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W.R. Burnett
William Riley Burnett (November 25, 1899 April 25, 1982) was an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for the crime novel ''Little Caesar'', the film adaptation of which is considered the first of the classic American gangster movies. Early life Burnett was born in Springfield, Ohio. He left his civil service job there to move to Chicago when he was 28, by which time he had written over 100 short stories and five novels, all unpublished. Writing career In Chicago, Burnett found a job as a night clerk in the seedy Northmere Hotel. He found himself associating with prize fighters, hoodlums, hustlers and hobos. They inspired '' Little Caesar'' (novel 1929, film 1931). Little Caesar's overnight success landed him a job as a Hollywood screenwriter. ''Little Caesar'' became a classic movie, produced by First National Pictures (Warner Brothers) and starring little known Edward G. Robinson. The Al Capone theme was one he returned to in 1932 with '' Scarface''. Burnett ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Springfield, Ohio
Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek, and Beaver Creek, approximately west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. Springfield is home to Wittenberg University, a liberal arts college. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 58,662, The Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 136,001 residents. The Little Miami Scenic Trail, a paved rail-trail that is nearly 80 miles long, extends from the Buck Creek Scenic Trail head in Springfield south to Newtown, Ohio (near Cincinnati). It has become popular with hikers and cyclists. In 1983, ''Newsweek'' magazine featured Springfield in its 50th-anniversary issue, entitled, "The American Dream." It chronicled the effects of changes of the previous 50 years on five local families. In 2004, Springfield was chosen as an " All-America City." In the 2010s, Sprin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart (; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the greatest male star of classic American cinema. Bogart began acting in Broadway shows, beginning his career in motion pictures with '' Up the River'' (1930) for Fox and appeared in supporting roles for the next decade, regularly portraying gangsters. He was praised for his work as Duke Mantee in ''The Petrified Forest'' (1936), but remained cast secondary to other actors at Warner Bros. who received leading roles. Bogart also received positive reviews for his performance as gangster Hugh "Baby Face" Martin, in '' Dead End'' (1937), directed by William Wyler. His breakthrough from supporting roles to stardom was set in motion with '' High Sierra'' (1941) and catapulted in '' The Maltese Falcon'' (1941), co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dark Command
''Dark Command'' is a 1940 Western film starring Claire Trevor, John Wayne and Walter Pidgeon loosely based on Quantrill's Raiders during the American Civil War. Directed by Raoul Walsh from the novel by W. R. Burnett, ''Dark Command'' is the only film in which western icons John Wayne and Roy Rogers appear together, and was the only film Wayne and Raoul Walsh made together since Walsh discovered Wayne working as a prop mover, renamed him, and gave him his first leading role in the epic widescreen Western ''The Big Trail'' a decade before. The film also features George "Gabby" Hayes as Wayne's character's sidekick. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Art Direction by John Victor Mackay. Plot Mary McCloud marries the seemingly peaceful Kansas schoolteacher William Cantrell, before finding out that he harbours a dark secret. He is actually an outlaw leader who attacks both sides in the Civil War for his own profit. After capturing a w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially in Western and war movies. His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades, and he appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema. Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, but grew up in Southern California. After losing his football scholarship to the University of Southern California from a bodysurfing accident, he began working for the Fox Film Corporation. He appeared mostly in small parts, but his first leading role came in Raoul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Cimino
Michael Antonio Cimino ( ; February 3, 1939 – July 2, 2016) was an American filmmaker. One of the " New Hollywood" directors, Cimino achieved fame with ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Born in New York City, Cimino began his career filming commercials and moved to Los Angeles to take up screenwriting in 1971. After co-writing the scripts of ''Silent Running'' (1972) and '' Magnum Force'' (1973), he wrote the preliminary script for '' Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'' (1974), which became his directorial debut, and one of the highest-grossing films of its year. The critical accolades for co-writing, directing, and producing ''The Deer Hunter'' in 1978 led to Cimino receiving creative control for '' Heaven's Gate'' (1980). The film became a critical failure and a legendary box-office bomb, which lost production studio United Artists an estimated $37 million. Its failure was widely credited with Hollywood studios shi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 melodramas of the 1950s. Sirk started his career in 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 film melodramas '' Magnificent Obsession'', '' All That Heaven Allows'', ''Written on the Wind'', ''A Time to Love and a Time to Die'', and '' 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 "critique of the bourgeoisie in general and of 1950s America in particular", while painting a "compassionate portrait of characters trapped by social conditions". Beyond the surface of the film, Sirk worked with complex mises-en-scène and lush Technicolor t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray (born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle Jr., August 7, 1911 – June 16, 1979) was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor best known for the 1955 film '' Rebel Without a Cause.'' He is appreciated for many narrative features produced between 1947 and 1963 including ''They Live By Night'', ''In A Lonely Place'', '' Johnny Guitar'', and ''Bigger Than Life'', as well as an experimental work produced throughout the 1970s titled ''We Can't Go Home Again'', which was unfinished at the time of Ray's death. Ray's compositions within the CinemaScope frame and use of color are particularly well-regarded and he was an important influence on the French New Wave, with Jean-Luc Godard famously writing in a review of ''Bitter Victory'', "... there is cinema. And the cinema is Nicholas Ray."Godard, Jean-Luc (1958). "Au-dela des étoiles," ''Cahiers du cinéma'' 79 (January); translated as "Jean-Luc Godard: Beyond the Stars," in ''Cahiers du CInéma: The 1950s. Neo-realism, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks (May 30, 1896December 26, 1977) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. Critic Leonard Maltin called him "the greatest American director who is not a household name." A versatile film director, Hawks explored many genres such as comedies, dramas, gangster films, science fiction, film noir, war films and westerns. His most popular films include '' Scarface'' (1932), ''Bringing Up Baby'' (1938), ''Only Angels Have Wings'' (1939), '' His Girl Friday'' (1940), ''To Have and Have Not'' (1944), '' The Big Sleep'' (1946), '' Red River'' (1948), '' The Thing from Another World'' (1951), '' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'' (1953), and '' Rio Bravo'' (1959). His frequent portrayals of strong, tough-talking female characters came to define the " Hawksian woman". In 1942, Hawks was nominated the only time for the Academy Award for Best Director for ''Sergeant York'' (1941). In 1974, he was awarded an Honorary Academy Aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Ford
John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He was the recipient of six Academy Awards including a record four wins for Best Director. Ford made frequent use of location shooting and wide shots, in which his characters were framed against a vast, harsh, and rugged natural terrain. In a career of more than 50 years, Ford directed more than 140 films (although most of his silent films are now lost). He is renowned both for Westerns such as '' Stagecoach'' (1939), '' The Searchers'' (1956), and ''The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'' (1962) and adaptations of classic 20th century American novels such as '' The Grapes of Wrath'' (1940). Ford's work was held in high regard by his colleagues, with Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman among those who named him one of the greate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics, including '' The Maltese Falcon'' (1941), '' The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' (1948), '' The Asphalt Jungle'' (1950), '' The African Queen'' (1951), '' The Misfits'' (1961), '' Fat City'' (1972), '' The Man Who Would Be King'' (1975) and '' Prizzi's Honor'' (1985). During his 46-year career, Huston received 15 Academy Award nominations, winning twice. He also directed both his father, Walter Huston, and daughter, Anjelica Huston, to Oscar wins. In his early years, Huston studied and worked as a fine art painter in Paris. He then moved to Mexico and began writing, first plays and short stories, and later working in Los Angeles as a Hollywood screenwriter, and was nominated for several Academy Awards writing for films directed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh (born Albert Edward Walsh; March 11, 1887December 31, 1980) was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. He was known for portraying John Wilkes Booth in the silent film ''The Birth of a Nation'' (1915) and for directing such films as the widescreen epic ''The Big Trail'' (1930) starring John Wayne in his first leading role, ''The Roaring Twenties'' starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, '' High Sierra'' (1941) starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, and ''White Heat'' (1949) starring James Cagney and Edmond O'Brien. He directed his last film in 1964. His work has been noted as influences on director such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jack Hill, and Martin Scorsese. Biography Walsh was born in New York as Albert Edward Walsh to Elizabeth T. Bruff, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants, and Thomas W. Walsh, an Englishman. Walsh was pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirty Harry
''Dirty Harry'' is a 1971 American neo-noir action thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the ''Dirty Harry'' series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. The film drew upon the real-life case of the Zodiac Killer as the Callahan character seeks out a similar vicious psychopath. ''Dirty Harry'' was a critical and commercial success and set the style for a whole genre of police films. It was followed by four sequels: '' Magnum Force'' in 1973, '' The Enforcer'' in 1976, ''Sudden Impact'' in 1983, and '' The Dead Pool'' in 1988. In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant." Plot A psychopathic sniper, later referred to as "Scorpio", shoots a woman while she swims in a rooftop pool. He leaves behind a threateni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
