This Week In Film History, 03.24.13

March 28, 1920: Broadway legend John Barrymore moves to center stage of the film world with his portrayal of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

March 25, 1932: Olympic swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller is Tarzan the Ape Man and Maureen O’Sullivan Jane in the first in MGM’s jungle adventure series.

March 24, 1939: Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce make the first of 14 screen pairings as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

March 28, 1941: The first movie adaptation of a comic book superhero appears with the first episode of Republic’s serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel

March 25, 1943: Japanese director Akira Kurosawa‘s first film, Sanshiro Sugata, is released.

March 24, 1949: Laurence Olivier‘s production of Hamlet becomes the first non-Hollywood film to win the Best Picture Academy Award.

March 25, 1954: From Here to Eternity takes eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and a Best Supporting Actor statue for “comeback kid” Frank Sinatra.

March 27, 1973: Apache Indian Sacheen Littlefeather appears at the Academy Awards ceremony to decline Marlon Brando‘s Oscar for The Godfather on his behalf.

March 29, 1976: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest becomes the first film since 1934’s It Happened One Night to take home all five major Oscars.

March 29, 1978: Annie Hall wins four Oscars, but writer/director/star Woody Allen skips the ceremony to play clarinet in a New York jazz club.

March 28, 1979: The China Syndrome, a drama about a nuclear disaster, gets a boost 12 days after it opens when a meltdown occurs at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island.

March 30, 1981: Obsessed with Taxi Driver star Jodie Foster, loner John Hinckley shoots President Ronald Reagan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. 

March 29, 1982: Katharine Hepburn wins a record-setting fourth Academy Award, and an ailing Henry Fonda wins his first, for On Golden Pond.

March 24, 1986: Steven Spielberg‘s The Color Purple ties a dubious Academy Award record when it fails to win a single Oscar, despite 11 nominations.

March 30, 1986: Vaudeville dancer-turned-perennial screen tough guy James Cagney, 86, dies of cardiac arrest on his New York farm.

March 24, 1993: An $8.9 million award is returned against Kim Basinger in the breach of contract suit over her withdrawal from Boxing Helena.