MovieFanFare regularly posts about important dates in film history, and this week's post (March 8-14) had some interesting points of interest from the Swing Era. I did not realize that Walt Disney was the first Academy Award winner to refer to the statuette as an "Oscar."
March 14, 1930: ” Garbo Talks!” in MGM’s
Anna Christie. Greta’s first line: “Give me a vhiskey with a ginger ale on the side–and don’t be stingy, baby,”
March 11, 1931:
Fritz Lang’s chilling true-crime drama
M, starring
Peter Lorre as a child killer, debuts in Berlin.
March 11, 1931: The director of
Nosferatu and
Sunrise, German-born
F.W. Murnau, 42, is killed in a car accident on the Santa Barbara Highway.
March 10, 1932: Paramount Pictures abandons the East Coast for Hollywood, shutting down its Astoria, Long Island studios.
March 13, 1934: Walt Disney, accepting his Best Animated Short Academy Award for
The Three Little Pigs, is the first winner to refer to the gold statuette as an “Oscar.”
March 9, 1935: A stuttering pig named Porky makes his screen debut in Friz Freleng’s Merrie Melodies short
I Haven’t Got a Hat.
March 13, 1940: In roles originally planned for Jack Oakie and Fred MacMurray,
Bob Hope and
Bing Crosby first team up in
Road to Singapore.
March 9, 1945: Filmed over a seven-month period during the Nazi occupation of France, Marcel Carne’s masterpiece,
Les Enfants du Paradis, premieres in Paris.
March 14, 1946:
Rita Hayworth heats up movie screens with her rendition of “Put the Blame on Mame” in the steamy drama
Gilda.
March 10, 1947:
Ronald Reagan is elected president…of the Screen Actors Guild, and a month later will agree to notify the FBI of any communist activity in the union.
March 13, 1947:
Harold Russell, who lost both hands in a WWII hand grenade explosion, wins two Oscars for playing a returning G.I. in
The Best Years of Our Lives.