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Ben Markson
Ben Markson (August 6, 1892 – October 20, 1971) was an American screenwriter active from the very beginning of the sound film era through the end of the 1950s. During his 30-year career he was responsible for the story and/or screenplay of 45 films, as well as writing the scripts for several episodic television shows in the 1950s. Life and career Markson was born on August 6, 1892 in Creston, Iowa. Prior to writing screenplays, Markson worked as a journalist, and then was part of the publicity department for Paramount Pictures. He would break into the film industry as the co-screenwriter on the 1928 film ''The River Pirate'', a silent film with sound sequences starring Victor McLaglen. In the pre-code era of the early 1930s, Markson was known for his racy scripts. Some of his early successes include: ''The Half-Naked Truth'', a 1932 comedy directed by Gregory La Cava and starring Lupe Vélez and Lee Tracy; '' Is My Face Red?'' (1932), which Markson and co-screenwriter Case ...
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Creston, Iowa
Creston is a city in and the county seat of Union County, Iowa. The population was 7,536 at the time of the 2020 Census. History Creston was originally settled in 1868 as a survey camp for the Burlington and Missouri Railroad. It was named for the fact that it was on the crest of the railroad line between the Missouri and Mississippi river basins. The area was developed largely for agriculture, with related industries accompanying it. Creston had a flour mill in the early decades of the 20th century. The town was officially established in 1869 and incorporated in 1871. Creston was chosen as the division point for the railroad, who built machine shops, a roundhouse, and a construction camp in the new town. Railroad employees, including African Americans, were recruited from Chicago and other major cities to work in Creston. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) opened a new station in Creston in 1899. The three-story, yellow brick Creston station is in the Fr ...
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Constance Bennett
Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Bennett frequently played society women, focusing on melodramas in the early 1930s and then taking more comedic roles in the late 1930s and 1940s. She is best remembered for her leading roles in ''What Price Hollywood?'' (1932), '' Bed of Roses'' (1933), '' Topper'' (1937), '' Topper Takes a Trip'' (1938), and had a prominent supporting role in Greta Garbo's last film, ''Two-Faced Woman'' (1941). She was the daughter of stage and silent film star Richard Bennett, and the older sister of actress Joan Bennett. Early life Bennett was born in New York City, the eldest of three daughters of actress Adrienne Morrison and actor Richard Bennett. Her younger sisters were actresses Joan Bennett and Barbara Bennett. All th ...
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The Falcon In San Francisco
''The Falcon in San Francisco'' is a 1945 American crime and mystery film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and stars Tom Conway, Rita Corday and Edward Brophy, who played the recurring role of "Goldie" Locke. The film was the 11th in The Falcon series of detective films, and the eighth featuring Conway as the amateur sleuth. ''The Falcon in San Francisco'' was the final film in the series produced by Maurice Geraghty, after which budgets were reduced and location shooting largely abandoned. Plot While travelling by train with his sidekick and assistant, "Goldie" Locke (Edward Brophy), for a vacation in San Francisco, Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), a.k.a. The Falcon, meets Annie Marshall ( Sharyn Moffett), a lonely little girl. Annie tells them that she is being held prisoner by her nurse, Miss Carla Keyes (Hermine Sterler), and butler Loomis ( Jason Robards Sr.). Annie's story is cut short when Miss Keyes comes for her. Shortly after, the little girl rushes back to Tom to tell him her n ...
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Boston Blackie
Boston Blackie is a fictional character created by author Jack Boyle (1881–1928). Blackie, a jewel thief and safecracker in Boyle's stories, became a detective in adaptations for films, radio and television—an "enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend." Actor Chester Morris played the character in 14 Columbia Pictures films (1941–1949) and in a 1944 NBC radio series. Literature Writer Jack Boyle grew up in Chicago, Illinois. While working as a newspaper reporter in San Francisco, he became an opium addict, was drawn into crime, and was jailed for writing bad checks. Later convicted of robbery, Boyle was serving a term in San Quentin when he created the character of Boston Blackie. The first four stories appeared in '' The American Magazine'' in 1914, with Boyle writing under the pen name "No. 6066". From 1917 to 1919, Boston Blackie stories appeared in '' The Red Book'' magazine, and from 1918 they were adapted for motion pictures. When ...
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A Close Call For Boston Blackie
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish i ...
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Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Jean Menjou (February 18, 1890 – October 29, 1963) was an American actor. His career spanned both silent films and talkies. He appeared in such films as Charlie Chaplin's ''A Woman of Paris'', where he played the lead role; Stanley Kubrick's ''Paths of Glory'' with Kirk Douglas; Ernst Lubitsch's '' The Marriage Circle''; '' The Sheik'' with Rudolph Valentino; ''Morocco'' with Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper; and '' A Star Is Born'' with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, and was nominated for an Academy Award for '' The Front Page'' in 1931.Obituary ''Variety'', October 30, 1963, page 71. Early life Adolphe Jean Menjou was born on February 18, 1890, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to a French father, Albert Menjou (1858–1917), and a mother from Ireland, Nora (''née'' Joyce, 1869–1953). His brother, Henry Arthur Menjou (1891–1956), was a year younger. He was raised Catholic, attended the Culver Military Academy, and graduated from Cornell University wit ...
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Dennis O'Keefe
Dennis O'Keefe (born Edward Vanes Flanagan, Jr., March 29, 1908 – August 31, 1968) was an American actor and writer. Early years Born in Fort Madison, Iowa, O'Keefe was the son of Edward Flanagan and Charlotte Flanagan, Irish vaudevillians working in the United States. As a small child, he joined his parents' act and later wrote skits for the stage. He attended the University of Southern California but left midway through his sophomore year after his father died. Career O'Keefe continued his father's vaudeville act for several years after the father's death. He started in films as an extra in 1931 and appeared in numerous films under the name Bud Flanagan. After a small but impressive role in '' Saratoga'' (1937), Clark Gable recommended O'Keefe to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which signed him to a contract in 1937 and renamed him Dennis O'Keefe. His film roles were bigger after that, starting with '' The Bad Man of Brimstone'' (1938) opposite Wallace Beery, and the lead rol ...
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Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple;While Temple occasionally used "Jane" as a middle name, her birth certificate reads "Shirley Temple". Her birth certificate was altered to prolong her babyhood shortly after she signed with Fox in 1934; her birth year was advanced from 1928 to 1929. Even her baby book was revised to support the 1929 date. She confirmed her true age when she was 21 (Burdick 5; Edwards 23''n'', 43''n''). April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat who was Hollywood's number one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938. Later, she was named United States ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and also served as Chief of Protocol of the United States. Temple began her film career at the age of three in 1931. Two years later, she achieved international fame in '' Bright Eyes'', a feature film produced specially for her talents. She received a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 19 ...
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Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm (1938 Film)
''Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm'' is a 1938 American musical comedy film directed by Allan Dwan, and written by Don Ettlinger, Karl Tunberg, Ben Markson and William M. Conselman, the third adaptation of Kate Douglas Wiggin's 1903 novel of the same name (previously done in 1917 and 1932). Starring Shirley Temple, Randolph Scott, Jack Haley, Gloria Stuart, Phyllis Brooks, Helen Westley, Slim Summerville and Bill Robinson, it is the second of three films in which Temple and Scott appeared together, between '' To the Last Man'' (1933) and '' Susannah of the Mounties'' (1939). The plot tells of a talented orphan's trials and tribulations after winning a radio audition to represent a breakfast cereal. Plot Rebecca and her step-father, Harry, attend a singing contest to find "Miss America" in order to represent a cereal company in an advertising campaign. While Rebecca sings, the advertising executive, Tony Kent, and the head of the cereal company listen to the contest on the radio, a ...
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Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger ( , ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre. He first gained attention for film noir mysteries such as '' Laura'' (1944) and '' Fallen Angel'' (1945), while in the 1950s and 1960s, he directed high-profile adaptations of popular novels and stage works. Several of these later films pushed the boundaries of censorship by dealing with themes which were then taboo in Hollywood, such as drug addiction ('' The Man with the Golden Arm'', 1955), rape ('' Anatomy of a Murder'', 1959) and homosexuality ('' Advise & Consent'', 1962). He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. He also had several acting roles. Early life Preminger was born in 1905 in Wischnitz, Bukovina, Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Vyzhnytsia, Ukraine), into a Jewish family. His parents were Josefa (née F ...
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Danger – Love At Work
''Danger – Love at Work'' is a 1937 American screwball comedy film directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by James Edward Grant and Ben Markson focuses on an attorney's frustrating efforts to deal with a wildly eccentric family. Plot Henry MacMorrow, a junior partner in the law firm of Parsons, Hilton, Trent and MacMorrow, is assigned the task of obtaining the signatures of various members of the Pemberton family so that a piece of property they own can be sold. While en route by train to the Pemberton home in Aiken, South Carolina, he meets Junior Pemberton, an obnoxious ten-year-old prodigy whose behavior prompts Henry to kick him in the pants when they arrive at the station, much to the dismay of the boy's sister Toni. Henry arrives at the Pemberton home before Toni and Junior, and the rest of the family mistakes him for her fiancé Howard Rogers. She quickly corrects the misunderstanding and soon finds herself liking the amiable lawyer, despite their unpleasant first mee ...
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Here Comes The Navy
''Here Comes the Navy'' (also known as ''Hey, Sailor'') is a 1934 American romantic comedy film written by Earl Baldwin and Ben Markson and directed by Lloyd Bacon. The film stars James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Gloria Stuart and Frank McHugh. Stuart was Oscar-nominated 63 years later for another nautical epic, ''Titanic'' (1997). Plot Riveter "Chesty" O'Conner (James Cagney) and his best friend, "Droopy" (Frank McHugh), join the US Navy to annoy O'Connor's nemesis, Chief Petty Officer "Biff" Martin (Pat O'Brien). O'Conner gets himself court-martialled for being AWOL while visiting Martin's sister Dorothy (Gloria Stuart). Disgruntled at his treatment, O'Connor angrily derides the Navy and finds himself ostracized by his fellow sailors. During gunnery practice, O'Conner helps put out a fire in a gun room and receives the Navy Cross medal, but is still determined to get out of the Navy. Later. O'Conner transfers to the US Naval Air Service and is assigned to the rigid airship . Whe ...
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