1936 In Film
The following is an overview of 1936 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths. Top-grossing films (U.S.) The top ten 1936 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows: Events *January 9 – Silent screen actor John Gilbert, perhaps best known for his appearances in films such as ''The Merry Widow'' and ''The Big Parade'', dies suddenly of a heart attack at his Bel Air home, aged 38. *February 15 – first Republic serial, ''Darkest Africa'', is released. *May 29 – Fritz Lang's first Hollywood film, '' Fury'', starring Spencer Tracy and Bruce Cabot, is released. *September 14 – Film producer Irving Thalberg, often referred by many as the "Boy Wonder of Hollywood", dies from pneumonia at his home in Santa Monica, aged 37. Academy Awards * Best Picture: ''The Great Ziegfeld'' – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer * Best Director: Frank Capra – ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' * Best Actor: Paul Muni – ''The St ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Great Ziegfeld
''The Great Ziegfeld'' is a 1936 American musical drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg. It stars William Powell as the theatrical impresario Florenz "Flo" Ziegfeld Jr., Luise Rainer as Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke. The film, shot at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in Culver City, California in the fall of 1935, is a fictionalized and sanitized tribute to Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and a cinematic adaptation of Broadway's Ziegfeld Follies, with highly elaborate costumes, dances and sets. Many of the performers of the theatrical Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, and the real Billie Burke acted as a supervisor for the film. The " A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" set alone was reported to have cost US$220,000 (US$ in dollars), featuring a towering rotating volute of diameter with 175 spiral steps, weighing 100 tons. The music to the film was provided by Walter Donaldson, Irving Berl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Gilbert (actor)
John Gilbert (born John Cecil Pringle; July 10, 1897 – January 9, 1936) was an American actor, screenwriter and director. He rose to fame during the silent film era and became a popular leading man known as "The Great Lover". His breakthrough came in 1925 with his starring roles in ''The Merry Widow'' and ''The Big Parade''. At the height of his career, Gilbert rivaled Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw. Gilbert's career declined precipitously when silent pictures gave way to talkies. Though Gilbert was often cited as one of the high-profile examples of an actor who was unsuccessful in making the transition to sound films, his decline as a star had far more to do with studio politics and money than with the sound of his screen voice, which was rich and distinctive. Early life and stage work Born John Cecil Pringle in Logan, Utah, to stock-company actor parents, John George Pringle (1865–1929) and Ida Adair Apperly Gilbert (1877–1913), he struggled through a childhoo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Academy Award For Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category in which every member of the Oscars is eligible to submit a nomination and vote on the final ballot. The Best Picture category is often the final award of the night and is widely considered as the most prestigious honor of the ceremony. The Grand Staircase columns at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, where the Academy Awards ceremonies have been held since 2002, showcase every film that has won the Best Picture title since the award's inception. There have been 581 films nominated for Best Picture and 94 winners. History Category name changes At the 1st Academy Awards ceremony (for 1927 and 1928), there were two categories of awards that were each considered the top award of the night: ''Outstanding Picture'' and '' Unique and Artistic P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to its climate, beaches, and hospitality industry. It has a diverse economy, hosting headquarters of companies such as Hulu, Universal Music Group, Lionsgate Films, and The Recording Academy. Santa Monica traces its history to Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica, granted in 1839 to the Sepúlveda family of California. The rancho was later sold to John P. Jones and Robert Baker, who in 1875, along with his Californio heiress wife Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, founded Santa Monica, which incorporated as a city in 1886. The city developed into a seaside resort during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the creation of tourist attractions such as Palisades Park, the Santa Monica Pier, Ocean Park, and the Hotel Casa del Mar. Hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including '' Grand Hotel'', '' China Seas'', '' A Night at the Opera'', ''Mutiny on the Bounty'', '' Camille'' and '' The Good Earth''. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bruce Cabot
Bruce Cabot (born Étienne de Pelissier Bujac Jr.; April 20, 1904 – May 3, 1972) was an American film actor, best remembered as Jack Driscoll in ''King Kong'' (1933) and for his roles in films such as ''The Last of the Mohicans'' (1936), Fritz Lang's '' Fury'' (1936), and the Western ''Dodge City'' (1939). He was also known as one of "Wayne's Regulars", appearing in a number of John Wayne films beginning with ''Angel and the Badman'' (1947), and concluding with ''Big Jake'' (1971). Early life Cabot was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, to a prominent local lawyer, Major Étienne de Pelissier Bujac Sr. and Julia Armandine Graves, who died shortly after giving birth to her son. Étienne Sr. was the son of John James Bujac, a lawyer and mining expert in Baltimore, Maryland. Étienne Sr. graduated from Cumberland School of Law near Nashville, Tennessee, and served in the United States Army during the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War before settling in Carlsba ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor from nine nominations. During his career, he appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Tracy first discovered his talent for acting while attending Ripon College, and he later received a scholarship for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He spent seven years in the theatre, working in a succession of stock companies and intermittently on Broadway. His breakthrough came in 1930, when his lead performance in ''The Last Mile'' caught the attention of Hollywood. After a successful film debut in John Ford's ''Up the River'' (in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fury (1936 Film)
''Fury '' is a 1936 American drama film directed by Fritz Lang that tells the story of an innocent man (Spencer Tracy) who narrowly escapes being burned to death by a lynch mob and the revenge he then seeks. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and stars Sylvia Sidney and Tracy, with a supporting cast featuring Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis and Walter Brennan. Loosely based on the events surrounding the Brooke Hart murder in San Jose, California, the film was adapted by Bartlett Cormack and Lang from the story ''Mob Rule'' by Norman Krasna. ''Fury'' was Lang's first American film. Plot En route to meet his fiancée Katherine Grant, gas-station owner Joe Wilson is arrested on flimsy circumstantial evidence for the kidnapping of a child. Gossip soon travels around the small town, growing more distorted through each retelling, until a mob gathers at the jail. When the resolute sheriff refuses to give up his prisoner, the enraged townspeople burn down the building ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 63. One of the best-known ''émigrés'' from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. He has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. Lang's most celebrated films include the groundbreaking futuristic ''Metropolis'' (1927) and the influential '' M'' (1931), a film noir precursor. His 1929 film ''Woman in the Moon'' showcased the use of a multi-stage rocket, and also pioneered the concept of a rocket launch pad (a rocket standing upright against a tall building before launch having been slowly rolled into place) and the rocket-launch countdown clock. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Darkest Africa
''Darkest Africa'' (1936) is a Republic movie serial. This was the first serial produced by Republic Pictures and was a loose sequel to a Mascot Pictures serial called '' The Lost Jungle'', also starring Clyde Beatty. Mascot, and other companies, had been taken over in 1935 by Consolidated Film Laboratories and merged to become Republic. Producer Nat Levine was formerly the owner of Mascot Pictures. Plot While on Safari in East Africa, Clyde Beatty runs into a loincloth wearing boy, ''Baru'', and his pet ape Bonga. Baru reveals that he has escaped from the lost city of Joba, King Solomon's sacred city of the Golden Bat, but that his sister, Valerie, remains there. She was found by High Priest Dagna as a child and declared to be Joba's goddess as part of his quest for power. Her escape could cause a revolt among the city's citizens. Clyde agrees to help Baru rescue Valerie and they set out to Joba, through the Valley of Lost Souls. Meanwhile, the unscrupulous Durkin and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Serial (film)
A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Generally, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects. Each chapter was screened at a movie theater for one week, and ended with a cliffhanger, in which characters found themselves in perilous situations with little apparent chance of escape. Viewers had to return each week to see the cliffhangers resolved and to follow the continuing story. Movie serials were especially popular with children, and for many youths in the first half of the 20th centu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures Corporation (currently held under Melange Pictures, LLC) was an American motion picture production-distribution corporation in operation from 1935 to 1967, that was based in Los Angeles. It had studio facilities in Studio City and a movie ranch in Encino. It was best known for specializing in Westerns, serials, and B films emphasizing mystery and action. Republic was also notable for developing the careers of John Wayne, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. It was also responsible for the financing and distribution of a few A films directed by John Ford during the 1940s and early 1950s and one Shakespeare film, ''Macbeth'' (1948), directed by Orson Welles. Under Herbert J. Yates, Republic was considered a mini-major film studio. Company history Created in 1935 by Herbert J. Yates, a longtime investor in film (having invested in 20th Century Pictures at its founding in 1933) and owner of the film processing laboratory Consolidated Film Industries, Republic was initial ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |