Samuel Hoffman
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Samuel Hoffman
Samuel J. Hoffman (July 23, 1903 in New York City – December 6, 1967 in Los Angeles) was a notable thereminist. At age 14, began playing the violin professionally in New York City. Under the stage name Hal Hope, he led nightclub and society bands. By 1936, he had taken up the theremin and begun featuring it in publicity for his engagements. In 1941, Hoffman moved to Los Angeles, where he established a medical practice and had little time for musical activity. But as the only theremin player in Local 47 of the Musicians Union, he got the call in 1945 when composer Miklos Rozsa decided he wanted to use a theremin in the score to ''Spellbound (1945 film), Spellbound.'' Hoffman began performing under his real name; he was customarily referred to as "Doctor" because he was also a podiatry, podiatrist.[ All Music bio] In the wake of the film's success, he was asked to play on many more soundtracks; for instance, ''The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film), The Day the Earth St ...
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New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ...
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Music For Peace Of Mind
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect of all human societies, a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, and psychology. Music may be performed or improvised using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice. In some musical contexts, a performance or composition may be to some extent improvised. For instance, in Hindustani classical music, the performer plays spontaneously while following a partially defined structure and using characteristic motifs. In modal jazz the p ...
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It Came From Outer Space
''It Came from Outer Space'' is a 1953 American science fiction horror film, the first in the 3D process from Universal-International. It was produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold. The film stars Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush, and features Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer, and Russell Johnson. The script is based on Ray Bradbury's original film treatment "The Meteor" and not, as sometimes claimed, a published short story.Stafford, Jeff "Articles: 'It Came from Outer Space'." ''Turner Classic Movies''. Retrieved: January 10, 2015. ''It Came from Outer Space'' tells the story of an amateur astronomer and his fiancée who are stargazing in the desert when a large fiery object crashes to Earth. At the crash site, he discovers a round alien spaceship just before it is completely buried by a landslide. When he tells the local sheriff and newspaper editor what he saw, he is branded a crackpot. Before long, odd things begin to happen, and the disbelief turns hostile. ...
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Phantom From Space
''Phantom from Space'' is a 1953 independently made American black-and-white science fiction film produced and directed by W. Lee Wilder that stars Ted Cooper, Noreen Nash, Dick Sands, and Burt Wenland. The original screenplay was written by William Raynor and Myles Wilder. Working with most of the same crew, this was one of several early 1950s films made by Wilder and son Myles on a financing-for-distribution basis with United Artists and, on occasion, RKO Radio Pictures. Plot Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigators arrive in the San Fernando Valley after what appears to be a flying saucer crash, causing massive interference with tele-radio transmissions. During their investigation, they receive eyewitness reports of what appears to be a man dressed in a bizarre outfit, which appears to be radioactive and thus a public threat. Their investigation uncovers that the man is actually a humanoid creature from outer space, who is invisible without his spacesuit. They ...
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The Thing From Another World
''The Thing from Another World'', sometimes referred to as just ''The Thing'', is a 1951 American black-and-white science fiction-horror film, directed by Christian Nyby, produced by Edward Lasker for Howard Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporation, and released by RKO Pictures. The film stars Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, and Douglas Spencer. James Arness plays The Thing; he is difficult to recognize in costume and makeup due to both low lighting and other effects used to obscure his features. ''The Thing from Another World'' is based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell (writing under the pseudonym of Don A. Stuart).Warren 1982, pp. 151–163. The film's storyline concerns a U.S. Air Force crew and scientists who find, frozen in the Arctic ice, a crashed flying saucer and a humanoid body nearby. Returning to their remote research outpost with the body still in a block of ice, they are forced to defend themselves against the still al ...
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Fancy Pants (film)
''Fancy Pants'' is a 1950 American romantic comedy western film directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. It is a musical adaptation of ''Ruggles of Red Gap''. Plot A British actor attempts to impress two visiting American women, Efflie Floud and her tomboyish daughter, Agatha (Ball), by having the cast of his drawing-room comedy pose as his aristocratic family. Effie persuades the 'butler', Humphrey (Hope), really a struggling American actor named Arthur Tyler, to accompany them to the United States and help to refine both her husband and daughter. She sends a telegram home, referring to the person she believes is Humphrey as a "gentleman's gentleman", which the rural western townfolk misunderstand as meaning he is an aristocrat and presumably the future husband of Agatha. Arthur must now pretend to the family that he is this British butler while pretending to the rest of the town, and the visiting President Theodore Roosevelt that he is a politically sav ...
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Rocketship X-M
''Rocketship X-M'' (a.k.a. ''Expedition Moon'' and originally ''Rocketship Expedition Moon'') is a 1950 American black-and-white science fiction film from Robert L. Lippert, Lippert Pictures, the first outer space adventure of the post-World War II era. The film was produced and directed by Kurt Neumann (director), Kurt Neumann and stars Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery (actor), John Emery, Noah Beery Jr., Hugh O'Brian, and Morris Ankrum. ''Rocketship X-M'' tells the story of a Moon expedition gone awry. Through a series of unseen events, the expedition's crew find themselve on the infamous red plant, Mars. During their time on the planet they go on to discover the remnants of a Martian civilization destroyed long ago by atomic war and now reverted to Societal collapse, barbarism. Plot Four men and a woman blast into outer space from the White Sands Proving Ground aboard the RX-M (Rocketship Expedition-Moon) on humanity's first expedition to the Moon. Halfway there, after ...
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She Shoulda Said No!
''She Shoulda Said No!'' (also known as ''Wild Weed''; ''The Devil's Weed''; ''Marijuana, the Devil's Weed''; and ''The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket'') is a 1949 exploitation film that follows in the spirit of morality tales such as the 1936 films ''Reefer Madness'' and ''Marihuana''. Directed by Sam Newfield (using the pseudonym "Sherman Scott") and starring Lila Leeds, it was originally produced to capitalize on the arrest of Leeds and Robert Mitchum on a charge of marijuana conspiracy. The film was issued under many titles; it struggled to find a distributor until film presenter Kroger Babb picked up the rights, reissuing it as ''The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket''. Its relative success came only after the promotional posters were redone and a story fabricated that the film was being presented in conjunction with the United States Treasury. Plot Leeds' character is "Anne Lester", a young orphan trying to pay for he ...
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Impact (1949 Film)
''Impact'' is a 1949 American film noir drama film directed by Arthur Lubin, starring Brian Donlevy and Ella Raines. Filmed entirely in California, the film included scenes filmed in Sausalito, and at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf and other locations around the city. ''Impact'' was based on a story by film noir writer Jay Dratler. The supporting cast features Charles Coburn, Helen Walker, Anna May Wong, Philip Ahn and William Wright. Plot The San Francisco-based millionaire industrialist Walter Williams (Brian Donlevy) has a young wife, Irene (Helen Walker), who is trying to kill him with the help of her young lover, Jim Torrence (Tony Barrett). After Walter and Irene make plans to drive to Lake Tahoe, Irene feigns illness and asks Walter to instead give Torrence, who is pretending to be Irene's "cousin" from Illinois, a lift to Denver, allowing Torrence a chance to murder Walter en route. The plan falls apart when Williams survives a hit on the head from the would-be kil ...
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Raw Deal (1948 Film)
''Raw Deal'' is a 1948 American film noir crime film directed by Anthony Mann and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt (actress, born 1917), Marsha Hunt. It was shot by cinematography, cinematographer John Alton with sets designed by the art director Edward L. Ilou.. An independent film, independent production by Edward Small, it was distributed by Eagle-Lion Films. Plot Prison convict Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) has "taken the fall" for an unspecified crime. His share for committing the crime was to be $50,000. Joe breaks out of jail with the help of his girl Pat (Claire Trevor). The escape has been facilitated by their former accomplice Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr), a sadistic mobster, who expects Joe to be killed during his escape and so avoid having to pay Joe his $50,000. When against all expectations the break-out succeeds, Rick decides that he must have Joe killed. Pat and Joe's getaway car is damaged and Joe decides that they will hide out at his legal c ...
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Road To Rio
''Road to Rio'' is a 1947 American semimusical comedy film directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. Written by Edmund Beloin and Jack Rose, the film is about two inept vaudevillians who stow away on a Brazilian-bound ocean liner and foil a plot by a sinister hypnotist to marry off her niece to a greedy fortune hunter. ''Road to Rio'' was the fifth of the "''Road to …''" series. Plot Scat Sweeney (Crosby) and Hot Lips Barton (Hope), are two musicians, who were part of a swing quintet (the other three musicians are played by the Wiere Brothers a popular vaudeville act). Meanwhile Lucia is a glamorous nightclub singer. Scat and Hot Lips join her as her backing music: clarinet and trumpet. They travel the United States trying to find work and stay away from girls. After running from state to state, each time running because of a girl, they try their luck in Louisiana. They stow away on board a Rio-bound ship, after accidentally sta ...
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The Pretender (film)
''The Pretender'' is a 1947 crime drama film noir directed by W. Lee Wilder starring Albert Dekker, Catherine Craig, Charles Drake and Alan Carney. Plot The story tells of Kenneth Holden (Dekker), a crooked investment businessman who embezzles a large sum of money from an estate. He hopes to cover his crime by marrying the estate's heiress Claire Worthington (Craig). However, Worthington is already engaged, so Holden arranges for her fiancé to be killed. The hired hit man's only means of identifying the victim is the picture in the society columns. When Claire Worthington changes her mind and agrees to marry Holden, however, it means that it is his picture that will appear in the newspaper, thereby condemning him to death. Desperately trying to contact the hit man, Holden discovers that the man is dead, but his successor is still at large. Cast * Albert Dekker as Kenneth Holden * Catherine Craig as Claire Worthington * Charles Drake as Dr. Leonard Koster * Alan Carney as Vic ...
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