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Roy Pomeroy
Roy Pomeroy (April 20, 1892 – September 3, 1947) was an American special effects artist and film director. One of the only three technicians that founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he was awarded the Academy Award for Engineering Effects for the film ''Wings'' at the 1st Academy Awards. Biography Pomeroy's career began during the silent era, when he worked as a special effects engineer for Famous Players-Lasky and its successor studio Paramount Pictures. For 1923's ''The Ten Commandments,'' Pomeroy designed the parting of the Red Sea sequence and an effect in which the commandments appeared in letters of flame.Walker, Alexander. ''The Shattered Silents: How the Talkies Came to Stay.'' 1978. Morrow, 1979. He worked on ''Peter Pan, Old Ironsides,'' and '' The Rough Riders,'' all for Famous Players or Paramount. His work on the groundbreaking aviation film ''Wings,'' released in 1927, earned him the Academy Award for Engineering Effects at the firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darjeeling
Darjeeling (, , ) is a town and municipality in the northernmost region of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it has an average elevation of . To the west of Darjeeling lies the easternmost province of Nepal, to the east the Kingdom of Bhutan, to the north the Indian state of Sikkim, and farther north the Tibet Autonomous Region region of China. Bangladesh lies to the south and southeast, and most of the state of West Bengal lies to the south and southwest, connected to the Darjeeling region by a narrow tract. Kangchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain, rises to the north and is prominently visible on clear days. In the early 19th century, during East India Company rule in India, Darjeeling was identified as a potential summer retreat for British officials, soldiers and their families. The narrow mountain ridge was leased from the Kingdom of Sikkim, and eventually annexed to British India. Experimentation with growing tea on the slop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "talking pictures", or "talkies", were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie (although it had only limited so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1947 Deaths
It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country in the 20th century causes extensive disruption of travel. Given the low ratio of private vehicle ownership at the time, it is mainly remembered in terms of its effects on the railway network. * January 1 - The Canadian Citizenship Act comes into effect. * January 4 – First issue of weekly magazine ''Der Spiegel'' published in Hanover, Germany, edited by Rudolf Augstein. * January 10 – The United Nations adopts a resolution to take control of the free city of Trieste. * January 15 – Elizabeth Short, an aspiring actress nicknamed the "Black Dahlia", is found brutally murdered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles; the mysterious case is never solved. * January 16 – Vincent Auriol is inaugurated as president of France. * January 19 – Ferry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1892 Births
Year 189 ( CLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Silanus and Silanus (or, less frequently, year 942 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 189 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Plague (possibly smallpox) kills as many as 2,000 people per day in Rome. Farmers are unable to harvest their crops, and food shortages bring riots in the city. China * Liu Bian succeeds Emperor Ling, as Chinese emperor of the Han Dynasty. * Dong Zhuo has Liu Bian deposed, and installs Emperor Xian as emperor. * Two thousand eunuchs in the palace are slaughtered in a violent purge in Luoyang, the capital of Han. By topic Arts and sciences * Galen publishes his ''"Treatise on the various temperaments"'' (aka ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shock (1934 Film)
''Shock'' is a 1934 American film written by Madeleine Ruthven from a story by Roy J. Pomeroy. It is also directed by Pomeroy and stars Ralph Forbes, Gwenllian Gill and Monroe Owsley. Plot While on a pass from his unit, Derek Marbury, a British lieutenant during World War I meets and falls in love with Lucy Neville, a young lady his company's captain, Bob Hayworth, had been romantically interested in. The two hastily marry, and are just beginning their honeymoon, when Marbury's leave is cancelled and all personnel are called back to their regiments, due to an impending German offensive. Once back at the front, his best man and the captain's brother, Gilroy Hayworth, is selected for a dangerous reconnaissance mission. Gilroy is so distraught over the mission he kills himself, rather than face the danger. To prevent a family disgrace, Marbury offers to go on the mission, and making it look like Gilroy was killed in action. Bob agrees with the plan, but on the mission, Marbury is i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone, and in early 1929 production began under the RKO name (an abbreviation of Radio-Keith-Orpheum). Two years later, another Kennedy holding, the Pathé studio, was folded into the operation. By the mid-1940s, RKO was controlled by investor Floyd Odlum. RKO has long been renowned for its cycle of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inside The Lines (1930 Film)
''Inside the Lines'' is a 1930 American Pre-Code Hollywood, pre-Code spy drama film starring Betty Compson, Ralph Forbes, and Mischa Auer. It was directed by Roy Pomeroy (who also was the associate producer) from a screenplay by John Farrow and Ewart Adamson, which in turn was based on the 1915 Broadway play of the same name by Earl Derr Biggers. This version is a remake of the Inside the Lines (1918 film), 1918 silent version, also with the same name. This film exists in the public domain because the claimants did not renew the copyright after 28 years. Plot Jane Gershon is engaged to Eric Woodhouse, living in Germany prior to the onset of World War I. When the war breaks out, they are forced to separate, but are reunited months later in Gibraltar, at the British fortress there. Both are supposedly German spies with orders to destroy the British fleet, anchored in the harbor. Not fully trusting either of them, the German government has sent another agent, the Hindu Amahdi, to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reaction Shot
In film production, cinematography and video production, a reaction shot is a shot which cuts away from the main scene in order to show the reaction of a character to it, a basic unit of film grammar. A reaction shot usually implies the display of some sort of emotion on the face of the actor being shown, and is thus most commonly a close-up shot (although a group of actors may be shown reacting together). A reaction shot is also generally bereft of dialogue, though this is not an absolute rule. Its main purpose is to show an emotional response to the immediately preceding action or words of another character in the scene, or to an event in the immediately preceding scene which may or may not involve another actor (e.g., an explosion, monster, empty room, etc.) The assumption behind the logic of the reaction shot is that the emotional reaction of the actor being depicted will either advance the story, reveal character traits of the character in the reaction shot, or emphasize c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934.Mordaunt Hall, Wrote of Screen , ''New York Times'', July 4, 1973, p. 18. His writing style was described in his ''Times'' obituary as "chatty, irreverent, and not particularly analytical. €¦The interest of other critics in analyzing cinematographic techniques was not for him." Biography Born Frederick William Mordaunt Hall in[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lothar Mendes
Lothar Mendes (19 May 1894 – 24 February 1974) was a German-born screenwriter and film director. His two best known films are ''Jew Süss (1934 film), Jew Süss'' (1934) and ''The Man Who Could Work Miracles'' (1936), both productions for British studios. Career Born in Berlin, Mendes began his career as an actor in Vienna and Berlin in Max Reinhardt's company. After directing his first two films in Berlin, he settled in the United States in the early 1920s and remained there until 1933, directing more than a dozen features, mostly frothy comedies, while under contract to Paramount Pictures, Paramount. His films included the last silent film made in the USA, ''The Four Feathers (1929 film), The Four Feathers'' (1929), and the murder mystery ''Payment Deferred'' (1933) starring British actor Charles Laughton. After Adolf Hitler came to power, Mendes, who was Jews, Jewish, traveled to Britain to work at Gaumont-British Pictures, directing films with Michael Balcon producing. Und ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silent Film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of title cards. The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music, or improvisation. Sometimes a person would even narrate the inter-title cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interference (film)
''Interference'' is a 1928 American drama film directed by Lothar Mendes and starring Clive Brook, William Powell, Evelyn Brent, and Doris Kenyon, all making their sound film debuts. In England when a first husband turns out not to be dead, blackmail leads to murder. Production The film was originally produced as a silent which was directed by Lothar Mendes. However, after its completion, Paramount halted its release and decided to remake the film completely in sound. The sound version was directed by special effects technician-turned-director Roy J. Pomeroy, as the basis for Paramount Pictures' first feature-length all-talking motion picture. Since Pomeroy lacked experience as a director, he was assisted by William deMille during the filming. It was based on the 1927 West End play ''Interference'' by Roland Pertwee and Harold Dearden. It was shot on a budget of $250,000 A silent version was also released to cater for theaters that had not yet wired for sound. While the sound v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
