Night Tide
''Night Tide'' is a 1961 American fantasy film sometimes considered to be a horror film, written and directed by Curtis Harrington and featuring Dennis Hopper in his first starring role. It was filmed in 1960, premiered in 1961, but was held up from general release until 1963. The film's title was inspired by some lines from Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Annabel Lee". The film was released by American International Pictures as a double feature with ''The Raven''. Plot Johnny Drake, a sailor on shore leave in Santa Monica, meets a young woman named Mora in a local jazz club. Mora tells him that she makes her living on the pier appearing as a mermaid in a sideshow attraction under the name 'Mora the Mermaid', a 'half-woman, half-fish', on the boardwalk, operated by Captain Murdock. She lives in an apartment above the amusement park that houses the merry-go-round. He goes to see her in her mermaid costume at the pier. Mora tells Johnny that Captain Murdock is her godfather and he found ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Curtis Harrington
Gene Curtis Harrington (September 17, 1926 – May 6, 2007) was an American film and television director whose work included experimental films, horror films and episodic television. He is considered one of the forerunners of New Queer Cinema. Life and career Early life Harrington was born on September 17, 1926 in Los Angeles, the son of Isabel (Dorum) and Raymond Stephen Harrington. He grew up in Beaumont, California. His first cinematic endeavors were amateur films he made while still a teenager. He attended Occidental College and the University of Southern California, then graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a film studies degree. Career beginnings He began his career as a film critic, writing a book on Josef von Sternberg in 1948. He directed several avant-garde short films in the 1940s and 1950s, including ''Fragment of Seeking'', ''Picnic'', and ''The Wormwood Star'' (a film study of the artwork of Marjorie Cameron which was filmed at the home ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to its climate, beaches, and hospitality industry. It has a diverse economy, hosting headquarters of companies such as Hulu, Universal Music Group, Lionsgate Films, and The Recording Academy. Santa Monica traces its history to Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica, granted in 1839 to the Sepúlveda family of California. The rancho was later sold to John P. Jones and Robert Baker, who in 1875, along with his Californio heiress wife Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, founded Santa Monica, which incorporated as a city in 1886. The city developed into a seaside resort during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the creation of tourist attractions such as Palisades Park, the Santa Monica Pier, Ocean Park, and the Hotel Casa del Mar. Hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaist movements; and one of the most influential figures in early 20th-century art as a whole. The ''National Observer'' suggested that, “of the artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came closest to being a Renaissance man.” He is best known for his novels ''Le Grand Écart'' (1923), ''Le Livre blanc'' (1928), and '' Les Enfants Terribles'' (1929); the stage plays ''La Voix Humaine'' (1930), '' La Machine Infernale'' (1934), ''Les Parents terribles'' (1938), '' La Machine à écrire'' (1941), and ''L'Aigle à deux têtes'' (1946); and the films ''The Blood of a Poet'' (1930), ''Les Parents Terribles'' (1948), ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1946), ''Orpheus'' (1950), and ' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barbette (performer)
Vander Clyde Broadway (December 19, 1899 – August 5, 1973), stage name Barbette, was an American female impersonator, high-wire performer, and trapeze artist born in Texas. Barbette attained great popularity throughout the United States but his greatest fame came in Europe and especially Paris, in the 1920s and 1930s. Barbette began performing as an aerialist at around the age of 14 as one-half of a circus act called The Alfaretta Sisters. After a few years of circus work, Barbette went solo and adopted his exotic-sounding pseudonym. He performed in full drag, revealing himself as male only at the end of his act. Following a career-ending illness or injury (the sources disagree on the cause), which left him in constant pain, Barbette returned to Texas but continued to work as a consultant for motion pictures as well as training and choreographing aerial acts for a number of circuses. After years of dealing with chronic pain, Barbette died by suicide on August 5, 1973. Both i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome
''Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome'' is a 38-minute avant-garde short film by Kenneth Anger. It was filmed in December 1953 and completed in 1954. Anger created two other versions of this film in 1966 and the late 1970s. According to him, the film takes the name "pleasure dome" from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's atmospheric 1816 poem ''Kubla Khan''. Anger was inspired to make the film after attending a Halloween party called "Come as your Madness". The film has gained cult film status. Earlier prints of the film had sequences that were meant to be projected on three different screens, an idea inspired in part by Abel Gance's 1927 film ''Napoléon''. The three-screen version was shown at the Brussels World's Fair. Anger subsequently re-edited the film to layer the images. The film (primarily in the second or third version) was often shown in American universities and art galleries during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The original edition soundtrack is a complete performance of ''Glago ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost 40 works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle". His films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle".The Kinsey Institute''Spotlight on the Collections: Filmmaker Kenneth Anger'' 2004. Retrieved June 1, 2010. Anger has been called "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers, and certainly the first whose work addressed homosexuality in an undisguised, self-implicating manner", and his "role in rendering gay culture visible within American cinema, commercial or otherwise ..impossible to overestimate", with several films released before the legalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults in the United States. He focuse ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jack Parsons (rocket Engineer)
John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons; October 2, 1914 – June 17, 1952) was an American rocket engineer, chemist, and Thelemite occultist. Associated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Parsons was one of the principal founders of both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Aerojet Engineering Corporation. He invented the first rocket engine to use a castable, composite rocket propellant, and pioneered the advancement of both liquid-fuel and solid-fuel rockets. Born in Los Angeles, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. Inspired by science fiction literature, he developed an interest in rocketry in his childhood and in 1928 began amateur rocket experiments with school friend Edward S. Forman. He dropped out of Pasadena Junior College and Stanford University due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression, and in 1934 he united with Forman and graduate Frank Malina to form the Caltech ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mickey Cohen
Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen (September 4, 1913 – July 29, 1976) was an American gangster, boxer and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles during the mid-20th century. Early life Mickey Cohen was born on September 4, 1913, in New York City to Jewish parents. Cohen's parents immigrated to the USA from Kyiv. He was first raised in New York City, moving with his mother and siblings to the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles at an early age. At 8, he earned money as a newsboy, selling newspapers on the street. One of his brothers, either Louie or Harry, would drop Mickey off at his regular corner, Soto and Brooklyn Streets (now Cesar E. Chavez Avenue). In 1922, Mickey was sent to reform school for petty crimes including shoplifting and theft. Boxing career As a teenager, Cohen began boxing in illegal prizefights in Los Angeles. In 1929, the 15-year-old moved from Los Angeles to Cleveland to train as a professional boxer with the alias of 'Irish Mickey Cohen'. His first pro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works that have an already-established critical reputation, such as his cycle of low-budget cult films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. In 1964, Corman—admired by members of the French New Wave and '' Cahiers du Cinéma''—became the youngest filmmaker to have a retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française, as well as in the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art. He was the co-founder of New World Pictures, the founder of New Concorde and is a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he was awarded an Honorary Academy Award "for his rich engendering of films and filmmakers". Corman is also famous for distributing in the U.S. many foreign directors, such as Federico Fellini (Ital ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scuba Dive
Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Christian J. Lambertsen in a patent submitted in 1952. Scuba divers carry their own source of breathing gas, usually compressed air, affording them greater independence and movement than surface-supplied divers, and more time underwater than free divers. Although the use of compressed air is common, a gas blend with a higher oxygen content, known as enriched air or nitrox, has become popular due to the reduced nitrogen intake during long and/or repetitive dives. Also, breathing gas diluted with helium may be used to reduce the likelihood and effects of nitrogen narcosis during deeper dives. Open circuit scuba systems discharge the breathing gas into the environment as it is exhaled, and consist of one or more diving cylinders containing breat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Siren (mythology)
In Greek mythology, the sirens (Ancient Greek: singular: ; plural: ) were humanlike beings with alluring voices; they appear in a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus saves his crew's lives. Roman poets placed them on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions, the literal geography of the "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, is fixed: sometimes on Cape Pelorum and at others in the islands known as the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae. All such locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks. Sirens continued to be used as a symbol for the dangerous temptation embodied by women regularly throughout Christian art of the medieval era. Nomenclature The etymology of the name is contested. Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. Others connect the name to σειρά (''seirá'', "rope, cord") and εἴρω (''eírō'', "to tie, join, fasten"), resulting in the meaning "binder, entangler", i.e. one who binds ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mykonos
Mykonos (, ; el, Μύκονος ) is a Greek island, part of the Cyclades, lying between Tinos, Syros, Paros and Naxos. The island has an area of and rises to an elevation of at its highest point. There are 10,134 inhabitants according to the 2011 census, most of whom live in the largest town, Mykonos, which lies on the west coast. The town is also known as ''Chora'' (i.e. 'Town' in Greek, following the common practice in Greece when the name of the island itself is the same as the name of the principal town). Mykonos's nickname is "The Island of the Winds", due to the very strong winds that usually blow on the island. Tourism is a major industry and Mykonos is known for its vibrant nightlife and for being a gay-friendly destination with many establishments catering for the LGBT community. History Herodotus mentions Carians as the original inhabitants of the island. Ionians from Athens seem to have followed next in the early 11th century BC. There were many people living on t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |