The Prodigal (film)
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The Prodigal (film)
''The Prodigal'' is a 1955 Eastmancolor biblical epic CinemaScope film made by MGM starring Lana Turner and Edmund Purdom. It was based on the New Testament parable about a selfish son who leaves his family to pursue a life of pleasure. The film also features James Mitchell, Louis Calhern, Joseph Wiseman, Cecil Kellaway, Audrey Dalton, and Walter Hampden. Dancer Taina Elg made her film debut in ''The Prodigal''. Plot ''In the times before Christianity, only a few people believed in one God. Most people believed in many gods. It was mainly the believers in Jehovah who stood against a multitude of some 65,000 strange and different gods. Of these, two of the most notorious were Baal and Astarte, the male and the female. Gods of the flesh, not of the soul. They were supposed to renew the fertility of the earth every year. In exchange, they demanded of their believers the sacrifice of money, jewelry and human life. Out of these times comes our story, based upon the Parable of the Pro ...
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Richard Thorpe
Richard Thorpe (born Rollo Smolt Thorpe; February 24, 1896 – May 1, 1991) was an American film director best known for his long career at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Biography Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, Richard Thorpe began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred and eighty films. He worked frequently at the Poverty Row studio Chesterfield Pictures during the 1930s. The first full-length motion picture he directed for MGM was ''Last of the Pagans'' (1935) starring Ray Mala. At MGM, he teamed up with producer Pandro S. Berman in the 1950s, with whom he made several films, including '' Ivanhoe'' (1952), ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1952), '' Knights of the Round Table'' (1953), '' All the Brothers Were Valiant'' (1953) and ''The Adventures of Quentin Durward'' (1955). After directing ''The Last Challenge'' in 19 ...
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Audrey Dalton
Audrey Dalton (born 21 January 1934) is an Irish-born former film and television actress who mostly worked in the United States during the Golden Age of Hollywood, when she arrived at Paramount Pictures, columnist Erkstine Johnson, stated she still had a notable British accent Biography Dalton was born in Dublin, Ireland, the daughter of Alice Shannon and soldier and film producer Emmet Dalton, the third of their five children. Her father was a recipient of the Military Cross for his service in the British Army in World War I. During the Irish Civil War, he was a major general in the National Army. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Dublin. After the family moved to London, she studied acting in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). She moved to the United States on 17 March 1952, for a part in "The Girls of Pleasure Island". In 1977 she divorced James H. Brown, father of her four children, after 25 years of marriage, and in 1979 married Rod F. Simenz, an e ...
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Dore Schary
Isadore "Dore" Schary (August 31, 1905 – July 7, 1980) was an American playwright, director, and producer for the stage and a prolific screenwriter and producer of motion pictures. He directed just one feature film, '' Act One'', the film biography of his friend, playwright and theater director Moss Hart. He became head of production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and replaced Louis B. Mayer as president of the studio in 1951. Early life Schary was born to a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey. Schary's father ran a catering business called the Schary Manor. Dore attended Central High School for a year but dropped out to sell haberdashery and buy china. When he finally returned to school, he completed his three remaining years of classwork in one year, graduating in 1923. Schary worked as a journalist, did publicity for a lecture tour by Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd, and was an assistant drama coach at the Young Men's Hebrew Association in Newark. The head coach was Moss Hart.Staff"Dor ...
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Gordon Richards (actor)
Gordon Richards (27 October 1893 – 13 January 1964) was an English actor who had an active international career on the stage and in television and film for more than 50 years. He began his career performing in theatres in London's West End in 1909, and made his Broadway debut in 1913. He appeared in numerous plays and musicals on Broadway through 1951. Active as a performer in both television and film, he appeared in 35 Hollywood films during his career. Life and career Born in Gillingham, Kent, England, Richards was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London where his fellow classmate was Roland Young. He began acting professionally on the London stage at the age of 16 in 1909. He became a member of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson's theater company; a group with which he toured to the United States in 1913-1914. He made his Broadway debut with that company on October 20, 1913 at the Shubert Theatre as the Nubian Sentinel in George Bernard Shaw's '' Caesar ...
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George Sawaya
George Frances Carey Sawaya (August 14, 1923 – September 17, 2003) was an American actor and stuntman. He was best known for playing the role of Detective Lopez on Jack Webb's '' Dragnet''. Life and career Sawaya was born in Los Angeles, California. He served in the United States Army during World War II. Sawaya began his career in 1951, first appearing in the film ''The Lady Says No'', which starred Joan Caulfield and David Niven. He then made his debut as a stunt performer in 1952, where he appeared in the film ''The Narrow Margin''. Sawaya performed as a double for actor Charles McGraw for the film. In the same year, he appeared in the films, '' With a Song in My Heart'', starring Susan Hayward; ''Here Come the Marines'', starring Leo Gorcey and ''What Price Glory'', starring James Cagney, Corinne Calvet and Dan Dailey. Sawaya had then appeared in numerous films and television programs with actor Ernest Borgnine. Sawaya appeared and performed as a stunt performer in ...
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John Dehner
John Dehner (DAY-ner) (born John Dehner Forkum, also credited Dehner Forkum; November 23, 1915February 4, 1992) was an American stage, radio, film, and television actor. From the late 1930s to the late 1980s, he amassed a long list of performance credits, often in roles as sophisticated con men, shady authority figures, and other smooth-talking villains. His credits just in feature films, televised series, and in made-for-TV movies number almost 300 productions. Dehner worked extensively as an actor radio during the latter half of that medium's "golden age", accumulating hundreds of additional credits on nationally broadcast series. His most notable starring role was as Paladin on the radio version of the television Western ''Have Gun – Will Travel'', which aired for 106 episodes on CBS from 1958 to 1960. He continued to work as a voice actor in film, such as narrating the film ''The Hallelujah Trail''. Earlier in his career, Dehner also worked briefly for Walt Disney Studios ...
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Sandy Descher
Sandra Kay Descher (born November 30, 1945) is an American former child actress of the 1950s. Life and career Born November 30, 1945, in Burbank, California, Descher is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Descher. She has a younger brother, Michael. She attended North Hollywood High School. In 1954, a news item reported that Descher was "the only long-term contract child in Hollywood," having been signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. That same year, she appeared in her favorite film, ''The Last Time I Saw Paris''. Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story '' Babylon Revisited'', she played Vicky, the daughter of Van Johnson and Elizabeth Taylor. After her mother dies, Vicky is adopted by her mother's sister, played by Donna Reed. The movie called on her to speak French and to dance ballet. In 1954, she also played a crippled child in a Martin and Lewis film. In 1954 she also played the little girl in the opening scene of “Them”, the movie about giant ants starring Edmund Gwenn, Ja ...
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Francis L
Francis may refer to: People *Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State and Bishop of Rome * Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Francis (surname) Places * Rural Municipality of Francis No. 127, Saskatchewan, Canada * Francis, Saskatchewan, Canada **Francis (electoral district) * Francis, Nebraska *Francis Township, Holt County, Nebraska * Francis, Oklahoma *Francis, Utah Other uses * ''Francis'' (film), the first of a series of comedies featuring Francis the Talking Mule, voiced by Chill Wills *''Francis'', a 1983 play by Julian Mitchell * FRANCIS, a bibliographic database * ''Francis'' (1793), a colonial schooner in Australia * Francis turbine, a type of water turbine * Francis (band), a Sweden-based folk band * Francis, a character played by YouTuber Boogie2988 See also * Saint Francis (other) * Francies, a surname, including a list of people with the name * Francisco (disambiguation ...
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Neville Brand
Lawrence Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 – April 16, 1992) was an American soldier and actor. He was known for playing villainous or antagonistic character roles in Westerns, crime dramas, and ''films noir'', and was nominated for a BAFTA Award for his performance in ''Riot in Cell Block 11'' (1954). During World War II, Brand served in the 331st Infantry Regiment of the 83rd Infantry Division in the U.S. Army, in the European theatre. He received multiple meritorious citations for his service, including the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. Early life Neville Brand was born in Griswold, Iowa, one of seven children of Leo Thomas Brand and the former Helen Louise Davis. His father had worked as an electrician and bridge-building ironworker in Detroit. Neville was raised in Kewanee, Illinois, where he attended high school. After his schooling he helped support the family, employed as a soda jerk, waiter, and shoe salesman in Kewanee. War service Brand entered the Illin ...
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Damascus, Syria
)), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Syria#Mediterranean east#Arab world#Asia , pushpin_label_position = right , pushpin_mapsize = , pushpin_map_caption = Location of Damascus within Syria , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Governorate , subdivision_name1 = Damascus Governorate, Capital City , government_footnotes = , government_type = , leader_title = Governor , leader_name = Mohammad Tariq Kreishati , parts_type = Municipalities , parts = 16 , established_title = , established_date ...
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Astarte
Astarte (; , ) is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess Ashtart or Athtart (Northwest Semitic), a deity closely related to Ishtar (East Semitic), who was worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. The name is particularly associated with her worship in the ancient Levant among the Canaanites and Phoenicians, though she was originally associated with Amorite cities like Ugarit and Emar, as well as Mari and Ebla. She was also celebrated in Egypt, especially during the reign of the Ramessides, following the importation of foreign cults there. Phoenicians introduced her cult in their colonies on the Iberian Peninsula. Name Astarte was a goddess of both the Canaanite and the Phoenician pantheon, derived from an earlier Syrian deity. She is recorded in Akkadian as (), the feminine form of Ishtar.K. van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter Willem van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible', p. 109-10. The name appears in Ugaritic as ...
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Luke 15
Luke 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke the Evangelist composed this Gospel as well as the Acts of the Apostles.Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012. This chapter records three parables of Jesus Christ: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost or 'prodigal' son,Halley, Henry H. ''Halley's Bible Handbook'': an Abbreviated Bible Commentary. 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing House. 1962. a trilogy about redemption that Jesus tells after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with "sinners".Richard N. Longenecker, The Challenge of Jesus' Parables', Eerdmans, 2000, , pp. 201–204. Biblical commentator Heinrich Meyer refers to this chapter, the following chapter and as a "new, important, and for the most part parabolic set of discour ...
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