Docudrama Plays
   HOME
*





Docudrama Plays
Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typically strive to adhere to known historical facts, while allowing some degree of dramatic license in peripheral details, such as when there are gaps in the historical record. Dialogue may, or may not, include the actual words of real-life people, as recorded in historical documents. Docudrama producers sometimes choose to film their reconstructed events in the actual locations in which the historical events occurred. A docudrama, in which historical fidelity is the keynote, is generally distinguished from a film merely " based on true events", a term which implies a greater degree of dramatic license; and from the concept of "historical drama", a broader category which may also encompass entirely fictionalized action taking place in historica ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment, whether written or spoken, audio or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria, yet genres can be aesthetic, rhetorical, communicative, or functional. Genres form by conventions that change over time as cultures invent new genres and discontinue the use of old ones. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand-alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed-upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may have rigid, strictly adhered-to guidelines, while others may show great flexibility. Genre began as an absolute classification system for ancient Greek literature, a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Oppenheimer (TV Series)
''Oppenheimer'' is a biographical miniseries in seven parts about J. Robert Oppenheimer, produced by the BBC. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom between 29 October and 10 December 1980, and in the United States from 11 May 1982 as a component of PBS' Masterpiece Theatre. The series stars Sam Waterston as Oppenheimer. Plot synopsis The series depicts Oppenheimer's wartime role as head of the weapons laboratory of the Manhattan Project, during which he was under constant surveillance by the federal government because of his association with Communists. It culminates in a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission hearing in 1954, in which Oppenheimer is stripped of his security clearance. Cast * Sam Waterston as J. Robert Oppenheimer * John Carson as Narrator * Christopher Muncke as Colonel Kenneth Nichols * Jana Shelden as Kitty Oppenheimer * Kate Harper as Jean Tatlock * Edward Hardwicke as Enrico Fermi * David Suchet as Edward Teller * Manning Redwood as Lieutenant General Leslie Grov ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

He Walked By Night
''He Walked by Night'' is a 1948 American police procedural film noir directed by Alfred L. Werker and an uncredited Anthony Mann. The film, shot in semidocumentary tone, was loosely based on newspaper accounts of the real-life actions of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, a former Glendale, California police department employee and World War II veteran who unleashed a crime spree of burglaries, robberies, and shootouts in the Los Angeles area in 1945 and 1946. During the film's production, one of the actors, Jack Webb, struck up a friendship with the police technical advisor, Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn, and was inspired by a conversation with Wynn to create the radio and later television program '' Dragnet''. ''He Walked by Night'' was released by Eagle-Lion Films and is notable for the camera work by renowned ''noir'' cinematographer John Alton. Today the film is in the public domain. It is aired frequently on the over-the-air channel, Movies! network. Plot On a Los Angeles str ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


The Naked City
''The Naked City'' (aka ''Naked City'') is a 1948 American film noir directed by Jules Dassin, starring Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart and Don Taylor. The film, shot almost entirely on location in New York City, depicts the police investigation that follows the murder of a young model. ''Naked City'' received two Academy Awards, one for cinematography for William H. Daniels and another for film editing to Paul Weatherwax. In 2007, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot In the late hours of a hot New York summer night, a pair of men subdue and kill Jean Dexter, an ex-model, by knocking her out with chloroform and drowning her in her bathtub. When one of the murderers gets conscience-stricken while drunk, the other kills him and throws his body into the East River. Homicide Detective Lt. Dan Muldoon and his young associate ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


13 Rue Madeleine
''13 Rue Madeleine'' is a 1947 American World War II spy film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring James Cagney, Annabella, Richard Conte and Frank Latimore. Allied volunteers are trained as spies in the leadup to the invasion of Europe, but one of them is a German double agent. Plot Bob Sharkey is put in charge of the 77th group of American espionage candidates. However, he is informed by his boss Charles Gibson that one of his students is a German Abwehr agent. He accepts the challenge of identifying him. He correctly chooses "Bill O'Connell". Gibson reveals that O'Connell is actually Wilhelm Kuncel, one of Germany's top spies. He tells Sharkey to pass him through the course, as they know his mission is to determine the date and location of Operation Overlord (the Allied invasion of Europe). They assign him a job in London that gives him full access to false information about "Plan B", the invasion of Germany through the Lowlands, hoping he will pass it along to his superior ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Boomerang (1947 Film)
''Boomerang!'' is a 1947 American crime semidocumentary film based on the true story of a vagrant accused of murder who is found not guilty through the efforts of the prosecutor. It stars Dana Andrews, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Arthur Kennedy and Jane Wyatt, with voiceovers by Reed Hadley. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and adapted from a 1945 ''Reader's Digest'' story written by Fulton Oursler (credited as Anthony Abbot) based on an actual 1924 crime. The film was shot mostly in Stamford, Connecticut, after Kazan was denied permission to film in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the crime and trial occurred."'Boomerang!,' shot in Stamford, to be screened in Bridgeport", ''The Advocate'' of Stamford, Connecticut, October 13, 2009 The film was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival. Plot Episcopal priest Father Lambert is shot dead on a Bridgeport, Connecticut street at night. The police, led by Chief Robinson, fail to immediately find the murderer. The case soon becom ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


The House On 92nd Street
''The House on 92nd Street'' is a 1945 black-and-white American spy film directed by Henry Hathaway. The movie, shot mostly in New York City, was released shortly after the end of World War II. ''The House on 92nd Street'' was made with the full cooperation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), whose director, J. Edgar Hoover, appears during the introductory montage. The FBI agents shown in Washington, D.C. were played by actual agents. The film's semidocumentary style inspired other films, including ''The Naked City'' and ''Boomerang''. Plot In 1939, American standout university student, Bill Dietrich, is approached by Nazi recruiters because of his German heritage. He feigns interest, then notifies the FBI. Agent George Briggs encourages Dietrich to play along. Thus, Dietrich travels to Hamburg, Germany, where he undergoes six months of intensive training in espionage. The Germans then send him back to the United States to set up a radio station on Long Island to relay se ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Semidocumentary
A semidocumentary is a form of book, film, or television program presenting a fictional story that incorporates many factual details or actual events, or which is presented in a manner similar to a documentary. Characteristics Stylistically, it has certain similarities to Italian Neorealism, such as the use of location shooting and employing non-actors in secondary roles. However, the viewer is not intended to mistake a semidocumentary for a real documentary; the fictional elements are too prominent. Background One of the first films of this kind was Henry Hathaway's ''The House on 92nd Street'' (1945). In the late 1940s, semidocumentary films were often associated with film noir thrillers, sharing a commitment to on-location shooting, gritty realism, and understated performances. Decline In the 1960s and 1970s, the semidocumentary style declined in feature films. The standard documentary had blurred the difference between itself and fiction so much that there was viewer confu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Newsreel
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, information, and entertainment for millions of moviegoers. Newsreels were typically exhibited preceding a feature film, but there were also dedicated newsreel theaters in many major cities in the 1930s and ’40s, and some large city cinemas also included a smaller theaterette where newsreels were screened continuously throughout the day. By the end of the 1960s television news broadcasts had supplanted the format. Newsreels are considered significant historical documents, since they are often the only audiovisual record of certain cultural events. History Silent news films were shown in cinemas from the late 19th century. In 1909 Pathé started producing weekly newsreels in Europe. Pathé began producing newsreels for the UK in 1910 and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by 20th Century Studios and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (Buena Vista Home Entertainment) distributes the films produced by 20th Century Studios in home media under the 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment banner. For over 80 years – beginning with its founding in 1935 and ending in 2019 (when it became part of Walt Disney Studios), 20th Century Fox was one of the then "Big Six" major American film studios. It was formed in 1935 from the merger of the Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures and was originally known as the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (while owned by TCF Ho ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The March Of Time
''The March of Time'' is an American newsreel series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945. The "voice" of both series was Westbrook Van Voorhis. Produced and written by Louis de Rochemont and his brother Richard de Rochemont, ''The March of Time'' was recognized with an Academy Honorary Award in 1937. ''The March of Time'' organization also produced four feature films for theatrical release, and created documentary series for early television. Its first TV series, ''Crusade in Europe'' (1949), received a Peabody Award and one of the first Emmy Awards. Production ''The March of Time'' was based on a news documentary and dramatization series, also called ''The March of Time'', that was first broadcast on CBS Radio in 1931. Usually called a newsreel series, ''The March of Time'' was actually a monthly series of short feature films twice the length of standard newsreels. The films wer ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Louis De Rochemont
Louis Clark de Rochemont (January 13, 1899 – December 23, 1978) was an American film maker known for creating, along with Roy E. Larsen, the monthly theatrically shown newsreels ''The March of Time''. His brother, Richard, was also a producer and writer on ''The March of Time''. The de Rochemonts were descended from Huguenot ancestors who settled in New Hampshire early in the nineteenth century. Born in 1899, the son of a Boston attorney, he grew up in small-town Massachusetts. His film career began when, still a teenager, he filmed his New England neighbors and sold the footage to local theatres under the title ''See Yourself as Others See You''.Orwell Subverted, Daniel Leab, Penn State Press, pp. 21-22 The newsreels he created defined film news from 1935–51. The 20-minute films, which combined filmed news with interpretive interviews and dramatizations, appeared between featured films in theaters. When he moved from newsreels to feature films, de Rochemont chose to p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]