1.
Busby Berkeley
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Busby Berkeley was a Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley devised elaborate musical numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeleys works used large numbers of showgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances, Berkeley was born in Los Angeles, California, to stage actress Gertrude Berkeley. Whether he was actually christened Busby Berkeley William Enos, or Berkeley William Enos, in addition to her stage work, Gertrude played mother roles in silent films while Berkeley was still a child. Berkeley made his stage début at five, acting in the company of his performing family, during World War I, Berkeley served as a field artillery lieutenant. Watching soldiers drill may have inspired his later complex choreography, during the 1920s, Berkeley was a dance director for nearly two dozen Broadway musicals, including such hits as A Connecticut Yankee. As a choreographer, Berkeley was less concerned with the skill of his chorus girls as he was with their ability to form themselves into attractive geometric patterns. His musical numbers were among the largest and best-regimented on Broadway, berkeleys top shot technique appeared seminally in the Cantor films, and also the 1932 Universal drama film Night World. As choreographer, Berkeley was allowed a degree of independence in his direction of musical numbers. Berkeleys popularity with an entertainment-hungry Great Depression audience was secured when he choreographed four musicals back-to-back for Warner Bros. 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, the aforementioned Gold Diggers of 1933, Dames, berkeleys innovative and often sexually charged dance numbers have been analyzed at length by cinema scholars. In particular, the numbers have been critiqued for their display of the form as seen through the male gaze. Berkeley always denied any deep significance to his work, arguing that his professional goals were to constantly top himself. As the outsized musicals in which Berkeley specialized became passé, he turned to straight directing, the result was 1939s They Made Me a Criminal, one of John Garfields best films. Berkeley had several well-publicized run-ins with MGM stars such as Judy Garland, in 1943, he was removed as director of Girl Crazy because of disagreements with Garland, although the lavish musical number I Got Rhythm, which he directed, remained in the picture. His next stop was at 20th Century-Fox for 1943s The Gangs All Here, the film made money, but Berkeley and the Fox brass disagreed over budget matters. Berkeley returned to MGM in the late 1940s, where many other accomplishments he conceived the Technicolor finales for the studios Esther Williams films. Berkeleys final film as choreographer was MGMs Billy Roses Jumbo, in the late 1960s, the camp craze brought the Berkeley musicals back to the forefront
2.
Hermes Pan
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Hermes Pan was an American dancer and choreographer, principally remembered as Fred Astaires choreographic collaborator on the famous 1930s movie musicals starring Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Pan was born Hermes Panagiotopoulos in 1909 in Memphis, Tennessee and his father, the Greek consul in Memphis, Tennessee was from Aigio in Peloponnese, where his family had opened the first theatre. Following the death of Pans father, his uncle held Pan, his sister and mother at gunpoint and burned all their shares and money on the grounds if he could not have them. Hermes and his sister Vasso were eventually raised Catholic by his mother, penniless, they moved to the poorest area of New York where Hermes learned his first tap dancing steps on the streets from local black children. At their lowest ebb, the family had only some potatoes and they vowed to commemorate that day and every year on June 13, they wrote down what they did and ate that day in a journal. The date became a family celebration, eventually the family headed West with Sammy, a black boy they met at a gas station, to Los Angeles, California. Pans career began with an appearance as a boy in 1928 in the Marx Brothers Broadway production of Animal Crackers. He also danced in partnership with his sister Vasso, who appeared in the chorus of many of the Astaire-Rogers pictures. He first met Ginger Rogers in 1930, when he appeared as a singer in the Broadway musical Top Speed. He retained links with his relatives in Greece and made a visit in the 1970s to meet them. He met Fred Astaire, whom he resembled, on the set of Flying Down to Rio. While Astaire was trying to out a series of steps for The Carioca number, it was suggested to him that Pan had a few ideas. Hermes Pan demonstrated a brief break he had picked up from his days in New York. He had previously received Academy Award nominations for the Top Hat and The Piccolino numbers from Top Hat, given Astaires obsessive rehearsal habits, this was no mean task. In addition, he recorded Gingers taps in post production in some numbers, Pan continued to collaborate with Astaire right up until the latters last musical picture, Finians Rainbow, which was a disaster on a number of fronts, not least for Pan himself. Eventually, Coppola fired Pan, who had a small part in the film. He appeared with Betty Grable in Moon Over Miami and Coney Island and his longest filmed dance routine is a complex tap duet with Grable in Footlight Serenade that echoes his work with Astaire and Rogers in which his similarity to Astaire is striking. He also appeared with Rita Hayworth in My Gal Sal and with Betty Grable again in Pin Up Girl, in these films he had non-speaking dancing roles and acted as choreographer
3.
The Great Ziegfeld
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The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 American musical drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg. It stars William Powell as the theatrical impresario Florenz Flo Ziegfeld, Jr. Luise Rainer as Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke. Many of the performers of the theatrical Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, and Billie Burke acted as a supervisor for the film. The A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody set alone was reported to have cost US$220,000, featuring a towering rotating volute of 70 ft diameter with 175 spiral steps, weighing 100 tons. The music to the film was provided by Walter Donaldson, Irving Berlin, the extravagant costumes were designed by Adrian, taking some 250 tailors and seamstresses six months to prepare them using 50 pounds of silver sequins and 12 yards of white ostrich plumes. Over a thousand people were employed in the production of the film and it won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture for producer Hunt Stromberg, Best Actress for Luise Rainer, and Best Dance Direction for Seymour Felix, and was nominated for four others. In 1951, they produced their Technicolor remake of Show Boat, the son of a highly respected music professor, Florenz Flo Ziegfeld, Jr. yearns to make his mark in show business. Flo travels to England on a liner, where he runs into Billings again who is laughing at a newspaper article denouncing him as a fraud. Flo discovers that Billings is on his way to sign a contract with beautiful French star, despite losing all his money gambling at Monte Carlo, Flo charms Anna into signing with him instead, pretending that he doesnt know Billings. Anna twice almost sends him away for his rudeness and for being broke, Ziegfeld promises to give her more publicity than she ever dreams of and to feature her alongside Americas most prominent theatrical performers. At first, Annas performance at the Herald Square Theatre is not a success, however, Flo manages to generate publicity by sending 20 gallons of milk to Anna every day for a fictitious milk bath beauty treatment, then refusing to pay the bill. The newspaper stories soon bring the curious to pack his theater, audience members comment on how the milk must make her skin beautiful and the show is a major success. Flo sends Anna flowers and jewelry and a note saying you were magnificent my wife, however, one success is not enough for the showman. He has an idea for a new kind of show featuring a bevy of blondes and brunettes. The new show, the Ziegfeld Follies, an opulent production filled with women and highly extravagant costumes and sets, is a smash hit. Ziegfeld tries to make an out of Audrey Dane, who is plagued with alcoholism. He gives stagehand Ray Bolger his break as well, mary Lou, now a young woman, visits Ziegfeld, who doesnt recognize her initially, and hires her as a dancer. The new production upsets Anna, who realizes that Flos world does not revolve around just her and she divorces him after walking in on Flo and a drunk Audrey at the wrong moment
4.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
5.
Academy Award for Best Director
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The Academy Award for Best Director is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of a director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry. However, these categories were merged for all subsequent ceremonies, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the directors branch of AMPAS, winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy. For the first eleven years of the Academy Awards, directors were allowed to be nominated for multiple films in the same year, the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 89 films that have been awarded Best Picture,63 have also been awarded Best Director, since its inception, the award has been given to 69 directors or directing teams. John Ford has received the most awards in this category with four, william Wyler was nominated on twelve occasions, more than any other individual. As of the 2017 ceremony, Damien Chazelle is the most recent winner in category for his work on La La Land. Chazelle also became the youngest director in history to receive this award, two directing teams have shared the award, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story in 1961 and Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men in 2007. The Coen brothers are the siblings to have won the award. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full calendar year from January 1 to December 31. org The Academy Awards Database Oscar. com
6.
Academy Award for Best Actor
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The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Emil Jannings receiving the award for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actors were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actor is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, since its inception, the award has been given to 79 actors. Daniel Day-Lewis has received the most awards in this category with three Oscars, spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were nominated on nine occasions, more than any other actor. As of the 2017 ceremony, Casey Affleck is the most recent winner in category for his role as Lee Chandler in Manchester by the Sea. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
7.
Academy Award for Best Actress
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The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Janet Gaynor receiving the award for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actresses were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actress is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, one actress has been nominated posthumously, Jeanne Eagels. Only three film characters have been nominated more than once in this category, elizabeth I of England, Leslie Crosbie in The Letter, and Esther Blodgett in A Star is Born. Six women on the list have received an Honorary Academy Award for their acting, they are Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Pickford, Deborah Kerr, Gena Rowlands, since its inception, the award has been given to 74 actresses. Katharine Hepburn has won the most awards in this category, with four Oscars, meryl Streep, who has a total of 20 Oscar nominations, has been nominated in this category on 16 occasions, resulting in two awards. As of the 2017 ceremony, Emma Stone is the most recent winner in category for her role as Mia Dolan in La La Land. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
8.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion pictures. The Academys corporate management and general policies are overseen by a Board of Governors, the roster of the Academys approximately 6,000 motion picture professionals is a closely guarded secret. While the great majority of its members are based in the United States, the Academy is known around the world for its annual Academy Awards, now officially known as The Oscars. The Academy plans to open the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles in 2017, the notion of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences began with Louis B. He said he wanted to create an organization that would mediate labor disputes without unions and he met with actor Conrad Nagel, director Fred Niblo, and the head of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, Fred Beetsonto to discuss these matters. The idea of this elite club having a banquet was discussed. They also established that membership into the organization would only be open to people involved in one of the five branches of the industry, actors, directors, writers, technicians, and producers. That evening Mayer presented to those guests what he called the International Academy of Motion Picture Arts, everyone in the room that evening became a founder of the Academy. Several organizational meetings were held prior to the first official meeting held on May 6,1927 and their first organizational meeting was held on May 11. At that meeting Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was elected as the first president of the Academy, while Fred Niblo was the first vice-president and that night, the Academy also bestowed its first honorary membership, to Thomas Edison. Initially, the Academy was broken down into five groups, or branches. The original five were, Producers, Actors, Directors, Writers, the initial concerns of the group had to do with labor. However, as went on, the organization moved further away from involvement in labor-management arbitrations and negotiations. By July 1928 the board of directors had approved a list of 12 awards to be presented, during July the voting system for the Awards was established, and the nomination and selection process began. This award of merit for distinctive achievement is what we know now as the Academy Award, the initial location of the organization was 6912 Hollywood Boulevard. In May 1928, the Academy authorized the construction of a state of the art screening room, the screening room was not completed until April 1929. With the publication of Report on Incandescent Illumination in 1928, the Academy began a history of publishing books to assist its members. Another early initiative concerned training Army Signal Corps officers, in 1929 Academy members in a joint venture with the University of Southern California created Americas first film school to further the art and science of moving pictures
9.
LeRoy Prinz
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He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Dance Direction in the 1930s, and won the Golden Globe in 1958. Among the films whose dances he choreographed were Show Boat, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Rhapsody in Blue, LeRoy Jerome Prinz was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. His grandfather was a master, and his father taught ballroom dancing etiquette to young men and women at Prinzs Academy in St. Joseph. According to one account, he was sent to school after chasing his stepmother with a carving knife. Later that year, he told interviewers, he went on a ship to Europe as a boy, jumped ship. In Marseilles he joined the French Foreign Legion, serving as a bugler in Algiers and he also represented a rubber company in St. Louis and Kansas City. After the outbreak of World War I, he returned to France, was trained as a pilot and he was with the 94th from November 1917 to June 1918, when he switched to the 27th Aero Squadron, where he stayed until November 1918. At the 27th his duties included working at the Aircraft Acceptance Park test facility at Orly, according to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times, Prinz returned to the U. S. in 1919 and studied theater at Northwestern University. After graduation from Northwestern, the reported, Prinz returned to France. A November 1919 St. Louis Post-Dispatch report states that Prinz was employed in the portion of an American Legion show, also featuring actor William S. Hart. The newspaper gives Prinzs rank as captain and states that he was a partner of Quentin Roosevelt. A Wisconsin newspaper reported in 1921 that Prinz, which it said had danced with Al Jolson, was teaching dance at a camp for wounded veterans. The newspaper said that Prinz himself had fallen 3000 feet but had recovered and he told interviewers that he worked for gangster Jim Colosimos restaurant in Chicago, and that he produced stage shows for Al Capone. He claimed in a 1945 New York Times profile that Capone hired him to book entertainment, Prinz left Chicago and worked as a dance director in New York, Florida, Mexico and Cuba. His employers included Earl Carroll, Broadways Shubert family, Tex Guinan and he choreographed Earl Carrolls Vanities of 1930 and other Broadway shows between 1929 and 1933. His first employment in films was in 1931 by director Cecil B, deMille, who employed him as dance director. While filming Cleopatra, Prinz clashed with DeMilles niece Agnes de Mille, according to Agnes de Milles biographer, her uncle always deferred to the reliable but pedestrian Prinz, even after agreeing to his nieces flamboyant dances in advance. Agnes de Mille left the film and he worked in over 150 films, mainly as a choreographer, among them The Desert Song, Tea for Two, and The Jazz Singer, a remake of the first sound movie
10.
She (1935 film)
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She is a 1935 American film produced by Merian C. Based on H. Rider Haggards novel of the same name, the film reached a new generation of moviegoers with a 1949 re-release. The ancient civilization of Kor is depicted in an Art Deco style with special effects. The setting is Arctic Siberia, rather than in Africa, as in the first book, the third book is set in the Himalayas. With music by Max Steiner, the film stars Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott and it was hoped that She would follow Coopers previous success, King Kong. Cooper had originally intended to shoot the film in color, but budget cuts by RKO forced him to shoot the film in black, however, the black and white film had disappointing results at the box office. It initially lost $180,000, although it later had a successful re-release, the film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilsons book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made. In 2006, Legend Films and Ray Harryhausen colorized the film as a tribute to Cooper, the colorized trailer for She premiered at the 2006 Comic-Con. She was considered a lost film for years until an original print. She originally had a time of 102 minutes, but on its 1949 re-release, was edited down to 94 minutes. The 8 minutes of missing scenes, taken from a lower quality 16mm print, were finally reinstated in 2007 by Kino Video. Following the route outlined in an old journal, Leo and Holly travel through frozen wastes, as a guide named Tugmore and his daughter, Tanya join them on their quest. They stumble upon the ancient city of Kor, where they are attacked by cannibals but are saved by She Who Must Be Obeyed and her Minister Billali. She believes that Leo is the reincarnation of her lover, John Vincey, Tanya warns Leo that nothing human can live forever. At the end, She asks Leo to step into the Flame of Life with her, when Leo hesitates, She offers to step in first. Rather than renewing her youth, She ages hundreds of years, becomes a withered mummy-like creature, Leo, Holly and Tanya then safely make their escape. The ageless ice goddess served as inspiration for the Evil Queen in Walt Disneys Snow White, the film version conflates characters, events and locations from all three books, The location of Ayeshas realm is a free adaptation from the second novel. In the film, it is located in the north of the Russian Arctic, whereas in the original novel She the city of Kor is located in eastern Africa
11.
Gold Diggers of 1935
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Gold Diggers of 1935 is an American musical film directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Starring Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Stuart and Alice Brady, featuring Winifred Shaw, Hugh Herbert, the film is best known for the famous Lullaby of Broadway production number, which features Shaw singing the song which won Harry Warren and Al Dubin an Academy Award. Both the original and the 1933 film made a deal of money for Warner Bros. It was followed by Gold Diggers of 1937 and Gold Diggers in Paris, in the resort of Lake Waxapahachie, the swanky Wentworth Plaza is where the rich all congregate, and where the tips flow like wine. Mrs. Prentiss wants Ann to marry eccentric middle-aged millionaire T. Mosley Thorpe, whos an expert on snuffboxes. Meanwhile her brother, Humbolt has a weakness for a pretty face, hes been married, every summer, Mrs. Prentiss produces a charity show for the Milk Fund, and this year she hires the flamboyant and conniving Russian dance director Nicolai Nicoleff to direct the show. Dick Powell as Dick Curtis Adolphe Menjou as Nicolai Nicoleff Gloria Stuart as Ann Prentiss Alice Brady as Matilda Prentiss Hugh Herbert as T. Lullaby of Broadway – One of the most famous Busby Berkeley numbers is actually a short film-within-a-film, which tells the story of a Broadway Baby who plays all night and sleeps all day. It opens with a shot of singer Wini Shaw against a black background, then the camera pulls back and up. As everyone rushes off to work, Shaw returns home from her nights carousing, when she awakens, that night, we follow her and her beau from club to club, with elaborate large cast tap numbers, until she is accidentally pushed off a balcony to her death. The sequence ends with a return to Shaws head, as she sings the end of the song, of all the musical numbers Berkeley created in his career, he named this as his personal favorite. Gold Diggers of 1935 was in production at Warner Bros, burbank studios until 14 January 1935, and was released on 15 March of that year. During production a chorus dancer, Jack Grieves, died on the set due to acute indigestion, Harry Warren and Al Dubin received an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Lullaby of Broadway, and Busby Berkeley was nominated for Best Dance Direction. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists,2004, AFIs 100 Years
