1.
Woody Allen
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Heywood Woody Allen is an American actor, writer, director, comedian, playwright, and musician whose career spans more than six decades. He worked as a writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, as a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians and he is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s. Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup, some of the best-known of his over 40 films are Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters. In 2007 he said Stardust Memories, The Purple Rose of Cairo, critic Roger Ebert described Allen as a treasure of the cinema. Allen won four Academy Awards, three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director and he also won nine British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. His screenplay for Annie Hall was named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the 101 Funniest Screenplays, in 2011, PBS televised the film biography Woody Allen, A Documentary on the American Masters TV series. Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg in Brooklyn, New York and he and his sister, Letty, were raised in Midwood, Brooklyn. He is the son of Nettie, a bookkeeper at her familys delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg and his family was Jewish, his grandparents immigrated from Russia and Austria, and spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and German. His parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His childhood was not particularly happy, his parents did not get along, Allen spoke German quite a bit in his early years. He would later joke that when he was young he was sent to inter-faith summer camps. While attending Hebrew school for eight years, he went to Public School 99 and to Midwood High School, at that time, he lived in an apartment at 968 East 14th Street. Unlike his comic persona, he was interested in baseball than school. He impressed students with his talent at card and magic tricks. To raise money, he wrote jokes for agent David O. Alber, at the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen and later began to call himself Woody Allen. According to Allen, his first published joke read, Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O. P. S and he was then earning more than both parents combined
2.
Denholm Elliott
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Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE was an English film, television and theatre actor with more than 120 film and television credits. His well-known roles included Dr Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones, Elliott earned critical acclaim in his later career. Film critic Roger Ebert described him as the most dependable of all British character actors, the New York Times called him a star among supporting players and an accomplished scene-stealer. Elliott was born in London, the son of Nina and Myles Laymen Farr Elliott and his elder brother Neil was land agent to Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck. Myles was a barrister who had read Law and Arabic at Cambridge before fighting with the Glosters at Gallipoli, in 1930 Myles Elliott was appointed Solicitor-General to the Mandatory Government in Palestine. Three years later, following a series of government prosecutions, he was assassinated outside the King David Hotel. Denholm Elliott attended Malvern College and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and he was asked to leave RADA after one term. As Elliott later recalled, They wrote to my mother and said, Much as we like the fellow, hes wasting your money. In the Second World War, he joined the Royal Air Force, training as a sergeant wireless operator/ air gunner, on the night of 23/24 September 1942, his Handley Page Halifax DT508 bomber took part in an air raid on the U-boat pens at Flensburg, Germany. The aircraft was hit by flak and subsequently ditched in the North Sea near Sylt, Elliott and two other crew members survived and he spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp in Silesia. While imprisoned he became involved in amateur dramatics, after making his film debut in Dear Mr. Elliott and Natasha Parry played the main roles in the 1955 television play, The Apollo of Bellac. Elliott made many appearances, notably in plays by Dennis Potter, including Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Brimstone and Treacle. He took over for an ill Michael Aldridge for one season of The Man in Room 17 and he also became familiar to a wider audience as the well-meaning but addlepated Dr. Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. A photograph of his character appears in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, there is also a statue dedicated to Marcus outside of Marshall College, the school where Indy teaches. In 1988, Elliott was the Russian mole Povin, around whom the plot revolves, in the television miniseries Codename. But curiously, I never, ever saw any of the crew twice. Elliott had worked with Sindens father, Sir Donald Sinden, in the film The Cruel Sea and he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn and Harold Gould in the television film, Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry and with Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton. In 1988, Elliott was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to acting and his career included many stage performances, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a well acclaimed turn as the twin brothers in Jean Anouilhs Ring Round the Moon
3.
Mia Farrow
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María de Lourdes Mia Villiers Farrow is an American actress, activist and former fashion model. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place. An early film role, as Rosemary in Roman Polanskis Rosemarys Baby, saw her nominated for a BAFTA and she went on to appear in films such as John and Mary, Follow Me. The Great Gatsby and Death on the Nile and her later film roles include Widows Peak, The Omen, Be Kind Rewind, Dark Horse and Luc Bessons Arthur series. Farrow is known for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. She is involved in activities in Darfur, Chad. In 2008, Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world and her eldest brother, Michael Farrow, died in a plane crash in 1958, at age 19, Patrick, a sculptor, committed suicide in 2009. Her fathers family was originally from England, Farrow grew up in Beverly Hills, California, where she occasionally put on performances with toy daggers and fake blood for passing celebrity tour buses. Aged two, she made her debut in a short documentary Unusual Occupations, Film Tot Holiday. She was raised Roman Catholic and had 13 years of convent education with nuns, when she was nine, she contracted polio during an outbreak in Los Angeles reportedly affecting 500 people. She was placed in a ward for three weeks and later said the experience marked the end of my childhood. Farrow screen-tested for the role of Liesl von Trapp in The Sound of Music, the footage has been preserved, and appears on the fortieth Anniversary Edition DVD of The Sound of Music. Farrow began her career by appearing in supporting roles in several 1960s films. In 1964, she achieved stardom on the primetime soap opera Peyton Place as naive. Farrow left the series in 1966 at the urging of Frank Sinatra whom she married on July 19,1966, before her acting career, Farrow worked as a fashion model for many years. Farrows first leading role was in Rosemarys Baby, which was a critical and commercial success at the time. Her performance garnered numerous awards, including the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress, Film critic and author Stephen Farber described her performance as having an electrifying impact. Film critic Roger Ebert called the brilliant, and noted, A great deal of the credit for this achievement must go to Mia Farrow
4.
Elaine Stritch
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Elaine Stritch was an American actress and singer, known for her work on Broadway. She made her stage debut in 1944 and appeared in numerous stage plays, musicals, feature films. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1995 and her one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty, won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. Stritch relocated to London in the 1970s and starred in several West End productions, including Tennessee Williams Small Craft Warnings and she also starred with Donald Sinden in the ITV sitcom Twos Company, which earned her a 1979 BAFTA TV Award nomination. She won an Emmy Award in 1993 for her guest role on Law & Order and another for the 2004 television documentary of her one-woman show. From 2007 to 2012, she had a role as Colleen Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. Stritch was born on February 2,1925, in Detroit, Michigan, the youngest daughter of Mildred, a homemaker, and George Joseph Stritch and her Roman Catholic family was well-off. Her father was of Irish descent, while her mother had Welsh ancestry, samuel Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago from 1940 to 1958, was one of her uncles. She trained at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York City under Erwin Piscator, alongside Marlon Brando, Stritch made her stage debut in 1944. Stritch understudied Ethel Merman for Call Me Madam, and, at the time, appeared in the 1952 revival of Pal Joey. Stritch later starred in the tour of Call Me Madam. She was the lead in the musical Goldilocks and she starred in Noël Cowards Sail Away on Broadway in 1961. During out-of-town tryouts in Boston, Coward was unsure about the talents of one of the leads. Joe Layton suggested What would happen if. we just eliminated role, the show was very old-fashioned, and the thing that was working was Elaine Stritch. Every time she went on stage was a sensation. The reconstructed Sail Away opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on October 3,1961, with Stritch giving what Howard Taubman of The New York Times said “must be the performance of her career. ”In 1966, she played Ruth Sherwood in the musical Wonderful Town at New Yorks City Center, and appeared in an Off Broadway revival of Private Lives in 1968. Stritch became known as a singer with a brassy, powerful voice and she was the original performer cast in the role of Joanne in Stephen Sondheims Company on Broadway. After over a decade of successful runs in shows in New York, Stritch moved in 1972 to London, where she starred in the West End production of Company
5.
Jack Warden
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Jack Warden was an American character actor of film and television. He was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Shampoo and he received a BAFTA nomination for the former movie and won an Emmy for his performance in Brians Song. Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter Jr. in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Laura M. and John Warden Lebzelter and he was of Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish ancestry. Raised in Louisville, Kentucky, he was expelled from school for fighting. He fought in 13 bouts as a welterweight, but earned little money, Warden worked as a nightclub bouncer, tugboat deckhand and lifeguard before joining the United States Navy in 1938. He was stationed for three years in China with the Yangtze River Patrol, in 1944, on the eve of the D-Day invasion, Warden, now a Staff Sergeant, shattered his leg when he landed in a tree during a night-time practice jump in England. He spent almost eight months in the hospital recuperating, during which time he read a Clifford Odets play, ironically, Warden would later portray a paratrooper from the 101sts rivals – the 82nd Airborne Division – in That Kind of Woman. After leaving the military, he moved to New York City and he joined the company of the Dallas Alley Theatre and performed on stage for five years. In 1948 he made his debut on the anthology series, The Philco Television Playhouse. His first film role, uncredited, was in the 1951 film Youre in the Navy Now, Warden appeared in his first credited film role in the 1951 in The Man with My Face. From 1952 to 1955, Warden appeared in the television series Mister Peepers with Wally Cox, in 1953, Warden was cast as a sympathetic corporal in From Here to Eternity. Wardens breakthrough film role was his performance as Juror No,7, a salesman who wants a quick decision in a murder case, in 12 Angry Men. Warden was nominated for Academy Awards as Best Supporting Actor for his performances in Shampoo and his final film was The Replacements in 2000, opposite Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves. Warden married French actress Vanda Dupre in 1958 and had one son, although they separated in the 1970s, the couple never divorced. Warden suffered from declining health in his last years which resulted in his retirement from acting in 2000 and he died of heart and kidney failure in a New York hospital on July 19,2006, at the age of 85. Jack Warden at the Internet Movie Database Jack Warden at the Internet Broadway Database Jack Warden at Find a Grave Cinema2000 obituary
6.
Sam Waterston
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Samuel Atkinson Sam Waterston is an American actor, producer and director. He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Emmy awards, having starred in over eighty film and he has also starred in numerous stage productions. AllMovie historian Hal Erickson characterized Waterston as having cultivated a following with his quietly charismatic. Waterston received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2012, Waterston, the third of four siblings, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His mother, Alice Tucker, a painter, was of English ancestry. His father, George Chychele Waterston, was an immigrant from Leith, Scotland, Waterston attended both the Brooks School, a boarding school in North Andover, Massachusetts, where his father taught, and the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. He entered Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on a scholarship in 1958, after graduating from Yale, he attended the Clinton Playhouse for several months. Waterston also attended the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop, the classically trained Waterston has numerous stage credits to his name. For example, he played an award-winning Benedick in Joseph Papps production of William Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing and he continues live theater work during the summers, often seen acting at places like Long Wharf Theatre and the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. Waterston made his debut in 1965s The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean. He starred as Tom in a 1973 television film adaptation of Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie, the film also featured Michael Moriarty, whom Waterston later replaced as the Executive Assistant District Attorney on Law & Order. One of his roles was opposite Jeff Bridges in the western comedy Rancho Deluxe in 1975. Other films include Savages, The Great Gatsby, Journey Into Fear, Capricorn One, Heavens Gate, Hopscotch, in 1985, he co-starred in Robert Prestons final television film with Mary Tyler Moore, Finnegan Begin Again. Also with Moore, Waterston played the role in Lincoln. Other roles include Assault at West Point with Samuel L. Jackson, Mindwalk, The Man in the Moon, Waterston is a six-time Emmy Award nominee, as well as a winner of the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Aside from Law & Order, other roles include D. A. Forrest Bedford in Ill Fly Away. He also had a role in an episode segment on the TV series Amazing Stories called Mirror Mirror. In 1994, Waterston debuted as Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy in the season of the television series Law & Order
7.
Dianne Wiest
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Dianne Evelyn Wiest is an American actress. Wiest has won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress twice, for Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets over Broadway and she appeared in three other of Allens films, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days and September. She also starred in Ron Howards Parenthood, for which she received her second Oscar nomination, Wiest also received two Screen Actors Guild Awards and one BAFTA Award nomination. For her work on television, she has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, Wiest was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Her mother, Anne Stewart, was a nurse and her father, Bernard John Wiest, was a college dean and former psychiatric social worker for the U. S. Army. Her mother was Scottish, while her father was an American of Croatian and German descent, Wiest has two brothers named Greg and Don. Her original ambition was to be a ballerina, but switched her goal to theatre in her year at Nurnberg American High School. Wiest graduated from the University of Maryland in 1969 with a degree in Arts, Wiest studied theatre at the University of Maryland, leaving after her third term to tour with a Shakespearean troupe. Later, she had a role in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of Ashes. She also acted at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT and she was an understudy both off-Broadway and on Broadway, in Kurt Vonneguts Happy Birthday, Wanda June in 1970. She made her Broadway debut in Robert Andersons Solitaire/Double Solitaire, taking over in the role of the daughter in 1971 and she toured the USSR with the Arena Stage. In 1976, Wiest attended the Eugene ONeill National Playwrights Conference and starred in leading roles in Amlin Grays Pirates, at Joe Papps Public Theater she took over the lead in Ashes, and played Cassandra in Agamemnon, directed by Andrei Şerban. In 1979, she originated the role of Agnes in Agnes of God in its first production in Waterford and she appeared in two plays by Tina Howe, Museum and The Art of Dining. (She played opposite Lithgow again in the Herbert Ross film Footloose, as Wiest became established as a film actress through her work in Woody Allens films, she was less frequently available for stage roles. However, she did appear onstage during the 1990s, in In the Summer House, Square One, Cynthia Ozicks The Shawl, in 2003, she appeared with Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei in Oscar Wildes Salome. In 2005, she starred in Kathleen Tolans Memory House and she also starred in a production of Wendy Wassersteins final play Third at Lincoln Center. Her early screen roles include roles in Its My Turn and Im Dancing as Fast as I Can. In 1984, she starred in Footloose, as the reverends wife, under Woody Allens direction, Wiest won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hannah and Her Sisters in 1987 and Bullets over Broadway in 1995
8.
Orion Pictures Corporation
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It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion achieved a high reputation for Hollywood quality. Woody Allen, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme, Oliver Stone, of the films distributed by Orion, four won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Amadeus, Platoon, Dances with Wolves, and The Silence of the Lambs. Two other Orion films, Hannah and Her Sisters and Mississippi Burning, were nominated for same category. In 2013, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer revived the Orion name for television, a year later Orion Pictures was quietly relaunched by the studio, in January 1978, three executives of Transamerica -owned studio United Artists – Arthur B. Krim, Eric Pleskow, and Robert S. Benjamin - quit their jobs, Krim and Benjamin had headed UA since 1951, and subsequently turned around the then-flailing studio with a number of critical and commercial successes. Change had begun once Transamerica purchased UA in 1967, and within a decade a rift formed between Krim and TA chairman Jack Beckett regarding the studios operations, Krim suggested spinning off United Artists into a separate company, which was rejected by Beckett. The last straw came for Pleskow when he refused to collect, Krim, Benjamin, and Pleskow quit United Artists on January 13,1978, followed by the exits of senior vice presidents William Bernstein and Mike Medavoy three days later. In February 1978, the five men forged a deal with Warner Bros, the executives formed Orion Pictures Company, named after the constellation, which they claimed had five main stars. The new company intended only to projects, giving the filmmakers complete creative autonomy. Orion held a $100 million line of credit, and its films would be distributed by the Warner Bros. studio, Orion, however, was contractually given free rein over distribution and advertising, as well as the number and type of films the executives chose to invest in. In late March 1978, Orion signed its first contract, a deal with John Travoltas production company. Orion also developed a co-financing and distribution deal with EMI Films, Orions first film, A Little Romance, was released in April that year. That year, Orion released Blake Edwards 10, which became a big critical and commercial success, other films released in that period included Caddyshack, The Great Santini, a critically praised but underpromoted adaptation of a Pat Conroy novel, and Promises in the Dark. Out of the 23 films Orion released between April 1979 and December 1981, only a third of them made a profit, Orion executives were conflicted over financing big-budgeted films and passed on Raiders of the Lost Ark for that reason. By early 1982, Orion had severed its ties with Warner. As part of the deal, the rights to Orions films made up to that point were sold to Warner, Orion was now looking to have its own distribution network by acquiring another company with such capabilities. The four partners looked into Allied Artists and Embassy Pictures before settling on Filmways, Orion subsequently purchased Filmways and reorganized the flailing company
9.
Anton Chekhov
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in esteem by writers. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his career, Medicine is my lawful wife, he once said. These four works present a challenge to the ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a theatre of mood. Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew and he made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them. Anton Chekhov was born on the feast day of St. Anthony the Great 29 January 1860, the third of six surviving children, in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the son of a serf and his Ukrainian wife, were from the village Vilkhovatka near Kobeliaky. A director of the choir, devout Orthodox Christian, and physically abusive father. Chekhovs mother, Yevgeniya, was an excellent storyteller who entertained the children with tales of her travels with her cloth-merchant father all over Russia and our talents we got from our father, Chekhov remembered, but our soul from our mother. Despotism and lying so mutilated our childhood that its sickening and frightening to think about it, remember the horror and disgust we felt in those times when Father threw a tantrum at dinner over too much salt in the soup and called Mother a fool. Chekhov attended the Greek School in Taganrog and the Taganrog Gymnasium and he sang at the Greek Orthodox monastery in Taganrog and in his fathers choirs. In 1876, Chekhovs father was declared bankrupt after overextending his finances building a new house, to avoid debtors prison he fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, Alexander and Nikolay, were attending university. The family lived in poverty in Moscow, Chekhovs mother physically and emotionally broken by the experience, Chekhov was left behind to sell the familys possessions and finish his education. Chekhov remained in Taganrog for three years, boarding with a man called Selivanov who, like Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, had bailed out the family for the price of their house. Chekhov had to pay for his own education, which he managed by private tutoring, catching and selling goldfinches and he sent every ruble he could spare to his family in Moscow, along with humorous letters to cheer them up. Chekhov also enjoyed a series of affairs, one with the wife of a teacher. In 1879, Chekhov completed his schooling and joined his family in Moscow, Chekhov now assumed responsibility for the whole family
10.
Uncle Vanya
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Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, the play portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle. Sonya, the daughter by his first wife, who has worked with Vanya to keep the estate going. Uncle Vanya is unique among Chekhovs major plays because it is essentially a reworking of his own play published a decade earlier. Rayfield cites recent scholarship suggesting Chekhov revised The Wood Demon during his trip to the island of Sakhalin, a prison colony in Eastern Russia, in 1891. Aleksandr Vladimirovich Serebryakov, a university professor, who has lived for years in the city on the earnings of his late first wifes rural estate. Helena Andreyevna Serebryakov, Professor Serebryakovs young and beautiful second wife, sofia Alexandrovna Serebryakov, Professor Serebryakovs daughter from his first marriage. She is of an age, but is considered plain. Maria Vasilyevna Voynitsky, the widow of a councilor and mother of Vanya. Ivan Petrovich Voynitsky, Marias son and Sonyas uncle, the character of the play. Mikhail Lvovich Astrov, a middle aged country doctor, ilya Ilych Telegin, an impoverished landowner, who now lives on the estate as a dependent of the family. A Workman A garden in Serebryakovs country estate, Astrov and Marina discuss how old Astrov has grown, and how he feels bored with his life as a country doctor. Vanya enters, and complains about how all order has been disrupted since the professor and his wife, Yelena, as they’re talking, Serebryakov, Yelena, Sonya, and Telegin return from a walk. Out of the professors earshot, Vanya calls him an old dried mackerel, criticizing him for his pomposity. Vanya’s mother, Maria Vasilyevna, who idolizes Serebryakov, objects to her son’s derogatory comments, Vanya also praises the professor’s wife, Yelena, for her beauty, arguing that faithfulness to an old man like Serebryakov is an immoral waste of vitality. Astrov is forced to depart to attend a patient, but not before delivering a speech on the preservation of the forests, act I closes with Vanya declaring his love for an exasperated Yelena. The dining room, several days later, before going to bed, Serebryakov complains of being in pain and of old age. Astrov arrives, having sent for by Sonya, but the professor refuses to see him
11.
Vermont
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Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It borders the other U. S. states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. Lake Champlain forms half of Vermonts western border with the state of New York, Vermont is the 2nd-least populous of the U. S. states, with nearly 50,000 more residents than Wyoming. The capital is Montpelier, the least populous state capital in the U. S, the most populous municipality, Burlington, is the least populous city in the U. S. to be the most populous within a state. As of 2015, Vermont continued to be the producer of maple syrup in the U. S. It was ranked as the safest state in the country in January 2016, for thousands of years inhabited by indigenous peoples, including the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki and Mohawk, much of the territory that is now Vermont was claimed by Frances colony of New France. France ceded the territory to Great Britain after being defeated in 1763 in the Seven Years War, for many years, the nearby colonies, especially the provinces of New Hampshire and New York, disputed control of the area. Settlers who held land titles granted by New York were opposed by the Green Mountain Boys militia, ultimately, those settlers prevailed in creating an independent state, the Vermont Republic. Founded in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War, the republic lasted for 14 years, aside from the original 13 states that were formerly colonies, Vermont is one of only four U. S. states that were previously sovereign states. Vermont was also the first state to join the U. S. as its 14th member state after the original 13, while still an independent republic, Vermont was the first of any future U. S. state to partially abolish slavery. It played an important geographic role in the Underground Railroad, sights in Vermont Vermont is located in the New England region of the northeastern United States and comprises 9,614 square miles, making it the 45th-largest state. It is the state that does not have any buildings taller than 124 feet. Land comprises 9,250 square miles and water comprises 365 square miles, making it the 43rd-largest in land area, in total area, it is larger than El Salvador and smaller than Haiti. The west bank of the Connecticut River marks the eastern border with New Hampshire. 41% of Vermonts land area is part of the Connecticut Rivers watershed, Lake Champlain, the major lake in Vermont, is the sixth-largest body of fresh water in the United States and separates Vermont from New York in the northwest portion of the state. From north to south, Vermont is 159 miles long and its greatest width, from east to west, is 89 miles at the Canada–U. S. Border, the narrowest width is 37 miles at the Massachusetts line, the states geographic center is approximately three miles east of Roxbury, in Washington County. There are fifteen U. S. federal border crossings between Vermont and Canada, the origin of the name Vermont is uncertain, but likely comes from the French les Verts Monts, meaning the Green Mountains
12.
Rosemary Murphy
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Rosemary Murphy was an American actress of stage, film, and television. She was nominated for three Tony Awards for her work, as well as two Emmy Awards for television work, winning once, for her performance in Eleanor and Franklin. Murphy was born in Munich, Germany in 1925, the daughter of American parents Mildred and Robert Daniel Murphy, the family left Germany in 1939 due to the onset of World War II. She made her debut in Germany, in a 1949 production of Peer Gynt. She made her Broadway debut in 1950 in The Tower Beyond Tragedy and she went on to appear in some 15 Broadway productions, most recently in Noël Cowards Waiting in the Wings. She also acted in films and on TV, most notably portraying Sara Delano Roosevelt in the TV miniseries Eleanor and Franklin and Eleanor and Franklin and she played Maudie Atkinson in To Kill a Mockingbird as well as Callie Hacker in Walking Tall. Her first soap role was Nola Hollister #2 on The Secret Storm from 1969-1970. In 1977, she appeared on All My Children as Maureen Teller Dalton, Eric Kanes former mistress, in 1988, she played Loretta Fowler for several months, the kleptomaniac mother of Mitch Blake and Sam Fowler on Another World. The following year, she appeared on As the World Turns as Gretel Aldin #2 when her characters son and she also appeared in episodes of Columbo and Murder She Wrote. Murphy won an Emmy Award for her role in Eleanor and Franklin and she also won a Clarence Derwent Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award and was nominated for two Tony awards. She died on July 5,2014, in Manhattan from esophageal cancer and she never married and was survived by her sister, Mrs. Mildred Pond, and extended family. com, accessed July 10,2014
13.
Sam Shepard
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Samuel Shepard Rogers III, known professionally as Sam Shepard, is an American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director, whose body of work spans over half a century. He is the author of plays as well as several books of short stories, essays. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff. Shepard received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009, New York described him as the greatest American playwright of his generation. Shepards plays are known for their bleak, poetic, often surrealist elements, black humor. His style has evolved over the years, from the absurdism of his early Off-Off-Broadway work to the realism of Buried Child, Shepard was born November 5,1943, in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was named Samuel Shepard Rogers III after his father, Samuel Shepard Rogers, Jr. but his nickname was Steve Rogers. His father was a teacher and farmer who served in the United States Army Air Forces as a pilot during World War II, Shepard has characterized him as a drinking man. His mother, Jane Elaine, was a teacher and a native of Chicago, Shepard worked on a ranch as a teenager. Shepard soon dropped out to join a repertory group, the Bishops Company. At this time Samuel Steve Rogers adopted the professional name Sam Shepard, although his plays would go on to be staged at several Off-Off-Broadway venues, he was most closely connected with Cooks Theatre Genesis, housed at St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery in Manhattans East Village, several of Shepards early plays, including Red Cross and La Turista, were directed by Jacques Levy. A habitué of the Chelsea Hotel scene of the era, he contributed to Kenneth Tynans ribald Oh. Calcutta. and drummed sporadically from 1967 through 1971 with psychedelic folk band The Holy Modal Rounders, appearing on Indian War Whoop, Shepards early science fiction play The Unseen Hand would influence Richard OBriens stage musical The Rocky Horror Show. Shepards Cowboy Mouth – a collaboration with his then-lover Patti Smith – was staged at The American Place Theater in April 1971, providing early exposure for the future punk rock singer. The story and characters were inspired by their relationship, and after opening night, he abandoned the production. He wrote plays out of his house and served for a semester as Regents Professor of Drama at the University of California and his diary of the tour was published by Penguin Books in 1978. A decade later, Dylan and Shepard co-wrote the 11-minute Brownsville Girl, included on Dylans Knocked Out Loaded album, in 1975, he was named playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre, where he created many of his notable works, including his Family Trilogy
14.
Christopher Walken
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He was nominated for the same award and won BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards for his performance as Frank Abagnale Sr. in Catch Me If You Can. Walkens films have grossed more than $1 billion in the United States and he has also played the lead in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Coriolanus. He is a popular guest-host of Saturday Night Live, having hosted seven times as of April 2008, Walken debuted as a film director and scriptwriter with the short film Popcorn Shrimp in 2001. He also wrote and acted the role in a play about his idol Elvis Presley, titled Him. Named after actor Ronald Colman, Walken was born Ronald Walken on March 31,1943 in Astoria, Queens, New York City. He is the son of Rosalie, a British emigrant from Glasgow, Scotland, and Paul Wälken and his father owned and operated Walkens Bakery in Astoria. Influenced by their mothers own dreams of stardom, he and his brothers, Kenneth, at age 15, when a girlfriend showed him a magazine photo of Elvis, Walken said, This guy looked like a Greek god. Then I saw him on television and he changed his hairstyle to imitate Elvis and hasnt changed it since. As a teenager, he worked as a lion tamer in a circus, Walken initially trained as a dancer in music theatre at the Washington Dance Studio before moving on to dramatic roles in theatre and then film. As a child, Walken appeared on screen as an extra in numerous anthology series, after appearing in a sketch with Martin and Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Walken decided to become an actor. He landed a role in the 1953 television show The Wonderful John Acton as the shows narrator. During this time, he was credited as Ronnie Walken, over the next two years, he appeared frequently on television and had a thriving career in theatre. From 1954 to 1956, Walken and his brother Glenn originated the role of Michael Bauer on the soap opera The Guiding Light, in 1963, he appeared as a character named Chris in an episode of Naked City, starring Paul Burke. In 1966, Walken played the role of King Philip of France in the Broadway premiere of The Lion in Winter, in 1969, Walken guest-starred in Hawaii Five-O as Navy SP Walt Kramer. He prefers to be known informally as Chris instead of Christopher, Walken made his feature film debut with a small role opposite Sean Connery in Sidney Lumets The Anderson Tapes. In 1972s The Mind Snatchers a. k. a, the Happiness Cage, Walken played his first starring role. In this science fiction film, which deals with control and normalization. Paul Mazurskys 1976 film Next Stop, Greenwich Village had Walken, under the name Chris Walken, playing fictional poet, in Woody Allens 1977 film Annie Hall, Walken played the homicidal and borderline crazy brother of Annie Hall
15.
Maureen O'Sullivan
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Maureen Paula OSullivan was an Irish actress best known for playing Jane in the Tarzan series of films starring Johnny Weissmuller. Maureen returned to Boyle in 1988 to be honoured by the town and she was of Irish, English and Scottish ancestry. She attended a convent school in Dublin, then the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Roehampton, one of her classmates there was Vivian Mary Hartley, future Academy Award-winning actress Vivien Leigh. After attending finishing school in France, OSullivan returned to Dublin to work with the poor, OSullivans film career began when she met motion picture director Frank Borzage, who was doing location filming on Song o My Heart for 20th Century Fox. He suggested she take a screen test and she did and won a part in the movie, which starred Irish tenor John McCormack. She traveled to the United States to complete the movie in Hollywood, OSullivan appeared in six movies at Fox, then made three more at other movie studios. In 1932, she signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, after several roles there and at other movie studios, she was chosen by Irving Thalberg to appear as Jane Parker in Tarzan the Ape Man, opposite co-star Johnny Weissmuller. She was one of the more popular ingenues at MGM throughout the 1930s, in all, OSullivan played Jane in six features between 1932 and 1942. She starred with William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man and played Kitty in Anna Karenina with Greta Garbo, Fredric March, and Basil Rathbone. After co-starring with the Marx Bros in A Day At The Races, she appeared as Molly Beaumont in A Yank at Oxford, at her request, he rewrote her part to give it substance and novelty. She played another Jane in Pride and Prejudice with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, after appearing in Tarzans New York Adventure, OSullivan asked MGM to release her from her contract so she could care for her husband who had just left the Navy with typhoid. She retreated from show business, devoting her time to her family, in 1948, she re-appeared on the screen in The Big Clock, directed by her husband for Paramount Pictures. She continued to occasionally in her husbands movies and on television. However, by 1960 she believed she had permanently retired, in 1958, Farrows and OSullivans eldest son, Michael, died in a plane crash in California. Actor Pat OBrien encouraged her to take a part in summer stock, and that led to another play, Never Too Late, in which she co-starred with Paul Ford in what was her Broadway debut. Shortly after it opened on Broadway, John Farrow died of a heart attack, OSullivan stuck with acting after Farrows death, she was the Today Girl for NBC for a while, then made the movie version of Never Too Late for Warner Bros. She was also a director of a bridal consulting service. In June and July 1972, OSullivan was in Denver, Colorado, to star in the Elitch Theatre production of Butterflies are Free with Karen Grassle, the show ended on July 1,1972
16.
Charles Durning
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Charles Edward Durning was an American actor, with appearances in over 200 movies, television shows and plays. Durnings best-known roles included The Sting and Dog Day Afternoon, along with the comedies The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Tootsie, Durning was born in Highland Falls, New York, the ninth of ten children. His three brothers and sister, James, Clifford, Frances and Gerald, survived to adulthood but five sisters lost their lives to scarlet fever and he was the son of Louise, a laundress at West Point, and James E. Durning. His father was an Irish immigrant. and his mother was also of Irish descent, in 1959, Durning married his first wife, Carole Doughty. A Declaration of Separation was filed in 2010 from his second wife and he is survived by his three children from his first marriage. Charles Durning served in the U. S. Army during World War II and he was drafted at age 20 and discharged with the rank of Private First Class on January 30,1946. Durning was known for participating in various functions to honor American veterans and he was an honored guest speaker for 17 years at the National Memorial Day Concert televised by PBS every year on the Sunday evening of Memorial Day weekend. Durning was paid a tribute at the May 26,2013 National Memorial Day Concert when Taps was sounded in his honor. For his valor and the wounds he received during the war, Durning was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and his badges included the Combat Infantryman Badge, Expert Badge with Rifle Bar, and Honorable Service Lapel Pin. Durning received the French National Order of the Legion of Honor from the French Consul in Los Angeles in April 2008, while pursuing an acting career, Durning, a professional ballroom dancer, taught at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in New York City. Referred to as the King of Character Actors, Durning began his career in 1951, while working as an usher in a burlesque joint, he was hired to replace a drunken actor on stage. Beginning in 1961, he appeared in 35 plays as part of the Shakespeare Festival and that time in my life was my best time, Durning told Pittsburghs Post Gazette in 2001. I had no money at all, and he didnt pay much and you were getting a salary for performance plus a rehearsal salary. We would do three plays in Central Park for the summer, and then youd do three to six plays every year down on Lafayette Street -- new plays by new writers, Sam Shepard, David Mamet, David Rabe, John Ford Noonan, Jason Miller. During this period, he segued into television and movies and he made his film debut in 1965, appearing in Harvey Middleman, Fireman. He appeared in John Frankenheimers I Walk the Line starring Gregory Peck and he also appeared in Dealing, Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues with Barbara Hershey and John Lithgow. Durnings performances in Broadway productions include Drat. Pousse-Café, The Happy Time, Indians, That Championship Season, In the Boom Boom Room, The au Pair Man, Knock Knock, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Inherit the Wind, The Gin Game, and The Best Man
17.
Rotten Tomatoes
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Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by Senh Duong and since January 2010 has been owned by Flixster, in February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcasts Fandango. Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, since 2007, the websites editor-in-chief has been Matt Atchity. The name, Rotten Tomatoes, derives from the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes when disapproving of a stage performance. From early 2008 to September 2010, Current Television aired the weekly The Rotten Tomatoes Show, featuring hosts, a shorter segment was incorporated into the weekly show, InfoMania, which ended in 2011. In September 2013, the website introduced TV Zone, a section for reviewing scripted TV shows, Rotten Tomatoes was launched on August 12,1998, as a spare-time project by Senh Duong. His goal in creating Rotten Tomatoes was to create a site where people can get access to reviews from a variety of critics in the U. S. As a fan of Jackie Chans, Duong was inspired to create the website after collecting all the reviews of Chans movies as they were being published in the United States, the first movie whose reviews were featured on Rotten Tomatoes was Your Friends & Neighbors. The website was an success, receiving mentions by Netscape, Yahoo. and USA Today within the first week of its launch. They officially launched it on April 1,2000, in June 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired rottentomatoes. com for an undisclosed sum. In September 2005, IGN was bought by News Corps Fox Interactive Media, in January 2010, IGN sold the website to Flixster. The combined reach of both companies is 30 million unique visitors a month across all different platforms, according to the companies, in May 2011, Flixster was acquired by Warner Bros. In early 2009, Current Television launched the version of the web review site. It was hosted by Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox and written by Mark Ganek, the show aired every Thursday at 10,30 EST on the Current TV network. The last episode aired on September 16,2010 and it returned as a much shorter segment of InfoMania, a satirical news show that ended in 2011. By late 2009, the website was designed to enable Rotten Tomatoes users to create, one group, The Golden Oyster Awards, accepted votes of members for different awards, as if in parallel to the better-known Oscars or Golden Globes. When Flixster bought the company, they disbanded the groups, announcing, in the meantime, please use the Forums to continue your conversations about your favorite movie topics. As of February 2011, new community features have been added, for example, users can no longer sort films by fresh ratings from rotten ratings, and vice versa
18.
IMDb
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In 1998 it became a subsidiary of Amazon Inc, who were then able to use it as an advertising resource for selling DVDs and videotapes. As of January 2017, IMDb has approximately 4.1 million titles and 7.7 million personalities in its database, the site enables registered users to submit new material and edits to existing entries. Although all data is checked before going live, the system has open to abuse. The site also featured message boards which stimulate regular debates and dialogue among authenticated users, IMDb shutdown the message boards permanently on February 20,2017. Anyone with a connection can read the movie and talent pages of IMDb. A registration process is however, to contribute info to the site. A registered user chooses a name for themselves, and is given a profile page. These badges range from total contributions made, to independent categories such as photos, trivia, bios, if a registered user or visitor happens to be in the entertainment industry, and has an IMDb page, that user/visitor can add photos to that page by enrolling in IMDbPRO. Actors, crew, and industry executives can post their own resume and this fee enrolls them in a membership called IMDbPro. PRO can be accessed by anyone willing to pay the fee, which is $19.99 USD per month, or if paid annually, $149.99, which comes to approximately $12.50 per month USD. Membership enables a user to access the rank order of each industry personality, as well as agent contact information for any actor, producer, director etc. that has an IMDb page. Enrolling in PRO for industry personnel, enables those members the ability to upload a head shot to open their page, as well as the ability to upload hundreds of photos to accompany their page. Anyone can register as a user, and contribute to the site as well as enjoy its content, however those users enrolled in PRO have greater access and privileges. IMDb originated with a Usenet posting by British film fan and computer programmer Col Needham entitled Those Eyes, others with similar interests soon responded with additions or different lists of their own. Needham subsequently started an Actors List, while Dave Knight began a Directors List, and Andy Krieg took over THE LIST from Hank Driskill, which would later be renamed the Actress List. Both lists had been restricted to people who were alive and working, the goal of the participants now was to make the lists as inclusive as possible. By late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies and television series correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein. On October 17,1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of Unix shell scripts which could be used to search the four lists, at the time, it was known as the rec. arts. movies movie database
19.
Box Office Mojo
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Box Office Mojo is a website that tracks box office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way, founded in 1999. In 2008, Box Office Mojo was bought by the Internet Movie Database, the website is widely used within the film industry as a source of data. From 2002–11, Box Office Mojo had forums popular with film fans, on October 10,2014, the websites URL was redirected to Amazons IMDB. com website for one day, but the website returned the following day without explanation. Brandon Gray began the site in 1999, in 2002, Gray partnered with Sean Saulsbury and grew the site to nearly two million readers. In July 2008, the company was purchased by Amazon. com through its subsidiary, Box Office Mojo had forums with more than 16,500 registered users. On November 2,2011 the forums were closed along with any user accounts. Tracking is still very closely to the day by day, actual tabulation of distributors. The site also creates an overall chart, combining all box office returns from around the world, excluding the United States. The overall weekend chart currently tracks the Top 40 films as well as approximately fifty additional films with no ranking, the site additionally has yearly and all time features for its various territories. Box Office Mojo was as of June 2009 reporting limited data from overseas and is work on improvements, most of the international charts have not been updated since November 2014. On October 10,2014, all traffic to Box Office Mojo was redirected to IMDbs box office page, queries about the closure to IMDb and Amazon representatives were met with no response. Neither Brandon Gray, who founded the website but left several years ago after its sale to Amazon, nor Ray Subers, on Ray Subers Twitter account, he revealed the websites return, but also stated he would not answer any questions pertaining to closure. Subers subsequently left the website seven months later
20.
Woody Allen filmography
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Woody Allen is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, author, jazz musician, comedian and playwright. He contributed to many films as either actor, director, writer or sometimes both, Allen wrote four plays for the stage, and has written sketches for the Broadway revue From A to Z, and the Broadway productions Dont Drink the Water and Play It Again, Sam. His first film was the 1965 comedy Whats New Pussycat, which featured him as both writer and performer. His directorial debut was the 1966 film Whats Up, Tiger Lily. in which a dramatic Japanese spy movie was re-dubbed in English with completely new, comic dialog. Allen is influenced by European art cinema and ventured into more dramatic territory, with Interiors, despite this, he continued to direct several comedies. He also wrote for and contributed to a number of television series early in his career, the films he directed by ABC Pictures are now property of American Broadcasting Company, who in turn licensed their home video rights to MGM. List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen General Specific Woody Allen at the Internet Movie Database Woody Allen at the Internet Broadway Database
21.
Woody Allen bibliography
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A list of published works by or about the American film director Woody Allen. Getting Even, ISBN 0-394-47348-5 Without Feathers, ISBN 0-394-49743-0 Side Effects, ISBN 0-394-51104-2 Allen, the Insanity Defense, The Complete Prose. New York, Random House Trade Paperbacks,2007, ISBN 978-0-8129-7811-7, mere Anarchy, ISBN 978-1400066414 Allen, Woody. Woody Allen on Woody Allen, In Conversation with Stig Björkman, lunatics Tale, ISBN 1-55628-001-7 Allen, Woody. Now, where did I leave that oxygen tank, the one-act plays God and Death are both included in Allens 1975 collection Without Feathers. A Second Hand Memory, A drama in two acts This drama, which opened at Off-Broadways Atlantic Theater Company on Nov.22,2004 and it starred Michael McKean, Elizabeth Marvel, Kate Blumberg, Dominic Chianese and Beth Fowler. It was directed by the author, the Reluctant Film Art of Woody Allen. Curry, Renée R. Perspectives on Woody Allen, fun With Woody, The Complete Woody Allen Quiz Book. The Soundtracks of Woody Allen, A Complete Guide to the Songs and Music in Every Film, lee, Sander H. Woody Allens Angst, Philosophical Commentaries on His Serious Films. The Unruly Life of Woody Allen, jewishness in the films and plays of Woody Allen, Brandeis University Press,2014 Essay by Victoria Loy on Woody Allens career, Senseofcinema. com Silet, Charles L. P. The Films of Woody Allen, Critical Essays
22.
What's Up, Tiger Lily?
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Whats Up, Tiger Lily. is a 1966 American comedy film directed by Woody Allen in his feature-length directorial debut. Allen took a Japanese spy film, International Secret Police, Key of Keys and this experience helped convince Allen that he should secure creative control for all his future projects. The band released a soundtrack album, in 2003, Image released the film on DVD, with both the theatrical and television soundtracks. The DVD also offers the 11 minutes of TV footage as a separate bonus, the plot provides the setup for a string of sight gags, puns, jokes based on Asian stereotypes, and general farce. The central plot involves the misadventures of secret agent Phil Moskowitz and it contains music by The Lovin Spoonful. The audio engineer at National Recording Studios was Fred Weinberg, who went on to produce and it was re-released on CD along with Youre a Big Boy Now, the Spoonfuls soundtrack for the 1966 film by Francis Ford Coppola. It reached No.126 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts, variety wrote, The production has one premise - deliberately mismatched dialog - which is sustained reasonably well through its brief running time
23.
Take the Money and Run
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Take the Money and Run is a 1969 American mockumentary comedy film directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Janet Margolin. Written by Allen and Mickey Rose, the chronicles the life of Virgil Starkwell. Virgil Starkwells story is told in documentary style, using stock footage and interviews with people who knew him. The film shows Starkwell entering a life of crime at a young age, as a child, Virgil was a frequent target of bullies, who would snatch his glasses and stomp on them on the floor. As an adult, Virgil is inept and unlucky, and both police and judges ridicule him by stomping on Virgils glasses. Virgil falls in love with a lady, Louise, in the park, a laundry worker. They even have a baby together, Starkwell is arrested for trying to rob a bank after handing to a teller a threatening note with the word gun misspelled. Virgil is sent to prison, but attempts an escape using a bar of soap carved to resemble a gun, unfortunately for Virgil, it was raining outside and his gun dissolves. Starkwell does escape prison, but by accident, joining a mass breakout plan, Virgil is the only inmate not warned that the scheme had been called off. Outside but unemployed, Virgil finds no way to support himself, eventually he is rearrested and sent to a chain gang where he is undernourished and brutally punished. Starkwell again escapes but is captured when attempting to rob a former friend who reveals he is now a cop. Starkwells story ends with Starkwell back in prison and he is sentenced to 800 years but remains upbeat knowing that with good behavior, I can get that cut in half. In the last scene, Starkwell is shown carving a bar of soap and he had originally wanted Jerry Lewis to direct, but when that did not work out, Allen decided to direct it himself. Allens decision to become his own director was partially spurred on by the chaotic and uncontrolled filming of Casino Royale and this film marked the first time Allen would perform the triple duties of writing, directing, and acting in a film. The manic, almost slapstick style is similar to that of Allens next several films, including Bananas, Allen discussed the concept of filming a documentary in an interview with Richard Schickel, Take the Money and Run was an early pseudo-documentary. The idea of doing a documentary, which I later finally perfected when I did Zelig was with me from the first day I started movies, and you could tell your story laugh by laugh by laugh. The object of the movie was for every inch of it to be a laugh, the film was shot on location in San Francisco, including one scene set in Ernies restaurant, whose striking red interior was immortalized in Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo. Other scenes were filmed at San Quentin State Prison, where 100 prisoners were paid a fee to work on the film
24.
Bananas (film)
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Bananas is a 1971 American comedy film directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen, Louise Lasser, and Carlos Montalban. Parts of the plot are based on the book Don Quixote, fielding Mellish is the protagonist, but he does not appear until after the opening credits. The scene was in the form of a championship boxing telecast on Wide World of Sports, with Don Dunphy as the host, Mellish is a neurotic blue collar man who tries to impress social activist Nancy by trying to get in touch with the revolution in San Marcos. He visits the republic and attempts to show his concern for the native people, however, he is nearly killed by the local caudillo and then saved by the revolutionaries, putting him in their debt. Mellish then learns, clumsily, how to be a revolutionary, when the revolution is successful, the Castro-style leader goes mad, forcing the rebels to place Mellish as their President. When traveling back to the U. S. to obtain financial aid, one of the witnesses does provide testimony favorable to Mellish, but the court clerk, when asked to read back this testimony, replies with an entirely different, wholly unfavorable rendition. Mellish is eventually sentenced to prison, but his sentence is suspended on the condition that he not move into the judges neighborhood. Nancy then agrees to marry him, the film ends with the between-the-covers consummation of their marriage, an event that was over much more quickly than Nancy had anticipated. Like the opening scene, it was accompanied by Cosell providing commentary, the verdict in Mellishs legal case is portrayed as the headline story of a Roger Grimsby newscast. Included in the scene is a television advertisement for New Testament cigarettes with a Catholic priest promoting the fictitious brand while performing the sacrament of the Eucharist. The movie received a C classification from the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures because of the spoof, the title is a pun, bananas being slang for crazy, as well as being a reference to the phrase banana republic describing the films setting. The title also may be a nod to The Cocoanuts. However, when Allen was asked why the film was called Bananas, his reply was, in Don Quixote, U. S. A. the novel by Richard P. Powell that served as a source for Bananas, the protagonist was an agronomist specializing in bananas. Bananas was well received by critics and holds an 88% positive Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, vincent Canby of The New York Times praised the film, saying Allens view of the world is fraught with everything except pathos, and its a view I happen to find very funny. Here is no little man surviving with a wan smile and a shrug and he concluded, Any movie that attempts to mix together love, Cuban revolution, the C. I. A. Jewish mothers, J. Edgar Hoover and a few odds and ends is bound to be a little weird—and most welcome
25.
Sleeper (1973 film)
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Sleeper is a 1973 American futuristic science fiction comedy film, directed by Woody Allen and written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a food store who is cryogenically frozen in 1973. The film contains elements which parody notable works of science fiction and was made as a tribute to comedians Groucho Marx. Miles Monroe, a musician and owner of the Happy Carrot health-food store in 1973, is subjected to cryopreservation without his consent. The scientists who revive him are members of a rebellion, 22nd-century America seems to be a police state, the rebels hope to use Miles as a spy to infiltrate the Aries Project, because he is the only member of this society without a known biometric identity. The authorities discover the scientists project, and arrest them, Miles escapes by disguising himself as a robot, and goes to work as a butler in the house of socialite Luna Schlosser. When Luna decides to have his head replaced with something more pleasing, Miles reveals his true identity to her. In response, he kidnaps her and goes on the run, Miles and Luna fall in love, but Miles is captured and brainwashed into becoming a complacent member of the society, while Luna joins the rebellion. The rebels kidnap Miles and perform reverse-brainwashing, whereupon he remembers his past, Miles becomes jealous when he catches Luna kissing the rebel leader, Erno Windt, and she tells him that she believes in free love. Miles and Luna infiltrate the Aries Project, wherein they learn that the national leader had been killed by a rebel bomb ten months previously. All that survives is his nose, other members of the Aries Project, mistaking Miles and Luna for doctors, expect them to clone the leader from this single remaining part. Miles steals the nose and assassinates it by dropping it in the path of a road roller, after escaping, Miles and Luna debate their future together. He tells her that Erno will inevitably become as corrupt as the Leader, Miles and Luna confess their love for one another, but she claims that science has proven men and women cannot have meaningful relationships due to chemical incompatibilities. Miles dismisses this, saying that he does not believe in science, Luna asks Miles if there is anything he does believe in, and he responds with the line, Sex and death—two things that come once in a lifetime—but at least after death youre not nauseous. The film ends as the two embrace, spencer Milligan and Stanley Ross appear as gay couple Jeb Hrmthmg and Sears Swiggles, respectively. Marya Small appears as Doctor Nero, the physician who oversees Miless reprogramming into 22nd-century life, peter Hobbs appears as Doctor Dean, the leading physician come to witness Our Leaders cloning. Douglas Rain voices Bio Central Computer 2100, Series G, the computer aiding in Our Leaders cloning, whitney Rydbeck voices Janus, Tryon and Meliks robot butler. John Cannon voices Rags, Miless robot dog, jackie Mason voices Cohen, one of the two robot tailors of Ginsberg & Cohen
26.
Love and Death
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Love and Death is a 1975 comedy film by Woody Allen. It is a satire on Russian literature starring Allen and Diane Keaton as Boris and Sonja, Allen considered it the funniest film he had made by that time. When Napoleon invades Austria during the Napoleonic Wars, Boris Grushenko, desperate and disappointed after hearing the news that Sonja, his cousin twice removed, is to wed a herring merchant, he inadvertently becomes a war hero. To her surprise and disappointment, he survives the duel and their marriage is filled with philosophical debates, and no money. Their life together is interrupted when Napoleon invades the Russian Empire, Boris wants to flee but his wife, angered that the invasion will interfere with their plans to start a family that year, conceives a plot to assassinate Napoleon at his headquarters in Moscow. Boris and Sonja debate the matter with some degree of philosophical double-talk and they fail to kill Napoleon and Sonja escapes arrest while Boris is executed, despite being told by a vision that he will be pardoned. This made the director never to shoot a movie outside the US again. However, starting twenty-one years later, in 1996 with Everyone Says I Love You, coming between Allens Sleeper and Annie Hall, Love and Death is in many respects an artistic transition between the two. Allen pays tribute to the humor of The Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, the dialogue and scenarios parody Russian novels, particularly those by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, such as The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Gambler, The Idiot, and War and Peace. This includes a dialogue between Boris and his father, with each line alluding to or being composed entirely of Dostoyevsky titles, the use of Prokofiev on the soundtrack adds to the Russian flavor of the film. Prokofievs Troika from the Lieutenant Kijé Suite is featured prominently, for the opening and closing credits. The battle scene is accompanied with the music from Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevsky, Boris is marched to his execution to the March from Prokofievs The Love for Three Oranges. Some of the humor is straightforward, other jokes rely on the awareness of classic literature or contemporary European cinema. For example, the shot of Keaton is a reference to Ingmar Bergmans Persona. The sequence with the lions is a parody of Sergei Eisensteins Battleship Potemkin. Bergmans The Seventh Seal is parodied several times, including during the climax, the film grossed over $20 million in North America, making it the 18th highest grossing picture of 1975. At Rotten Tomatoes,18 out of 18 critics—including three of the sites top critics—consider the film fresh, with an average 8. 1/10 rating. In September 2008, in a poll held by Empire magazine, in October 2013, the film was voted by the Guardian readers as the seventh best film directed by Woody Allen
27.
Annie Hall
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Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. Produced by Allens manager, Charles H, principal photography for the film began on May 19,1976 on the South Fork of Long Island, and filming continued periodically for the next ten months. Annie Hall was screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival in March 1977, the film received widespread critical acclaim, and along with winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, it received Oscars in three other categories, two for Allen, and Keaton for Best Actress. The film additionally won four BAFTA awards and a Golden Globe and its North American box office receipts of $38,251,425 are fourth-best of Allens works when not adjusted for inflation. Film critic Roger Ebert called it just about everyones favorite Woody Allen movie, the films screenplay was also named the funniest ever written by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the 101 Funniest Screenplays. The comedian Alvy Singer is trying to understand why his relationship with Annie Hall ended a year ago, growing up in New York, he vexed his mother with impossible questions about the emptiness of existence, but he was precocious about his innocent sexual curiosity. That night, Annie shows no interest in sex with Alvy, instead, they discuss his first wife, whose ardor gave him no pleasure. His second marriage was to a New York writer who didnt like sports and was unable to reach orgasm, the two of them have fun making a meal of boiled lobster together. He teases her about the men in her past. He met her playing tennis doubles with friends, following the game, awkward small talk led her to offer him first a ride up town and then a glass of wine on her balcony. There, what seemed a mild exchange of personal data is revealed in mental subtitles as an escalating flirtation. Their first date follows Annies singing audition for a night club and he suggests they kiss first, to get it out of the way. After their lovemaking that night, Alvy is a wreck, while she relaxes with a joint, soon Annie admits she loves him, while he buys her books on death and says that his feelings for her are more than just love. When she moves in with him, things become very tense, eventually, he finds her arm in arm with one of her college professors and the two begin to argue whether this is the flexibility they had discussed. Alvy returns to dating, but the effort is marred by neurosis, bad sex, and finally an interruption from Annie and it turns out she needs him to kill a spider. A reconciliation follows, coupled with a vow to stay together come what may, however, their separate discussions with their therapists make it evident there is an unspoken divide. When Alvy accepts an offer to present an award on television, they fly out to Los Angeles, with Alvys friend, however, on the return trip, they agree that their relationship is not working. After losing her to her producer, Tony Lacey, he unsuccessfully tries rekindling the flame with a marriage proposal
28.
Interiors
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Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, Page received a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. It is Allens first fully-fledged film in the drama genre, the film centers around the three daughters of Arthur, a corporate attorney, and Eve, an interior decorator. There is the oldest, Renata, a poet whose husband Frederick and she is also in a relationship with Mike, who Eve dislikes. The film also goes in and out of the past and present, Eve goes over to Mike and Joeys apartment since she has been helping them decorate. She and Mike bicker about the placement of lamps, money and she brings a vase for the foyer and throughout the film, vases seem to be Eves signature. Joey snaps at Mike not to bicker with her mother as she is a sick woman. Joey and Eve discuss her comeback and her mental health, Eve asks Joey if she thinks her father would consider a reconciliation since she is now doing so well. Joey isnt sure and Eve accuses her of being negative, Joey, frustrated, ends up telling her mother to talk to Renata then, as she is her favorite of the three. We then see Renata in therapy talking about her mother and the effects of her breakdown on the family and she says that Eve received shock therapy and was almost like a stranger when she returned from treatment. She also discusses her jealousy of her fathers favoritism towards Joey, Eve, who is clinically depressed and mentally unstable, doesnt take the news very well and says that she cant be alone as she isnt well. Renata then goes on to explain that she hasnt been able to write since the winter and how increasing thoughts about death plague her and her ideas of purpose. Later, Joey talks to Mike about how Renata gives her false hope about a reconciliation. She also tells Mike that she wants to quit her current job, Joey expresses her frustrations with her interests, like acting, photography, writing, etc. and her lack of consistency with her career choices. Renata is shopping for her mothers birthday with Frederick and she tells him that Flynn will be in town her their mothers birthday. Renata tells him not to talk down to her while he is there and he compares Flyn to his last book saying, she is the example of form. While at their mothers new apartment in the city, Flyn compliments her mother on how well she looks, Frederick and Joey also comment on how sexy Flyn has become. Eve asks if Flyn has spoken to her father and says that he visits her now, upset, Eve starts to cry and tells Flyn that she has nothing to live for anymore
29.
Manhattan (film)
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Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen and produced by Charles H. Joffe. The screenplay was written by Allen and Marshall Brickman, Allen co-stars as a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl but falls in love with his best friends mistress. Meryl Streep and Anne Byrne also star, Manhattan was filmed in black-and-white and 2.35,1 widescreen. The film features music composed by George Gershwin, including Rhapsody in Blue, Allen described the film as a combination of his previous two films, Annie Hall and Interiors. Its North American box office receipts of $39.9 million made it Allens second biggest box office hit, often considered one of Allens best films, it ranks 46th on AFIs 100 Years.100 Laughs list and number 63 on Bravos 100 Funniest Movies. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film culturally significant, Isaac is a twice-divorced, 42-year-old television comedy writer dealing with the women in his life who quits his unfulfilling job. He is dating Tracy, a 17-year-old girl attending the Dalton School and his best friend, college professor Yale Pollack, married to Emily, is having an affair with Mary Wilkie. Marys ex-husband and former teacher, Jeremiah, also appears, isaacs ex-wife Jill Davis is writing a confessional book about their marriage. Jill has also come out of the closet as a lesbian and lives with her partner. When Isaac meets Mary, her cultural snobbery rubs him the wrong way, Isaac runs into her again at an Equal Rights Amendment fund-raising event at the Museum of Modern Art hosted by Bella Abzug and accompanies her on a cab ride home. They chat until sunrise in a sequence that culminates in the shot of the Queensboro Bridge. In spite of an attraction to Mary, Isaac continues his relationship with Tracy but emphasizes that theirs cannot be a serious relationship. In another iconic scene, at Tracys request, they go on a ride through Central Park. After Yale breaks up with Mary, he suggests that Isaac ask her out, Isaac does, always having felt that Tracy was too young for him. Isaac breaks up with Tracy, much to her dismay, and before long, a betrayed Isaac confronts Yale at the college where he teaches, and Yale argues that he found Mary first. Isaac responds by discussing Yales extramarital affairs with Emily, but Yale told her that Isaac introduced Mary to him, in the denouement, Isaac lies on his sofa, musing into a tape recorder about the things that make life worth living. When he finds himself saying Tracys face, he sets down the microphone and he leaves his apartment and sets out on foot for Tracys. He arrives at the lobby of her familys apartment just as she is leaving for London and he says that she does not have to go and that he does not want that thing about that like to change
30.
Stardust Memories
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The film is about a filmmaker who recalls his life and his loves - the inspirations for his films - while attending a retrospective of his work. The film is shot in black and white and is reminiscent of Federico Fellinis 8½, the film has nonetheless been re-evaluated to some extent, with modern reception more often positive than negative. Meanwhile, he is haunted by memories of his ex-girlfriend. William Zinsser in small role as a Catholic priest. <13>Allen has asserted that Stardust Memories is not an autobiographical work, thought that the lead character was me, the director is quoted as saying in Woody Allen on Woody Allen. Not a fictional character but me, and that I was expressing hostility towards my audience and that was in no way the point of the film. It was about a character who is obviously having a sort of breakdown and. The conflict between the maternal, nurturing woman and the earnest, usually one, is a recurring theme in Allens films. Like many of Allens films, Stardust Memories incorporates several jazz recordings including those by such notables as Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, the films title alludes to the famous take of Stardust recorded in 1931 by Armstrong, wherein the trumpeter sings oh, memory three times in succession. The film deals with issues regarding religion, God, and philosophy, especially existentialism, psychology, symbolism, wars and it is also about realism, relationships, and death. It refers to questions about the meaning of life. It also ruminates on the role that plays in life. Most of the interiors, including the scenes, were shot in a vacant Sears Roebuck building. To reproduce the movement of a car, the whole train was mounted on jacks and gently jostled back. The film sharply divided both audiences and critics, with many Allen fans proclaiming it his best picture or among his worst. Janet Maslin wrote that the work is his most provocative film thus far and perhaps his most revealing, aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 72% approval of Stardust Memories, with an average rating of 6. 6/10. Sam Fragoso of IndieWire also ranked it among Allens best works, the film was listed 16th among Allens efforts in a poll of Time Out contributors, with editor Joshua Rothkopf praising it as a piece of self-referential hilarity in its own right. In October 2013, Stardust Memories was voted by the Guardian readers as the eighth best film directed by Woody Allen, Stardust Memories opened in North America on September 26,1980 to an onslaught of bad reviews. At 29 theatres, it grossed $326,779 in its opening weekend, the film failed to attract more than Allens loyal fanbase in the long run, and it grossed $10,389,003 by the end of its run
31.
Zelig
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Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Leonard Zelig, an enigma who, out of his desire to fit in and be liked. The film, presented as a documentary, recounts his intense period of celebrity in the 1920s, Zelig was photographed and narrated in the style of 1920s black-and-white newsreels, which are interwoven with archival footage from the era, and re-enactments of real historical events. Color segments from the present day include interviews of real and fictional personages, including Saul Bellow, Zelig has garnered a favorable reception from critics since its release. Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the focuses on Leonard Zelig. He is first observed at a party by F and he soon gains international fame as a human chameleon. Through the use of hypnotism, she discovers Zelig yearns for approval so strongly he physically changes to fit in with those around him, Dr. Dr. Fletcher realizes she is falling in love with Zelig. Because of the coverage of the case, both patient and doctor become part of the popular culture of their time. However, fame is the cause of their division, the same society that made Zelig a hero destroys him. Zeligs illness returns, and he tries to fit in once more, numerous women claim he married them, and he disappears. Dr. Fletcher finds him in Germany working with the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II, together they escape and return to America, where they are proclaimed heroes. Woody Allen – Leonard Zelig Mia Farrow – Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher Patrick Horgan – narrator John Buckwalter – Dr, the film uses cameo appearances by real figures from academia and other fields for comic effect. Contrasting the films vintage black-and-white film footage, these appear in color segments as themselves. In the time it took to complete the special effects, Allen filmed A Midsummer Nights Sex Comedy. DeSylva, Aint We Got Fun. by Richard A. Whiting, egan, and Gus Kahn, Charleston by James P. Johnson and Cecil Mack, Ill Get By by Fred E. Zimmerman and Alfred Hart Miles. Before being shown at the Venice Film Festival, the film opened on six screens in the US and grossed US$60,119 on its opening weekend, it eventually earned $11,798,616 in the United States. Zelig has an approval rating of 100% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 22 professional critics with a weighted average score of 7. 9/10. In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby observed, new, berlin Alexanderplatz is to Rainer Werner Fassbinders and
32.
Broadway Danny Rose
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Broadway Danny Rose is a 1984 American black-and-white comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. It follows a hapless theatrical agent who, by helping a client, the film stars Allen as the titular character, as well as Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte. Broadway Danny Rose was screened out of competition at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival and it is considered one of Allens stronger efforts, being praised particularly for Farrows performance. Joan Lopate, sister of radio host Leonard Lopate and essayist Phillip Lopate, was the art department coordinator for the film, the story of Danny Rose is told in flashback, an anecdote shared amongst a group of comedians over lunch at New Yorks Carnegie Deli. Roses one-man talent agency represents countless unorthodox, unsuccessful entertainers, including washed-up lounge lizard Lou Canova, on those rare occasions any of Dannys acts do succeed, they invariably leave him for better representation. Lou, who has a wife and three kids, is having an affair with a woman, Tina, who had dated a gangster. Lou wants her to him to a big gig Danny has landed for him at the Waldorf Astoria, where he will perform in front of Milton Berle. At the singers insistence, Danny acts as a beard, masquerading as Tinas boyfriend to divert attention from the affair. Tinas ex-boyfriend is extremely jealous, and believing Tinas relationship with Danny to be real, he orders a hit on Danny, who finds himself in danger of losing both his client and his life. Danny and Tina narrowly escape, as Danny at gunpoint says Tinas real boyfriend is one of Dannys clients who Danny believes is on a cruise for a few weeks, Danny and Tina escape and show up at the Waldorf to find Lou drunk and unprepared to perform. Danny sobers Lou with a concoction that he has come up with over the years, Lou sobers up. With a new prestigious talent manager in attendance at the performance, Lou, in front of Tina, fires Danny and hires the new manager. Danny, feeling cheated, goes to the Carnegie Deli where he hears that the client he ratted on to himself was beaten up by the hit men and is now in the hospital. Danny goes to the hospital to console his client and pays his hospital bills, Lou, who has left his wife and kids to marry Tina, becomes a success. Tina, feeling guilty for not sticking up for Danny, is depressed and it is now Thanksgiving and Danny is hosting a party with all of his clients there. Tina shows up to the door and apologizes, asking Danny to remember his uncle Sidneys motto, acceptance, forgiveness, at first Danny turns Tina away, but later catches up with her and they appear to make up. During this closing shot, the voiceover of the group of talking about the story is heard. They praise Danny, and say that he was eventually awarded Broadways highest honor, robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone both turned down the role
33.
The Purple Rose of Cairo
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The Purple Rose of Cairo is a 1985 American romantic fantasy comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, and Danny Aiello. The film was released on March 1,1985 to critical acclaim and it won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, while Allen received several screenwriting nominations, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Writers Guild of America Award. Allen has ranked it among his best films, along with Stardust Memories, the latest film Cecilia sees is a fictitious RKO Radio Pictures film, The Purple Rose of Cairo. It is the story of a rich Manhattan playwright named Henry who goes on a vacation to Egypt with companions Jason. While in Egypt, the three meet archaeologist Tom Baxter, Tom is brought back for a madcap Manhattan weekend where he falls head-over-heels for Kitty Haynes, a chanteuse at the Copacabana. He tells Cecilia that he is attracted to her after noticing her watching him so many times, later, he takes her into the film and they have a great evening on the town within the film. But the characters defection from the film has caused some problems, in other copies of the film, others have tried to exit the screen. The producer of the film learns that Tom has left the film and this sets up an unusual love triangle involving Tom, Gil, and Cecilia. Cecilia must choose between them and she decides to choose the person of Gil rather than the fantasy figure of Tom. She gives up the chance to return with Tom to his world, then she breaks up with her husband. But Gils professions of love for Cecilia were false—he wooed her only to get Tom to return to the movie, Gil abandons Cecilia and is seen quietly racked with guilt on his flight back to Hollywood. Allen later felt that Keaton, who took a pay cut to work with the director, was too contemporary, the two amicably parted ways after ten days of filming and Daniels replaced Keaton in the role. Several scenes featuring Tom and Cecilia are set at the Bertrand Island Amusement Park, many of the outside scenes were filmed in Piermont, NY, a tiny village on the Hudson River about 15 miles north of the George Washington Bridge. Store fronts had false facades reflecting the depression-era setting and it was also filmed at the Raritan Diner in South Amboy, New Jersey. Woody Allen shut down the Kent Theater on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, the neighborhood he grew up in, to film there. Allen provided more detail about the origins in a comment he made a year earlier, during a press junket for Small Time Crooks. I wrote it and halfway through it didnt go anywhere and I put it aside, I toyed around with other ideas. But the whole thing was manufactured, the Purple Rose of Cairo opened in North America on March 1,1985 in 3 theaters, where it grossed an exceptional $114,095 in its opening weekend
34.
Hannah and Her Sisters
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Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begins and ends with a family Thanksgiving dinner. The film was written and directed by Woody Allen, who stars along with Mia Farrow as Hannah, Michael Caine as her husband, the films ensemble cast also includes Carrie Fisher, Farrows mother Maureen OSullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Max von Sydow and Julie Kavner. Several of Farrows children, including a pre-adolescent Soon-Yi Previn, have credited and uncredited roles, Hannah and Her Sisters was for a long time Allens biggest box office hit, with a North American gross of US$40 million. The film won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor and it is often considered one of Allens major works, with critics continuing to praise its writing and ensemble cast. The story is told in three arcs, with most of it occurring during a 24-month period beginning and ending at Thanksgiving parties hosted by Hannah and her husband. Hannah serves as the hub of the narrative, most of the events of the film connect to her. Elliot becomes infatuated with one of Hannahs sisters, Lee, Elliot attributes his behavior to his discontent with his wifes self-sufficiency and resentment of her emotional strength. Lee has lived for five years with a reclusive artist, Frederick and she finds her relationship with Frederick no longer intellectually or sexually stimulating, in spite of Fredericks professed interest in continuing to teach her. She leaves Frederick after he discovers her affair with Elliot, for the remainder of the year between the first and second Thanksgiving gatherings, Elliot and Lee carry on their affair despite Elliots inability to end his marriage to Hannah. Lee finally ends the affair during the second Thanksgiving, explaining that she is finished waiting for him to commit, Hannahs ex-husband Mickey, a television writer, is present mostly in scenes outside of the primary story. Flashbacks reveal that his marriage to Hannah fell apart after they were unable to have children because of his infertility, however, they had twins who are not biologically his, before divorcing. He also went on a date with Hannahs sister Holly when they were set up after the divorce. A hypochondriac, he goes to his doctor complaining of hearing loss, when tests prove that he is perfectly healthy, he is initially overjoyed, but then despairs that his life is meaningless. His existential crisis leads to unsatisfying experiments with religious conversion to Catholicism, ultimately, an unsuccessful suicide attempt leads him to find meaning in his life after unexpectedly viewing the Marx Brothers Duck Soup in a movie theater. The revelation that life should be enjoyed, rather than understood, helps to prepare him for a date with Holly. Hollys story is the third main arc. A former cocaine addict, she is an actress who cannot settle on a career. After borrowing money from Hannah, she starts a business with April
35.
Radio Days
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Radio Days is a 1987 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, who also narrates. The film looks back on an American familys life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story, Joe, the narrator, relates how two burglars got involved in a radio game after picking up the phone. He goes on to explain that he associates old radio songs with childhood memories, during the late 1930s and early 1940s young Joe lived in a modest Jewish-American family in Rockaway Beach. His mother always listened to Breakfast with Irene and Roger and his father, who regularly gave him a beating, kept his occupation secret. Joe later found out that he was ashamed of being a taxi driver, other family members were Uncle Abe and Aunt Ceil, grandpa and grandma, and Aunt Bea. The latter was a serial dater, always on the lookout for a potential husband, Joes own favourite radio show was The Masked Avenger. It made him dream of buying a secret decoder ring, in Joes fantasy the Masked Avenger looked like a hero, but in reality the voice actor was short and bald. With his friends from school Joe was searching for German aircraft and she later turned out to be their substitute teacher. Alone on the coast Joe saw a German U-boat, but he decided not to anyone because they wouldnt believe him. Joe was fascinated by the glitz and glamour of Manhattan, where the broadcasts were made. He visited the Radio City Music Hall, and described it as the most beautiful thing he ever saw, Joe collected stories of radio stars, including that of Sally White, whose dreams of becoming famous were hampered by her bad voice and accent. Starting as a cigar salesgirl she got stuck on the roof of the building with Roger. After she witnessed a crime the gangster Rocco wanted to kill her and she finally became a reporter of celebrity gossip. On New Years Eve Joe was brought down from his room to celebrate the transition to 1944, simultaneously the radio stars gathered on the roof of their building. The narrator concludes that he will never forget those radio voices, Woody Allen as Joe, the Narrator Seth Green as Young Joe Danny Aiello as Rocco Sydney Blake as Mrs. It was released on cassette and compact disc in 1987, the film was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. Radio Days was released on DVD by MGM November 6,2001, a limited edition Blu-ray of 3,000 units was later released by Twilight Time July 8,2014. Radio Days currently holds a Fresh 88% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes and its a kaleidoscope of dozens of characters, settings and scenes - the most elaborate production Allen has ever made - and its inexhaustible, spinning out one delight after another
36.
Another Woman
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Another Woman is a 1988 American drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Gena Rowlands as a professor who accidentally overhears the private analysis of a stranger. Another Woman is viewed favorably by modern film critics, Marion Post is a New York philosophy professor past the age of 50 on a leave of absence to write a new book. Due to construction work in their building, she sublets a furnished flat downtown to have peace and her work there is interrupted by voices from a neighboring office in the building where a therapist conducts his analysis. She quickly realizes that she is privy to the sessions of another woman who is disturbed by a growing feeling that her life is false. Her words strike a chord in Marion, who begins to question herself in the same way and she also realizes that her marriage to her second husband, Ken, is unfulfilling and that she missed her one chance at love with his best friend Larry. She finally manages to meet the woman in therapy as she contemplates a Klimt painting called Hope, by the end of the film, Marion resolves to change her life for the better. This film has many of Allens signature features, particularly the New York City stamp of the film, only a few scenes are shot outside the city and it also uses classical music- Gymnopedie No. It also focuses primarily on upper middle class intellectuals, as all of Allens 1980s films do. Another Woman received modest praise from critics and holds a 65% positive Fresh rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph described the film as one of shortest, least funny, and very best films. Variety praised the film as brave, in many ways fascinating, vincent Canby of The New York Times was more critical of the film, however, remarking, Everyone speaks slightly stilted, epistolary dialogue. The rounded sentences sound as if theyd been written in a French influenced by Flaubert and he added, Mr. Allen is becoming an immensely sophisticated director, but this screenplay is in need of a merciless literary editor. Its full of an earnest teen-age writers superfluous words, in addition to flashbacks, modern reception is often more favorable. Another Woman at the Internet Movie Database
37.
New York Stories
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New York Stories is a 1989 anthology film, it consists of three shorts with the central theme being New York City. The first is Life Lessons, directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Richard Price, the second is Life Without Zoë, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and written by Coppola with his daughter, Sofia Coppola. The last is Oedipus Wrecks, directed, written by and starring Woody Allen, the film was screened out of competition at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. Rosanna Arquette is Paulette, his apprentice/assistant and former lover, Lionel is still infatuated with her, but Paulette wants only his tutelage, which makes things difficult since they live in the same studio-loft. Paulette dates other people, including a performance artist and a painter and these deliberate provocations on Paulettes part make Lionel insanely jealous — and fuel his creativity. Lionel and Paulette, it clear, have been using each other, Lionel using her sexually, Paulette using him as a means of entry to the higher spheres of the New York social. Paulette wants to give up and go home to her parents, Lionel pours his anxiety and repressed passion into his work. Paintings around the studio show visual metaphors from relations past, stormy skies, burning bridges, Lionel realizes that he needs the emotional turmoil of his destructive relationships in order to fuel his art. In the last scene, at the art exhibit, Lionel meets another young woman. He persuades her to become his assistant, and potentially his lover, Zoë is a schoolgirl who lives in a luxury hotel. She helps return to an Arab princess a valuable piece of jewelry that the princess had given to Zoës father and had been subsequently stolen, Zoë tries to reconcile her divorced mother, a photographer, and father, a flute soloist. New York lawyer Sheldon Mills has problems with his critical mother Sadie Millstein. Sheldon complains constantly to his therapist about her, wishing aloud that she would just disappear, Sheldon takes his shiksa fiancée, Lisa, to meet his mother, who immediately embarrasses him. The three, as well as Lisas children from a marriage, go to a magic show. His mother is invited on stage to be a part of the magicians act and she is put inside a box that has swords stuck through it and she disappears, just as she is supposed to, but then she never reappears. Although he is furious at first, this development turns out to be great for Sheldon because, with her out of his life, but soon, to his horror, his mother reappears in the sky over New York City. She begins to annoy Sheldon and Lisa by constantly talking to strangers about his most embarrassing moments and this puts a strain on his relationship with Lisa, who leaves him. Sheldon is persuaded by his psychiatrist to see a psychic, Treva, trevas experiments fail, but Sheldon falls for her, possibly finding her to be very similar to his mother
38.
Crimes and Misdemeanors
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In several publications, Crimes and Misdemeanors has been ranked as one of Allens greatest films. The story follows two characters, Judah Rosenthal, a successful ophthalmologist, and Clifford Stern, a small-time documentary filmmaker. Judah, a family man, is having an affair with flight attendant Dolores Paley. After it becomes clear to her that Judah will not end his marriage, Dolores, scorned, doloress letter to Miriam is intercepted and destroyed by Judah, but she sustains the pressure on him with threats of revelation. She is also aware of some questionable financial deals Judah has made and he confides in a patient, Ben, a rabbi who is rapidly losing his eyesight. Ben advises openness and honesty between Judah and his wife, but Judah does not wish to imperil his marriage, desperate, Judah turns to his brother, Jack, who hires a hitman to kill Dolores. Before her corpse is discovered, Judah retrieves letters and other items from her apartment in order to cover his tracks, stricken with guilt, Judah turns to the religious teachings he had rejected, believing for the first time that a just God is watching him and passing judgment. Cliff, meanwhile, has been hired by his pompous brother-in-law, Lester, while filming and mocking the subject, Cliff falls in love with Lesters associate producer, Halley Reed. Despondent over his marriage to Lesters sister Wendy, he woos Halley, showing her footage from his ongoing documentary about Prof. Louis Levy. He makes sure Halley is aware that he is shooting Lesters documentary merely for the money so he can finish his more meaningful project with Levy, Cliffs dislike for Lester becomes evident during the first screening of the film. It juxtaposes footage of Lester with clownish poses of Benito Mussolini addressing a throng of supporters from a balcony and it also shows Lester yelling at his employees and clumsily making a pass at an attractive young actress. Cliff learns that Professor Levy, whom he had been profiling on the strength of his celebration of life, has committed suicide, leaving a curt note, Ive gone out the window. When Halley visits to him, he makes a pass at her. Hearing that Lester sent Halley white roses round the clock, for days while they were in London and his last romantic gesture to Halley had been a love letter which, he admits with humor, he had mostly plagiarized from James Joyce. In the final scene, Judah and Cliff meet by happenstance at the wedding of the daughter of rabbi Ben, who is Cliffs brother-in-law and Judahs patient. Once deeply anguished by the murder he arranged, Judah has worked through his guilt and is enjoying life once more and he draws Cliff into a supposedly hypothetical discussion that draws upon his moral quandary. Judah says that time, any crisis will pass, but Cliff morosely claims instead that one is forever fated to bear ones burdens for crimes. Judah cheerfully leaves the party with his wife, and Cliff is left sitting alone
39.
Alice (1990 film)
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Alice is a 1990 American romantic fantasy film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Mia Farrow, Joe Mantegna and William Hurt. The film is a reworking of Federico Fellinis 1965 film Juliet of the Spirits. Alice Tate is an upper-class New York housewife, who spends her days shopping, getting beauty treatments and she has been married to wealthy Doug for fifteen years, and they have two children, who are being raised by a nanny. One day, she has an encounter with Joe Ruffalo. She finds herself attracted to him and experiences Catholic guilt for these feelings. This inner turmoil manifests itself in a backache and she is referred to Dr. Yang, an Asian herbalist who puts her under hypnosis. She reveals that what attracted her to her husband were in fact his superficial qualities, looks. She also reveals her feelings about Joe, Dr. Yang gives Alice ancient herbs that make her act on her feelings toward Joe Ruffalo. When the herbs wear off, Alice is appalled at her behavior and she does not go to meet him as planned. The next herbs she receives turn her invisible and she spies on Joe going to visit his ex-wife Vicky. Much to prudish Alices horror, they love in Vickys office. Alice is now glad she did not go to meet Joe, however, the next herbal remedy allows Alice to communicate with the ghost of her first lover, Ed. He encourages her to find out more about Joe, Alice and Joe finally meet, under the pretense of their children having a play-date. Alice and Joes meetings become increasingly frequent, when her guilt over her relationship with Joe becomes too much, Alice returns to Dr. Yang. Inhaling the soothing contents of a pipe, Alice falls asleep in Dr. Yangs rooms and she has vivid dreams about her Catholic upbringing. She remembers that she was at her happiest when she was helping people and she realizes that she has lost sight of many of her goals in her materialistic luxurious lifestyle. She also realizes this at an evening in honor of Mother Teresa. After the fundraiser, Joe and Alice sleep together, Alice realizes she is falling in love with him
40.
Shadows and Fog
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Shadows and Fog is a 1991 American black-and-white comedy film directed by Woody Allen and based on his one-act play Death. It stars Allen, Mia Farrow, John Malkovich, John Cusack, Madonna and it was filmed on a 26, 000-square-foot set at Kaufman Astoria Studios, which holds the distinction of being the biggest set ever built in New York. It was also his last film for Orion Pictures, Shadows and Fog is an homage to German Expressionist filmmakers Fritz Lang, G. W. Pabst and F. W. Murnau in its visual presentation, and to the writer Franz Kafka in theme. Critical reception of the work was lukewarm, Kleinman is awakened from a deep sleep by a vigilante mob. They claim to be looking for a killer who strangles his victims. Before he leaves, his landlady, who wants to marry him, Irmy and her boyfriend Paul, performers at a circus, are having a dispute about getting married and having a baby. Paul leaves and goes to another tent where Marie, a tightrope artist and they begin to have sex, but Irmy catches them and runs away to the city. There, she meets a prostitute who brings her to a house of ill-repute, then, a student named Jack comes into the whorehouse and is immediately bewitched by Irmy, he insists on having sex with her, paying $700. On the street, Kleinman walks aimlessly around the city and he stops at a coroners house, where the doctor explains that his role in the hunt is purely scientific. They each have a glass of sherry, after Kleinman leaves, the doctor is murdered by the Strangler. Kleinman, seeing a family being evicted as undesirables, goes to the police station to try to stop the eviction. Whilst there, an officer arrives with news of the coroners death. Kleinman panics, realizing that his fingerprints are on the glass, Irmy is there as well, because she had been taken to the police station when the police raided the whorehouse. Insisting she is a whore and needs a license, they fine her, Irmy protests her innocence and, in the confusion, Kleinman is able to steal the glass with his fingerprints on it. Kleinman leaves and, startled by Irmy, engages her in conversation, a vigilante shows Kleinman an alley where they think the killer might be. Irmy and Kleinman enter the alley warily, and find that the person is Kleinmans boss, Mr. Paulsen, Mr. Paulsen angrily accuses him of incompetence. Ashamed, Kleinman and Irmy move on into the night, Paul arrives in the city, looking for Irmy. He goes into a bar where Jack, the student who had sex with Irmy, is having a drink, the student reflects on the wonderful experience he had with a sword-swallower
41.
Husbands and Wives
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Husbands and Wives is a 1992 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. The film stars Allen, Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack, Judy Davis, Juliette Lewis and it was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay. The film debuted shortly after the end of Allen and Farrows romantic and professional partnership, the movie is filmed by Carlo Di Palma with a handheld camera style and features documentary-like one-on-one interviews with the characters interspersed with the story. Husbands and Wives, released by TriStar Pictures, was Allens first film as director for a studio other than United Artists or Orion Pictures since Take the Money. It received positive reviews and is listed among Allens best works. The film is about two couples, Jack and Sally, and Gabe and Judy, the film starts when Jack and Sally arrive at Gabe and Judys apartment and announce their separation. Gabe is shocked, but Judy takes the news personally and is very hurt, still confused, they go out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. A few weeks later Sally goes to the apartment of a colleague and they plan to go out together to the opera and then to dinner. Sally asks if she can use his phone, and calls Jack, learning from him that he has met someone, she accuses him of having had an affair during their marriage. Judy and Gabe are introduced to Jacks new girlfriend, Sam, while Judy and Sam shop, Gabe calls Jacks new girlfriend a cocktail waitress and tells him that he is crazy for leaving Sally for her. About a week later, Judy introduces Sally to Michael, Judys magazine colleague who she clearly is interested in herself, Michael asks Sally out, and they begin dating, Michael is smitten, but Judy is dissatisfied with the relationship. Meanwhile, Gabe has developed a friendship with a student of his, Rain. She comments on its brilliance, though has several criticisms, to which Gabe reacts defensively, at a party, Jack learns from a friend that Sally is seeing someone, and flies into a jealous rage. He and Sam break up after an argument, and Jack drives back to his house to find Sally in bed with Michael. He asks Sally to give their marriage another chance, but she tells him to leave, less than two weeks later, however, Jack and Sally are back together and the couple meet Judy and Gabe for dinner like old times. After dinner, Judy and Gabe get into an argument about her not sharing her poetry, after Gabe makes a failed pass at her, Judy tells him that she thinks the relationship was over, a week later Gabe moves out. Gabe goes to Rains 21st birthday party, and gives her a box as a present. She asks him to kiss her, and though the two share a romantic moment, Gabe tells her that they should not pursue it any further
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Manhattan Murder Mystery
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The film centers on a married couples investigation of the death of their neighbors wife. The film began as a draft of Annie Hall, which Allen co-wrote with Brickman. Eventually, the evolved and principal photography took place in 1992. Released in August 1993 to positive reviews, Keaton was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical and it marked Zach Braffs film debut. Larry Lipton and his wife Carol meet their older neighbors Paul, but the next night, Lilian is found to have died of a heart attack. The Liptons are surprised by the death because Lilian seemed so healthy, the Liptons are also surprised by Pauls cheerfulness so soon after his wifes death. Carol becomes suspicious and starts to investigate, even inventing an excuse to visit him, an urn she finds in Pauls apartment contradicts Pauls story that Lilian had been buried. Larry becomes frustrated with Carol, telling her shes inventing a mystery, Carol sneaks into Pauls apartment while hes away and finds more telling signs. Lilians urn is missing, there are two tickets to Paris and hotel reservations with a woman named Helen Moss, Carol calls Ted, a close friend who agrees with Carols suspicions and urges her to keep snooping. When Paul returns unexpectedly, Carol hides under the bed and overhears Pauls conversation with a woman whom she suspects is Helen Moss, later, Ted tracks down where Helen Moss lives, and with Carol and Larry, they follow her to a theater owned by Paul. They discover that Helen is a young actress, the three eavesdrop on Paul and Helen talking about money. A few days later, Carol spots a woman whos a dead ringer for the supposedly dead Lilian House on a passing bus, upon Larrys suggestion that Lilian has a twin, Ted investigates but finds Lilian has none. Larry and Carol trace this mystery Lilian to a hotel and, under the pretense of delivering a gift, they enter her hotel room. They call the police, who find no trace of the dead body. The Liptons search the room for clues, while leaving, they get trapped in the lift and accidentally stumble across Lilians body inside the emergency exit panel. Upon exiting to the street, they spot Mr. House putting the body in the trunk of his car, the Liptons follow him to a junk yard, where they see him dumping the body on a pile of scrap metal thats dropped into a melting furnace. With the help of Larrys friend and client Marcia Fox, they hatch a plan to bring Paul to justice by telling him they retrieved Lilians body from the furnace and they knew hed go for the latter, and hoped the police would catch him in the act. The plan backfires as Paul kidnaps Carol and calls Larry, demanding Lilians body, Paul and Larry meet in the theater and get into a scuffle
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Bullets over Broadway
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Wiest won Best Supporting Actress for her performance, the second time Allen directed her to an Academy Award. In 1928, David Shayne is a young playwright newly arrived on Broadway. In order to gain financing for his play, God of Our Fathers, he agrees to hire Olive Neal and she is demanding and talentless, but her gangster escort Cheech turns out to be a genius, who constantly comes up with excellent ideas for revising the play. The film featured the last screen appearance of Benay Venuta, Allen cast her in a cameo role as a well-wishing wealthy theatre patron. She died of cancer months after the film opened. Bullets over Broadway received a response from critics. Now here is the side of the same coin. The movie is funny and, in the way it follows its logic wherever it leads. Allen adapted the film as a musical, titled Bullets Over Broadway the Musical. The new musical premiered on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on April 10,2014, a staged reading was held in June 2013. The cast features Zach Braff as David Shayne, Brooks Ashmanskas, Betsy Wolfe, Lenny Wolpe, marin Mazzie stars as Helen Sinclair, and Karen Ziemba appears as Eden Brent. Musical supervisor Glen Kelly has adapted and written lyrics for songs including Taint Nobodys Busness, Running Wild, Lets Misbehave. The musical closed on August 24,2014, after 156 performances and 33 previews. in Boston Review, article discussing the Nietzschean influences in Bullets Over Broadway
