1.
Nancy Drew... Reporter
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Reporter is a 1939 American mystery film directed by William Clemens and written by Kenneth Gamet. The film stars Bonita Granville as Nancy Drew, John Litel, Frankie Thomas, Mary Lee, Dickie Jones, the film was released by Warner Bros. on February 18,1939. Nancy Drew, competing in the local newspapers amateur reporter contest, jackson as City Editor Bostwick Olin Howland as Sergeant Entwhistle Sheila Bromley as Bonnie Lucas Art Smith as news editor Jimmy Conlin as newspaper morgue librarian Nancy Drew. Reporter at the Internet Movie Database Nancy Drew, reporter is available for free download at the Internet Archive
2.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
3.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
4.
Frank Capra
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Frank Russell Capra was an Italian-American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, during World War II, Capra served in the U. S. Army Signal Corps and produced propaganda films, such as the Why We Fight series. After World War II, Capras career declined as his films such as Its a Wonderful Life. In succeeding decades, however, these films have been favorably reassessed, outside of directing, Capra was active in the film industry, engaging in various political and social issues. He served as President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, worked alongside the Screenwriters Guild, Capra was born Francesco Rosario Capra in Bisacquino, Sicily, a village near Palermo. He was the youngest of seven children of Salvatore Capra, a grower. The name Capra, notes Capras biographer Joseph McBride, represents his familys closeness to the land, and means goat. For Capra, the journey, which took 13 days, remained in his mind for the rest of his life as one of his worst experiences, very few people have trunks or anything that takes up space. They have just what they can carry in their hands or in a bag, theres no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. Its the most degrading place you could ever be, Capra remembers the ships arrival in New York Harbor, where he saw a statue of a great lady, taller than a church steeple, holding a torch above the land we were about to enter. He recalls his fathers exclamation at the sight, Ciccio, look, thats the greatest light since the star of Bethlehem. The family settled in Los Angeless East Side which Capra described in his autobiography as an Italian ghetto, Capras father worked as a fruit picker and young Capra sold newspapers after school for 10 years, until he graduated from high school. Instead of working after graduating, as his parents wanted, he enrolled in college and he studied chemical engineering and graduated in the spring of 1918. Capra later wrote that his education had changed his whole viewpoint on life from the viewpoint of an alley rat to the viewpoint of a cultured person. Soon after graduating college, Capra was commissioned in the US Army as a second lieutenant, in the Army, he taught mathematics to artillerymen at Fort Point, San Francisco. His father died during the war in an accident, in the Army, Capra contracted Spanish flu and was medically discharged to return home to live with his mother. He became a naturalized U. S. citizen in 1920, living at home with his siblings and mother, Capra was the only family member with a college education, yet he was the only one who remained chronically unemployed. After recovering at home, Capra moved out and spent the few years living in flophouses in San Francisco and hopping freight trains
5.
It's a Wonderful Life
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The film is now among the most popular in American cinema and because of numerous television showings in the 1980s has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season. Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community of Bedford Falls would be had he never been born. Despite initially performing poorly financially because of production costs and stiff competition at the time of its release. Theatrically, the films break-even point was $6.3 million, approximately twice the production cost, an appraisal in 2006 reported, Although it was not the complete box office failure that today everyone believes. Its a Wonderful Life is one of the most acclaimed films ever made, Capra revealed that the film was his personal favorite among those he directed, adding that he screened it for his family every Christmas season. On Christmas Eve 1945, in Bedford Falls, New York, prayers for him reach Heaven, where Clarence Odbody, Angel 2nd Class, is assigned to save George in order to earn his angel wings. To prepare, Clarence is shown flashbacks of Georges life, the first is in 1919, when 12-year-old George saves his younger brother Harry, who falls through the ice on a frozen pond, from drowning, George loses his hearing in one ear as a result. On Harrys graduation night in 1928, George talks to Mary Hatch and they are interrupted by news of his fathers death. George postpones his plans in order to sort out the family business, Bailey Brothers Building and Loan, a longtime competitor to Henry F. Potter, the local banker. Potter wishes to dissolve the Building and Loan to take over its business, George convinces the board of directors to vote against Potter. They agree, on condition that George runs the business, along with his absent-minded uncle Billy, on their way to their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank and use their honeymoon savings to lend financial support at the Building and Loan until the bank reopens. Potter, frustrated at losing control of the market, attempts to lure George into becoming his assistant, George is momentarily tempted. During World War II, George is ineligible for service because of his bad ear, Harry becomes a Navy pilot and shoots down a kamikaze plane that would have bombed an amphibious transport, he is awarded the Medal of Honor. On Christmas Eve morning 1945, the town prepares a welcome for Harry. Uncle Billy goes to Potters bank to deposit $8,000 for the Building, upon seeing the money, Potter realizes the potential scandal could lead to the Building and Loans downfall. Potter hides the money, knowing its loss will cause severe problems for the Building. When Uncle Billy cannot find the money, he and George frantically search for it, when the bank examiner arrives to review their records, George berates his uncle for endangering the Building and Loan, goes home and takes out his frustration on his family. He apologizes to his wife and children, then leaves, George desperately appeals to Potter for a loan
6.
Ernst Lubitsch
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Ernst Lubitsch was a German American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywoods most elegant and sophisticated director, as his prestige grew, in 1946, he received an Honorary Academy Award for his distinguished contributions to the art of the motion picture. Ernst Lubitsch was born on January 29,1892 in Berlin, Germany, the son of Anna and Simon Lubitsch and his family was Ashkenazi Jewish, his father born in Grodno in the Russian Empire and his mother from Wriezen, outside Berlin. He turned his back on his fathers tailoring business to enter the theater, in 1913, Lubitsch made his film debut as an actor in The Ideal Wife. He gradually abandoned acting to concentrate on directing and he appeared in approximately thirty films as an actor between 1912 and 1920. His last film appearance as an actor was in the 1920 drama Sumurun, opposite Pola Negri and Paul Wegener, in 1918, he made his mark as a serious director with Die Augen der Mumie Ma, starring Pola Negri. Lubitsch alternated between escapist comedies and large-scale historical dramas, enjoying international success with both. His reputation as a master of world cinema reached a new peak after the release of his spectacles Madame Du Barry. Both of these films found American distributorship by early 1921 and they, along with Lubitschs Carmen were selected by The New York Times on its list of the 15 most important movies of 1921. With glowing reviews under his belt, and American money flowing his way, Lubitsch formed his own production company, however, with World War I still fresh, and with a slew of German New Wave releases encroaching on American movie workers livelihoods, Lubitsch was not gladly received. He cut his trip short after little more than three weeks and returned to Germany, but he had already seen enough of the American film industry to know that its resources far outstripped the spartan German companies. Lubitsch finally left Germany for Hollywood in 1922, contracted as a director by Mary Pickford, settling in America, Lubitsch established his reputation for sophisticated comedy with such stylish films as The Marriage Circle, Lady Windermeres Fan, and So This Is Paris. But his films were only marginally profitable for Warner Brothers, and Lubitschs contract was dissolved by mutual consent, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His first film for MGM, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, was well regarded, the Patriot, produced by Paramount, earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Directing. Lubitsch seized upon the advent of talkies to direct musicals, with his first sound film, The Love Parade, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, Lubitsch hit his stride as a maker of worldly musical comedies. The Love Parade, Monte Carlo, and The Smiling Lieutenant were hailed by critics as masterpieces of the emerging musical genre. Lubitsch served on the faculty of the University of Southern California for a time and his next film was a romantic comedy, written with Samson Raphaelson, Trouble in Paradise. Later described as amoral by critic David Thomson, the cynical comedy was popular both with critics and with audiences
7.
To Be or Not to Be (1942 film)
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To Be or Not to Be is a 1942 American comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch, about a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their abilities at disguise and acting to fool the occupying troops. It was adapted by Lubitsch and Edwin Justus Mayer from the story by Melchior Lengyel, the film stars Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges and Sig Ruman. The film was released two months after actress Carole Lombard was killed in an airplane crash, the title is a reference to the famous To be, or not to be soliloquy in William Shakespeares Hamlet. Before the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the stars of a company in Warsaw are the ham actor Josef Tura and his beautiful wife. As part of the rehearsal of Gestapo, a play satirizing the Nazis, one of the actors, Bronski, takes to the street to prove that he looks like Hitler in his costume. People gawk at the appearance of the Nazi dictator in Warsaw, Greenberg, who is implicitly Jewish, reveals that it has always been his dream to perform Shylock in Merchant of Venice, especially the famous Hath not a Jew eyes. Speech, which he proceeds to recite, meanwhile, Maria has received a bouquet of flowers from the handsome young pilot Lt. Stanislav Sobinski. She arranges to meet him, telling Sobinski to come to her room when Tura begins his To be or not to be. Speech, so they can be sure of privacy, the young man walks out, very obviously, when Tura begins his monologue, causing the highly-strung actor great distress. Shortly thereafter, the company is ordered by a government representative to cancel their production of Gestapo out of fear it would offend the Germans, the next night, after a brief assignation, Sobinski again walks out during To be or not to be, freshly infuriating Tura. Sobinski returns backstage to confess his love to Maria, assuming that she leave her husband. Before she can correct his assumption, news breaks out that Germany has invaded Poland, Sobinski leaves to join the fight, and the actors huddle in the basement of the theater as Warsaw is bombed. Hitler conquers Poland and the Polish division of the British Royal Air Force is fighting to free its mother country, Lt. Sobinski and other young pilots of the division sing together, with the Polish resistance leader Professor Siletsky as their guest. Sobinski is sent to Warsaw to warn the resistance but Siletsky gets there first, the flier manages to reach Maria, who passes on the message to the underground. Immediately after, she is stopped by two soldiers who have ordered by Siletsky to bring her to him so he can deliver Sobinskis message. Siletsky invites Maria to dinner, hoping to recruit her as a spy and she pretends to be interested and goes home to dress up. Just before she arrives at her apartment, Tura returns and finds Sobinski in his bed, Maria and Sobinski try to figure out what to do about Siletsky, while Tura tries to figure out what is going on with his wife and the pilot. In the end, Tura proclaims that he will kill Siletsky, later that evening, Maria returns to Siletskys room and pretends to be attracted to him
8.
Alfred Hitchcock
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Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE was an English film director and producer, at times referred to as The Master of Suspense. He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres and he had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as Englands best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939, and became a US citizen in 1955 and he also fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. Hitchcocks stylistic trademarks include the use of movement that mimics a persons gaze. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy and his work often features fugitives on the run alongside icy blonde female characters. Prior to 1980, there had long been talk of Hitchcock being knighted for his contribution to film, Hitchcock later received his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours. Hitchcock directed more than fifty films in a career spanning six decades and is often regarded as one of the most influential directors in cinematic history. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else, Hitchcocks first thriller, The Lodger, A Story of the London Fog, helped shape the thriller genre in film. His 1929 film, Blackmail, is cited as the first British sound feature film, while Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest. Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone and he was the second son and the youngest of three children of William Hitchcock, a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane Hitchcock. He was named after his fathers brother, Hitchcock was raised as a Roman Catholic, and sent to Salesian College, Battersea, and the Jesuit grammar school St Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, London. His parents were both of half-English and half-Irish ancestry and he often described a lonely and sheltered childhood that was worsened by his obesity. Around age five, Hitchcock recalled that to him for behaving badly. This incident implanted a lifelong fear of policemen in Hitchcock, and such harsh treatment, sources vary on Hitchcocks performance in school. Gene Adair reports that by most accounts, Alfred was only an average, or slightly above-average, however, McGilligan writes that Hitchcock certainly excelled academically. When Hitchcock was 15, his father died, in that same year, he left St. Ignatius to study at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London. After leaving, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a company called Henleys. Hitchcock joined a regiment of the Royal Engineers in 1917
