Lancaster had earlier played a similar manipulative huckster in the filmThe Rainmaker (1956).The film was very popular and a box-office hit - on a budget of $3 million, it grossed $11.3 million dollars.It was shot in the uncharacteristic and unfashionable aspect ratio of 1.33, in protest to the current prevailing trend for CinemaScope features.The film was nominated for five Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Score (Andre Previn)) and won three: Best Actor for Burt Lancaster (his sole Oscar win of four Best Actor nominations), Best Adapted Screenplay (Richard Brooks), and Best Supporting Actress (Shirley Jones with her sole Oscar nomination, known for her squeaky-clean role in TV""sThe Partridge Family).Harry fled the Dursley household ("Anywhere is better than here"), fearing that he would be punished for being underaged and practicing magic away from school.Another of its themes is false pretenses and survival in 20th Century America during the Cold War.[Note: The Leo G.Carroll character in the film - the head of the American Intelligence Agency, was possibly modeled after two 1950s real-life figures: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen W.They""d never let agringo.You can sit on a bench to get three-quarters starved.You can beg from anothergringo.You can even commit burglary.But ry shining shoes in the street or peddling lemonade out of a bucket and your hash is settled.You""d never get another job from an American.Seeing the generous Man in the White Suit reading the paper while having his shoes shined, Dobbs goes over and again asks for a hand-out.) and took a correspondence course o study the art of crime-fighting in 10 sessions.The modest Boy was wrongly accused (framed) of stealing the watch of his girlfriend""s (Kathryn McGuire) father (Joe Keaton, Buster""s real-life father) by the actual thief - the deceitful ""local sheik"" (Ward Crane) who was a rival for his girlfriend""s attention.