AWARDS 1951

*An American in Paris
Gene Kelly stars in this musical extravaganza as an American painter who woos a young French dancer through the streets of Paris. Featuring popular George Gershwin tunes and a celebrated ballet finale. Winner of 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Musical Score

African Queen with Humphrey Bogart won best actor. Although Katherine Hepburn was nominated, also for African Queen. Believe it or not African Queen was not even nominated as best motion picture.

Spencer Tracy is back with Father's Little Dividend, which co-stars Elizabeth Taylor in the sequel to Father of the Bride. This movie was remade in 1995 starring Steve Martin and Diane Keaten, which as also a sequel to their movie, Father of the Bride.

When did musicals begin? Are we seeing them begin with Doris Day in Lullaby on Broadway?

Abbott and Costell continue, as does Red Skelton and the Bowery Boys.

Marlon Brando stars in A Street Car Named Desire. Former President Ronald Reagan stars in Bedtime for Bonzo and let's look up Angels in the Outfield which Old Trunks thinks may have been redone. Total for number of flicks for the year: 436.

A Street Car Named Desire, Stars Marlon Brando. Set in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the restless years following World War Two, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE is the story of Blanche DuBois, a fragile and neurotic woman on a desperate prowl for someplace in the world to call her own. After being exiled from her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, for seducing a seventeen-year-old boy at the school where she taught English, Blanche explains her unexpected appearance on Stanley and Stella's (Blanche's sister) doorstep as nervous exhaustion. This, she claims, is the result of a series of financial calamities which have recently claimed the family plantation, Belle Reve. Suspicious, Stanley points out that "under Louisiana's Napoleonic code what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband." Stanley, a sinewy and brutish man, is as territorial as a panther. He tells Blanche he doesn't like to be swindled and demands to see the bill of sale. This encounter defines Stanley and Blanche's relationship. And yes, it is another Tennessee Williams work of art.

Bedtime for Bonzo, Ronald Reagan is not outacted by the chimpanzee. Reagan is cast as psychology professor whose reputation is sullied by the fact that his father was a convict. To prove that environment rather than heredity dictates a man's personality, Reagan uses Bonzo the chimp to test out his theories. The hairy little guy seems to be responding to the kindnesses lavished upon him--and then he is accused of robbery. Reagan nearly goes to jail in Bonzo's stead, but everything turns out all right in the end. Said to be the best of Reagan's movies.

Angels in the Outfield, 1995--Roger who has lost his mother is living separated from his father. As he and his friend J.P. are one of the biggest fans of the Los Angeles baseball team he has got only two dreams: Living together with a real family and let LA win the championship. As he is praying for these two things to happen some angels show up in order to help him - but he is the only one to see them and believe in them. Starring Danny Glover and Tony Danza. In the 1951 version it is the Pittsburg Pirates and the movie stars Paul Douglas.