Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1970

The Contenders:

Airport
I Never Sang for My Father
Lovers and Other Strangers
M*A*S*H (winner)
Women in Love

Oscar Got It Wrong: Best Actor 1970

The Contenders:

Jack Nicholson: Five Easy Pieces
James Earl Jones: The Great White Hope
Melvyn Douglas: I Never Sang for My Father
Ryan O’Neal: Love Story
George C. Scott: Patton (winner)

You Don't Pick Your Parents

Film: I Never Sang for My Father
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Lots of people have a strained relationship with one or both parents. Because of this family stories are fertile ground for drama. I suspected from the title I Never Sang for My Father that we’d be heading in that direction here, and I wasn’t wrong. This film explores the relationship between father and son, primarily from the son’s perspective, and it does so beautifully.

Gene Garrison (Gene Hackman) is a college professor whose wife has recently died. We find him in the airport waiting to great his parents on their return from Florida. We also learn virtually everything we need to know about their relationships when his parents get off the plane. Gene’s father Tom (Melvyn Douglas) is a man who is the very definition of self-made. He thinks highly of himself and a lot less of everyone else, including Gene. His mind is also starting to go a bit; moved forward to a more modern setting, and Tom Garrison would be in the early to middle stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Gene’s mother Margaret (Dorothy Stickney) is physically frail, having survived a heart attack, but mentally strong.