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The Emperor Jones (1933 Film)
''The Emperor Jones'' is a 1933 American pre-Code film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play of the same title, directed by iconoclast Dudley Murphy, written for the screen by playwright DuBose Heyward and starring Paul Robeson in the title role (a role he played onstage, both in the US and UK), and co-starring Dudley Digges, Frank H. Wilson, Fredi Washington and Ruby Elzy. The film was made outside of the Hollywood studio system, financed with private money from neophyte wealthy producers. It was filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios with the beach scene shot at Jones Beach Long Beach, New York. Background The film is based rather loosely on O'Neil's play, but adds an entire backstory before O'Neill's actual play begins, and includes several new characters that do not appear in it (such as Jones' girlfriend, and a friendly priest who advises him to give up his evil ways). The film does provide what may be Robeson's greatest dramatic performance in a movie. In the film ver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dudley Murphy
Dudley Bowles Murphy (July 10, 1897 – February 22, 1968) was an American film director. Early life Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in Winchester, Massachusetts, to the artists Caroline Hutchinson (Bowles) Murphy (1868-1923) and Hermann Dudley Murphy (1867-1945), both accomplished Modernist landscape painters. After first finding work as a journalist, Dudley Murphy began making films in the early 1920s.The Film Encyclopedia, First Edition, Thomas Y. Crowell, Pub., 1979 Career In his first short film, '' Soul of the Cypress'' (1921), a variation on the Orpheus myth, the film's protagonist falls in love with a dryad (a wood nymph whose soul dwells in an ancient tree) and throws himself into the sea to become immortal and spend eternity with her. Murphy's then-wife Chase Harringdine played the dryad. Murphy followed this with ''Danse Macabre'' (1922) featuring Adolph Bolm, Olin Howland, and Ruth Page. Both of these early films are in the DVD collection '' Unseen Cinema'' i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Film Adaptation
A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dialogic process. While the most common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis, other works adapted into films include non-fiction (including journalism), autobiographical works, comic books, scriptures, plays, historical sources and even other films. Adaptation from such diverse resources has been a ubiquitous practice of filmmaking since the earliest days of cinema in nineteenth-century Europe. In contrast to when making a remake, movie directors usually take more creative liberties when creating a film adaptation. Elision and interpolation In 1924, Erich von Stroheim attempted a literal adaptation of Frank Norris's novel ''McTeague'' with his film ''Greed.'' The resulting film was 9½ hours long, and was cut to four ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually modified into a more Figurative art, figurative, populism, populist style. His boldly simplified treatment of modern subject matter has caused him to be regarded as a forerunner of pop art. Biography Léger was born in Argentan, Orne, Lower Normandy, where his father raised cattle. Fernand Léger initially trained as an architect from 1897 to 1899, before moving in 1900 to Paris, where he supported himself as an architectural draftsman. After military service in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, Yvelines, in 1902–1903, he enrolled at the School of Decorative Arts after his application to the École des Beaux-Arts was rejected. He nevertheless attended the Beaux-Arts as a non-enrolled student, spending what he described as "three empty an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic. To its south-west lies the small Navassa Island, which is claimed by Haiti but is disputed as a United States territory under federal administration."Haiti" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Haiti is in size, the third largest country in the Caribbean by area, and has an estimated population of 11.4 million, making it the most populous country in the Caribb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Ingram (actor)
: ''For the film director, producer, writer and actor, see Rex Ingram (director) (1892–1950).'' Rex Ingram (October 20, 1895 – September 19, 1969) was an American stage, film, and television actor. Early life and career Ingram was born near Cairo, Illinois, on the Mississippi River; his father was a steamer fireman on the riverboat '' Robert E. Lee''. Ingram graduated from the Northwestern University medical school in 1919 and was the first African-American man to receive a Phi Beta Kappa key from Northwestern University. He went to Hollywood as a young man where he was literally discovered on a street corner by the casting director for ''Tarzan of the Apes'' (1918), starring Elmo Lincoln. He made his (uncredited) screen debut in that film and had many other small roles, usually as a generic black native, such as in the ''Tarzan'' films. With the arrival of sound, his presence and powerful voice became an asset and he went on to memorable roles in ''The Green Pastures'' (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moms Mabley
Loretta Mary Aiken (March 19, 1894 – May 23, 1975), known by her stage name Jackie "Moms" Mabley, was an American stand-up comedian and actress. Mabley began her career on the theater stage in the 1920s and became a veteran entertainer of the Chitlin' Circuit of African-American vaudeville. Mabley later recorded comedy albums and appeared in films and on television programs including ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' and ''The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour''. Early life Loretta Mary Aiken was born in Brevard, North Carolina, US, on March 19, 1894. She was one of 16 children born to James Aiken and Mary Smith, who had married in 1891. Her father owned and operated several successful businesses, while her mother kept house and took in boarders. Her teenage years were tumultuous. Aiken had given birth to two children that had resulted from her being raped at age 11, by an elderly black man, and at age 13, by a white sheriff. Both children were given up for adoption. Career Early career ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chain Gang
A chain gang or road gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include repairing buildings, building roads, or clearing land. The system was notably used in the convict era of Australia and in the Southern United States. By 1955 it had largely been phased out in the U.S., with Georgia among the last states to abandon the practice. North Carolina continued to use chain gangs into the 1970s. Chain gangs were reintroduced by a few states during the " get tough on crime" 1990s: in 1995 Alabama was the first state to revive them. The experiment ended after about one year in all states except Arizona, where in Maricopa County inmates can still volunteer for a chain gang to earn credit toward a high school diploma or avoid disciplinary lockdowns for rule infractions. Synonyms and disambiguation A single ankle shackle with a short length of chain attached to a heavy ball is known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice. Players can wager money against each other (playing "street craps") or against a bank ("casino craps"). Because it requires little equipment, "street craps" can be played in informal settings. While shooting craps, players may use slang terminology to place bets and actions. History In 1788, "Krabs" (later spelled crabs) was an English variation on the dice game hazard (also spelled hasard). Craps developed in the United States from a simplification of the western European game of hazard. The origins of hazard are obscure and may date to the Crusades. Hazard was brought from London to New Orleans in approximately 1805 by the returning Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, the young gambler and scion of a family of wealthy landowners in colonial Louisiana. Although in hazard the dice shooter may choose any number from five to nine to be his main number, de Marigny simp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pullman Porter
Pullman porters were men hired to work for the railroads as porters on sleeping cars. Starting shortly after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Their job was to carry passengers’ baggage, shine shoes, set up and maintain the sleeping berths, and serve passengers. Pullman porters served American railroads from the late 1860s until the Pullman Company ceased operations on December 31, 1968, though some sleeping-car porters continued working on cars operated by the railroads themselves and, beginning in 1971, Amtrak. The term "porter" has been superseded in modern American usage by "sleeping car attendant", with the former term being considered "somewhat derogatory". Until the 1960s, Pullman porters were exclusively black, and have been widely credited with contributing to the development of the black middle class in America. Under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, Pullman porters formed the first all-black union, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Provincetown Players
The Provincetown Players was a collective of artists, writers, intellectuals, and amateur theater enthusiasts. Under the leadership of the husband and wife team of George Cram Cook, George Cram “Jig” Cook and Susan Glaspell from Iowa, the Players produced two seasons in Provincetown, Massachusetts (1915 and 1916) and six seasons in New York City, between 1916 and 1922. The company's founding has been called "the most important innovative moment in American theatre." Its productions helped launch the careers of Eugene O'Neill and Susan Glaspell, and ushered American theatre into the Modern era. Founding in Provincetown The Provincetown Players began in July 1915. Provincetown, Massachusetts had become a popular summer outpost for numerous artists and writers, bohemian residents from Greenwich Village, New York. On July 22 a group of friends who were disillusioned by the commercialism of Broadway created an evening's entertainment by staging two one-act plays. ''Constancy'' by Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Sidney Gilpin
Charles Sidney Gilpin (November 20, 1878 – May 6, 1930) was one of the most highly regarded stage actors of the 1920s. He played in critical debuts in New York City: the 1919 premier of John Drinkwater's ''Abraham Lincoln'' and the lead role of Brutus Jones in the 1920 premiere of Eugene O'Neill's ''The Emperor Jones'', also touring with the play. In 1920, he was the first black American to receive The Drama League's annual award as one of the 10 people who had done the most that year for American theatre. Early life and education Gilpin was born in Richmond, Virginia, to Peter Gilpin (a factory worker) and Caroline White (a nurse);"Charles Gilpin Buried After Simple Services in Trenton Baptist Church." ''Amsterdam (NY) News'', May 14, 1930, p. 1. he attended St. Francis School for Colored Children in that city. He started work as an apprentice in the '' Richmond Planet'' print shop before finding his career in theater. He first performed on stage as a singer at the age of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballet Mecanique
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. Ballet has been influential globally and has defined the foundational techniques which are used in many other dance genres and cultures. Various schools around the world have incorporated their own cultures. As a result, ballet has evolved in distinct ways. A ''ballet'' as a unified work comprises the choreography and music for a ballet production. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained ballet dancers. Traditional classical ballets are usually performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, whereas modern ballets are often performed in simple costumes and without elaborate sets or scenery. Etymology Ballet is a French word which had its origin in Italian '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
