For the only time in the awards' televised history, the Best Picture Award is not given last. Instead, that moment is chosen to present an Honorary Award to Charles Chaplin.
Upon receiving his honorary award, Charles Chaplin received a twelve-minute standing ovation - the longest in the history of the Academy Awards.
The 7-minute opening number, "Lights, Camera, Action" was written by Billy Barnes and performed by Joel Grey.
The first of three shared credits of Helen Hayes and James Caan, for each the son of whom would play the same character in two versions of a classic long-running CBS cop show, with Hayes's son James MacArthur originating the character of Danny "Danno" Williams on Hawaii Five-O (1968) (also reprising the character as becoming the governor of Hawaii in the TV movie update Hawaii Five-O (1997)) and Caan's son Scott Caan playing the "Danno" role in the reboot series Hawaii Five-0 (2010). This evening, Hayes served as one of four hosts, and the elder Caan and Joey Heatherton presented the Best Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Subject Awards. It should be noted that if the sons had arranged the gig for each of the parents, the proper phrase would be "Book 'em, Danno!"