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Comrade X
''Comrade X'' is a 1940 American comedy film, comedy spy film directed by King Vidor and starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr. The supporting cast features Oskar Homolka, Eve Arden and Sig Rumann. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career. Plot In the Soviet Union, American reporter McKinley "Mac" Thompson (Clark Gable) secretly writes unflattering stories about the Soviet Union, attributed to "Comrade X", for his newspaper. His identity is discovered by his valet, Vanya (Felix Bressart), who blackmails Mac into promising to get his daughter, a streetcar conductor named Theodore (Hedy Lamarr), out of the country. Theodore agrees to a sham marriage so she can spread the message of the benefits of Communism to the rest of the world. However, Commissar Vasiliev (Oscar Homolka) is determined to unmask and arrest Comrade X. Eventually Theodore sees the "wicked hypocrisy of Communism" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor (; February 8, 1894 – November 1, 1982) was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, humane, and sympathetic depiction of contemporary social issues. Considered an auteur director, Vidor approached multiple genres and allowed the subject matter to determine the style, often pressing the limits of film-making conventions. His most acclaimed and successful film in the silent era is ''The Big Parade'' (1925). Vidor's sound films of the 1940s and early 1950s arguably represent his richest output. Among his finest works are ''Northwest Passage'' (1940), ''Comrade X'' (1940), ''An American Romance'' (1944), and '' Duel in the Sun'' (1946). His dramatic depictions of the American western landscape endow nature with a sinister force where his characters struggle for survival and redemption. Vidor's earlier films tend to identify ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comrade X Lobby Card 2
The term ''comrade'' (russian: товарищ, tovarisch) generally means 'mate', 'colleague', or 'ally', and derives from the Spanish and Portuguese, term , literally meaning 'chamber mate', from Latin , meaning 'chamber' or 'room'. It may also specifically mean "fellow soldier". Political use of the term was inspired by the French Revolution, after which it grew into a form of address between socialists and workers. Since the Russian Revolution, popular culture in the Western world has often associated it with communism. Background Upon abolishing the titles of nobility in France, and the terms and (literally, 'my lord' and 'my lady'), the revolutionaries employed the term for men and for women (both meaning 'citizen') to refer to each other. The deposed King Louis XVI, for instance, was referred to as to emphasize his loss of privilege. When the socialist movement gained momentum in the mid-19th century, socialists elsewhere began to look for a similar egalitarian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgar Barrier
Edgar Barrier (March 4, 1907 – June 20, 1964) was an American actor who appeared on radio, stage, and screen. In the 1930s he was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and was one of several actors who played Simon Templar on ''The Saint'' radio show. He also appeared in two films with Welles, '' Journey into Fear'' (1943) and '' Macbeth'' (1948). Barrier also appeared in the 1938 Welles-directed short, ''Too Much Johnson'', which was long believed lost but was rediscovered in 2013. He was a guest star on a few episodes of Disney's ''Zorro'' as Don Cornelio Esperon. Barrier was born in New York City and died in Hollywood, California from a heart attack. Broadway roles Edgar Barrier's Broadway stage credits are listed at the Internet Broadway Database. at the |
Vladimir Sokoloff
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Sokoloff (russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Соколо́в; December 26, 1889 – February 15, 1962) was a Russian-American character actor of stage and screen. After studying theatre in Moscow, he began his professional film career in Germany and France during the Silent era, before emigrating to the United States in the 1930s. He appeared in over 100 films and television series, often playing supporting characters of various nationalities and ethnicities. Early life and education Sokoloff was born in Moscow, Russian Empire, to a German Jewish family. He was raised bilingual, speaking both Russian and German. He studied theatre in Moscow, first at the Moscow State University and later at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, graduating in 1913. At one point a pupil of Constantin Stanislavski, he would later reject Method acting (as well as all other acting theories). Career Upon graduation, he joined the Moscow Art Theatre as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natasha Lytess
Natasha Lytess (born 16 May 1911, Berlin, Germany – died 12 May 1963, Zurich, Switzerland) was an actress, writer and drama coach. Life Born Natalia Postmann and also known as Tala Forman, she had studied with the director Max Reinhardt and appeared in the repertory theater. She is said to have had a relationship with the writer Bruno Frank, who is also said to be the father of her daughter Barbara, born in 1943. When the Nazis came to power, and in light of her Jewish heritage, she moved to the United States and settled down in Los Angeles. She had hoped for a great stage career, but her accent and purportedly unfeminine appearance limited the roles she could play. Among her acting credits were appearances in ''Comrade X'' (1940), ''Once Upon a Honeymoon'' (1942), and '' The House on Telegraph Hill'' (1951). Her performance in ''Once Upon a Honeymoon'' drew praise from ''New York Times'' critic Bosley Crowther, who said she "shines with clear and poignant brilliance in a brie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Homolka
Oskar Homolka (August 12, 1898 – January 27, 1978) was an Austrian film and theatre actor, who went on to work in Germany, Britain and America. Both his voice and his appearance fitted him for roles as communist spies or Soviet officials, for which he was in regular demand. By the age of 30, he had appeared in more than 400 plays; his film career covered at least 100 films and TV shows. Career After serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War, Homolka attended the Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna, the city of his birth, and began his career on the Austrian stage. In 1924 he played Mortimer in the premiere of Brecht's play ''The Life of Edward II of England'' at the Munich Kammerspiele, and from 1925 in Berlin where he worked under Max Reinhardt. Other stage plays in which Homolka performed during this period include: The first German performance of Eugene O'Neill's ''The Emperor Jones'', 1924, ''Anna Christie'', 1924, ', 1925, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eastern-bloc armies or to the people's commissars (effectively government ministers), while administrative officers are called ''commissaries''. The Russian word комисса́р, from French ''commissaire'', was used in Russia for both political and administrative officials. The title has been used in the Soviet Union and in Russia since the time of the emperor Peter the Great (). History In the 18th and 19th centuries in the Russian army ''kommissars'', then ''krigs-komissars'' (from german: Krieg 'war') were officials in charge of supply for the armed forces (see Rus. Генерал-кригскомиссар). Commissaries were used during the Provisional Government (March–July 1917) for regional heads of administration, but the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange which allocates products to everyone in the society.: "One widespread distinction was that socialism socialised production only while communism socialised production and consumption." Communist society also involves the absence of private property, social classes, money, and the state. Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance, but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a constitutional socialist st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Many recently built tramways use the contemporary term light rail. The vehicles are called streetcars or trolleys (not to be confused with trolleybus) in North America and trams or tramcars elsewhere. The first two terms are often used interchangeably in the United States, with ''trolley'' being the preferred term in the eastern US and ''streetcar'' in the western US. ''Streetcar'' or ''tramway'' are preferred in Canada. In parts of the United States, internally powered buses made to resemble a streetcar are often referred to as "trolleys". To avoid further confusion with trolley buses, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) refers to them as "trolley-replica buses". In the United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to family members or associates rather than to the general public. These acts can also involve using threats of physical, mental or emotional harm, or of criminal prosecution, against the victim or someone close to the victim. It is normally carried out for personal gain, most commonly of position, money, or property. Blackmail may also be considered a form of extortion. Although the two are generally synonymous, extortion is the taking of personal property by threat of future harm. Blackmail is the use of threat to prevent another from engaging in a lawful occupation and writing libelous letters or letters that provoke a breach of the peace, as well as use of intimidation for purposes of collecting an unpaid debt. In many jurisdictions, bla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
70th Berlin International Film Festival
The 70th annual Berlin International Film Festival took place from 20 February to 1 March 2020. It was the first under the leadership of new Berlin Film Festival heads, business administration director Mariette Rissenbeek and artistic director Carlo Chatrian. The festival opened with the opening gala presented by actor Samuel Finzi followed by the world premiere of the film ''My Salinger Year'' which was selected for the Berlinale Special section. The Golden Bear was awarded to the Iranian film ''There Is No Evil'', directed by Mohammad Rasoulof. Jury Main competition The following were on the jury for the Berlinale Competition section: International jury * Jeremy Irons, actor (United Kingdom) - Jury President * Bérénice Bejo, actress (France / Argentina) * Bettina Brokemper, producer (Germany) * Annemarie Jacir, filmmaker and poet (Palestine) * Kenneth Lonergan, playwright and filmmaker (United States) * Luca Marinelli, actor (Italy) * Kleber Mendonça Filho, film director, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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