George Melford
George H. Melford (born George Henry Knauff, February 19, 1877 – April 25, 1961) was an American stage and film actor and director. Often taken for granted as a director today, the stalwart Melford's name by the 1920s was, like Cecil B. DeMille's, appearing in big bold letters above the title of his films. Early years Born in Rochester, New York, in 1877 (though older sources state 1888), he was the son of German immigrant Henrietta Knauff. Melford had four sisters: Mary Knauff (Mrs. Godfrey Willis Wainwright); Henrietta Knauff; Alice Irene Knauff (Mrs. Edmond Francois Bernoudy) — all of Los Angeles — and Mrs. Frederick Kells/Keils of Ottawa, Canada. Melford graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Career He was an accomplished stage actor working in Cincinnati, Ohio, before joining the Kalem Company motion picture studio in New York City in 1909. Hired by director Sidney Olcott for character actor roles, in the fall of 1910 he was sent to work wi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, and Yonkers, New York, Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in Western New York, the city of Rochester forms the core of a larger Rochester metropolitan area, New York, metropolitan area with a population of 1 million people, across six counties. The city was one of the United States' first boomtowns, initially due to the fertile Genesee River Valley, which gave rise to numerous flour mills, and then as a manufacturing center, which spurred further rapid population growth. Rochester rose to prominence as the birthplace and home of some of America's most iconic companies, in particular Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb (along with Wegmans, Gannett, Paychex, Western Union, French's, Cons ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mary Johnston
Mary Johnston (November 21, 1870 – May 9, 1936) was an American novelist and women's rights advocate from Virginia. She was one of America's best selling authors during her writing career and had three silent films adapted from her novels. Johnston was also an active member of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, using her writing skills and notability to draw attention to the cause of women's suffrage in Virginia. Early life Mary Johnston was born in the small town of Buchanan, Virginia, the eldest child of John William Johnston, an American Civil War veteran, and Elizabeth Dixon Alexander Johnston. Due to frequent illness, she was educated at home by family and tutors.Brooks, Clayton McClure, Samuel P. Menefee and Brendan Wolfe. ''Encyclopedia Virginia''. She grew up with a love of books and was financially independent enough to devote herself to writing. When Johnston was 16, her father's work with the Georgia Pacific Railroad caused the family to move to Birmingham, A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jungle Menace
''Jungle Menace'' (1937) is the first serial (film), serial released by Columbia Pictures. Based on the success of Republic Pictures's 1936 serial ''Darkest Africa'', starring real-life animal trainer Clyde Beatty, Columbia made this exotic jungle serial starring real-life animal collector Frank Buck (animal collector), Frank "Bring 'Em Back Alive" Buck. Set in the fictional land of ''Seemang'' in Asia, Buck plays the role of Frank Hardy, a soldier of fortune who intervenes in and investigates attempts to run a rubber plantation owner and his daughter off their land. It was directed by Harry L. Fraser and George Melford, and filmed in black and white in California, USA. In 1946, material from this serial was re-edited into the 70-minute feature film adaptation called ''Jungle Terror''. Plot In the Asian province of Seemang, where the Bay of Bengal meets the jungle, Chandler Elliott (John St. Polis) owns a large and prosperous rubber plantation. His attractive daughter, Doro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Adventure Film
An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, animation, comedy, drama, fantasy, science fiction, family, horror, or war. Overview Setting plays an important role in an adventure film, sometimes itself acting as a character in the narrative. They are typically set in far away lands, such as lost continents or other exotic locations. They may also be set in a period background and may include adapted stories of historical or fictional adventure heroes within the historical context. Such struggles and situations that confront the main characters include things like battles, piracy, rebellion, and the creation of empires and kingdoms. A common theme of adventure films is of characters leaving their home or place of comfort and going to fulfill a goal, embarking on travels, quests, tre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Serial (film)
A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Generally, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects. Each chapter was screened at a movie theater for one week, and ended with a cliffhanger, in which characters found themselves in perilous situations with little apparent chance of escape. Viewers had to return each week to see the cliffhangers resolved and to follow the continuing story. Movie serials were especially popular with children, and for many youths in the first half of the 20th centu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate Sony. On June 19, 1918, brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and their business partner Joe Brandt founded Cohn-Brandt-Cohn (CBC) Film Sales Corporation, which would eventually become Columbia Pictures. It adopted the Columbia Pictures name on January 10, 1924 (operating as Columbia Pictures Corporation until December 23, 1968) went public two years later and eventually began to use the image of Columbia, the female personification of the United States, as its logo. In its early years, Columbia was a minor player in Hollywood, but began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra. With Capra and others such as the most successful two reel comedy series The Three Stooges, Co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harry L
Harry may refer to: TV shows * ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin * ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons * ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show hosted by Harry Connick Jr. People and fictional characters * Harry (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Harry (surname), a list of people with the surname * Dirty Harry (musician) (born 1982), British rock singer who has also used the stage name Harry * Harry Potter (character), the main protagonist in a Harry Potter fictional series by J. K. Rowling Other uses * Harry (derogatory term), derogatory term used in Norway * ''Harry'' (album), a 1969 album by Harry Nilsson *The tunnel used in the Stalag Luft III escape ("The Great Escape") of World War II * ''Harry'' (newspaper), an underground newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland See also *Harrying (laying waste), may refer to the following historical ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lupita Tovar
Guadalupe Natalia Tovar (27 July 1910 – 12 November 2016), known professionally as Lupita Tovar, was a Mexican-born American actress best known for her starring role in the 1931 Spanish-language version of '' Drácula'', filmed in Los Angeles by Universal Pictures at night using the same sets as the Bela Lugosi version, but with a different cast and director. She also starred in the 1932 film ''Santa,'' one of the first Mexican sound films, and one of the first commercial Spanish-language sound films. Early life Tovar was born in Matías Romero, Oaxaca, Mexico, the daughter of Egidio Tovar, who was from Tehuacán, Puebla, Mexico, and Mary Tovar (née Sullivan), who was Irish-Mexican, from Matías Romero, Oaxaca, Mexico. Tovar was the oldest of nine children, though many of her siblings did not survive early childhood. Tovar grew up during the time of the Mexican Revolution and her family was very poor. She was raised in a very religious Catholic environment, and went to a scho ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dracula (1931 Spanish-language Film)
''Dracula'' is a 1931 American horror film directed by George Melford. The film is based on both the novel ''Dracula'' by Bram Stoker and the play ''Dracula'' by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The film is about Renfield (Pablo Alvarez Rubio), who travels to Translyvania to visit Count Dracula (Carlos Villarías). He is drugged by the Count and becomes his minion. The two travel to England, where Dracula begins to seduce Lucy Westenra (Carmen Guerrero) as she becomes his first victim. This leads to Professor Van Helsing (Eduardo Arozamena) to investigate, who confirms that Count Dracula is a vampire. ''Dracula'' was made as part of Hollywood studios' attempts to make films for foreign-language audiences. By 1930, Universal had focused primarily on developing Spanish-language films for the foreign market. Filming began on October 10, 1930 where it was shot on the same sets as Tod Browning's production of ''Dracula''. Director Melford watched the footage of the same day an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sound Film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "talking pictures", or "talkies", were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie (although it had only limited so ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an American film production and distribution company owned by Comcast through the NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment division of NBCUniversal. Founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, and Jules Brulatour, Universal is the oldest surviving film studio in the United States; the world's fifth oldest after Gaumont, Pathé, Titanus, and Nordisk Film; and the oldest member of Hollywood's "Big Five" studios in terms of the overall film market. Its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. In 1962, the studio was acquired by MCA, which was re-launched as NBCUniversal in 2004. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rudolph Valentino
Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), known professionally as Rudolph Valentino and nicknamed The Latin Lover, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred in several well-known silent films including '' The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,'' '' The Sheik,'' '' Blood and Sand,'' ''The Eagle'', and ''The Son of the Sheik.'' Valentino was a sex symbol of the 1920s, known in Hollywood as the "Latin Lover" (a title invented for him by Hollywood moguls), the "Great Lover", or simply Valentino. His early death at the age of 31 caused mass hysteria among his fans, further cementing his place in early cinematic history as a cultural film icon. Early life Childhood and emigration Valentino was born in Castellaneta, Apulia, and named Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella. Birth name: Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi. His father, Giovanni Antonio Giusep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |