CE: I don't know if I should present this award on behalf of all the cowboys shot in all the John Ford westerns over the years.

I've seen all five nominated pictures as I'm sure all of you have, and they're all so excellent and so different, I'd have a hard time choosing one without feeling I'd been unfair to the others. And so it occurred to me that as different as they seem - 'go ahead and flip the card man, I'm still here' - they all have something in common. They're all concerned with the human dilemma and our confrontation with fate. Human beings engulfed in a lunatic dictatorship. Men brutalized by their fellow men on a hostile river. Families ripping up their old roots and hoping to plant new ones. And quite different families too who seek to prove that morality can exist within immorality. And finally, a mother, a father, three children , and a dog, who ask only to live in the dignity of which all life is entitled. These are diverse and distinguished pictures, and they are:

Cabaret, an ABC Pictures Production, Allied Artists, Cy Feuer, Producer.

Deliverance, Warner Brothers, produced by John Boorman.

The Emigrants, A.B. Svensk Filmindustri Production, Warner Brothers, Bengt Forslund, producer.

The Godfather, an Albert S. Ruddy production, Paramount, Albert S. Ruddy, producer.

Sounder, a Radnitz/Mattel productions, Twentieth Century Fox, Robert B. Radnitz, producer.

And the winner- and the winner is:

Albert S. Ruddy, Godfather.

AR: Don't fail me now! We were all getting nervous there for a moment. Let me do this quickly in two parts, because I know it's past midnight in New York and some of my relatives want to go to sleep.

There are a number of people I would like to thank, as everyone else would, because they deserve it. Bob Evans, for giving more than any studio head should in time and creativity. Frank Yablans, for having the courage and imagination to sell this film and make my mother rich. Charlie Bluhdorn, for having the courage to finance films, which I guess borders on insanity. And Peter Bart, who was a friend all the way through.

Now last off, there's millions of people who sit out there and people who love film and want to make film that will look at this [holding up the Oscar] and wonder what it's all about. America needs the motion picture business and the motion picture business needs the United States. Good audiences need good films as good films need good audiences. The American dream and what we all want, for me at least, is represented by this [holding up the Oscar]. It's there for everybody if we want to work, dream and try to get it. Thank you very much.]]> https://aaspeechesdb.oscars.org/link/045-16/ ]]>