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Kismet (1944 Film)
''Kismet'' is a 1944 American Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film in Technicolor starring Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, Joy Page, and Florence Bates. James Craig played the young Caliph of Baghdad, and Edward Arnold was the treacherous Grand Vizier. It was directed by William Dieterle, but was not a success at the box office. Dieterle had directed Dietrich two decades before in the German silent film '' Man by the Wayside'', which was both the first role in which Dietrich was cast competitively and Dieterle's directorial debut. The film is based on the play of the same name by Edward Knoblock, which was also the basis for a 1953 musical. The play had been filmed three times before, in 1914, 1920, and again in 1930 by Warner Brothers in an English version directed by John Francis Dillon and in a German-language version directed by William Dieterle that was released in 1931. Plot The story takes place "when old Baghdad was new and shiny", in an Arabian Nights atmosphere. Colma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Dieterle
William Dieterle (July 15, 1893 – December 9, 1972) was a German-born actor and film director who emigrated to the United States in 1930 to leave a worsening political situation. He worked in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood primarily as a director for much of his career, becoming a United States citizen in 1937. He moved back to Germany in the late 1950s. His best-known films include ''The Story of Louis Pasteur'' (1936), ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939 film), The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' (1939) and ''The Devil and Daniel Webster (film), The Devil and Daniel Webster'' (1941). His film ''The Life of Emile Zola'' (1937) won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the second biographical feature to do so. Early life and career He was born Wilhelm Dieterle in Ludwigshafen, the youngest child of nine, to factory worker Jacob and Berthe (Doerr) Dieterle. As a child, he lived in considerable poverty and earned money by various means, including carpentry and as a scrap dealer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joy Page
Joy Page (born Joy Cerrette Paige; November 9, 1924 – April 18, 2008) was an American actress. She is best known for her role as the Bulgarian refugee Annina Brandel in ''Casablanca'' (1942). She was sometimes credited as Joanne Page. Early life Page was the daughter of Mexican-American silent film star Don Alvarado (born José Ray Paige, in New Mexico) and Ann Boyar, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Her parents divorced when she was eight. In 1936, her mother married Jack L. Warner, then head of Warner Bros. studios. Warner, however, did not encourage his stepdaughter's interest in acting. Career Page, who initially thought the script to ''Casablanca'' was "old fashioned" and "clichéd", landed the role of Annina Brandel on her own and Warner reluctantly approved. She was only seventeen and fresh out of high school. Page, along with Dooley Wilson and Humphrey Bogart, were the only American-born feature actors in the film. Warner, however, refused to sign Page t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Morgan
Francis Phillip Wuppermann (June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949), known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous sound films throughout the 1930s and 1940s, with a career spanning 35 yearsObituary ''Variety Obituaries, Variety'', September 21, 1949, page 63. mostly as a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He is best-known for his multiple roles, including the title role of Wizard of Oz (character), Oscar Diggs/The Wizard in the 1939 MGM film ''The Wizard of Oz''. He was also briefly billed early in his career as Frank Wupperman and Francis Morgan. Early life Morgan was born on June 1, 1890, in New York City, to Josephine Wright (née Hancox) and George Diogracia Wuppermann. He was the youngest of 11 children and had five brothers and five sisters. The elder Mr. Wuppermann was born in Venezuela but was brought up in Hamburg, Germany, and was of German a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Warwick
Robert Warwick (born Robert Taylor Bien; October 9, 1878 – June 6, 1964) was an American stage, film and television actor with over 200 film appearances. A matinee idol during the silent film era, he also prospered after the introduction of Talkies, sound to cinema. As a young man he had studied opera singing in Paris and had a rich, resonant voice. At the age of 50, he developed as a highly regarded, aristocratic character actor and made numerous "talkies". Early life Warwick was born Robert Taylor Bien in 1878 to Louis and Isabel (Taylor) Bien. Some sources say he was born in England; others say Sacramento, California. His father was of French ethnicity. Bien studied music in Paris and trained for two years to be an opera singer, but acting proved to be his greater calling. He met his future wife, Arline Peck in Paris; the American couple married in 1902. After his return to the United States, he started in theatre and then film. Stage Warwick (by then using his st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hobart Cavanaugh
Hobart Cavanaugh (September 22, 1886 – April 26, 1950 ) was an American character actor in films and on stage. Biography Cavanaugh was born in Virginia City, Nevada, on September 22, 1886. He attended the University of California, then worked in vaudeville, teaming with Walter Catlett at some point. He appeared in numerous Broadway productions, including the original 1919 musical '' Irene'' and the long-running 1948 musical ''As the Girls Go''. He made his film debut in '' San Francisco Nights'' (1928). Over the next few years he established himself as a supporting actor, and although many of his roles were small and received no film credit, he played more substantial roles in films such as '' I Cover the Waterfront'' (1933) and '' Mary Stevens, M.D.'' (1933). By the mid-1930s, he was appearing in more prestigious productions, such as ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (1935), '' Captain Blood'' (1935), '' Wife vs. Secretary'' (1936) and '' A Letter to Three Wives'' (1949). He co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Herbert
Hugh Herbert (August 10, 1885 – March 12, 1952) was an American motion picture comedian. He began his career in vaudeville and wrote more than 150 plays and sketches. Career Born in Binghamton, New York, Herbert attended Cornell University. As an actor, he "had many serious roles, and for years was seen on major vaudeville circuits as a pathetic old Hebrew." The advent of talking pictures brought stage-trained actors to Hollywood, and Herbert soon became a popular movie comedian. His screen character was usually flustered and absent-minded. He would flutter his fingers together and talk to himself, repeating the same phrases: "Hoo-hoo-hoo, wonderful, wonderful, hoo hoo hoo!" So many imitators (including Curly Howard of The Three Stooges, Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy and Etta Candy in the Wonder Woman comic book series) copied the catchphrase as "woo woo" that Herbert even began to use "woo woo" rather than "hoo hoo" in the 1940s. Herbert's early movies, like Wheeler & ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Davenport (actor)
Harold George Bryant Davenport (January 19, 1866August 9, 1949) was an American film and stage actor who worked in show business from the age of six until his death. After a long and prolific Broadway career, he came to Hollywood in the 1930s, where he often played grandfathers, judges, doctors, and ministers. His roles include Dr. Meade in ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and Grandpa in '' Meet Me in St. Louis'' (1944). Bette Davis once called Davenport "without a doubt . .the greatest character actor of all time." Early life Harry Davenport was born January 19, 1866, in Boston. Harry came from a long line of stage actors; his father was thespian Edward Loomis Davenport and his mother, Fanny Vining Davenport, was an English actress and a descendant of the renowned 18th-century Irish stage actor Jack Johnson. His sister was actress Fanny Davenport. Career He made his stage debut - at the third Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia - at the age of five in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabian Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition (), which rendered the title as ''The Arabian Nights' Entertainments''. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa. Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature. Most tales, however, were originally folk stories from the Abbasid and Mamluk eras, while others, especially the frame story, are probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work (, ), which in turn may be translations of older Indian texts. Common to all the editions of the ''Nights'' is the framing device of the story of the ruler Shahryar being narrated the tales by his wife Scheherazade, with one tale told over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the Arab world, most populous cities in the Middle East and Arab world and forms 22% of the Demographics of Iraq, country's population. Spanning an area of approximately , Baghdad is the capital of its Baghdad Governorate, governorate and serves as Iraq's political, economic, and cultural hub. Founded in 762 AD by Al-Mansur, Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and became its most notable development project. The city evolved into a cultural and intellectual center of the Muslim world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". For much of the Abbasid era, duri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Francis Dillon (director)
John Francis Dillon (July 13, 1884 – April 4, 1934) was an American film director and actor of the silent film, silent era. He directed 130 films between 1914 and 1934. He also appeared in 74 films between 1914 and 1931. He was born in New York, New York, was a brother of Robert A. Dillon, and died in Los Angeles, California from a myocardial infarction, heart attack. He was married to the actress Edith Hallor. Partial filmography * ''Dough and Dynamite'' (1914) * ''Indiscreet Corinne'' (1917) * ''Suds (film), Suds'' (1920) * ''The Plaything of Broadway'' (1921) * ''The Cub Reporter'' (1922) * ''The Yellow Stain'' (1922) * ''Flaming Youth (film), Flaming Youth'' (1923) * ''Double Dealing (1923 film), Double Dealing'' (1923) (actor) * ''The Self-Made Wife'' (1923) * ''The Broken Violin (1923 film), The Broken Violin'' (1923) * ''Lilies of the Field (1924 film), Lilies of the Field'' (1924) * ''Flirting with Love'' (1924) * ''The Perfect Flapper'' (1924) * ''The Half-Way Gir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Founded on April 4, 1923, by four brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American film industry before diversifying into animation, television, and video games. It is one of the " Big Five" major American film studios and a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The company is known for its film studio division, the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, which includes Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, Castle Rock Entertainment and the Warner Bros. Television Group. Bugs Bunny, a character created for the ''Looney Tunes'' series, is the company's official mascot. History Founding The company's name originated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kismet (musical)
''Kismet'' is a musical adapted by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis from the 1911 play of the same name by Edward Knoblock, with lyrics and musical adaptation (as well as some original music) by Robert Wright and George Forrest. The music was mostly adapted from several pieces composed by Alexander Borodin. The story concerns a wily poet who talks his way out of trouble several times; meanwhile, his beautiful daughter meets and falls in love with the young caliph. The musical was first produced on Broadway in 1953 and won the Tony Award for best musical in 1954. It was also successful in London's West End and has been given several revivals. A 1955 film version was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Background The musical was commissioned by Edwin Lester, founder and director of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, who conceived of a musical based on the 1911 play '' Kismet'' by Edward Knoblock.Rooney, David''Kismet'' ''Variety'', February 10, 2006, accessed November 28, 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
