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The Half-Naked Truth
''The Half-Naked Truth'' is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Gregory La Cava. The plot involves Lee Tracy as a carnival pitchman who finagles his girlfriend, a fiery hoochie dancer played by Lupe Vélez, into a major Broadway revue under the auspices of an impresario portrayed by Frank Morgan. The film was released on December 16, 1932 by RKO Radio Pictures. Plot Fast-talking Jimmy Bates takes responsibility for publicity for a struggling carnival owned by Colonel Munday. His latest scheme to attract customers involves promising to reveal the identity of the father (allegedly one of the local town's residents) of his hot-tempered girlfriend, "hootch dancer" Teresita. However, when the local sheriff learns that it is all a con, Bates, his friend Achilles and Teresita flee to New York City. Bates has always bragged about his close friendship with powerful theater impresario Merle Farrell. Bates promises to make Teresita a star, but it soon becomes clear tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory La Cava
Gregory La Cava (March 10, 1892 – March 1, 1952) was an American film director of Italian descent best known for his films of the 1930s, including ''My Man Godfrey'' and ''Stage Door'', which earned him nominations for Academy Award for Best Director. Career La Cava was born in Towanda, Pennsylvania. His father was a shoemaker, and the family moved to Rochester, New York. La Cava reported for the ''Rochester Evening News'' and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was a member of the Art Students League of New York, Art Students' League. Animator Around 1913, he started doing odd jobs at the studio of Raoul Barré. By 1915, he was an animator on the ''Animated Grouch Chasers'' series. Towards the end of 1915, William Randolph Hearst decided to create an animation studio to promote the comic strips printed in his newspapers. He called the new company International Film Service, and he hired La Cava to run it (for double what he was making with Barré). La Cava's first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baseline (database)
Studio System by Gracenote, formerly known as Baseline StudioSystems, is an American e-commerce company. It was founded in 1982 and licenses its commercial entertainment database, known as Studio System. It is owned by Gracenote, a subsidiary of Nielsen Holdings. History James Monaco founded Baseline in 1982. Their primary product, an entertainment database, was launched in 1985. Monaco left Baseline in 1992, and Paul Kagan Associates purchased it the following year. Big Entertainment purchased the database in 1999 and subsequently renamed themselves to Hollywood.com. The same year, Creative Planet purchased The Studio System, a rival database founded in 1987, from Brookfield Communications. In 2004, Hollywood.com's parent company, Hollywood Media, purchased The Studio System and merged the two databases. Two years later, The New York Times Company purchased the now-renamed Baseline StudioSystems and integrated it into NYTimes.com, only to sell it back to Hollywood.com i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Comedy Films
American comedy films are comedy films produced in the United States. The genre is one of the oldest in American cinema; some of the first silent movies were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s and 1930s, comedic dialogue rose in prominence in the work of film comedians such as W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers. By the 1950s, the television industry had become serious competition for the movie industry. The 1960s saw an increasing number of broad, star-packed comedies. In the 1970s, black comedies were popular. Leading figures in the 1970s were Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. One of the major developments of the 1990s was the re-emergence of the romantic comedy film. Another development was the increasing use of " gross-out humour". History 1895–1930 Comic films began to appear in significant numbers during the era of silent films, roughly 1895 to 1930. The visual humour of many of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1932 Comedy Films
Year 193 ( CXCIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sosius and Ericius (or, less frequently, year 946 '' Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 193 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * January 1 – Year of the Five Emperors: The Roman Senate chooses Publius Helvius Pertinax, against his will, to succeed the late Commodus as Emperor. Pertinax is forced to reorganize the handling of finances, which were wrecked under Commodus, to reestablish discipline in the Roman army, and to suspend the food programs established by Trajan, provoking the ire of the Praetorian Guard. * March 28 – Pertinax is assassinated by members of the Praetorian Guard, who storm the imperial palace. The Empire is auctioned o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1932 Films
The following is an overview of 1932 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths. Top-grossing films (U.S.) The top ten 1932 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows: Events The Film Daily Yearbook listed the following as the ten leading headline events of the year. * Sidney Kent leaves Paramount Pictures and joins Fox Film. * Merlin H Aylesworth succeeds Hiram S Brown as president of RKO. * Jesse L. Lasky leaves Paramount and becomes an independent producer for Fox. * Sam Katz leaves Paramount. * James R Grainger leaves Fox and is succeeded by John D Clark, formerly of Paramount. * Publix and Fox decentralization of cinemas. * New industry program, including standard exhibition contract along lines of 5-5-5, proposed by Motion Picture Theater Owners of America and Allied. * Joe Brandt retires from Columbia Pictures joins World-Wide and later resigns again. * Two Radio City theaters open, under dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theresa Harris
Theresa Harris (December 31, 1906 – October 8, 1985) was an American television and film actress, singer and dancer. Early life Harris was born on New Year's Eve 1906 (some sources indicate 1909) in Houston, Texas, to Isaiah and Mable Harris, both of whom were former sharecroppers from Louisiana. Harris' family relocated to Southern California when she was 11 years old. After graduating Jefferson High School, she studied at the UCLA Conservatory of Music and Zoellner's Conservatory of Music. She then joined the Lafayette Players, an African American musical comedy theatre troupe. Career She made her film debut in 1929 in ''Thunderbolt'', singing the song "Daddy Won't You Please Come Home". As she entered the 1930s, she played, often without credit, maids to characters acted by Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Sylvia Sidney, Frances Dee, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Thelma Todd, Kay Francis, and Barbara Stanwyck. She also floated around studios doing bit-parts, usually at Warner Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert McKenzie (actor)
Robert McKenzie (September 22, 1880 – July 8, 1949) was an Irish-born American film actor. He appeared in more than 310 films between 1915 and 1946. McKenzie was married to the actress Eva McKenzie until his death from a heart attack in 1949. The two appeared as husband and wife in The Three Stooges' film '' The Yoke's on Me''. He and Eva were the parents of actress daughters Fay McKenzie, Ida Mae McKenzie and Ella McKenzie. Selected filmography * ''Shoulder Arms'' (1918) * ''Don Quickshot of the Rio Grande'' (1923) * ''Where is This West?'' (1923) * '' The Covered Trail'' (1924) * ''Bad Man's Bluff'' (1926) * '' Set Free'' (1927) * ''The White Outlaw'' (1929) * ''See America Thirst'' (1930) * '' Hook, Line and Sinker'' (1930) * '' Cimarron'' (1931) * ''Guilty Hands'' (1931) * ''The Half-Naked Truth'' (1932) * ''I'm No Angel'' (1933) * ''Tillie and Gus'' (1933) * '' Broadway Bill'' (1934) * '' The Little Minister'' (1934) * '' The Witching Hour'' (1934) * '' The Old Fashio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franklin Pangborn
Franklin Pangborn (January 23, 1889 – July 20, 1958) was an American comedic character actor famous for playing small but memorable roles with comic flair. He appeared in many Preston Sturges movies as well as the W. C. Fields films '' International House'', ''The Bank Dick'', and ''Never Give a Sucker an Even Break''. For his contributions to motion pictures, Pangborn received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street on February 8, 1960. Early years Pangborn was born in Newark, New Jersey. During World War I, he served for 14 months with the 312th Infantry in Europe. Career An encounter with actress Mildred Holland when he was 17 led to Pangborn's first professional acting experience. He was working for an insurance company when she learned about his ambitions for acting and offered him an extra's position with her company at $12 per week, initially during his two weeks' vacation. That opportunity grew into four years' touring with Holland and her troupe. Fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shirley Chambers
Shirley Chambers (December 20, 1913 – September 11, 2011) was an American film actress of the 1930s. She was notable for playing 'dumb blonde' roles in musical comedy films. She was discovered by press agent Harry Reichenbach. Biography Chambers was born in Seattle, Washington on December 20, 1913. She attended Huntington Park High School Huntington Park High School is a public high school in Huntington Park, California, part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. History The First Grammar School was initially built in 1904. The election was held with 21 registered voters cas ... where she got into movies after winning a talent contest. She was in several films in the 1930s, but had largely retired by 1939. In 1935, Chambers married Horace D. Moulton, who was in the United States Navy. Chambers died on September 11, 2011 in Los Angeles at the age of 97. Filmography References External links * 1913 births 2011 deaths American film actresses Actresses from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene Pallette
Eugene William Pallette (July 8, 1889 – September 3, 1954) was an American actor who worked in both the silent and sound eras, performing in more than 240 productions between 1913 and 1946. After an early career as a slender leading man, Pallette became a stout character actor. He had a deep voice, which some critics have likened to the sound of a croaking frog, and is probably best-remembered for comic character roles such as Alexander Bullock ( Carole Lombard's character's father) in '' My Man Godfrey'' (1936), Friar Tuck in ''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' (1938), and his similar role as Fray Felipe in '' The Mark of Zorro'' (1940). He also co-starred in '' Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939) and '' Heaven Can Wait'' (1943). Early life He was born in Winfield, Kansas, the son of William Baird Pallette and Elnora "Ella" Jackson. His parents had been actors in their younger years, but by 1889 Pallette's father was an insurance salesman. His sister was Beulah L. Pal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nudism
Naturism is a lifestyle of practising non-sexual social nudity in private and in public; the word also refers to the cultural movement which advocates and defends that lifestyle. Both may alternatively be called nudism. Though the two terms are broadly interchangeable, ''nudism'' emphasizes the practice of nudity, whereas ''naturism'' highlights an attitude favoring harmony with nature and respect for the environment, into which that practice is integrated. That said, naturists come from a range of philosophical and cultural backgrounds; there is no single naturist ideology. Ethical or philosophical nudism has a long history, with many advocates of the benefits of enjoying nature without clothing. At the turn of the 20th century, organizations emerged to promote social nudity and to establish private campgrounds and resorts for that purpose. Since the 1960s, with the acceptance of public places for clothing-optional recreation, individuals who do not identify themselves as nat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eunuch
A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium BCE. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures: courtiers or equivalent domestics, for espionage or clandestine operations, castrato singers, concubines, or sexual partners, religious specialists, soldiers, royal guards, government officials, and guardians of women or harem servants. Eunuchs would usually be servants or slaves who had been castrated to make them less threatening servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence. Seemingly lowly domestic functions—such as making the ruler's bed, bathing him, cutting his hair, carrying him in his litter, or even relaying messages—could, in theory, give a eunuch "the ruler's ear" and impa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_Pallette_&_Allison.jpg "Click for more on -> Eugene Pallette")
