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Mystery Plane
''Mystery Plane'' (aka ''Sky Pilot'' and ''Sky Pirate'') is a 1939 American action film directed by George Waggner and written by Paul Schofield and George Waggner. The film is based on the comic strip ''Tailspin Tommy'' by Hal Forrest and Glenn Chaffin. The film stars John Trent, Marjorie Reynolds, Milburn Stone, Jason Robards Sr., George Lynn and Lucien Littlefield. ''Mystery Plane'', the first of four "Tailspin Tommy" films made by Monogram Pictures, was released on March 8, 1939.Erickson, Hal"Review: 'Mystery Plane' (1939)."''AllMovie'', 2019. Retrieved: July 15, 2019. Plot In the fall of 1923, young Tommy Tomkins (Tommy Bupp) admires Captain Brandy Rand ( George Lynn), a World War I ace. Brandy flies in and parachutes out of his aircraft, but lands in a lake. Tommy rescues him in a rowboat, then shows Brandy a scrapbook about the flyer's exploits, who encourages the young man to become a flyer himself. Many years later, Tommy ( John Trent) becomes a pilot and is managing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Waggner
George Waggner (September 7, 1894 – December 11, 1984) was an American actor, director, producer and writer. He is best known for producing and directing the 1941 film '' The Wolf Man''. For some unknown reason, Waggner sometimes configured his name in mostly lowercase letters but with his surname's two Gs capitalized ("waGGner"), including in the credits of some of the productions he directed. Career Born in New York City, he trained as a chemist and served in World War I before coming to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actor. He made his film debut as an actor portraying Yousayef in '' The Sheik'' (1921). He later acted in Western films. The first film he directed was ''Western Trails'' (1938). During his career as a film director, he worked with John Wayne (''The Fighting Kentuckian''), Lon Chaney Jr. (''Man Made Monster'' and his most famous film, ''The Wolf Man''), Brian Donlevy and Broderick Crawford (''South of Tahiti''), Randolph Scott ('' Gunfighters'') and Boris Ka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United States Constitution (1789). See alsTitle 10, Subtitle B, Chapter 301, Section 3001 The oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military in order of precedence, the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed 14 June 1775 to fight the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)—before the United States was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army.Library of CongressJournals of the Continental Congress, Volume 27/ref> The United States Army considers itself to be a continuation of the Continental Army, and thus considers its institutional inception to be th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trapped In The Sky
"Trapped in the Sky" is the first episode of '' Thunderbirds'', a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Written by the Andersons, it was first broadcast on ATV Midlands on 30 September 1965. Set in the 2060s, the series follows the exploits of International Rescue, an organisation that uses technologically-advanced rescue vehicles to save human life. The main characters are ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy, founder of International Rescue, and his five adult sons, who pilot the organisation's main fleet: the ''Thunderbird'' machines. In "Trapped in the Sky", master criminal the Hood plants a bomb on board the new atomic-powered airliner ''Fireflash'' before it departs on its maiden flight. Unable to land for fear of setting off the bomb, the crew and passengers' only hope of survival lies with International Rescue. While planning the episode, the Andersons drew inspi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Q Planes
''Q Planes'' (known as ''Clouds Over Europe'' in the United States) is a 1939 British comedy spy film starring Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson. Olivier and Richardson were a decade into their fifty-year friendship and were in the process of staging a theatrical version of ''Othello'', with Richardson in the title role and Olivier as Iago, when this film was made. ''Q Planes'' was produced by Irving Asher, an American, with British film impresario Alexander Korda as executive producer. The film was directed by an American, Tim Whelan (''Sidewalks of London'', and later in 1940, co-director of '' The Thief of Bagdad''), who had lived in Britain since 1932, working for Korda at Denham Studios. Plot In September 1938, advanced British aircraft prototypes carrying experimental and secret equipment are vanishing with their crews on test flights. No one can fathom why, not even spymaster Major Hammond (Ralph Richardson) or his sister Kay (Valerie Hobson), a newsp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spies Of The Air
''Spies of the Air'' (also known as ''Spies in the Air'' and ''The Fifth Column'') is a 1939 British adventure film directed by David MacDonald and based on the play ''Official Secret'' by Jeffrey Dell. The film stars Barry K. Barnes, Roger Livesey, Basil Radford, Edward Ashley and Felix Aylmer. ''Spies of the Air'' involves espionage in the period just before the outbreak of war in Europe that spawned a number of similar propaganda films linking aeronautics and spies. Films in both Great Britain and the United States centred on "... spies and fifth columnists (as) the staple diet of films made during the first year of the war." Plot Before the outbreak of the Second World War, British test pilot Peter Thurloe ( Barry K. Barnes) is involved in an illicit love affair with his employer's wife, Dorothy Houghton ( Joan Marion). He is caught up in an elaborate scheme to steal secrets from Charles Houghton's (Roger Livesey) aviation company. Peter is suspected of betraying his c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Film Serial
A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Generally, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects. Each chapter was screened at a movie theater for one week, and ended with a cliffhanger, in which characters found themselves in perilous situations with little apparent chance of escape. Viewers had to return each week to see the cliffhangers resolved and to follow the continuing story. Movie serials were especially popular with children, and for many youths in the first half of the 20th centu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flying G-Men
''Flying G-Men'' is a 15-episode 1939 adventure film Film serial, directed by James W. Horne and Ray Taylor. The serial was the sixth of the 57 serials released by Columbia. Four "Flying G-Men" battle with enemy saboteurs intent on destroying American military defences. Plot Three government aviators, Hal Andrews (Robert Paige), Bart Davis (Richard Fiske) and John Cummings ( James Craig) called the "Flying G-Men", one of whom is disguised as "The Black Falcon" (Robert Paige), fight to protect the United States and its allies from an enemy spy ring and to avenge the death of the fourth Flying G-Man, Charles Bronson (Stanley Brown). Bronson was killed when he attempted to stop enemy agents from stealing the new McKay military aircraft, designed by Billy McKay (Sammy McKim). The Junior Air Defenders are also enlisted to help the Flying G-Men. A plot to infiltrate all military factories and airports is discovered but the spy chief called "The Professor"(Forbes Murray) is unknown. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fourth Wall
The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th century onward, the rise of illusionism in staging practices, which culminated in the realism and naturalism of the theatre of the 19th century, led to the development of the fourth wall concept. The metaphor suggests a relationship to the mise-en-scène behind a proscenium arch. When a scene is set indoors and three of the walls of its room are presented onstage, in what is known as a box set, the fourth of them would run along the line (technically called the proscenium) dividing the room from the auditorium. The ''fourth wall'', though, is a theatrical convention, rather than of set design. The actors ignore the audience, focus their attention exclusively on the dramatic world, and remain absorbed in its fiction, in a state that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas DC-2
The Douglas DC-2 is a 14-passenger, twin-engined airliner that was produced by the American company Douglas Aircraft Company starting in 1934. It competed with the Boeing 247. In 1935, Douglas produced a larger version called the DC-3, which became one of the most successful aircraft in history. Design and development In the early 1930s, fears about the safety of wooden aircraft structures drove the US aviation industry to develop all-metal airliners. United Airlines had exclusive right to the all metal twin-engine Boeing 247; rival TWA issued a specification for an all-metal trimotor. The Douglas response was more radical. When it flew on July 1, 1933, the prototype DC-1 had a robust tapered wing, retractable landing gear, and two 690 hp (515 kW) Wright radial engines driving variable-pitch propellers. It seated 12 passengers. Douglas test pilot Carl Cover flew the first test flight on May 11, 1934, of the DC-2 which was longer than the DC-1, had more powerful en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trans World Airlines
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with Ford Trimotors. With American Airlines, American, United Airlines, United, and Eastern Air Lines, Eastern, it was one of the "Legacy carrier#Defunct legacy carriers, Big Four" domestic airlines in the United States formed by the Air Mail scandal, Spoils Conference of 1930. Howard Hughes acquired control of TWA in 1939, and after World War II led the expansion of the airline to serve Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, making TWA a second unofficial flag carrier of the United States after Pan American World Airways, Pan Am. Hughes gave up control in the 1960s, and the new management of TWA acquired Hilton Worldwide, Hilton International and Century 21 Real Estate, Century 21 in an attempt to diversify the company's business. As the Airline D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LaVerne Browne
John Trent (born LaVerne Ward Browne, December 5, 1906 – May 12, 1966) was an aviator-turned-actor-turned-aviator, best known as an actor for the "Tailspin Tommy" adventure film series in the 1930s. From 1931 to 1941, under the stage name John Trent, Browne appeared in 16 Hollywood films. While flying was a natural for him, acting was not, and he eventually turned his back on his Hollywood career, resuming his career in aviation, as a test pilot. Early life Born in Orange, California, as the third child of Edwin J. Browne, a farm worker, and Phebe Alice Proctor Browne. His first focus was in the legal field. Attending the University of Southern California (USC), he switched career aspirations only after completing his law studies. Aviation Browne attended the Hancock School of Aeronautics and Flying School, Santa Maria, California. He found steady work as a commercial pilot for Transcontinental & Western Airways flying the Douglas DC-2 airliner, just entering service. He wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William P
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the given name ''Wilhelm'' (cf. Proto-Germanic ᚹᛁᛚᛃᚨᚺᛖᛚᛗᚨᛉ, ''*Wiljahelmaz'' > German ''Wilhelm'' and Old Norse ᚢᛁᛚᛋᛅᚼᛅᛚᛘᛅᛋ, ''Vilhjálmr''). By regular sound changes, the native, inherited English form of the name should b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
