21st Academy Awards 21st Academy Awards The 21st Academy Awards features numerous firsts. It was the first time a non-Hollywood production won Best Picture, "Hamlet" and the first time an individual (Laurence Olivier) directed himself in an Oscar-winning performance. It was the first Academy Awards ceremony to be giving awards for Best Costume Design. John Huston directed two films in this awards year for which his actors won Oscars: his father, Walter Huston, in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre"; and Claire Trevor for "Key Largo". The Huston family won three Oscars that evening. The ceremony was moved from the Shrine Auditorium to
John Huston next script was "High Sierra" (1941), to be directed by Raoul Walsh. The film became the hit Huston wanted. It also made Humphrey Bogart a star with his first major role, as a gunman on the run. Warners kept their end of the bargain, and gave Huston his choice of subject. For his first directing assignment, Huston chose Dashiell Hammett's detective thriller, "The Maltese Falcon", a film which failed at the box office in two earlier versions by Warners. However, studio head Jack L. Warner approved of Huston's treatment of Hammett's 1930 novel, as he stood by his word to