Only about thirty minutes of The Private Life of Helen of Troy exist in the British Film Institute archive, perhaps just one third of its total running time. Adapted from a novel by John Erskine, the film version takes on the famed mythological figures of the Trojan War. IMDB details the plot: “Queen Helen of Troy, in response to her husband Menelaus’ lack of interest in her, elopes with Paris to Sparta. Menelaus, egged on by his henchman, starts a war with Paris, finally effecting the return of Helen. The time-honored custom demands that he have the pleasure of killing her, but her seductive loveliness restrains him.” It seems like the film covers much of what we already know from Homer’s and Virgil’s accounts. The cast includes Maria Corda as Helen of Troy, Lewis Stone as Menelaus, and Ricardo Cortez as Paris. The category for which it was nominated, Best Title Writing, existed only for the first year of the Academy Awards. Sound films were so ubiquitous by the second ceremony that the category was deemed no longer necessary. Title writing is a lost art, of course, but giving viewers a sufficient amount of interesting and useful information on a film’s intertitles made a huge difference. The recipient of the nomination, Gerald Duffy, was the first person to be nominated posthumously for an Oscar. He had died almost eleven months before the first ceremony.
Oscar Nomination: Best Title Writing
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