Organisers of tonight's Academy Awards are putting the final touches to war-dampened show, despite fears that Hollywood's highest honours could still be derailed by conflict in Iraq.
Oscar bosses vowed that the 75th anniversary show would go on, although the glitz and glamour of the ceremony has been dramatically toned down to reflect the sombreness of the moment.
Security has also been boosted to unprecedented levels to guard against terror attacks, including the deployment of a special national guard laboratory to test for chemical or biological warfare agents in the Hollywood air.
Only one thing appeared certain: The Oscars focus has shifted from whether the steamy musical Chicagowill dance off with the lion's share of honours as predicted, to whether the Hollywood's biggest night will take place at all.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Frank Pierson said he would "be watching what's happening hour by hour" in Iraq and that he and his aides would "keep our options open and be flexible."
The Oscars have never been cancelled and have only been delayed three times: by a day in 1981 when ex-president Ronald Reagan was shot, by two days when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968 and by a week when floods hit Los Angeles in 1938.
Even with the red carpet having been pulled from under stars' feet earlier this week with a more sombre dress-code prevailing, some stars like Will Smith and Angelina Jolie still feel it would be unseemly to show up at a black-tie gala while troops and civilians were dying in Iraq.
Some celebrities that do make it to the show are expected to use their winners' speeches to denounce the US-led war which is deeply unpopular among many stars including Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis.
But while war may have stolen some of Oscar's thunder, cinema's highest awards remained top priority in Tinseltown with director Rob Marshall's exuberant Chicagoexpected to dominate the top awards. The picture is tipped as favourite for the ultimate prize, best picture, and is also expected to take best actress for Renee Zellweger, best supporting actress Catherine Zeta-Jones and best director for Marshall. But it faces an unusually strong crop of nominated movies this year.
They include Stephen Daldry's Bloomsbury drama The Hours, Roman Polanksi's Holocaust story The Pianist, Martin Scorsese's epic Gangs of New Yorkand Peter Jackson's fantasy spectacular The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
AFP