The 13th Academy Awards honored American film achievements in 1940. This was the first year that sealed envelopes were used to keep secret the names of the winners[1] which led to the famous phrase: "May I have the envelope, please?" The accounting firm of Price Waterhouse was hired to count the ballots, after the fiasco of leaked voting results in 1939 by the Los Angeles Times.
Independent producer David O. Selznick, who had produced the previous year's big winner Gone with the Wind (1939), also produced the Best Picture winner in 1940, Rebecca – and campaigned heavily for its win.[2] Selznick was the first to produce two consecutive winners of the Best Picture Oscar. Although Rebecca had eleven nominations, it only won for Best Picture and Best Cinematography (Black and White), marking the last time a film would win Best Picture but not win for either directing, acting, or writing.
The film's distributor – United Artists – was the last of the original film studios (the others were Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia, 20th Century-Fox, Warner Bros., RKO Radio, Universal, and Paramount) to win the Best Picture Oscar. Rebecca was the first American-made film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and the only film from him to win Best Picture. Hitchcock had two films nominated for Best Picture, the other being Foreign Correspondent. Two other directors also had two films in the running this year: Sam Wood (Our Town and Kitty Foyle) and John Ford (The Long Voyage Home and The Grapes of Wrath, which won Best Director).
Pinocchio was the first animated film to take home competitive Oscars, for both Best Original Score and Best Original Song, starting a long tradition of animated films winning in these categories.
The Thief of Bagdad received the most Oscars of the evening, three, the first time a film not nominated for Best Picture won the most awards. This and Pinocchio were the first films not nominated for Best Picture to receive multiple awards.
Bob Hope "in recognition of his unselfish services to the Motion Picture Industry".
Colonel Nathan Levinson "for his outstanding service to the industry and the Army during the past nine years, which has made possible the present efficient mobilization of the motion picture industry facilities for the production of Army Training Films".
1941 Oscar firsts[]
For the first time, names of all winners remained secret until the moment they received their awards.
Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a six-minute direct radio address to the attendees from the White House. It is the first time an American president participated in the event.
Multiple nominations and awards[]
The following thirty-two film received multiple nominations:
‡ Dates and years listed for each ceremony were the eligibility period of film release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period was done on a seasonal basis, from August to July. For the 6th ceremony, held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1, 1932, to December 31, 1933. From the 7th ceremony, held in 1935, through the 92nd ceremony, held in 2020, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31. For the 93rd ceremony, held in 2021, the eligibility period was from January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021.
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