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Nightmare Alley (1947 Film)
''Nightmare Alley'' is a 1947 American film noir directed by Edmund Goulding from a screenplay by Jules Furthman. Based on William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 novel of the same name, it stars Tyrone Power, with Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker in supporting roles. Power, wishing to expand beyond the romantic and swashbuckler roles that brought him to fame, requested 20th Century-Fox's studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck to buy the rights to the novel so he could star as the unsavory lead "The Great Stanton", a scheming carnival barker. The film premiered in the United States on October 9, 1947, then went into wide release on October 28, 1947, later having six more European releases between November 1947 to May 1954. As noted on the DVD commentary track by Alain Silver and James Ursini, ''Nightmare Alley'' was somewhat unusual among film noir in having top stars, production staff and a relatively large budget. The film was not a financial success upon its original release ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Goulding
Edmund Goulding (20 March 1891 – 24 December 1959) was a British screenwriter and film director. As an actor early in his career he was one of the 'Ghosts' in the 1922 silent film '' Three Live Ghosts'' alongside Norman Kerry and Cyril Chadwick. Also in the early 1920s he wrote several screenplays for star Mae Murray for films directed by her then husband Robert Z. Leonard. Goulding is best remembered for directing cultured dramas such as ''Love'' (1927), '' Grand Hotel'' (1932) with Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford, ''Dark Victory'' (1939) with Bette Davis, '' The Constant Nymph'' (1943) with Joan Fontaine, and '' The Razor's Edge'' (1946) with Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power. He also directed the classic film noir '' Nightmare Alley'' (1947) with Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, and the action drama '' The Dawn Patrol''. He was also a successful songwriter, composer, and producer. Biography Before moving to films, Goulding was an actor, playwright and director on the London s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barker (occupation)
A barker, often a carnival barker, is a person who attempts to attract patrons to entertainment events, such as a circus or funfair, by exhorting passing members of the public, announcing attractions of the show, and emphasizing variety, novelty, beauty, or some other enticing feature of the show. A barker would often conduct a brief free show, introducing performers and describing acts to be given at the feature performance. Professional barkers strongly disliked the term and generally refer to themselves and each other as "talkers". Perhaps the most famous fictional barkers are Billy Bigelow, the protagonist of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic stage musical '' Carousel'', and Tin Man, a supporting protagonist from the 1978 musical film '' The Wiz'' portrayed by Nipsey Russell. Bigelow, in turn was an Americanized version of Liliom, the protagonist of Hungarian author Ferenc Molnár's non-musical play '' Liliom'', on which ''Carousel'' is based. The term barker has been ada ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Keith
Ian Keith (born Keith Ross; February 27, 1899 – March 26, 1960) was an American actor. Early years Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Keith grew up in Chicago. He was educated at the Francis Parker School there and played Hamlet in a school production at age 16. Career Keith was a veteran character actor of the stage, and appeared in a variety of colorful roles in silent features of the 1920s. In 1919, as Keith Ross, he acted with the Copley Repertory Theatre in Boston. On Broadway, as Ian Keith, he performed in ''The Andersonville Trial'' (1959), ''Edwin Booth'' (1958), ''Saint Joan'' (1956), ''Touchstone'' (1953), ''The Leading Lady'' (1948), ''A Woman's a Fool - to Be Clever'' (1938), ''Robin Landing'' (1937), ''King Richard II'' (1937), ''Best Sellers'' (1933), ''Hangman's Whip'' (1933), ''Firebird'' (1932), ''Queen Bee'' (1929), ''The Command Performance'' (1928), ''The Master of the Inn'' (1925), ''Laugh, Clown, Laugh!'' (1923), ''As You Like It'' (1923), ''The Czarin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Mazurki
Mike Mazurki (December 25, 1907 – December 9, 1990, born Markiian Yulianovych Mazurkevych) was a Ukrainian-American actor and professional wrestler who appeared in more than 142 films. Although educated as an attorney, his hulking 6 ft 5 in (196 cm) presence, craggy face, and croaking voice had him often typecast as brainless athletes, tough guys, thugs, and gangsters. Memorable roles included Moose Malloy in ''Murder, My Sweet'' (1944), Splitface in ''Dick Tracy'' (1945), Yusuf in ''Sinbad the Sailor'' (1947), and "The Strangler" in '' Night and the City'' (1950). He was the founder and first president of the Cauliflower Alley Club. Early years Mazurki was born Markiian Yulianovych Mazurkevych in the village of Kupczyńce (in present-day Kupchyntsi, Ternopil Raion), near what was then Tarnopol, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Ternopil, Ukraine). Mazurki attended high school at the LaSalle Institute in Troy, New York. Upon graduation, he changed his name to "Mike". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taylor Holmes
Taylor Holmes (May 16, 1878 – January 29, 1959) was an American actor who appeared in over 100 Broadway theatre, Broadway plays in his five-decade career. However, he is probably best remembered for his screen performances, which he began on silent films in 1917. Early life Holmes was born on May 16, 1878, in Newark, New Jersey. Career Stage He made his Broadway debut in February 1900 in the controversial play Sapho (play), Sapho, which was briefly closed for indecency. Holmes played Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Rosencrantz with E. H. Sothern in a production of Hamlet and toured with Robert Edeson. He appeared in stage hits such as ''The Commuters'', ''The Music Master,'' and ''His Majesty Bunker Bean (play), His Majesty Bunker Bean''. Film Early film appearances included ''Efficiency Edgar's Courtship'' and ''Fools for Luck''. One of his first starring roles was in ''A Pair of Sixes (film), A Pair of Sixes'' (1918). By the 1940s, he was working more on film than on s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sideshow
In North America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, traveling carnival, carnival, fair, or other such attraction. They historically featured human oddity exhibits (so-called “Freak show, freak shows”), preserved specimens (real or fabricated, such as the Fiji mermaid, Fiji Mermaid), live animal acts, burlesque or Striptease, strip shows, actually or ostensibly dangerous stunts, or stunts that appear painful like human blockhead. Most modern sideshows feature fewer to no animal acts, and have a greater focus on trainable feats or consensual body modification rather than exhibiting people with congenital disabilities, either due to changing public opinion or local laws prohibiting the exhibition of disabled people or animals. Trainable acts associated with sideshows include sword swallowing, Fire breathing (circus act), fire breathing and manipulation, Magic (illusion), magic and visual illusions, human blockhead, knife throwing, lying on a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shotgun Marriage
A shotgun wedding is a wedding arranged in response to pregnancy resulting from premarital sex. The phrase comes from the figurative imagining that the relatives of the pregnant bride threaten the reluctant male groom with a shotgun in order to ensure that he marries the woman. Rationale One purpose of such a wedding can be to get recourse from the man for the act of impregnation; another reason is trying to ensure that the child is raised by both parents. In some cases, as in early U.S. and in the Middle East, a major objective was restoring the social honor of the mother. The practice is a loophole method of preventing the birth of illegitimate children, or if the marriage occurs early enough in the gestation period, to conceal the fact that conception had already occurred prior to marriage. In some societies, the stigma attached to pregnancy out of wedlock can be enormous, and coercive means (in spite of the legal defense of undue influence) for gaining recourse are o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carny
Carny, also spelled carnie, is an informal term used in North America for a traveling carnival employee, and the language they use, particularly when the employee operates a game ("joint"), food stand ("grab", "popper", or "floss wagon"), or ride ("ride jock") at a carnival. The term "showie" is used synonymously in Australia, while "showman" is used in the United Kingdom. Etymology ''Carny'' is thought to have become popularized around 1931 in North America, when it was first colloquially used to describe one who works at a carnival. The word ''carnival'', originally meaning a "time of merrymaking before Lent" and referring to a time denoted by lawlessness (often ritualised under a lord of misrule figure and intended to show the consequences of social chaos), came into use around 1549. Carny language The carny vocabulary is traditionally part of carnival cant, a secret language. It is an ever-changing form of communication, in large part designed to be impossible to understa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moonshine
Moonshine is alcohol proof, high-proof liquor, traditionally made or distributed alcohol law, illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of distilling the alcohol (drug), alcohol at night to avoid detection. In the first decades of the 21st century, commercial distilleries have adopted the term for its outlaw cachet and have begun producing their own legal "moonshine", including many novelty flavored varieties, that are said to continue the tradition by using a similar method and/or locale of production. In 2013, moonshine accounted for about one-third of global alcohol consumption. Terminology Different languages and countries have their own terms for moonshine . Fractional crystallization The ethanol may be concentrated in fermented beverages by means of freezing. For example, the name ''Applejack (drink), applejack'' derives from the traditional method of producing the drink, ''wikt:jack#Verb, jacking'', the process of Freeze distillation#Freeze distillation, fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wood Alcohol
Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical compound and the simplest aliphatic alcohol, with the chemical formula (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often abbreviated as MeOH). It is a light, volatile, colorless and flammable liquid with a distinctive alcoholic odor similar to that of ethanol (potable alcohol), but is more acutely toxic than the latter. Methanol acquired the name wood alcohol because it was once produced through destructive distillation of wood. Today, methanol is mainly produced industrially by hydrogenation of carbon monoxide. Methanol consists of a methyl group linked to a polar hydroxyl group. With more than 20 million tons produced annually, it is used as a precursor to other commodity chemicals, including formaldehyde, acetic acid, methyl ''tert''-butyl ether, methyl benzoate, anisole, peroxyacids, as well as a host of more specialized chemicals. Occurrence Small amounts of methanol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle 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 and dances. Vaudeville became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time. 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 films. A vaudeville performer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geek Show
Geek shows were an act in traveling carnivals and circuses of early United States, America and were often part of a larger sideshow. The billed performer's act consisted of a single wikt:geek, geek, who stood in the center ring to chase live chickens. It ended with the performer biting the chickens' heads off and swallowing them. The geek shows were often used as openers for what are commonly known as freak shows. It was a matter of pride among circus and carnival professionals not to have traveled with a troupe that included geeks. Geeks were often alcoholics or drug addicts, and paid with liquor – especially during Prohibition in the United States, Prohibition – or with illegal drug trade, narcotics. In modern usage, the term "geek show" is often applied to situations where an audience is drawn to a performance or show where the performance consists of a horrific act that the crowd finds distasteful but ultimately entertaining. It may also be used by a single person in refe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
