50 years ago, the Oscars saw a battle for Best Picture and Marlon Brando turning down the award

Fifty years ago, the 45th Oscar ceremony was marked by an intense dispute between "The Godfather" and the musical "Cabaret", both with ten nominations each. Besides that, the award ceremony also had one of the most controversial moments in the Academy's history: Marlon Brando's refusal to be nominated for Best Actor.

The night of March 27, 1973 already started out awkward when Charlton Heston, one of the scheduled presenters, was unable to arrive on time due to a flat tire. In his place, Clint Eastwood was chosen, and joked: "They pick the guy who hasn't said anything but three lines in twelve movies to replace him.

The Best Picture category brought together five completely different types of films, with the highlight being the battle between "The Godfather" and "Cabaret." At the end of the night, "The Godfather" took home the top prize for Best Picture, however, the film with the most wins was "Cabaret," which took home eight awards, thus holding the record for the most wins without a Best Picture win.

Besides the Best Picture category, the attention of those present at the ceremony and the audience at home was also focused on the Best Director category, where Francis Ford Coppola for "The Godfather" and Bob Fosse for "Cabaret" were the favorites. The award went to Fosse, who became the only person to win an Oscar, a Tony Award ("Pippin") and an Emmy ("Liza with a Z") in the same year.

Actress Liza Minnelli took the Best Actress award for her role in "Cabaret." She was up against the first two African-American women to be recognized in the category: Diana Ross for "The Breakdown of a Star" and Cicely Tyson for "Tears of Hope".

MARLON BRANDO DECLINES AWARD

What many did not expect was that the Best Actor announcement would become one of the most memorable moments in Academy history. For his role as Vito Corleone in "The Godfather," Marlon Brando won his second statuette in the category - he had already won in 1955 for "The Thieves' Syndicate. However, he declined the honor.

In a historic moment on live television, when Brando's victory was announced, 26-year-old Indian Sacheen Littlefeather came on stage to decline the Best Actor award on behalf of the actor.

Littlefeather had two promises to keep: not to touch the statuette (Brando's instructions) and to keep her comments to 60 seconds (an order from show producer Howard Koch, who told Littlefeather minutes before the award ceremony that he had security guards to arrest her if she went over time).

"[Brando] regretfully could not accept this most generous award," Littlefeather said in her impromptu non-acceptance speech, knowing she would not have time to read the actor's eight typed pages of prepared remarks.

"And the reasons for that are the treatment of Native Americans by the film industry [the audience begins to boo] - excuse me - and on television in film reruns, and also with recent events in Wounded Knee."

A month before the ceremony, the activist organization American Indian Movement had occupied the town of Wounded Knee in South Dakota to protest the mistreatment of Native Americans.

Brando was the second actor to turn down an award for Best Actor. Before him, in 1971, actor George C. Scott refused to receive his award for "Patton" because he believed the ceremony was a "meat market."

In addition to Brando's absence, actor Al Pacino also refused to attend the ceremony. The interpreter of Michael Corleone in "The Godfather" felt that he should have been nominated in the Best Actor category, as he had more screen time than Brando. The award in the Best Supporting Actor category went to Joel Gray for "Cabaret," which also had James Caan and Robert Duvall competing for their roles in Coppola's film.

CHARLES CHAPLIN WINS HIS FIRST OSCAR

The Best Original Soundtrack category was also controversial, since the soundtrack to "The Godfather" was nominated, but was later considered ineligible for having been used in "Rota in Fortunella", an Italian film from 1958.

Ironically, the winning soundtrack in the category was from a film from 20 years ago: Charles Chaplin's 1952 film "Limelight". The film had a limited release in 1952 due to Chaplin's supposed communist ideologies, and many theaters refused to screen it.

In 1972, "Limelight" was re-released and had its first showing in Los Angeles, making it eligible for Oscar contention. Chaplin won his only competitive Oscar (he received two honorary awards) for Best Soundtrack, shared with Raymond Rasch and Larry Russell, both posthumously.

SPECIAL OSCAR

This year, "The Fate of Poseidon" won the award for Best Visual Effects, a special Oscar, which has only become a category since 1977, its first winner being the film "Star Wars". Before this date, films were awarded without there being a competition or release of nominees. This "special category" had existed since 1940, awarding films such as "Ben-Hur", "Mary Poppins" and "2001: A Space Odyssey".

FINAL BALANCE

The third Oscar for "The Godfather" was in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, so Coppola's film ended the night with 3 awards. While "Cabaret" was also victorious in Best Soundtrack for Adapted Song, Best Sound, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Editing, in addition to the aforementioned wins for Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, totaling 8 awards.