The film, shot in 70 mm.widescreen color, received a phenomenal ten Academy Awards nominations and won seven major awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Scott refused to accept the honor), Best Director (Franklin J.Ford also cast his brother Francis (a silent film actor and director) in a cameo role as patriarch Dan Tobin - an ailing, white-bearded elderly man who refuses to die before witnessing he donnybrook fist fight in the finale.Alex deciphered the chamber""s puzzling feng shui compass, causing the floor to open up under his feet, and revealing a lower concealed room with terra-cotta horse statues, and the dead Emperor""s sarcophagus held on a horse-drawn chariot.The opening image shows a flat, paved highway road in rural Oklahoma lined by telephone poles.A small figure walks out of the distance toward the camera.At a crossroads (a symbol of America""s plight in the late 30s), one of the poles at the left of the frame leans dramatically askew.