|
M (1951 Film)
''M'' is a 1951 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey. It is a remake of Fritz Lang's M (1931 film), 1931 German film of the same title about a child murderer. This version shifts the location of action from Berlin to Los Angeles and changes the killer's name from Hans Beckert to Martin W. Harrow. Both versions of ''M'' were produced by Seymour Nebenzal, whose son, Harold, was associate producer of the 1951 version. The 1951 film stars David Wayne, Howard da Silva, Luther Adler and Martin Gabel. The film was restored in 2015, with Harold Nebenzal as Executive Producer of the restoration. Plot Martin W. Harrow (David Wayne) is a compulsive child-murderer, and the public demands of the mayor and police that he be caught. The police start a crackdown on criminal operations, dive bars and hangouts in the city, hoping that the murderer will turn up in one of the many raids. This pressure is preventing the city's crime syndicate from doing business, and its boss, Marshall (Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Joseph Losey
Joseph Walton Losey III (; January 14, 1909 – June 22, 1984) was an American film and theatre director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Hollywood blacklist, Blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made the remainder of his films, mostly in the United Kingdom. Among the most critically and commercially successful were the films with screenplays by Harold Pinter: ''The Servant (1963 film), The Servant'' (1963) and ''The Go-Between (1971 film), The Go-Between'' (1971). His 1976 film ''Monsieur Klein'' won the César Awards for César Award for Best Film, Best Film and César Award for Best Director, Best Director. His other notable films included ''The Boy with Green Hair'' (1948), ''Eva (1962 film), Eva'' (1962), ''King & Country'' (1964), ''Modesty Blaise (1966 film), Modesty Blaise'' (1966), ''Figures in a Landscape (film), Figures in a Landscape'' (1970) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
M (1931 Film)
''M'' is a 1931 German mystery film, mystery thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert, a serial killer who targets children, in his third screen role. Both Lang's first sound film and an early example of a procedural drama, ''M'' centres on the efforts of both a city's police force and its criminal syndicates to apprehend a serial child-murderer. The film's screenplay was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou. It features many cinematic innovations, including the use of long tracking shots and a musical ''leitmotif'' in the form of "In the Hall of the Mountain King", which is repeatedly whistled by Lorre's character. Lang regarded the film as his magnum opus, and it is widely considered one of the list of films considered the best, greatest films of all time and an indispensable influence on modern crime and thriller fiction. An American remake under M (1951 film), the same title, directed by Joseph Losey, was released in 1951. Plot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative United States Congressional committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communism, communist ties. It became a standing (permanent) committee in 1946, and from 1969 onwards it was known as the House Committee on Internal Security. When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the United States House Committee on the Judiciary, House Judiciary Committee. The committee's anti-communist investigations are often associated with McCarthyism, although Joseph McCarthy himself (as a U.S. Senator) had no direct involvement with the House committee. McCarthy was the chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Secur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. However, he also directed comedies, westerns, and war films. Sirk started his career in Weimar Republic, Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left for Hollywood in 1937 after his Jewish wife was persecuted by the Nazis. In the 1950s, he achieved his greatest commercial success with Melodrama (film genre), film melodramas ''Magnificent Obsession (1954 film), Magnificent Obsession'', ''All That Heaven Allows'', ''Written on the Wind'', ''A Time to Love and a Time to Die'', and ''Imitation of Life (1959 film), Imitation of Life''. While those films were initially panned by critics as sentimental women's pictures, they are today widely regarded by film directors, critics, and scholars as masterpieces. His work is seen as a "critique of the bourgeoisie in general and of 1950s America in p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
B Film
A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second half of a double feature, somewhat similar to A-side and B-side, B-sides in recorded music. However, the production of such films as "second features" in the United States largely declined by the end of the 1950s. This shift was due to the rise of commercial television, which prompted film studio B movie production departments to transition into television film production divisions. These divisions continued to create content similar to B movies, albeit in the form of low-budget films and series. Today, the term "B movie" is used in a broader sense. In post-Golden Age usage, B movies can encompass a wide spectrum of films, ranging from sensationalistic exploitation films to independent arthouse productions. In either usage, most B movies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalitarianism, totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after 12 years, when the Allies of World War II, Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, End of World War II in Europe, ending World War II in Europe. After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole ''Führer'' (leader). Power was centralised in Hitler's person, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gene D
In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protein-coding genes and non-coding genes. During gene expression (the synthesis of RNA or protein from a gene), DNA is first copied into RNA. RNA can be directly functional or be the intermediate template for the synthesis of a protein. The transmission of genes to an organism's offspring, is the basis of the inheritance of phenotypic traits from one generation to the next. These genes make up different DNA sequences, together called a genotype, that is specific to every given individual, within the gene pool of the population of a given species. The genotype, along with environmental and developmental factors, ultimately determines the phenotype of the individual. Most biological traits occur under the combined influence of polygenes (a se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury also released promptbooks and phonographic recordings of four Shakespeare works for use in schools. After a series of acclaimed Broadway productions, the Mercury Theatre progressed into its most popular incarnation as ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air''. The radio series included one of the most notable and infamous radio broadcasts of all time, "The War of the Worlds", broadcast October 30, 1938. The ''Mercury Theatre on the Air'' produced live radio dramas in 1938–1940 and again briefly in 1946. In addition to Welles, the Mercury players included Ray Collins, Joseph Cotten, George Coulouris, Martin Gabel, Norman Lloyd, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, and Everett Sloane. Much of the troupe would later appear in Welles's films at RKO, p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Aged 21, Welles directed high-profile stage productions for the Federal Theatre Project in New York City—starting with a celebrated Voodoo Macbeth, 1936 adaptation of ''Macbeth'' with an African-American cast, and ending with the political musical ''The Cradle Will Rock'' in 1937. He and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented productions on Broadway through 1941, including a modern, politically charged ''Caesar (Mercury Theatre), Caesar'' (1937). In 1938, his radio anthology series ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' gave Welles the platform to find international fame as the director and narrator of The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama), a radio adaptation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jorja Curtright
Jorja Curtright, also known after marriage as Jorja Sheldon (1923–1985) was an American stage and film actress, who later became an interior designer. Life Jorja Curtright was born Aug 14, 1923, in Amarillo, Texas. In her first film, the wartime propaganda film ''Hitler's Madman'' (1943), she played a young woman, Clara Janek, who leaps to her death from a hospital window rather than submit to Nazi sterilization. In 1952 she married the novelist and producer Sidney Sheldon, and the pair had a daughter Mary. Jorja and Sidney Sheldon were good friends of Groucho Marx, who thought highly of her ability as an actress. In later life Jorja Sheldon became an interior designer. By the time of her death she had decorated over 200 homes for friends and celebrities across the United States. She also edited her husband's novels. She died May 11, 1985, aged 61, from a heart attack, at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Filmography * ''Hitler's Madman'' (1943). * ''Whistle Stop'' (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jim Backus
James Gilmore Backus (February 25, 1913 – July 3, 1989) was an American actor. Among his most famous roles were Thurston Howell III on the 1960s sitcom ''Gilligan's Island,'' the father of James Dean's character in '' Rebel Without a Cause,'' the voice of the near-sighted cartoon character '' Mr. Magoo'', the rich Hubert Updike III on the radio version of '' The Alan Young Show'', and Joan Davis' character's husband (a domestic court judge) on TV's '' I Married Joan''. He also starred in his own show of one season, '' The Jim Backus Show'', also known as ''Hot Off the Wire''. An avid golfer, Backus made the 36-hole cut at the 1964 Bing Crosby Pro-Am tournament. He was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Early life Backus was born February 25, 1913, in Cleveland, Ohio,James Gilmore Backus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Roy Engel
Roy Engel (born Leroy Englewood Stults Jr.;"Missouri, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1945", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLFM-JTCJ : Thu Jul 18 04:43:41 UTC 2024), Entry for Leroy Englewood Stults and Virginia Groves Stults, 16 Oct 1940. September 13, 1913"California Death Index, 1940-1997," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VPC2-HDQ : 26 November 2014), Roy Engel, 29 Dec 1980; Department of Public Health Services, Sacramento. – December 29, 1980) was an American actor on radio, film, and television. He performed in more than 150 films and almost 800 episodes of television programs. Career Engel's ancestry was Irish and Dutch. His father was Roy Engelwood Stults. Engel was a Letterman (sports), letterman in football Rockhurst High School and Rockhurst University, Rockhurst College. After he graduated from college, he worked in a warehouse. Engel's career in radio began at KCMO in Kansas City. His firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
