The classic MGM, coming-of-age children's film acquired four Academy Award nominations (Best Picture, Best Film Editing - Elmo Veron, and Best Screenplay - Marc Connolly, John Lee Mahin, Dale Van Every) with Spencer Tracy taking home his very first Best Actor Oscar (he experienced back-to-back wins when he also won Best Actor the following year forBoys Town (1938)) for his heart-warming performance.His death caused an electrical blackout throughout Haddonfield.The darkened streets were deserted as Rachel searched for Jamie, fearing that she was being followed by the Shape.Mayerling was presumably chosen by Austrian-born director Wilder as the name of the butler, because it was the name of the royal hunting lodge where the tragic, mysterious and scandalous double death (a murder/suicide?) of the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary and his young Baroness mistress occurred in 1889.Michael sought savage revenge with a series of horrific and vicious murders - he first butchered his sleeping stepfather (watchingWhite Zombie (1932)) - slitting his throat with a large kitchen knife after duct-taping him to his chair(# 2 death)and gagging him; he then brutally and repeatedly clobbered Steve in the head with an aluminum baseball bat as he sat in the kitchen(# 3 death)preparing a sandwich after having sex; in his sister's upstairs bedroom, Michael donned Steve's grayish, featureless 'Myers' mask before creepily stroking his sister's leg and then stabbing her in the stomach with the same butcher knife - and continuing to stab and slash at her over a dozen times as she bloodily stumbled and crawled down the hallway(# 4 death).