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The Cat And The Fiddle (film)
''The Cat and the Fiddle'' is a 1934 American pre-Code romantic musical film directed by William K. Howard based on the hit 1931 Broadway musical of the same name by Jerome Kern and Otto A. Harbach, about a romance between a struggling composer and an American singer. The film stars Ramon Novarro and Jeanette MacDonald in her MGM debut. Plot The film plot is substantially changed from that of the Broadway musical. Victor Florescu (Ramon Novarro) is a composer desperately trying to get his operetta to opening night. First his leading lady (Vivienne Segal) leaves, taking the bulk of their budget with her. Then the male lead splits, leaving Victor to fill his role. Next he calls upon an old love, songstress Shirley Sheridan (Jeanette MacDonald) to be his ingénue, but she insists that she is leaving the theater to marry her affluent, but unfaithful fiancé (Frank Morgan).Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation page 29 Cast *R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Film Poster
A film poster is a poster used to promote and advertise a film primarily to persuade paying customers into a theater to see it. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets. They normally contain an image with text. Today's posters often feature printed likenesses of the main actors. Prior to the 1980s, illustrations instead of photos were far more common. The text on film posters usually contains the film title in large lettering and often the names of the main actors. It may also include a tagline, the name of the director, names of characters, the release date, and other pertinent details to inform prospective viewers about the film. Film posters are often displayed inside and on the outside of movie theaters, and elsewhere on the street or in shops. The same images appear in the film exhibitor's pressbook and may also be used on websites, DVD (and historically VHS) packaging, flyers, advertisements in newspap ... [...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] |
Technicolor
Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films running through a special camera (3-strip Technicolor or Process 4) started in the early 1930s and continued through to the mid-1950s when the 3-strip camera was replaced by a standard camera loaded with single strip 'monopack' color negative film. Technicolor Laboratories were still able to produce Technicolor prints by creating three black and white matrices from the Eastmancolor negative (Process 5). Process 4 was the second major color process, after Britain's Kinemacolor (used between 1908 and 1914), and the most widely used color process in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Technicolor's #Process 4: Development and introduction, three-color process became known and celebrated for its highly s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sterling Holloway
Sterling Price Holloway Jr. (January 4, 1905 – November 22, 1992) was an American actor and voice actor who appeared in over 100 films and 40 television shows. He did voice acting for The Walt Disney Company, playing Mr. Stork in ''Dumbo'', Adult Flower in ''Bambi'', the Cheshire Cat in '' Alice in Wonderland'', Kaa in ''The Jungle Book'', Roquefort the Mouse in ''The Aristocats'', and the title character in ''Winnie the Pooh'', among many others. Early life Born in Cedartown, Georgia, Holloway was named after his father, Sterling Price Holloway (1864–1930), who, in turn, was named after a prominent Confederate general, Sterling "Pap" Price. His mother was Rebecca DeHaven Boothby (1879–1963). He had a younger brother named Boothby (1909–1978). The family owned a grocery store in Cedartown, where his father served as mayor in 1912. After graduating from Georgia Military Academy in 1920 at the age of fifteen, he left Georgia for New York City, where he attended the Amer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Cawthorn
Joseph Bridger Cawthorn (March 29, 1868 – January 21, 1949) was an American stage and film comic actor. Biography Born on March 29, 1868, in New York City to a minstrel-show family, Cawthorn started out in show business as a child, debuting at Robinson's Music Hall in New York in 1872. He appeared in minstrel shows and vaudeville as a "Dutch" comic, employing a thick German dialect. He later worked in British music halls and American touring companies. Cawthorn made his Broadway debut in 1895, 1897 or 1898, and embarked on a long career lasting over two decades. His first success was playing Boris in Victor Herbert's 1898 operetta '' The Fortune Teller''. Other notable Broadway roles included the title character in ''Mother Goose'' (1903) and inventor Dr. Pill in the fantasy musical ''Little Nemo'' (1908). In the latter, he was called upon to ad lib to buy time during one performance while a problem backstage was dealt with. As "the scene called for him to describe imagin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adrienne D'Ambricourt
Adrienne D'Ambricourt (born Adrienne DuNontier; 2 June 1878 – 6 December 1957) was a French-American actress of the silent and sound film eras. She was born in Paris, and emigrated to the United States after the end of World War I. Biography She began acting in the 1922 Gershwin Broadway musical comedy, ''The French Doll'', in which she had one of the main roles, "Baroness Mazulier". She made her film debut in the 1924 silent film, '' The Humming Bird'', where she was one of Gloria Swanson's gang of thieves who turned into resistance fighters in World War I. With the advent of talking pictures, and before dubbing came into general use, D'Ambricourt was used in several films which were the French version of English language ones, such as ''Quand on est belle'' (''The Easiest Way'' — 1931), ''L'énigmatique Mr. Parkes'' ('' Slightly Scarlet'' — 1930), and ''Nuit d'Espagne'' ('' Transgression'' — 1931). She appeared in over 70 films, including such classics as ''Casablan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Armetta
Henry Armetta (born Enrico Armetta; July 4, 1888 – October 21, 1945) was an American character actor who appeared in at least 150 American films, beginning in silent movies. His last film was released posthumously in 1946, the year after his death. Biography Armetta was born in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. At the age of 14, he stowed away on a boat to America. The immigration authorities were prepared to send him back, but he found an Italian family to act as his sponsor. He settled in New York City where he delivered groceries, sold sandwiches and pizzas and performed other menial tasks to get by. He eventually ended up working as a pants presser at a well known club where he was befriended by actor/producer Raymond Hitchcock. Hitchcock got him a chorus part in his play ''A Yankee Consul''. After a friend told him about southern California's mushrooming film industry, Armetta hitchhiked to Hollywood in 1920 and soon found work in films as a stereotypical Italian, often playing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Conroy (actor)
Frank Parish Conroy (14 October 1890 – 24 February 1964) was a British film and stage actor who appeared in many films, notably ''Grand Hotel'' (1932), '' The Little Minister'' (1934) and ''The Ox-Bow Incident'' (1943). Career Born in Derby, England, Conroy began acting on stage in 1908. He acted in Shakespearean plays in England from 1910 until he came to the United States in 1915. He was responsible for building the Greenwich Village Theatre which opened in 1917, and he directed productions of the repertory theater there for three years. He appeared in more than 40 Broadway plays, beginning with ''The Passing Show of 1913'' (1913) and ending with ''Calculated Risk'' (1962). He won a Tony Award for best supporting actor for his performance in Graham Greene's ''The Potting Shed'' (1957). Conroy's work on television included appearances on ''Kraft Theater'' and ''The Play of the Week''. Personal life and death Conroy had a wife, Ruth, and a son, Richard. He died of heart di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Hersholt
Jean Pierre Carl Buron (12 July 1886 – 2 June 1956), known professionally as Jean Hersholt, was a Danish-American actor. He is best known for starring on the radio series '' Dr. Christian'' (1937–1954) and in the film ''Heidi'' (1937).Obituary ''Variety'', 6 June 1956, p. 63. Asked how to pronounce his name, he told ''The Literary Digest'', "In English, ''her'sholt''; in Danish, ''hairs'hult''." Of his total credits, 75 were silent films and 65 were sound films (140 total); he directed four. Early life Hersholt was born Jean Pierre Carl Buron in Copenhagen, Denmark. Hersholt claimed to be born into a family of actors, but in reality, both of his parents Henri Pierre Buron, the son of a French Catholic father and a Danish Protestant mother, and Clara (née Petersen), the daughter of a Danish Protestant father and a Danish Jewish mother, were hairdressers, though the father later was a cigar and wine retailer/vendor. Hersholt appeared in two of the first short films of Danish f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Butterworth (actor)
Charles Edward Butterworth (July 26, 1896 – June 14, 1946) was an American actor specializing in comedic roles, often in musicals. Butterworth's distinctive voice was the inspiration for the Cap'n Crunch commercials from the Jay Ward studio: voice actor Daws Butler based Cap'n Crunch on the voice of Butterworth. Early life Butterworth was the son of a physician in South Bend, Indiana. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1924 with a law degree. Career After graduating, Butterworth became a newspaper reporter at the South Bend News-Times and subsequently Chicago. One of Butterworth's more memorable film roles was in the Irving Berlin musical ''This Is the Army'' (1943) as the bugle-playing Private Eddie Dibble. He generally was a supporting actor, though he had top billing in '' We Went to College'' (1936), played the title role in ''Baby Face Harrington'' (1935), and shared top billing (as the Sultan) with Ann Corio in ''The Sultan's Daughter'' (1944). In his o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Morgan
Francis Phillip Wuppermann (June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949), known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous sound films throughout the 1930s and 1940s, with a career spanning 35 yearsObituary ''Variety'', September 21, 1949, page 63. mostly as a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with his most celebrated performance playing the title role in '' The Wizard of Oz'' (1939). He was also briefly billed early in his career as Frank Wupperman and Francis Morgan. Early life Morgan was born on June 1, 1890, in New York City, to Josephine Wright (née Hancox) and George Diogracia Wuppermann. He was the youngest of 11 children and had five brothers and five sisters. The elder Mr. Wuppermann was born in Venezuela but was brought up in Hamburg, Germany, and was of German and Spanish ancestry. His mother was born in the United States, of English ancestry. Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vivienne Segal
Vivienne Sonia Segal (April 19, 1897 – December 29, 1992) was an American actress and singer. Early years Segal was born on April 19, 1897, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the elder daughter of Jewish parents Bernhard Segal, a physician, and Paula (née Hahn) Segal, who encouraged Vivienne and her sisters Vera and Louise to seek careers in show business. Her obituary in ''The Guardian'' reported that her father "underwrote a local opera company in order to give her the chance to sing." She studied singing with Estelle Liebling, the voice teacher of Beverly Sills. Career Segal's career began when she was 15 years old and began performing with the Philadelphia Operatic Society. Her Broadway debut came in ''The Blue Paradise'' (1915), a production that was underwritten by her father. In 1924 and 1925, she was a member of the ''Ziegfeld Follies''. She was also a performer on the CBS Radio program ''Accordiana'' in 1934.Sies, Luther F. (2014). ''Encyclopedia of American Ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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