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The Great McGinty
''The Great McGinty'' is a 1940 political satire comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff and featuring William Demarest and (in her final screen appearance) Muriel Angelus. It was Sturges's first film as a director; he sold the story to Paramount Pictures for just $10 on condition he direct the film. Sturges received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. For the U.K. release, the film was retitled ''Down Went McGinty'', alluding to the 1889 song. Plot Dan McGinty, a bartender in a banana republic, recounts his rise and fall to the bar's dancing girl and a suicidal American customer. The customer was a trusted bank employee who can no longer return to the United States and his family because he is wanted by the law after falling to temptation and stealing from the bank. McGinty is in a similar situation, but in his case it is due to "one crazy minute" of honesty rather than one of dishonesty. In a long flashback, he explains. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges (; born Edmund Preston Biden; August 29, 1898 – August 6, 1959) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and film director. In 1941, he won the Academy Awards, Oscar for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Screenplay for the film ''The Great McGinty'' (1940), his first of three nominations in the category. Sturges took the screwball comedy format of the 1930s to another level, writing dialogue that, heard today, is often surprisingly naturalistic, mature, and ahead of its time, despite the farcical situations. It is not uncommon for a Sturges character to deliver an exquisitely turned phrase and take an elaborate pratfall within the same scene. Prior to Sturges, other figures in Hollywood (such as Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, and Frank Capra) had directed films from their own scripts; however, Sturges is often regarded as the first Hollywood figure to establish success as a screenwriter and then move into directing his own scripts, at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allyn Joslyn
Allyn Joslyn (July 21, 1901 – January 21, 1981) was an American stage, radio, television and film actor, known for his roles playing aristocratic wealthy snobs. Biography Allyn Joslyn was born in Milford, Pennsylvania, the son of a mining engineer. On stage from age 17, Joslyn scored as a leading man in such Broadway productions as '' Boy Meets Girl'' (1936) and '' Arsenic and Old Lace'' (1941), appearing in the latter as beleaguered theatrical critic Mortimer Brewster. Apart from a single appearance in a 1930 Vitaphone movie short, Joslyn confined his work to the stage until moving to Hollywood in 1937. Hollywood didn't see Joslyn as a leading-man type. Thus, he spent most of his film career playing comic character roles: obnoxious reporters, weaklings, and formless "other men" who never got the girl, while stars such as James Cagney and Cary Grant took the roles he originated on Broadway. Among his more notable film appearances were as the tough pilot in ''Only Angels Have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Melford
George H. Melford (born George Henry Knauff, February 19, 1877 – April 25, 1961) was an American stage and film actor and director. Often taken for granted as a director today, the stalwart Melford's name by the 1920s was, like Cecil B. DeMille's, appearing in big bold letters above the title of his films. Early years Born in Rochester, New York, in 1877 (though older sources state 1888), he was the son of German immigrant Henrietta Knauff. Melford had four sisters: Mary Knauff (Mrs. Godfrey Willis Wainwright); Henrietta Knauff; Alice Irene Knauff (Mrs. Edmond Francois Bernoudy) — all of Los Angeles — and Mrs. Frederick Kells/Keils of Ottawa, Canada. Melford graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Career He was an accomplished stage actor working in Cincinnati, Ohio, before joining the Kalem Company motion picture studio in New York City in 1909. Hired by director Sidney Olcott for character actor roles, in the fall of 1910 he was sent to work wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esther Howard
Esther Howard (April 4, 1892 – March 8, 1965) was an American stage and film character actress who played a wide range of supporting roles, from man-hungry spinsters to amoral criminals, appearing in 108 films in her 23-year screen career. Early life Howard was born in Butte, Montana on April 4, 1892 to Martha Esther Howard (''née'' Boggs) and James Howard Jr., a music teacher who was employed as the conductor of the Butte Opera House. Her paternal grandfather, James Howard Sr., was a prominent physician from California who had established a medical practice in Butte and Dillon, Montana, and at one time served as the coroner of Silver Bow County. When Howard was five years old, her family relocated to Boston, Massachusetts, where her father had lived prior to relocating to Montana. In Boston, Howard attended the Girls' Latin School. Career Howard began her stage career performing in stock theater in Lynn, Massachusetts, before making her Broadway debut in 1917 in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Hayden
Harry may refer to: TV shows * ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin * ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons * ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show hosted by Harry Connick Jr. People and fictional characters * Harry (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Harry (surname), a list of people with the surname * Dirty Harry (musician) (born 1982), British rock singer who has also used the stage name Harry * Harry Potter (character), the main protagonist in a Harry Potter fictional series by J. K. Rowling Other uses * Harry (derogatory term), derogatory term used in Norway * ''Harry'' (album), a 1969 album by Harry Nilsson *The tunnel used in the Stalag Luft III escape ("The Great Escape") of World War II * ''Harry'' (newspaper), an underground newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland See also *Harrying (laying waste), may refer to the following historical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byron Foulger
Byron Kay Foulger (August 27, 1898 – April 4, 1970) was an American character actor who over a 50-year career performed in hundreds of stage, film, and television productions. Early years Born in Ogden, Utah, Byron was the second of four children of Annie Elizabeth (née Ingebertsen) of Norway and Arthur Kay Foulger, a native of Utah who worked as a carpenter for the region's railroad company."Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910Population", image of original enumeration page for Ogden City, Weber County, Utah, April 26, 1910, Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C.; "Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920Population", Ogden City, Weber County, Utah, January 13, 1920. Retrieved via online FamilySearch archives, August 22, 2022."The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Census Records (Worldwide), 19141960", database, household of Arthur Kay Foulger, 1914; FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, Retrieved August 22, 2022. Byron complete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Conlin
Jimmy Conlin (October 14, 1884 – May 7, 1962) was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films in his 32-year career. Career Conlin was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1884, and his acting career started out in vaudeville, where he and his wife Myrtle Glass played the Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuits billed as "Conlin & Glass," a song-and-dance team.Erickson, HaBiography (Allmovie)/ref> They also starred together in two short films, ''Sharps and Flats'' (1928) and ''Zip! Boom! Bang!'' (1929) for Vitaphone. These early shorts display Conlin's musical talents, including his impressive skills at the piano. In later years Conlin became strictly a character comedian, with little opportunity to show his vaudeville skills. Jimmy Conlin made another comedy short without Glass in 1930 (''A Tight Squeeze''), but his film career started in earnest in 1933, and for the next 27 years, with the single exception of 1951, every year saw the release of at least one film in whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Anderson (actor)
George Anderson (March 6, 1886 – August 26, 1948) was an American stage and film actor who appeared in 74 films and 25 Broadway productions in his 34-year career. Career Born in New York City in 1886, Anderson made his Broadway debut on August 5, 1907, as the star of an original musical called ''The Time, the Place and the Girl.'' For the next ten years he continued to perform on the Great White Way in both musicals and plays – including Victor Herbert's '' The Duchess'' – until the end of November 1917. During about this same period, he also appeared in six movies, from 1915 to 1918, at a time when the nascent film industry was largely located in the New York City area. From 1922 to 1924 and from 1927 to 1936, Anderson again appeared on Broadway in musicals, comedies and melodramas, including ''The Strawberry Blonde'', which he also directed, frequently with about a year between each production, time during which it would be the normal procedure of the period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek
''The Miracle of Morgan's Creek'' is a 1944 American screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton, and featuring Diana Lynn, William Demarest and Porter Hall. Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff reprise their roles from Sturges' 1940 film ''The Great McGinty''. ''The Miracle of Morgan's Creek'', which was filmed in 1942 and early 1943, but not released until 1944, was nominated for a 1945 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and in 2001, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film ranks #54 on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs, 100 Years... 100 Laughs list of the top 100 funniest films in movie history. Plot Trudy Kockenlocker is the daughter of the police chief of the small town of Morgan's Creek. Against her father's orders, she attends a wild farewell party ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steffi Duna
Steffi Duna (born Erzsébet Berindey; 8 February 1910 – 22 April 1992) was a Hungarian-born film actress. Hungarian dancer Born in the Eastern name order in Budapest of Czech extraction and nicknamed Stefi (Stefánia) by her friends and family, Duna started dancing at the age of nine and first attracted attention as a thirteen-year-old ballet dancer in Europe. She made her first stage appearance in dramatized fairy tales at the Children's Theater of Budapest. Initially opposed to the idea, her father sent her to the best schools in the Hungarian capital to learn dancing, and soon she had danced in most of the capitals of Europe. In 1932, she appeared on the London stage in Noël Coward's revue '' Words and Music'' as one of the four actresses to create the song "Mad about the Boy". Movie actress When she came to Hollywood in 1932, Duna could not speak a word of English. She made up her mind to learn quickly. Directors advised her to stay away from her Hungarian friends to sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thurston Hall
Ernest Thurston Hall (May 10, 1882 – February 20, 1958) was an American film, stage and television actor.Aylesworth, Thomas G. and Bowman, John S. (1987). ''The World Almanac Who's Who of Film''. World Almanac. . Pp. 186-187. Career Stage Hall toured with various New England stage companies during his teens, then went onto London, where he formed a small stage troupe. He also toured New Zealand and South Africa."Katz, Ephraim (1979). ''The Film Encyclopedia: The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of World Cinema in a Single Volume''. Perigee Books. . P. 526. At 22 in 1904, Hall was in the first stage production of '' Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch''. His Broadway credits include ''The Only Girl'' (1914), ''Have a Heart'' (1917), ''Civilian Clothes'' (1919), ''The French Doll'' (1922), ''Still Waters'' (1926), ''Buy, Buy, Baby'' (1926), ''Mixed Doubles'' (1927), ''Behold the Bridegroom'' (1927), ''The Common Sin'' (1928), ''Sign of the Leopard'' (1928), ''Security'' (1929), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libby Taylor
Libby Taylor (1902-1961) was an African American character actress of the stage and screen who was active in Hollywood from the 1930s through the 1950s. Biography In 1933, while working as a struggling actress in Harlem, she accepted Mae West's offer to become West's personal maid. West in turn helped Libby get roles in Hollywood films. This arrangement lasted for several years. When Taylor had a stroke in 1955, she told reporters that contrary to the headlines, West had not been helping her financially. Selected filmography * ''Bright Road'' (1953) * '' Two Tickets to Broadway'' (1951) * ''Al Jennings of Oklahoma'' (1951) * '' You're My Everything'' (1949) * ''Another Part of the Forest'' (1948) * ''The Foxes of Harrow'' (1947) * ''The Perfect Marriage'' (1946) * ''Cinderella Jones'' (1946) * ''My Gal Sal'' (1942) * ''Flight from Destiny'' (1941) * ''Blonde Inspiration'' (1941) * ''Santa Fe Trail'' (1941) * ''The Howards of Virginia'' (1940) * ''The Great McGinty'' (1940) * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
