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Star Vehicles
In the motion picture industry, a star vehicle (or simply vehicle) is a film written or produced for a specific star, either to further their career or simply to profit from their current popularity. It is designed to optimally display that star's particular talents or personal appeal. The term is also applied to stage plays and television programs. In some cases, a performer may produce their own star vehicle as self-promotion or a vanity project. History Richard Dyer, who extensively studied the phenomenon of movie stars, defined the vehicle phenomenon in his 1979 book ''Stars'': Under the old studio system, vehicles were sometimes created for a promising young, inexperienced, or imported actor who had signed a long-term contract with a major studio. By showcasing that actor's talents, the vehicle was an attempt to create another bankable star bound to the studio until their contract expired. Usage Musicals and music-themed films have commonly used the star vehicle format ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for theatre, theatrical performance rather than mere Reading (process), reading. The creator of a play is known as a playwright. Plays are staged at various levels, ranging from London's West End theatre, West End and New York City's Broadway theatre, Broadway – the highest echelons of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world – to Regional theater in the United States, regional theatre, community theatre, and academic productions at universities and schools. A stage play is specifically crafted for performance on stage, distinct from works meant for broadcast or cinematic adaptation. They are presented on a stage before a live audience. Some dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, have shown little preference for whether their plays are performed or read. The term "play" encompasses the written texts of playwrights and their complete theatrical renditio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York Times''. Together with entrepreneur Raoul H. Fleischmann, they established the F-R Publishing Company and set up the magazine's first office in Manhattan. Ross remained the editor until his death in 1951, shaping the magazine's editorial tone and standards. ''The New Yorker''s fact-checking operation is widely recognized among journalists as one of its strengths. Although its reviews and events listings often focused on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' gained a reputation for publishing serious essays, long-form journalism, well-regarded fiction, and humor for a national and international audience, including work by writers such as Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, and Alice Munro. In the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
From Here To Eternity
''From Here to Eternity'' is a 1953 American romantic Drama (film and television)#War drama, war drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and written by Daniel Taradash, based on the 1951 From Here to Eternity (novel), novel of the same name by James Jones (author), James Jones. It deals with the tribulations of three United States Army soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra, stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed portray the women in their lives. The supporting cast includes Ernest Borgnine, Philip Ober, Jack Warden, Mickey Shaughnessy, Claude Akins, and George Reeves. It won 8 Academy Awards out of 13 nominations, including Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Picture, Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra), and Academy Aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meet Danny Wilson (film)
''Meet Danny Wilson'' is a 1952 American drama musical film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Frank Sinatra, Shelley Winters and Alex Nicol. Sinatra, during his famous career slump between his bobby-soxer heyday and ''From Here to Eternity'' (1953), plays a small-time singer, who vaults to the top of his profession, only to be threatened by a gangster (Raymond Burr). The circumstances of the making of this film are legendary, as Shelley Winters and Frank Sinatra hated each other. Winters, according to Kitty Kelley's "His Way", at one point in a pique of anger slugged Sinatra. He did not retaliate. Plot Hot-tempered singer Danny Wilson and easy-going pianist pal Mike Ryan get acquainted with Joy Carroll, also a singer. Danny slugs a cop and is thrown in jail, but Joy arranges his bail and a job at mobster Nick Driscoll's club. Danny's got double trouble because Nick not only demands 50% of all earnings, past and future, but also jealously loves Joy. The cops are keeping a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Sinatra Filmography
Frank Sinatra (1915–1998) was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. Over the course of his acting career he created a body of work that one biographer described as being "as varied, impressive and rewarding as that of any other Hollywood star". Sinatra began his career as a singer, initially in his native Hoboken, New Jersey, but increasing success led to a contract to perform on stage and radio across the United States. One of his earliest film roles was in the 1935 short film ''Major Bowes' Amateur Theatre of the Air'', a spin off from the ''Major Bowes Amateur Hour'' radio show. He appeared in a full-length film in an uncredited cameo singing performance in ''Las Vegas Nights'', singing "I'll Never Smile Again" with Tommy Dorsey's The Pied Pipers. His work with Dorsey's band also led to appearances in the full-length films ''Las Vegas Nights'' (1941) and ''Ship Ahoy (film), Ship Ahoy'' (19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, most popular entertainers of the 20th century. Sinatra is among the List of best-selling music artists, world's best-selling music artists, with an estimated 150 million record sales globally. Born to Italian Americans, Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era and was influenced by the easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby. He joined the Harry James band as the vocalist in 1939 before finding success as a solo artist after signing with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "Bobby-soxer, bobby soxers". In 1946, Sinatra released his debut album, ''The Voice of Frank Sinatra''. He then signed with Capitol Records and released several albums wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elvis Presley On Film And Television
Elvis Presley was an American entertainer and Laurel Award winning actor who achieved great initial success as a singer and stage performer. He publicly expressed an early career goal of following in the footsteps of his role models James Dean and Marlon Brando to become a top dramatic actor. His manager Colonel Tom Parker's persistent lobbying of William Morris Agency president Abe Lastfogel for a Presley screen test paid off on March 26, 1956, when the singer auditioned at Paramount for a supporting role in '' The Rainmaker''. Although not chosen for the part, he signed a contract with Paramount producer Hal Wallis on April 25 that also allowed him to make films with other studios. His feature debut was in '' Love Me Tender'' in 1956 for 20th Century Fox, which was the biggest acting debut of all time, with the commercial success of the soundtrack EP being a bellwether for the next three Presley films, '' Loving You'', '' Jailhouse Rock,'' and '' King Creole.'' Presley r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Presley's sexually provocative performance style, combined with a mix of influences across color lines during a civil rights movement, transformative era in race relations, brought both great success and Cultural impact of Elvis Presley#Danger to American culture, initial controversy. Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi; his family relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, when he was 13. He began his music career in 1954 at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on guitar and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, Backbeat (music), backbeat-driven fusion of country music and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, as well as the first openly Jewish man to become an entertainment star in the United States. He was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, along with popularizing many of the songs he sang. According to music historian Larry Stempel, "No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway." Stephen Banfield wrote that Jolson's style was "arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical." Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers". Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jazz Singer
''The Jazz Singer'' is a 1927 American part-talkie musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music and lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolated sequences). Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and effectively marked the end of the silent film era with the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, featuring six songs performed by Al Jolson. Based on the 1925 play of the same title by Samson Raphaelson, the plot was adapted from his short story "The Day of Atonement". The film depicts the fictional story of Jakie Rabinowitz, a young man who defies the traditions of his devout Jewish family. After singing popular tunes in a beer garden, he is punished by his father, a hazzan (cantor), prompting Jakie to run away from home. Some years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer, performing in bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers". The musical film was a natural development of the musical theater, stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if a live audience were watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegesis, diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. With the Sound film, advent of sound in the late 1920s, musicals gained popularity with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bankable Star
In the film industry, a bankable star is a film actor (movie star) "capable of guaranteeing box-office success simply by showing up in a movie". The bankability of an actor includes their films' box office track record, professional demeanor, and other factors. Hiring a bankable star helps a film company to secure investment, distribution, and garner media attention. Some bankable stars have so much star power that even films without a strong concept or "hook"―such as star vehicle films―are feasible to make. A bankable director is a similar notion. Overview Media consultant Blake Harris states that a bankable star is one of the "3 minimum ingredients to any film package," the other two being a successful film director, director and a movie script, script or a strong story idea. The involvement of a bankable star in a film gives investors confidence that they will achieve a return on their investments by ensuring that the film is widely distributed and that at least some pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
