The Popularity Contest

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences meets at the Pantages Theatre tomorrow, it will-if running to form--abandon scientific selection and vote along non-artistic lines. Two years ago, to skirt a decision between All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard, the Academy chose Born Yesterday. And last year An American in Paris became the darkhorse victor over A Streetcar Named Desire, A Place in the Sun, and Death of a Salesman. Gene Kelly's technicolor crepe suzette was a fine musical comedy--it was also inferior to the other three. Also last year unpopular Marlon Brando lost out to Humphrey Bogart as a matter of sentiment rather than performance.

In the race for Best Picture High Noon and The Quiet Man are leading contenders, both with seven nominating votes. Now John Wayne is very popular at the box office, and Maureen O'Hara is a fine, full-blown colleen, but The Quiet Man is not "best" even in such a sparse year as 1952. High Noon has certain faults, but it surely is better than any other picture nominated for top honors.

In the Best Actor division there is a real dilemma. No one can complain if either Marlon Brando (Viva Zapata), or Gary Cooper (High Noon), wins. But if the Academy falls back on Jose Farrier because he is famous, influential, and a high-brow actor, it will be chopping up the last remnant of its already tattered prestige.

Of course, the Academy can only vote for those people and pictures already nominated, and the nominations often skip first-rate material. In the song department, for instance, the High Noon balled is easily best on the list, but the song sung by Zsa Zsa Gabor in Moulin Rouge did not even win a place on the ballots. Perhaps the Moulin Rouge balled would lose in the final vote, but surely it is more worthy of nomination than "Am I in Love" from Son Of Paleface.

Finally, the Best Director often wins more on reputation than result. Cecil B. DeMille, who was nominated for The Greatest Show On Earth-which was far from it-has long been The Grand Old Man of Hollywood Epics. But his work was not so forceful as that of Fred Zinneman in High Noon, nor so bold and imaginative as that of John Huston in Moulin Rouge. The question is: will the Academy continue to choose The Grand Old man of the Year, or will it get back to making honest appraisals of current work.