Vincent J. Donahue, better known as TV director, helmed ”Sunrise at Campobello,” a conventional, middlebrow biography of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Lily Tomlin received one Oscar nomination: Best Supporting Actress for “Nashville.”

The original idea of Monsieur Verdoux originated with Orson Welles, who’d wanted to make a picture about notorious modern “Bluebeard” Landru. Welles wanted to cast Chaplin in the lead; Chaplin liked the idea, but preferred to direct himself, as he’d been doing since 1914. In his memoirs, Chaplin notes about Welles: “”Had I foreseen the kudos Orson eventually tried to make out of it, I would have inisted on no screen credit at all.”

A rather engaging tale of romance and rivalry, set in the music world, “The Competition” is well acted by Richard Dreyfuss, then riding high as a result of his films for Spielberg (“Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third World,” and winning Best Actor Oscar for “The Goodbye Girl”) and the appealing Amy Irving.

Who will be the host of next year’s oscar show, now that there is consensus that Macfarlane was too conventional and disappointing.