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The Cocoanuts
''The Cocoanuts'' is a 1929 pre-Code Musical film, musical comedy film starring the Marx Brothers (Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, and Zeppo Marx in his first starring role). Produced for Paramount Pictures by Walter Wanger, who is not credited, the film also stars Mary Eaton, Oscar Shaw, Margaret Dumont and Kay Francis. It was the first sound film to credit more than one director (Robert Florey and Joseph Santley), and was adapted to the screen by Morrie Ryskind from the George S. Kaufman Broadway theatre, Broadway The Cocoanuts (musical), musical play. Five of the film's tunes were composed by Irving Berlin, including "When My Dreams Come True", sung by Oscar Shaw and Mary Eaton. Plot ''The Cocoanuts'' is set in the Hotel de Cocoanut, a resort hotel, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. Mr. Hammer runs the hotel, assisted by Jamison. Harpo and Chico arrive with empty luggage, which they apparently plan to fill by robbing and confidence game, conning the guests. Weal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Florey
Robert Florey (14 September 1900 – 16 May 1979) was a French-American director, screenwriter, film journalist and actor. Born as Robert Fuchs in Paris, he became an orphan at an early age and was then raised in Switzerland. In 1920 he worked at first as a film journalist, then as an assistant and extra in featurettes from Louis Feuillade. Florey moved to the United States in 1921. As a director, Florey's most productive decades were the 1930s and 1940s, working on relatively low-budget fillers for Paramount Pictures, Paramount and Warner Brothers. His reputation is balanced between his avant-garde expressionist style, most evident in his early career, and his work as a fast, reliable studio-system director called on to finish troubled projects, such as 1939's ''Hotel Imperial (1939 film), Hotel Imperial''. Florey directed more than 50 films, the best known likely being the Marx Brothers first feature, ''The Cocoanuts'' (1929). His 1932 foray into Universal-style horror, ''Murde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variety (magazine)
''Variety'' is an American media company owned by Penske Media Corporation. The company was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933 it added ''Daily Variety'', based in Los Angeles, to cover the motion-picture industry. ''Variety.com'' features entertainment news, reviews, box office results, cover stories, videos, photo galleries and features, plus a credits database, production charts and calendar, with archive content dating back to 1905. History Foundation ''Variety'' has been published since December 16, 1905, when it was launched by Sime Silverman as a weekly periodical covering theater and vaudeville with its headquarters in New York City. Silverman had been fired by ''The Morning Telegraph'' in 1905 for panning an act which had taken out an advert for $50. As a result, he decided to start his own publication "that ouldnot be influenced by advertising." With a loan of $1,500 from his father- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confidence Game
''Confidence Game'' is a 2016 American thriller film written and directed by Deborah Twiss. The film stars Sean Young, Deborah Twiss, James McCaffrey, and Steve Stanulis with Stefano Da Fre and Robert Clohessy in supporting roles. Sylvie (Young) runs a crime ring on Long Island and violently manipulates her minions to exact a deep revenge on the notoriously unethical film producer David (McCaffrey). Cast * Sean Young as Sylvie * Deborah Twiss as Jessica * James McCaffrey as David * Steve Stanulis as Michael * Stefano Da Fre as Jingo * Robert Clohessy as Anthony * Brandon Tyler Jones as Carlos * Shing Ka as Corey * Bill Sorvino as Mack * Joe Pallister as Vinnie * Lawrence Whitener as Actor * Gaetano Sciortino as Jean Luc * Sydney McCann as Lola * José André Sibaja as Waiter * Jane Casserly as Ginger Porter * Bruce Hermann as Connor * Matthew McCann as Tommy * Drew Henriksen as Joey * Viktoria Tocca as Herself * Chase Hayden as Son * Marc Lebowitz as Amir Kreshing * S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florida Land Boom Of The 1920s
The Florida land boom of the 1920s was Florida's first real estate bubble. This pioneering era of Florida land speculation lasted from 1924 to 1926 and attracted investors from all over the nation. The land boom left behind entirely new, planned developments incorporated into towns and cities. Major investors and speculators such as Carl G. Fisher also left behind a new history of racially deed restricted properties that segregated cities for decades. Among those cities at the center of this bubble were Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Hialeah, Miami Springs, Opa-locka, Miami Shores, and Hollywood. It also left behind the remains of failed development projects such as Aladdin City in south Miami-Dade County, Fulford-by-the-Sea in what is now North Miami Beach, Miami's Isola di Lolando in north Biscayne Bay, Boca Raton, as it had originally been planned, Okeelanta in western Palm Beach County, and Palm Beach Ocean just north of the Town of Palm Beach. The land boom shaped Florida ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Cocoanuts (musical)
''The Cocoanuts'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and a book by George S. Kaufman, with additional text by Morrie Ryskind. Background ''The Cocoanuts'' was written for the Marx Brothers after the success of their hit Broadway revue ''I'll Say She Is'' (1924). ''The Cocoanuts'' is set against the backdrop of the 1920s Florida Land Boom, which was followed by the inevitable bust. Groucho is a hotel proprietor, land impresario, and con man, assisted and hampered by two inept grifters, Chico and Harpo, and the ultra-rational hotel assistant, Zeppo. Groucho pursues a wealthy dowager ripe for a swindle, played by the dignified Margaret Dumont. Produced by Sam H. Harris, the musical was given a tryout in Boston on October 26, 1925, then Philadelphia. The Broadway run opened at the Lyric Theatre on December 8, 1925 and closed on August 7, 1926 after 276 performances. The production was directed by Oscar Eagle, with musical staging by Sammy Lee. After the Broadway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway Theatre
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Theatre'' as the proper noun in their names (12 others used neither), with many performers and trade groups for live dramatic presentations also using the spelling ''theatre''. or Broadway, are the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world. While the thoroughfare is eponymous with the district and its collection of 41 theaters, and it is also closely identified with Times Square, only three of the theaters are located on Broadway itself (namely the Broadwa ... [...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] |
Kay Francis
Kay Francis (born Katharine Edwina Gibbs; January 13, 1905 – August 26, 1968) was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star and highest-paid actress at Warner Bros. studio. She adopted her mother's maiden name (Francis) as her professional surname. Early life Kay Francis was born as Katharine Edwina Gibbs in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Territory (present-day Oklahoma), in 1905, the only child of Katharine Clinton ( Francis), an actress, and Joseph Sprague Gibbs. Her parents wed in 1903. In 1909, Kay's mother left her alcoholic husband, taking their daughter. Kay apparently inherited her 5-foot 9 inch height from her 6 feet 4 inch father, and is believed to have been Hollywood's tallest 1930s female lead actress. Her mother had been born in Nova Scotia, Canada, and was a moderately successful actress and singer on a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Dumont
Margaret Dumont (born Daisy Juliette Baker; October 20, 1882 – March 6, 1965) was an American stage and film actress. She is best remembered as the comic foil to the Marx Brothers in seven of their films; Groucho Marx called her "practically the fifth Marx brother." Early life Dumont was born Daisy Juliette Baker in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of William and Harriet Anna (née Harvey) Baker. Her mother was a music teacher and encouraged Daisy's singing career from an early age. Career Dumont trained as an operatic singer and actress in her teens and began performing on stage in the US and Europe, at first under the name Daisy Dumont and later as Margaret (or Marguerite - French for Daisy) Dumont. Her theatrical debut was in ''Sleeping Beauty and the Beast'' at the Chestnut Theater in Philadelphia; in August 1902, two months before her 20th birthday, she appeared as a singer/comedian in a vaudeville act in Atlantic City. The dark-haired soubrette, described by a theater ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Shaw
Oscar Shaw (born Oscar Schwartz, October 11, 1887, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – died March 6, 1967, in Little Neck, New York), was a stage and screen actor and singer, remembered primarily today for his role as Bob Adams in the first film starring the Marx Bros., ''The Cocoanuts'' (1929). United States census records show that Shaw was already working as a stage actor in 1910, while still living with his mother, brother, and stepfather. In 1913, Shaw married Mary Louise Givler (a native of Carlisle, Pennsylvania), in England, where they both appeared in a show called the "First American Ragtime Review" at the London Opera House. The couple lived in the Village of Great Neck Estates, and in 1937, later moved to the Thomaston section of Great Neck, first in a private home, and later lived in an apartment building on Welwyn Road. His wife died March 31, 1964, at the age of 77. Shaw died on March 6, 1967 at the age of 79. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Eaton
Mary Eaton (January 29, 1901 – October 10, 1948) was an American stage actress, singer, and dancer in the 1910s and 1920s, probably best known today from her appearance in the first Marx Brothers film, ''The Cocoanuts'' (1929). A professional performer since childhood, she enjoyed success in stage productions such as the ''Ziegfeld Follies''. She appeared in another early sound film, ''Glorifying the American Girl'' (1929). Her career declined sharply during the 1930s. Biography Early life and career Eaton, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, began attending dance lessons in Washington, DC, along with her sisters Doris and Pearl, at the age of seven. In 1911, all three sisters were hired for a production of Maurice Maeterlinck's fantasy play '' The Blue Bird'' at the Shubert Belasco Theatre in Washington, D.C. While Eaton had a minor role in the show, it marked the beginning of her career in professional theatre. After ''The Blue Bird'' ended, in 1912, the three Eaton sisters a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) as among the top 100 comedy films, with two of them, '' Duck Soup'' (1933) and '' A Night at the Opera'' (1935), in the top fifteen. They are widely considered by critics, scholars and fans to be among the greatest and most influential comedians of the 20th century. The brothers were included in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classical Hollywood cinema, the only performers to be included collectively. The brothers are almost universally known by their stage names: Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo. There was a sixth brother, the first born, named Manfred (Mannie), who died in infancy; Zeppo was given the middle name Manfred in his memory. The core of the act was the three elder brothers: C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
