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Flying Down To Rio
''Flying Down to Rio'' is a 1933 American pre-Code musical film famous for being the first screen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, although lead actors Dolores del Río and Gene Raymond received top billing. Among the featured players are Franklin Pangborn and Eric Blore. The songs in the film were written by Vincent Youmans (music), Gus Kahn and Edward Eliscu (lyrics), with musical direction and additional music by Max Steiner. During the 7th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for the new category of Best Original Song for "Carioca", but it lost to " The Continental" from ''The Gay Divorcee'', the next Astaire and Rogers film (and their first with top billing). The black-and-white film, which had a color-tinted sequence, was directed by Thornton Freeland and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Lou Brock. The screenplay was written by Erwin S. Gelsey, H. W. Hanemann and Cyril Hume, based on a story by Lou Brock and a play by Anne Caldwell. Linwood Dunn did the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thornton Freeland
Thornton Freeland (February 10, 1898 – May 22, 1987) was an American film director who directed 26 British and American films in a career that lasted from 1924 to 1949. Early success He was born in Hope, North Dakota in 1898 and originally worked as an assistant director during the silent era. In 1929 he directed his first film, the comedy '' Three Live Ghosts''. He enjoyed an early success with the Eddie Cantor Technicolor musical '' Whoopie!'' (1930) and much of his subsequent work was in musicals and comedies. In 1933, he directed '' Flying Down to Rio'' which launched the screen partnership of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers although it had originally been designed as a starring vehicle for the Mexican actress Dolores del Río. The following year Freeland made a film version of the long-running Broadway revue '' George White's Scandals''. Britain In 1935 Freeland went to London to make the musical comedy ''Brewster's Millions'' starring Jack Buchanan. He was to wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Code Hollywood
Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines (popularly known as the Hays Code) in 1934. Although the Hays 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. 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, romantic and sexual relationships between white and black people, mild profanity, Recreational drug use, illegal drug use, promiscuity, prostitut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Effects
Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. It is sometimes abbreviated as SFX, but this may also refer to ''sound effects''. Special effects are traditionally divided into the categories of mechanical effects and optical effects. With the emergence of digital filmmaking a distinction between special effects and visual effects has grown, with the latter referring to digital post-production and optical effects, while "special effects" refers to mechanical effects. Mechanical effects (also called practical or physical effects) are usually accomplished during the live-action shooting. This includes the use of mechanised props, scenery, scale models, animatronics, pyrotechnics and atmospheric effects: creating physical wind, rain, fog, snow, clouds, making a car appear to drive by i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linwood Dunn
Linwood G. Dunn, A.S.C. (December 27, 1904 in Brooklyn, New York – May 20, 1998 in Los Angeles, California) was an American pioneer of visual special effects in motion pictures and an inventor of related technology. Dunn worked on many films and television series, including the original 1933 ''King Kong'' (1933), ''Citizen Kane'' (1941), and ''Star Trek'' (1966–69). Early career Dunn is noted as being very interested in cinema from as early as age 14, going so far as to compile his own rating scale for the movies he watched. This interest initiated his career, which began in 1923 in his home state as a projectionist. He was hired as an assistant camera operator by the Pathé company in 1925 and eventually moved to Hollywood, where he continued to work for Pathé until 1929. His early contributions in this capacity were for film serials such as '' The Green Archer'' (1925), '' Snowed In'' (1926), '' Hawk of the Hills'' (1927), and '' Queen of the Northwoods'' (1929). He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lou Brock (producer)
Lou Brock (August 21, 1892 – April 19, 1971) was an American film producer, screenwriter and director. He produced more than 70 films between 1930 and 1953. He was nominated for two awards at the 6th Academy Awards in 1934 in the category Best Short Subject. His film '' So This Is Harris'' won the award. He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and died in Los Angeles. Selected filmography * '' Scratch-As-Catch-Can'' (1931) * ''A Preferred List'' (1933) * '' So This Is Harris'' (1933) * ''Down to Their Last Yacht'' (1934) * ''Behind the Mike'' (1937) * '' Girls' Town'' (1942) * '' The Shadow Returns'' (1946) * ''Train to Alcatraz A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...'' (1948) References External links * 1892 births 1971 deaths Film producers from Michigan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gay Divorcee
''The Gay Divorcee'' is a 1934 American Musical film, musical romantic comedy film directed by Mark Sandrich and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It also features Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes (actor, born 1906), Erik Rhodes, and Eric Blore. The screenplay was written by George Marion Jr., Dorothy Yost, and Edward Kaufman. It is based on the Broadway theatre, Broadway musical ''Gay Divorce'', written by Dwight Taylor (writer), Dwight Taylor, with Kenneth Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein adapting an unproduced play by J. Hartley Manners. The stage version included many songs by Cole Porter that were left out of the film, except for "Night and Day (song), Night and Day". Although most of the songs were replaced, the screenplay kept the original plot of the stage version. Three members of the play's original cast repeated their stage roles: Astaire, Rhodes and Blore. ''The Gay Divorcee'' was the second (after ''Flying Down to Rio'') of ten pairings of Fred Ast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Continental (song)
"The Continental" is a dance to a song written by Con Conrad with lyrics by Herb Magidson, and was introduced by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in the 1934 film ''The Gay Divorcee''. "The Continental" was the first song to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In the film it was sung by Ginger Rogers, Erik Rhodes and Lillian Miles. Other recordings * Lud Gluskin, Jolly Coburn, and Leo Reisman had major hit records with ''The Continental'' at the time of introduction. *Frank Sinatra recorded it, first in 1950, and again on his '' Sinatra Sings Days of Wine and Roses, Moon River, and Other Academy Award Winners'' in 1964. * Blossom Dearie recorded a piano version in 1955. It appears on her first album Jazz-Sweet on the Barclay (record label) label. *Harry James released a recording on the album ''Hollywood's Best'' ( Columbia B-319 and CL-6224) with Rosemary Clooney on vocals in 1952. *Maureen McGovern recorded a version that reached number 16 on the UK Singles Chart ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carioca (1933 Song)
"The Carioca" is a 1933 popular song with music by Vincent Youmans and lyrics by Edward Eliscu and Gus Kahn, as well as the name of the dance choreographed to it for the 1933 film ''Flying Down to Rio''. The number was sung in the film by Alice Gentle, Movita Castaneda and Etta Moten and danced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as part of an extended production dance introducing it. The dance, which was choreographed by the film's dance director, Dave Gould, assisted by Hermes Pan, was based on an earlier stage dance with the same name by Fanchon and Marco. The distinctive feature of the dance was that it was to be danced with the partners' foreheads touching. The word "Carioca" refers to inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro. Astaire and Roger's short dance has historical significance, as it was their first screen dance together. Though billed fourth and fifth, many felt they stole the film, which became a big hit for RKO. The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Award For Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the Film industry, motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is presented to the ''songwriters'' who have composed the best ''original'' song written specifically for a film. The performers of a song are not credited with the Academy Award unless they contributed either to music, lyrics, or both in their own right. The songs that are nominated for this award are typically performed during the ceremony and before this award is presented. The award category was introduced at the 7th Academy Awards, the ceremony honoring the best in film for 1934. Nominations are made by Academy members who are songwriters and composers, and the winners are chosen by the Academy membership as a whole. Fifteen songs are shortlisted before nominations are announced. Eligibility , the Academy's rules stipulate that "an original song consists of words and music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
7th Academy Awards
The 7th Academy Awards, honoring the best films for 1934, was held on February 27, 1935, at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by Irvin S. Cobb. Since this ceremony, the Academy's award eligibility period coincided with the calendar year (with temporary exceptions for the 93rd and 94th Academy Awards due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Frank Capra's influential romantic comedy ''It Happened One Night'' became the first of three films to date to "sweep" the top five awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. This feat would later be matched by '' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' in 1975 and '' The Silence of the Lambs'' in 1991. It also was the first romantic comedy to win Best Picture, and the first film to win two acting Oscars. The categories of Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song were first introduced this year. This was the first of only two years in which write-in can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Blore
Eric Blore Sr. (23 December 1887 – 2 March 1959) was an English actor and writer. His early stage career, mostly in the West End of London, centred on revue and musical comedy, but also included straight plays. He wrote sketches for and appeared in variety. In the 1930s Blore acted mostly in Broadway productions. He made his last London appearance in 1933 in the Fred Astaire hit '' Gay Divorce''. Between 1930 and 1955 he made more than 60 Hollywood films, becoming particularly well known for playing butlers and other superior domestic servants. He retired in 1956 for health reasons, and died in Hollywood in 1959 at the age of 71. Life and career Early years Blore was born in Finchley, a north London suburb, on 23 December 1887, son of Henry Blore and his wife Mary, ''née'' Newton.Parker, p. 77 He was educated at Mills School, Finchley, and after leaving school he worked for an insurance company."Mr Eric Blore", ''The Times'', London, 3 March 1959, p. 12 He was drawn to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franklin Pangborn
Franklin Pangborn (January 23, 1889 – July 20, 1958) was an American comedic character actor famous for playing small but memorable roles with comic flair. He appeared in many Preston Sturges movies as well as the W. C. Fields films '' International House'', '' The Bank Dick'', and '' Never Give a Sucker an Even Break''. For his contributions to motion pictures, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street posthumously on February 8, 1960. Early years Pangborn was born in Newark, New Jersey. During World War I, he served for 14 months with the U.S. Army's 312th Infantry Regiment in Europe. Career An encounter with actress Mildred Holland when he was 17 led to Pangborn's first professional acting experience. He was working for an insurance company when she learned about his ambitions for acting and offered him an extra's position with her company at $12 per week, initially during his two weeks' vacation. That opportunity grew into four years' tourin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
