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Helen Of Troy (1956 Film)
''Helen of Troy'' is a 1956 Warner Bros. WarnerColor epic film in CinemaScope, based on Homer's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey''. It was directed by Robert Wise, from a screenplay by Hugh Gray and John Twist, adapted by Hugh Gray and N. Richard Nash. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography by Harry Stradling Sr. The film stars Rossana Podestà, Stanley Baker, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Jacques Sernas, with Niall MacGinnis, Maxwell Reed, Nora Swinburne, Robert Douglas, Torin Thatcher, Harry Andrews, Janette Scott, Ronald Lewis, Eduardo Ciannelli, Esmond Knight and a young Brigitte Bardot as Andraste, Helen's handmaiden, her first film production shot outside France. Plot The film retells the story of the Trojan War in 1100 B.C., albeit with some major changes from the Iliad's storyline; Paris of Troy (Jacques Sernas) sails to Sparta to secure a peace treaty between the two powerful city-states. His ship is forced to return to Troy in a storm after he has been swept o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''The Sound of Music'' (1965). He was also nominated for Best Film Editing for ''Citizen Kane'' (1941) and directed and produced '' The Sand Pebbles'' (1966), which was nominated for Best Picture. Among his other films are ''The Body Snatcher'' (1945), ''Born to Kill'' (1947), '' The Set-Up'' (1949), ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' (1951), '' Destination Gobi'' (1953), '' This Could Be The Night'' (1957), ''Run Silent, Run Deep'' (1958), '' I Want to Live!'' (1958), '' The Haunting'' (1963), '' The Andromeda Strain'' (1971), '' The Hindenburg'' (1975) and '' Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' (1979). He was the president of the Directors Guild of America from 1971 to 1975 and the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1985 thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cedric Hardwicke
Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (19 February 1893 – 6 August 1964) was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly 50 years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and his film work included leading roles in several adapted literary classics. Early life Hardwicke was born in Lye, Worcestershire (now West Midlands) to Edwin Webster Hardwicke and his wife, Jessie (née Masterson). He attended Bridgnorth Grammar School in Shropshire. He intended to train as a doctor but failed to pass the necessary examinations."Hardwicke, Sir Cedric Webster" ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, |
Elysium
Elysium (, ), otherwise known as the Elysian Fields ( grc, Ἠλύσιον πεδίον, ''Ēlýsion pedíon'') or Elysian Plains, is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by some Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. It was initially separated from the Greek underworld--the realm of Hades. Only mortals related to the gods and other heroes could be admitted past the river Styx. Later, the conception of who could enter was expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic. They would remain at the Elysian Fields after death, to live a blessed and happy afterlife, and indulge in whatever enjoyment they had enjoyed in life. The Elysian Fields were, according to Homer, located on the western edge of the Earth by the stream of Okeanos. In the time of the Greek poet Hesiod, Elysium would also be known as the "Fortunate Isles", or the "Isles (or Islands) of the Blessed", located in the western ocean at the end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, and it is only briefly mentioned in the ''Odyssey''. But in the ''Aeneid'' by Virgil, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse at the behest of Odysseus, and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus himself. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night, the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of darkness. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city, ending the war. Metaphorically, a "Trojan horse" has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or place. A malicious computer pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's ''Iliad''. The core of the ''Iliad'' (Books II – XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the ''Odyssey'' describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid. The ancient Greeks believed that Troy was located near the Dardanelles and that the Trojan War was a historical event of the 13th or 12th century BC, but by the mid-19th century AD, both the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the best known sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s. Although she withdrew from the entertainment industry in 1973, she remains a major popular culture icon. Born and raised in Paris, Bardot was an aspiring ballerina in her early life. She started her acting career in 1952. She achieved international recognition in 1957 for her role in '' And God Created Woman'' (1956), and also caught the attention of French intellectuals. She was the subject of Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay ''The Lolita Syndrome'', which described her as a "locomotive of women's history" and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France. She won a 1961 David di Donatello Best Foreign Actress Award for her work in ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esmond Knight
Esmond Penington Knight (4 May 1906 – 23 February 1987) was an English actor. He had a successful stage and film career before World War II. For much of his later career Knight was half-blind. He had been badly wounded in 1941 while on active service on board HMS ''Prince of Wales'' when she fought the ''Bismarck'' at the Battle of the Denmark Strait, and remained totally blind for two years, though he later regained some sight in his right eye. Childhood Knight was born on 4 May 1906 in East Sheen Surrey, the third son of Francis and Bertha Knight. His father was involved in the family cigar import business. He was educated at Willington Preparatory School in Putney and then Westminster School. Early career He was an accomplished actor with a career spanning over half a century. He established himself in the 1920s on stage. In John Gielgud's 1930 production of ''Hamlet'' he played Rosencrantz. He also appeared in films. In ''Romany Love'' (1931) he played "a swaggering gyp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eduardo Ciannelli
Eduardo Ciannelli (30 August 1888 – 8 October 1969), was an Italian baritone and character actor with a long career in American films, mostly playing gangsters and criminals. He was sometimes credited as Edward Ciannelli. Early life Ciannelli was born in Lacco Ameno, on the island of Ischia, where his father, a doctor, owned a health spa. He studied surgery at the University of Naples, and worked briefly as a doctor, but his love of grand opera and the dramatic stage won out and he became a successful baritone, singing at La Scala and touring Europe. He went to the United States from the Port of Naples as a first cabin saloon passenger on board the steamship ''San Guglielmo'', which arrived at the Port of New York on 19 March 1914. In New York, he appeared on Broadway in Oscar Hammerstein II's first musical '' Always You'' and later in ''Rose-Marie''. He appeared in Theatre Guild productions in the late 1920s, co-starring with the Lunts (Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne), and Ka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald Lewis (actor)
Ronald Glasfryn Lewis (11 December 1928 – 11 January 1982), was an actor, best known for his appearances in British films of the 1950s and 1960s. Early life and career Lewis was born in Port Talbot, Glamorgan, the son of an accountant. He moved with his family to London when he was seven. During the war he was evacuated back to south Wales, where he attended Bridgend Grammar School. There he played Bassanio in the school production of ''The Merchant of Venice''. He decided to become an actor after seeing George Bernard Shaw's '' Saint Joan'' at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cardiff. He studied at RADA, graduating in 1953. Early roles Lewis's first professional role was in Oscar Wilde's ''An Ideal Husband'' (1950) in repertory at Worthing. He was in ''The Square Ring'' at Hammersmith. Lewis had an uncredited bit part in ''Valley of Song'', set in Wales. He was credited for the film version of ''The Square Ring'' (1953), for Ealing; '' The Beachcomber'' (1954), as a native is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janette Scott
Thora Janette Scott (born 14 December 1938) is an English retired actress. Life and career Scott was born on 14 December 1938 in Morecambe, Lancashire, England. She is the daughter of actors Jimmy Scott and Thora Hird and began her acting career as a child actress known as Janette Scott. Scott was briefly (along with Jennifer Gay) one of the so-called "Children's Announcers" providing continuity links for the BBC's children's TV programmes from the Lime Grove Studios in the early 1950s. She became a popular leading lady; one of her better known roles as April Smith in the film ''School for Scoundrels'' (1960), based on the "one-upmanship" books by Stephen Potter, in which Ian Carmichael and Terry-Thomas competed for her attention. Some scenes for ''School for Scoundrels'' were shot at a private members club before its current incarnation as a hotel. The hotel hosted a screening in 2016 with Janette Scott attending and answering questions about filming ''School for Scoundrels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Andrews
Harry Stewart Fleetwood Andrews, CBE (10 November 1911 – 6 March 1989) was an English actor known for his film portrayals of tough military officers. His performance as Regimental Sergeant Major Wilson in '' The Hill'' (1965) alongside Sean Connery earned Andrews the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for the 1966 BAFTA Award for Best British Actor. The first of his more than 80 film appearances was in ''The Red Beret'' in 1953. Prior to his film career, Andrews was a theatre actor, appearing at such venues as the Queen's Theatre, the Lyceum Theatre, and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in the UK as well as theatres in New York City, Paris, Antwerp and Brussels. Andrews made his London theatre debut in 1935 at the St James's Theatre and his New York debut in 1936 at the Empire Theatre. He was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1966. Early life Harry Andrews was born on 10 November 1911, in Tonbri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torin Thatcher
Torin Herbert Erskine Thatcher (15 January 1905 – 4 March 1981) was a British actor who was noted for his flashy portrayals of screen villains. Personal life Thatcher was born in Bombay, British India, to British parents, Torin James Blair Thatcher, a police officer, and his wife Edith Rachel, a voice and piano teacher, younger daughter of the Hon. Justice Sir Herbert Batty, a puisne judge of the High Court of Bombay.Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage, 1931, pg 908 He was educated in England at Bedford School and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He worked as a schoolmaster before first appearing on the London stage in 1927 and then entering British films in 1934. Career In 1935 he appeared in the historical play '' Mary Tudor''. He appeared in the 1937 Old Vic production of ''Hamlet'', in which Laurence Olivier made his first appearance in the title role, opposite Vivien Leigh as Ophelia. During the Second World War, he served with the Royal Ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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