The Academy's Final Reckoning

Wilson sat in a café in the Chinatown quarter, close to the Left Bank, drinking, smoking and whiling away the hours with a book. It was ‘The Life of Emile Zola’. The flyleaf said it was a fascinating read but Wilson decided its appeal must have been lost in translation. Usually he was the reader of pulp fiction but he was an American in Paris and there’d been little else available.

He was bored. Earlier there’d been an accident, a car crash causing panic in the streets and he’d watched the ambulance hurrying by on its way to the hospital. As an avid observer of the human comedy and possessed of few tender mercies, he’d found the scene amusing. Now it was raining heavily and traffic was at a standstill.

A man with a skippy kind of walk went past. He looked the picture of misery; wet and bedraggled, ragged clothing – like a prisoner from Stalag 17. He turned at the corner, looked about, and came back. “Uh-o,” Wilson thought, “Here comes Mr Jordan.”

The man sat on the blind side of him, so they were back to back. They were close enough to speak but on separate tables. Wilson sneered at the man’s reflection in the glass and said, “You ought to keep out of the rain, man.”

Jordan said nothing. He seemed nervous. He ordered a glass of milk from the waitress, Marie-Louise, and Wilson sneered again. “So what’s the quiet man want done this time?”

The go-between spoke in a soft voice, like it was pillow talk “The candidate is Sir William Stratton. He upset Juno, you don’t need to know why, and the man wants him dead. You know how he hates the English. Patient, quiet and careful is how he wants it done, however.”

“OK. Not with a sling blade then,” Oliver said with the ghost of a grin. “To each his own, but there’s still plenty of ways to kill a mockingbird. Consider it done. He’s a dead man walking.”

“Here’s the sting in the tail. If you don’t do it right you’ll be on Schindler’s list yourself. The underworld academy never forgets. Mess it up and there will be blood. Yours, my friend.”

Wilson shrugged. “I want to live. When the red balloon goes up you’ll know it’s done.

Having made the French connection, Wilson headed for the Gare du Nord and arrived on the waterfront in Dover with the dawn patrol. He set out good Will hunting and found Stratton at the big house in a little hamlet called Gosford Park.

Then, like the way of all flesh, the deal went rotten on him.

Wilson got out fast. He picked up documents for a new identity from a pal in the Lavender Hill mob and spread his wings, towards the States. Studying the passport on the airplane he thought, “OK then – Mr Smith goes to Washington.”

But the search was already on. Years later, the lost weekend of the Stratton story was to catch up with him.

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He met Eve on a Roman holiday. She was taking a vacation from marriage number two and awaiting her divorce – Italian style. A bad girl for sure but she had a touch of class and was almost famous. She was the bad and the beautiful all rolled up in one delicious package. But she wasn’t exactly little Miss Sunshine. “She has a crazy heart and dances with wolves,” Anastasia, the old lady in the Grand Hotel had said to him.

He saw himself as a raging bull rather than a wolf but once he’d caught the scent of a woman, sense and sensibility were forgotten. She might be a designing woman but so long as her designs were on him, he’d thought, why worry? Anyhow, dangerous liaisons were his speciality. He was the champ who played by the cider house rules and he was pretty dangerous himself.

It lasted just long enough for him to meet all of the three faces of Eve and for her to see him for the scoundrel he was. They’d had a gentleman’s agreement though she was no gentleman and, all things considered, neither was he. “Love me or leave me,” she’d said, like in a Manhattan melodrama. It was no contest – he made her the goodbye girl and left.

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Oliver was a man for all seasons. Though born in Chicago he’d once been a dealer on Wall Street. The IMF had been unable to save the tiger economies and like many others, he’d suffered a reversal of fortune. Treading a rocky road for a while as a midnight cowboy, he’d had to re-invent himself. But he was the graduate of a hard school and he’d always known the colour of money – and most of the ways of getting it. Room at the top would always be available to one who was prepared to be ruthless and act like the lion in winter does; stalk your prey and eat when you can. He was simply waiting for a place in the sun to come his way.

He set his sights on Rebecca Butterfield. Eight times before, he’d finagled a brief encounter and now they were on first name terms. She was an American beauty, originally from Philadelphia. Born into hardship, a coal miner’s daughter, the lilies of the field were little considered in the high noon of the family’s poverty. When she was an infant, they were scratching a living farming cimarron in old Arizona and they got their fill of the bitterness of the grapes of wrath. The trip to bountiful began when her father had, by chance, discovered the treasure of the Sierra Madre. Overnight she’d become a million dollar baby, the heiress to a great fortune. To a man like Oliver, she represented his best chance for la vie en rose.

It happened one night. He’d arranged an army reunion to give him a reason to be at the charity ball that she’d had a hand in organizing.

Johnny Belinda, Harry and Tonto, Melvin and Howard, and the others from his battleground platoon were present; all saving private Ryan who was missing. No-one knew why.

Ray Becket, one of the original captains courageous, sat at the head of the table talking to the French lieutenant’s woman. Born on the 4th of July, he was the patriot of the bunch. Oliver detested him and sat with the enlisted men at Howard’s end.

They were talking about that training day, on a dog day afternoon in July when the master sergeant, sarcastically called ‘the great McGinty’, had taunted and finally broken Lance Corporal Fargo. “The MASH guys never did get the poor bastard out the hurt locker,” Marty said.

“The departed,” called out Sergeant York, solemnly toasting those who’d got a one way passage and were now gone with the wind.

Marty, still angry, couldn’t let it go. “To the days of Gods and monsters, and the stupid damn silence of the lambs,” was his alternative take on things. He drained his glass and poured another.

“Nice wine,” Oliver said. “Yeah,” Charly replied. “It was Sophie’s choice.”

…

Oliver nodded to Rebecca as she passed him and got a smile in return. She sat at a table with the producers of the event. The usual suspects they were; big wigs, rich bastards and all the president’s men types who corrupted the good earth in their frantic scramble for power.

He’d gotten the guest list from the informer. From time to time he chanced sideways glances at her party. They were not ordinary people. Mrs Miniver, the divorcee was there and Lord Beaconsfield with his daughter, the divine Lady Julia Disraeli. Mildred Pierce, cutthroat entrepreneur and newly voted ‘The Business Woman of the Year’ was trying to flirt with the abominable Dr Zhivago. He though, was busy playing Pygmalion to his current acolyte, Kitty Foyle, the country girl from the brokeback mountain

In two ornate chairs like thrones, sat a man and a woman. The man was ugly, fat, stinking rich and puffing on a big cigar like he owned the place. He probably did. This was the notorious Amadeus Capote, known to the many hapless victims of his avarice as the Godfather. He was lately out of Africa, and playing court to the African queen who he’d brought back from Casablanca. A cavalcade of sycophantic wannabes lined up to dance attendance on them, as though paying tribute at the return of the king and the queen. The cynical Oliver thought they would likely stretch from here to eternity.

Later the floorshow began. An aging cabaret singer belted out ‘I’m Coming Home’, the old Tom Jones song. He was backed by two women, two little women, one at the piano and the other playing the violin. The violinist was a funny girl with weird make-up and gaslight coloured hair. She was like something out of a monster’s ball. All in all, it wasn’t exactly the greatest show on earth.

Rebecca obviously agreed for she chose this moment to gather up her purse and leave. Oliver saw his opportunity, got up and trailed after her. He was fascinated by the rose tattoo on her bare shoulder, picked out in reds and greens. “Jesus, what a honey,” he thought.

The pianist was now playing the Broadway Melody and they walked out to the sound of music.

Oliver circled round to the front of the theatre, arriving there first. The doorman, a giant of a man with a nose like Cyrano de Bergerac, whistled him a cab. When it arrived, Oliver deliberately bumped him into Rebecca.

“Careful,” she said. “You just trod on my left foot.”

While she was gently remonstrating with the monster, Oliver sat behind the taxi driver but left the door open. When she eventually spotted him he said with a smile, “Going my way?”

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On the wedding night, moonstruck, she’d danced for him. When the seventh veil had dropped she led him to seventh heaven. They made love in the heat of the night and all the way through to the morning glory.

“Arise, my love. Life is beautiful and these will be the best years of our lives.”

Rebecca sat naked on the bed beside him, sending chariots of fire surging through his veins. They were in Niagara and had a room with a view of the mystic river. The birds were flying in a blue sky, there was splendour in the grass and a shine on everything. It was as good as it gets and she was the miracle worker who’d made it happen.

“My fair lady,” he called her in those heady days of wine and roses. “Darling,” she would respond or maybe use other terms of endearment.” Soon there were places in the heart that belonged to her alone. She was a free soul and had a beautiful mind. If anyone could grant him atonement it was her.

So began Oliver’s days of hope; the promise of an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. But the awful truth was that his happiness was always condemned to be an interrupted melody. His past was not spotless and his love actually proved much less than eternal.

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Rebecca had arranged the dinner party for her best friend, Annie Hall, hoping to find her an ideal husband; she’d also invited her mother Hannah, and her sisters, Thelma and Louise. Oliver had groaned when he remembered the invaders were due this night and he was listless and irritable when she met him at the door. “Guess who’s coming to dinner,” she said.

“Gandhi?” he offered sardonically, “Or perhaps the last king of Scotland?” But she was way above his cynicism and was never distracted by his displays of foul temper.

“Beast!” she laughed and kissed him a welcome. “No. She said she’s an old friend of yours. I met her in the shop around the corner from Sunset Boulevard. Eve Patton. She was sure you’d remember.”

Remember? How could he forget? Carefully he said, “Yeah. The actress. I met her in Rome years ago when I was the bodyguard and chauffeur to the farmer’s daughter.”

“Well, you’re not driving Miss Daisy tonight. Have a shower and dress and I’ll fix you a cocktail.”

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“I expect this is all about Eve,” the accused said wearily when her suspicion had taken root and the crying game began.

“That coquette!” Rebecca threw at him in tears of rage. “That Jezebel! When I’ve finished with her, all the king’s men won’t be able to put her back together.”

Oliver tried to embrace her, but breaking away from him, she yelled out her anger. “You must have thought I was born yesterday. Wonderland is over for you, you lousy bastard. Alice doesn’t live here anymore. Enjoy the kiss of the spider woman while you can.”

Rebecca had always been the brave one and he knew his indiscretion would remain unforgiven. “This is always the way with women in love,” Oliver thought. He should talk to her but he knew there was precious little point in arguing and anyway, boys don’t cry. He played the braveheart himself, left the house on 92nd street and didn’t look back.

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Oliver Wilson/Smith caught the midnight express to LA. Confidential agents of the network were waiting for him at the apartment. After a titanic struggle, he was bundled into a car and spirited away. He knew for sure that the thin man would make him walk the line; partly for his refusal to kill the young witness all those years ago but mostly, just because he ran.

Wilson had lived a double life for too long. He’d grown old and tired and this was no country for old men. But he’d always been one of the defiant ones and so he shrugged a last defiance at the academy’s agents and the world in general. “Fuck you all to hell,” he said. “It was good while it lasted but you can’t take it with you.”

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The Awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars) were initiated in 1929. There are considered to be four major awards (best picture, best director, best actor and best actress) and only three films have ever won all four. Since the beginning, there have also been presentations for writing although the categories have altered over the years. They are currently awarded for best adapted screenplay and best original screenplay.

Allowing for a few complications (such as one tie and two different films with the same name), 313 titles have been awarded one or more of these six major Oscars.

The piece of rather whimsical prose above contains 253 of these films. I could probably have squeezed in a few more but I had to stop somewhere.

In addition, there were many other film titles which seemed to inveigle themselves almost incidentally into the narrative, despite the resistance of the author. Believe me I tried to avoid it, but the temptation to include ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ (5 nominations – no Oscars), ‘Brief Encounter’ (4 nominations – no Oscars) and others, refused to be denied.