The 14th Academy Awards honored American film achievements in 1941 and was held in the Biltmore Bowl at the Biltmore Hotel. The ceremony is now considered notable, in retrospect, as the year in which Citizen Kane failed to win Best Picture. Best Picture of the year was awarded to How Green Was My Valley, the story of Welsh coalminers in changing times. In addition, John Ford won his third Academy Award for Best Director, also for How Green Was My Valley.
Most public attention was focused on the Best Actress race between sibling rivals Joan Fontaine in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion and Olivia de Havilland for Hold Back the Dawn. Fontaine’s victory was the only time an actor won for a performance in an Alfred Hitchcock film.
This was also the first year in which documentaries were included. The first Oscar for a documentary was awarded to Churchill's Island.
The Little Foxes established a new high of nine nominations without winning a single Oscar. Its mark was matched by Peyton Place in 1957, and exceeded by The Turning Point and The Color Purple, both of which received 11 nominations without a win.
Read more about 14th Academy Awards: Awards
Famous quotes containing the word academy:
“When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an academy, a gang, a university.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)