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The best picture award was only officially dubbed the Palme d’Or in 1955. In 1951, the festival was moved to its spring slot and attracted more tourists and socialites than die-hard film buffs. The festival was interrupted again in 19 because of budgetary restraints, but it did draw the likes of Tyrone Power, Orson Welles, Norma Shearer and Errol Flynn in 1949. The festival eventually made its bow in 1946, screening such films as Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious,” Roberto Rossellini’s “Open City,” David Lean’s “Brief Encounter” and Jean Cocteau’s “La Belle et la Bete.” The Nazis invaded Poland that day, and World War II broke out two days later. But the event, scheduled for a September 1 opening, was stopped in its tracks. France’s inventor of cinema, Louis Lumiere, was ready to preside, and Cannes resident painter Jean Gabriel Domergue designed the poster. The scene was quite different in 1939 when the Festival du Film was conceived as an alternative to Mussolini’s Fascist-influenced Venice Film Festival. This week, hotels along the Croisette are getting plastered with huge and dubious billboards for questionable films as the town’s population of about 70,000 swells by another 40,000 film fans, 4,000 reporters and legions of paparazzi that force the pet-loving French to carry their pooches in Louis Vuitton pouches to keep them from getting trampled. So as the festival gets under way, let’s take a quick look back in time to reflect on how Cannes has changed. The 2007 edition marks the festival’s 60th anniversary.

A film festival, market, hype machine and gathering place for dealmaking and schmoozing on a grand scale, the event has introduced the movie world to some of its biggest and best-known actors and auteurs. But Cannes remains the sine qua non of the international movie business. “I wonder if normal people like nurses, teachers and cab drivers can relate to this,” he mused. Allen took in the vast Mediterranean scene - luxurious yachts floating lazily and beautiful bodies stretched out under umbrellas. “This is a detour from reality,” Allen said at an intimate lunch in his honour at the Carlton Beach restaurant.

Barton fink poster wild at heart movie poster