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John Paxton
John Paxton (May 21, 1911, Kansas City, Missouri – January 5, 1985, Santa Monica, California) was an American screenwriter. Some of his films include ''Murder, My Sweet'' in 1944, '' Cornered'' in 1945, ''Crossfire'' in 1947 (an adaptation of the controversial novel ''The Brick Foxhole'' that earned him his only Oscar nomination). He helped adapt the screenplay for the controversial film ''The Wild One'' in 1953, starring Marlon Brando. Paxton's work twice received the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay, for ''Murder, My Sweet'' and ''Crossfire''. Biography Paxton was born in Kansas City in 1911. He attended the University of Missouri where he studied journalism and was involved in college plays. He went to New York. A cousin of Paxton's father did publicity for Katherine Cornell and got him a job organising a play-writing contest for the Theatre Guild. He went to work at ''Stage'' magazine as an assistant and ended up doing re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after. Sitting on Missouri's western boundary with Kansas, with Downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the city encompasses about , making ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, " Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in '' Black Mask,'' a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, ''The Big Sleep'', was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but '' Playback'' have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other ''Black Mask ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley Kramer
Stanley Earl Kramer (September 29, 1913February 19, 2001) was an American film director and producer, responsible for making many of Hollywood's most famous "message picture, message films" (he would call his movies ''heavy dramas'') and a liberal movie icon.Film-maker Stanley Kramer dies a February 2001 BBC obituary As an independent producer and director, he brought attention to topical social issues that most studios avoided. Among the subjects covered in his films were racism (in ''The Defiant Ones'' and ''Guess Who's Coming to Dinner''), nuclear war (in ''On the Beach (1959 film), On the Beach''), greed (in ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World''), creationism vs. evolution (in ''Inherit the Wind (1960 film), Inherit the Wind'') and the causes and effects of fascism (in ''Judgment at Nuremberg''). His other films ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fourteen Hours (film)
''Fourteen Hours'' is a 1951 American drama directed by Henry Hathaway, which tells the story of a New York City police officer trying to stop a despondent man from jumping to his death from the 15th floor of a hotel. The film won critical acclaim for Richard Basehart, who portrayed the mentally disturbed man on the building ledge. Paul Douglas played the police officer, and a large supporting cast included Barbara Bel Geddes, Agnes Moorehead, Robert Keith, Debra Paget, and Howard Da Silva. It was the screen debut of Grace Kelly and Jeffrey Hunter, who appeared in small roles. The screenplay was written by John Paxton, based on an article by Joel Sayre in ''The New Yorker'' describing the 1938 suicide of John William Warde. Plot Early one morning, a room-service waiter at a New York City hotel is horrified to discover that the young man to whom he has just delivered breakfast is standing on the narrow ledge outside his room on the 15th floor. Charlie Dunnigan, a policeman on tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by 20th Century Studios and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (Buena Vista Home Entertainment) distributes the films produced by 20th Century Studios in home media under the 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment banner. For over 80 years – beginning with its founding in 1935 and ending in 2019 (when it became part of Walt Disney Studios), 20th Century Fox was one of the then "Big Six" major American film studios. It was formed in 1935 from the merger of the Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures and was originally known as the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (while owned by TCF Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hal Wallis
Harold Brent Wallis (born Aaron Blum Wolowicz; October 19, 1898 – October 5, 1986) was an American film producer. He is best known for producing '' Casablanca'' (1942), ''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' (1938), and ''True Grit'' (1969), along with many other major films for Warner Bros. featuring such film stars as Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Bette Davis, and Errol Flynn. As a producer, he received 19 nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Later on, for a long period, he was connected with Paramount Pictures and oversaw films featuring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, and John Wayne. Life and career Aaron Blum Wolowicz was born October 19, 1898 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eva (née Ewa Blum) and Jacob Wolowicz/Wolovitz (Jankiel Wołowicz). He was the youngest of three children and had two older sisters: Minna Wolovitz (1893-1986), a Hollywood talent agent, and Juel Wolovitz (1895-1953). His parents were Ashkenazi Jews from the Suwałki region ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rope Of Sand
''Rope of Sand'' is a 1949 adventure-suspense film noir directed by William Dieterle, produced by Hal Wallis, and starring Burt Lancaster and three stars from Wallis's '' Casablanca'' - Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre. The film introduces Corinne Calvet and features Sam Jaffe, John Bromfield, and Kenny Washington in supporting roles. The picture is set in South West Africa. Desert portions of the film were shot in Yuma, Arizona. Plot Hunting guide Mike Davis (Burt Lancaster) came across a cache of diamonds in a mining area located in a remote region of South West Africa. He was caught by the mine's police but refused to reveal the diamonds' location, even under torture at the hand of the diamond company's security chief, Vogel (Paul Henreid). He left South Africa for some time. Davis returns to get the diamonds which he still expects will be at the spot where he found them. The mining company's owner, Martingale (Claude Rains), tries to find out where the diamonds c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Boy With Green Hair
''The Boy with Green Hair'' is a 1948 American fantasy-drama film in Technicolor directed by Joseph Losey in his feature film directorial debut. It stars Dean Stockwell as Peter, a young war orphan who is subject to ridicule after his hair mysteriously turns green, and is based on the 1946 short story of the same name. Co-stars include Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, and Barbara Hale. The film was released on DVD on March 10, 2010, as part of the Warner Archive Collection. The overall construction is an allegorical anti-war story, with the message that war always damages children. Plot Finding a curiously silent young runaway boy whose head has been completely shaved, small-town police call in a psychologist who discovers that the boy is a war orphan named Peter Fry. Peter tells the story of his life to the psychologist. After staying with a series of neglectful aunts and uncles, he is sent to live with an understanding retired actor named Gramp. Peter starts attending school and be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blacklisted
Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, they are seen by a government or other organization as being one of a number of people who cannot be trusted or who is considered to have done something wrong. As a verb, blacklist can mean to put an individual or entity on such a list. Origins of the term The English dramatist Philip Massinger used the phrase "black list" in his 1639 tragedy ''The Unnatural Combat''. After the restoration of the English monarchy brought Charles II of England to the throne in 1660, a list of regicides named those to be punished for the execution of his father. The state papers of Charles II say "If any innocent soul be found in this black list, let him not be offended at me, but consider whether some mistaken principle or interest may not have misled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
So Well Remembered
''So Well Remembered'' is a 1947 British drama film starring John Mills, Martha Scott, and Trevor Howard. The film was based on James Hilton's 1945 novel of the same title and tells the story of a reformer and the woman he marries in a fictional mill town in Lancashire. Hilton also narrates the film. It was shot on location in England. It is faithful to the novel in many particulars, but the motives of the main female character and the tone of the ending are considerably altered. The first screening was in the Majestic Theatre in Macclesfield on 9 August 1947, after which the film disappeared. It was rediscovered 60 years later in Tennessee, in the United States, by Muttley McLad of the band The Macc Lads. Plot At the end of the Second World War George Boswell (John Mills), a town councillor, newspaper editor and zealous reformer in the mill town of Browdley in Lancashire, recalls the past 26 years of his life. In 1919 he defends Olivia Channing (Martha Scott) when she applies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crack-Up (1946 Film)
''Crack-Up'' is a 1946 film noir directed by Irving Reis, remembered for directing many "Falcon" movies of the early 1940s including ''The Falcon Takes Over''. The drama is based on "Madman's Holiday", a short story written by mystery writer Fredric Brown. The drama features Pat O'Brien, Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall, and others. Plot Art critic and forgery expert George Steele (O'Brien) is stopped by a policeman as he breaks into the Manhattan Museum. He claims that he was in a train wreck. Police Lieutenant Cochrane (Wallace Ford), however, finds no recent wreck. Steele, unsure himself what happened, relates the bizarre events leading up to the present. A flashback ensues: Museum director Barton (Erskine Sanford) reprimands staff member Steele over the sensational style of his public lectures and is annoyed that he wants to demonstrate a forgery detection method by X-raying a masterpiece that was recently exhibited, Dürer's ''Adoration of the Kings''. Afterward, while hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
