[A record of sorts, it was thefirstUS feature film to show a bathroom with a toilet bowl.]With a novice actor (James Murray) in the lead role, he film was simply a realistic, bittersweet drama of the existence of an ordinary common and average American (an Everyman prototype embodied in a white-collar worker) trying to make it with his wife in the monolithic big city - but without any maudlin sentimentality, extreme passion, exploitation of romance, or escapist melodrama.He turns and fires toward he audience, causing a bloody-red color to wash over the screen.To a calypso beat, colorful silhouettes of erotic dancing girls undulate, o be replaced by the black silhouettes of three blind men moving in single file, tapping ahead of them with walking canes.It was nominated for only two Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury) and Best Editing - and lost both nominations.It was the firstrealisticwar drama and has served ever since as an archetypal model for all other war films.As a result, he earned increasingly high salaries, became a pioneer of the percentage deal (a performer accepted a reduced or non-existent salary in exchange for a percentage of the box office profits), and was the industry""s top box-office star by mid-decade.