In the eternal battle between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, I’m apt to side with the former (any angry Astairians, please hold your hate mail). If you’ve only ever seen Singin’ In The Rain, you owe it to yourself to check out An American In Paris. 

Trivia time – who is the only actor in history to win an Academy Award for playing the same part in the same movie….give up? Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives. Harold lost both of his hands in WWII and starred in the film playing a character who did the same. Come Oscar night he was nominated for Supporting Actor. But the Academy, wanting to make sure he walked away with something, gave him a special Oscar for “bringing honor and courage to his fellow Veterans.” He then wound up winning the Supporting Actor Oscar too. 

Alfred Hitchcock’s second American film, Foreign Correspondent, was supposed to star Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, fresh off their hit Meet John Doe. But Coop wanted nothing to do with the genre, and Barbara was busy. Still, it’s a solid Hitch, starring steady hand Joel McCrea and Laraine Day, and featuring one of the Rotund One’s greatest shots ever.