A Natural Born Gambler
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A Natural Born Gambler
''A Natural Born Gambler'' is a 1916 silent film short, the first of only two films starring Broadway comic and singer Bert Williams. The film was Williams' first two-reel comedy, and was a film that was expected not to disappoint audiences and was highly anticipated. It was produced by the Biograph Company and released by The General Film Company. Williams directed and G. W. Bitzer, also known as Billy Bitzer, who was usually D. W. Griffith's cameraman, was the cinematographer. This is a still-surviving film, featuring Williams in his famous blackface routine. It is an authentic comedic film for its time (1916) in which Williams is still humorous without heavily relying on the popular physical style of slapstick comedy. Special and strategic advertising along with the name Williams had created for himself made it possible for the film to get exposure throughout the country. Most of this exposure came from newspaper prints. Bert Williams Film exhibitors were excited to have pr ...
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Bert Williams
Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He is credited as being the first Black man to have the leading role in a film: ''Darktown Jubilee'' in 1914. He was by far the best-selling Black recording artist before 1920. In 1918, the ''New York Dramatic Mirror'' called Williams "one of the great comedians of the world." Williams was a key figure in the development of African-American entertainment. In an age when racial inequality and stereotyping were commonplace, he became the first black person to take a lead role on the Broadway stage, and did much to push back racial barriers during his three-decade-long career. Fellow vaudevillian W. C. Fields, who appeared in productions with Williams, described him as "the funniest man I ever saw—and the saddest man I ever knew." Early life Williams was born i ...
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Lime Kiln Field Day
''Lime Kiln Field Day'' (also known as ''Lime Kiln Club Field Day'' or ''Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Field Day'') is a 1913 American black-and-white silent film produced by the Biograph Company and Klaw and Erlanger. Production background Led by the famous Caribbean American musical theater performer and recording artist Bert Williams, the cast involved Harlem-based entertainment pioneers Sam Lucas, Abbie Mitchell, J. Leubrie Hill, Emma Reed, John Wesley (Wes) Jenkins (1859-1930), Walker Thompson (1887-1922), Billy Harper, and other theater performers, including members of J. Leubrie Hill’s ''Darktown Follies'' stage company. Biograph Company produced the film for Marcus Klaw and A. L. Erlanger in the Bronx, New York. ''Lime Kiln Field Day'' was shot at locations in New York as well as New Jersey using a 35mm camera at 19fps. After filming over an hour of footage, the producers Klaw and Erlanger abandoned the project during post-production, leaving the film to be without a t ...
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Articles Containing Video Clips
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Biograph Company Films
Biograph may refer to: * Biograph Company, a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1916 * An early form of the cinematograph, made by the Biograph Company * Biograph girl, a nickname given to some early silent film actresses featured in films of the Biograph Company * Biograph Studios, a studio facility and film laboratory complex built in 1912 by the Biograph Company in the Bronx, New York * Biograph Theater, a historic Chicago movie theater * Biograph Records Biograph Records is a record label founded in 1967 by Arnold S. Caplin that specialized in early American ragtime, jazz, and blues music. Its reissues includes Bunny Berigan, Bing Crosby, The California Ramblers, Ruth Etting, Benny Goodman, Ear ..., a record label founded in 1967 that specialized in American ragtime, jazz, and blues * ''Biograph'' (album), a 1985 box set compiling music by Bob Dylan * The Biograph, a former movie theatre in Washington, D.C. {{disambig ...
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American Silent Short Films
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * B ...
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1916 Films
The year 1916 in film involved some significant events. __TOC__ Events * Charlie Chaplin signs for Mutual Film for a salary of $10,000 a week and a signing on fee of $150,000, making him one of the highest-paid people in the United States. * June 24 – Mary Pickford signs a contract for $10,000 a week plus profit participation, guaranteeing her over $1 million per year. * July 19 – Famous Players-Lasky is formed through a merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company and Jesse L. Lasky's Feature Play Company. Later in the year, they acquire distributor Paramount Pictures. * August 10 – The official British documentary propaganda film ''The Battle of the Somme'' is premièred in London. In the first six weeks of general release (from 20 August) 20 million people view it. * September 5 – Release of D. W. Griffith's epic film '' Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages'', starring Lillian Gish (as "The Eternal Motherhood") and Constance Talmadge (in two ro ...
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Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating a free and open Internet. , the Internet Archive holds over 35 million books and texts, 8.5 million movies, videos and TV shows, 894 thousand software programs, 14 million audio files, 4.4 million images, 2.4 million TV clips, 241 thousand concerts, and over 734 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive allows the public to upload and download digital material to its data cluster, but the bulk of its data is collected automatically by its web crawlers, which work to preserve as much of the public web as possible. Its web archiving, web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains hu ...
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Klaw And Erlanger
Klaw and Erlanger was an entertainment management and production partnership of Marc Klaw and Abraham Lincoln Erlanger based in New York City from 1888 through 1919. While running their own considerable and multi-faceted theatrical businesses on Broadway, they were key figures in the Theatrical Syndicate, the lucrative booking monopoly for first-class legitimate theaters nationwide. Klaw and Erlanger joined in partnership in 1888. Starting from the purchase of an existing booking agency, the partners gradually gained control of the southern territory, anchored in New Orleans. They ran allied businesses, produced Broadway shows, and owned a number of theaters. They were part owners of the new Iroquois Theater in Chicago, which suffered a catastrophic fire in 1903 that resulted in more than 600 deaths and brought Klaw & Erlanger bitter criticism. In the same year they opened their flagship New Amsterdam Theater in New York, where the Aerial Gardens became the longtime stage ...
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Pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking countries, especially during the Christmas and New Year season. Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing. It employs gender-crossing actors and combines topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale.Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline. "Pantomime", ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature'', Jack Zipes (ed.), Oxford University Press (2006), Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers. Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to the era of classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century c ...
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Biograph Company
The Biograph Company, also known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1916. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over 3000 short films and 12 feature films. During the height of silent film as a medium, Biograph was America's most prominent film studio and one of the most respected and influential studios worldwide, only rivaled by Germany's UFA, Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri and France's Pathé. The company was home to pioneering director D. W. Griffith and such actors as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, and Lionel Barrymore. Founding The company was started by William Kennedy Dickson, an inventor at Thomas Edison's laboratory who helped pioneer the technology of capturing moving images on film. Dickson left Edison in April 1895, joining with inventors Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and ...
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Ziegfeld Follies
The ''Ziegfeld Follies'' was a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as ''The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air''. Founding and history Inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris, the Ziegfeld Follies were conceived and mounted by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., reportedly at the suggestion of his then-wife, the stage actress and singer Anna Held. The shows' producers were turn-of-the-twentieth-century producing titans Klaw and Erlanger. The Follies were a series of lavish revues, something between later Broadway shows and the more elaborate high class vaudeville and variety show. The first follies, '' The Follies of 1907'', was produced that year at the ''Jardin de Paris'' roof theatre. During the Follies era, many of the top entertainers, including W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Ann Pennington, Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, Bob H ...
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Slapstick
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as saws and ladders. The term arises from a device developed for use in the broad, physical comedy style known as ''commedia dell'arte'' in 16th-century Italy. The "Clapper (musical instrument), slap stick" consists of two thin slats of wood, which make a "slap" when striking another actor, with little force needed to make a loud—and comical—sound. The physical slap stick remains a key component of the plot in the traditional and popular Punch and Judy puppet show. Other examples of slapstick humor include ''The Naked Gun'' and Mr. Bean (character), Mr. Bean. Origins The name "slapstick" originates from the Italian ''Batacchio'' or ''Bataccio'' – called the "Clapper (musical instrument), slap stick" in English – a club-like objec ...
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