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Keep Punching (1939 Film)
''Keep Punching'' is a 1939 film about boxing. Its primary character is Henry Armstrong (born ''Henry Jackson''). Unlike most films of the era, its cast was composed entirely of African Americans. The film includes Whitey's Lindy Hoppers (Lindy Hop) performing the much imitated Big Apple Routine. A film clip of the dance scene was also released as the short “Jittering Jitterbugs” in 1943 showing the Big Apple routine choreographed by Frankie Manning and the a Jitterbug dance competition that followed in the film. Plot Golden gloves champion Henry Jackson turns professional and gets scheduled into a tough match. Days before the match, he finds an old school friend of his, Frank Harrison, unaware that Frank is betting heavily on his loss. Frank sets Henry up with beautiful Jerry Jordan, who is instructed to get him drunk and impede him in any way possible, due to Frank blackmailing her. On the day of the fight she slips him a sleeping drug. Cast It was directed by Joh ...
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John Clein
John Clein (1907–?) was an American film producer and film director, he was active in the United States and Britain. He produced and directed the 1939 film ''Keep Punching (1939 film), Keep Punching'', whose cast was entirely composed of African-Americans; Clein himself was light-skinned. Biography Clein was born in 1907 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received plaudits for his casting efforts. Clein made headlines in 1948 when he was kidnapped and forced to sign a contract for a dancer and an extra. Filmography Director *''Keep Punching (1939 film), Keep Punching'' (1939) Producer *''Hearts of Humanity (1932 film), Hearts of Humanity'' (1932) *''Two Hearts in Harmony'' (1935) *''The Mill on the Floss (film), The Mill on the Floss'' (1936) *''Keep Punching (1939 film), Keep Punching'' (1939) *''Passport to Shame'' (1958) *''Dr. Crippen (1962 film), Dr. Crippen'' (1962) Other roles *''Before I Wake (1955 film), Before I Wake'', a.k.a. ''Shadow of Fear'' (1956) – credited a ...
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Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a noted venue for African-American performers, and is the home of ''Showtime at the Apollo'', a nationally syndicated television variety show which showcased new talent, from 1987 to 2008, encompassing 1,093 episodes; the show was rebooted in 2018. The theater, which has a capacity of 1,506, opened in 1913 as Hurtig & Seamon's Music Hall. It was designed by George Keister in the neo-Classical style. Alterations were made that year for showing movies, and it was renamed the Apollo Theater. (It was often referred to as the "125th Street Apollo" to distinguish it from the legitimate Apollo on 42nd Street). In 1924, the Minsky brothers leased the theater for burlesque shows. In 1934, it became a venue for black performers and was opened to black ...
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American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Leadership The institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business, and academic communities. The board of trustees is chaired by Kathleen Kennedy and the board of directors chaired by Robert A. Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO, film historian Bob Gazzale. Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens Jr. (from the organization's inception in 1967 until 1980) and Jean Picker Firstenberg (from 1980 to 2007). History The American Film Institute was founded by a 1965 presidential mandate announced in the Rose Garden of the White House by Lyndon B. Johnson—to establish a national arts organization to preserve the legacy of American film heritage, educate the next generation of filmmaker ...
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AFI Catalog Of Feature Films
The ''AFI Catalog of Feature Films'', also known as the ''AFI Catalog'', is an ongoing project by the American Film Institute (AFI) to catalog all commercially-made and theatrically exhibited American motion pictures from the birth of cinema in 1893 to the present. It began as a series of hardcover books known as ''The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures'', and subsequently became an exclusively online filmographic database. Each entry in the catalog typically includes the film's title, physical description, production and distribution companies, production and release dates, cast and production credits, a plot summary, song titles, and notes on the film's history. The films are indexed by personal credits, production and distribution companies, year of release, and major and minor plot subjects. To qualify for the "Feature Films" volumes, a film must have been commercially produced either on American soil or by an American company. In accordance with the Intern ...
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Jitterbug
Jitterbug is a generalized term used to describe swing dancing. It is often synonymous with the lindy hop dance but might include elements of the jive, east coast swing, collegiate shag, charleston, balboa and other swing dances. Swing dancing originated in the African-American communities of New York City in the early 20th century. Many nightclubs had a whites-only or blacks-only policy due to racial segregation, however the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem had a no-discrimination policy which allowed whites and blacks to dance together and it was there that the lindy hop dance flourished, started by dancers such as George Snowden and Frank Manning. The term jitterbug was originally a ridicule used by black patrons to describe whites who started to dance the lindy hop, as they were dancing faster and jumpier than was intended, like "jittering bugs", although it quickly lost its negative connotation as the more erratic version caught on. Both the lindy hop and the "jitterbug" became ...
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Frankie Manning
Frank Manning (May 26, 1914 – April 27, 2009) was an American dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founders of Lindy Hop, an energetic form of the jazz dance style known as swing. Biography Manning was born in 1914 in Jacksonville, Florida. After his parents separated when he was three years old, he moved to Harlem with his mother, who was a dancer. Manning began dancing as a child. Manning's mother sent him to spend summers with his father, aunt, and grandmother on their farm in Aiken, South Carolina. On Saturdays, farmhands and locals would come to the farm to play music on the front porch with harmonicas and a washtub bass. Manning's grandmother encouraged Frankie to dance with the others. In October 1927, Manning attended the Renaissance Ballroom & Casino. Watching from the balcony, he saw his mother dancing formal ballroom styles such as the foxtrot and waltz, having only seen her dance before in a much looser and casual style at ...
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Big Apple Routine
The Big Apple is both a partner dance and a circle dance that originated in the Afro-American community of the United States in the beginning of the 20th century. History Origin (1860–1936) The exact origin of the Big Apple is unclear but one author suggests that the dance originated from the "ring shout", a group dance associated with religious observances that was founded before 1860 by African Americans on plantations in South Carolina and Georgia. The ring shout is described as a dance with "counterclockwise circling and high arm gestures" that resembled the Big Apple. It is still practiced today in small populations of the southern United States. The dance that eventually became known as the Big Apple is speculated to have been created in the early 1930s by African-American youth dancing at the Big Apple Club, which was at the former House of Peace Synagogue on Park Street in Columbia, South Carolina. The synagogue was converted into a black juke joint called the "Big A ...
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Lindy Hop
The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the Black communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based on jazz dance, jazz, tap dance, tap, breakaway (dance), breakaway, and Charleston (dance), Charleston. It is frequently described as a jazz dance and is a member of the swing (dance), swing dance family. In its development, the Lindy Hop combined elements of both partnered and solo dancing by using the movements and improvisation of African-American dances along with the formal eight-count structure of European partner dances – most clearly illustrated in the Lindy's basic step, the swingout. In this step's open position, each dancer is generally connected hand-to-hand; in its closed position, leads and follows are connected as though in an embrace on one ...
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Whitey's Lindy Hoppers
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers was a professional performing group of exceptional swing dancers that was first organized in the late 1920s by Herbert "Whitey" White in the Savoy Ballroom and disbanded in 1942 after its male members were drafted into World War II. The group took on many different forms and had several different names and sub-groups, including Whitey's Hopping Maniacs, Harlem Congeroo Dancers, and The Hot Chocolates. In addition to touring nationally and internationally, the group appeared in several films and Broadway theatre productions. Dorothy Dandridge and Sammy Davis Jr. were among the group's celebrity regulars. History Beginning in the late 1920s, White, a bouncer at the Savoy Ballroom and former dancing waiter, began organizing exceptional dancers, first under the aegis of George Snowden and then under White himself. Although many members felt mistreated by White, many admired his promotion of the dance. In 1934, at the age of 14, Norma Miller became the youngest me ...
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African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West/ Central African with some European descent; some also have Native American and other ancestry. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not se ...
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Cast
Cast may refer to: Music * Cast (band), an English alternative rock band * Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band * The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis * ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William * ''Cast'', a 2018 album by KAT-TUN Science and technology * Casting (metalworking) ** Cast iron, a group of iron-carbon alloys * Cast (geology), a cavity formed by decomposition that once were covered by a casing material * Cast, visible piles of mineral-rich organic matter excreted above ground by earthworms * Cast of the eye, a condition in which the eyes do not properly align with each other when looking at an object * Orthopedic cast, a protective shell to hold a limb in place, for example to help in healing broken bones * Cast (computer science), to change the interpretation of a bit pattern from one data type to another in computer programming * Urinary cast, tubules found in urine * Google Cast, a protocol built into the Google C ...
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Boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time in a boxing ring. Although the term "boxing" is commonly attributed to "western boxing", in which only the fists are involved, boxing has developed in various ways in different geographical areas and cultures. In global terms, boxing is a set of combat sports focused on striking, in which two opponents face each other in a fight using at least their fists, and possibly involving other actions such as kicks, elbow strikes, Knee (strike), knee strikes, and headbutts, depending on the rules. Some of the forms of the modern sport are western boxing, Bare-knuckle boxing, bare knuckle boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, muay-thai, lethwei, savate, and Sanda (sport), sanda. Boxing techniques have been incorporated into many martial ar ...
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