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Syncopation (1929 Film)
''Syncopation'' is a 1929 American pre-Code musical film directed by Bert Glennon and starring Barbara Bennett, Bobby Watson, and Ian Hunter (although top billing went to Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians). It was the second film produced by RKO Radio Pictures and the first to be released by the studio; the company's first produced film, ''Street Girl'', was not released until August 1929. The film was made at the company's New York City studios and is based on the novel ''Stepping High'' by Gene Markey. The film was heavily marketed on its release, being the first film to be broadcast over the radio, as well as RKO's first sound musical, and was a significant success. This film was the first made in the RCA Photophone sound-on-film process, and was an important test for Radio Corporation of America, which had invested heavily in the newly-created RKO. Plot Benny and Flo are a husband and wife dance team, traveling around the country as part of a revue. The revue gets picke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bert Glennon
Bert Lawrence Glennon (November 19, 1893 – June 29, 1967) was an American cinematographer and film director. He directed '' Syncopation'' (1929), the first film released by RKO Radio Pictures. Biography Glennon was born in Anaconda, Montana in 1893 and attended Stanford University, where he graduated in 1912. Before gaining fame in Hollywood, Glennon served as a pursuit pilot instructor during World War I. He began his work in film in 1912 as a stage manager for theater entrepreneur Oliver Morosco and then c. 1913 worked for Keystone and Famous Players, then was laboratory superintendent for Clune Film Corporation, for four years. In 1915 he did his first film as cinematographer ''The Stingaree'' (serial) and in 1928 he directed his first film ''The Perfect Crime''. Glennon was nominated for three Academy Awards in Best Cinematography for the films '' Stagecoach'' (1939), ''Drums Along the Mohawk'' (1939), and '' Dive Bomber'' (1941). He worked as a cinematographer on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known as the "Hays Code", in mid-1934. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor, and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1, 1934, with the establishment of the Production Code Administration (PCA). Before that date, film content was restricted more by local laws, negotiations between the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) and the major studios, and popular opinion, than by strict adherence to the Hays Code, which was often ignored by Hollywood filmmakers. As a result, some films in the late 1920s and early 1930s depicted or implied innuendo, sexual innuendo, miscegenation, romantic and sexual relationships between white and black people, mild profanity, Recreational drug use, illegal drug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Hippodrome
The Hippodrome Theatre, also called the New York Hippodrome, was a theater in New York City from 1905 to 1939, located on Sixth Avenue between West 43rd and West 44th Streets in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan. It was called the world's largest theatre by its builders and had a seating capacity of 5,300,Shanor with a 100x200ft (30x61m) stage. The theatre had state-of-the-art theatrical technology, including a rising glass water tank. The Hippodrome was built by Frederic Thompson and Elmer "Skip" Dundy, creators of the Luna Park amusement park at Coney Island, with the backing of Harry S. Black's U.S. Realty, a dominant real estate and construction company of the time,Alexiou and was acquired by The Shubert Organization in 1909. In 1933, it was re-opened as the New York Hippodrome cinema, and became the stage for Billy Rose's ''Jumbo'' in 1935. Acts which appeared at the Hippodrome included numerous circuses, musical revues, Harry Houdini's disappearing elephant, va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothy Lee (actress)
Dorothy Lee (born Marjorie Elizabeth Millsap, May 23, 1911 – June 24, 1999) was an American actress and comedian during the 1930s. She appeared in 28 films, usually appearing alongside the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy team. Biography Born in Los Angeles, Marjorie Elizabeth Millsap was the daughter of Homer and Bess Millsap. Her father was an attorney in Los Angeles. She became an actress known as Dorothy Lee. Her first film was ''Syncopation'' (1929)''.'' Lee began her career as a dancer in a stage show, ''Ideas''. When she happened to be watching scenes shot backstage for a film, the director asked her to take a small part in the film because the woman who was supposed to have the part did not show up. She later went to New York for a role in the stage show ''Hello Yourself''. Her work in that production caught the attention of an RKO director, leading to her being in ''Syncopation'', which was being filmed in New York. At 18, she signed with RKO Radio Pictures and began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verree Teasdale
Verree Teasdale (March 15, 1903 – February 17, 1987) was an American actress born in Spokane, Washington. Early years A second cousin of Edith Wharton, Teasdale attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and trained as a stage actress at the New York School of Expression. Career Teasdale debuted on Broadway in the role of Augusta Winslow Martin in ''The Youngest'' (1924) and performed there regularly until 1932. After co-starring in Somerset Maugham's play ''The Constant Wife'' with Ethel Barrymore in 1926–1927, she was offered a film contract, and her first film, ''Syncopation'', was released in 1929. Teasdale appeared older than her physical age, which enabled her to play bored society wives, scheming other women and second leads in comedies such as ''Roman Scandals'' (1933). In 1935, she played Hippolyta in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. Personal life and death Teasdale married actor William O'Neal in 1927, and they divorced in 1933. In 1935, she married ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mackenzie Ward
Mackenzie Ward (20 February 1903 – January 1976) was a British stage and film actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li .... Filmography Bibliography * Low, Rachael. ''History of the British Film: Filmmaking in 1930s Britain''. George Allen & Unwin, 1985 . References External links * * 1903 births 1976 deaths English male film actors English male stage actors People from Eastbourne 20th-century English male actors British expatriate male actors in the United States {{british-actor-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osgood Perkins
James Ridley Osgood Perkins (May 16, 1892 – September 21, 1937) was an American actor. Life and career Perkins was born in West Newton, Massachusetts, son of Henry Phelps Perkins Jr., and his wife, Helen Virginia (née Anthony). His maternal grandfather was wood engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony. He was a graduate of Harvard College. Perkins made his Broadway debut in 1924 in the George S. Kaufman – Marc Connelly play ''Beggar on Horseback''. In the next 12 years, he would appear in 24 Broadway productions, including ''The Front Page'' and ''Uncle Vanya''. Despite his success as a leading man in the theatre, Hollywood viewed him as a character actor. He appeared in 12 silent films, including ''Puritan Passions'', before moving to talkies such as '' Scarface'' and ''Gold Diggers of 1937''. "The best actor I ever worked with was Osgood Perkins," Louise Brooks told Kevin Brownlow. "You know what makes an actor great to work with? Timing. You don't have to feel anything. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morton Downey
Sean Morton Downey (November 14, 1901 – October 25, 1985), also known as Morton Downey Sr., was an American singer and entertainer popular in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, enjoying his greatest success in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Downey was nicknamed "The Irish Nightingale"."The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981–1985, pp. 242–43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998 Early years Sean Morton Downey was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, the fourth of six children of James A. and Bessie (Cox) Downey, a well-known family in both Wallingford and Waterbury, Connecticut. The grandson of Irish immigrants, he was known by his middle name because so many of his near relatives were named John. His father was the chief of the Wallingford Fire Department until a near fatal automobile accident necessitated his retirement. Downey began his singing career as a member of the choir of Most Holy Trinity Church in Wallingford. Mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Corporation Of America
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Company. In 1932, RCA became an independent company after the partners were required to divest their ownership as part of the settlement of a government antitrust suit. An innovative and progressive company, RCA was the dominant electronics and communications firm in the United States for over five decades. RCA was at the forefront of the mushrooming radio industry in the early 1920s, as a major manufacturer of radio receivers, and the exclusive manufacturer of the first superheterodyne sets. RCA also created the first nationwide American radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). The company was also a pioneer in the introduction and development of television, both black and white and especially color television. During this pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track, and may record the signal either optically or magnetically. Earlier technologies were sound-on-disc, meaning the film's soundtrack would be on a separate phonograph record. History Sound on film can be dated back to the early 1880s, when Charles E. Fritts filed a patent claiming the idea. In 1923 a patent was filed by E. E. Ries, for a variable density soundtrack recording, which was submitted to the SMPE (now SMPTE), which used the mercury vapor lamp as a modulating device to create a variable-density soundtrack. Later, Case Laboratories and Lee De Forest attempted to commercialize this process, when they developed an Aeolite glow lamp, which was deployed at Movietone Newsreel at the Roxy Theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an optical sound, "variable-area" film exposure system, in which the modulated area (width) corresponded to the waveform of the audio signal. The three other major technologies were the Warner Bros. Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, as well as two "variable-density" sound-on-film systems, Lee De Forest's Phonofilm, and Fox- Case's Movietone. When Joseph P. Kennedy and other investors merged Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) with the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain and Radio Corporation of America, the resulting movie studio RKO Radio Pictures used RCA Photophone as their primary sound system. In March 1929, RKO released ''Syncopation'', the first film made in RCA Photophone. History and licensing In the early years following World War I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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