Oft-muddled 'Honorary' Oscar wrong prize for Kazan. Jami Bernard.

Policing immoral behavior in Hollywood is a fool's game. But neither do we have to go out of our way to reward it.

His penchant for ratting out friends aside, Elia Kazan is a great film maker. If he were to make ``A Streetcar Named Desire'' today, I'd gladly champion his nomination for a directing Oscar.

An ``Honorary'' Oscar is a streetcar of another color. It is the Academy Awards' equivalent of the corrections column in a newspaper. Oh, did we forget Cary Grant? Let's make it up to him with an Honorary Oscar! (They did just that in 1970.)

The Honorary Oscar is most often a sop to those denied Oscar in their prime. Little did the Academy know when they gave one to Paul Newman in 1986 that Newman still had plenty of unpopped kernels on the burner. He won a real Oscar the next year for ``The Color of Money,'' after having been passed over for ``The Hustler,'' ``Hud'' and ``Cool Hand Luke.''

Newman's win for the wrong movie is a reminder that no Oscar is free of hindsight and politics. Lillian Gish was nominated only once, and that, bizarrely enough, was for ``Duel in the Sun.'' The Academy duly atoned in 1971 the only way it knows how _ with an Honorary Oscar, on which could have been written, ``Oops, sorry!''

The Honorary Oscar, far from being a vote of confidence, is a sure sign that you're on your last legs. Thrice-nominated Kirk Douglas had to make do with his 1996 Honorary _ the equivalent of a gold watch. His faltering health only enhanced that Kodak moment. That the 89-year-old Kazan is said to be ``infirm'' makes him just the kind of overripe fruit that the Honorary Oscar likes to catch on its fall from the vine.

Occasionally, the Honorary Oscar acknowledges a change in the weather. Charlie Chaplin was so pilloried here for his succession of child brides that he moved to Switzerland. But a society that was readying itself for jeans ads that smack of kiddie porn welcomed Chaplin back in 1972 with, yep, an Honorary Oscar. (Until then, Chaplin had only won a special Oscar in 1929 for ``The Circus.'')

So the Honorary Oscar serves many masters. It is a sop to the elderly and ailing. It is an apologia: Come home! All is forgiven! It is a way of repaying those who somehow slipped under the Oscar radar. It is a show-stealer (a cringefest, really) because it guarantees a suitably moist standing ovation.

It is a benediction.

The Honorary Oscar takes its own moral stance. To judge the recipient in a moral light is only fair play. Conversely, if it is not the public's place to demonize Kazan, neither is it the Academy's duty to repatriate this legendary betrayer.

It's not as if Kazan has been wronged, overlooked or snubbed. He has already won Oscars for directing ``Gentleman's Agreement'' and ``On the Waterfront.'' The Honorary Oscar, useless as it is, should be given to some other great film maker whose time is near. It's hard to believe there are no other candidates.

Or did the blacklist to which Kazan contributed effectively pare down the competition?

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