John Garfield of the last film, based on the life of Al Schmid, a war hero blinded in combat. In preparing for the role, Garfield lived for several weeks with Schmid and his wife in Philadelphia and would blindfold himself for hours at a time. After the war, Garfield starred in a series of successful films such as "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946) with Lana Turner, "Humoresque" (1946) with Joan Crawford, and the Oscar-winning Best Picture "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947). In "Gentleman's Agreement", Garfield took a featured, but supporting, part because he believed deeply in the film's exposé of antisemitism in America.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King run. In the US and Canada, it is the 27th highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing 2003 film, and the highest-grossing instalment in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The film set an opening Wednesday record with $34.5 million. This record was first surpassed by "Spider-Man 2" and ranks as the seventh largest Wednesday opening. The film opened a day earlier for a midnight showing and accounted for about $8 million. This was nearly twice the first-day total of "" — which earned $18.2 million on its opening day in 2001 — as well as a significant increase over "" — which