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Swanee River (1939 Film)
''Swanee River'' is a 1939 American biographical musical drama film directed by Sidney Lanfield and starring Don Ameche, Andrea Leeds, Al Jolson, and Felix Bressart. It is a biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century-Fox biographical films of the time, the film was more fictional than it was factual. Plot The family of Stephen Foster ( Ameche) insists that he accept a seven-dollar-a-week shipping clerk job in Cincinnati, but he prefers to write songs. Stephen's prospective father-in-law Andrew McDowell has no faith in Stephen, who wants to write "music from the heart of the simple people of the South." The struggling composer is content to sell "Oh! Susanna" for fifteen dollars to minstrel singer E. P. Christy and allows Christy to take credit as its writer. Soon, the song is sweeping the country, and Stephen follows ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidney Lanfield
Sidney Ivanovich Lanfield (April 20, 1898 – June 20, 1972) was an American film director known for directing romances and light comedy films and later television programs. The one-time jazz musician and vaudevillian star started his first directing job for the Fox Film Corporation in 1930; he went on to direct a number of films for 20th Century Fox. In 1941, he directed the Fred Astaire film ''You'll Never Get Rich'' for Columbia Pictures, then moved to Paramount Pictures. There Lanfield worked on a number of film comedies. He is probably best remembered for directing actor Bob Hope in a number of films including ''My Favorite Blonde'' (1942), ''Let's Face It (film), Let's Face It'' (1943), ''Where There's Life'' (1947), and ''The Lemon Drop Kid'' (1951). Lanfield's most profitable film, however, was the first teaming of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in 1939's ''The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939 film), The Hound of the Baskervilles''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biopic
A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or group of people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudrama films and historical drama films in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a single person's life story or at least the most historically important years of their lives. Context Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Custen, in ''Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History'' (1992), regards the genre as having died with the Hollywood studio era, and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck. On the other hand, Bingham's 2010 study ''Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre'' shows how it perpetuates as a codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that has followed a similar trajectory as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwin Pearce Christy
Edwin Pearce Christy (November 28, 1815 – May 21, 1862) was an American composer, singer, actor and stage producer. He is more commonly known as E. P. Christy, and was the founder of the blackface minstrel group Christy's Minstrels. He toured England performing. Biography He was born on November 28, 1815, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Robert F. Christy and Ruth Wheaton. Christy began his career as a minstrel in Buffalo, New York. By 1836 he was a member of the company managed by Edwin Dean at the Eagle Street Theater in Buffalo. He toured upstate New York from 1843 to 1845. The group took the name of its founder and became known as the Christy's Minstrels. In April 1846 Christy and his band of six performers began performing in New York City at Polmer's Opera House. The group performed at Mechanics Hall from February 15, 1847, to July 15, 1854. After performing at a benefit performance for Stephen Foster in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 25, 1847, the group specialized in p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Folks At Home
"Old Folks at Home" (also known as " Swanee River") is a folk song written by Stephen Foster in 1851. Since 1935, it has been the official state song of Florida, although in 2008 the original lyrics were revised. It is Roud Folk Song Index no. 13880. Composition "Old Folks at Home" was commissioned in 1851 by E. P. Christy for use by Christy's Minstrels, his minstrel troupe. Christy also asked to be credited as the song's creator, and was so credited on early sheet music printings. As a result, while the song was a success, Foster did not directly profit much from it, though he continued to receive royalties for the song. Foster had composed most of the lyrics but was struggling to name the river of the opening line, and asked his brother, Morrison, to suggest one. Morrison wrote, "One day in 1851, Stephen came into my office, on the bank of the Monongahela, Pittsburgh, and said to me, 'What is a good name of two syllables for a Southern river? I want to use it in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair
"Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" is a parlor song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864), published by Firth, Pond & Co. of New York in 1854. Foster wrote the song with his estranged wife Jane McDowell in mind. The lyrics allude to a permanent separation. "Jeanie" was a notorious beneficiary of the ASCAP boycott of 1941, a dispute caused by ASCAP increasing its licensing fees. During this period, radio broadcasters played only public-domain music or songs licensed by ASCAP rival BMI. According to a 1941 article in ''Time'' magazine, "So often had BMI's Jeannie icWith the Light Brown Hair been played that she was widely reported to have turned grey." Lyrics Other versions Bing Crosby recorded the song on March 22, 1940, for Decca Records with John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra. Violinist Jascha Heifetz transcribed the song for the violin and it became a signature piece for him for years. The transcription has been performed by many subsequent violinists. Actor Eugene Levy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane McDowell Foster Wiley
Jane Denny Foster Wiley ( McDowell; December 10, 1829 - January 17, 1903) was the wife of Stephen Foster and the inspiration for his song " Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair". Her archives are located in the University of Pittsburgh. Early life Jane's father, Andrew Nathan McDowell, was a well-known physician in Pittsburgh. He encouraged the first black medical student from Western Pennsylvania to apply to and attend Harvard Medical School. Dr. McDowell wrote a letter of recommendation for the student and even helped to pay for part of his tuition. By the summer of 1850, Stephen Foster had begun to sell his music and had become increasingly well known. Jane has not been identified as having musical interests, talents or abilities. She was called pretty, had light brown hair and according to the custom of the time it was long and "luxuriant". Jane McDowell married Foster on Monday, July 22, 1850, by a minister from the Trinity Episcopal Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christy's Minstrels
Christy's Minstrels, sometimes referred to as the Christy Minstrels, were a blackface group formed by Edwin Pearce Christy, a well-known ballad singer, in 1843, in Buffalo, New York. They were instrumental in the solidification of the minstrel show into a fixed three-act form. The troupe also invented or popularized "the line", the structured grouping that constituted the first act of the standardized three-act minstrel show, with the interlocutor in the middle and "Mr. Tambo" and "Mr. Bones" on the ends. Early years In 1846 they first performed in Polmer's Opera House in New York City. From March 1847, they ran for a seven-year stint at New York City's Mechanics' Hall (until July 1854). After performing at a benefit performance for Stephen Foster in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 25, 1847, the group specialized in performances of Foster's works. Foster sold his song "Old Folks at Home" to Christy for his exclusive use. The troupe's commercial success was phenomenal: Christy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Camptown Races
"De Camptown Races" or "Gwine to Run All Night" (nowadays popularly known as "Camptown Races") is a folk song by American Romantic composer Stephen Foster. It was published in February 1850 by F. D. Benteen and was introduced to the American mainstream by Christy's Minstrels, eventually becoming one of the most popular folk/Americana tunes of the nineteenth century. It is Roud Folk Song Index no. 11768. Composition Historians cite the village of Camptown, Pennsylvania, as the basis for the song, located in the mountains of northeast Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Historical Society confirmed that Foster traveled through the small town and afterwards wrote the song. The Bradford County Historical Society documents Foster attending school in nearby Towanda and Athens in 1840 and 1841. The schools were located from the racetrack. Richard Jackson was curator of the Americana Collection at New York Public Library; he writes: The lyrics talk about a group of transients in a camp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oh! Susanna
"Oh! Susanna" is a folk song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864), first published in 1848. It is among the most popular American songs ever written. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Background In 1846, Stephen Foster moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and became a bookkeeper with his brother's steamship company. While in Cincinnati, Foster wrote "Oh! Susanna", possibly for his men's social club. The song was first performed by a local quintet at a concert in Andrews' Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 1847. It was first published by W. C. Peters & Co. in Cincinnati in 1848. Blackface minstrel troupes performed the work, and, as was common at the time, many registered the song for copyright under their own names. As a result, it was copyrighted and published at least twenty-one times from February 25, 1848, through February 14, 1851. Foster earned just $100 ($ in 2016 dollars) for the song, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio River, Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line with Kentucky. It is the List of cities in Ohio, third-most populous city in Ohio and List of united states cities by population, 66th-most populous in the U.S., with a population of 309,317 at the 2020 census. The city is the economic and cultural hub of the Cincinnati metropolitan area, Ohio's most populous metro area and the Metropolitan statistical area, nation's 30th-largest, with over 2.3 million residents. Throughout much of the 19th century, Cincinnati was among the Largest cities in the United States by population by decade, top 10 U.S. cities by population. The city developed as a port, river town for cargo shipping by steamboats, located at the crossroads of the Nor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
20th Century-Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film production and distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company. It is headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles, which is leased from Fox Corporation. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by this studio in theatrical markets. For over 80 years, 20th Century has been one of the major American film studios. It was formed in 1935 as Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation by the merger of Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures, and one of the original " Big Five" among eight majors of Hollywood's Golden Age. In 1985, the studio removed the hyphen in the name (becoming Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation) after being acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which was renamed 21st Century Fox in 2013 afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
