One of Oscar’s biggest upsets ever occurred at the 1951 awards when An American in Paris beat both A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun to capture the award for Best Picture.

Fashioned around George Gershwin’s music of the 1920s and 30s, Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris hadn’t even been on the Oscar radar. It was an MGM production and MGM had thrown support behind the costlier Quo Vadis, also in the Best Picture race against Warners’ Streetcar and Paramount’s Sun.

A perfectly charming and delightful film, An American in Paris features a superb cast headed by Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary and Nina Foch. The ballet that ends the film may go on a bit too long, but who can resist Kelly serenading Caron with “Our Love Is Here to Stay” or teaching the kids to sing with “I’ve Got Rhythm” or Geutary, in his best Chevalier imitation, singing and dancing to “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise”? It’s sheer bliss most of the way. Nominated for eight Oscars, it won six.

With twelve and nine nominations, respectively, the year’s two critically acclaimed dramatic films, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun were expected to take home the lion’s share of the awards and neither came away empty-handed. Streetcar won four including Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), Supporting Actor (Karl Malden) and Supporting Actress and Place won six including Best Director (George Stevens).

Tennessee Williams’ second major play and the second to be filmed after 1950’s not on DVD The Glass Menagerie, Streetcar remains the best film version of any of his plays. Marlon Brando, in only his second film, reprising his Broadway triumph as the loutish Stanley Kowalski, changed the face of screen acting with his largely internalized performance. Vivien Leigh, who played the role of faded belle Blanche DuBois in London, is simply incredible as the tortured soul who might be an older version of Leigh’s Scarlet O’Harahad she lived in a different era. Kim Hunter is equally memorable as the young woman torn between her love for her husband and support for her sister.

Previously filmed as the not on DVD An American Tragedy, the title of Theodore Dreiser’s famed novel, A Place in the Sun has a different structure than Josef von Sternberg’s earlier film which emphasizes the relationship between the protagonist (Phillips Holmes in the earlier version, Montgomery Clift in the later one) and his low-class pregnant girlfriend (Sylvia Sidney/Shelley Winters) over the social climbing youth’s fascination with a society girl (Frances Dee/Elizabeth Taylor) but the climax of both films is the murder trial that ends the film.

The other major difference is that the boy’s mother (Lucille LaVerne/Anne Revere) plays a larger role in his life in the earlier version. That’s mainly because Oscar winning Revere (National Velvet), a direct descendant of Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere, was blacklisted in the Communist witch hunts of the day and most of her scenes were cut. All that remains is a brief telephone scene between her and Clift.

In gestation for more than a decade, Mervyn LeRoy’s film of Henryk Sienkewicz’s 1895 novel, Quo Vadis finally reached the screen with a cast headed by Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn and Peter Ustinov. Taylor is stiff as the Centurian and Kerr is not used to best advantage as the Christian convert he loves, but Genn (Petronius) and Ustinov (Nero), both nominated in support are superb. Finlay Currie, one of the best character actors of the day (People Will Talk, The Mudlark) is also excellent as St. Peter. It was nominated for eight Oscars, but won none.

The fifth nominee, Anatole Litvak’s Decision Before Dawn was nominated for only one other Oscar: Best Editing. One of the most obscure films ever to be nominated for Best Picture, it owes its nomination to the big push given it by Fox studio head Daryl F. Zanuck. Richard Basehart and Gary Merrill had top billing, but third billed Oskar Werner is the main character, a German prisoner of War indoctrinated by the Allies into spying against the Nazis in World War II. It’s a decent programmer, but hardly a film of Best Picture caliber, especially in light of the fact it was nominated over The African Queen, Strangers on a Train, Detective Story and Fox’s own The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Acting on the theory that if you can’t beat them, join them, Fox later obtained the distribution rights to A Streetcar Named Desire when it was re-released in 1958 and held the original home video rights to The African Queen, originally released by United Artists. Rights to Streetcar have since reverted to Warner Bros. and Paramount now holds controls The African Queen.

Completed in time to be rushed into one Los Angeles theatre to qualify for the 1951 Academy Awards, John Huston’s film of C.S. Forester’s The African Queen might have gotten more than the four nominations it did if more Academy members had seen it early on. It was nominated for Best Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay.

Katharine Hepburn’s portrayal of the high-minded spinster with a voice like Eleanor Roosevelt was the first of several old maids she would play throughout the decade to greater acclaim than she had ever known and Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of the pragmatic river rat who helps her escape the Nazis brought him something he never expected to have – an Oscar.

Bogart’s win over Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift was as popular as it was unexpected. The actor whose only previous nomination was for Casablancawas finding his cynical, devil-may-care persona more in keeping with the times. A pity there would only be a few more films before his death at 57, but decades later new audiences are still discovering him and that’s a good thing.

Paramount, which has been the stingiest of the studios in releasing their classics to DVD, have put out both a standard DVD and Blu-ray release of The African Queen that is one of the best of the year.

Nominated for its thrilling black-and-white cinematography, Alfred Hitchcok’s Strangers on a Train, his most successful film in five years failed to receive any other nominations, not even for one of its strong leads, Farley Granger and Robert Walker.

Jane Wyman won the Golden Globe for Curtis Bernhardt’s tearjerker, The Blue Veil over both Vivien Leigh in Streetcar and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen but few have seen the film in the last forty years. The film, originally released by RKO, deserves a DVD release on the basis of its cast alone.

Charles Laughton, Joan Blondell (also Oscar nominated as a Broadway musical comedy star), Richard Carlson, Agnes Moorehad, Don Taylor, Audrey Totter, Everett Sloane and Natalie Wood also star in this story of a woman who loses her husband to World War I and their son shortly after birth, who then spends her life caring for other people’s children.

Fox, which early on, had been one of the most prolific releasers of their classic films on DVD, has in recent years become almost as bad as Paramount with putting anything new out. They are constantly re-releasing the same films in new packaging, but haven’t had anything new to offer in years. Of their major 1951 releases, only The Day the Earth Stood Still, Fourteen Hours and People Will Talk have been released on DVD. Kind Lady, The Mudlark, The Mating Season and The Model and the Marriage Broker have not.

Although it won a Golden Globe as the Best Film Promoting International Understanding, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still failed to win a single Oscar nomination, yet has stood the test of time more than any other Fox film of the year. It has more than 34,000 votes on the IMDb. whereas Zanuck’s baby, Decision Before Dawn has fewer than 1,000. Do yourself a favor and celebrate the life of Patricia Neal by watching or re-watching her in one of her most luminous performances ASAP.

Nominated only for its black-and-white art direction, Henry Hathaway’s Fourteen Hours stars Richard Basehart in his National Board of Review winning performance as a suicidal young man and Paul Douglas as the sympathetic cop who talks him down. Barbara Bel Geddes, Agnes Moorehead, a Jeffrey Hunter and Grace Kelly also turn in memorable performances.

The Writers’ Guild nominated Joseph L. Mankiewicz for his screenplay for People Will Talk but Oscar ignored this fine social comedy-drama with Cary Grant, Jeanne Crain, Hume Cronyn and Finlay Currie.

A remake of a 1935 film with Aline MacMahon and Basil Rathbone, John Sturges’ 1951 version of Kind Lady provided Ethel Barrymore with one of her best lead roles as the too trusting old lady who is held hostage by a gang of thieves led by Maurice Evans, Angela Lansbury and Betsy Blair. It’s wonderfully atmospheric and Lansbury and Blair are terrific. It was Oscar nominated for its black-and-white costume design.

Also nominated in the same category, Jean Negulesco’s The Mudlark is one of several films about Queen Victoria. The title character is a street urchin played by Andrew Ray, who sneaks into the place and is befriended by the aging, melancholy queen played by an unrecognizable, but still magnificent, Irene Dunne. Alec Guinness as Disraeli and Finlay Currie as John Brown are also excellent.

The talents of Thelma Ritter were evident from her first unbilled appearances in Miracle on 34th Street and A Letter to Three Wives. After her Oscar nomination for All About Eve, Fox gave her the starring roles in two 1951 films, The Mating Season and The Model and the Marriage Broker, but not star billing.

Gene Tierney and John Lund had the over-the-title billing in The Mating Season. Ritter, as Lund’s mother who poses as a maid in the newlyweds’ home was fourth billed below Miriam Hopkins as Tierney’s mother. Billing be damned, Ritter was the film’s major asset and everyone knew it including her fellow actors who gave her the film’s only Oscar nomination in support.

Ritter moved up to third billing with George Cukor’s The Model and the Marriage Broker, but she was still billed below the title. Only Jeanne Crain as the model was billed above, with Scott Brady as the guy she fixes Crain up with, and Ritter given co-star billing. Like Kind Lady and The Mudlark,it was received its only nomination for its black-and-white costume design.

Nominated for its color art direction as well as its screenplay, Max Ophuls’ La Ronde was the year’s most controversial film. An eye-popping delight, it wouldn’t shock anyone today but was banned in numerous U.S. cities at the time due to its winking at sexual promiscuity as eleven characters cheat on their significant others one by one, coming full circle back to the original couple. Anton Walbrook, Simone Signoret and Simone Simon were among the players in the film that even sophisticated New Yorkers weren’t allowed to see until 1954.

No matter what they did, Paramount couldn’t make a hit of Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole, not even changing the name of the film to The Big Carnival. Now regarded as one of Wilder’s best, the cynical story of news exploitation wasn’t completely overlooked in its day. The National Board of Review named Jan Sterling as the year’s Best Actress for her portrayal of the uncaring wife of a man trapped in a cave and Oscar recognized its screenplay.

An equally cynical film with the same star, Kirk Douglas, William Wyler’s Detective Story fared better with the public and with Oscar, scoring four nominations including Best Actress Eleanor Parker as detective Douglas’ wife with a secret and Lee Grant as a shoplifter. William Bendix and Joseph Wiseman also provided strong support.

Arthur Miller’s Broadway triumph, Death of a Salesman featured Oscar nominated performances from Fredric March, Mildred Dunnock and Kevin McCarthy. On the surface March seems too strong as the weak title character, but he is moving nonetheless. Dunnock and McCarthy, repeating their stage roles, are spot on.

Among the year’s major musicals, George Sidney’s remake of Show Boat was the most successful. Although dramatically it can’t hold a candle to the superior 1936 version, it is beautifully photographed and nicely played by Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown and William Warfield. It was nominated for its color cinematography and scoring of a musical.

The week’s new DVD releases include James Ivory’s The City of Your Final Destination and the Blu-ray debut of Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film of Hamlet.