Benjy | |
---|---|
Directed by | Fred Zinnemann |
Produced by | Fred Zinnemann |
Starring | Lee Aaker |
Narrated by | Henry Fonda |
Production company | Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Benjy is a 1951 American short documentary film directed by Fred Zinnemann. It won an Oscar in 1952 for Documentary Short Subject. [1] [2]
Henry Fonda narrates this short film about a boy who was handicapped from birth. An orthopedic pediatrician wants to provide a therapeutic regimen that could cure the child, a scoliosis patient, but first he needs to convince the boy's parents, who have rejected the child because of his disabilities. [3]
Zinnemann and the film's production crew worked gratis on this project, which was originally designed to be used as a fundraiser for the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital. [3]
In his 1992 book An Autobiography, Zinneman noted that Paramount Pictures arranged for the crew on this production, and that the union members connected to the production turned their salaries back to the hospital. Henry Fonda also volunteered his services for the film. [4]
Although the film extensively used dramatized sequences to tell its story, it was successfully entered in the Academy Award category for Best Documentary Short Subject. [5]
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters who embodied an everyman image.
Jane Seymour Fonda is an American actress and activist. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda's work spans several genres and over six decades of film and television. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for a Grammy Award and two Tony Awards. Fonda also received the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2007, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2014, and the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2021, and is set to receive the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2025.
David Paul Scofield was an English actor. During a six-decade career, Scofield achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Academy Award, Emmy, and Tony for his work. Scofield established a reputation as one of the greatest Shakespearean performers. He declined the honour of a knighthood, but was appointed CBE in 1956 and became a CH in 2001.
The Sundowners is a 1960 Technicolor comedy-drama film that tells the story of a 1920s Australian outback family torn between the father's desires to continue his nomadic sheep-herding ways and the wife and son's desire to settle in one place. The Sundowners was produced and directed by Fred Zinnemann, adapted by Isobel Lennart from Jon Cleary's 1952 novel of the same name, with Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Peter Ustinov, Glynis Johns, Mervyn Johns, Dina Merrill, Michael Anderson Jr., and Chips Rafferty.
Alfred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director and producer. He won four Academy Awards for directing and producing films in various genres, including thrillers, westerns, film noir and play adaptations. He began his career in Europe before emigrating to the US, where he specialized in shorts before making 25 feature films during his 50-year career.
Julia is a 1977 American drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and written by Alvin Sargent. It is based on a chapter from Lillian Hellman's 1973 book Pentimento about the author's relationship with a lifelong friend, Julia, who fought against the Nazis in the years prior to World War II. The film stars Jane Fonda as Hellman and Vanessa Redgrave as Julia. It co-stars Jason Robards, Hal Holbrook, Rosemary Murphy, Maximilian Schell, and Meryl Streep.
This is a list of films by year that have received an Academy Award together with the other nominations for best documentary short film. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year. Copies of every winning film are held by the Academy Film Archive. Fifteen films are shortlisted before nominations are announced.
Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer, responsible for making many of Hollywood's most famous "message films" and a liberal movie icon. As an independent producer and director, he brought attention to topical social issues that most studios avoided. Among the subjects covered in his films were racism, nuclear war, greed, creationism vs. evolution, and the causes and effects of fascism. His other films included High Noon, The Caine Mutiny, and Ship of Fools (1965).
The Directors Guild of America Awards are issued annually by the Directors Guild of America. The first DGA Award was an "Honorary Life Member" award issued in 1938 to D. W. Griffith. The statues are made by New York firm, Society Awards.
Act of Violence is a 1949 American film noir directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor and Phyllis Thaxter. It was produced by Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Adapted for the screen by Robert L. Richards from a story by Collier Young, the film confronts the ethics of war and was one of the first to address the problems of World War II veterans.
Harry W. Gerstad was an American film editor who sometimes directed films. The Academy Award-winning editor also worked on television. He edited as well as directed for the 1950s program Adventures of Superman. In the 1960s he worked for Bing Crosby Productions and Batjac Productions. Gerstad retired to Palm Springs, California in 1973 and lived there until his death in 2002.
The 41st Academy Awards were presented on April 14, 1969, to honor the films of 1968. They were the first Oscars to be staged at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, and the first with no host since the 20th Academy Awards.
The Battle of Midway is a 1942 American short documentary film directed by John Ford. It is a montage of color footage of the Battle of Midway with voice overs of various narrators, including Johnny Governali, Donald Crisp, Henry Fonda, and Jane Darwell.
The Nun's Story is a 1959 American drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Audrey Hepburn, Peter Finch, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, and Dean Jagger. The screenplay was written by Robert Anderson, based on the 1956 novel of the same name by Kathryn Hulme. The film tells the life of Gabrielle Van Der Mal (Hepburn), a young woman who decides to enter a convent and make the many sacrifices required by her choice.
Behold a Pale Horse is a 1964 American drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn. The film is based on the 1961 novel Killing a Mouse on Sunday by Emeric Pressburger, which loosely details the life of the Spanish anarchist guerrilla Francesc Sabaté Llopart.
Daniel Taradash was an American screenwriter.
That Mothers Might Live is a 1938 American short drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann. In 1939, at the 11th Academy Awards, it won an Oscar for Best Short Subject (One-Reel).
Sentinels of Silence is a 1971 short documentary film on ancient Mexican civilizations. The film was produced by Manuel Arango, and directed and written by the filmmaker Robert Amram, and is notable for being the first and only short film to win two Academy Awards.
Man's Fate was an abandoned 1969 film adaptation of the novel Man's Fate by Andre Malraux to have been directed by Fred Zinnemann and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).