The Golden Turkey Awards
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The Golden Turkey Awards is a 1980 book by film critic Michael Medved and his brother Harry Medved. This book is credited with giving the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space by Ed Wood, Jr. the reputation of being the "worst movie ever made".
The book awards the fictional "Golden Turkey Awards" to films that the Medveds feel are poor in quality, along with directors and actors judged to have created a chronically inept body of work. Readers will not necessarily agree with all their choices, however the book almost exclusively showcases low-budget obscurities and exploitation films.
The Medveds had previously "celebrated" bad cinema in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, many of which were also featured in the various Golden Turkey Awards categories.
One of the films "nominated" in the book was in fact an invention of the authors and readers were challenged to figure out which film was actually fake. The fake film was Dog of Norway, which was illustrated using a photo of a co-author's dog.
List of Golden Turkey winners
- Most Embarrassing Movie Debut: Paul Newman in The Silver Chalice
- Most Ridiculous Movie Monster: Robot Monster
- Worst Performance by a Popular Singer: Tony Bennett in The Oscar
- Worst Title: Rat Fink a Boo Boo
- Most Brainless Brain Movie: They Saved Hitler's Brain
- Most 'Badly Bumbled Bee' Movie: The Swarm
- Worst Casting: John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror
- Worst Performance by a Politician: United States Congressman and New York City Mayor John Lindsay in Rosebud
- Worst Two-Headed Transplant Movie: The Thing with Two Heads
- Worst Rodent Movie: The Food of the Gods
- Worst Performance by a Novelist: Norman Mailer in Wild 90
- P.T. Barnum Award for Worst Cinematic Exploitation of a Physical Deformity: The Terror of Tiny Town, a Western film with an all-dwarf cast.
- Worst Musical Extravaganza: At Long Last Love (early 1970s musical starring Burt Reynolds)
- Worst Performance as a Clergyman or Nun: Mary Tyler Moore in Change of Habit
- Worst Performance as Jesus Christ: Ted Neeley in Jesus Christ Superstar
- Worst Blaxpoitation Movie: Scream, Blacula, Scream
- Biggest Rip-off in Hollywood History: The 1976 version of King Kong
- Worst Credit Line: The 1929 version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, "with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor".
- Most Unerotic Concept in Pornography: Him, a porn film about a priest with a sexual fixation on Jesus Christ
- Worst Performance by an Animal: Dinky the Chimp in Tarzan and the Great River. (During filming, Dinky attacked and injured lead actor Mike Henry.)
- Worst Vegetable Movie: Attack of the Mushroom People
- Worst Performance by Sonny Tufts: Government Girl
- Most Ludicrous Racial Impersonation: Marlon Brando as a native of Okinawa in Teahouse of the August Moon
- Most Obnoxious Child Performer: David Kory in Dondi
- Worst Film You Never Saw (category for films never completed or only released in a limited fashion): Billy Jack Goes to Washington
- Most Inane Technical Advance: Percepto, designed by William Castle for his 1959 film, The Tingler starring Vincent Price. At certain times in the film, small electric shocks were delivered to the audience through their theater seating.
- Worst Line of Romantic Dialogue: an exchange between Gary Cooper and Madeleine Carroll in Northwest Mounted Police
- Worst Director: Edward D. Wood Jr.
- Worst Actress: Raquel Welch
- Worst Actor: Richard Burton
In addition, the Golden Turkey Awards had a reader's choice category for Worst Film of All Time, voted upon by readers of The Fifty Worst Films of All Time.
- First Runner-Up: Exorcist II: The Heretic
- Worst Film: Plan 9 from Outer Space
See also
References
- Medved, Harry, and Randy Dreyfuss. The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way). 1978, Warner Books. ISBN 0445041390.
- Medved, Michael, and Harry Medved. The Golden Turkey Awards. 1980, Putnam. ISBN 039950463X.de:Golden Turkey Award