The award for Greatest Show tends to be explained away as a sort of career prize for De Mille, but the irony is that he would go on to make The Ten Commandments just a few years later in 1956, which would in turn have made a much better Best Picture winner than Around the World in 80 Days, which beat it that year.
The good news is that Kubrick won an Academy Award for his special effects work on the film, his only competitive Oscar, but he was robbed of Best Director and his film of Best Art Direction.
Beat: Citizen Kane to Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography in 1941.
Beat: 2001: A Space Odyssey to Best Director and Best Art Direction in 1968. Credit where it’s due: Carol Reed’s take on the musical version of Oliver Twist is a largely peppy affair that isn’t afraid to dip into darkness where necessary to give Fagin and Bill Sikes their edge.
Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences attempts to award Oscars to the “best” film or artist in each category that year, and each year it fails at least a few times.
