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Bruce Lester
Bruce Lester (6 June 1912 – 13 June 2008) was a South African-born English film actor with over 60 screen appearances to his credit between 1934 and his retirement from acting in 1958. Lester's career divided into two distinct periods. Between 1934 and 1938, billed as Bruce Lister, he appeared in upwards of 20 British films, mostly of the cheaply shot and quickly forgotten quota quickie variety. He then moved to the US, where he changed his surname to Lester, and found himself for a time appearing in some of the biggest prestige productions of their day, alongside stars such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn. Lester himself never achieved star-billing, but was said to have remarked that this at least meant that if a film was a flop, no blame ever fell on his shoulders.Bruce Lester obituar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Above Suspicion (1943 Film)
''Above Suspicion'' is a 1943 American spy film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray. The screenplay was adapted from the 1941 novel ''Above Suspicion'' by Scots-American writer Helen Clark MacInnes, Helen MacInnes, which is loosely based on the experiences of MacInnes and her husband Gilbert Highet. The plot follows two newlyweds who spy on the Nazis for the British Secret Service, British secret service during their honeymoon in Europe. Plot In the spring of 1939 in England, Oxford University professor Richard Myles and his new bride Frances spend their honeymoon in continental Europe. They are commissioned by the British secret service to find a scientist who has developed a countermeasure against a new Nazi secret weapon, a naval mine, magnetic sea mine. Without knowing his name, what he looks like or where to find the scientist, the couple look upon the search as an adventure and cross Europe seeking clues from clandestine contacts. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, distribution, and education. It is sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and partially funded under the British Film Institute Act 1949. Purpose It was established in 1933 to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and the moving image generally, and their impact on society, to promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema and to establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history and heritage of the United Kingdom. BFI activities Archive The BFI maint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desperate Journey
''Desperate Journey'' is a 1942 American World War II action and aviation film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan. The supporting cast includes Raymond Massey, Alan Hale Sr., and Arthur Kennedy. The melodramatic film featured a group of downed Allied airmen making their way out of the Third Reich, often with their fists. Director Raoul Walsh called it "a war comedy spiced with enough tragedy to give it reality... beyond doubt the forerunner for '' Hogan's Heroes''." Plot Assigned to bomb a critical German railway junction at Schneidemühl, Flight Lt. Terrence Forbes presses home an attack at low altitude, and his bomber is shot down near the former Polish border. The five survivors—Forbes, American Flying Officer Johnny Hammond, Flight Sgt. Kirk Edwards, Flying Officer Jed Forrest, and the injured Flight Sgt. Lloyd Hollis—are quickly captured by the Germans. Interviewed by Major Otto Baumeister, Hammond creates a distraction by p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Yank In The RAF
''A Yank in the R.A.F.'' is a 1941 American black-and-white war film directed by Henry King and starring Tyrone Power and Betty Grable. Released three months before the attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into World War II, it is considered a typical early-World War II production. Originally titled ''The Eagle Squadron'', it is based on a story by "Melville Crossman", the pen name for 20th Century Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck. It follows an American pilot who joins the Royal Air Force (RAF), during a period when the United States was still neutral. Plot In 1940, American-built North American Harvard training aircraft are flown to the border with Canada, where they are towed across the frontier for use by Britain. (The procedure is necessary to avoid violating the Neutrality Acts, as the United States is still neutral.) Cocky American pilot Tim Baker (Tyrone Power) decides to fly across the border to Trenton, Ontario, and winds up in trouble with the military ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man Hunt (1941 Film)
''Man Hunt'' is a 1941 American thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Walter Pidgeon and Joan Bennett. It is based on the 1939 novel '' Rogue Male'' by Geoffrey Household and is set in Europe just prior to the Second World War. Lang had fled Germany into exile in 1933 and this was the first of his four anti-Nazi films, which include ''Ministry of Fear'', ''Hangmen Also Die!'', and ''Cloak and Dagger (1946 film), Cloak and Dagger''. It was Roddy McDowall's first Hollywood film after escaping London following the Blitz. ''Man Hunt'' was one of many films released in 1941 that were considered so pro-British that they influenced neutral members of the U.S. public to sympathize with the British side in World War II. The film portrays Britain's Appeasement#The conduct of appeasement, 1937–39, pre-war policy of appeasement with Germany in its willingness to Extradition, extradite one of its own citizens without any defense, and its depiction of Nazi agents freely walking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkhas, and 28,330 volunteer reserve personnel. The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with antecedents in the English Army and Scots Army that were created during the Restoration in 1660. The term ''British Army'' was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, but the Bill of Rights of 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Letter (1940 Film)
''The Letter'' is a 1940 American crime melodrama directed by William Wyler, and starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall and James Stephenson. The screenplay by Howard E. Koch is based on the 1927 play of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham derived from his own short story. The play was first filmed in 1929, by director Jean de Limur. The story was inspired by a real-life scandal involving the wife of the headmaster of a school in Kuala Lumpur who was convicted in a murder trial after shooting dead a male friend in April 1911. She was eventually pardoned. Plot On a moonlit, tropical night, the native workers are asleep in their outdoor barracks. A shot is heard; the door of a house opens, and a man stumbles out of it, followed by a woman who calmly shoots him several more times, the last few while standing over his body. The woman is Leslie Crosbie, the wife of a British rubber plantation manager in Malaya; her manservant recognizes the man whom she shot as Geoff Hammond, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pride And Prejudice (1940 Film)
''Pride and Prejudice'' is a 1940 American film adaptation of Jane Austen's 1813 novel ''Pride and Prejudice'', starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, the screenplay was written by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin, adapted specifically from the stage adaptation by Helen Jerome, in addition to Jane Austen's novel. The story is about five sisters from an English family of landed gentry who must deal with issues of marriage, morality and misconceptions. The film was released on July 26, 1940 in the United States by MGM and was critically well received. ''The New York Times'' film critic praised the film as "the most deliciously pert comedy of old manners, the most crisp and crackling satire in costume that we in this corner can remember ever having seen on the screen." Plot Mrs. Bennet (Mary Boland) and her two eldest daughters, Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) and Elizabeth (Greer Garson), are shopping for new dresses when they notice two gentlemen and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
If I Were King
''If I Were King'' is a 1938 American biographical and historical film starring Ronald Colman as medieval poet François Villon, and featuring Basil Rathbone and Frances Dee. It is based on the 1901 play and novel, both of the same name, by Justin Huntly McCarthy, and was directed by Frank Lloyd, with a screenplay adaptation by Preston Sturges. Plot In Paris, which has long been besieged by the Burgundians, François Villon is the despair of Father Villon, the priest who took him in and raised him from the age of six. Father Villon takes François to mass after his latest escapade (robbing a royal storehouse). There François spies a beautiful woman, Katherine DeVaucelles. Entranced, he tries to strike up an acquaintance, reciting one of his poems (from which the film takes its title) and pretending it was written specially for her. On the surface, she is unmoved, but when soldiers come to take him into custody, she provides him with an alibi. The crafty King Louis XI of Fran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boy Meets Girl (1938 Film)
''Boy Meets Girl'' is a 1938 American screwball comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. The supporting cast features Marie Wilson, Ralph Bellamy, Frank McHugh, Dick Foran and Ronald Reagan. The screenplay by Bella and Sam Spewack is based on their 1935 stage play of the same name, which ran for 669 performances on Broadway. The two zany screenwriters played by Cagney and O'Brien were based on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, while Ralph Bellamy's part as the producer was based on Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century Fox. Plot Two screenwriters, Law and Benson (James Cagney and Pat O'Brien), are in need of a story for cowboy star Larry Toms (Dick Foran). When studio waitress Susie Seabrook ( Marie Wilson) faints in the office of producer C.F. Friday (Ralph Bellamy) because she is pregnant, the writers get an idea for a story about a cowboy and a baby, and cast Susie's unborn baby Happy in the part. The story will be the classic Hollywood tale: Bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, Cagney was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances. He is remembered for playing multifaceted tough guys in films such as ''The Public Enemy'' (1931), ''Taxi!'' (1932), ''Angels with Dirty Faces'' (1938), ''The Roaring Twenties'' (1939), ''City for Conquest'' (1940) and ''White Heat'' (1949), finding himself typecasting (acting), typecast or limited by this reputation earlier in his career. He was able to negotiate dancing opportunities in his films and ended up winning the Academy Award for his role in the musical ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' (1942). In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its list of AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, greatest male stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Orson Welles described Cagney a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Founded in 1923 by four brothers, Harry Warner, Harry, Albert Warner, Albert, Sam Warner, Sam, and Jack L. Warner, Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American Warner Bros. Pictures, film industry before diversifying into Warner Bros. Animation, animation, Warner Bros. Television Studios, television, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, video games and is one of the Major film studio, "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 Animat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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