Danny Kaye's Opening Monologue: 1952 Oscars

Now the moment of moments, the curtain is rising, the stage banked by the fresh flowers of spring, backgrounded beautifully and symbolically with a cloth of gold and stage center, the most important man of the evening, Mr. Oscar, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Charles Brackett. Fellow members of the Academy, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago a friend who has heard me make these opening addresses for the last two years asked me with a sardonic smile whether I'd finished my state of the industry message. I have no authority to speak for the industry, but as president of the Academy, perhaps it is my function to report on the state of the art. And in 1951, the year under consideration tonight, the state of the art of the motion picture was extraordinarily good. It was in 1951 that motion pictures really took the measure of the new medium television. For nearly 50 years that old necromancer, Mr. Cinema, had been spinning tales for a price. Only a newcomer was whispering them free, right in people's houses, was unreeling facts as they happened with incredible accuracy. It's possible that Mr. Cinema may have grown a little thick around the middle and a little drowsy, but suddenly he was wide awake and all muscle. Suddenly he was calling on every resource at his command, great spectacle, superb beauty, subject matter exactly attuned to the current mood of the country, which is not a superficial or frivolous mood. The old boy was using his complete mastery of a brilliant medium for all it was worth. So the World Series was spilling into a lot of living rooms for free. Around the corner, the great Caruso and David and Bathsheba were playing, and they too were irresistible. Peter Kefauver came along with his glittering catch, and on the screen was a place in the sun, with its emotional truth deeper than the truth of mere fact. An American in Paris more than adequately answered Baron Leone, and the deeply perceived realities of a streetcar named Desire could stand up even against Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. All down the months, the great pictures kept smashing through in a way to swell the heart. It has been criticized that on our nominations list there occur frequently three Broadway plays made into pictures. That is true, and they have been translated to the screen with much less change than used to be required in the filming of a play. But before you say we have become the handmaiden of the theater, I ask you to examine the transformation which has taken place in the American theater in the last 20 years, a transformation brought about by motion picture techniques. These plays were written in excellent camera style, fade-outs, dissolves, flashbacks. Let's not get an inferiority complex when it's our own that's coming back to us. Let's be properly proud. And now, ladies and gentlemen, in looking for our master of ceremonies tonight, I'll be frank. We had difficulty in finding someone to appear. The Academy show is not a simple affair. The man who must stand up here throughout and handle a multitude of assignments should possess a limitless range of qualities. It is almost impossible to find them in any one man. In the first place, on a stage of this size, he must be dynamic. He must be forceful. He must have humility and, at the same time, be magnetic. With nerves running high, he must be completely relaxed and yet able to arise to any emergency. He must be gracious, gay, informal, and, above all, dignified. Since it was impossible to find such a man, we have settled for a genius, a creature whose rare talents have earned him a special place not only in motion pictures but in international show business. Those talents are not limited to the theater. As Ambassador Douglas has pointed out, he has done more for Anglo-American friendship than 150 years of trained diplomats. The man who went from Lowe's Palace to Buckingham Palace but who returns to us the same unspoiled kid from Brooklyn, Danny Kaye. Mr. Brackett, governors of the academy, and others, I am utterly overcome at the honor of your having asked me here tonight. It was ever so generous. I am ever so grateful and ever so tall. As a matter of fact, I find myself horribly, fiendishly, utterly embarrassed about something, you see. I feel it almost provincial of me never to have held an Oscar, never to have met him face to face, as it were. And so, I beg your pardon, you've seen him before. What didn't you say your name was? Paul Fulford. Kaye. How do you do? Nice to meet you. Splendid turnout, huh? Small trip? Well, it's nice to have a long chat. Thank you very much. I say, could I trouble you for a match? Yes. Well, could I have an Oscar, please? I've got it. And it'll never be taken away from me, either. Isn't this wonderful? All this fuss about a one-foot statue, so it's gold and naked. It's really wonderful, though, ladies and gentlemen, because I think a great many of you know that an Oscar is not just a trophy to the winner. It means that people in your own profession have told you that in a particular year, you are the best in your profession. And to be noted the best by your own coworkers is the most exciting thing that can happen to anybody. And I think it's possibly best illustrated by a story of a young man who joined the Navy. And by dint of hard work, he became a lieutenant, and then a lieutenant commander, and then a captain. And he wrote his mother a letter. And he said, dear mother, I've become a captain. And he went on to tell her all about how it happened. And she wrote back and said, darling son, I'm very proud of you. To me, you are always a captain. But tell me, to a captain, are you a captain? That's what the Oscar means, I think, to a great many of us in the profession. Thank you very much, sir. And now, before we tackle tonight's awards, a brief word to the winners on the subject of thank you speeches. In recent years, the Academy has been criticized for trying to cut these speeches short. Now it is true that various subtleties have been employed in the past, like trap doors, disappearing mites. In one year, they had an ex-blocking back from Penn State. Well this time, the Board of Governors of the Academy has asked me to announce that there'll be no attempt to muzzle anyone. However, the rule of prudence should prevail. If your work on a picture merits an Oscar, the Academy asks that your speech be no longer than the movie itself. There is no prescription for the exact length of your speech, just try to make it short enough so that, if written down, it can be carried about by a medium-sized man.