Alan Crosland
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Alan Crosland
Alan Crosland (August 10, 1894 – July 16, 1936) was an American stage actor and film director. He is noted for having directed the first feature film using spoken dialogue, ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927). Early life and career Born in New York City, New York to a well-to-do Jewish family, Crosland attended Dartmouth College. After graduation, he took a job as a writer with the ''New York Globe'' magazine. Interested in the theatre, he began acting on stage, appearing in several productions with Shakespearian actress Annie Russell. Crosland began his career in the motion picture industry in 1912 at Edison Studios in The Bronx, New York, where he worked at various jobs for two years until he had learned the business sufficiently well to begin directing short films. By 1917, he was directing feature-length films and in 1920 directed Olive Thomas in ''The Flapper'', one of her final films before her death in September of that year. In 1925, Crosland was working for Jesse L. Lasky' ...
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New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ...
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The Flapper
''The Flapper'' is a 1920 American silent comedy film starring Olive Thomas. Directed by Alan Crosland, the film was the first in the United States to portray the "flapper" lifestyle, which became a cultural craze or fad in the 1920s. Plot Sixteen-year-old Genevieve 'Ginger' King (Thomas) is living in a very wealthy family in the boring town of Orange Springs, Florida with her younger siblings, where her unchaperoned decision to drink a soda with a young male is considered scandalous. Because of her questionable behavior and yearning for a more excitable life, Ginger's father decides to send her to a boarding school in Lake Placid, New York. Mrs. Paddles' School for Young Ladies is administered by the strict disciplinarian, Mrs. Paddles (Marcia Harris). Despite the strictness there, the girls have fun getting into flapper-lifestyle trouble including flirting. Richard Channing (William P. Carleton), an older man, rides past the seminary every day, prompting romantic fantasies amo ...
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Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in the cities of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood (including a portion known as the Sunset Strip), as well as several districts in Los Angeles. Geography Approximately in length, the boulevard roughly traces the arc of mountains that form part of the northern boundary of the Los Angeles Basin, following the path of a 1780s cattle trail from the Pueblo de Los Angeles to the ocean. From Downtown Los Angeles, the boulevard heads northwest, to Hollywood, through which it travels due west for several miles before it bends southwest towards the ocean. It passes through or near Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Holmby Hills. In Bel-Air, Sunset Boulevard runs along the northern boundary of UCLA's W ...
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Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jews, Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer." Jolson was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, as well as for popularizing many of the songs he sang. Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers." Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930s. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with ''The Jolson Story'' (1946), in which Larry Parks played Jolson, with the singer dubbing for Parks. The formula was repeat ...
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Soundtrack
A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film, video, or television presentation; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronised recorded sound. In movie industry terminology usage, a sound track is an audio recording created or used in film production or post-production. Initially, the dialogue, sound effects, and music in a film each has its own separate track (''dialogue track'', ''sound effects track'', and '' music track''), and these are mixed together to make what is called the ''composite track,'' which is heard in the film. A ''dubbing track'' is often later created when films are dubbed into another language. This is also known as an M&E (music and effects) track. M&E tracks contain all sound elements minus dialogue, which is then supplied by the f ...
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Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack was not printed on the film itself, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at  rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically in diameter, would be played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film was being projected. It had a frequency response of 4300 Hz. Many early talkies, such as ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound". The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had optical soundtracks and did not use discs. Early history In the early 19 ...
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John Barrymore
John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly attempted a career as an artist, but appeared on stage together with his father Maurice in 1900, and then his sister Ethel the following year. He began his career in 1903 and first gained attention as a stage actor in light comedy, then high drama, culminating in productions of ''Justice'' (1916), '' Richard III'' (1920) and ''Hamlet'' (1922); his portrayal of Hamlet led to him being called the "greatest living American tragedian". After a success as ''Hamlet'' in London in 1925, Barrymore left the stage for 14 years and instead focused entirely on films. In the silent film era, he was well received in such pictures as '' Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' (1920), '' Sherlock Holmes'' (1922) and '' The Sea Beast'' (1926). During this period, he gaine ...
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Don Juan (1926 Film)
''Don Juan'' is a 1926 American romantic adventure film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length film to utilize the Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system with a synchronized musical score and sound effects, though it has no spoken dialogue. The film is inspired by Lord Byron's 1821 epic poem of the same name. The screenplay was written by Bess Meredyth with intertitles by Maude Fulton and Walter Anthony. ''Don Juan'' stars John Barrymore as the hand-kissing womanizer. Plot In the prologue, Don José, warned of his wife's infidelity, seals his wife's lover alive in his hiding place and drives her from the castle; abandoned to his lust, he is stabbed by his last mistress, and with his dying words he implores his son, Don Juan, to take all from women but yield nothing. Ten years later, young Don Juan, a graduate of the University of Pisa, is famous as a lover and pursued by many women, including the powerful Lucrezia Borgia, who invites him to her ball. Hi ...
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Silent Film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of title cards. The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music, or improvisation. Sometimes a person would even narrate the inter-title cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema pri ...
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Hollywood (film Industry)
The cinema of the United States, consisting mainly of major film studios (also known as Hollywood) along with some independent film, has had a large effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. The dominant style of American cinema is classical Hollywood cinema, which developed from 1913 to 1969 and is still typical of most films made there to this day. While Frenchmen Auguste and Louis Lumière are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, American cinema soon came to be a dominant force in the emerging industry. , it produced the third-largest number of films of any national cinema, after India and China, with more than 600 English-language films released on average every year. While the national cinemas of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also produce films in the same language, they are not part of the Hollywood system. That said, Hollywood has also been considered a transnational cinema, and has produced multiple lang ...
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Warner Bros
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Founded in 1923 by four brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American film industry before diversifying into animation, television, and video games and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The company is known for its film studio division the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, which includes Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, the Warner Animation Group, Castle Rock Entertainment, and DC Studios. Among its other assets, stands the television production company Warner Bros. Television Studios. Bugs Bunny, a cartoon character created by Tex Avery, Ben Hardaway, Chuck Jones, Bob Givens and ...
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