The nominees were ...
(Cartoon)
- Chip An' Dale, Walt Disney, producer
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse, Frederick Quimby, producer
- Pluto's Blue Note, Walt Disney, producer
- Tubby the Tuba, George Pal, producer
- Tweetie Pie, Edward Selzer, producer
- Brooklyn, U.S.A., Thomas Mead, producer
- Good-bye Miss Turlock, Herbert Moulton, producer
- Moon Rockets, Jerry Fairbanks, producer
- Now You See It, Pete Smith, producer
- So You Want to Be in Pictures, Gordon Hollingshead, producer
- Champagne for Two, Harry Grey, producer
- Climbing the Matterhorn, Irving Allen, producer
- Flight of the Wild Stallions, Thomas Mead, producer
- Give Us the Earth, Herbert Morgan, producer
- A Voice Is Born: The Story of Niklos Gafni, Ben Blake, producer
And the Oscar went to ...
(Cartoon)
 |
| Tweety meets "Thomas" (aka Sylvester) in Tweetie Pie |
 |
| Edward Selzer |
Tom and Jerry's long run as Oscar winners ended with the success of another Tom -- Sylvester the Cat is called "Thomas" in this cartoon, his third, and the first to pair him with Tweety. The mayhem is reminiscent of the Tom and Jerry series, however, with Sylvester enduring successive calamities as he tries to catch and eat Tweety. The director of the cartoon is Friz Freleng, but the Oscar went to Selzer, the notoriously humor-impaired producer of Warner Bros. cartoons. Tweety was originally meant to be a woodpecker, and when Freleng changed him to a canary, Selzer protested but backed down after Freleng threatened to quit. Selzer happily took home the Oscar after the cartoon not only won but also spawned a successful new series.
 |
| Friz Freleng at the drawing board |
(One-Reel)
Sentimental and clichéd piece about the disappearance of the one-room schoolhouse and its teacher, written and narrated by John Nesbitt as part of his "Passing Parade" series. This was the second of two Oscars for Moulton's short films.
(Two-Reel)
Climbing the Matterhorn, Irving Allen, producer.
This documentary short, produced and directed by Allen, seems to be unavailable today. As for Allen, he was born in a part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire that's now Poland, and began his career as a film editor. In 1941 he directed the short film Forty Boys and a Song, which was nominated for an Oscar, and would be nominated again for the 1949 short Chase of Death. In 1951 he founded the British company Warwick Films in partnership with Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli. It was designed to take advantage of the attempts to stimulate the British economy under the Marshall Plan. Their partnership broke up in 1960 when Allen and Broccoli disagreed over the potential of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels: Broccoli thought they could be turned into a successful series, and Allen didn't. The rest, quite obviously, is history, with the footnote that in 1966 a somewhat chastened Allen decided to make his own series of sexy superspy movies, and signed Dean Martin to play Matt Helm in The Silencers and three more films.
.jpg) |
| Irving Allen |
This documentary short, produced and directed by Allen, seems to be unavailable today. As for Allen, he was born in a part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire that's now Poland, and began his career as a film editor. In 1941 he directed the short film Forty Boys and a Song, which was nominated for an Oscar, and would be nominated again for the 1949 short Chase of Death. In 1951 he founded the British company Warwick Films in partnership with Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli. It was designed to take advantage of the attempts to stimulate the British economy under the Marshall Plan. Their partnership broke up in 1960 when Allen and Broccoli disagreed over the potential of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels: Broccoli thought they could be turned into a successful series, and Allen didn't. The rest, quite obviously, is history, with the footnote that in 1966 a somewhat chastened Allen decided to make his own series of sexy superspy movies, and signed Dean Martin to play Matt Helm in The Silencers and three more films.
