29th Academy Awards

During the 29th Academy Awards, the regular competitive category of Best Foreign Language Film was introduced, instead of only being recognized as a Special Achievement Award or as a Best Picture nominee (as in 1938). The first winner in this new category was Federico Fellini's La Strada with Anthony Quinn and a second nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Its win would help spur an interest in foreign-language films. Another Fellini film, Nights of Cabiria would win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in the following year.

This was also the first year that all of the five Best Picture nominees were in color. It was also the first Oscar telecast to be videotaped for later broadcast, especially for those network affiliates that didn't want to broadcast the event live.

All of the major awards winners were large-scale epics – Mike Todd's Around the World in 80 Days, The King and I, Anastasia, George Stevens' Giant, Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (the highest-grossing film of the year), King Vidor's War and Peace and William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion. And the trend toward blockbusters and colorful spectaculars was established for years to come, with The Bridge on the River Kwai, Gigi, and Ben-Hur being subsequent Best Picture champions.

The Best Original Story category had two interesting quirks this year. First, the Oscar for Best Original Story for The Brave One was awarded to Robert Rich, a pseudonym of Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted at the time and thus unable to receive credit under his own name. Second, Edward Bernds and Elwood Ullman withdrew their names from consideration in this category for their work on High Society, as the nomination had been intended for the musical starring Grace Kelly, while Bernds and Ullman had instead written a Bowery Boys film of the same name. In fact, the nomination was a double mistake, as High Society was based on the play and film The Philadelphia Story and probably would not have qualified as an original story anyway.

James Dean became the only actor to receive a second posthumous – and consecutive – nomination for acting.

Ingrid Bergman was not present to collect her award for Best Actress: Cary Grant accepted it on her behalf. She did, however, list the nominees for Best Director via a pre-recorded segment from a rooftop in Paris. The winner was announced by host Jerry Lewis.

Director John Ford's classic western The Searchers, widely seen as one of the best American films of all time, failed to receive a single nomination.

This was the second time since the introduction of the Supporting Actor and Actress awards that Best Picture, Best Director, and all four acting Oscars were given to different films. This would not happen again until the 78th Academy Awards. Around the World in 80 Days became the sixth film to win Best Picture without any acting nominations.

Awards

Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.^[1]

Presenters and performers

Multiple nominations and awards

See also

• 14th Golden Globe Awards
• 1956 in film
• 8th Primetime Emmy Awards
• 9th Primetime Emmy Awards
• 10th British Academy Film Awards
• 11th Tony Awards

References