally Kirkland-- the look on her face at that moment is priceless!) Co-star Olympia Dukakis ended her speech with a rousing call to her cousin Michael, then running for the Democratic Presidential Nomination.
Old favorites surfaced as nominees: Vincent Gardinia, Ann Sothern, Sean Connery, etc. Hollywood legends Olivia DeHavilland, Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman all made appearances. Liza Minnelli and Dudley Moore reunited to present an award. And Faye Dunaway made a quiet return to the Oscars for the first time since her victory in Network 11 years earlier.
Trivia Note: This was the last year "And the Winner is..." was used at the opening of an envelope.
Best Moments: The montage of past Oscar footage introduced by Charlton Heston. What a joy to go through frame by frame and pick out many of those nominees often forgotten on Oscar night (Beah Richards, Lee Strasberg, Jack Wild, Burgess Meredith, Debra Winger). It was by far the best montage I've ever seen on the show.
Bernardo Bertolucci's excited victory. Calling Hollywood "the big nipple", was hysterical coming from the man who gave us Last Tango in Paris and The Conformist.
Worst Moment: Eddie Murphy's diatribe which revealed a chip on his shoulder which was still there 19 years later (perhaps why he lost to Alan Arkin). Ironically, this year marked the first Nomination for both Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, who would later win three Oscars between them.
All in all one of the best Oscar shows. I give it a 9 of 10 for one reason. For the part of the show that never happened.
The producers had rounded up at least one cast member from every Best Picture winner for 60 years (thus in the audience one saw Celeste Holm, Joan Fontaine, Rod Steiger, Mercedes McCambridge, Ann Miller, etc.).
Shortly before air time Anita Page (still going strong at nearly 100!!) was overcome with exhaustion and rushed to Good Samaritan hospital. As the surviving star of Broadway Melody, she would have left a void in the presentation so the segment was scrapped at the last minute. I'm certain that would have been a great Oscar moment!!
