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Vitaphone Varieties
Vitaphone Varieties is a series title (represented by a pennant logo on screen) used for all of Warner Bros.', earliest short film "talkies" of the 1920s, initially made using the Vitaphone sound on disc process before a switch to the sound-on-film format early in the 1930s. These were the first major film studio-backed sound films, initially showcased with the 1926 synchronized scored features '' Don Juan'' and '' The Better 'Ole''. Although independent producers like Lee de Forest's Phonofilm were successfully making sound film shorts as early as 1922, they were very limited in their distribution and their audio was generally not as loud and clear in theaters as Vitaphone's. The success of the early Vitaphone shorts, initially filmed only in New York, helped launch the sound revolution in Hollywood. Overview The series featured many great vaudeville and musical performers of the 1920s. Classical musicians who dominated the early days of recorded sound made their film debuts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitaphone Corporation Intertitle (1927)
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National Pictures, First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack is not printed on the film, but issued separately on Gramophone record, phonograph records. The discs, recorded at Revolutions per minute, rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically in diameter, are played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film is projected. Its frequency response is 4300 Hz. Many early sound film, talkies, such as ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound". The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had sound-on-film, optica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe E
Joe or JOE may refer to: Arts Film and television * ''Joe'' (1970 film), starring Peter Boyle * ''Joe'' (2013 film), starring Nicolas Cage, based on the novel ''Joe'' (1991) by Larry Brown * Joe (2023 film), an Indian film * ''Joe'' (TV series), a British TV series airing from 1966 to 1971 * ''Joe'', a 2002 Canadian animated short about Joe Fortes Music and radio * "Joe" (Inspiral Carpets song) * "Joe" (Red Hot Chili Peppers song) * "Joe", a song by The Cranberries on their album '' To the Faithful Departed'' *"Joe", a song by PJ Harvey on her album '' Dry'' *"Joe", a song by AJR on their album '' OK Orchestra'' * Joe FM (other), any of several radio stations Computing * Joe's Own Editor, a text editor for Unix systems * Joe, an object-oriented Java computing framework based on Sun's Distributed Objects Everywhere project Media * Joe (website), a news website for the UK and Ireland * ''Joe'' (magazine), a defunct periodical developed originally for Keny ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Sax
Samuel Sax (September 5, 1880 –January 2, 1962) was an American film producer. He produced 80 films between 1925 and 1946, including the last films of Roscoe Arbuckle. From 1938 to 1941, Sax headed Warner Brothers's British subsidiary at Teddington Studios in London. Career at Vitaphone: 1931-1939 During the late silent film era, Sax owned his own Hollywood poverty row outfit, Gotham Studios. In late 1931 Sax, considered “a no-nonsense studio executive of the old school”, began work with Warner Brothers as general production manager for their Brooklyn Vitaphone facility. Sax embarked upon his duties during the severest phase of the Great Depression, corresponding to a general collapse in studio box-office receipts. As such, Sax’s task was to reorganize production of Warners one- and two-reel shorts, “films that could be sold without difficulty anywhere in the country”, so as to maximize short-term profits. Indeed, many of the major studios curtailed feature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway Brevities
Broadway Brevities are two-reel (17–21 minutes long) musical and dramatic film shorts produced by Warner Bros. between 1931 and 1943. The series continued as Warner Specials in later years. Overview Other titles used for these black and white two-reel films included “Vitaphone Musicals”, “Broadway Headliners”, “Presentation Revue” (for a couple 1938 releases) and “Blue Ribbon Comedy” for a trio featuring Elsa Maxwell. Usually the trade periodicals grouped them as “Broadway Brevities” for easier marketing purposes. Many of these glossy productions, a few winning Academy Awards, featured dance spectaculars and mini-dramas with top Broadway theatre or Warner studio stars; famous names included Russ Columbo, Ruth Etting, Hal Le Roy, Bob Hope and Red Skelton. They were filmed at the Vitaphone studio in Brooklyn, New York until 1939, with Samuel Sax as a key producer. Production then moved to Burbank, California. By the forties, an increasing number were of the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgie Price
George Edwards "Georgie" Price (January 5, 1901 – May 10, 1964) was an American vaudeville singer and comic who performed in Vitaphone shorts in the 1920s and 1930s. Early life, family and education Price was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, New York. Price began performing as a child in public places such as barrooms and streetcars, before winning amateur competitions. At six years old, he so impressed opera singer Enrico Caruso that he performed with Caruso in a benefit concert for a deceased police officer's family. Career As a vaudeville child star, Price introduced the Edwards-Madden song " By the Light of the Silvery Moon" in Gus Edwards' revue ''School Boys and Girls'' in 1909. As a boy he performed on Broadway with another child Lila Lee (later a well-known film actress). He was a contemporary on vaudeville with George Jessel, Walter Winchell and Eddie Cantor. As an adult professional, he drew comparisons to Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jazz Singer
''The Jazz Singer'' is a 1927 American part-talkie musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music and lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolated sequences). Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and effectively marked the end of the silent film era with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, featuring six songs performed by Al Jolson. Based on the 1925 play of the same title by Samson Raphaelson, the plot was adapted from his short story "The Day of Atonement". The film depicts the fictional story of Jakie Rabinowitz, a young man who defies the traditions of his devout Jewish family. After singing popular tunes in a beer garden, he is punished by his father, a hazzan (cantor), prompting Jakie to run away from home. Some years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer, performing in bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Plantation Act
''A Plantation Act'' (1926) is an early Vitaphone sound-on-disc short film starring Al Jolson, the first film that Jolson starred in. Jolson in blackface sings three of his hit songs: " April Showers", "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody", and " When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)". The film presents him as if in a live stage performance, complete with three curtain calls at the finish. Jolson is dressed as a plantation worker for the entirety of the short, but only performs his entrance in character. For the remainder of the film he speaks and performs to the audience as Al Jolson. The film features one set, that of a cabin with farmland behind it, and a cage with live chickens. Two fixed film cameras are used to give a wide shot and a medium shot of Jolson and the set. Its premiere took place on October 7, 1926, at the Colony Theatre, New York, where it concluded a program of short subjects that accompanied Warner Brothers' second feature-length Vita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, as well as the first openly Jewish man to become an entertainment star in the United States. He was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, along with popularizing many of the songs he sang. According to music historian Larry Stempel, "No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway." Stephen Banfield wrote that Jolson's style was "arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical." Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers". Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blanche Sweet
Sarah Blanche Sweet (June 18, 1896 – September 6, 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the early days of the motion picture film industry. Early life Born Sarah Blanche Sweet (though her first name Sarah was rarely used) in Chicago, Illinois in 1896, she was the daughter of Clara Pearl Alexander (b. 1878, d. 1898), a dancer and singer, and Gilbert Joel Sweet (b. 1857, d. 1922). The couple married sometime between 1894 and 1896 in Chicago. Gilbert Sweet is often described as a wine merchant, although he held various jobs in various cities, including a paint salesman in San Francisco and a porcelain works manager in New York City. The actors Antrim Short, Antrim and Gertrude Short were cousins of Blanche. Sweet's mother died at age 20 while touring in Newark, NJ. Sweet was an infant at the time, and she was raised by her maternal grandmother, Cora Blanche Lamb (b.1849, d. 1937); Lamb went by her married name, Cora Blanche Alexander. Cora Alexan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Classical Hollywood cinema, Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two consecutive Academy Awards for Academy Award for Best Actor, Best Actor, from nine nominations. During his career, he appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, male star of Classical Hollywood cinema, Classic Hollywood Cinema. Tracy first discovered his talent for acting while attending Ripon College (Wisconsin), Ripon College, and he later received a scholarship for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He spent seven years in the theater, working in a succession of Repertory theatre, stock companies and intermittently on Broadway theatre, Broadway. His bre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart ( ; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American actor. His performances in classic Hollywood cinema made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, greatest male star of classic American cinema. Bogart began acting in Broadway shows. Debuting in film in ''The Dancing Town'' (1928), he appeared in supporting roles for more than a decade, regularly portraying gangsters. He was praised for his work as Duke Mantee in ''The Petrified Forest'' (1936). Bogart also received positive reviews for his performance as gangster Hugh "Baby Face" Martin in William Wyler's ''Dead End (1937 film), Dead End'' (1937). His breakthrough came in ''High Sierra (film), High Sierra'' (1941), and he catapulted to stardom as the lead in John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941 film), ''The Maltese Falcon'' (1941), considered one of the first great Film noir, ''noir'' films. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylvia Sidney
Sylvia Sidney (born Sophia Kosow; August 8, 1910 – July 1, 1999) was an American stage, screen, and film actress whose career spanned 70 years. She rose to prominence in dozens of leading roles in the 1930s. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in '' Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams'' in 1973. She later gained attention for her role as Juno, a case worker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's 1988 film ''Beetlejuice'', for which she won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Early life Sidney was born Sophia Kosow in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Rebecca (née Saperstein), a Romanian Jew, and Victor Kosow, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who worked as a clothing salesman. Her parents divorced by 1915, and she was adopted by her stepfather Sigmund Sidney, a dentist. Her mother became a dressmaker and renamed herself Beatrice Sidney. Now using the surname Sidney, Sylvia became an actress at the age of 15 as a way of overcoming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
