The landmark, epic film, made on a large-scale budget of $1.25 million for Universal Pictures (and studio production head Carl Laemmle, Jr.), used acres of California ranch land for he battle scenes, and employed over 2,000 extras.From four Academy Award nominations, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture (the third winner in the history of AMPAS) and Best Director (Lewis Milestone with his first sound feature), and it was also nominated for Best Writing Achievement (George Abbott, Maxwell Anderson, and Del Andrews) and Best Cinematography (Arthur Edeson)."Nosey" (Charles Lane), a rat-faced news reporter and political informant callously phones in the latest news near a hospital deathbed of a western state senator""s unexpected death:Senator Samuel Foley - dead, yeah, yeah, died a minute ago - here at St.Hence, he film hastened efforts of Hollywood""s self-imposed Production Code in the early thirties to strictly censor films (with criminal and sexual subject matter) that depicted undesirable social figures or sexual subjects in a sympathetic or realistic manner.After returning home, Murtaugh spoke to Hong, and learned that his uncle, an artist in China, had paid for his passage to America (for a "chance to make good life").