''Benjy'' is a 1951 American short

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by

Fred Zinnemann Alfred ''Fred'' Zinnemann (April 29, 1907 – March 14, 1997) was an Austrian Empire-born American film director. He won four Academy Awards for directing and producing films in various genres, including thrillers, westerns, film noir and pla ...

. It won an Oscar in

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

for Documentary Short Subject.

Production

Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics. Born and ra ...

narrates this short film about a boy who was handicapped from birth. An orthopedic pediatrician wants to provide a therapeutic regimen that could cure the child, a scoliosis patient, but first he needs to convince the boy's parents, who have rejected the child because of his disabilities. “Fred Zinnemann”
Zinnemann and the film's production crew worked gratis on this project, which was originally designed to be used as a fundraiser for the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital. In his 1992 book ''An Autobiography'', Zinneman noted that

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

arranged for the crew on this production, and that the union members connected to the production turned their salaries back to the hospital. Henry Fonda also volunteered his services for the film. Although the film extensively used dramatized sequences to tell its story, it was successfully entered in the Academy Award category for Best Documentary Short Subject. Oscar’s Docs”

Cast

Lee Aaker Lee William Aaker (September 25, 1943 – April 1, 2021)Goldrup, Tom & Goldrup, Jim (2002) Growing Up on the Set: Interviews with 39 Former Child Actors of Classic Film and Television', McFarland & Co Inc, , pp. 5–12 was an American child actor ...

as Benjy *

as Narrator (voice)

References

External links

* 1951 films 1951 documentary films 1951 short films American black-and-white films American short documentary films Films directed by Fred Zinnemann Best Documentary Short Subject Academy Award winners 1950s short documentary films Sponsored films Documentary films about children with disability 1950s English-language films 1950s American films {{short-documentary-film-stub