Oscar turned to religion in 1959 for three of its five Best Picture nominees – Ben-Hur, The Nun’s Story and The Diary of Anne Frank. This was not at all surprising given that there was a new religious fervor in the world following the election of “Good Pope John” or Pope John XXIII, the former Bishop of Venice who was the first Pope to acknowledge Jews as “brothers”. Indeed while the previous Pope (Pius XII) was often criticized for not doing enough to help the Jews during World War II, John’s many efforts to save Jewish and other refugees from the Holocaust have been well documented.

MGM’s spectacular film of Gen. Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel, Ben-Hur was actually the third film version of the epic tale. There had been a one-reeler in 1910 as well as the earlier MGM version in 1925 with Ramon Navarro and Francis X. Bushman under the direction of Fred Niblo.

Winner of a record eleven Oscars, the third version, directed by William Wyler, was filmed at Cinecitta Studios in Rome and at various other locations in Italy. Charlton Heston was named the year’s Best Actor in the title role of the Jewish nobleman who becomes a Roman slave, then hero and finally an early convert to Christianity. Stephen Boyd was Massala, his childhood friend and later enemy. The film’s centerpiece, the famed chariot sequence, took three months to film.

Among the film’s other Oscars were those for Best Picture, Director and Supporting Actor, Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ilderim. Jack Hawkins as Ben-Hur’s noble benefactor, Martha Scott as his mother and Cathy O’Donnell as his sister co-starred.

Audrey Hepburn gave the performance of her career as Sister Luke, the real life nun who questioned the neutrality of her order during World War II in Fred Zinnemann’s film of Kathryn Hulme’s The Nun’s Story.

The film has several memorable set pieces including Hepburn’s struggles in becoming a nun, her first assignment in a mental hospital, her eventual fulfillment of her lifelong wish to serve as a nurse in the Congo, and ultimately her return to the mother house and her decision to leave the convent.

Hepburn is magnificent throughout, supported by a gallery of brilliant players including Peter Finch as a lay doctor in the Congo, Edith Evans as the Mother Abbess of her order, Peggy Ashcroft as her Superior in the Congo, Dean Jagger as her father, Mildred Dunnock as the Mistress of Postulants, Beatrice Straight as her Superior in the Sanatorium, Patricia Collinge as a teaching nun, Ruth White as a martyred nun in the Congo and Colleen Dewhurst as a deranged mental patient.

Nominated for eight Oscars, the film failed to win any, although Hepburn won the New York Film Critics’ Award and Evans the National Board of Review Award. Both were nominated for Golden Globes and Hepburn for an Oscar as well.

Based n the real life diary of a young Jewish girl in hiding in Amsterdam until she and her family were caught and sent to concentration camps, George Stevens’ film of The Diary of Anne Frank is a warm, touching and moving drama of lives under constant threat. Yet, like Anne’s diary itself, the film is never maudlin.

Millie Perkins makes a memorable screen debut as Anne and Joseph Schildkraut repeats his acclaimed Broadway portrayal of Mr. Frank. Strong impressions are also provided by Diane Baker as Anne’s sister, Margot, Richard Beymer as their friend Peter Van Daan, Oscar winner Shelley Winters and Lou Jacobi as Peter’s parents and Oscar nominee Ed Wynn as an elderly refugee.

Nominated for eight Oscars, it won three, including awards for Best Black-and-White Cinematography and Art Direction, in addition to the one for Ms. Winters.

There was no religion in Oscar’s two remaining nominees, Anatomy of a Murder and Room at the Top.

Based on the best-selling novel, Otto Preminger’s film of Anatomy of a Murder was a searing study of a small town lawyer who defends a man accused of murdering the man who allegedly raped his wife.

Set to star James Stewart and Lana Turner, the film made headlines when Turner quit the film in a dispute over her wardrobe. Replaced by Lee Remick, the film was buzzed about for months before it opened.

James Stewart, in one of his best performances, was the perfect choice for the shy, yet brilliantly effective small town lawyer who got to say words like “panties” and “semen” on screen without having shocked 50s audiences giggle.

The superb cast also includes Ben Gazzara as the man on trial, Eve Arden and Arthur O’Connell as Stewart’s assistants, George C. Scott as the prosecutor, Kathryn Grant as a forthright witness and legendary Army vs. McCarthy lawyer Joseph N. Welch as the Judge.

Nominated for seven Oscars including acting nods for Stewart, O’Connell and Scott, the film won none. Stewart did, however, win his second New York Film Critics Award, his first since Mr. Smith Goes to Washington twenty years earlier.

One of the best of Britain’s angry young men or “kitchen sink” dramas as they were called, Jack Clayton’s Room at the Top starred Laurence Harvey as a social climbing executive in a small town who seeks to advance his career by marrying the boss’s daughter played by Heather Sears. In the meantime he has an affair with an older woman, played by Simone Signoret, whose heart he breaks.

Signoret won the Oscar while Harvey and Hermione Baddeley in a bit role as Signoret’s friend were nominated. The film, which was nominated for a total of six Oscars, also won for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Perhaps the best film not nominated for Best Picture, Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot did win one for Best Black-and-White Costume Design. Nominated for a total of six Oscars, Jack Lemmon accounted for the film’s only acting nod as one of two musicians disguised as women on the run from gangsters. There were no nominations for Tony Curtis as the other one, Marilyn Monroe as the ditzy singer and band member who falls for Curtis’ Cary Grant impressions or Joe E. Brown as the millionaire who chases Lemmon and utters one of the most famous closing lines in film history.

Completely ignored in the major categories, Alfred Hitchcock’s brilliant North by Northwest received only three technical nominations and no wins. Cary Grant had one of his best roles ever as a businessman mistaken for a government agent. Eva Marie Saint and James Mason co-starred in the film with such unforgettable set pieces as a murder at the U.N; a crop dusting plane chasing Grant and the climactic escape over the faces of the Presidents on Mount Rushmore.

Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn had the rare distinction of being nominated in the lead actress category for the same film, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer. Hepburn, in a rare villainous portrayal, is the cold, manipulative rich bitch who seeks to have niece Taylor lobotomized to prevent her from spreading stories about how her son, Taylor’s cousin, died. Montgomery Clift is the doctor who steps in to prevent the unthinkable.

Lana Turner was the star, but Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner were the Oscar nominees in Douglas Sirk’s remake of Imitation of Life. Although the 1934 original with Claudette Colbert, Louise Beavers and Fredi Washington evenly balanced the white and black characters, Sirk’s version was clearly on the side of the latter and against the shallowness of the former. Moore’s beaten down maid was also nominated for a Golden Globe while Kohner’s race denying daughter won that trophy.

Doris Day’s already legendary career moved in a new direction with the smash hit comedy, Pillow Talk, prompting former co-star Oscar Levant to quip that he knew Doris “before she became a virgin”, which only helped her film opposite Rock Hudson become even more popular. Day won her only Oscar nomination for it while co-star Thelma Ritter won her fifth as her alcoholic maid. The film won an Oscar for its Original Screenplay, one of its total of five nominations.

Directed by veteran Vincent Sherman, The Young Philadelphians gave us a rare look into the machinations of Philadelphia law firms, providing major acting opportunities for Paul Newman, Barbra Rush, Brian Keith, Dianne Foster and veteran Billie Burke, but it was newcomer Robert Vaughn who won the film’s only acting nomination. It was nominated for two other Oscars as well.

Nominated for two Oscars, Stanley Kramer’s end-of-the-world melodrama, On the Beach starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins and Fred Astaire in his first dramatic role.

All films discussed have been released on DVD in the U.S., although the long out-of-print Room at the Top may be difficult to track down.

This week’s new DVD releases include the animated How to Train Your Dragon and the art house hit, I Am Love starring Tilda Swinton.