THE OSCAR

As movie star Frankie Fane is about to hear if he won the best acting Oscar, his friend Hymie Kelly, sitting near Frankie during the ceremony, reminisces about Fane's struggle to the top, beginning as a spieler for his stripper girlfriend Laurel. After moving to New York City, Frankie dumps Laurel for a budding fashion designer, Kay Bergdahl, which leads to a chance meeting with talent scout Sophie Cantaro. Sophie arranges for him to be signed with agent "Kappy" Kapstetter and brings Frankie to Hollywood, where he quickly becomes a rising star.

At each turn, Fane is an unprincipled heel, using and hurting others and causing them to recoil from him. He impulsively persuades Kay to marry him in Tijuana but treats her cruelly thereafter. Frankie buys expensive homes and cars while offending the studio chief, Regan, until his life goes into a tailspin when he suddenly becomes "box office poison". At his lowest ebb, he unexpectedly receives an Oscar nomination, which Kappy believes is the result of Fane's portrayal of a "man without morals", essentially portraying himself.

In order to ensure his victory, he secretly employs the services of a crooked private investigator, Barney Yale, who leaks information intended to influence voters to sympathize with Fane and support his Oscar candidacy. Frankie doesn't care that the scandal smears the reputations of Hymie and Laurel. An enraged Hymie confronts him, telling how he married Laurel, who then died during an abortion while pregnant with a child fathered by Frankie. Yale also blackmails Fane, who desperately turns to Yale's ex-wife for help to keep his ruse from being exposed.

The moment of truth comes at the Academy Awards, as presenter Merle Oberon announces the winner. As she states the name "Frank", Fane rises, prepared to bolt to the stage; she then follows with "Sinatra". As Frank Sinatra moves towards the stage, Fane is left stunned and crestfallen, clapping his hands weakly and collapsing in his seat, while everyone in the assemblage whom he has wronged enjoys the comeuppance delivered to this wholly self-absorbed, unfeeling individual.

Frankie Fane loses the Oscar to Frank Sinatra and is left publicly humiliated, as those he wronged revel in his downfall.

The film’s ending delivers poetic justice: after a ruthless campaign and a life spent exploiting others, Frankie’s ultimate humiliation is not just losing the Oscar, but being forced to face the disdain of all those he manipulated on his way up. His collapse at the ceremony serves as a final, public reckoning, underscoring the film’s theme that unchecked ambition and lack of conscience exact a bitter price in the end.