|
Jay C. Flippen
Jay C. Flippen (March 6, 1899 – February 3, 1971) was an American character actor who often played crusty sergeants, police officers or weary criminals in many films of the 1940s and 1950s. Before his motion-picture career he was a leading vaudeville comedian and master of ceremonies. Biography Born on March 6, 1899, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Flippen was an established and respected vaudeville singer and stage actor before his film career. He was discovered by famed African-American comedian Bert Williams in 1920, and was Williams's Broadway understudy and tour replacement for the 1920 musical revue ''Broadway Brevities''. He called himself "The Ham What Am", and his occasional blackface roles included those as Williams' replacement. Flippen attained the most coveted booking in vaudeville, headlining at the Palace Theatre in New York six times between March 1926 and February 1931. At one time, he was a radio announcer for New York Yankees games and was one of the first game- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hot Summer Night (film)
''Hot Summer Night'' is a 1957 crime film directed by David Friedkin and starring Leslie Nielsen, Colleen Miller, and Edward Andrews. Plot Out of work but on his honeymoon, Bill Partain, a newspaper reporter, reads about a bank robbery in Sedalia, Missouri pulled off by notorious criminal Tom Ellis and his gang. Having once interviewed Ellis's girlfriend Ruth Childers for a Kansas City, Missouri paper, Partain figures an exclusive interview with Ellis could assure him of landing a new job. Lying to his new wife Irene about where they are going, Bill drives them to a small Ozarks town where he believes Ruth is living. Townspeople are reluctant to help Bill locate her, and deputy Lou Follett warns him that almost everyone in the community is afraid of Ellis. Bill finally finds Ruth, who remembers him favorably. She manages to arrange his being taken to Ellis by a young man named Kermit who is not in the gang, but sometimes works for him. Ellis grants him an interview, boasting of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hellzapoppin (musical)
''Hellzapoppin'' is a musical revue written by the comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, consisting of John "Ole" Olsen and Harold "Chic" Johnson, with music and lyrics by Sammy Fain and Charles Tobias. The revue was a hit, running for over three years, and was at the time the longest-running Broadway musical, with 1,404 performances,Kenrick, JohnHellzapoppin - History of The Musical Stage 1930s: Part III - Revuesmusicals101.com, accessed August 6, 2009 making it one of only three plays to run more than 500 performances in the 1930s. Production After opening at the Shubert Theatre in Boston on September 10, 1938, ''Hellzapoppin'' opened on Broadway at the original 46th Street Theatre on September 22, 1938, transferred to the Winter Garden Theatre on November 26, 1938, and finally moved to the Majestic Theatre on November 25, 1941. It closed on December 17, 1941, after a total of 1,404 performances. Olsen and Johnson led a large cast of entertainers: the comedy team of Barto and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Ringo (TV Series)
John Peters Ringo (May 3, 1850 – July 13, 1882), known as Johnny Ringo, was an American Old West outlaw loosely associated with the Cochise County Cowboys in frontier boomtown Tombstone, Arizona Territory. He took part in the Mason County War in Texas during which he committed his first murder. He was arrested and charged with murder. He was affiliated with Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, Ike Clanton, and Frank Stilwell during 1881–1882. He got into a confrontation in Tombstone with Doc Holliday and was suspected by Wyatt Earp of having taken part in the attempted murder of Virgil Earp and the ambush and death of Morgan Earp. Ringo was found dead with a bullet wound to his temple which was ruled a suicide. Modern writers have advanced various theories attributing his death to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Frank Leslie, and Michael O'Rourke. Early life Johnny Ringo, son of Martin and Mary Peters Ringo, had distant Dutch ancestry, and was born in (what would later become ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre Setting (narrative), set in the American frontier and commonly associated with Americana (culture), folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West" and depicted in Western media as a hostile, sparsely populated frontier in a state of near-total lawlessness patrolled by outlaws, sheriffs, and numerous other Stock character, stock "gunslinger" characters. Western narratives often concern the gradual attempts to tame the crime-ridden American West using wider themes of justice, freedom, rugged individualism, Manifest Destiny, and the national history and identity of the United States. History The first films that belong to the Western genre are a series of short single reel silents made in 1894 by Edison Studios at their Edison's Black Maria, Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. These featured vet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema. After studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner, Peck began appearing in stage productions, acting in over 50 plays and three Broadway productions. He first gained critical success in ''The Keys of the Kingdom'' (1944), a John M. Stahl–directed drama which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. He starred in a series of successful films, including romantic-drama ''The Valley of Decision'' (1944), Alfred Hitchcock's '' Spellbound'' (1945), and family film ''The Yearling'' (1946). He encountered lukewarm commercial reviews at the end of the 1940s, his performances including ''The Paradine Case'' (1947) and ''The Great Sinner'' (1948). Peck reached global recognition in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing back ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debbie Reynolds
Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds (April 1, 1932 – December 28, 2016) was an American actress, singer, and businesswoman. Her career spanned almost 70 years. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film '' Three Little Words''. Her breakout role was her first leading role, as Kathy Selden in ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952). Her other successes include ''The Affairs of Dobie Gillis'' (1953), '' Susan Slept Here'' (1954), ''Bundle of Joy'' (1956 Golden Globe nomination), ''The Catered Affair'' (1956 National Board of Review Best Supporting Actress Winner), and ''Tammy and the Bachelor'' (1957), in which her performance of the song " Tammy" reached number one on the ''Billboard'' music charts. In 1959, she released her first pop music album, titled ''Debbie''. She starred in ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952), '' How the West Was Won'' (1962), and '' The Unsinkable Molly Brown'' (1964), a biographical film about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
How The West Was Won (film)
''How the West Was Won'' is a 1962 American epic Western film directed by Henry Hathaway (who directs three out of the five chapters involving the same family), John Ford and George Marshall, produced by Bernard Smith, written by James R. Webb, and narrated by Spencer Tracy. Originally filmed in true three-lens Cinerama with the according three-panel panorama projected onto an enormous curved screen, the film stars an ensemble cast consisting of (in alphabetical order) Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne and Richard Widmark. The supporting cast features Brigid Bazlen, Walter Brennan, David Brian, Ken Curtis, Andy Devine, Jack Lambert, Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Morgan as Ulysses S. Grant, Thelma Ritter, Mickey Shaughnessy, Harry Dean Stanton, Russ Tamblyn and Lee Van Cleef. ''How the West Was Won'' is widely c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hellfighters (film)
''Hellfighters'' is a 1968 American adventure film directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and starring John Wayne, Katharine Ross and Jim Hutton. The movie depicts about a group of oil well firefighters, based loosely on the life of Red Adair. Adair, "Boots" Hansen, and "Coots" Matthews served as technical advisers on the film. ''Hellfighters'' was for the most part negatively received, with criticism aimed at the overlong plot and dull characterization. Plot Chance Buckman is the head of a Houston–based oil well firefighting outfit. With a team that includes Joe Horn, Greg Parker, and George Harris, Chance travels around the world putting out blazes at well heads from industrial accident, explosion or terrorist attack. Chance enjoys the thrills, but longs for ex-wife Madelyn. She divorced him 20 years earlier, taking their daughter Letitia with her, because Madelyn could not bear to see her husband risk his life. Though they love each other, Madelyn could not deal with her terror tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jet Pilot (film)
''Jet Pilot'' is a 1957 American Cold War romance film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring John Wayne and Janet Leigh. It was written and produced by Jules Furthman, and presented by Howard Hughes. Filming lasted more than eighteen months, beginning in 1949."Detail View: 'Jet Fighter'." ''American Film Institute''. Retrieved: June 2, 2014. The last day of shooting was in May 1953, but the film was kept out of release by Hughes due to his tinkering until October 1957, by which time Hughes had sold . Universal-International ended up dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flying Leathernecks
''Flying Leathernecks'' is a 1951 American Technicolor action war film directed by Nicholas Ray, produced by Edmund Grainger, (who had produced ''Sands of Iwo Jima'') and starring John Wayne and Robert Ryan. The movie details the exploits and personal battles of United States Marine Corps aviators during World War II. Marines have long had the nickname "leatherneck", hence the title. Plot Major Dan Kirby arrives at VMF-247 ("Wildcats") as the new commander when everybody in the unit was expecting Captain Carl "Grif" Griffin to take over. Kirby is strict and makes this understood from day one. Assigned to the Cactus Air Force during the Guadalcanal campaign, Kirby has few planes available and a lot to accomplish with a field attacked daily by the Japanese. His pilots are young and behave like "kids", sometimes disobeying orders and foolishly losing precious pilots and precious planes. Kirby is requiring maximum effort, and Captain Griffin is not as tough as Kirby wants. Griffin sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially in Western and war movies. His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades, and he appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema. Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, but grew up in Southern California. After losing his football scholarship to the University of Southern California from a bodysurfing accident, he began working for the Fox Film Corporation. He appeared mostly in small parts, but his first leading role came in Raoul Wal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann (born Emil Anton Bundsmann; June 30, 1906 – April 29, 1967) was an American film director and stage actor. Mann initially started as a theatre actor appearing in numerous stage productions. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood where he worked as a talent scout and casting director. He then became an assistant director, most notably working for Preston Sturges. His directorial debut was ''Dr. Broadway'' (1942). He directed several feature films for numerous production companies, including RKO Pictures, Eagle-Lion Films, Universal Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His first major success was ''T-Men'' (1947), garnering notable recognition for producing several films in the ''film noir'' genre through modest budgets and short shooting schedules. As a director, he often collaborated with cinematographer John Alton. During the 1950s, Mann shifted to directing Western films starring several major stars of the era, including James Stewart. He directed Stewart in eight film ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_retouched.jpg "Click for more on -> Debbie Reynolds")
