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Ministry Of Fear
''Ministry of Fear'' is a 1944 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang, and starring Ray Milland and Marjorie Reynolds. Based on the 1943 novel by Graham Greene, the film tells the story of a man just released from a mental asylum who finds himself caught up in an international spy ring and pursued by Nazi agents after inadvertently receiving something they want. The original music for the film was composed by Victor Young. Plot In wartime England during the Blitz, Stephen Neale is released from Lembridge Asylum. While waiting for a train to London, Neale visits a village fête hosted by the Mothers of Free Nations charity. He is urged to go to the palm reader's tent to have his fortune told by Mrs. Bellane, an older woman. He asks her to ignore the past and tell the future, which startles her. She cryptically tells him to enter a contest and guess the weight of a cake as 4 pounds 15½ ounces. Neale does so and wins the cake. Then a young blond man hurries to see Mrs. Bell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 63. One of the best-known ''émigrés'' from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. He has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. Lang's most celebrated films include the groundbreaking futuristic ''Metropolis'' (1927) and the influential '' M'' (1931), a film noir precursor. His 1929 film ''Woman in the Moon'' showcased the use of a multi-stage rocket, and also pioneered the concept of a rocket launch pad (a rocket standing upright against a tall building before launch having been slowly rolled into place) and the rocket-launch countdown clock. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palmistry
Palmistry is the Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific practice of fortune-telling through the study of the Hand#Areas, palm. Also known as palm reading, chiromancy, chirology or cheirology, the practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those who practice palmistry are generally called ''palmists'', ''hand readers'', ''hand analysts'', or ''chirologists''. There are many—and often conflicting—interpretations of various lines and palmar features across various teachings of palmistry. Palmistry is practiced by the Hindus, Hindu Brahmins, and is also indirectly referenced in the Book of Job. The contradictions between different interpretations, as well as the lack of evidence for palmistry's predictions, have caused palmistry to be viewed as a pseudoscience by academics. History Ancient palmistry Palmistry is a practice common to many different places on the Eurasian landmass; it has been practiced in the cultures of Sumeria, Babylonia, Arabia, Canaan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Field
Mary Field (born Olivia Rockefeller; June 10, 1909 – June 12, 1996) was an American film actress who primarily appeared in supporting roles. Early life She was born in New York City. As a child, she never knew her biological parents; during her infancy, she was left outside the doors of a church with a note pinned to her saying that her name was Olivia Rockefeller. She was later adopted.''Mary Field'' by Doug McClelland, ''Film Fan Monthly'', October 1973 She attended the Brentwood Hall School in Westchester County, New York. Hollywood and television In 1937, she was signed under contract to Warner Bros. Studios and made her film debut in ''The Prince and the Pauper'' which was released during the year. Her other screen credits include parts in such films as ''Jezebel'' (1938), ''Cowboy from Brooklyn'' (1938), ''The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse'' (1938), '' Eternally Yours'' (1939), ''When Tomorrow Comes'' (1939), ''Broadway Melody of 1940'', ''Ball of Fire'' (1941), '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erskine Sanford
Erskine Sanford (November 19, 1885 – July 7, 1969) was an American actor on the stage, radio and motion pictures. Long associated with the Theatre Guild, he later joined Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre company and appeared in several of Welles's films, including ''Citizen Kane'' (1941), in which he played Herbert Carter, the bumbling, perspiring newspaper editor. Biography Erskine Sanford was born in Trinidad, Colorado, and was educated at the Horace Mann School in New York City. Beginning his acting career with Minnie Maddern Fiske's company, he made his professional debut in ''Leah Kleschna''. He appeared in ''The Blue Bird'' and ''The Piper'' (1910–11) at the New Theatre in New York City, and in Shakespearean repertory with Ben Greet. For some 15 years he was associated with the Theatre Guild, playing roles on Broadway and on tour, including performances of '' Porgy'' and ''Strange Interlude'' on the London stage. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Sanford first met Orson Welles in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Napier
Alan William Napier-Clavering (7 January 1903 – 8 August 1988), better known as Alan Napier, was an English actor. After a decade in West End theatre, he had a long film career in Britain and later, in Hollywood. Napier is best remembered for portraying Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler in the 1960s live-action ''Batman'' television series. Early life and career Napier was a first cousin-once removed of Neville Chamberlain, Britain's prime minister from 1937 to 1940. He was educated at Packwood Haugh School and, after leaving Clifton College, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1925. He was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with the likes of John Gielgud and Robert Morley. As Napier recalled, his “ridiculously tall” 6′ 6″ height played a crucial part in his securing the position and also almost losing it. J. B. Fagan had dismissed Tyrone Guthrie because he was too tall for most parts. Napier was interviewed (and accept ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dan Duryea
Dan Duryea ( , January 23, 1907 – June 7, 1968) was an American actor in film, stage, and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in a wide variety of leading and secondary roles.Gaita, PaulDan Duryea Biography."''Tunrer Classic Movies''. Retrieved: May 14, 2013. Early life Duryea was born and raised in White Plains, New York. He graduated from White Plains High School in 1924 and Cornell University in 1928. While at Cornell, Duryea was elected into the prestigious Sphinx Head Society, Cornell's oldest senior honor society. He majored in English with a strong interest in drama, and in his senior year succeeded Franchot Tone as president of the college drama society. As his parents did not approve of his choice to pursue an acting career, Duryea became an advertising executive. After six stress-filled years, he had a heart attack that sidelined him for a year. Acting career Stage Returning to his earlie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percy Waram
Percy Thomas Carne Waram ( ; 28 October 1880 – 5 October 1961) was a British-born stage and film actor who spent much of his career in the United States. His career lasted 55 years on the American stage, and he had memorable roles in ''The Shanghai Gesture'', '' Elizabeth the Queen'', '' Mary of Scotland'', ''Pride and Prejudice'', and ''Anne of the Thousand Days''. He starred in the Chicago production of ''Life With Father'' for three years, setting box office and attendance records, after which he took the production on the road for another 38 weeks. He starred in the Broadway production of ''The Late George Apley'' for a year, and then spent another 80 weeks with the show's national tour. Waram originated the role of Horace Vandergelder in ''The Merchant of Yonkers'', and appeared in an influential if not successful modern dress version of ''Hamlet''. Waram made only a few films, and had no starring roles, but is best remembered now for his role as General Haynesworth in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hillary Brooke
Hillary Brooke (born Beatrice Sofia Mathilda Peterson; September 8, 1914 – May 25, 1999) was an American film actress. Career A 5′6″ blonde from the Astoria neighborhood of New York City's borough of Queens, Brooke, who was of Swedish ancestry, started work as a model while attending Columbia University. She spent a year in the United Kingdom, mastering an RP accent that she used in several of her films. She frequently played English women in Hollywood films, and also had such a role in her only British-made film, '' The House Across the Lake''. Brooke began her acting career in movies, co-starring in two Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, ''Sherlock Holmes Faces Death'' (1943) and ''The Woman in Green'' (1945). She was a regular on several television series of the early 1950s, playing Roberta Townsend, the glamorous love interest of Margie's father Vern Albright on the 1952–1955 TV series ''My Little Margie''. On ''The Abbott and Costello S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Esmond
Carl Esmond (born Karl Simon; June 14, 1902– December 4, 2004) was an Austrian-born American film and stage actor, born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. Although his age was given as 33 in the passenger list when he arrived in the USA in January 1938, in his naturalization petition his birth year is stated as 1902. His stage names were Willy Eichberger and Charles Esmond and finally Carl Esmond. He trained at Vienna's State Academy of Dramatic Arts, and made his film debut in the operetta '' The Emperor's Waltz'' (1933). He was active in the Viennese genre of shallow romantic comedies so popular in the Austria of the interwar period. Esmond fled Germany following the Nazi takeover, first to the UK and finally in January 1938 to the USA. Esmond continued to appear on stage as well as in British and American films. He appeared in over 50 films and numerous television programs. Death Esmond died in Brentwood, Los Angeles in 2004 at the age of 102. Filmography * '' The Emperor's W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microfilm
Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. For special purposes, greater optical reductions may be used. Three formats are common: microfilm (reels), microfiche (flat sheets), and aperture cards. Microcards, also known as "micro-opaques", a format no longer produced, were similar to microfiche, but printed on cardboard rather than photographic film. History Using the daguerreotype process, John Benjamin Dancer was one of the first to produce microphotographs, in 1839. He achieved a reduction ratio of 160:1. Dancer refined his reduction procedures with Frederick Scott Archer's wet collodion process, developed in 1850–51, but he dismissed his decades-long work on microphotographs as a personal hobby and did not document his procedures. The idea that microphotogr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's historic and primary financial centre. Its name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which also had an entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance, and over time "Scotland Yard" has come to be used not only as the name of the headquarters building, but also as a metonym for both the Metropolitan Police Service itself and police officers, especially detectives, who serve in it. ''The New York Times'' wrote in 1964 that, just as Wall Street gave its name to New York's financial district, Scotland Yard became the name for police activity in London. The force moved from Great Scotland Yard in 1890, to a newly completed build ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euthanasia
Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different euthanasia laws. The British House of Lords select committee on medical ethics defines euthanasia as "a deliberate intervention undertaken with the express intention of ending a life, to relieve intractable suffering". In the Netherlands and Belgium, euthanasia is understood as "termination of life by a doctor at the request of a patient". The Dutch law, however, does not use the term 'euthanasia' but includes the concept under the broader definition of "assisted suicide and termination of life on request". Euthanasia is categorized in different ways, which include voluntary, non-voluntary, or involuntary. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
