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Duncan Macrae (actor)
John Duncan Macrae (20 August 1905 – 23 March 1967) was one of the leading Scottish actors of his generation. He worked mainly as a stage actor and also made five television appearances and seventeen films. Life and career Macrae was born at 118 Kirkland Street, Maryhill, Glasgow, the fourth of the six children of James Macrae, a sergeant in the Glasgow police force, and his wife, Catherine Graham. He attended Allan Glen's School and matriculated in the engineering faculty at Glasgow University in 1923–1924, but did not graduate. He trained as a schoolteacher at Jordanhill College, where he met Ann H Mcallister, the voice coach, who was a profound influence on his life. He taught in Glasgow until he became a professional actor in 1943, after a successful amateur drama career. He first made his name as a comic actor of distinction with Curtain Theatre, an amateur group, in 1937, in the title role of Robert McLellan's ''Jamie the Saxt'', a performance which became his "signat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Casino Royale (1967 Film)
''Casino Royale'' is a 1967 spy parody film originally distributed by Columbia Pictures. It is loosely based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, the first novel to feature the character James Bond. The film stars David Niven as the "original" Bond, Sir James Bond 007. Forced out of retirement to investigate the deaths and disappearances of international spies, he soon battles the mysterious Dr. Noah and the ruthless counter-intelligence agency SMERSH, inspired by actual organizations in the USSR. The film's tagline: "Casino Royale is too much... for one James Bond!" refers to Bond's plan to mislead SMERSH in which six other agents are pretending to be "James Bond", namely, baccarat master Evelyn Tremble ( Peter Sellers); millionaire spy Vesper Lynd ( Ursula Andress); Bond's secretary Miss Moneypenny ( Barbara Bouchet); Bond's daughter with Mata Hari, Mata Bond ( Joanna Pettet); and British agents Cooper ( Terence Cooper) and the Detainer ( Daliah Lavi). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially european classical music, classical music) and the performing arts are invited to join the festival. Visual art exhibitions, talks and workshops are also hosted. The first 'International Festival of Music and Drama' took place between 22 August and 11 September 1947. Under the first festival director, the distinguished Austrian-born impresario Rudolf Bing, it had a broadly-based programme, covering orchestral, choral and chamber music, Lied, Lieder and song, opera, ballet, drama, film, and Scottish 'piping and dancing' on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, a structure that was followed in subsequent years. The Festival has taken place every year since 1947, except for 2020 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A scaled-back version of the festival was held in 2021. Fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Kidnappers
''The Kidnappers'' (US: ''The Little Kidnappers'') is a 1953 British film, directed by Philip Leacock and written by Neil Paterson. The movie was financed by the Rank Organisation. According to producer Frank Godwin, J. Arthur Rank, chairman of Rank, "rarely expressed any feelings about individual films, but there was one film that he absolutely loved, ''The Kidnappers''." He said John Davis, managing director of Rank, "would always refer to it as 'your movie, Arthur'." "It was certainly the film I enjoyed the most," said director Leacock. ''The Little Kidnappers'' has been called the best movie from Group Film Productions, Rank's main production arm in the 1950s. Plot In the early 1900s, two young orphaned brothers, eight-year-old Harry and five-year-old Davy Mackenzie are sent to live at a Scottish settlement in Nova Scotia, Canada with their stern grandfather and grandmother after their father's death in the Boer War. The boys would love to have a dog but are not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jean Anderson
Mary Jean Heriot Powell (12 December 1907 – 1 April 2001), better known by her stage name Jean Anderson, was an English actress best remembered for her television roles as formidable matriarch Mary Hammond in the BBC drama ''The Brothers (1972 TV series), The Brothers'' (1972–1976) and as rebellious aristocrat Lady Jocelyn "Joss" Holbrook in the Second World War series ''Tenko (TV series), Tenko'' (1982–1985). She also had a distinguished career on stage and appeared in 46 films. Early life and stage Anderson was born on 12 December 1907 in Eastbourne, Sussex to Scottish parents, and grew up in Guildford, Surrey. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1926–1928. Her first professional engagement was in ''Many Waters'' at the Prince's Theatre, Bristol, in 1929 with her fellow RADA student Robert Morley. In 1934 she joined the Cambridge Festival Theatre, appearing in ''The Circle'' by Somerset Maugham and ''Yahoo'' by Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Great Cumbrae
Great Cumbrae () is the larger of the two islands known as The Cumbraes in the lower Firth of Clyde in western Scotland. The island is sometimes called Millport, Cumbrae, Millport, after its main town. Home to the Cathedral of The Isles and the FSC Millport field study centre, the island has a community of 1,300 residents. Geography The island is roughly long by wide, rising to a height of above sea level at The Glaid Stone, which is a large, naturally occurring rock perched on the highest summit on the island. There is a triangulation pillar nearby, as well as an orientation point which indicates the locations of surrounding landmarks. In clear conditions, views extend north over the upper Clyde estuary to Ben Lomond and the Arrochar Alps. To the west, the larger islands of Isle of Bute, Bute and Isle of Arran, Arran can be seen, while on the other side of Knapdale the Paps of Jura may be visible. Looking south, Ailsa Craig is visible, around distant beyond Little Cumbrae. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Millport, Isle Of Cumbrae
Millport () is the only town on the island of Great Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde off the coast of mainland Scotland, in the council area of North Ayrshire. The town is south of the ferry terminal that links the island to the Scottish mainland. Due to its small size, the island and its town are often linked in the minds of visitors and residents and Cumbrae is often referred to as Millport. The island offers views across to the Isle of Arran as well as of its smaller neighbour which lies barely a kilometre away, called Little Cumbrae. The Cumbraes are referred to as the ''Kumreyiar'' in the medieval Norse ''Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, Saga of Haakon Haakonarson''. Etymology The Gaelic name ''Cumaradh'' means "place of the Cymric people", referring to the Brittonic languages, Brittonic-speaking inhabitants of the Kingdom of Strathclyde. Alternatively, the name Cumbrae may derive from ''Kil Maura'' meaning "cell or church of a female saint". History During the development of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Para Handy
Para Handy is a character created by the journalist and writer Neil Munro in a series of stories published in the ''Glasgow Evening News'' between 1905 and 1923 under the pen name of Hugh Foulis. He is the crafty Gaelic skipper of the '' Vital Spark'', a Clyde puffer (steamboat) of the sort that delivered goods from Glasgow to Loch Fyne, the Hebrides, and the coast of Argyllshire and Inverness-shire in the early 20th century. The character's proper name is Peter Macfarlane. Para Handy is a nickname from "", which means "Peter () son of Sandy" in Gaelic. The stories partly focus on his pride in his ship, "the smartest boat in the tred" which he considers to be of a class with the Clyde steamers, but mainly tells of the "high jinks" the crew gets up to on their travels. He had at least one crossover with Munro's other popular character, Erchie MacPherson of ''Erchie, My Droll Friend''. The other principal characters who form the crew of the ''Vital Spark'' are: * the subtly e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Neil Munro (Hugh Foulis)
Neil Munro (3 June 1863 – 22 December 1930)Brian Osborne and Ronald Armstrong, Introduction to "Para Handy: The Complete Edition" was a Scottish journalist, newspaper editor, author and literary critic. He was basically a serious writer, but is now mainly known for his humorous short stories, originally written under the pen name Hugh Foulis. The best known of these stories are about the fictional Clyde puffer the '' Vital Spark'' and her captain Para Handy, but they also include stories about the waiter and kirk beadle Erchie MacPherson and the travelling drapery salesman Jimmy Swan. They were originally published in the ''Glasgow Evening News'', but collections were published as books. A key figure in Scottish literary circles, Munro was a friend of the writers J. M. Barrie, John Buchan, Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham and Joseph Conrad, and the artists Edward A. Hornel, George Houston, Pittendrigh MacGillivray and Robert Macaulay Stevenson. He was an early promote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Compton Mackenzie
Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of the co-founders in 1928 of the National Party of Scotland along with Hugh MacDiarmid, Cunninghame Graham and John MacCormick. He was knighted in the 1952 Birthday Honours List. Background Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool, County Durham, England, into a theatrical family of Mackenzies, many of whose members used Compton as their stage surname, starting with his English grandfather Henry Compton, a well-known Shakespearean actor of the Victorian era. His father, Edward Compton Mackenzie, and mother, Virginia Frances Bateman, were actors and theatre company managers; his sister, Fay Compton (whose son was Anthony Pelissier, Compton's nephew), starred in many of J. M. Barrie's plays, including '' Peter P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Whisky Galore! (1949 Film)
''Whisky Galore!'' is a 1949 British comedy film produced by Ealing Studios, starring Basil Radford, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood and Gordon Jackson (actor), Gordon Jackson. It was the directorial debut of Alexander Mackendrick; the screenplay was by Compton Mackenzie, an adaptation of his 1947 novel ''Whisky Galore (novel), Whisky Galore'', and Angus MacPhail. The story—based on a true event, the running aground of the SS Politician, SS ''Politician''—concerns a shipwreck off a fictional Scottish island, the inhabitants of which have run out of whisky because of Rationing in the United Kingdom, wartime rationing. The islanders find out the ship is carrying 50,000 cases of whisky, some of which they salvage, against the opposition of the local HM Customs and Excise, Customs and Excise men. It was filmed on the island of Barra; the weather was so poor that the production over-ran its 10-week schedule by five weeks, and the film went £20,000 over budget. Michael Balcon, the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ealing Comedy
The Ealing comedies is an informal name for a series of comedy films produced by the London-based Ealing Studios during a ten-year period from 1947 to 1957. Often considered to reflect Britain's post-war spirit, the most celebrated films in the sequence include ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (1949), ''Whisky Galore! (1949 film), Whisky Galore!'' (1949), ''The Lavender Hill Mob'' (1951), ''The Man in the White Suit'' (1951) and ''The Ladykillers (1955 film), The Ladykillers'' (1955). ''Hue and Cry (film), Hue and Cry'' (1947) is generally considered to be the earliest of the cycle, and ''Barnacle Bill (1957 film), Barnacle Bill'' (1957) the last, although some sources list ''Davy (film), Davy'' (1958) as the final Ealing comedy. Many of the Ealing comedies are ranked among the greatest British films, and they also received international acclaim. History Relatively few comedy films were made at Ealing Studios until several years after World War II. The 1939 film ''Cheer Boys Cheer' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
