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Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of various genres between 1915 and 1939, but was primarily known for horror films, and was often cited in the trade press as the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema. Browning's career spanned the silent film and sound film eras. He is known as the director of ''Dracula'' (1931), '' Freaks'' (1932), and his silent film collaborations with Lon Chaney and Priscilla Dean. Early life Charles Albert Browning, Jr., was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the second son of Charles Albert and Lydia Browning. Charles Albert Sr., "a bricklayer, carpenter and machinist," provided his family with a middle-class and Baptist household. Browning's uncle, the baseball star Pete "Louisville Slugger" Browning saw his sobriquet conferred on the iconic baseball bat. Circus, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. Named after King Louis XVI of France, Louisville was founded in 1778 by George Rogers Clark, making it one of the oldest cities west of the Appalachians. With nearby Falls of the Ohio as the only major obstruction to river traffic between the upper Ohio River and the Gulf of Mexico, the settlement first grew as a portage site. It was the founding city of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which grew into a system across 13 states. Today, the city is known as the home of boxer Muhammad Ali, the Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Fried Chicken, the University of Louisville and its Cardinals, Louisville Slugger baseball bats, and three of Kentucky's six ''Fortune'' 500 companies: Humana, Kindred Healthcare, and Yum! Brands. Muh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roustabout
Roustabout (Australia/New Zealand English: rouseabout) is an occupational term. Traditionally, it referred to a worker with broad-based, non-specific skills. In particular, it was used to describe show or circus workers who handled materials for construction on fairgrounds. In modern times it is applied to rural employment, such as those assisting sheep shearing, and positions in the oil industry. Oil industry in the US ''Oil roustabout'' refers to a worker who maintains all things in the oil field. Roustabout is an official classification of natural gas and oil rig personnel. Roustabouts working in oil fields typically perform various jobs requiring little training. Drillers start off as roustabouts until they gain enough hands-on experience to move up to a roughneck or floorhand position, then to driller and rig supervisor. Roustabouts will set up oil well heads, maintain saltwater disposal pumps, lease roads, lease mowing, create dikes around tank batteries on a lease, etc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slapstick
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as saws and ladders. The term arises from a device developed for use in the broad, physical comedy style known as '' commedia dell'arte'' in 16th-century Italy. The " slap stick" consists of two thin slats of wood, which make a "slap" when striking another actor, with little force needed to make a loud—and comical—sound. The physical slap stick remains a key component of the plot in the traditional and popular Punch and Judy puppet show. Other examples of slapstick humor include '' The Naked Gun'' and Mr. Bean. Origins The name "slapstick" originates from the Italian ''Batacchio'' or ''Bataccio'' – called the " slap stick" in English – a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in '' commedia dell'arte''. When struck ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". In the United States, short films were generally termed short subjects from the 1920s into the 1970s when confined to two 35 mm reels or less, and featurettes for a film of three or four reels. "Short" was an abbreviation for either term. The increasingly rare industry term "short subject" carries more of an assumption that the film is shown as part of a presentation along with a feature film. Short films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals and made by independent filmmakers with either a low budget or no budget at all. They are usually funded by film grants, nonprofit organizations, sponsor, or personal funds. Short films are generally used for industry experience a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Dillon (actor)
Edward Dillon ( or 1879 – July 11, 1933) was an American actor, director and screenwriter of the silent era. He performed in more than 320 films between 1905 and 1932 and also directed 134 productions between 1913 and 1926. He was a native of New York City. Dillon's work on Broadway included acting in ''Prince Otto'' (1900), ''Francesca da Rimini'' (1901), ''The Taming of the Shrew'' (1905), and ''The Ranger'' (1907). He left the stage to begin acting in films in 1908, working under D. W. Griffith at Biograph. He was Mary Pickford's first leading man, and he was instrumental in Fay Tincher's developing into a star. Dillon died on July 11, 1933, at the age of 60 in Hollywood, California from a heart attack. His brother John T. Dillon was also an actor. Selected filmography Actor * '' Bobby's Kodak'' (1908, Short) - Father * '' When Knights Were Bold'' (1908) *short * '' The Fight for Freedom'' (1908, Short) - Man in Bar / Member of the Posse * '' The Kentuckian'' (19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biograph Studios
Biograph Studios was an early film studio and laboratory complex, built in 1912 by the Biograph Company at 807 East 175th Street, in The Bronx, New York City, New York. History Early years The first studio of the Biograph Company, formerly American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was located just south of Union Square on the roof of 841 Broadway at 13th Street in Manhattan, known then as the Hackett Carhart Building and today as the Roosevelt Building. The set-up was similar to Thomas Edison's " Black Maria" in West Orange, New Jersey, being mounted on circular tracks to be able to get the best possible sunlight. As of 1988, the foundations of this machinery were still extant. The company moved in 1906 to a brownstone a few blocks away at 11 East 14th Street, where it remained until 1913. The brownstone was torn down in the 1960s. It was at this location that D. W. Griffith began as a director, and quickly became the studio's focus. Griffith found and developed for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Murray (American Actor)
Charles Albert Murray (June 22, 1872 – July 29, 1941), was an American film actor of the silent era. Murray was born in Laurel, Indiana, on June 22, 1872, to Isaac Murray and Martha Ellen "Mollie" Murray (née Sullenburger). Murray was a comedian in vaudeville and on stage for 20 years, forming the Murray and Mack team, before he began acting in films. His first work in films was for Biograph. His work in films included appearing in The Cohens and Kellys series with George Sidney. He appeared in more than 280 films between 1912 and 1938, starting with film shorts. He also directed five films. Murray was married to Nellie Bae Hamilton. He died in Los Angeles, California, from pneumonia. For his contribution to motion pictures, decades after his death, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1725 Vine Street. Selected filmography * '' His Auto's Maiden Trip'' (1912, Short) * ''Safe in Jail'' (1913, Short) * ''Murphy's I.O.U.'' (1913, Short) - (unc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutt And Jeff
''Mutt and Jeff'' was a long-running and widely popular American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1907 about "two mismatched tinhorns". It is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip. The concept of a newspaper strip featuring recurring characters in multiple panels on a six-day-a-week schedule had previously been pioneered through the short-lived '' A. Piker Clerk'' by Clare Briggs, but it was ''Mutt and Jeff'' as the first successful daily comic strip that staked out the direction of the future trend. ''Mutt and Jeff'' remained in syndication until 1983, employing the talents of several cartoonists, chiefly Al Smith who drew the strip for nearly fifty years. The series eventually became a comic book, initially published by All-American Publications and later published by DC Comics, Dell Comics and Harvey Comics. Later it was also published as cartoons, films, pop culture merchandise and reprints. Syndicated success Harry Conway "Bud" Fisher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person. In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the " dandified coon". By the middle of the century, blackface minstrel shows had become a distinctive American artform, translating formal works such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form in its own right. In the United States, blackface declined in popularity beginning in the 1940s and into the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s,Clark, Alexis.How the History of Blackface Is Rooted in Racism. ''History''. A&E Television Networks, LLC. 2019. and was generally considered highly offensive, disrespectful, and racist by the turn of the 21st century, though the practic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic (illusion)
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world. Modern entertainment magic, as pioneered by 19th-century magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, has become a popular theatrical art form. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, magicians such as Maskelyne and Devant, Howard Thurston, Harry Kellar, and Harry Houdini achieved widespread commercial success during what has become known as "the Golden Age of Magic." During this period, performance magic became a staple of Broadway theatre, vaudeville, and music halls. Magic retained its popularity in the television age, with magicians such as Paul Daniels, David ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ringling Brothers
The Ringling brothers (originally Rüngling) were seven American siblings who transformed their small touring company of performers into one of the largest circuses in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Four brothers were born in McGregor, Iowa: Alfred T., Charles, John and Henry William, and the family lived in McGregor for twelve years, from 1860 until 1872. The Ringling family then moved to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and finally settled in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1875. They were of German and French descent, the children of harness maker Heinrich Friedrich August Ringling (1826–1898) of Hanover, and Marie Salome Juliar (1833–1907) of Ostheim, in Alsace. In 1919, they merged their Ringling Brothers Circus with America's other leading circus troupe, Barnum and Bailey, ultimately creating the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which operated for 98 years, until 2017. Siblings *Albert Carl "Al" Ringling (1852–1916). Albert divorced his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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