|
Give Us Wings
''Give Us Wings'' is a 1940 Universal comedic film starring the Dead End Kids and the Little Tough Guys. Several members of the casts of those series were also featured in "The East Side Kids" films. In the years before World War II, the United States government encouraged Hollywood studios to produce films that would encourage youth to join the resurgent armed forces, especially the U.S. Army Air Corps. ''Give Us Wings'' joined '' 20,000 Men a Year'' (1939), ''I Wanted Wings'' (1941), '' Flying Cadets'' (1941) and others of that genre, as a patriotic "flag-waver".Wynne 1987, p. 161. Plot Tom, Pig, String, Ape, and Rap, collectively known as "The Dead End Kids", are learning to become aeronautical mechanics in the National Youth Administration Work Program plant. The Kids really want to fly and think they have learned enough to become pilots. Their dreams of flight will not come true because the Civil Aeronautics Authority flight school requires them to have completed high s ... [...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] |
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical rift developed between more traditional ground-based army personnel and those who felt that aircraft were being underutilized and that air operations were being stifled for political reasons unrelated to their effectiveness. The USAAC was renamed from the earlier United States Army Air Service on 2 July 1926, and was part of the larger United States Army. The Air Corps became the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) on 20 June 1941, giving it greater autonomy from the Army's middle-level command structure. During World War II, although not an administrative echelon, the Air Corps (AC) remained as one of the combat arms of the Army until 1947, when it was legally abolished by legislation establishing the United States Department of the Air Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milburn Stone
Hugh Milburn Stone (July 5, 1904 – June 12, 1980) was an American actor, best known for his role as "Doc" (Dr. Galen Adams) on the Western (genre), Western series ''Gunsmoke''. Early life Stone was born in Burrton, Kansas, to Herbert Stone and the former Laura Belfield. There, he graduated from Burrton High School, where he was active in the drama club, played basketball, and sang in a barbershop quartet. Stone's brother, Joe Stone, says their uncle Fred Stone, was a versatile actor who appeared on Broadway theatre, Broadway and in circus, circuses). Although Stone had a congressional appointment to the United States Naval Academy, he turned it down, choosing instead to become an actor with a Repertory theatre, stock theater company headed by Helen Ross. The Burton town doctor, Joseph Wakefield Myers, MD was the town doctor from 1913 to 1928. Hugh was known to have said he styled his portrayal of a country Dr. based on Dr. Myers. Career In 1919, Stone debuted on stage in a K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Jory
Victor Jory (November 23, 1902 – February 12, 1982) was a Canadian-American actor of stage, film, and television. He initially played romantic leads, but later was mostly cast in villainous or sinister roles, such as Oberon in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (1935) and carpetbagger Jonas Wilkerson in ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939). From 1959 to 1961, he had a lead role in the 78-episode television police drama '' Manhunt''. He also recorded numerous stories for Peter Pan Records and was a guest star in dozens of television series as well as a supporting player in dozens of theatrical films, occasionally appearing as the leading man. Biography Born in Dawson City, Yukon, to American parents, he was the boxing and wrestling champion of the U.S. Coast Guard during his military service, and he kept his burly physique. He graduated from the Martha Oatman School of the Theater in Los Angeles. Jory toured with theatre troupes and appeared on Broadway, before making his Hollywood deb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Gwynne
Anne Gwynne (born Marguerite Gwynne Trice; December 10, 1918 – March 31, 2003) was an American actress who was known as one of the first scream queens because of her numerous appearances in horror films. Gwynne was also one of the most popular pin-ups of World War II. She is the maternal grandmother of actor Chris Pine. Early life Gwynne was born on December 18, 1918, in Waco, Texas, the daughter of Pearl (née Guinn) and Jefferson Benjamin Trice, an apparel manufacturer. She had a brother Jefferson Jr. After her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, she attended Stephens College, where she studied drama. Career While accompanying her father to a convention in Los Angeles, Gwynne obtained a job modeling for Catalina Swimwear. She soon began acting in small theaters and appeared in a newsreel and a charity short. In June 1939, she signed a contract with Universal and was immediately put to work in '' Unexpected Father''. Universal cast her in a variety of genres includi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallace Ford
Wallace Ford (born Samuel Grundy Jones; 12 February 1898 – 11 June 1966) was an English–American vaudevillian, stage performer and screen actor. Usually playing wise-cracking characters, he combined a tough but friendly-faced demeanor with a small but powerful, stocky physique. Early life He was born Samuel Grundy Jones in Bolton, Lancashire, England, into a working-class family of limited means. At the age of three, he was placed by his uncle and aunt, in whose care he had been, into a Barnardo's orphanage home, since they were unable to maintain his upkeep along with their own several children. When he was seven, he and other children from similar backgrounds were shipped to Canada to be found new homes with farming foster families as a part of the British Empire's ongoing programme to populate the territory. Samuel was adopted by a family in Manitoba. He was ill-treated and became a serial runaway, being resettled several times with different families by the Canadian a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Benedict
William Franklin Sater Benedict (April 16, 1917 – November 25, 1999) was an American actor, perhaps best known for playing "Whitey" in Monogram Pictures' The Bowery Boys series. Early years Benedict was born in Haskell, Oklahoma, After his father's death when Billy was three years old, his mother supported him and his two sisters. He took part in school theatricals, and on leaving school he made his way to Hollywood. Career Benedict's first film was ''$10 Raise'' (1935) starring Edward Everett Horton, which launched the blond-haired young man on a busy career. He almost always played juvenile roles, such as newsboys, messengers, office boys, and farmhands. In 1939, when Universal Pictures began its Little Tough Guys series to compete with the popular Dead End Kids features, Billy Benedict was recruited into the cast. These films led him into the similar East Side Kids movies, usually playing a member of the East Side gang, but occasionally in villainous roles. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keep 'Em Slugging
''Keep 'Em Slugging'' is a 1943 American film starring the Little Tough Guys and directed by Christy Cabanne for Universal Pictures. Plot Summer vacation usually means that local teenagers will be working for crooked concessions at the carnival. Teenage gang leader Tommy Banning warns his own gang to stay away from the carnival, and take legitimate jobs to replace men who have gone to war. Unfortunately most gang members have criminal records for juvenile delinquency, and can't get jobs in the working world. When Tommy's sister Sheila asks her boss, Frank Moulton, at the Carruthers' department store where she works, he agrees to hire Tommy only if she goes on a date with him. Sheila won't do that, but her boyfriend Jerry Brady gets Tommy a job at the store. Tommy is smitten by salesgirl Suzanne Booker, and they go on a movie date together. At the theater, some of Tommy's gang (Pig, String, and Ape) turn up and noisily disrupt the movie. Soon enough Pig, String, and Ape all have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Side Kids
The East Side Kids were characters in a series of 22 films released by Monogram Pictures from 1940 through 1945. The series was a low-budget imitation of the Dead End Kids, a successful film franchise of the late 1930s. History The 1935 Sidney Kingsley Broadway play ''Dead End (play), Dead End'' was a portrait of life in the New York tenements, featuring six tough-talking juvenile delinquents. When film producer Samuel Goldwyn made a film out of the play, he recruited the original kids from the play: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, Billy Halop, and Bernard Punsly. In 1938, Warner Brothers signed these six actors for a series of ''Dead End Kids'' dramas, the most successful being 1938's ''Angels with Dirty Faces'' with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, and ''They Made Me a Criminal'' in 1939, starring John Garfield. Also in 1938, Universal Pictures offered a competing series, under the Little Tough Guys brand name. At one time or another, five of the original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leo Gorcey
Leo Bernard Gorcey (June 3, 1917– June 2, 1969) was an American stage and film actor, famous for portraying the leader of a group of street-wise city toughs known variously as the Dead End Kids, East Side Kids, the East Side Kids, and as adults, The Bowery Boys. Gorcey was famous for his use of Malapropism, malapropisms, such as "I depreciate it!" instead of "I appreciate it!" Early years Gorcey was born in New York City on June 3, 1917, the son of Josephine (née Condon), an Irish Catholic immigrant, and Bernard Gorcey, a Russian Jews, Russian Jewish immigrant. Both were vaudeville, vaudevillian actors of short stature. Bernard Gorcey was and his wife was . Their son reached in adulthood. Film career In the 1930s, Gorcey's father lived apart from the family while working in theater and film. When he returned in 1935, Leo's younger brother David Gorcey and he persuaded Leo to audition for a small part in the play ''Dead End''. Leo had just lost a job as a plumber's apprentice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation was an American film studio that produced mostly low-budget films between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram was among the smaller studios in the golden age of Hollywood, generally referred to collectively as Poverty Row. Lacking the financial resources to deliver the lavish sets, production values, and star power of the larger studios, Monogram sought to attract its audiences with the promise of action and adventure. The company's trademark is now owned by Allied Artists International. The original sprawling brick complex which functioned as home to both Monogram and Allied Artists remains at 4376 Sunset Drive, utilized as part of the Church of Scientology Media Center (formerly KCET's television facilities). History Monogram was created in the early 1930s from two earlier companies: W. Ray Johnston's Rayart Productions (renamed Raytone when sound pictures came in) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Youth Administration
The National Youth Administration (NYA) was a New Deal agency sponsored by Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt during his presidency. It focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25. It operated from June 26, 1935, to 1939 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and included a Division of Negro Affairs headed by Mary McLeod Bethune, who worked at the agency from 1936 to 1943. Following the passage of the Reorganization Act of 1939, the NYA was transferred from the WPA to the Federal Security Agency. In 1942, the NYA was transferred to the War Manpower Commission (WMC). The NYA was discontinued in 1943. By 1938, college youth were paid from $30 to $40 a month for cooperative education, "work study" projects at their schools. Another 155,000 boys and girls from relief families were paid $10 to $25 a month for part-time work that included job training. Unlike the Civilian Conservation Corps, it included young ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
