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Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur (; November 12, 1904 – December 19, 1977) was a French film director known for the classic film noir ''Out of the Past'' and a series of low-budget horror films he made for RKO Studios, including ''Cat People (1942 film), Cat People'', ''I Walked with a Zombie'', and ''The Leopard Man''. He is also known for directing ''Night of the Demon'', which was released by Columbia Pictures. While in Hollywood, he was usually addressed by his anglicized name "Jack Turner", a literal and phonetic translation of his name in English. Life Born in Paris, France, Tourneur was the son of Fernande Petit and film director Maurice Tourneur.Earnshaw 2004, p. 102. At age 10, Jacques moved to the United States with his father. He started a career in cinema while still attending high school as an extra and later as a script clerk in various silent films. Both Maurice and Jacques returned to France after his father worked on the film ''The Mysterious Island (1929 film), The Mysterious ...
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Canyon Passage
''Canyon Passage'' is a 1946 American Western film directed by Jacques Tourneur and set in frontier Oregon. It stars Dana Andrews, Susan Hayward and Brian Donlevy. Featuring love triangles and an Indian uprising, the film was adapted from the 1945 ''Saturday Evening Post'' novel ''Canyon Passage'' by Ernest Haycox. Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Jack Brooks (lyrics) were nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Ole Buttermilk Sky." Plot In 1856, ambitious freight company and store owner Logan Stuart agrees to escort Lucy Overmire home to the settlement of Jacksonville, Oregon, along with his latest shipment. Lucy is engaged to Logan's best friend, George Camrose. The night before they depart, however, Logan has to defend himself from a sneak attack in his hotel room; though it is too dark to be sure, he believes his assailant is Honey Bragg. Later, he explains to Lucy that he once saw Bragg leaving the vicinity of two murdered miners. Despite Logan's unwillingne ...
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Silent Films
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of title cards. The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music, or improvisation. Sometimes a person would even narrate the inter-title cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema p ...
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Anne Of The Indies
''Anne of the Indies'' is a 1951 Technicolor adventure film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by George Jessel. The film stars Jean Peters and Louis Jourdan, with Debra Paget, Herbert Marshall, Thomas Gomez and James Robertson Justice. Plot After seizing a British ship, female pirate captain Anne Providence ( Jean Peters) spares LaRochelle (Louis Jourdan), a Frenchman captured by the British, from walking the plank. He agrees to join Providence's crew and soon she begins to fall for the handsome officer. They travel to an island where they meet with her pirate mentor Captain Blackbeard (played by Thomas Gomez), who takes an instant dislike to LaRochelle although he at first holds back as he can see Anne is attracted to him. Blackbeard eventually realises he has seen LaRochelle before in the French navy when a pirate was hanged. When he reveals this, LaRochelle claims he was dismissed from the French navy. Anne believes him, bu ...
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Wichita (1955 Film)
''Wichita'' is a 1955 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Joel McCrea as Wyatt Earp. The film won a Golden Globe Award for Best Outdoor Drama. The supporting cast features Vera Miles, Lloyd Bridges, Edgar Buchanan, Peter Graves, Jack Elam and Mae Clarke. The film's premiere was held in Wichita, Kansas, at The Wichita Theatre, 310 East Douglas, with the stars in attendance. Vera Miles had been Miss Kansas in 1948 and was third runner up in the Miss America pageant. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded the film with "Best Picture - Outdoor Drama" in 1955. It was mostly filmed in California, including in Thousand Oaks, CA. Plot Former bison hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp (Joel McCrea) arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita, Kansas. His skills as a gunfighter make him a perfect candidate for marshal but he refuses the job until he feels morally obligated to bring law and order to this wild town. His least popular ...
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Berlin Express
''Berlin Express'' is a 1948 American drama film starring Robert Ryan, Merle Oberon and Paul Lukas, and directed by Jacques Tourneur. Thrown together by chance, a group of people search a city for a kidnapped peace activist. Set in Allied-occupied Germany, it was shot on location in post-World War II Frankfurt-am-Main (with exterior and interior shots of the IG Farben Building and its paternoster elevators) and Berlin. During the opening credits, a full-screen notice reads, "Actual scenes in Frankfurt and Berlin were photographed by authorisation of the United States Army of Occupation, the British Army of Occupation, the Soviet Army of Occupation." Plot Various people board a U.S. Army train, the Main Seiner, to Frankfurt. Dr. Bernhardt tries to become better acquainted with the other passengers, but they all rebuff his overtures because he is a German. When Sterling realises who he is, this immediately changes the atmosphere. After retiring to his compartment, Bernhardt is k ...
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Horror Films
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs. Cinematic techniques used in horror films have been shown to provoke psychological reactions in an audience. Horror films have existed for more than a century. Early inspirations from before the development of film include folklore, religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures, and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror only became a codified genre after the release of ''Dracula'' (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, slasher films, supernatural horror and psychological horror. The genre has been produc ...
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Val Lewton
Val Lewton (May 7, 1904 – March 14, 1951) was a Russian-American novelist, film producer and screenwriter best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. His son, also named Val Lewton, was a painter and exhibition designer. Early life Lewton was born Vladimir Ivanovich Hofschneider or Leventon (russian: link=no, Владимир Иванович Левентон, uk, Володимир Іванович Левентон, both with surname Leventon) in Yalta, Imperial Russia (now in Ukraine), in 1904. He was of Jewish descent, the son of moneylender Max Hofschneider and Anna "Nina" Leventon, a pharmacist's daughter. The family converted to Christianity.''Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows'', 2007 documentary by Martin Scorsese He was nephew of actress Alla Nazimova. His mother left his father and moved to Berlin, taking their two children with her. In 1909, they emigrated to the United States as second cabin class passengers on bo ...
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A Tale Of Two Cities (1935 Film)
''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a 1935 film based upon Charles Dickens' 1859 historical novel, '' A Tale of Two Cities'', set in London and Paris. The film stars Ronald Colman as Sydney Carton and Elizabeth Allan as Lucie Manette. The supporting players include Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, Basil Rathbone, Lucille La Verne, Blanche Yurka, Henry B. Walthall and Donald Woods. It was directed by Jack Conway from a screenplay by W. P. Lipscomb and S. N. Behrman. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Film Editing. The story is set in France and England and spans several years before and during the French Revolution. It deals with the evils that precipitated the Revolution and with an innocent family and their friends caught up in the horrors of the Terror. Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who has rejected his rank and moved to England, and Sidney Carton, an alcoholic English advocate, both fall in love with Lucie Manette. Lucie has brought h ...
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Second Unit Director
Second unit is a discrete team of filmmakers tasked with filming shots or sequences of a production, separate from the main or "first" unit. The second unit will often shoot simultaneously with the other unit or units, allowing the filming stage of production to be completed faster. Function The functions of the second unit vary, but typically the first unit films the key face-to-face drama between the principal actors. Two frequent ways a second unit is used are: * Action sequences: Action sequences are often filmed in discrete locations, using stunt performers, rather than the principal cast, and requiring significantly different filming arrangements than for ordinary scenes. Therefore, they are an opportunity for second unit shooting. * "Pick-ups": After the main unit has finished on a set or location, there may be shots that require some or all of this setting as background but that do not require the principal actors. These shots may include things such as close-ups, i ...
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MGM Studios
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 and based in Beverly Hills, California. MGM was formed by Marcus Loew by combining Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures into one company. It hired a number of well known actors as contract players—its slogan was "more stars than there are in heaven"—and soon became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, producing popular musical films and winning many Academy Awards. MGM also owned film studios, movie lots, movie theaters and technical production facilities. Its most prosperous era, from 1926 to 1959, was bracketed by two productions of '' Ben Hur''. After that, it divested itself of the Loews movie theater chain, and, in the 1960s, diversified into television production. In 1969, Kirk Kerkorian bought 40% ...
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Assistant Director
The role of an assistant director on a film includes tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, and maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of the health and safety of the crew.IMDB Glossary, retrieved 2015-02-10 The role of an assistant to the film director is often confused with assistant director but the responsibilities are entirely different. The assistant to the film director manages all of the directors in development, pre-production, while on set, through post-production and is often involved in both personal management as well as creative aspects of the production process. Historically, assistant directing was a stepping stone to directing work; Alfred Hitchcock was an AD, as well as Akira Kurosawa. This was when the role was more general and encompassed all aspects of filmmaking such as set design and script editing. This transition into film directing is n ...
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Film Editor
Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology. The film editor works with raw footage, selecting shots and combining them into sequences which create a finished motion picture. Film editing is described as an art or skill, the only art that is unique to cinema, separating filmmaking from other art forms that preceded it, although there are close parallels to the editing process in other art forms such as poetry and novel writing. Film editing is often referred to as the "invisible art" because when it is well-practiced, the viewer can become so engaged that they are not aware of the editor's work. On its most fundamental level, film editing is the art, technique and practice of assembling shots into a coherent sequence. The job of an editor is not simply to mechanically put pieces of a film tog ...
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