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Drew Casper
Joseph Andrew "Drew" Casper is a Professor of Critical Studies who previously worked at the School of Cinematic Arts as part of the University of Southern California and considered to be an authority on American film from World War II to the present. While a Ph.D. student at USC, Dr. Casper's mentor, Irwin Blacker, died suddenly and the Cinema department offered Dr. Casper a position. Casper rose to become the third-highest-paid person at USC. In the fall of 1997, the estate of Alfred Hitchcock and USC made Dr. Casper the first Alma and Alfred Hitchcock Professor for the Study of American Film. He retired from his role at USC in December 2019 after 47 years. Casper provides a steady stream of DVD commentaries and expertise on films. He is the author of books about Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen, a book on Postwar Hollywood 1946–1962., and a volume called Hollywood Film, 1963-1976: Years of Revolution and Reaction. DVDs provided commentary for *''Act of Violence'' *''Advise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fayard Nicholas
Fayard Antonio Nicholas (October 20, 1914 – January 24, 2006) was an American choreographer, dancer and actor. He and his younger brother Harold Nicholas made up the Nicholas Brothers tap dance Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perfo ... duo, who starred in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, MGM musicals ''An All-Colored Vaudeville Show'' (1935), ''Stormy Weather (1943 film), Stormy Weather'' (1943), ''The Pirate (1948 film), The Pirate'' (1948), and ''Hard Four'' (2007). The Nicholas brothers also starred in the 20th Century-Fox musicals ''Down Argentine Way'' (1940), ''Sun Valley Serenade'' (1941), and ''Orchestra Wives'' (1942). Early life Nicholas was born in Alabama, but grew up primarily in Philadelphia. He learned to dance while watching vaudeville shows with his brother whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
This Is The Army
''This Is the Army'' is a 1943 American wartime musical comedy film produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, adapted from a wartime stage musical with the same name, designed to boost morale in the U.S. during World War II, directed by Ezra Stone. The screenplay by Casey Robinson and Claude Binyon was based on the 1942 Broadway musical by Irving Berlin, who also composed the film's 19 songs and broke screen protocol by singing one of them. The movie features a large ensemble cast, including George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Joan Leslie, Alan Hale Sr. and Rosemary DeCamp, while both the stage play and film included soldiers of the U.S. Army who were actors and performers in civilian life. Plot In World War I, song-and-dance man Jerry Jones is drafted into the US Army, where he stages a revue called ''Yip Yip Yaphank.'' It is a rousing success, but one night during the show orders are received to leave immediately for France: instead of the finale ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Prodigal (film)
''The Prodigal'' is a 1955 Eastmancolor biblical epic CinemaScope film made by MGM starring Lana Turner and Edmund Purdom. It was based on the New Testament parable about a selfish son who leaves his family to pursue a life of pleasure. The film also features James Mitchell, Louis Calhern, Joseph Wiseman, Cecil Kellaway, Audrey Dalton, and Walter Hampden. Dancer Taina Elg made her film debut in ''The Prodigal''. Plot ''In the times before Christianity, only a few people believed in one God. Most people believed in many gods. It was mainly the believers in Jehovah who stood against a multitude of some 65,000 strange and different gods. Of these, two of the most notorious were Baal and Astarte, the male and the female. Gods of the flesh, not of the soul. They were supposed to renew the fertility of the earth every year. In exchange, they demanded of their believers the sacrifice of money, jewelry and human life. Out of these times comes our story, based upon the Parable of the Pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Possessed (1947 Film)
''Possessed'' is a 1947 American psychological drama directed by Curtis Bernhardt, starring Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, and Raymond Massey in a tale about an unstable woman's obsession with her ex-lover. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall and Silvia Richards was based upon a story by Rita Weiman. Plot A woman (Joan Crawford) wanders through Los Angeles, saying little more than "David". Admitted to a hospital's psychiatric ward in a catatonic stupor, and interrogated by a doctor, she calls herself Louise Howell, and recounts her life in intermittent spurts, starting with her memory of her lover David Sutton (Van Heflin) playing Schumann for her, she saying, "I want to have a monopoly on you." He does not return her passion, but returns her home in a boat, and tells her their relationship is over. She lives, and works as a nurse, at the lakeside home of the Grahams. Louise takes care of Pauline, the invalid wife of Dean Graham (Raymond Massey). Pauline is irascible and venomous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Notorious (1946 Film)
''Notorious'' is a 1946 American spy film noir directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation. The film follows U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin (Grant), who enlists the help of Alicia Huberman (Bergman), the daughter of a German war criminal, to infiltrate a circle of executives of IG Farben hiding out in Rio de Janeiro after World War II. The situation becomes complicated when the two fall in love as Huberman is instructed to seduce Alex Sebastian (Rains), a Farben executive who had previously been infatuated with her. It was shot in late 1945 and early 1946, and was released by RKO Radio Pictures in August 1946. ''Notorious'' is considered by critics and scholars to mark a watershed for Hitchcock artistically, and to represent a heightened thematic maturity. His biographer, Donald Spoto, writes that ''"Notorious'' is in fact Alfred Hitchcock ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Blue Heaven (1950 Film)
''My Blue Heaven'' is a 1950 American drama musical film directed by Henry Koster and starring Betty Grable and Dan Dailey. Plot Kitty Moran (Betty Grable), a radio star, finds out she is pregnant. After she miscarries, Kitty and her husband Jack (Dan Dailey) move their show to television, and become determined to adopt a baby. Cast * Betty Grable as Kitty Moran * Dan Dailey as Jack Moran * David Wayne as Walter Pringle * Jane Wyatt as Janet Pringle * Mitzi Gaynor as Gloria Adams * Una Merkel as Miss Irma Gilbert * Louise Beavers as Selma * Laura Pierpont as Mrs. Johnston * Elinor Donahue as Mary – Bratty Autograph Seeker * Phyllis Coates as Party Girl * Mae Marsh as Maid * Minerva Urecal as Mrs. Bates aka Old Mule Face * Suzanne Ridgeway as Audience Member / Passerby on Street * Barbara Pepper as Susan, Waitress Background ''My Blue Heaven'' was the third film that Grable and Dailey made together, the first two being ''Mother Wore Tights'' in 1947 and '' When My Baby ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lust For Life (1956 Film)
''Lust for Life'' is a 1956 American biographical film about the life of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, based on the 1934 novel of the same title by Irving Stone which was adapted for the screen by Norman Corwin. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by John Houseman. The film stars Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, James Donald as his brother Theo, with Pamela Brown, Everett Sloane, and Anthony Quinn. Douglas won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his performance, while Quinn won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Plot Vincent has trained to be a minister, like his father, but the church authorities find him unsuitable. He pleads with them to be allowed some position and they place him in a very poor mining community. Here he becomes deeply absorbed in the miners' plight and begins sketching their daily life. The religious leaders do not like his approach, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lifeboat (1944 Film)
''Lifeboat'' is a 1944 American survival film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a story by John Steinbeck. It stars Tallulah Bankhead and William Bendix, alongside Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee. The film is set entirely on a lifeboat launched from a passenger vessel torpedoed and sunk by a Nazi U-boat. The first in Hitchcock's "limited-setting" films, the others being ''Rope'' (1948), ''Dial M for Murder'' and ''Rear Window'' (both 1954), it is the only film Hitchcock made for 20th Century Fox. The film received three Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Original Story and Best CinematographyBlack and White. Bankhead won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Though highly controversial in its time for what many interpreted as its sympathetic depiction of a German U-boat captain, ''Lifeboat'' is now viewed more favorably and has been listed by several modern critics as one of Hitchcock' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Killer (1933 Film)
''Lady Killer'' is a 1933 American pre-Code crime drama film starring James Cagney, Mae Clarke, and Margaret Lindsay, based on the story "The Finger Man" by Rosalind Keating Shaffer. The picture was directed by Roy Del Ruth. Plot After being fired as a theater usher, Dan Quigley tracks down Myra Gale to her apartment and returns the purse she dropped. He then sits in on a poker game with her "brother-in-law", Spade Maddock, Duke, Smiley and Pete. After he loses all his money, he leaves, only to run into another person trying to return Myra's purse. Realizing he has been conned, he threatens to go to the police ... unless they let him join them, telling them he has some profitable ideas. He is as good as his word. Eventually, they are running a nightclub and casino, a perfect cover to scout the rich as burglary targets. Dan stages a car accident so a passing "doctor" can persuade Mrs. Marley to let him rest for a while in her nearby mansion. This gives Dan an opportunity to ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hustler
''The Hustler'' is a 1961 American sports romantic drama film directed by Robert Rossen from Walter Tevis's 1959 novel of the same name, adapted by Rossen and Sidney Carroll. It tells the story of small-time pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson and his desire to break into the "major league" of professional hustling and high-stakes wagering that follows it. He throws his raw talent and ambition up against the best player in the country, seeking to best the legendary pool player " Minnesota Fats". The film was shot on location in New York City and stars Paul Newman as Eddie; Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats; Piper Laurie as Sarah; and George C. Scott as Bert. It was followed by ''The Color of Money'' in 1986, with Newman reprising his role. ''The Hustler'' was a major critical and popular success, gaining a reputation as a modern classic. Its exploration of winning, losing, and character garnered a number of major awards; it is also credited with helping to spark a resurgence in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gang's All Here (1943 Film)
''The Gang's All Here'' is a 1943 American Twentieth Century Fox Technicolor musical film starring Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda and James Ellison. The film, directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley, is known for its use of musical numbers with fruit hats. Included among the 10 highest-grossing films of that year, it was at that time Fox's most expensive production. Musical highlights include Carmen Miranda performing an insinuating, witty version of "You Discover You're in New York" that lampoons fads, fashions, and wartime shortages of the time. The film features Miranda's "The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat" which, because of its sexual innuendo (dozens of scantily clad women handling very large bananas), apparently prevented the film from being shown in Brazil on its initial release. In the US, the censors dictated that the chorus girls must hold the bananas at the waist and not at the hip. Alice Faye sings "A Journey to a Star," "No Love, No Nothin'," and the surreal finale " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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