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 23, 1950: Mercedes McCambridge becomes the first performer to win an Academy Award for a film debut, for All the King’s Men.
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 23, 1964: One-of-a-kind character actor Peter Lorre, 59, who came to prominence with Germany’s M, dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles.
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 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 sets a dubious Academy Award record when it fails to win a single Oscar, despite 11 nominations.
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.