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Distributors Corporation Of America
Distributors Corporation of America (DCA) was an American film distribution company which distributed 60 films in the United States between 1952 and 1959. It was a subsidiary of the Walter Reade Organisation, a British-based firm catering to art houses. The American counterpart DCA initially followed Reade's British policy, issuing or reissuing specialized "prestige" pictures, among them ''The Wages of Fear'' (1953), ''Animal Farm'' (1954), and ''I Am a Camera'' (1955), starring Julie Harris and Laurence Harvey; the latter film ran into censorship from the Production Code because of the original script's treatment of abortion. DCA also handled re-releases, like the 1956 revivals of ''The Naked City'' (1948) and '' Brute Force'' (1947), both produced by Mark Hellinger and directed by Jules Dassin. DCA's biggest hit was Robert Youngson's compilation of silent comedies, ''The Golden Age of Comedy'' (1958). Originally intended for novelty playdates on the art-house circuit, the fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distributors Coporation Of America Logo
A distributor is an electric and mechanical device used in the ignition system of older spark-ignition engines. The distributor's main function is to route electricity from the ignition coil to each spark plug at the correct time. Design A distributor consists of a rotating arm ('rotor') that is attached to the top of a rotating 'distributor shaft'. The rotor constantly receives high-voltage electricity from an ignition coil via brushes at the centre of the rotor. As the rotor spins, its tip passes close to (but does not touch) the output contacts for each cylinder. As the electrified tip passes each output contact, the high-voltage electricity is able to 'jump' across the small gap. This burst of electricity then travels to the spark plug (via high tension leads), where it ignites the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. On most overhead valve engines, the distributor shaft is driven by a gear on the camshaft, often shared with the oil pump; on most overhead camsha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Paar
Jack Harold Paar (May 1, 1918 – January 27, 2004) was an American talk show host, writer, radio and television comedian, and film actor. He was the second host of ''The Tonight Show'' from 1957 to 1962. ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine's obituary of Paar reported wryly, "His fans would remember him as the fellow who split talk show history into two eras: Before Paar and Below Paar." Early life and education Jack Harold Paar was born on May 1, 1918, in Canton, Ohio, Canton, Ohio, the son of Lillian M. (née Hein) and Howard Paar. He moved with his family to Jackson, Michigan, about south of Lansing, Michigan, Lansing. As a child, he developed a Stuttering, stutter, which he learned to manage. He contracted tuberculosis when he was 14 and left school at 16. Career Early career After dropping out of Jackson High School (Michigan), Jackson High School, Paar worked as a broadcaster for WIBM, a local radio station. He went on to work as a humorous disc jockey at other Midwest st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variety (magazine)
''Variety'' is an American trade magazine owned by Penske Media Corporation. It was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933, ''Daily Variety'' was launched, based in Los Angeles, to cover the film industry, motion-picture industry. ''Variety'' website features entertainment news, reviews, box office results, plus a credits database, production charts and film calendar. History Founding ''Variety'' has been published since December 16, 1905, when it was launched by Sime Silverman as a weekly periodical covering theater and vaudeville, with its headquarters in New York City. Silverman had been fired by ''The Morning Telegraph'' in 1905 for panning an act which had taken out an advert for $50. He subsequently decided to start his own publication that, he said, would "not be influenced by advertising." With a loan of $1,500 from his father-in-law, he launched ''Variety'' as publisher and editor. In additi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach Sr. Skretvedt, Randy (2016), ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies'', Bonaventure Press. p.608. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director and screenwriter, who was the founder of the namesake Hal Roach Studios. Roach was active in the industry from the 1910s to the 1990s. He is known for producing a number of early Media franchise successes, including the Laurel and Hardy franchise, Harold Lloyd's early films, the films of entertainer Charley Chase, and the ''Our Gang'' short film comedy series. Early life Roach was born in Elmira, New York, to Charles Henry Roach, whose father was born in Wicklow, County Wicklow, Ireland, and Mabel Gertrude Bally, her father John Bally being from Switzerland. A presentation by the American humorist Mark Twain impressed Roach as a young grade school student. Hal's first job was as a newspaper deliverer. One of his customers lived at Quarry Farm - Samu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Movieline
''Movieline'' was a Los Angeles–based film and entertainment magazine, launched in 1985 as a local magazine, which went national in 1989. Known for its cult status and popularity among film critics, the magazine eventually was retooled and named ''Movieline's Hollywood Life'', with the website renamed as hollywoodlife.com and the name on the webpage shown as Hollywood Life. Penske Media Corporation bought ''Movieline's Hollywood Life'' in September 2008 and, in 2009, closed the magazine. At that time, Penske continued the '' Hollywood Life'' website as a "new" standalone entity, while relaunching the original ''Movieline'' website. The ''Hollywood Life'' website continues today (2024), but the ''Movieline'' website closed down sometime in 2014. The last movie review credited to a ''Movieline'' critic on Metacritic was written on 27 July 2014, a retrospective review for the 2010 film '' The Killer Inside Me''. ''Movieline'' launched a YouTube YouTube is an American so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devil Girl From Mars
''Devil Girl from Mars'' is a 1954 British second feature black-and-white science fiction film directed by David MacDonald and starring Patricia Laffan, Hugh McDermott, Hazel Court, Peter Reynolds, and Adrienne Corri. The screenplay was by James Eastwood based (per on-screen credits) on a play by John C. Mather and Eastwood, and was produced by the Danziger Brothers. It was released by British Lion and released in the United States the following year. A female alien is sent from Mars to acquire human males to replace their declining male population. When negotiation, then intimidation, fails she must use force to obtain co-operation from a remote Scottish village where she has landed her crippled flying saucer. Plot Nyah, a female commander from Mars, heads for London in her flying saucer. She is part of the advance alien team looking for Earthmen to replace the declining male population on her world, the result of a "devastating war between the sexes". Because of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Lock
A time lock (also timelock) is a part of a locking mechanism commonly found in bank vaults and other high-security containers. The time lock is a timer designed to prevent the opening of the safe or vault until it reaches the preset time, even if the correct lock combination(s) are employed. Time locks are mounted on the inside of a safe's or vault's door. Usually there are three time locks on a door. The first one to reach 0 will allow access in to the vault; the other two are for backup purposes. Time locks were originally created to prevent criminals from kidnapping and torturing the person(s) who knows the combination, and then using the extracted information to later burgle the safe or vault, or to stop entry by authorized staff at unauthorized times. An early test of their effectiveness came on May 29, 1875 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, when a gang of robbers took the family of banker Frederick N. Deland hostage, demanding that he open the vault of the Grand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Crawling Eye
''The Trollenberg Terror'' (U.S. title: ''The Crawling Eye''; also known as ''Creatures from Another World'' ) is a 1958 British science fiction horror film produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman and directed by Quentin Lawrence. The film stars Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Janet Munro, and Jennifer Jayne. The special effects are by Les Bowie. The story is based on a 1956 British ITV "Saturday Serial" television programme written by George F. Kerr, Jack Cross and Giles Cooper under the collective pseudonym of "Peter Key". The film was released as ''The Crawling Eye'' in the United States on 7 July 1958 by Distributors Corporation of America and as ''The Trollenberg Terror'' in the United Kingdom in October 1958 by Eros Films. It played on a double bill with the British science fiction film '' The Strange World of Planet X'', retitled ''Cosmic Monsters'' for its American release. ''The Trollenberg Terror''s storyline concerns United Nations troubleshooter Alan Broo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Strange World Of Planet X (film)
''The Strange World of Planet X'' (U.S. title: ''Cosmic Monsters'') is an independently made 1958 British second feature ('B') science fiction horror film directed by Gilbert Gunn and starring Forrest Tucker and Gaby André. It was adapted by Paul Ryder and Joe Ambor from the 1957 Rene Ray novel of the same name, produced by George Maynard and John Bash and distributed in the UK in February, 1958Warren, Bill (1986). ''Keep Watching The Skies Volume 2''. McFarland & Co., Inc. . Page 736 by Eros Films. It was released in the US on July 7, 1958 by Distributors Corporation of America as a double feature with '' The Crawling Eye'', also starring Tucker. A made-for-TV serial, adapted by Rene Ray in 1956, had aired previously in the UK and was the basis for the feature film. A monomaniacal scientist creates ultra-sensitive, disruptive magnetic fields, which have unexpected side effects, while also attracting unidentified flying objects from outer space. Strange things begin to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Half Human
is a 1955 Japanese science fiction horror film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film stars Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akemi Negishi, Sachio Sakai, and Nobuo Nakamura, with Sanshiro Sagara as the Abominable Snowman. Plot The Japanese version is told in flashbacks framed by scenes of a reporter questioning the survivors. During New Year's, Five young university students come to the Japanese Alps in Nagano for a skiing vacation. They are Takashi Iijima, his girlfriend Machiko Takeno, her older brother Kiyoshi Takeno, and their friends Nakada and Kaji. When they arrive, Kiyoshi and Kaji split off and visit their mutual friend, Gen, promising to meet the others later at the lodge. Takashi, Michiko, and Nakada arrive at the lodge, whose caretaker informs them of an approaching blizzard. The caretaker telephones Gen's cabin, but nobody answers, worrying the group. While Takashi takes over the phone, a fur-coat-clad young woman named Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plan 9 From Outer Space
''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is a 1957 American Independent film, independent science fiction film, science fiction-horror film produced, written, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film was shot in black-and-white in November 1956 and had a preview screening on March 15, 1957, at the Carlton Theatre in Los Angeles under the title ''Grave Robbers from Outer Space''. Retitled ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'', it went into general release in July 1958 in Virginia, Texas, and several other Southern states, before being sold to television in 1961.Rudolph Grey, ''Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr.'' (1992). pg. 197. ISBN 978-0-922915-24-8. The film stars Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson, and "Vampira" (Maila Nurmi), and is narrated by The Amazing Criswell, Criswell. It also posthumously bills Bela Lugosi (before Lugosi's death in August 1956, Wood had shot silent footage of Lugosi for another, unfinished film, which was inserted into ''Plan 9''). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monster From Green Hell
''Monster from Green Hell'' is a science fiction B movie released on May 22, 1957, as a double feature with the English-dubbed, re-edited version of the Japanese tokusatsu film ''Half Human''. It was directed by Kenneth G. Crane, and starred Jim Davis (later of "Dallas" fame) and Barbara Turner. Plot In preparation for sending a crewed rocket into space, American scientists Dr. Quent Brady and Dan Morgan are put in charge of a program that sends various animals and insects into space to test their survival rates. After one of their rockets carrying wasps malfunctions and goes off course, a computer calculates that the rocket is likely to land somewhere off the coast of Africa. Some time later, in a remote part of Africa, Dr. Lorentz and his daughter Lorna perform an autopsy on a native and determine that he died of paralysis of the nerve centers caused by an injection of a massive amount of venom. Arobi, Lorentz's African assistant, then informs him that a monster is believed to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
