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Spurs (short Story)
"Spurs" is a short story by Tod Robbins. The story was published in February 1923 in ''Munsey's Magazine'' and included in Robbins' 1926 short story collection ''Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Tales''. In 1932 the story became the basis for the Tod Browning produced film '' Freaks''. Plot summary In a small travelling circus in France, dwarf performer Jacques has fallen in love with the troupe's bareback rider, Jeanne Marie. He proposes marriage and she accepts, because she has learned of his recent large inheritance. She is really in love with her partner Simon, and she plans to marry him after what she believes will be an imminent death for Jacques. At the couple's wedding feast, Jeanne Marie drunkenly insults her new husband, declaring that she could carry her "little ape" on her shoulders from one side of France to the other. A year later, Jacques has retired and taken Jeanne Marie to live on his estate. One night Simon discovers Jeanne Marie on his doorstep. She be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story has been recurrently problematic. A classic definition of a short story ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tod Robbins
Clarence Aaron Robbins (25 June 1888 – May 10, 1949), billed as C.A Robbins and better known as Tod Robbins, was an American author of horror and mystery fiction, particularly novels and short story collections. Biography Robbins was born in Brooklyn, June 25, 1888. He attended Washington and Lee University ( Lexington, Virginia) and—along with Mark W. Sheafe (1884?–1949) and Thornton Whitney Allen (1890–1944)—wrote the college song "Washington and Lee Swing." Sheafe wrote the tune in 1905, Allen set the music down on paper in 1909 and Robbins provided the words. The completed version was published in 1910. Robbins authored two short story collections and several novels. His work often contains bizarre and frightening plots, sometimes influenced by writers like Oscar Wilde (Robbins' "The Living Portrait" is a homage to ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'')Brian Stableford, "Robbins, Tod", in David Pringle, ed., ''St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Munsey's Magazine
''Munsey's Weekly'', later known as ''Munsey's Magazine'', was a 36-page quarto United States, American magazine founded by Frank Munsey, Frank A. Munsey in 1889 and edited by John Kendrick Bangs. Frank Munsey aimed to publish "a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout". Soon after its inception, the magazine was selling 40,000 copies a week. In 1891, ''Munsey's Weekly'' adopted a monthly schedule and was renamed ''Munsey's Magazine''. In October 1893, Munsey reduced the price of the magazine from 25 cents to 10 cents, which was greatly successful. By 1895, the magazine had a circulation of 500,000 a month. It included numerous illustrations (including many by the illustrator Charles Howard Johnson) and was attacked for its "half-dressed women and undressed statuary". Some outlets refused to stock the magazine as a result, but circulation continued to grow and by 1897 had reached 700,000 per month. Circulation b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Story Collection
A short story collection is a book of short stories and/or novellas by a single author. A short story collection is distinguished from an anthology of fiction, which would contain work by several authors (e.g., ''Les Soirées de Médan''). The stories in a collection may or may not share a tone, theme, setting, or characters with one another. Composition of a collection Short story collections are made up of smaller texts—the individual short stories—in order to form a superior whole.Santi, Mara (2014). "Performative Perspectives on Short Story Collections". ''Interférences littéraires/Literaire interferenties'' (12): 143–154. ISSN 2031-2970. In spite of this, each short story does not lose any of its meaning or narrative independence by being included in a collection. This does not mean that short stories do not gain any new meaning from being included in a collection, though. Because each story's context has changed, surrounded by other stories with their own me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of various genres between 1915 and 1939, but was primarily known for horror films, and was often cited in the trade press as the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema. Browning's career spanned the silent film and sound film eras. He is known as the director of ''Dracula (1931 English-language film), Dracula'' (1931), ''Freaks (1932 film), Freaks'' (1932), and his silent film collaborations with Lon Chaney and Priscilla Dean. Early life Charles Albert Browning, Jr., was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the second son of Charles Albert and Lydia Browning. Charles Albert Sr., "a bricklayer, carpenter and machinist," provided his family with a middle-class and Baptists, Baptist household. Browning's uncle, the baseball star Pete Browning, Pete "Louisville Slug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freaks (1932 Film)
''Freaks'' (also re-released as ''The Monster Story'', ''Forbidden Love'', and ''Nature's Mistakes'') is a 1932 American pre-Code horror film produced and directed by Tod Browning, starring Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, and Roscoe Ates. ''Freaks'', originally intended as a vehicle for Lon Chaney, is set amongst the backdrop of a travelling French circus and follows a conniving trapeze artist who joins a group of carnival sideshow performers with a plan to seduce and murder a dwarf in the troupe to gain his inheritance. However, her plot proves to have dangerous consequences. The film is based on elements from the short story " Spurs" by Tod Robbins, first published in ''Munsey's Magazine'' in February 1923, with the rights being purchased by the studio, responsible by MGM art department chief Cedric Gibbons. Filmed in Los Angeles in the fall of 1931, some employees at MGM were discomfited by the presence of the actors portraying the "freaks" on set, and, other tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circus
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclists as well as other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. The term ''circus'' also describes the performance which has followed various formats through its 250-year modern history. Although not the inventor of the medium, Philip Astley is credited as the father of the modern circus. In 1768, Astley, a skilled equestrian, began performing exhibitions of trick horse riding in an open field called Ha'Penny Hatch on the south side of the Thames River, England. In 1770, he hired acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers and a clown to fill in the pauses between the equestrian demonstrations and thus chanced on the format which was later named a "circus". Performances developed significantly over the next fifty years, with large-scale theat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its Metropolitan France, metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Due to its several coastal territories, France has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France borders Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Andorra, and Spain in continental Europe, as well as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Netherlands, Suriname, and Brazil in the Americas via its overseas territories in French Guiana and Saint Martin (island), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolf Hunting With Dogs
Wolf hunting with dogs is a method of wolf hunting which relies on the use of hunting dogs. While any dog, especially a hound used for hunting wolves may be loosely termed a "wolfhound", several dog breeds have been specifically bred for the purpose, some of which, such as the Irish Wolfhound, have the word in their breed name. Reaction Accounts as to how wolves react to being attacked by dogs vary, though John James Audubon wrote that young wolves generally show submissive behaviour, while older wolves fight savagely. As wolves are not as fast as smaller canids such as coyotes, they typically run to a low place and wait for the dogs to come over from the top and fight them. Theodore Roosevelt stressed the danger cornered wolves can pose to a pack of dogs in his ''Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches'': The fighting styles of wolves and dogs differ significantly; while dogs typically limit themselves to attacking the head, neck and shoulder, wolves will attack the extremiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 and based in Beverly Hills, California. MGM was formed by Marcus Loew by combining Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Productions, Louis B. Mayer Pictures into one company. It hired a number of well known actors as contract players—its slogan was "more stars than there are in heaven"—and soon became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, producing popular musical films and winning many Academy Awards. MGM also owned film studios, movie lots, movie theaters and technical production facilities. Its most prosperous era, from 1926 to 1959, was bracketed by two productions of ''Ben-Hur (1959 film), Ben Hur''. After that, it divested itself of the Loews movie theater chain, and, in the 1960s, diversified ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greenlight
To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead". Film industry In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to formally approve its production finance and to commit to this financing, thereby allowing the project to proceed from the development phase to pre-production and principal photography. The power to green-light a project is generally reserved to those in a project or financial management role within an organization. The process of taking a project from pitch to green light formed the basis of a successful reality TV show titled ''Project Greenlight ''Project Greenlight'' is an American documentary television series focusing on first-time filmmakers being given the chance to direct a feature film. It was created by Alex Keledjian, developed by Eli Holzman and produced by Ben Affleck, Matt ...''. At the Big Five major film studios in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including '' Grand Hotel'', '' China Seas'', '' A Night at the Opera'', ''Mutiny on the Bounty'', '' Camille'' and '' The Good Earth''. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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