|
I Love Lucy (film)
''I Love Lucy'' (also known as ''I Love Lucy: The Movie'') is a 1953 American comedy film that is a spin-off of the sitcom ''I Love Lucy''. Except for one test screening in Bakersfield, California, the film was never theatrically released and was shelved. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz co-star. Some scenes were directed by Edward Sedgwick, the final film work of his long Hollywood career. Sedgwick died in March 1953. Plot The film plays out with three first-season episodes edited together into a single story: "The Benefit", "Breaking the Lease", and "The Ballet", with new footage included between episodes to help transition the episodes into one coherent storyline. As the series routinely took the format of filming scenes in chronological order, this adds to the "show within a show within a show" format of the film, as viewers watch the cast perform the episodes live. The film itself ends with a "curtain call", as the cast comes out and Arnaz thanks the audience for their support. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marc Daniels
Marc Daniels (January 27, 1912 – April 23, 1989), born Danny Marcus, was an American television director. He directed on programs such as I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, Hogan's Heroes, and more. Life and career Daniels was a graduate of the University of Michigan. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II and until 1946, Daniels was hired by CBS to direct its first dramatic anthology program, ''Ford Theater'', mastering live television direction. He was hired to direct the first 38 episodes of ''I Love Lucy'', an early filmed series. Daniels recommended Vivian Vance for the role of Ethel Mertz. Daniels, along with cinematographer Karl Freund, has been credited with introducing the three-camera technique of filming as opposed to the conventional one-camera. In a 1977 interview, Daniels noted that he left ''I Love Lucy'' to take another job that paid more. "Maybe it was a stupid thing to do," he said. "But then we didn't know we were creatin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Test Screening
A test screening is a preview screening of a movie or television show before its general release to gauge audience reaction. Preview audiences are selected from a cross-section of the population and are usually asked to complete a questionnaire or provide feedback in some form. Harold Lloyd is credited with inventing the concept, having used it as early as 1928. Test screenings have been recommended for starting filmmakers "even if a film festival is fast approaching". Notable examples and outcomes of test screenings In 2004, Roger Ebert, the late reviewer for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', wrote that test screenings by filmmakers are "valid" to get an idea of an audience response to a rough cut. But "too often, however, studio executives use preview screenings as a weapon to enforce their views on directors, and countless movies have had stupid happy endings tacked on after such screenings." Ebert writes that Billy Wilder dropped the first reel from ''Sunset Boulevard'' after a t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Comedy Films
American comedy films are comedy films produced in the United States. The genre is one of the oldest in American cinema; some of the first silent movies were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s and 1930s, comedic dialogue rose in prominence in the work of film comedians such as W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers. By the 1950s, the television industry had become serious competition for the movie industry. The 1960s saw an increasing number of broad, star-packed comedies. In the 1970s, black comedies were popular. Leading figures in the 1970s were Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. One of the major developments of the 1990s was the re-emergence of the romantic comedy film. Another development was the increasing use of " gross-out humour". History 1895–1930 Comic films began to appear in significant numbers during the era of silent films, roughly 1895 to 1930. The visual humour of many of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1953 Films
The year 1953 in film involved some significant events. Top-grossing films (U.S.) The top ten 1953 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows: Events * January 16 – A new Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. is incorporated following a Consent Judgment to divest their Stanley Warner Theaters. * February 5 – Walt Disney's production of J.M. Barrie's ''Peter Pan'', starring Bobby Driscoll and Kathryn Beaumont, premieres to astounding acclaim from critics and audiences and quickly becomes one of the most beloved Disney films. This is the last Disney animated movie released in partnership RKO Pictures, becoming the last ever smash hit movie of the later company before it bankrupted in 1959. * July 1 – ''Stalag 17'', directed by Billy Wilder and starring William Holden, premieres and is considered by the critics and audiences to be one of the greatest WWII Prisoner of War films ever made. Holden wins the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1953 Comedy Films
Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Yugoslavia. ** The CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the UFO phenomenon. * January 15 – Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying. * January 19 – 71.1% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into ''I Love Lucy'', to watch Lucy give birth to Little Ricky, which is more people than those who tune into Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration the next day. This record has yet to be broken. * January 20 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is sworn in as the 34th President of the United States. * January 24 ** Mau Mau Uprising: Rebels in Kenya kill the Ruck family (father, mother, and six-year-old son). ** Leader of East Germany Walter Ulbricht announces that agriculture will be collectiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, who established a sheep ranch there in 1867. Billed as the "Media Capital of the World" and only a few miles northeast of Hollywood, numerous media and entertainment companies are headquartered or have significant production facilities in Burbank, including Warner Bros. Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, Nickelodeon Animation Studio, The Burbank Studios, Cartoon Network Studios with the West Coast branch of Cartoon Network, and Insomniac Games. The broadcast network The CW is also headquartered in Burbank. The Hollywood Burbank Airport was the location of Lockheed's Skunk Works, which produced some of the most secret and technologically advanced airplanes, including the U-2 spy planes that uncovered Soviet Union missile components ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fan Convention
Fan convention (also known as con or fan meeting), a term that predates 1942, is an event in which fans of a particular topic gather to participate and hold programs and other events, and to meet experts, famous personalities, and each other. Some also incorporate commercial activity. Overview Fan conventions are traditionally organized by fans on a not-for-profit basis, though some events catering ''to'' fans are run by commercial interests for profit. Many conventions have award presentations relating to their genre (such as the Hugo Awards which have been presented at The World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) since 1953). At commercial events, performers often give out autographs to the fans, sometimes in exchange for a flat appearance fee, and sometimes may perform songs that have no relevance to the shows or otherwise entertain the fans. Commercial conventions are usually quite expensive and are hosted in hotels. There is often tight security for the celebrities to pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Doran
Ann Lee Doran (July 28, 1911 – September 19, 2000) was an American character actress, possibly best known as the mother of Jim Stark ( James Dean) in ''Rebel Without a Cause'' (1955). She was an early member of the Screen Actors Guild and served on the board of the Motion Picture & Television Fund for 30 years. Early years The daughter of Carrie A. Barnett and John R. Doran, her mother was a silent-film actress whose professional name was Rose Allen. Ann Doran was born in Amarillo, Texas, and attended high school in San Bernardino, California. Film career Doran began acting at the age of four. (A 1979 newspaper article said that Doran's debut came when she was 11 years old.) Rarely in a featured role, Doran appeared in more than 500 motion pictures and 1,000 episodes of television series, such as the American Civil War drama '' Gray Ghost''. Doran worked as a stand-in, then bit player, then incidental supporting player. By 1938, she was under contract to Columbia Pictures ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Long, Long Trailer
''The Long, Long Trailer'' is a 1954 American Anscocolor road comedy film based on a novel of the same name written by Clinton Twiss in 1951 about a couple who buy a new travel trailer home and spend a year traveling across the United States.''Variety'' film review; January 6, 1954, page 52. The film stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. It also features Marjorie Main, Keenan Wynn, Bert Freed, Moroni Olsen, Gladys Hurlbut, Madge Blake, Howard McNear, and Walter Baldwin. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, working from a screenplay by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. Plot As Nicholas Collini takes a new job as a civil engineer, his new bride Tacy comes up with an idea to buy a trailer to travel around the USA to various work projects on which Nicky is employed, as well as to save money that would otherwise be spent on a house. Tacy also hopes to haul the trailer themselves to Nicky's new place of work in Colorado, as part of their honeymoon trip to the Sierra Nevada moun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studio was premised on allowing actors to control their own interests, rather than being dependent upon commercial studios. UA was repeatedly bought, sold, and restructured over the ensuing century. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the studio in 1981 for a reported $350 million ($ billion today). On September 22, 2014, MGM acquired a controlling interest in entertainment companies One Three Media and Lightworkers Media, then merged them to revive United Artists' television production unit as United Artists Media Group (UAMG). However, on December 14 of the following year, MGM wholly acquired UAMG and folded it into MGM Television. United Artists was again revived in 2018 as United Artists Digital Studios. Mirror, the joint distribution ventur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Mertz
Frederick Hobart Mertz, played by William Frawley, is a fictional character in the 1950s American sitcom ''I Love Lucy''. Character Fred was born and raised on a farm in the Midwest; in one episode, Ethel says that Fred's mother comes to visit once a year from Indiana. Fred is of Irish descent and has at least one brother. He toured the country in vaudeville before retiring to New York City. He is a World War I veteran and is married to Ethel (Vivian Vance), and they often make fun of each other. Their wedding anniversary is May 3. Ethel often calls Fred a "fat old goat", and in return, Fred calls Ethel the "bottomless pit" due to her voracious appetite. Having been "wiped out" in the Great Depression, he is a penny pincher and gives Ethel very little money. Nevertheless, Fred always has the money when an investment opportunity comes along (e.g., diner purchase, oil stocks). As a young man, Fred was in vaudeville with his friend Barney Kurtz, as the duo of "Mertz and Kurtz", know ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethel Mertz
Ethel Mae Mertz (née Potter) (alternately Ethel Louise, Ethel May, and Ethel Roberta), played by Vivian Vance, is one of the four main fictional characters in the highly popular 1950s American television sitcom ''I Love Lucy''. Ethel is the middle-aged landlady of the main character, Lucy Ricardo, played by Lucille Ball. Ethel was most likely born about 1905, and was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is married to Fred Mertz, played by William Frawley, with whom she had a career in vaudeville. The two female characters are close friends, habitually scheming together; Ethel is generally the voice of reason as a counterpart to Lucy's harebrained ideas. Background Ethel was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where her father, Will Potter, owned a sweet shop and soda fountain with the slogan "You can lick our cones, but you can't beat our sodas!". Ethel went on to a career in music and acting, yet got her start at Albuquerque's Little Theater, singing her signature number "Shortnin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Ann Doran")
