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Thousands Cheer
''Thousands Cheer'' is a 1943 American musical comedy film directed by George Sidney and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Produced at the height of the Second World War, the film was intended as a morale booster for American troops and their families. Plot The film is essentially a two-part program. The first half consists of a romantic comedy storyline involving an aerialist, played by Gene Kelly, who is drafted into the US Army but really wants to join the Air Force. During training, he falls in love with Kathryn (played by Kathryn Grayson), the daughter of his commanding officer, who has similarly put her singing career on hold in order to serve by providing entertainment for the troops. Unusually for this type of a film (and for this era of Hollywood), the character Kathryn has only recently met her father for the first time since she was a baby, her parents having divorced. A related subplot has Kathryn conniving to get her parents (played by John Boles and Mary Astor) to r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights,Starr, Larry and Waterman, Christopher, American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3, Oxford University Press, 2009, pg. 64 and had his first major international hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", in 1911. He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. For much of his career Berlin could not read sheet music, and was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp; he used his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever when he needed to play in keys other than F-sharp. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" sparked an international dance craze ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Sidney
George Sidney (October 4, 1916May 5, 2002) was an American film director and producer who worked primarily at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His work includes cult classics ''Bye Bye Birdie'' (1963) and ''Viva Las Vegas'' (1964). With an extensive background in acting, stage direction, film editing, and music, Sidney created many of post-war Hollywood’s big budget musicals, such as '' Annie Get Your Gun'' (1950), ''Show Boat'' (1951), ''Kiss Me Kate'' (1953); ''Jupiter's Darling'' (1955), and '' Pal Joey'' (1957). He was also a president of the Screen Directors Guild for 16 years. A founding partner of Hanna-Barbera animation studio, Sidney introduced the integration of animation into live action, which is immortalized in the dance scene between actor Gene Kelly and Jerry Mouse in ''Anchors Aweigh'' (1945). An avid art collector, gardener, musician, painter, and photographer, George Sidney was known for his impeccable sense of style and generosity. His clothing, original scripts, not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Steiner
Maximilian Raoul Steiner (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and went on to become one of Hollywood's greatest musical composers. Steiner was a child prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, proficient at composing, arranging, and conducting, by the time he was fifteen. Threatened with internment in Germany during World War I, he fled to England, then Broadway, and in 1929, he moved to Hollywood, where he became one of the first composers to write music scores for films. He is often referred to as "the father of film music", as Steiner played a major part in creating the tradition of writing music for films, along with composers Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, and Miklós Rózsa. Steiner composed over 300 film scores with RKO Pictures and Warner Bros., and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, win ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Lessy
Ben Lessy (April 29, 1902 – October 30, 1992) was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor. Early life He was born in New York City, New York. Career Lessy was known for a nightclub act done with Patti Moore, the long-time wife of his best friend and agent, Sammy Lewis. They were regulars at Los Angeles nightclubs Slapsy Maxie's and Billy Gray's Band Box. Lessy appeared in over 50 films and television episodes between 1938 and 1981. His first film role was in the two reel ''Cafe Rendezvous'' (1938) and his career ended with the Billy Wilder film ''Buddy Buddy'' (1981). Lessy's film credits include ''Music for Millions'' (1944), ''Dark Delusion'' (1947) (the last entry in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Dr. Kildare series),'' The Pirate'' (1948) (Lessy's 9th, and final film during his seven years at MGM),''The Jackie Robinson Story'' (1950), '' Just for You'' (1952), ''Gypsy'' (1962), ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' (1963), '' Pajama Party'' (1964), ''That D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Simmons
Richard Simmons (August 19, 1913 – January 11, 2003) was an American actor. Early life Simmons was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and his family later moved across the Mississippi River to Minneapolis. There, he attended West Side High School and then the University of Minnesota, where he studied drama.Dennis McLellan, Richard Simmons Actor, ''Calgary Herald'' (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), January 18, 2003, page 138] Simmons was a professional pilot. Career While attending the university, Simmons competed in fencing and swimming, and also acted in a few theater productions. Simmons left the Twin Cities in the 1930s to launch his film acting career in 1937. He soon became an MGM contract player. Many of his minor movie roles went uncredited through the 1940s. One even included his portrayal of a Mountie in ''King of the Royal Mounted'' produced by Republic Pictures. Starting in 1943, he began appearing in credited roles, beginning with his appearance in ''The Youngest Profe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Sully
Francis Thomas Sullivan (June 17, 1908 December 17, 1975), known professionally as Frank Sully, was an American film actor. He appeared in over 240 films between 1934 and 1968. Today's audiences know him best as the dumb detective in the ''Boston Blackie'' features, and as the foil in many Three Stooges comedies. Career After working on the vaudeville stage, Sully entered the film industry in 1934. He played small parts and bits for several years at various studios, usually as tough guys. Gradually he was cast in higher-budgeted features, including ''Another Thin Man'' (1939) where Sully plays one of Nick Charles's streetwise pals, and John Ford's ''The Grapes of Wrath'' (1940) with Sully cast as Noah Joad, whose family treks across America for a new life. Sully's first major role came in 1941 for Monogram Pictures, a "budget" studio that often gave opportunities to ambitious actors. In the Frankie Darro campus comedy ''Let's Go Collegiate'', Sully was featured as a dumb truck ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Jenks
Frank Jenks (November 4, 1902 – May 13, 1962) was an acid-voiced American supporting actor of stage and films. Biography Early years Jenks was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and his mother gave him a trombone when he was 9 years old. By his late teens he was playing with Eddie Peabody and his band. Later, he became a studio musician in Hollywood, California. Movie career Jenks began in vaudeville and went on to a long career in movies and television, mostly in comedy. He was one of the more familiar faces and voices of the Hollywood Studio era. For almost ten years beginning in the early 1920s, Jenks was a song and dance man in vaudeville. In 1933, when sound films had become the norm, and Broadway actors were moving to Hollywood in droves, Jenks's flat, sarcastic delivery landed him a film career. Usually a supporting actor, Jenks did appear occasionally as a film lead for low-budget films for PRC. Jenks appeared in not a few classics. In the Cary Grant-Rosalind Russell c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; other pseudonym Mickey Maguire; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor. In a career spanning nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the silent-film era. He was the top box-office attraction from 1939 to 1941, and one of the best-paid actors of that era. At the height of a career marked by declines and comebacks, Rooney performed the role of Andy Hardy in a series of 16 films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized mainstream America's self-image. At the peak of his career between ages 15 and 25, he made 43 films, and was one of MGM's most consistently successful actors. A versatile performer, he became a celebrated character actor later in his career. Laurence Olivier once said he considered Rooney "the best there has ever been". Clarence Brown, who directed him in two of his earliest dramatic roles in ''National Velvet'' and '' The Human Comedy'', said Rooney was "the cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. The United States Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force through the Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United States Constitution (1789). See alsTitle 10, Subtitle B, Chapter 301, Section 3001 The oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military in order of precedence, the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed 14 June 1775 to fight the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)—before the United States was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army.Library of CongressJournals of the Continental Congress, Volume 27/ref> The United States Army considers itself to be a continuation of the Continental Army, and thus considers its institutional inception to be the o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second World War
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] |
Musical Film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers". The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if a live audience were watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s, musicals gained popularity with the public and are exemplified by the films of Busby Ber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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