The Army, with a hand from Hollywood, has received a long-lost Oscar back into its ranks.
The little statue took a long, and largely unknown path before being passed from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis to an Army general during a Wednesday night ceremony and screening.
In 1942, a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, filmmaker Frank Capra joined the Army and was assigned to create a film series, “Why We Fight.”
Major Capra, who had directed such films as “It Happened One Night,” ”Lost Horizon” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” was told to create the documentary “Prelude to War.”
He showed the finished work to Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall, who insisted that President Roosevelt see the film.
In his 1971 autobiography, “The Name Above the Title,” Capra wrote of a screening at the White House. Amid the applause at the end, FDR exclaimed: “Every man, woman and child in the w orld should see this film!”
“Prelude to War” was at first seen solely by soldiers in Army quarters, but the Army eventually relented and 250 prints were sent to theaters across the country.
The Academy staged a screening of “Prelude to War” on Wednesday night at the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood.
“Sixty-five years later, ‘Prelude to War’ still continues to be one of the greatest documentaries ever made,” said Ganis, the emcee for the screening.
In 1942, “Prelude to War” won an Oscar for Best Documentary by the U.S. Army Special Services but, Ganis explained, the prize wasn’t an Oscar but a plaque. All of the awards were in plaster, not metal, during the war because of the metal shortage.
After the war the Army received an actual Oscar statue and it was stored in the Army Pictorial Center. When the center closed in 1970, the Oscar disappeared.
Capra, who died in 1991, made other documentaries for the military during the war, including “The Nazis Strike,” ”The Battle of Britain,” ”The Negro Soldier” and “Divide and Conquer.”
Earlier this year, Christie’s auction house advertised an Oscar for sale. It was the missing “Prelude to War” award.
The Academy notified the army, which claimed the prize.
On Wednesday night, Ganis presented a polished, 8-pound Oscar to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey E. Phillips, deputy chief of public affairs for the army.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More