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Two-Faced Woman
''Two-Faced Woman'' is a 1941 American romantic comedy film directed by George Cukor and starring Greta Garbo in her final film role, Melvyn Douglas, Constance Bennett, and Roland Young. The movie was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Garbo plays a wife who pretends to be her own fictitious twin sister in order to recapture the affections of her estranged husband (Douglas), who has left her for a former girlfriend (Bennett). The film is generally regarded as the box-office flop that ended Garbo's career in an unsuccessful attempt to modernize or "Americanize" her image in order to increase her shrinking fan base in the United States. By mutual agreement, Garbo's MGM contract was terminated shortly after ''Two-Faced Woman'' was released, and it became her last film. Plot Fashion magazine editor Larry Blake (Melvyn Douglas) marries ski instructor Karin Borg (Greta Garbo) on impulse, but she soon learns he expects her to be a dutiful wife, and not the independent woman she was whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor (; July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director and film producer. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studio's Head of Production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKO's major films, including ''What Price Hollywood?'' (1932), '' A Bill of Divorcement'' (1932), ''Our Betters'' (1933), and '' Little Women'' (1933). When Selznick moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933, Cukor followed and directed '' Dinner at Eight'' (1933) and ''David Copperfield'' (1935) for Selznick, and ''Romeo and Juliet'' (1936) and '' Camille'' (1936) for Irving Thalberg. He was replaced as one of the directors of ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939), but he went on to direct '' The Philadelphia Story'' (1940), ''Gaslight'' (1944), ''Adam's Rib'' (1949), '' Born Yesterday'' (1950), '' A Star Is Born'' (1954), ''Bhowani Junction'' (1956), and won the Academy Award for Best Director for ''M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Carson
Frances Carson (April 1, 1895 – October 20, 1973) was an American actress on stage and in films, including three Alfred Hitchcock films. Early life Carson was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and started acting and modeling professionally in her teens. Career Carson was an actress known for stage work in New York and London, and for film roles. She performed on Broadway in shows including ''Poor Little Thing'' (1914) with her husband Eric Blind, ''The White Feather'' (1915), ''The Riddle: Woman'' (1918-1919), ''The Hottentot'' (1920), '' The Bad Man'' (1920), ''The Scarlet Man'' (1921), ''The Blue Lagoon'' (1921), ''Two Married Men'' (1925), ''Potiphar's Wife'' (1928), ''The First Law'' (1929), ''Slightly Scandalous'' (1944), and ''The Visitor'' (1944). In London, Carson appeared in ''Glamour'' (1922), ''The Love Habit'' (1923), ''R.U.R.'' (1923, with Basil Rathbone) ''The Last Warning'' (1923), ''Havoc'' (1924), ''The Happy Hangman'' (1925), ''The Silver Fox'' (1925), ''V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Legion Of Decency
The National Legion of Decency, also known as the Catholic Legion of Decency, was a Catholic group founded in 1934 by Archbishop of Cincinnati, John T. McNicholas, as an organization dedicated to identifying objectionable content in motion pictures on behalf of Catholic audiences. Members were asked to pledge to patronize only those motion pictures which did not "offend decency and Christian morality". The concept soon gained support from other churches. Condemnation by the Legion would often diminish a film's chances for success because it meant the population of Catholics, some twenty million strong at the time, (plus their Protestant allies), would avoid attending any screening of the film. The efforts to help parishioners avoid films with objectionable content sometimes backfired when it was found that they helped draw attention to those films. Although the Legion was often envisioned as a bureaucratic arm of the Catholic Church, it instead was little more than a loose confed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motion Picture Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. Under Hays's leadership, the MPPDA, later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), adopted the Production Code in 1930 and began rigidly enforcing it in 1934. The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States. From 1934 to 1954, the code was closely identified with Joseph Breen, the administrator appointed by Hays to enforce the code in Hollywood. The film industry followed the guidelines set by the code well into the late 1950s, but it began to weaken, owing to the combined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adrian (costume Designer)
Adrian Adolph Greenburg (March 3, 1903 – September 13, 1959), widely known as Adrian, was an American costume designer whose most famous costumes were for ''The Wizard of Oz (1939 film), The Wizard of Oz'' and hundreds of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films between 1928 and 1941. He was usually credited onscreen with the phrase "Gowns by Adrian". Early in his career he chose the professional name Gilbert Adrian, a combination of his father's forename and his own. Early life Adrian was born on March 3, 1903, in Naugatuck, Connecticut, to Gilbert and Helena (née Pollak) Greenburg. Adrian's father Gilbert was born in New York (state), New York and his mother Helena in Waterbury, Connecticut. Both sides of the family were Jewish. Joseph Greenburg and his wife Frances were from Russia, while Adolph Pollak and Bertha (née Mendelsohn) Pollak were from Bohemia and Germany, respectively. In 1920 Adrian entered the New York School for Fine and Applied Arts (now Parsons School of Design). I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cedric Gibbons
Austin Cedric Gibbons (March 23, 1890 – July 26, 1960) was an Irish-American art director for the film industry. He also made a significant contribution to motion picture theater architecture from the 1930s to 1950s. Gibbons designed the Oscar statuette in 1928, but tasked the sculpting to George Stanley, a Los Angeles artist. He was nominated 39 times for the Academy Award for Best Production Design and won the Oscar 11 times, both of which are records. Early life Cedric Gibbons was born in Ireland in 1890 to Irish architect Austin P. Gibbons and American Veronica Fitzpatrick Simmons. The family moved to Manhattan after the birth of their third child. Cedric studied at the Art Students League of New York in 1911. He began working in his father's office as a junior draftsman, then in the art department at Edison Studios under Hugo Ballin in New Jersey in 1915. He was drafted and served in the US Navy Reserves during World War I at Pelham Bay in New York. Career Gibb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhumba
Rhumba, also known as ballroom rumba, is a genre of ballroom music and dance that appeared in the East Coast of the United States during the 1930s. It combined American big band music with Afro-Cuban rhythms, primarily the son cubano, but also conga and rumba. Although taking its name from the latter, ballroom rumba differs completely from Cuban rumba in both its music and its dance. Hence, authors prefer the Americanized spelling of the word (''rhumba'') to distinguish between them. Music Although the term ''rhumba'' began to be used by American record companies to label all kinds of Latin music between 1913 and 1915, the history of rhumba as a specific form of ballroom music can be traced back to May 1930, when Don Azpiazú and his Havana Casino Orchestra recorded their song "El manisero" (The Peanut Vendor) in New York City. This single, released four months later by Victor, became a hit, becoming the first Latin song to sell 1 million copies in the United States. The song, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greer Garson
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson (29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996) was an English-American actress and singer. She was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who became popular during the Second World War for her portrayal of strong women on the homefront; listed by the ''Motion Picture Herald'' as one of America's top-ten box office draws from 1942 to 1946. The fourth most-nominated woman for the Best Actress Oscar, Garson received seven Academy Award nominations, including a record-tying (with Bette Davis) five consecutive nominations (1941–1945) in the actress category, winning for her performance in the title role of the 1942 film ''Mrs. Miniver''. Early life Greer Garson was born on 29 September 1904Troyan, p. 8. in Manor Park, East Ham (then in Essex, now part of Greater London), the only child of Nancy Sophia "Nina" (née Greer; 1880–1958) and George Garson (1865–1906), a commercial clerk in a London importing business. Her father was born in London to Scottish pare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Fulda
Ludwig Anton Salomon Fulda (July 7, 1862 – March 7, 1939) was a German playwright and poet, with a strong social commitment. He lived with Moritz Moszkowski's first wife Henriette, née Chaminade, younger sister of pianist and composer Cécile Chaminade.Lazaros C. TriarhouMoritz Moszkowski'' Vol. 67 No. 6 (2012), European Neurology. Accessdate: 10 June 2012'' Biography He was born in Frankfurt. He was a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and the first president of the PEN of Germany (1925–1932). He visited the United States in 1906 on the invitation of the Germanistic Society. A Jew, he was removed from his work by the Nazis in 1933. Fulda committed suicide in Berlin in 1939 when he was denied entry into the United States. Works Fulda's creations used the relationships of his characters to develop the social and political issues of his time. Fulda's works include ''Das verlorene Paradies'' (1892; translated as ''The Lost Paradise'', 1897), ''Der Talisman'' (1892), ''Juge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constance Talmadge
Constance Alice Talmadge (April 19, 1898 – November 23, 1973) was an American silent film star. She was the sister of actresses Norma and Natalie Talmadge. Early life Talmadge was born on April 19, 1898 in Brooklyn, New York, to poor parents, Margaret L. "Peg" and Frederick O. Talmadge. Her father was an alcoholic, and left them when she was still very young. Her mother made a living by doing laundry. When a friend recommended Talmadge's mother use older sister Norma as a model for title slides in flickers, which were shown in early nickelodeons, Peg decided to do so. This led all three sisters into acting careers.Profile goldensilents.com; accessed August 27, 2014. Career [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
