1974 Academy Awards® Winners and History
ELLEN BURSTYN in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore",                 Diahann Carroll in "Claudine", Faye Dunaway in
"Chinatown" ,                 Valerie Perrine in "Lenny", Gena Rowlands in "A                 Woman Under the Influence"
Supporting Actor:
ROBERT DE NIRO in
"The                   Godfather, Part II" , Fred Astaire in "The Towering                 Inferno", Jeff Bridges in "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot",                 Michael V. Gazzo in
"The                     Godfather, Part II"
Supporting Actress:
INGRID BERGMAN in "Murder on the Orient Express", Valentina                 Cortese in "Day for Night", Madeline Kahn in "Blazing                   Saddles" , Diane Ladd in "Alice Doesn't Live Here                 Anymore", Talia Shire in
Director:
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA for
"The                   Godfather, Part II" , John Cassavetes for "A Woman                 Under the Influence", Bob Fosse for "Lenny", Roman                 Polanski for
"Chinatown" ,                 Francois Truffaut for "Day for Night"
The                   Best Picture victor,
The                     Godfather, Part II , shifted back and forth over six                   decades in time to retrace the story of the same Corleone family                   and how it was founded. Simultaneously, it documented the rise                   to power of young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) and the family's                   decline a generation later through the aging son (Michael Corleone).
It was the only sequel to win a Best Picture                   Oscar at the time of its win. [An earlier unsuccessful attempt                   at a sequel-Best Picture win was The Bells of St. Mary's                     (1945) - following the Best Picture winner of the previous                   year - Going My Way (1944). Later, its 'sequel' The                     Godfather, Part III (1990) was also nominated for Best                   Picture - and lost, and two sequel-installments of The                     Lord of the Rings (2002, 2003) were also nominated,                   with the latter winning the top honor. Some might consider                   the Best Picture-winning The Silence                     of the Lambs (1991) as a sequel to Manhunter                       (1986) , but that stretches the definition of a true                   sequel.]
It also accomplished a marvelous feat - it did exceptionally well with double the total number of Oscars                   than its predecessor - with eleven nominations and six wins                   (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Robert                   DeNiro), Best Screenplay Adaptation, Best Art Direction/Set                   Decoration, and Best Original Dramatic Score (by Nino Rota                   and the director's own father Carmine Coppola)). It duplicated                   its predecessor's feat of three nominations for Best                   Supporting Actor (for Lee Strasberg, Michael V. Gazzo, and                   winner DeNiro).
Five of its six un-rewarded nominations were                   for acting roles.
[Francis Ford Coppola had previously won two Oscars                     for himself - for the Best Story and Screenplay for Patton                       (1970) and the Best Adapted Screenplay (a shared                     award) for
The                       Godfather (1972) . With his new honors in 1974, he                     would add three more awards: Best Picture (as producer),                     Best Director, and Best Screenplay Adaptation (again shared                     with Mario Puzo). It was an unprecedented win for Coppola                     - three Oscars for writing, producing, and directing                     the same film.]
(Note: A triple win had also occurred for Leo McCarey                     in 1944, Billy Wilder in 1960, James L. Brooks in 1983, and                     would later occur for James Cameron in 1997.)
For the first time since 1951, when individual producers rather than companies were cited in the Best Picture nominations,                     both producers Francis Ford Coppola (and Fred Roos) were honored                     by receiving two Best Picture nominations in the same year,                     for Coppola's The Conversation (1974) and                     for their shared winner:
The                       Godfather (1972) . This occurred for the second time                     in 2010.
This was also the third time in awards history that                     blood relatives won Oscars in the same year - previously it                     occurred in 1929/30 and 1948. Coppola won three awards for
The                       Godfather, Part II , and father Carmine won an award                     for Best Original Dramatic Score. Sister Talia Shire was nominated                     for Best Supporting Actress, but she didn't win.]
The major competition for Best Picture came from                   these sources:
director Roman Polanski's
Chinatown (also                     with eleven nominations, but only one win!                     - for Robert Towne's Original Screenplay), a complex film                       noir and a perfectly-constructed, atmospheric detective                     mystery about scandal in late 1930s Los Angeles
director Coppola's own small-budget,                     non-commercial, technically-brilliant character study of                     a professional surveillance expert who suspects he has contributed                     to murder in The Conversation (with                     three nominations and no wins) - Coppola also directed and                     scripted
Bob Fosse's Lenny (with six nominations                     and no wins) adapted from Julian Barry's play - a stark biography                     of the controversial and foul-mouthed, subversive, but talented                     comic Lenny Bruce. [Fosse and Coppola were experiencing a                     re-match, an exact duplicate of their contest two years earlier                     - both directors had Best Picture and Best Director nominations                     in 1972 and 1974 - and later in 1979.]
Irwin Allen's somewhat out-of-place, expensive,                     disaster film with an all-star cast struggling against a                     raging fire in the world's tallest skyscraper, in the over-long                     box-office hit The Towering Inferno (with eight nominations                     and three wins - Best Cinematography, Best Song: "We May Never Love Like This Again", and Best Film                     Editing)
The Best Director award went to Francis Ford                   Coppola for his Best Picture-winning film. The other directors                   competing for the Best Director award included Roman Polanski                   who appeared in his own brilliant film
Chinatown as                   a knife-wielding, nose-slicing thug. After his success with Cabaret                     (1972) , Bob Fosse was nominated for his follow-up film Lenny.                   French director Francois Truffaut was nominated for Day                     for Night (the film won the Foreign Language Film award                   in 1973), and John Cassavetes was nominated for his independent,                   improvisational film A Woman Under the Influence about                   the disintegration of a family due to mental illness. [Cassavetes                   was now a triple-crown nominee - adding to his supporting actor                   nomination for The Dirty Dozen (1967) and his screenplay                   nomination for Faces (1968).]
The winner in the Best Actor category was a big                   surprise and major Oscar upset - and regarded as a sentimental                   award for The Honeymooners star: Art Carney (with his sole nomination                   and career Oscar win) won for his fourth screen role as 72                   year-old widower and evicted New Yorker Harry Coombs, who hitchhikes                   cross-country to Chicago with his friend and confidante - an                   orange cat named Tonto in Paul Mazursky's Harry and Tonto (Carney's                   nomination was one of the film's two nominations). Fifty-six                   year-old Carney became the oldest Best Actor behind 63 year-old                   George Arliss' win for Disraeli (1929/30). (Arliss'                   record would hold until 76 year-old Henry Fonda's win for On                   Golden Pond (1981).)
Three of Carney's fellow nominees presumably                   split the vote, allowing him to win (aside from the sentimental                   vote). It was remarkable that Art Carney beat out the first                   three of these other superb performances:
Al Pacino, who had been one of the three Best                     Supporting Actor nominees in 1972 for
The                       Godfather (1972) , was again nominated (with his third                     of eight nominations) - this time as Best Actor for his extended                     role in the sequel as Don Michael Corleone, Don Vito Corleone's                     son and heir
Jack Nicholson (with his fourth nomination                     and his second consecutive nomination in the 70s) as seedy                     private detective J. J. Gittes in
Chinatown ,                     the other celebrated film of the year - in retrospect, it                     is unbelievable that Nicholson's seminal role in this film                     lost
Dustin Hoffman (with his third of seven nominations)                     as the doomed comedian Lenny Bruce in the title role of Lenny
Albert Finney (with his second of five unsuccessful                     nominations) as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule                     Poirot in director Sidney Lumet's who-dun-it Murder on                       the Orient Express (with six nominations and one win                     - Best Supporting Actress), who attempts to solve a murder                     on a 1934 train trip from Istanbul to Calais
The winner of the Best Actress Oscar in 1974                   was Ellen Burstyn (with her sole Oscar win in a career                   total of six nominations) in the role of Alice Hyatt, a newly-widowed                   woman with a 12 year-old son who hits the road and survives                   as a Phoenix diner/waitress in director Martin Scorsese's first major                   Hollywood film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (with                   three nominations and one win - Best Actress) - the basis for                   the TV show Alice. (In Harry and Tonto, Burstyn                   played Harry's daughter Shirley.) [Burstyn's win came a year                   after she had lost the Best Actress award for The                   Exorcist (1973) .]
In a similar character role, black actress Diahann                   Carroll (with her sole nomination) was nominated as Best Actress                   for her role as Claudine Price - a struggling black welfare                   mother who romances a garbage collector (James Earl Jones)                   in director John Berry's Claudine (the film's sole nomination).                   The remaining Best Actress nominees were:
Valerie Perrine (with her sole nomination)                     as Lenny Bruce's stripper/druggie wife Honey Bruce in Lenny
Gena Rowlands (with her first of two unsuccessful                     career nominations) as Peter Falk's lonely, working-class                     housewife Mabel Longhetti who slowly goes mad and breaks                     down (in her real-life husband John Cassavetes' film) A                       Woman Under the Influence
Faye Dunaway (with her second nomination)                     as the mysteriously-widowed Evelyn Mulwray in the complicated                     thriller
Chinatown -                     the best performance of all the nominees
Robert De Niro (with his first nomination and first Oscar                   win) was the victor in the Best Supporting Actor category for                   his Sicilian-speaking, star-making role as the young immigrant                   Vito Corleone who grows up in Little Italy in
The                     Godfather, Part II . DeNiro didn't speak a single word                   of English in the film. Two other competitors for the Best                   Supporting Actor appeared in the same film:
seventy-three year-old Lee Strasberg (with                     his sole nomination for his film debut) as Miami Jewish mobster                     Hyman Roth
Michael V. Gazzo (with his sole nomination)                     as Corleone family associate Frank Pentangeli
Legendary screen actor/dancer Fred Astaire was                   a sentimental favorite for his sole career Oscar nomination                   (almost an insult) - for his supporting role as a con artist                   and widower Harlee Claiborne in The Towering Inferno -                   he was the only star in the cast who received a nomination                   - with a non-dancing role! The final nominee in the Best Supporting                   Actor category was Jeff Bridges (with his second nomination)                   as drifter Lightfoot who helps ex-thief Thunderbolt (Clint                   Eastwood) and then plans a government vault heist in Michael                   Cimino's debut caper film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (the                   film's sole nomination).
The Best Supporting Actress award was the third Oscar                   for Swedish-born nominee Ingrid Bergman (and the sixth of her                   seven career nominations) - Bergman won for her role as shy,                   nervous, repressed Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson - a member                   of the star-studded group of suspected passengers by Albert                   Finney's Hercule Poirot aboard the train in Murder on the                     Orient Express. [Bergman's first two awards were for Gaslight                       (1944) and Anastasia (1956). Her third award                   joined her with both Katharine Hepburn and Walter Brennan                   (in a 3-way tie) for most acting Oscar wins (3) - until 1981,                   when Hepburn won a fourth Oscar for On Golden Pond                   (1981).]
The other Best Supporting Actress nominees in                   the category were:
Valentina Cortese (with her sole nomination)                     in a beautiful performance as alcoholic Italian actress Severine                     in Truffaut's film Day For Night
Madeline Kahn (with her second consecutive                     nomination) as saloon belle Lili von Shtupp - a Marlene Dietrich                     look-alike in director Mel Brooks' western spoof Blazing                       Saddles (with three nominations and no wins)
Diane Ladd (with her first of three unsuccessful                     career nominations) as Alice's fellow, sharp-tongued, bleach-blonde                     diner worker Flo in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Talia Shire (director Coppola's sister) (with                     her first nomination) as Michael Corleone's sister Connie                     Corleone in
His                         Girl Friday (1940) , To Have                           and Have Not (1944) ,
The                             Big Sleep (1946) , Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953),                   and Rio Bravo (1959). In his entire career, he received                   only one (unsuccessful) nomination as Best Director - for Best                   Actor-winning Sergeant York (1941).
In addition, French film-maker Jean Renoir received                   an Honorary Award - he was honored as "a genius who, with                   grace, responsibility and enviable devotion through silent                   film, sound film, feature, documentary and television, has                   won the world's admiration." His greatest films included Bondu                     Saved From Drowning (1932), Grand Illusion (1937, Fr.) (nominated for Best Picture in 1938), The Rules of the Game (1939,                     Fr.), and The Southerner (1945) - with his sole Best                   Director nomination throughout his career.
Oscar Snubs and Omissions:
Gordon Willis' remarkable cinematography in both Godfather films                   was not nominated. And the Best Picture nomination for The                     Towering Inferno displaced such excellent films in the                   category as Young Frankenstein , A                     Woman Under the Influence, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore,                   and Day For Night. Richard Lester's brilliant swashbuckler The                     Three Musketeers received no nominations, including an                   impressive performance by Charlton Heston as evil Cardinal                   Richelieu and others (Oliver Reed (Athos), Richard Chamberlain                   (Aramis), and Frank Finley (Porthos) as the three musketeers).
Liv Ullman's searing performance as Marianne                   in Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage would have                   been nominated and had a good chance of winning Best Actress,                   but the film was declared ineligible because it had been shown                   in a six-part, 5-hour version on Swedish television prior to                   its theatrical release in a shortened version. Director Joseph                   Sargent's crime thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,                   about a New York subway car hijacking by terrorists (led by                   Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw)) who were challenged by the Transit                   Authority's chief of security Lieutenant Zachary Garber (Walter                   Matthau), was completely snubbed by the Academy.
Director Alan J. Pakula's excellent political                   thriller The Parallax View (with Warren Beatty as newspaper                   reporter Joseph Frady) was un-nominated in all categories,                   as was Robert Altman's 1930s-style crime film Thieves Like                     Us (with Keith Carradine as Bowie and Shelley Duvall as                   Keechie) and Terry Gilliam's Monty Python and the Holy Grail.                   Martin Scorsese's film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore was                   overlooked in the Best Director and Best Picture categories.
Best Picture-nominated films by Francis Ford                   Coppola had three deserving stars not included in the                   various acting categories as nominees:
Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, a frustrated surveillance                     expert in Coppola's great mystery thriller The                       Conversation
John Cazale as pitiable, tragic and traitorous                     Fredo Corleone, a black-sheep who betrayed his brother Michael                     (Al Pacino) ("I know it was you Fredo. You broke my                     heart"), in Coppola's great gangster sequel
The                       Godfather, Part II
Goldie Hawn was overlooked as Lou Jean Poplin                   in director Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express,                   a cross-country adventure film of a desperate couple's flight                   - it was Spielberg's first feature film. And Richard                   Dreyfuss was neglected in one of his earliest performances                   as aspiring Jew Duddy in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.                   Eddie Albert was bypassed for his role as Florida prison Warden                   Hazen in The Longest Yard.
Gene Wilder (and other unrecognized cast members,                   such as Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman                   and Kenneth Mars) was un-nominated as mad scientist Victor                   Frankenstein in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (with                   only two unsuccessful nominations, for Best Adapted Screenplay                   (co-nominees Wilder and director Mel Brooks) and Best Sound).                   Recognition was sorely lacking for the film's set decoration                   (of Frankenstein 's 1931 castle),                   its B/W Cinematography, and its Director. Blazing                     Saddles (with only three unsuccessful nominations,                   for Best Film Editing, Best Song, and Best Supporting Actress-Madeline                   Kahn), another Brooks' film in the same year, also lacked a                   nomination for Gene Wilder, and for Cleavon Little, as well                   as recognition for its director.