To Tell the Truth
American television game show
To Tell the Truth is an American television panel show. Four celebrity panelists are presented with three contestants (the "team of challengers", each an individual or pair) and must identify which is the "central character" whose unusual occupation or experience has been read aloud by the show's host. When the panelists question the contestants, the two impostors may lie whereas the "central character" must tell the truth. The setup adds the impostor element to the format of "What's My Line?" and "I've Got a Secret".
The show was created by Bob Stewart and originally produced by Mark Goodson–Bill Todman Productions. It first aired on CBS from 1956 to 1968 with Bud Collyer as host. From 1969 to 1978, the show was revived in syndication, with Garry Moore as the first host. Former panelist and frequent guest host Joe Garagiola took over in 1977, following Moore's health issues. Garagiola hosted until the show's cancellation.
Robin Ward hosted a 1980–81 syndicated revival of the program, and a 1990–91 revival on NBC featured a succession of different hosts: Gordon Elliott, Lynn Swann and Alex Trebek. The show was revived again in syndication from 2000 to 2002 with John O'Hurley as host. The most recent version aired on ABC from 2016 to 2022 with Anthony Anderson as host.
Basic rules.
Although there have been some variations in the rules over the years (including the addition of a secondary game in some versions), certain basic aspects have remained consistent throughout all versions of "To Tell the Truth." Three challengers are introduced, all claiming to be the central character. The announcer typically asks the challengers, who stand side by side, "What is your name, please?" Each challenger then states, "My name is [central character's name]." The celebrity panelists then read along as the host reads aloud a signed affidavit about the central character.
The panelists are each given a period of time to question the challengers. Questions are directed to the challengers by number (designated "Number One," "Number Two" and "Number Three"), with the central character sworn to give truthful answers, and the impostors permitted to lie and pretend to be the central character.
After questioning is complete, each member of the panel votes on which of the challengers he or she believes to be the central character, either by writing the number on a card or holding up a card with the number of their choice, without consulting the other panelists. Any panelist who knows one of the challengers or has another unfair advantage is required to recuse or disqualify themselves, which, for scoring purposes, is counted as an incorrect vote. They would also sit out of the questioning.
Once the votes are in, the host asks, "Will the real [person's name] please stand up?" The central character then stands, often after some brief playful feinting and false starts among all three challengers. Occasionally, the central character would be asked to do something else related to his or her story instead of standing up. The two impostors then reveal their real names and their actual occupations. Prize money is awarded and divided among all three of the challengers, based on the number of incorrect votes received by the impostors.
History.
1956–1968, CBS.
"To Tell the Truth" was to have premiered on Tuesday, December 18, 1956, on CBS in primetime as "Nothing But The Truth", but the program title was changed to "To Tell the Truth" the day before the show's debut. (There was one pilot episode titled "Nothing But The Truth"; both the planned and eventual titles derive from the standard English court oath "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.")
The series was recorded in New York City, initially at CBS Studio 52 (the future Studio 54), before moving to the Ed Sullivan Theater late in its run. The existence of an audience ticket for a taping indicates that the show originated in color at the CBS Broadcast Center in late 1966.
Bud Collyer was the show's host (Mike Wallace hosted the pilot); recurring panelists by the 1960s included Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean, and Kitty Carlisle. (Cass and Carlisle stayed on as panelists for most subsequent editions.) Earlier regular panelists included Johnny Carson, Polly Bergen, Jayne Meadows, Don Ameche, Hy Gardner, Dick Van Dyke, Faye Emerson, Hildy Parks, John Cameron Swayze, Betty White, and Ralph Bellamy. Bern Bennett, Collyer's announcer on "Beat the Clock," was the inaugural announcer of "To Tell the Truth" in the 1950s. Upon Bennett's transfer to CBS's Los Angeles studios, Johnny Olson, who in time became the best-known of all Goodson–Todman Productions announcers, joined the show in 1960 and remained with the show until 1972.
On the pilot and the primetime run, three games were played per episode. For the pilot, a wrong vote from each of the four-member panel and one wrong vote derived from the majority vote of the audience (a total of five votes) paid $300, the total prize money divided among the three challengers. The studio audience also voted, with the majority vote counting equally with that of one by a celebrity panelist; thus, the maximum of five incorrect votes resulted in $1,500 divided among the challengers. If there was a tie for the highest vote from the audience, and for each panelist who was disqualified, a wrong vote was counted. There was no consolation prize for no wrong votes.
For the majority of the primetime run there was no audience vote, thus each wrong vote from the four-member panel paid $250, divided among the three challengers, for a possible $1,000 for a complete stump of four wrong answers. A consolation prize of $150 was awarded and divided among the three challengers if there were no wrong votes. For each panelist who was disqualified, a wrong vote was counted. A design element in the set for this series was a platform situated directly above and behind the emcee's desk. The contestants stood on this platform during their introduction, allowing the camera to pan directly down to the host. They then traveled down a curved staircase to the main stage level to play the game. Some subsequent versions would use a variation of the original set design; others did not and had all the action at floor level.
On Monday, June 18, 1962, a daytime five-day-per-week edition was introduced, running at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. The daytime show, also hosted by Collyer, featured a separate panel for its first three years, with actress Phyllis Newman as the only regular. The evening panel took over the afternoon show in 1965; in early 1968, Bert Convy replaced Poston in the first chair.
The daytime show was reduced to two games to accommodate a five-minute CBS news bulletin towards the half-hour mark. On the CBS daytime run, each wrong vote paid the three challengers $100 for a possible total of $400 divided among the three challengers for a "complete stump" of all four wrong votes. If all the votes were correct, the challengers split a consolation prize of $75. During the show's final year and a half, the studio audience also voted, with the majority vote counting equally with that of one of the celebrity panelists, thus a maximum of $500 divided among the challengers could be awarded for the maximum five incorrect votes. If there was a tie for the highest vote from the audience, and for each panelist who was disqualified, a wrong vote was counted. The audience vote was utilized on the nighttime show for its final six episodes (increasing the maximum possible payout to $1,250).
One CBS daytime episode featuring Dorothy Kilgallen, best known as a regular panelist on "What's My Line?", was broadcast in the Eastern, Central, and Mountain time zones on Monday, November 8, 1965, as news of her sudden death was circulated by wire services. The breaking news story prompted CBS newscaster Douglas Edwards to announce her death immediately after the episode ended. She had videotaped the program six days earlier, according to the "New York Herald Tribune". The newspaper added that Kilgallen and Arlene Francis both pretended to be Joan Crawford while sitting next to the real Crawford in a celebrity segment that the daytime series featured regularly starting in 1965. The episode was one of the large majority of "To Tell the Truth" daytime episodes that were destroyed because of the common practice of wiping videotape for reuse, prior to the development of less expensive technology. This was a different half-hour telecast from the 1962 primetime episode on which Kilgallen can be seen and heard as one of the panelists. Game Show Network repeated that episode decades later.
The primetime show ended on May 22, 1967, with the daytime show ending on September 6, 1968. The latter was replaced by the expansions of "Search for Tomorrow" and "Guiding Light," the last two remaining 15-minute programs on daytime television, to 30 minutes apiece, in a scheduling shuffle with "The Edge of Night", "The Secret Storm", and "Art Linkletter's House Party." Like the primetime version, the daytime show's popularity underwent a steady decline toward the end of its run, as it faced two popular daytime dramas on ABC and NBC, "General Hospital" and "Another World," respectively.
Metropole Orchestra leader Dolf van der Linden composed the show's first theme, "Peter Pan", used from 1956 to 1961. From 1961 to 1967, the show switched to a Bob Cobert-penned theme with a beat similar to "Peter Pan", and then to a Score Productions tune during its final CBS daytime season.
Most episodes of the original nighttime run of the series were preserved on black-and-white kinescope, along with a few color videotape episodes. Only a handful of shows remain from the CBS daytime series' first three years because of the then-common practice of wiping videotapes and reusing them due to their high cost and limited storage space. Many daytime episodes (including some in color) from 1966 to 1968 exist, including the color finale.
Reruns of the black-and-white kinescopes have been shown on Buzzr and Game Show Network.
1969–1978, syndication.
"To Tell the Truth" returned only a year later, in autumn of 1969, in first-run syndication. During the early years of its run, the syndicated "Truth" became a highly-rated component of stations' early-evening schedules after the Federal Communications Commission imposed the Prime Time Access Rule in 1971, opening up at least a half hour (a full hour, usually, on Eastern Time Zone stations) to fill with non-network fare between either the local or network evening newscast and the start of their networks' primetime schedules for the evening. Other stations found success running the program in place of a daytime network game or soap opera, or in the afternoon fringe time period between the end of network daytime programming at 4:30/3:30 Central and the evening newscasts.
Like the network editions that preceded it, the syndicated "To Tell the Truth" taped its episodes in New York for its entire run. Initially occupying the same studio space at the Ed Sullivan Theater that it had for the last few years of the network series, the show would eventually move operations to NBC's studios
at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the early 1970s.
Each wrong vote in this version was worth $50 to the challengers; complete stumps of the entire panel won the challengers a total of $500. There were two games per episode, and there was often a live demonstration or video clip to illustrate the central character's story after many of the games.
The show was first released to local stations on September 8, 1969. A total of 1,715 episodes of this version were produced, with the series ending on September 7, 1978. Some markets that added the series after its initial 1969 release opted to carry the show for another season or two after 1978 in order to catch up on the episodes that had not aired in their viewing area.
To host the revival series, Goodson and Todman made a call to original host Bud Collyer; however, Collyer had been suffering from a series of health issues that led to his death on the day the 1969 series premiered, and he told them "I'm just not up to it." The next call they made was to Garry Moore, the former host of "I've Got a Secret" as well as the CBS variety series "The Garry Moore Show." Moore had largely been away from television since his variety series was cancelled in 1964 (he left "I've Got a Secret" around the same time), but he decided the time was right to return and he accepted the offer to host the new series. Regular panelists included Orson Bean during the first year, Peggy Cass, Kitty Carlisle and Bill Cullen, who was also the designated substitute host whenever necessary. Many regulars from the original run appeared, including Tom Poston and Bert Convy. Semi-regulars during the 1968–73 time period included Gene Rayburn, Joe Garagiola, Alan Alda, Tony Roberts and Nipsey Russell.
In late 1976, during the eighth season, Moore was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and left for the remainder of the season to deal with his illness. As he had done numerous times before, Bill Cullen became his replacement. As Cullen's time as host continued on, Mark Goodson noted how Cullen's serving as host, rather than as a panelist, hurt the chemistry he had shared with Cass and Carlisle. A decision was made to have Cullen return to the panel permanently and give semi-regular panelist Joe Garagiola the hosting position. Using a baseball term for "substitute," Garagiola stated that he was "pinch hitter" for Moore, who returned to the series for a farewell performance on the ninth-season premiere in 1977. Moore explained why he had left the program, then after presiding over one last game, announced his final retirement from television and handed the host position to Garagiola permanently. "To Tell the Truth" ended production at the end of the season.
Johnny Olson stayed with "To Tell the Truth" when it moved to syndication. He left in 1972, when he moved to Los Angeles to announce the Goodson-Todman revivals of "The Price Is Right" and "I've Got a Secret." NBC staff announcer Bill Wendell succeeded Olson from 1972 to 1977, with Alan Kalter taking over during the final season. Don Pardo, also an NBC staff announcer, served as a backup to Wendell and Kalter.
"To Tell the Truth" used three distinctive sets throughout its nine-year syndicated run. The first, designed by Theodore Cooper and making heavy use of the psychedelic art styles popular in the period, was used for the first two seasons and the first four weeks of the third; those designs were muted somewhat with pastel shades on the second set used from that point through the first 30 weeks of the fourth season. The third—and longest-lived—set, which Cooper also designed, was a mostly-blue block motif with gold accents, and included a large on-stage representation of the show's new logo, which made use of stacking and interlocking letters, behind the panel. This set was used for the remainder of the run, and the logo would be reused on the future 1990 revival.
This version featured a lyrical, pop music-styled theme song written and composed by Score Productions chief Bob Israel and "Truth" producer Paul Alter, along with veteran theme composer Charles Fox; an instrumental, and orchestral, version would be used for the 1990 series.
The bulk of this version is intact. However, the current status of the first season is unknown, and is presumed to be lost to wiping. GSN has never rerun the first season of the show, and had always begun with the second season, in 1970. One episode from the first season exists in the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Buzzr began airing episodes from 1973 in October 2018.
On the October 5, 1973, episode, one of the challengers was Georg Olden, who disclosed that he was the graphic designer who created the "To Tell the Truth man" icon that was used during the 1956–1978 seasons.
1980–1981, syndication.
On September 8, 1980, a new "To Tell the Truth" series premiered in syndication. The new series emanated once again from Rockefeller Plaza in New York, and Canadian TV personality Robin Ward served as the host, with Alan Kalter returning as announcer. A new theme and set were commissioned for this edition of "Truth." Even though previous regulars Bill Cullen, Peggy Cass, and Kitty Carlisle made frequent appearances, there was no regular panel for this edition. The new "Truth" aired for one season in syndication, but it never recaptured the popularity of the original, and aired its final episode on June 12, 1981, with reruns airing until September 11, 1981.
Two games were played, and each wrong vote paid the challengers $100; $500 was paid if the entire panel had been fooled. No consolation prize was given if the entire panel correctly identified the subject.
After the second game, a new game called "One on One" was played with the four impostors from earlier. One fact had been purposely withheld from the panel about one of the impostors and it was up to the panelists to determine correctly to which of the impostors it applied. One at a time, each panelist would be given twenty seconds to question the impostor sitting directly across from him or her and would then say whether he or she believed the fact applied to that impostor. Wrong votes still paid $100, with $500 paid if the panel did not correctly determine to whom the fact pertained.
The 1980 edition of "To Tell the Truth" was a rarity in that it was still based in New York while nearly all television game show production had moved to California by this point. There was only one other game show in production during the run of this "To Tell the Truth" series that emanated from New York. "The $50,000 Pyramid", which premiered at the midway point of the 1980-81 season, was the other; the series was taped at ABC’s Studio TV-15, the former Elysee Theater, on West 58th Street. These two would be the last non-cable productions to tape regularly in New York until 1999 when "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" premiered on ABC.
1990–1991, NBC.
"To Tell the Truth" returned to NBC for a run that lasted only eight months, from September 3, 1990 (Labor Day) to May 31, 1991. Unlike previous versions that originated from New York, the 1990 version was taped at NBC's The Burbank Studios in California. The show's theme music was an orchestral remix of the 1969–78 theme (minus the lyrics), and the show utilized the block-letter logo from 1973 to 1978. All episodes of this series exist and have aired on GSN in reruns.
Actor Richard Kline hosted two pilot episodes with Charlie O'Donnell as announcer; one of these was accidentally aired as the premiere episode in the Eastern and Central time zones. Australian "A Current Affair" reporter Gordon Elliott hosted "To Tell the Truth" for its first eight weeks (September 3 to October 26, 1990). The bespectacled Elliott bore a passing resemblance to former "To Tell the Truth" emcee and panelist Bill Cullen. A dispute with Elliott's former employers in Australia temporarily forced him off American television altogether; his replacement was then-frequent panelist Lynn Swann. Swann, the first African-American host of "To Tell the Truth", hosted the show for the next 14 weeks (October 29, 1990 to February 1, 1991) until his job as a reporter for ABC Sports at the time forced him to leave. Alex Trebek was brought in as his replacement for the remainder of the run (February 4 to May 31, 1991), at the same time he was hosting "Classic Concentration" on NBC and "Jeopardy!" in syndication. Mark Goodson filled in for two episodes Trebek missed when his wife Jean went into labor during a taping with their son Matthew. The announcer for the 1990 series was Burton Richardson (O'Donnell served as his substitute).
The celebrity panelists for "To Tell the Truth" during this period included several of the 1970s panel stalwarts, including Kitty Carlisle, who appeared on a majority of the shows, taking the fourth and most upstage seat. The first seat, furthest downstage, saw Ron Masak and Orson Bean alternate on the panel for 34 of the 39 weeks the series was on air. The chair next to that was occupied by rotating guests, although voice actress Dana Hill appeared in the seat most often. The third chair most often featured David Niven Jr. as a panelist, although Masak and Bean would also sit there if both were to appear on the same program. Polly Bergen and Peggy Cass, who began appearing on the original series, would appear from time to time, and other frequent panelists included Vicki Lawrence, Cindy Adams, and Betty White. The panelists were introduced in twos, with the male panelists escorting the female panelists down the set's main staircase, followed by the host. For one week, Monty Hall (who would later replace Bob Hilton as a permanent guest host on the 1990 version of "Let's Make a Deal") sat in the first seat.
Two games were played with two sets of impostors. Any incorrect votes up to two paid $1,000. If three of the panelists had voted incorrectly, the players split $1,500. On the pilot, each incorrect vote earned $500. If the panel was fooled entirely, the players split $3,000.
After the second game, a new version of the "One on One" game from the 1980 series was played. A seventh civilian player was brought out with two stories, and a member of the studio audience was given an opportunity to win money by trying to figure out which of the two stories was true. Each panelist was given the opportunity to ask the contestant one question for each story, and after both stories had been presented the audience member chose which one he or she thought was the truth. After the choice was made, the contestant revealed the right answer and if the audience member came up with it, he or she won $500. If the contestant stumped the audience member, that player won $1,000.
Occasionally, celebrities whose faces were not well known would attempt to stump the audience during this part of the game. For example, Hank Ketcham, the creator of "Dennis the Menace" and a challenger on the original "To Tell the Truth" in May 1962, tried during the show's Christmas Day episode to convince an audience member that he was really the songwriter to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (Johnny Marks had actually done this), but was unsuccessful in doing so.
2000–2002, syndication.
The show then had a two-year run in syndication, starting in 2000, with John O'Hurley hosting, and Burton Richardson returning as the announcer. The series was again produced at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. Gary Stockdale supplied the music for this edition. In most markets, it was paired up with "Family Feud", which was then hosted by Louie Anderson; O'Hurley would eventually join that program in 2006 and host it until 2010, when Steve Harvey took over.
Actor Meshach Taylor was the only regular to appear on every episode of this edition, while Paula Poundstone was a regular during the first season. Panelists appearing in at least six weeks of episodes included Brooke Burns, Dave Coulier, Brad Sherwood, Traci Bingham, Kim Coles, and Cindy Margolis. The show's website touted Coles and Burns as regulars for season two in place of Poundstone, though neither panelist was featured in every show that year. Kitty Carlisle appeared as a panelist for one episode in the first season, making her the only panelist to have appeared on all incarnations of this show to that point. It was Carlisle's final appearance in the franchise before her death in 2007.
This edition of "To Tell the Truth" brought back the audience vote that the original series had last used. Its vote was revealed after the panel had cast their votes, just before O'Hurley asked for the subject to identify himself or herself. Each incorrect vote paid $1,000, with a maximum of $5,000 available if the challengers managed to completely fool both the panel and the audience. (A tie in the audience vote or panel disqualification counted as a wrong vote, as they had in previous versions.) In the first several weeks of shows, a game that resulted in five incorrect votes was worth $10,000 for the challengers.
According to Steve Beverly's tvgameshows.net, this edition of "Truth" never received a rating higher than 1.8. It was cancelled on January 28, 2002, only 96 episodes into its second season. However, repeats continued to air through March 15, 2002. Episodes of this series have aired on GSN in reruns.
2016–2022, ABC.
ABC ordered six episodes of the show, hosted by Anthony Anderson, which taped in July 2015 and began airing on ABC on June 14, 2016. Anderson is the second African-American host of the franchise; the first was Lynn Swann on the short-lived 1990 NBC daytime version.
The new, weekly 60-minute primetime series, while maintaining the show's core gameplay elements, presented itself as more of a comedy series. Most notably, it refocused the competition on the panelists themselves, who received points for correctly identifying the central character(s) in each round; at show's end, the winning panelist was briefly recognized while the "loser" was made to suffer a small comical humiliation. No mention was ever made on-air as to compensation to the central characters or impostors.
Also appearing on the new series was Doris Day Bowman, Anderson's mother, presented as the "scorekeeper." In some cases, where a panelist knows the central character or one of the impostors, Bowman also plays on their behalf. When Anderson's family appeared on "Celebrity Family Feud", the behavior of "Mama Doris" was so outrageous that the producers approached Anderson about having her on "To Tell The Truth".
The first season also included a house band, Cheche and His Band of Liars, and David Scott as an offstage announcer; these were replaced in season 2 by prerecorded music and an introduction provided by Anderson himself.
In this version, most contestants introduce themselves solely by claiming the central character's story, rather than by name (e.g., "I was a Bond girl" rather than "My name is ..."); some panels have contestants of different genders. The questioning period is not split distinctly among the panelists, and Anderson and Bowman often participate in the questioning.
Five rounds were played per episode, along with one additional round entitled "Before You Go", which was played with the two impostors of the just-completed round, one of whom had their own story.
Many episodes include a demonstration by one of the central characters.
Scoring.
Panelists receive 10 points for correctly identifying the central character in each round, or 20 points for the final round (1 and 2 points in earlier episodes).
At the end of the episode, the losing panelist is subjected to some sort of minor humiliation; if panelists are tied, Bowman chooses the loser. In season one, the losing panelist was subjected to "Tweet a Lie," in which Anderson posted an embarrassing tweet to that panelist's Twitter account. In later episodes, the panelist was awarded a "dummy" crown by Bowman and asked to promenade in the style of a beauty pageant winner.
Starting with the August 11, 2019, episode, panelists who earn a perfect score win the "Doris Award," a gold-colored bust of Bowman. To date, three panelists have won the Doris Award: Oliver Hudson, on September 22, 2019; Deon Cole, on June 25, 2020; and Michael Strahan, on August 6, 2020. (Bowman had to play one round on Strahan's behalf, as he knew the central characters.)
Panelists.
The first season featured three regular panelists: Betty White, NeNe Leakes, and Jalen Rose; White has appeared on all three broadcast network versions of the show. In season two, the regular panelists were eliminated.
To maintain social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the sixth season reduced the number of panelists from four to three.
Four panelists made ten or more appearances on the show: Sherri Shepherd (eleven), Nikki Glaser (ten), Joel McHale (ten), and Jalen Rose (ten, including six as a season one regular). Former host Alex Trebek was a panelist in a 2018 episode, making him the first host to appear on a subsequent version as a panelist.
Merchandise.
A board game was released by Lowell in 1957.
During the run of the 2000 version, a single-player online game was offered by the short-lived website Uproar.com, and promoted by host John O'Hurley at the end of each episode.
A video slot machine game, based on the 1969 version, was released to American casinos nationwide by Bally Gaming Systems in 2002.
Notes.
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Pani Jaisa Piyar
Pakistani TV series
Pani Jaisa Pyar (lit: Love Like Water) () is a Pakistani drama serial which aired on Hum TV. It was written by Moomal Shunaid, and directed by Sarmad Sultan Khoosat. Paani Jaisa Piyar has received mostly positive reviews.
Plot.
"Pani Jaisa Piyar" is the story of Sana, a 25-year-old girl from Faisalabad. She has two older siblings, Hassan and Dua. Sana's family used to be wealthy and of a high social class, but this all went away after the death of her father. The family's only support now is that of Hassan, who quit school at an early age in order to support the family. Sana has been engaged to Adarsh, the son of her mother's best friend Arfa ever since she was a child. However. Adarsh has been unaware of this engagement, as his parents thought that he needed to focus more on his education than wedding plans.
Adarsh, however, is in love with Sasha, a childhood friend of his. When he tells his parents that he wishes to marry her, they refuse, saying that he is already engaged to Sana and has to leave their home if he doesn't marry her. After much deliberation, Adarsh decides that it would be best to marry Sana, as there is no point in marrying Sasha if they have no home and money.
Back in Faisalabad, Sana's brother Hassan is taken to prison after getting into a fight with boys from the neighborhood who were making inappropriate remarks towards Sana. Hassan's best friend, Saad, who has no family of his own, takes care of the 2 sisters and their mother in Hassan's absence. Saad has already told Sana that he likes her, but he has never done or said anything more on the matter as he knows that she is already engaged. Sana feels uncomfortable in his presence, but her mother, thinking that Saad will stop aiding them, makes Sana spend time with him anyway, as she believes that Saad's only feelings towards her daughter are brotherly. Saad takes Sana out to dinner one day, and he takes Sana to his house to show her around. Sana refuses at first, but says yes after Saad insists. Saad shows Sana his room, which is decorated with pictures of her, and confesses that he is in love with her. He asks for one night with her, and rapes her when she tries to run away. He takes her back home an hour or two later, telling her that he will withdraw Hassan's court case if she tells anyone, and she complies. When Hassan is acquitted, however, Sana cannot keep the truth in much longer, and tearfully tells him everything. Hassan, in anger, chases Saad to the railway and tracks and chokes him to death, being taken back to jail soon after.
Sana's mother Nuzhat wishes to wed Sana off to Adarsh as soon as possible after this, without telling him or his family about Sana's rape. But Sana tells Adarsh's mother Arfa anyway, knowing that she will break their engagement the second she hears the news. However, Arfa, who is indebted to Nuzhat because she took Arfa's daughter Dua in and raised her as her own so that Arfa could get remarried and live a pleasant life, accepts Sana. She tells Sana that she has told Adarsh everything and that he accepts her as well.
After Sana and Adarsh's wedding, Sana brings the topic up, saying how grateful she is that Adarsh accepted her knowing everything that had happened to her. Adarsh however, is unaware of the circumstances, and flips out when Sana tells him everything. He is furious that his mother tricked him like this, and believes that Sana was not raped at all, but did everything of her own free will. He begins to treat Sana horribly, and restarts his relationship with Sasha, even going so far as to have sexual relations with her. When Sana finds out that she is pregnant, Adarsh denies any possibility that the child is his, and claims that Sana must have an abortion because he doesn't want to take care of her illegitimate child. Sana, not knowing what to after being accused of so many crimes, and still being in the aftershock of the death of her mother and hanging of her brother, attempts to commit suicide by overdose of sleeping pills. However, Arfa and Adarsh find her just minutes after the pills take effect and take her to the hospital, and there is no harm done.
Adarsh tells his parents that he wishes to divorce Sana, and they respond by saying that it is not legal for a man to divorce his wife while she is pregnant. Adarsh retaliates by saying that this doesn't apply to him as the child is not his, and his father is outraged at this accusation. He tells Adarsh to leave the house, and he does, but not before asking that his father ask Arfa what the truth is. Arfa tells him everything, and the father is devastated to hear that he could have had a daughter to take care of all these years.
Things get worse and worse for Sana and Adarsh, finally resulting in Adarsh beating Sana until she is hospitalized. Adarsh's father kicks him out of the house, and Sana decides to go back to Faisalabad with Dua, where she has her son 2 months later. A DNA report shows that the baby is in fact Adarsh's son, but Sana argues that the child is hers and hers only. Arfa brings mithai to Sasha's home in celebration of her grandson, and walks in to find that Adarsh and Sasha's wedding is going on. She leaves in a fit of tears, and shows Adarsh the DNA report the next day, telling him the truth about what happened. However, Adarsh tells his mother that he will divorce Sana no matter what. Arfa


Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
2004 film by Alfonso Cuarón
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a 2004 fantasy film directed by Alfonso Cuarón from a screenplay by Steve Kloves. It is based on the 1999 novel "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J. K. Rowling. It is the sequel to "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002) and the third instalment in the "Harry Potter" film series. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, alongside Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry's best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger respectively. It chronicles Harry's third year at Hogwarts and his quest to uncover the truth about his past, including the connection recently-escaped Azkaban prisoner Sirius Black has to Harry and his deceased parents.
With this film, the "Harry Potter" series switched to a longer eighteen-month production cycle. Cuarón was selected as director from a list that included Callie Khouri and Kenneth Branagh. The cast of previous instalments returned for the film, with the additions of Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Timothy Spall, and Emma Thompson, among others. It was the first appearance of Michael Gambon as Professor Albus Dumbledore, due to Richard Harris's death in 2002. Principal photography began in February 2003 at Leavesden Film Studios. It was the first in the series to extensively use real-life locations, with sets built in Scotland and scenes shot in London. Filming wrapped in November 2003.
The film was released on 31 May 2004 in the United Kingdom, and on 4 June 2004 in North America. It was the first "Harry Potter" film to use IMAX Technology and released into IMAX theatres. "Prisoner of Azkaban" grossed a total of $808 million worldwide, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2004, behind "Shrek 2". Critics praised Cuarón's direction and the lead actors' performances. It is credited for marking a notable shift in the franchise's tone and directing style and is often regarded by critics and fans alike as the best "Harry Potter" film. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Original Music Score and Best Visual Effects, at the 77th Academy Awards in 2004. It was followed by "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" in 2005.
Plot.
Harry Potter spends another dissatisfying summer with the Dursleys. On his thirteenth birthday, Vernon's visiting sister Marge viciously insults Harry and his parents, and an angry Harry accidentally causes her to inflate and float away. Expecting to be expelled for using magic outside school, Harry flees.
The Knight Bus, an emergency transport for stranded witches and wizards, takes Harry to the Leaky Cauldron, where the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge assures Harry that he will not face punishment. Upon reuniting with his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry learns that Sirius Black, a supporter of Lord Voldemort, has escaped Azkaban and plans to kill him. While journeying to Hogwarts, the Hogwarts Express is boarded by Dementors, ghostly prison guards searching for Black. One enters Harry's compartment, causing him to faint, but the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, uses a Patronus Charm to repel it. At Hogwarts, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore announces that Dementors will patrol the school until Black is captured. Rubeus Hagrid is appointed as the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, but his first class goes awry when Draco Malfoy provokes a Hippogriff named Buckbeak to attack him; as a result, Draco's father, Lucius, has Buckbeak sentenced to death.
Returning to Gryffindor Tower, the students find the Fat Lady's portrait has been attacked, and the terrified Fat Lady warns Dumbledore that Black entered the castle. Hogwarts is put into lockdown until Dumbledore deems the area safe. During a stormy Quidditch match, Dementors cause Harry to fall off his broomstick, which is destroyed by the Whomping Willow. Dumbledore uses the Slowing Charm to break Harry's fall, who later wakes up in the infirmary.
Harry, after leaving the infirmary, is caught trying to visit Hogsmeade by Fred and George, who give him the Marauder's Map. Using the map, Harry sneaks into Hogsmeade. He follows Professor Minerva McGonagall, Madam Rosmerta, and Minister Fudge and learns that Black is actually his godfather but divulged the Potters' whereabouts to Voldemort and murdered their mutual friend Peter Pettigrew. The map is later discovered in Harry's possession by Lupin, who confiscates it.
Determined to ward off the Dementors, Harry convinces Lupin to teach him the Patronus Charm. Watching Buckbeak's execution, Ron is dragged by a large black dog into a hole at the base of the Whomping Willow. This leads the trio through an underground passage into the Shrieking Shack, where the dog is revealed to be Black, an Animagus who can transform into an animal.
Lupin appears, embracing Black as an old friend before revealing himself to be a werewolf. Snape arrives to apprehend Black but is knocked out by Harry's spell. Lupin and Black reveal that Ron's familiar, a rat named Scabbers, is actually the Animagus form of Pettigrew. Having betrayed Harry's parents, he faked his death and framed Black for his own crimes. Turning Pettigrew back into human form, the group heads back to the castle, intending to both expose Pettigrew as the true criminal and exonerate Sirius, but the full moon causes Lupin to transform into a werewolf and Pettigrew escapes. Black transforms into his animal form and fights off werewolf Lupin, who seriously injures Black. Black manages to escape when a distant wolf cry distracts Lupin and sends him off. Harry finds Black, who are then both attacked by Dementors until an unseen figure casts a powerful Patronus charm to ward them off. Harry falls unconscious, awakening in the infirmary with Dumbledore and Hermione.
After learning that Black is sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss, Harry and Hermione use Hermione's Time-Turner to go back three hours. They witness their earlier actions and save Buckbeak from execution. When Dementors attack past Harry and Black, Harry realizes he was the one who saved himself and Black with a Patronus charm, and uses it to drive the Dementors away. They successfully free Black, who escapes on Buckbeak. Returning to the infirmary, they find Lupin, exposed as a werewolf, resigning and giving Harry back the Marauder's Map. Black gifts Harry a Firebolt broomstick, which he joyfully rides.
Cast.
Several actors from the previous film reprise their roles in "Prisoner of Azkaban". Harry Melling appears as Dudley Dursley, Harry's Muggle cousin. James and Oliver Phelps play Fred and George Weasley, Ron's twin brothers; Chris Rankin appears as Percy Weasley, Ron's other brother and a Hogwarts head boy; and Bonnie Wright portrays their sister Ginny, while Mark Williams plays their father, Arthur Weasley. Tom Felton portrays Draco Malfoy, Harry's rival in Slytherin, while Jamie Waylett and Josh Herdman appear as Crabbe and Goyle, Draco's minions. Matthew Lewis and Devon Murray play Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan respectively, two Gryffindor students in Harry's year. David Bradley appears as Argus Filch, Hogwarts' caretaker, while Robert Hardy portrays Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic.
Pam Ferris portrays Aunt Marge, Vernon's sister; Lee Ingleby plays Stan Shunpike, conductor of the Knight Bus; and Jim Tavaré appears as Tom, innkeeper of The Leaky Cauldron, replacing Derek Deadman from the first film. Dawn French plays the Fat Lady, a painting at Hogwarts, replacing Elizabeth Spriggs from the first film. Julie Christie appears as Madam Rosmerta, the barmaid at the Three Broomsticks. Warwick Davis appears as the conductor of the Hogwarts choir. The role was offered to him by producer David Heyman due to Filius Flitwick, Davis' original role, being absent from the script. The change in appearance for the new character later became Flitwick's look for the rest of the series.
Production.
Development.
With the film adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", production of the "Harry Potter" films switched to an eighteen-month cycle, which producer David Heyman explained was "to give each [film] the time it required." Chris Columbus, the director of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (2001) and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002), decided not to return to helm the third instalment as he wanted to spend more time with his children. Even so, Columbus remained on as a producer alongside Heyman, as Columbus felt that such capacity offered him a better work-life balance, allowing him to not be present on the set all the time and spend time with his children. Guillermo del Toro was approached to direct, but had envisioned a more Dickensian version of the stories, and was put off by the first two films which he found too "bright and happy and full of light". Marc Forster turned down the film because he had made "Finding Neverland" (2004) and did not want to direct child actors again. M. Night Shyamalan was considered to direct but turned it down because he was working on his own film, "The Village" (2004). Warner Bros. then composed a three-name shortlist for Columbus's replacement, which consisted of Callie Khouri, Kenneth Branagh (who played Gilderoy Lockhart in "Chamber of Secrets") and eventual selection Alfonso Cuarón in July 2002. Cuarón was initially reluctant to direct, as he had not read any of the books or seen the films. Del Toro berated him for his arrogance and told him to read the books. After reading the series, he changed his mind and signed on to direct, as he had immediately connected to the story.
Cuarón's appointment pleased J. K. Rowling, who loved his film "Y tu mamá también" (2001) and was impressed with his adaptation of "A Little Princess" (1995). Heyman found that "tonally and stylistically, [Cuarón] was the perfect fit." As his first exercise with the actors who portray the central trio, Cuarón assigned Radcliffe, Grint and Watson to write an autobiographical essay about their character, written in the first person, spanning birth to the discovery of the magical world, and including the character's emotional experience. Cuarón recalls, "Emma's essay was 10 pages long. Daniel's was exactly two. Rupert didn't deliver the essay. When I questioned why he didn't do it, he said, 'I'm Ron; Ron wouldn't do it.' So I said, 'Okay, you do understand your character.' That was the most important piece of acting work that we did on "Prisoner of Azkaban", because it was very clear that everything they put in those essays was going to be the pillars they were going to hold on to for the rest of the process."
Costume and set design.
Cuarón wanted to establish a more mature tone in the characters' costumes and the sets. He explained, "What I really wanted to do was to make Hogwarts more contemporary and a little more naturalistic." He studied English schools and noted, "Each teenager's individuality was reflected in the way they wore their uniform. So I asked all the kids in the film to wear their uniforms as they would if their parents weren't around." Columbus considered the costumes changes as "a reflection of the character development within the books themselves" and their transition to teenagers. Whereas in the first two films the characters are constantly in their uniforms, in "Prisoner of Azkaban" the characters often wear modern street clothes. Rowling, who was consulted for this change, stated, "for me the cloaks and everything makes sense for the academic time but in personal time they would be wearing their own clothes." Jany Temime joined the film as costume designer, eventually working on all of the following instalments in the series.
For Remus Lupin, Temime opted for "tweeds typical of England." Cuarón stated that the character should look like "an uncle who parties hard on the weekends", so Temime preserved his gown "unkempt and more shabby than the other teachers’ robes." For Trelawney, Thompson made sketches of the costumes and sent them to Temime and Cuarón. Thompson saw the character as "a person who hasn't looked in the mirror for a long time". In order to highlight the character's short-sightedness, Temime used material filled with mirrors and eyes, as well as oversized glasses with magnifying lenses. Cuarón wanted Dumbledore to look like "an old hippie, but still very chic and with a lot of class". Temime used tie-dyed silk that would float behind him while walking, which she considered "a much lighter look" that gave the character more energy, in contrast with the "heavy and majestic" costumes designed for Harris' portrayal of Dumbledore.
Cuarón's main concern was for Hogwarts to have a larger scope and be grounded in the real world. The scale model of the Hogwarts exterior designed for the first film was expanded by around 40% for "Prisoner of Azkaban". Production designer Stuart Craig and art director Gary Tomkins added constructions including a clock tower and a courtyard, and the hospital wing was redesigned and rebuilt. Other sets constructed for the film included the Hogsmeade village and The Three Broomsticks public house.
The use of real-life locations significantly changed the look of Hagrid's hut. For "Prisoner of Azkaban", the landscape around the set changed from being completely flat to the side of a hill. The hut doubled in size, with a separate bedroom built on the back and the addition of a large pumpkin patch and a chimney. Craig cited the Shrieking Shack as a particularly challenging set to create. It was built on a large hydraulic platform with the help of the special effects department, "creaking and moving as if being continually buffeted by the wind" in order to appear almost alive.
Some sets were either reused from earlier films or used for more than one space. The Defence Against the Dark Arts and Divination classrooms were filmed in the same set. The Honeydukes set was a redress of the set of Flourish & Blotts that was seen in "Chamber of Secrets", which, in turn, had been redressed from the Ollivanders set from the first film.
Filming.
Principal photography began on 24 February 2003, at Leavesden Film Studios, and ended on 28 November 2003.
The third film was the first to extensively use real-life locations, as much of the first two films had been shot in the studio. Three sets for the film were built in Glen Coe, Scotland, near the Clachaig Inn. Harry's ride on Buckbeak over Hogwarts' Lake was filmed at the Virginia Water Lake in Surrey. The Black Lake was also filmed from Loch Shiel, Loch Eilt and Loch Morar in the Scottish Highlands. Incidentally, the Glenfinnan Viaduct railway, which was also featured in "Chamber of Secrets", is opposite Loch Shiel and was used to film the sequences when the Dementor boarded the train. A small section of the Knight Bus scene, where it weaves in between traffic, was filmed in North London's Palmers Green on 2 April 2003. Some parts were also filmed in and around Borough Market and Lambeth Bridge in London. Certain scenes were also filmed at the University of Oxford; those set in the hospital wing were filmed at the university's Divinity School.
Director of photography Michael Seresin considered the story much darker compared to its two predecessors, so he employed "moody [lighting], with more shadows". He used a variety of wide-angle lenses to amplify Hogwarts prominence in the story, and only used close-ups sparingly. "We prefer to observe the kids from further away, as I find body language to be very interesting", Cuarón explained.
Rowling allowed Cuarón to make minor changes to the book, on the condition that he stuck to the book's spirit. She allowed him to place a sundial on Hogwarts' grounds, but rejected a graveyard, as that would play an important part in the then-unreleased sixth book. Rowling said she "got goosebumps" when she saw several moments in the film, as they inadvertently referred to events in the final two books, she stated, "people are going to look back on the film and think that those were put in deliberately as clues." When filming concluded, Cuarón found that it had "been the two sweetest years of my life," and expressed his interest in directing one of the sequels.
The Knight Bus sequence was shot over several weeks at various locations in London. In order to give the impression of the vehicle moving at , stunt coordinator Greg Powell explained, "We drove the bus at about and the other cars were going only about . It took weeks of planning with stunt drivers, and even the people you see on the street are stunt men and women, who were trained to walk incredibly slow just to make the bus look faster."
Special and visual effects.
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Framestore handled the key visual effects shots for the film, while The Moving Picture Company, Cinesite, and Double Negative crafted additional VFX material.
Cuarón originally wanted to move away from CGI toward puppetry. He hired master puppeteer Basil Twist and experimented with underwater puppets to figure out the movements of dementors. The tests were shot in slow motion, but ultimately the method wasn't practical. The water test footage provided creative direction for the visual effects team, adding the intangible metaphysical quality Cuarón was seeking. Visual effects supervisors Tim Burke and Roger Guyett, the Industrial Light & Magic VFX team, and Temime collaborated in the creation of dementors.
Cuarón commented on the difficulty of creating Buckbeak, which took months of research and preparation, beginning with the creature's skeletal design. Cuarón said, "Once we worked out the physiology, the way his bones would actually move, we had to capture his personality, which is a mixture of regal elegance, particularly when he is flying, and the clumsy and greedy creature he becomes back on land." Creature effects supervisor Nick Dudman created several practical hippogriffs for the production, while Burke and Guyett oversaw the creation of the computer-generated version. Guyett cited the complex movement of the feathers as an achievement that had "never been done before."
The inflation of Aunt Marge was achieved practically. Ferris said, "I wore various prosthetic bodies, which inflated at different rates, and at my largest I was about four and a half feet wide." The costume prevented Ferris from walking and eating. Thirty-eight tweed suits of increasing size were used for the sequence.
Cinesite was in charge of the time travel shot featured in the film, which was over a minute long. The main action was filmed on a steadicam against bluescreen, and four minutes of background footage was shot separately. The background was then sped up and composited behind the main action. Two other plates of background footage were tiled together as the camera turned.
Music.
When it was announced that Cuarón would direct "Prisoner of Azkaban", there was initial speculation that his collaborative composer Patrick Doyle (who would score the following film) would do the music. Cuarón, however, retained John Williams, for whom it would be the third and final movie he scored in the series. The soundtrack was a significant departure from the previous two, as Cuarón wanted the score to take a different approach. One of the new themes, "Double Trouble", was written during production for a children's choir to perform in Hogwarts's Great Hall in one of the film's earlier scenes. The lyrics of the song were taken from William Shakespeare's "Macbeth". The soundtrack album was released by Atlantic Records on 25 May 2004.
Differences from the book.
"Prisoner of Azkaban" was, at the time of publication, the series' longest book. The increasing plot complexity necessitated a looser adaptation of the book's finer plot lines and back-story. The connection between Harry's father and the Marauder's Map is only briefly mentioned, as is Remus Lupin's association to the map. Additionally, it was never mentioned who the Marauders were or who the nicknames Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs referred to. Some exposition was removed for dramatic effect: both the Shrieking Shack and Scabbers the rat are mentioned only very briefly in the film, while they receive more thorough coverage in the novel. Most of Sirius Black's back story is also cut, with no mention of how he escaped from Azkaban.
On account of pace and time considerations, the film glosses over detailed descriptions of magical education. Only one Hippogriff, Buckbeak, is seen, and only Draco Malfoy and Harry are seen interacting with the Hippogriff during Care of Magical Creatures lessons. Most other lessons, including all of Snape's Potions classes, were cut from the film. The Fidelius Charm's complicated description is removed entirely from the film, with no explanation given of exactly how Sirius is supposed to have betrayed the Potters to Lord Voldemort. Many of this scene's lines are redistributed amongst Cornelius Fudge and Minerva McGonagall; in compensation, McGonagall's exposition of the Animagus transformation is instead given by Snape.
The romantic connection between Ron and Hermione is more prominent in the film than the book; in response to criticism of the first two films for sacrificing character development for mystery and adventure, the emotional development of all three lead characters is given more attention in the third film. However, any mention of Harry's crush on Cho Chang is removed, and she first appears in the fourth film. "Prisoner of Azkaban" also shows a darker tone and more of Harry's emotions. For instance, after learning of Black's "betrayal" of Harry's parents, he shouts in anger "I'm gonna kill him", whereas in the book he is "too stunned to move".
In the book, Gryffindor wins the Quidditch Cup for the first time in the series, a rather significant character-development subplot that is almost completely omitted from the film. Only the first Quidditch match of the school year (where Harry's Nimbus 2000 broomstick is destroyed) is part of the film's narrative, and there are no other mentions of the sport or the Gryffindor team's successful campaign for the Cup during the rest of the film. The final scene before the credits shows Harry on his new broomstick, the Firebolt, as a known gift from Sirius after his aided escape from captivity, whereas in the book, the new broomstick is an anonymous gift midyear from Sirius (unbeknownst to Harry or anyone else at the time) that is examined by the Hogwarts staff for safety and security reasons before it eventually is given to Harry for use in pursuit of the Cup championship.
Distribution.
Marketing.
As with the series' previous instalments, "Prisoner of Azkaban" was a large merchandising opportunity. The video game version, designed by EA UK, was released on 25 May 2004. Mattel released film tie-ins that included the "Harry Potter Championship Quidditch" board game and character action figures. Lego also expanded on its previous merchandising for the first two films with the release of sets that included the Knight Bus, Shrieking Shack and a new Hogwarts castle.
Home media.
"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was released on DVD and on VHS on 23 November 2004. The 2-disc Special Editions later came out on DVD and Blu-ray on 4 October 2016. The film was also released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on 7 November 2017.
Reception.
Box office.
"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" held its New York premiere at Radio City Music Hall on 23 May 2004, followed by its London premiere at Leicester Square on 30 May 2004. The film then opened in the United Kingdom on 31 May 2004, and on 4 June 2004 in the United States. It was the first film in the series to be released in both conventional and IMAX theatres. Upon release, the film broke the record for a biggest single day in the United Kingdom's box office history making £5.3million on a Monday. It went on to break records both with and without previews, making £23.9 million including previews and £9.3 million excluding them. "The Prisoner of Azkaban" had the highest-opening weekend at the UK's box office, until "Spectre" beat the record in 2015. It went on to make a total of £45.6million in the UK. The film made $93.7million during its opening weekend in the United States and Canada playing on 8,900 screens at 3,855 theaters, achieving, at the time, the third-biggest-opening weekend of all time. This opening also broke "Hulk"'s record ($62.1million) for the highest-opening weekend for a film released in June. "The Prisoner of Azkaban" held this record for five years until "" topped it in 2009 with $109million. Additionally, it surpassed "The Matrix Reloaded" for having the largest opening weekend for a Warner Bros. film. The film was also No. 1 at the North American box office for two consecutive weekends.
"The Prisoner of Azkaban" made a total of $808.5million worldwide, which made it 2004's second-highest-grossing film worldwide behind "Shrek 2". In the U.S. and Canada, it was only the year's sixth-highest-grossing film, making $250.1million. However, it was the year's number one film internationally, making $558.3million compared to "Shrek 2"'s $487.5million. Despite its successful box office run, "The Prisoner of Azkaban" is the lowest-grossing "Harry Potter" film, and the third lowest-grossing film of the Wizarding World series.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 264 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Under the assured direction of Alfonso Cuarón, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" triumphantly strikes a delicate balance between technical wizardry and complex storytelling." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" lauded the film's more mature tone and said it was "darker, more complex, rooted in character." "The Hollywood Reporter" called the film "a deeper, darker, visually arresting and more emotionally satisfying adaptation of the J.K. Rowling literary phenomenon," especially compared to the first two instalments. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars: "Not only is this dazzler by far the best and most thrilling of the three Harry Potter movies to date, it's a film that can stand on its own even if you never heard of author J.K. Rowling and her young wizard hero." Stephanie Zacharek of "Salon" considered it "one of the greatest fantasy films of all time." Nicole Arthur of "The Washington Post" praised the film as "complex, frightening, [and] nuanced." Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, saying that the film was not quite as good as the first two, but still called it "delightful, amusing and sophisticated". He praised the cast, but felt the need for a better plot. Claudia Puig from "USA Today" found the film to be "a visual delight," and added that "Cuarón is not afraid to make a darker film and tackle painful emotions"; while Richard Roeper called the film "a creative triumph." Sean Smith from "Newsweek" said: ""The Prisoner of Azkaban" boasts a brand-new director and a bold new vision," and called the film "moving," praising the performances by the three main leads. "Entertainment Weekly" praised the film for being more mature than its predecessors.
"The Guardian" gave the film 3 stars out of 5, saying, "This new Harry Potter picture will cast a spell on its fanbase. But the broomstick's losing altitude." "Screen Daily" commented, "Cuaron delivers a genuinely spooky and emotionally involving adventure which gives the world of "Potter" much-needed character and atmosphere". The BBC commended the sets and direction, but did not find it "emotionally engrossing". Hollywood.com gave a positive review, praising the plot and storyline, despite a deviation from the first two films.
Accolades.
"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" received two Academy Award nominations: Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score for John Williams. The film was also nominated for four BAFTA Awards: Best British Film, Best Production Design, Best Makeup & Hair, and Best Visual Effects, and won public-voted Orange Film of the Year award. It received nine Saturn Awards nominations. It won two Visual Effects Society Awards and was nominated for three others. The Broadcast Film Critics Association nominated it for Best Family Film, Best Young Actor (for Daniel Radcliffe), and Best Young Actress (for Emma Watson).
The film ranks at No. 471 in "Empire" magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. IGN designated "Prisoner of Azkaban" as the fifth best fantasy film. Additionally, Moviefone designated the film as the tenth best of the decade. In 2011, the film was voted Film of the Decade at the First Light Awards by children aged 5–15. The American Film Institute nominated it for the 2007 revision of AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, and for AFI's 10 Top 10 in the fantasy genre.
References.
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
1999 fantasy novel by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ( ; also ) is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the third instalment in the "Harry Potter" series. The novel follows Harry Potter, a young wizard, in his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry investigates Sirius Black, an escaped prisoner from Azkaban, the wizard prison, believed to be one of Lord Voldemort's old allies.
The book was published in the United Kingdom on 8 July 1999 by Bloomsbury and in the United States on 8 September 1999 by Scholastic, Inc. Rowling found the book easy to write, finishing it just a year after she began writing it. The book sold 68,000 copies in just three days after its release in the United Kingdom and since has sold over three million in the country. The book won the 1999 Whitbread Children's Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the 2000 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and was short-listed for other awards, including the Hugo.
The film adaptation of the novel was released in 2004, grossing more than $796 million and earning critical acclaim. Video games loosely based on "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.
Plot.
During the summer, Harry accidentally performs magic at the home of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon by blowing up his Aunt Marge, causing her to float into the sky. After this incident, he leaves their house and travels to London by The Knight Bus. At London, he spends his summer there. While staying at the Leaky Cauldron inn, Harry is visited by Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge, who warns him about Sirius Black, a mass-murderer who escaped from the wizard prison Azkaban.
With Black at large, Dementors have been stationed at Hogwarts as a security measure. During a Care of Magical Creatures lesson with Hagrid, Draco Malfoy is injured after provoking a hippogriff named Buckbeak. Draco's father, Lucius Malfoy, gets Hagrid put on trial for owning a dangerous creature. Harry repeatedly faints in the presence of the Dementors, but eventually is taught by Professor Lupin, a new teacher, how to repel them using the Patronus Charm. When Harry is unable to participate in weekend trips to Hogsmeade Village, Fred and George give him a magical map that shows him how to get there using a secret passage. At the Three Broomsticks pub, Harry overhears that Black is his godfather, that he betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, and that he now seeks to kill Harry as well.
When Ron's pet rat Scabbers disappears, he blames Hermione and her cat Crookshanks. Ron and Hermione stop talking to each other, although Hermione is distraught when Ron survives an attack by Black inside the Gryffindor dormitory. After the attack, Black cannot be found. After Harry, Ron and Hermione learn that Buckbeak will be executed, they console Hagrid, and Ron and Hermione resume their friendship. Ron also finds Scabbers, who was hiding in Hagrid's hut. As the friends make their way back to the castle, Ron is attacked by a large black dog, which drags him through the passageway leading to Hogsmeade. Harry and Hermione give chase, and find themselves in the Shrieking Shack, where the dog is revealed to be Black in his Animagus form. Lupin arrives, and Black states that he intends to kill Scabbers, not Harry. He explains that Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort and framed Black for mass murder. Black and Lupin compel Pettigrew to transform into human form, then haul him back to Hogwarts.
On the way to the castle, the full moon causes Lupin to transform into a werewolf. Pettigrew escapes and is pursued by Black, Harry and Hermione, who encounter Dementors and lose consciousness. They awaken in the castle, where Black is now being held captive. Harry and Hermione proclaim his innocence to Dumbledore, who suggests using Hermione's Time Turner. Harry and Hermione travel back in time and save both Black and Buckbeak, who fly away together. Snape blames Lupin for Black's disappearance and makes his werewolf-identity public, which forces Lupin to resign. On the train back to London, Harry receives a letter from Black, expressing his gratitude for saving his life.
Publication and reception.
Pre-release history.
"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is the third book in the "Harry Potter" series. The first, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", was published by Bloomsbury on 26 June 1997 and the second, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", was published on 2 July 1998. Rowling started to write the "Prisoner of Azkaban" the day after she finished "The Chamber of Secrets". Rowling said in 2004 that "Prisoner of Azkaban" was "the best writing experience I ever had...I was in a very comfortable place writing (number) three. Immediate financial worries were over, and press attention wasn't yet by any means excessive".
Critical reception.
Upon release, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" received mostly positive reviews. "The Daily Telegraph" reported on reviews from several British publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": "Daily Telegraph", "Guardian", "Times", "Independent", "Sunday Telegraph", and "Sunday Times" reviews under "Love It" and "Observer" review under "Pretty Good". "The Guardian" reported an average rating of 9 out of 10 for the book based on reviews from multiple British newspapers. On "BookBrowse", based on American press, the book received a from "Critics' Consensus" and for the media reviews on a rating scale out of five: "Kirkus Reviews" and "School Library Journal" reviews under five