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Mata Hari (1931 Film)
''Mata Hari'' is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by George Fitzmaurice loosely based on the life of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer and courtesan executed for espionage during World War I. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film stars Greta Garbo in the title role. It was Garbo's most commercially successful vehicle. Only a censored version of the film is currently available. Plot In 1917, France is embroiled in World War I. Dubois, head of the French spy bureau, offers to spare the life of a captured agent (an uncredited Mischa Auer) if he will reveal who he is protecting. Dubois suspects it is Mata Hari, a celebrated exotic dancer, but the prisoner chooses execution by firing squad. Lieutenant Alexis Rosanoff of the Imperial Russian Air Force lands in Paris after a dangerous flight over enemy territory, bringing important dispatches from Russia. He persuades his superior, General Serge Shubin, to take him to see Mata Hari perform that night. Rosanoff is instantly smitten by he ...
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George Fitzmaurice
George Fitzmaurice (13 February 1885 – 13 June 1940) was a French-born film director and producer. Career Fitzmaurice's career first started as a set designer on stage. Beginning in 1914, and continuing until his death in 1940, he directed a total of over 80 films; several of these were successful, including ''The Son of the Sheik'', '' Raffles'', ''Mata Hari'', and '' Suzy''. At the beginning of his directorial career, Fitzmaurice was astute at directing stage actresses in their initial films with the first wave of great Broadway stars that migrated to motion pictures during the World War I era, including Mae Murray, Elsie Ferguson, Fannie Ward, Helene Chadwick, Irene Fenwick, Gail Kane, and Edna Goodrich. ''The Son of the Sheik'' is his most famous extant silent film, no doubt aided by the sudden death of its star, Rudolph Valentino. '' Lilac Time'' is a classic war/romance film. Fitzmaurice, however, directed scores of silent films of which the majority of them are los ...
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Mata Hari
Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle; 7 August 187615 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari (), was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. She was executed by firing squad in France. The idea of a beautiful exotic dancer using her powers of seduction as a spy made her name synonymous with the ''femme fatale''. Her story has served as an inspiration for many books, films and other works. It has been suggested that she was convicted and condemned because the French Army needed a scapegoat,Howe, Russel Warren (1986). ''Mata Hari: The True Story. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.'' pp. x–xi, 285. and that the files used to secure her conviction contained several falsifications. Some have even stated that Mata Hari could not have been a spy, and was innocent. Early life Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born 7 August 1876 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. She was the eldest of four children to Adam Zelle ...
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Helen Jerome Eddy
Helen Jerome Eddy (February 25, 1897 – January 27, 1990) was a motion picture actress from New York City. She was noted as a character actress who played genteel heroines in films such as ''Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm'' (1917). Early years Eddy was born in New York City on February 25, 1897, and was raised in Los Angeles, California. As a youth, she acted in productions put on by the Pasadena Playhouse. She became interested in films through the studio of Siegmund Lubin, which was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In her youth they opened a backlot in her Los Angeles neighborhood. Career Lubin's studio rejected a scenario that Eddy wrote at age 17, "but decided to capitalize on her face", using her in vamp roles in "lurid melodramas". Eddy's first movie was ''The Discontented Man'' (1915). Soon after, she left Lubin and joined Paramount Pictures. At this time she began to play the roles for which she is best remembered. Other films in which the actress participated includ ...
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Edmund Breese
Edmund Breese (June 18, 1871 – April 6, 1936) was an American stage and film actor of the silent era. Biography Breese was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Renshaw Breese and Josephine Busby. The Opera House in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was the site of Breese's stage debut in the summer of 1895. He portrayed Adonis Evergreen in ''My Awful Dad''. Long on the stage with a varied Broadway career before entering films, Breese appeared with James O'Neill in ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (1893), ''The Lion and the Mouse'' (1906) with Richard Bennett, ''The Third Degree'' (1909) with Helen Ware, ''The Master Mind'' (1913) with Elliott Dexter, the popular World War I era play ''Why Marry?'' (1917) with Estelle Winwood & Nat C. Goodwin and ''So This Is London'' (1922) with Donald Gallaher. He also acted in a stock company at the Castle Square Theatre in Boston. Breese's film career began in 1914 with the Edison Studios. He appeared in more than 120 films between 19 ...
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Blanche Friderici
Blanche L. Friderici (January 21, 1878 – December 23, 1933) was an American film and stage actress, sometimes credited as Blanche Frederici. Early years Friderici was a native of Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were William E. Friderici and Rosetta Elizabeth Freeman Friderici. Career Friderici did not aspire to be an actress, but rather an acting and elocution teacher. However, her eyesight began to fail, deteriorating to the point she could no longer read, so she turned from teaching acting to actually acting. An admirer of her recitals introduced her to impresario David Belasco, who cast her in ''The Darling of the Gods''. Between 1914 and 1927, Friderici appeared in nine Broadway theatre productions in New York City, including a production of '' 39 East'' (1919) and as Mrs. Davidson in the play ''Rain''. Friderici appeared in sixty films from 1920 to 1934. Her début was as Miss McMasters in the film adaptation of ''39 East'' (1920). In '' Night Nurse'' (1931), w ...
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Alec B
Alec or Aleck is a Scottish form of the given name Alex. It may be a diminutive of the name Alexander or a given name in its own right. Notable people with the name include: People * Alec Aalto (1942–2018), Finnish diplomat *Alec Acton (1938–1994), English footballer * Alec Albiston (1917–1998), Australian rules footballer *Alec Alston (1937–2009), English footballer * Alec and Peter Graham (1881–1957), New Zealand mountaineers, guides, and hotel operators *Alec Anderson (1894–1953), American NFL player * Alec Asher (born 1991), American MLB player * Alec Ashworth (1939–1995), English professional footballer * Alec Astle (born 1949), New Zealand former cricketer * Alec Atkinson (1919–2015), British Royal Air Force officer and civil servant * Alec B. Francis (1867–1934), English silent-film actor * Alec Bagot (1893–1968), South Australian adventurer, polemicist, and politician *Alec Baillie (died 2020), American bassist * Alec Baldwin (born 1958), American actor ...
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Karen Morley
Karen Morley (born Mildred Linton; December 12, 1909 – March 8, 2003) was an American film actress. Life and career Born Mildred Linton in Ottumwa, Iowa, Morley lived there until she was 13 years old. When she moved to Hollywood, she attended Hollywood High School. She went on to attend the University of California, but she dropped out to join the Los Angeles Civic Repertory Theatre and the Pasadena Playhouse. After working at the Pasadena Playhouse, she came to the attention of the director Clarence Brown, at a time when he had been looking for an actress to stand in for Greta Garbo in screen tests. This led to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and roles in films such as ''Mata Hari'' (1931), '' Scarface'' (1932), ''The Phantom of Crestwood'' (1932), ''The Mask of Fu Manchu'' (1932), '' Arsene Lupin'' (1933), '' Gabriel Over the White House'' (1933), and '' Dinner at Eight'' (1933). In 1934, Morley left MGM. Her first film after leaving the studio was '' Our Daily B ...
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Sanatorium
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often located in a healthy climate, usually in the countryside. The idea of healing was an important reason for the historical wave of establishments of sanatoriums, especially at the end of the 19th- and early 20th centuries. One sought for instance the healing of consumptives, especially tuberculosis (before the discovery of antibiotics) or alcoholism, but also of more obscure addictions and longings, of hysteria, masturbation, fatigue and emotional exhaustion. Facility operators were often charitable associations such as the Order of St. John and the newly founded social welfare insurance companies. Sanatoriums should not be confused with the Russian sanatoriums from the time of the Soviet Union, which were a type of sanatorium resort r ...
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Spymaster
A spymaster is the person that leads a spy ring, or a secret service (such as an intelligence agency). Historical spymasters See also *List of American spies *List of British spies * List of German spies *List of fictional spymasters This is a list of fictional spymasters, deputy directors, directors general, and executive directors of Intelligence agencies. Books * Maxim Isaev, a Soviet spy operating in Nazi Germany under the name Max Otto von Stierlitz, tasked with disrupti ... References * https://general-history.com/famous-spy-masters-through-the-ages/ Notes Spies by role {{job-stub ...
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Imperial Russian Air Service
The Imperial Russian Air Service (russian: Императорскій военно-воздушный флотъ, , Emperor's Military Air Fleet) was an air force founded in 1912 for Imperial Russia."''12 августа 1912 года приказом по военному ведомству вопросы воздухоплавания и авиации были изъяты из ведения Главного инженерного управления и переданы специально созданному органу: в воздухоплавательную часть Генерального штаба. Эта дата считается днём образования военной авиации России''"12 августа 1912 года // "Щит и меч", № 29 (1333) от 9 августа 2012 года, стр.8 The Air Service operated for five years and only saw combat in World War I before being reorganized and renamed in 1917 following the Russia ...
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Mischa Auer
Mischa Auer (born Mikhail Semyonovich Unkovsky (Михаил Семёнович Унковский; 17 November 1905 – 5 March 1967) was a Russians, Russian-born American actor who moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s. He first appeared in film in 1928. Auer had a long career playing in many of the era's best known films. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1936 for his performance in the screwball comedy ''My Man Godfrey'', which led to further zany comedy roles. He later moved into television and acted in films again in France and Italy well into the 1960s. Early life Auer was born in Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia. His name is usually seen as Mischa Ounskowsky, Mischa being the German language, German transliteration of Misha (the diminutive form of Mikhail), and Ounskowsky being the French transliteration of his surname. Auer's father was a Russian naval officer whose own mother was the daughter of Hungarian-born violinist Leopold ...
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Star Vehicle
In the motion picture industry, a star vehicle (or simply vehicle) is a film written or produced for a specific star, regardless of whether the motive is to further their career or simply to profit from their current popularity. It is designed to optimally display that star's particular talents or personal appeal. The term is also applied to stage plays and television programs. In some cases, a performer may produce their own star vehicle as self-promotion or a vanity project. Richard Dyer, who extensively studied the phenomenon of movie stars, defined the vehicle phenomenon in his 1979 book ''Stars'': Under the old studio system, vehicles were sometimes created for a promising young, inexperienced, or imported actor who had signed a long-term contract with a major studio. By showcasing that actor's talents, the vehicle was an attempt to create another bankable star bound to the studio until their contract expired. Vehicles were created for rising or established stars as divers ...
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