Why is ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ a remarkable movie?


 



               ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ won the Best Picture in 1946 Academy Awards. It is a film directed by William Wyler and starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Harold Russell.



               The movie is producer Samuel Goldwyn’s classic, significant American movie about the difficult, traumatic adjustments such as unemployment, adultery, alcoholism, and ostracism that three returning veteran servicemen experienced in the aftermath of World War II. The ironic title refers to the troubling fact that many servicemen had ‘the best years of their lives’ in wartime, not in their experiences afterwards.



               The film was the major commercial success since ‘Gone with the Wind’ of 1939. ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ won seven Academy Awards in 1946, including Best Picture, Best Director for William Wyler, Best Actor for Fredric March, Best Supporting Actor for Harold Russell, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score.



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What makes ‘The Lost Weekend’ a memorable movie?


 



               ‘The Lost Weekend’ won the Best Picture category in the 18th Academy Awards. The movie is about the life of Don - a chronic, tortured alcoholic and failed writer. Burdened with a severe case of writer’s block, he turns to alcohol for inspiration and emotional support. Wick, Don’s brother, tries to bring his sibling back from the abyss of alcoholic despair. Even the protestations of Don’s girlfriend are not enough to stop the writer’s descent into a black hole from which he may never return.



               The film’s screenplay by director Billy Wilder and screenwriting partner Charles Brackett was based on Charles R. Jackson’s 1944 best-selling novel of the same name.



               At the Academy Awards ceremony in 1945, ‘The Lost Weekend’ swept the major categories with Ray Milland winning the Best Actor award, while the film also received Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. In addition, it garnered nominations for Best Score, Best Editing, and Cinematography.



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Which movie won many Oscars at the 17th Academy Awards?


 



               ‘Going My Way’ was the 17th Academy Award winning movie in the Best Film category, 1944. ‘Going My Way’ was a musical romantic comedy. It was directed by Leo Mc Carey, and starred Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald.



               The movie is about an Irish Catholic priest named Father Charles “Chuck” O’Malley who is assigned to take over the financially failing, St. Dominic’s Church. The character O’Malley is played by the biggest box office drawing actor of the 1940’s, Bing Crosby. The elderly priest in residence is Father Fitzgibbon, played by Barry Fitzgerald. Crosby sings five songs in the film. ‘Going My Way’ was followed the next year by a sequel, ‘The Bells of St. Mary’s’.



               The movie was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning seven of the coveted statuettes. Besides Best Picture, Crosby took home the Oscar for Best Actor. Fitzgibbon, played by Barry Fitzgerald, won for Best Supporting Actor, though he was also nominated for Best Actor, losing to Crosby. The film later inspired many adaptations.



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Why is the movie ‘Casablanca’ considered a classic?


               The film that won the Best Picture Oscar at the 16th Academy Awards was ‘Casablanca’. This classic - a melodramatic story of international intrigue, romance and politics in the Nazi-occupied locale of French Morocco - is now considered one of filmdom’s best ever pictures.



               The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced stage play ‘Everybody Comes to Rick’s’ The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid.



               Anti-Nazi propaganda, Max Steiner’s musical score, suspense, unforgettable characters and memorable lines all contributed to make the movie a classic.



              Exceeding expectations, ‘Casablanca’ went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Curtiz was selected as Best Director, and the Epstein brothers and Koch were honoured for writing the Best Adapted Screenplay. Much of the emotional impact of the film has been attributed to the large proportion of European exiles and refugees. The film has grown in popularity. Murray Burnett called it “true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow”.



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In which year did ‘Mrs. Miniver’ win the Academy Award for the Best Picture?


 



               Director William Wyler’s ‘Mrs. Miniver’ which took home the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1942, focused on a British family in rural England trying to survive the war. The movie was adapted from the 1940 novel ‘Mrs. Miniver’ by Jan Struther.



               ‘Mrs. Miniver’ won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress. The movie was initially filmed before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour that brought the United States into World War II. Following the attack, a couple of scenes were filmed again to reflect the tough, new spirit of a nation at war.



               In 2009, the film was preserved by the US National Film Registry. The film also has a second part that released in the year 1950.



               Greer Garson’s acceptance speech as Best Actress for the movie ‘Mrs. Miniver’ ran nearly six minutes, and is generally considered to be the longest acceptance speech at an Academy Awards ceremony.



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What makes ‘How Green Was My Valley’ an excellent movie?


 



               ‘How Green Was My Valley’ (1941) is one of John Ford’s masterpieces of sentimental human drama. It is a melodramatic and nostalgic story, adapted by screenwriter Philip Dunne from Richard Llewellyn’s best-selling novel of the same name.



               The film was nominated for a total of ten awards, and walked away with five Oscars, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Its other nominations were for Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Score and Best Sound.



              The most controversial aspect of its Best Picture and Director win was that it defeated two of the greatest pictures ever made: Orson Welles’ ‘Citizen Kane’ and John Huston’s ‘The Maltese Falcon’.



               The movie tells the story of a close-knit, hard-working Welsh coal-mining family, the Morgans, living in the heart of the South Wales Valleys during the 19th century.



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What made ‘Rebecca’ a unique gem among movies?



 



               ‘Rebecca' filmed in 1940, was a classic Alfred Hitchcock gothic thriller, and a compelling mystery about a tortured romance. It was Hitchcock’s first American project.



               The film creates a brooding atmosphere surrounding the tragic relationship of a naive, and innocent young woman Joan Fontaine, to a widower- an aristocratic, moody patriarch, Laurence Olivier, who lives in an estate named Manderley. ‘Rebecca’s’ screenplay was written by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison, and was based on a literal translation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name.



               The movie won two Academy Awards, Best Picture and Best Cinematography, out of a total of eleven nominations. Olivier, Fontaine and Anderson also were Oscar-nominated for their respective roles, as were Hitchcock and the screenwriters.



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What makes ‘Gone with the Wind’ unique among Academy Award winning movies?


 



               The year 1939 is undoubtedly the most celebrated year in American film history. It was bound to be difficult for the Academy to nominate or honour all the rich, outstanding films of the year.



               ‘Gone with the Wind’ was the kind of film that the Oscars seemed to be made for. in 1939, at the 12th Academy Awards, the movie received ten Academy Awards (eight competitive, two honorary) from thirteen nominations, including wins for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress. It set records for the total number of wins and nominations at the time.



               What is surprising about ‘Gone with the Wind’ is how long it has retained its glory. Director Victor Fleming’s almost four-hour long blockbuster film was the longest feature film released up to that time. It is the story of the American Civil War (from Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling Pulitzer Prize-winning novel) told by following the story of a headstrong heroine named Scarlett O’Hara.




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Which film won in the Best Picture category at the 11th Academy Awards?


 



              ‘You Can’t Take it with you’ the second Oscar-winning comedy after ‘It Happened One Night’ was also directed by Frank Capra. Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the film is about a man from a family of rich snobs who became engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family.



              The movie stars Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart and Edward Arnold. The film received two Academy Awards from seven nominations, Best Picture and Best Director, for Frank Capra. This was Capra’s third Oscar for Best Director in just five years, following ‘It Happened One Night’ (1934) and ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’ (1936). It was also the highest-grossing picture of the year.



              The 11th Academy Awards were held on 23rd February 1939. It was also the first ceremony in which a foreign language film, Jean Renoir’s ‘Grand Illusion’ was nominated for Best Picture.



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What made the Academy Award winning movie ‘The Life of Emile Zola’ exceptional?


 



            The Tenth Academy Award, winning movie – ‘The Life of Emile Zola’ was a biopic based on the life of the famous French writer Emile Zola. It is the second Best Picture winner in a row to go to a biopic, although this film couldn’t be more different than ‘The Great Ziegfeld’.



            This biographical film opens with French novelist Emile Zola starving in an attic room. After struggling to establish himself, Zola wins success writing about the unsavory side of Paris. He is able to achieve both fame and fortune with the publication of Nana, an unadorned tale of a woman. The film stars Paul Muni as Zola, and is directed by William Dieterle.



           ‘The Life of Emile Zola’, was nominated for ten Oscars, which was then a record. It won three, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Joseph Schildkraut. Unlike many of the winners in the first decade of the Oscars’ existence, it has retained its critical acclaim, and was inducted into the US National Film Registry.



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When did ‘The Great Ziegfeld’ win the Academy Award for Best Picture?


 



 



             ‘The Great Ziegfeld’ won three Academy Awards in the year 1936, including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Dance Direction. It was nominated for four other awards. The film was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, and produced by Hunt Stromberg. The movie stars William Powell, Luise Rainer, and Myrna Loy.



               It is a biopic about Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. Broadway theatre’s most famous producer of his time. From humble beginnings, Ziegfeld reaches the heights of success, producing hit show after hit show, and staging the famous Ziegfeld Follies.



               The screenplay by William Anthony McGuire, was a “novelty” to the audience. The film was shot at MGM Studios in Culver City, California, mostly in the latter half of 1935. At the time of its release, the movie was acclaimed as the greatest musical biography to be made in Hollywood.




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Which film won the 8th Academy Award for Best Picture?


 



            ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ won in the Best Picture category at the 8th Academy Awards ceremony. It is one of the best adventure films of all time.



             The rousing, 18th century story of the Bounty’s mutiny, directed by Frank Lloyd, was adapted from the first two volumes of the novel ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ written by Charles Nordhoff-James and Norman Hall.



            ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ stars Charles Laughton and Clark Gable. The film was one of the biggest hits of its time. The film actually portrays the historical case of the Tahiti- bound British naval vessel HMS Bounty that suffered a famous mutiny in 1789 against its iron-fisted, sadistic commander Captain Bligh.



            The 8th Academy Awards were held on March 5th, 1936, at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. This was the first year in which the gold statuettes were called “Oscars”.



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How did ‘It Happened One Night’ become a milestone in the history of Academy Awards?


 



           Frank Capra’s movie ‘It Happened One Night’ is a romantic comedy. The film dominated and swept all major categories of the Academy Awards - Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay, in the year 1934.



            Adapted by Robert Riskin from a short story called ‘Night Bus’, the movie revolves around the unlikely romance between a spoiled socialite, Claudette Colbert travelling on a bus after running out on her wedding, and a reporter, Clark Gable on the hunt for a good story.



            The film illustrated that even a wealthy heiress could find happiness and adventure on the road among common folk. The film, composed mostly of a road trip by the couple, contains some of the most classic scenes ever made.



            It was the first time in Academy history that both male and female leads, Gable and Colbert, from the same film, won the top award for acting.




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What made ‘Cavalcade’ unique among Oscar winning movies?

 



 



              ‘Cavalcade’ which is based on the Noel Coward play of the same name, became the third anti-war movie to win the Best Picture Oscar. The movie was directed by Frank Lloyd. The screenplay was written by Reginald Berkeley and Sonya Levien. The film stars Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook.



               ‘Cavalcade’ won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Frank Lloyd won the Academy Award for Best Director, and the Academy Award for Best Art Direction went to William S. Darling. Diana Wynyard was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress but lost to Katharine Hepburn for ‘Morning Glory’.



               ‘Cavalcade’ tells the story of two upper-middle class British families from 1899 to 1933. Throughout the film, the passage of years is indicated by dates on title cards, with a medieval cavalcade marching in the background.



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When did ‘Grand Hotel’ win an Academy Award for Best Picture?


 



          ‘Grand Hotel’ won an Oscar at the Academy Awards in the year 1931-32. It is a classic movie, and an all-star epic with high-powered stars of the early 1930s. This classic movie was directed by Edmund Goulding.



            ‘Grand Hotel’ was nominated only in one category that is Best Picture. To date, it is the only film to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated in any other category. William A. Drake’s screenplay was based on his own play adaptation of Vicki Baum’s novel ‘Menschen im Hotel’.



            The film, set in Berlin’s famous Grand Hotel, tells the multiple-narrative story of the crisscrossing of the lives of five guests, whose fates intertwine at the hotel.



            Doctor Otternschlag, a disfigured veteran of World War I and a permanent resident of the hotel, observes, “People coming, going. Nothing ever happens”.



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