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Fast Company (1938 Film)
''Fast Company'' is a 1938 mystery film starring Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice as married rare-book dealers who try to solve a murder case. It is based on the novel of the same name by "Marco Page" (Harry Kurnitz). It was followed by two 1939 films featuring the fictional couple, '' Fast and Loose'' and ''Fast and Furious'', though they were played by different actors in each. Apparently, cinema distributors were complaining about the time lag between The Thin Man movies, so Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer started this trilogy featuring married amateur sleuths. To avoid confusion with a 1953 MGM film of the same title, ''Fast Company'' was rechristened ''Rare Book Murder'' for television. Plot Joel and Garda Sloane run a rare book business in New York City. To supplement their meager income, Joel recovers stolen books. Insurance man Steve Langner drops off a check for his latest success. The couple also tries to help Ned Morgan, recently released from prison, find a job; they do not believ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Buzzell
Edward Buzzell (November 13, 1895 – January 11, 1985) was an American film actor and director whose credits include ''Child of Manhattan (film), Child of Manhattan'' (1933); ''Honolulu (1939 film), Honolulu'' (1939); the Marx Brothers films ''At the Circus'' (1939) and ''Go West (1940 film), Go West'' (1940); the musicals ''Best Foot Forward (1943 film), Best Foot Forward'' (1943), ''Song of the Thin Man'' (1947), and ''Neptune's Daughter (1949 film), Neptune's Daughter'' (1949); and ''Easy to Wed'' (1946). Born in Brooklyn, Buzzell appeared in vaudeville and on Broadway, and he was hired to star in the 1929 film version of George M. Cohan's ''Little Johnny Jones'' with Alice Day. Buzzell appeared in a few Vitaphone shorts and the two-strip Technicolor short ''The Devil's Cabaret'' (1930) as Satan's assistant. He wrote screenplays in the early 1930s and later produced the popular ''The Milton Berle Show'', which premiered on television in 1948. In 1926, Buzzell married ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shepperd Strudwick
Shepperd Strudwick (September 22, 1907 – January 15, 1983) was an American actor of film, television, and stage. He was also billed as John Shepperd for some of his films and for his acting on stage in New York. Early years Strudwick was born in Hillsborough, North Carolina. He attended Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the University of North Carolina. At the university, he played football and basketball and ran the mile in track. He gained early acting experience in a summer stock theatre company in Maine. Career He began his film career as the title character in the short film ''Joaquin Murrieta'' (1938), credited as Sheppard Strudwick. He appeared as Yugoslav guerrilla leader Lt. Aleksa Petrovic, an aide to General Draza Mihailovich, in the 20th Century Fox war film ''Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas'' in 1943. During World War II, Strudwick served in the Navy. He played Edgar Allan Poe in ''The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe'' (1942) and also appea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thurston Hall
Ernest Thurston Hall (May 10, 1882 – February 20, 1958) was an American film, stage and television actor.Aylesworth, Thomas G. and Bowman, John S. (1987). ''The World Almanac Who's Who of Film''. World Almanac. . Pp. 186-187. Career Stage Hall toured with various New England stage companies during his teens, then went onto London, where he formed a small stage troupe. He also toured New Zealand and South Africa."Katz, Ephraim (1979). ''The Film Encyclopedia: The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of World Cinema in a Single Volume''. Perigee Books. . P. 526. At 22 in 1904, Hall was in the first stage production of '' Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch''. His Broadway credits include ''The Only Girl'' (1914), ''Have a Heart'' (1917), ''Civilian Clothes'' (1919), ''The French Doll'' (1922), ''Still Waters'' (1926), ''Buy, Buy, Baby'' (1926), ''Mixed Doubles'' (1927), ''Behold the Bridegroom'' (1927), ''The Common Sin'' (1928), ''Sign of the Leopard'' (1928), ''Security'' (1929), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Character Actors
A character actor is a supporting actor who plays unusual, interesting, or eccentric characters.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrieved 7 August 2014, "..a breed of actor who has the ability to be almost unrecognizable from part to part, and yet play many, many roles convincingly and memorably. .." The term, often contrasted with that of leading actor, is somewhat abstract and open to interpretation. In a literal sense, all actors can be considered character actors since they all play "characters", but the term more commonly refers to an actor who frequently plays a distinctive and important supporting role. Character actors are generally well-known and recognizable by the audience (by appearance if not by name), even if they play different types of roles in different movies. A character actor may play characters who are very different from the actor's off-screen real-life personality, while in another sense a character actor ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nostalgia
Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a learned formation of a Greek language, Greek compound, consisting of (''nóstos''), meaning "homecoming", a Homeric word, and (''álgos''), meaning "sorrow" or "despair", and was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. Described as a medical condition—a form of Depression (mood), melancholy—in the Early Modern period, it became an important Trope (literature), trope in Romanticism. Nostalgia is associated with a longing for the past, its personalities, possibilities, and events, especially the "Good old days, good ol' days" or a "warm childhood". There is a predisposition, caused by cognitive biases such as rosy retrospection, for people to view the past more favourably and future more negatively. When applied to one's beliefs about a society or institutio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sky Movies
Sky Cinema is a British subscription film service owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). In the United Kingdom, Sky Cinema channels currently broadcast on the Sky satellite and Virgin Media cable platforms, and in addition Sky Cinema on demand content are available through these as well as via Now TV, BT TV and TalkTalk TV. In 2016, Sky rebranded its television film channel operations under one single branding on 8 July, the channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland were rebranded from Sky Movies to Sky Cinema; on 22 September in Germany and Austria, the Sky Cinema brand (originally used for the flagship network) was extended to the German channels in the group formerly known as Sky Film; the Italian Sky Cinema channels followed suit on 5 November by adopting the brand packages introduced in the United Kingdom and Ireland earlier. History 1989–1998: Early years Launched on 5 February 1989, Sky Movies was originally a single service as part of Sky's original fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace McMahon
Horace McMahon (May 17, 1906 – August 17, 1971) was an American actor. He was one of Hollywood's favorite heavies. McMahon began his acting career on Broadway, then appeared in many films and television series. In 1962, he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his performance in the series '' Naked City'' (1958–1963). Early years McMahon was born in South Norwalk, Connecticut. He became interested in acting when he was a student at Fordham University School of Law. Career In his early career he mostly played thugs or jailbirds, but in 1949 he starred in his most acclaimed role, as Lieutenant Monaghan in the drama play ''Detective Story'' and in 1951 he reprised his character in Paramount Pictures' film version ''Detective Story'', alongside Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker. McMahon also starred on television, in the ABC police series '' Naked City'' as Lt. Mike Parker, a gruff, no-nonsense, but warmhearted cop's cop, interested only in justice and doing th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwight Frye
Dwight Iliff Frye (born Fry; February 22, 1899 – November 7, 1943) was an American character actor of stage and screen. He is best known for his portrayals of neurotic, murderous villains in several classic Universal horror films, such as Renfield in '' Dracula'' (1931) and Fritz in ''Frankenstein'' (1931). Biography Early life and career Frye was born in Salina, Kansas, and studied for a career in music and first appeared as a concert pianist. In the 1920s, he made his name as a stage actor, often in comedies. In 1924, he played the Son in a production of Luigi Pirandello's ''Six Characters in Search of an Author''. While he had a few minor comedic roles in silent pictures, with the coming of sound Frye soon became known for playing villains. Nicknamed "The Man with the Thousand-Watt Stare" and "The Man of a Thousand Deaths", he specialized in the portrayal of mentally unbalanced characters, including his signature role, the madman Renfield in Tod Browning's 1931 ver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Douglas
Donald Douglas (born Douglas William Kinleyside, 24 August 1905 – 31 December 1945) was a Scottish actor in the United States who performed in films, on the stage and in radio. Background He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 24 August 1905, and was christened at a church in Twickenham, England. Young Douglas was the son of William Young Kinleyside, a businessman and lawyer. Business brought his father to New York on several occasions, and eventually, five-year old Douglas, with his sister Hazel, were brought to America as second cabin class passengers, on board the British steamer ''Mauritania'', which sailed from the Port of Liverpool on 29 October 1910, and arrived at the Port of New York, 4 November. He became an American citizen in 1939. Adopting the stage name "Don Douglas", he became a singer and actor in musical shows such as ''Footlites''. In 1928, his big break came when he won glowing revues for his performance in ''The Desert Song'' in the Orpheum Theatre in Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minor Watson
Minor Watson (December 22, 1889 – July 28, 1965) was a prominent character actor. He appeared in 111 movies made between 1913 and 1956. His credits included '' Boys Town'' (1938), ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' (1942), ''Kings Row'' (1942), '' Guadalcanal Diary'' (1943), ''Bewitched'' (1945), '' The Virginian'' (1946), and ''The Jackie Robinson Story'' (1950) Early years Watson was the son of Mrs. Alice Rodgers. He attended St. John's Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, and Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois. He said that, as a member of Sigma Phi at Shurtleff, he was encouraged to pursue a career in drama. Film Watson began his film career with Essanay Studios in 1913. He was described as "the new recruit that plays lover parts." Stage Watson's Broadway credits include ''State of the Union'', ''End of Summer'', ''Tapestry in Gray'', ''A Divine Drudge'', ''Reunion in Vienna'', ''Friendship'', ''This Thing Called Love'', ''These Modern Women'', ''Howdy King'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Zucco
George Zucco (11 January 1886 – 27 May 1960) was a British character actor who appeared in plays and 96 films, mostly American-made, during a career spanning over two decades, from the 1920s to 1951. In his films, he often played a suave villain, a member of nobility, or a mad doctor. Early life and family Zucco was born in Manchester, Lancashire, on 11 January 1886. His mother Marian (née Rintoul) ran a dressmaking business; it is claimed she was a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, but this is untrue, as the honour was only accessible to titled ladies of high rank (duchesses, marchionesses, countesses, viscountesses, and baronesses). His father, George De Sylla Zucco, was a Greek merchant from Corfu who became a naturalised British subject in 1865. Zucco debuted on the Canadian stage in 1908 in a stock theater company. In 1910, he entered the United States for the first time from Canada, bound for Seattle, Washington, where he soon appeared in plays such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Howard De Liagre
Mary Howard de Liagre (May 18, 1913 – June 6, 2009) was an American actress usually credited as Mary Howard. Howard came from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and took dancing lessons when she was in kindergarten. Among her dancing instructors was Albertina Rasch. She began her entertainment career as a dancer, performing in shows in New York City when she was 14. That talent ran in her family, as two older sisters were in the Ziegfeld Follies. Howard's first film employment came when she signed a stock contract with Louis B. Mayer. Although she appeared in few films, she used the first six months to have her teeth straightened and the second six months to learn to act. Howard helped organize the USO in Los Angeles during World War II and toured for returning servicemen. In 1945, she moved to New York City and married Alfred de Liagre Jr., a theater producer who died in 1987. She was a founding member of Recording for the Blind, and served on the boards of the American Academy of Drama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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