I always like to point to which movie won best original score against The Good The Bad and the Ugly as an example of how naff the Oscars really are. If I played the sound track to the winner that year most people would have not a clue, it was piffle frankly. Play the Extisy of Gold or the title song and well my point proven.
I love that film and score... But I would blame an unfortunate release schedule before politics. With an Italian release date of 12/23/1966 it was competing against The Sound of Music and Dr Zhivago (winner). The Oscars have always been very USA centric and I don't think it was even on anyone's Oscar RADAR in 1966/1967 and it was never nominated. If the rules allowed it to be considered based on the US release date of January 1968 it would have been competing against that years winner Thoroughly Modern Millie... it would have been tough to win against a popular musical. Maybe it would have won in 1967 against Born Free... but probably not. I've never seen that movie and yet that stupid song is now stuck in my head.
An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms.
