1.
Columbus, Ohio
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Columbus is the capital and largest city of the U. S. state of Ohio. It is the 15th-largest city in the United States, with a population of 850,106 as of 2015 estimates and this makes Columbus the fourth-most populous state capital in the United States, and the third-largest city in the Midwestern United States. It is the city of the Columbus, Ohio, Metropolitan Statistical Area. With a population of 2,021,632, it is Ohios third-largest metropolitan area, Columbus is the county seat of Franklin County. The city proper has also expanded and annexed portions of adjoining Delaware County, named for explorer Christopher Columbus, the city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and assumed the functions of state capital in 1816. As of 2013, the city has the headquarters of five corporations in the U. S, fortune 500, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, American Electric Power, L Brands, Big Lots, and Cardinal Health. In 2012, Columbus was ranked in BusinessWeeks 50 best cities in America. In 2013, Forbes gave Columbus an A rating as one of the top cities for business in the U. S. and later that included the city on its list of Best Places for Business. Columbus was also ranked as the No.1 up-and-coming tech city in the nation by Forbes in 2008, and the city was ranked a top-ten city by Relocate America in 2010. In 2007, fDi Magazine ranked the city no.3 in the U. S. for cities of the future, and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium was rated no.1 in 2009 by USA Travel Guide. The area including modern-day Columbus once comprised the Ohio Country, under the control of the French colonial empire through the Viceroyalty of New France from 1663 until 1763. In the 18th century, European traders flocked to the area, the area found itself frequently caught between warring factions, including American Indian and European interests. In the 1740s, Pennsylvania traders overran the territory until the French forcibly evicted them, in the early 1750s, the Ohio Company sent George Washington to the Ohio Country to survey. Fighting for control of the territory in the French and Indian War became part of the international Seven Years War, during this period, the region routinely suffered turmoil, massacres, and battles. The 1763 Treaty of Paris ceded the Ohio Country to the British Empire, after the American Revolution, the Ohio Country became part of the Virginia Military District, under the control of the United States. Colonists from the East Coast moved in, but rather finding a empty frontier, they encountered people of the Miami, Delaware, Wyandot, Shawnee. The tribes resisted expansion by the fledgling United States, leading to years of bitter conflict, the decisive Battle of Fallen Timbers resulted in the Treaty of Greenville, which finally opened the way for new settlements. By 1797, a surveyor from Virginia named Lucas Sullivant had founded a permanent settlement on the west bank of the forks of the Scioto River
2.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
3.
The Philadelphia Story (film)
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The Philadelphia Story is a 1940 American romantic comedy film directed by George Cukor, starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart and featuring Ruth Hussey. She acquired the rights to the play, which she had also starred in, with the help of Howard Hughes. Nominated for six Academy Awards, the film won two, James Stewart for Best Actor and Donald Ogden Stewart for Best Adapted Screenplay and it was remade in 1956 as a musical, retitled High Society. The Philadelphia Story was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1995, Tracy Lord is the elder daughter of a wealthy Philadelphia Main Line socialite family. Now she is about to marry nouveau riche man of the people George Kittredge, Spy magazine publisher Sidney Kidd is eager to cover the wedding, and assigns reporter Macaulay Mike Connor and photographer Liz Imbrie. He can get them into the affair with the assistance of Dexter Haven, Dexter will introduce them as friends of Tracys brother Junius. Tracy is not fooled, but Dexter threatens her with an article about her father Seths affair with a dancer. Tracy deeply resents her fathers infidelity, which has caused her parents to live separately, to protect her familys reputation, she agrees to let Mike and Liz stay. Dexter is welcomed back with arms by Tracys mother Margaret and teenage sister Dinah. In addition, she discovers that Mike has admirable qualities. As the wedding nears, she finds herself torn between George, Dexter, and Mike, the night before the wedding, Tracy gets drunk for only the second time in her life and takes an innocent midnight swim with Mike. When George sees Mike carrying an intoxicated Tracy into the house afterward, the next day, he tells her that he was shocked and feels entitled to an explanation before going ahead with the wedding. She takes exception to his lack of faith in her and breaks off the engagement, then she realizes that all the guests have arrived and are waiting for the ceremony to begin. Mike volunteers to marry her, but she graciously declines and she also realizes, for the first time, that she isnt perfect and shouldnt constantly condemn others for their weaknesses. At this point, Dexter offers to marry her again, Dexter Haven Katharine Hepburn as Tracy Samantha Lord James Stewart as Mike Connor Ruth Hussey as Elizabeth Imbrie John Howard as George Kittredge Roland Young as William Q. Costarring with Hepburn on Broadway were Joseph Cotten as Dexter Haven, Van Heflin as Mike Connor and she then convinced MGMs Mayer to buy them from her for only $250,000 in return for Hepburn having veto over producer, director, screenwriter and cast. Hepburn wanted Clark Gable to play Dexter Haven and Spencer Tracy to play Mike Connor, Grant agreed to play the part on condition that he be given top billing and that his salary would be $137,000, which he donated to the British War Relief Society. The pairing of Cukor and Gable would have been problematic in any case, as they had not gotten along on the recent Gone with the Wind, the film was in production from 5 July to 14 August 1940 at MGMs studios in Culver City
4.
Philip Barry
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Philip James Quinn Barry was an American dramatist best known for his plays Holiday and The Philadelphia Story, which were both made into films starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Philip Barry was born on June 18,1896 in Rochester, James died from appendicitis a year after Philips birth, and the familys marble-and-tile business faltered from then on. His oldest brother, Edmund, who was sixteen at the time, left school to take over the business, Barrys play The Youngest, written when he was twenty-eight, is an autobiographical account of his family history following his fathers death. Family conflicts ensued, he claimed he had never intended to keep the money. At the end of the war, he returned to college, where he studied writing with Henry Seidel Canby and his mother and two elder brothers vehemently wanted him to return to the family in Rochester after college and take a place in the family business. He was, however, determined to out on his own and, knowing that he wanted to be a writer. Barrys life as a started at the age of nine when he had a story called Tab the Cat published by a Rochester newspaper. Four precocious years later, he wrote a drama called No Thoroughfare. When he was at Yale, he devoted his time to writing poetry, in 1919, when he returned from London, the Yale Dramatic Club staged his one-act play, Autonomy. By the time he had enrolled in Bakers class at the end of the year and his first full-length play for the class was A Punch for Judy, written in the spring 1921. The Harvard workshop took A Punch for Judy on tour to Worcester, Utica, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Columbus, playwright Robert E. Sherwood met Barry at this time and thought him a exasperating young twirp. Sherwood would eventually become a friend and colleague who came to appreciate what he termed Barrys Irish, impish sense of comedy. Many years later, Sherwood would finish writing Second Threshold, left incomplete at the time of Barrys death, while still living in Cambridge, Barry became engaged to Ellen Semple but was determined to establish himself as a playwright before settling down. The play won the Herndon Prize in 1922 as the best drama written in Bakers workshop, renamed You and I, the play opened on Broadway on February 19,1923 and was a critical and commercial success. As theater critic Brooks Atkinson wrote, If did not make Barry exactly a revolutionary, the story spoke to the tenor of the times, a decade that both glamorized and questioned the energetic pursuit of financial success. You and I ran for 170 performances, was followed by a tour and many productions in college and regional theaters. One person who was not happy with Barrys success was a classmate in Bakers seminar, Thomas Wolfe, Barrys second work for the stage, The Youngest, was produced the following year to considerably less acclaim. The story dealt with a rich, provincial family who cannot accept the ways of one of its members
5.
Tarnished Lady
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Tarnished Lady is a 1931 American Pre-Code drama film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart is based on his short story, Nancy Courtney, a once wealthy socialite, has had to struggle to maintain a facade of prosperity ever since her fathers death. Although she loves writer DeWitt Taylor, who is indifferent to amassing a fortune, Nancy acquiesces to her mothers wishes but, despite the fact her new husband does everything he can to please her, she is miserable in her marriage. Meanwhile, DeWitt has begun romancing Normans former girl friend Germaine Prentiss and she realizes DeWitts relationship with Germaine is changing him into a social climber. Unaware Normans firm has just been barred from the market and he is facing financial ruin. She learns of Normans bankruptcy in the newspaper and, together with her friend Ben Sterner and she and Ben bring some of the bar patrons to his home, where they encounter Norman, who is waiting there to discuss a business transaction with Ben. Seeing his wife in such a state, he tells her he never wants to see her again. Nancy tries to live on her own but, lacking any skills, she is unable to find employment and becomes destitute. When she discovers she is pregnant, Ben offers her a place to live and, after the birth of her child, Norman and Germaine come in to purchase a fur coat, and Norman is stunned to find Nancy in a menial position. Germaine tries to warn Nancy away, but realizing her husband loves her. Germaine bows out and leaves Norman with his wife and infant son. Mrs. Courtney Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times observed, Miss Bankhead acquits herself with considerable distinction, in fact, only in a few spots is the authors fine hand discernible. Variety called it a weepy and ragged melodrama has little outside its cast to be recommended, cast, as a whole, deports in a manner suggesting they were under orders to give way before Bankhead. Ordinarily a fine actor, he slumps here in trying to get some of the silly dialog. Tarnished Lady at the Internet Movie Database
6.
Love Affair (1939 film)
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Love Affair is a 1939 American romantic film starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer and featuring Maria Ouspenskaya. It was directed by Leo McCarey and written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart, based on a story by McCarey, french painter Michel Marnet meets American singer Terry McKay aboard a liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean. They are both already engaged, he to heiress Lois Clarke, she to Kenneth Bradley and they begin to flirt and to dine together on the ship, but his notoriety and popularity on the ship make them conscious that others are watching. Eventually, they decide that they should dine separately and not associate with each other, at a stop at Madeira, they visit Michels grandmother Janou, who approves of Terry and wants Michel to settle down. As the ship is ready to disembark at New York City, Michel chooses six months because that is the amount of time he needs to decide whether he can drop the life of a playboy and start making money to support a relationship with Terry. When the rendezvous date arrives, they head to the Empire State Building. However, Terry is struck by a car right as she arrives, not wanting to be a burden to Michel, she does not contact him, preferring to let him think the worst. Meanwhile, Terry recovers at an orphanage teaching the children how to sing, six months go by, and during Terrys first outing since the accident, the two couples meet by accident at the theater, though Terry manages to conceal her condition. Michel then visits her at her apartment and finally learns the truth and he assures her that they will be together no matter what the diagnosis will be. Because of this, the film is available on home video. The film can be downloaded legally for free on the Internet Archive
7.
George Cukor
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George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations and his career flourished at RKO when David O. Selznick, the studios Head of Production, assigned Cukor to direct several of RKOs major films, including What Price Hollywood. A Bill of Divorcement, Our Betters, and Little Women, when Selznick moved to MGM in 1933, Cukor followed and directed Dinner at Eight and David Copperfield for Selznick and Romeo and Juliet and Camille for Irving Thalberg. He was replaced as the director of Gone with the Wind, but he went on to direct The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adams Rib, Born Yesterday, A Star Is Born, Bhowani Junction and he continued to work into the 1980s. Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, the child and only son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants Viktor, an assistant district attorney. His parents selected his middle name in honor of Spanish–American War hero George Dewey, as a result, he was ambivalent about his faith and dismissive of old world traditions from childhood, and as an adult he embraced Anglophilia to remove himself even further from his roots. As a teenager, Cukor frequently was taken to the New York Hippodrome by his uncle, infatuated with theatre, he often cut classes at DeWitt Clinton High School to attend afternoon matinees. During his senior year, he worked as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, earning 50¢ per appearance, following his graduation in 1917, Cukor was expected to follow in his fathers footsteps and pursue a career in law. He halfheartedly enrolled in the City College of New York, where he entered the Students Army Training Corps in October 1918 and his military experience was limited, Germany surrendered in early November, and Cukors duty ended after only two months. In 1925 he formed the C. F. and Z, Production Company with Walter Folmer and John Zwicki, which gave him his first opportunity to direct. Following their first season, he made his Broadway directorial debut with Antonia by Hungarian playwright Melchior Lengyel, then returned to Rochester, lasting only one season with the company was Bette Davis. Cukor later recalled, Her talent was apparent, but she did buck at direction and she had her own ideas, and though she only did bits and ingenue roles, she didnt hesitate to express them. For the next decades, Davis claimed she was fired. For the next few years, Cukor alternated between Rochester in the months and Broadway in the winter. His direction of a 1926 stage adaptation of The Great Gatsby by Owen Davis brought him to the attention of the New York critics. Writing in the Brooklyn Eagle, drama critic Arthur Pollock called it a piece of work by a director not nearly so well known as he should be. Cukor directed six more Broadway productions before departing for Hollywood in 1929, when Hollywood began to recruit New York theater talent for sound films, Cukor immediately answered the call. In December 1928, Paramount Pictures signed him to a contract that reimbursed him for his airfare and he arrived in Hollywood in February 1929, and his first assignment was to coach the cast of River of Romance to speak with an acceptable Southern accent
8.
Michael Curtiz
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Michael Curtiz was a Hungarian-born American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history. He directed classic films from the silent era and numerous others during Hollywoods Golden Age, Curtiz was already a well-known director in Europe when Warner Bros. invited him to Hollywood in 1926, when he was 38 years of age. He had already directed 64 films in Europe, and soon helped Warner Bros. become the movie studio. He directed 102 films during his Hollywood career, mostly at Warners, James Cagney and Joan Crawford won their only Academy Awards under Curtizs direction. He put Doris Day and John Garfield on screen for the first time, and he made stars of Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Bette Davis. He himself was nominated five times and won twice, once for Best Short Subject for Sons of Liberty and he introduced to Hollywood a unique visual style using artistic lighting, extensive and fluid camera movement, high crane shots, and unusual camera angles. He was versatile and could handle any kind of picture, melodrama, comedy, love story, film noir, musical, war story, Western, or historical epic. He always paid attention to the human interest aspect of story, stating that the human. Curtiz helped popularize the swashbuckler with films such as Captain Blood. He directed many dramas which today are considered classics, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Sea Wolf, Casablanca. He directed leading musicals, including Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army and White Christmas, Curtiz was born Mihaly Kertesz to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary in 1886, where his father was a carpenter and his mother an opera singer. Curtiz had a lower to middle-class upbringing and he recalled during an interview that his familys home was a cramped apartment, where he had to share a small room with his two brothers and a sister. Many times we are hungry, he added, after graduating high school, he studied at Markoszy University, followed by the Royal Academy of Theater and Art, in Budapest, before beginning his career. Curtiz became attracted to the theater when he was a child in Hungary and he built a little theater in the cellar of his house when he was 8 years old, where he and five of his friends reenacted plays. They set up the stage, with scenery and props, after he graduated college at age 19, he took a job as an actor with a traveling theater company where he began working as one their traveling players. From that job, he became a pantomimist with a circus for a while and they played Ibsen and Shakespeare in various languages, depending on what country they were in. They performed throughout Europe, including France, Hungary, Italy and Germany and he had various responsibilities, We had to do everything—make bill posters, print programs, set scenery, mend wardrobe, sometimes even arrange chairs in the auditoriums. Sometimes we traveled in trains, sometimes in stage coaches, sometimes on horseback, sometimes we played in town halls, sometimes in little restaurants with no scenery at all
9.
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
