One of the most pretentious and pompous speeches was given by Dimitri Tiomkin, who won the Dramatic Score Oscar, for The High and the Mighty, in 1954: “I would like to thank my colleagues, Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, Richard Strauss.”

The chance to take on the pharmaceutical industry motivated me to do the film, as well as shooting on location in Kenya, and the originality of the love story between Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz.

Mary Poppins served as sort of an excuse to compensate Andrews for the injustice done to her by Jack Warner, though it didn’t hurt that Andrews was good and that the film was a huge commercial hit.

Robert Donat’s first Best Actor nomination was for MGM’s literary adaptation, The Citadel, playing the lead role of the struggling doctor.  But he lost out to Spencer Tracy, who won for Boys Town.