1.
William A. Wellman
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William Augustus Wellman was an American film director notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion. He also directed several well-regarded satirical comedies, beginning his film career as an actor, he went on to direct over 80 films, at times co-credited as producer and consultant. In 1927, Wellman directed Wings, which became the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony, Wellmans father, Arthur Gouverneur Wellman, was a New England Brahmin of English-Welsh-Scottish and Irish descent. William was a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Puritan Thomas Wellman who immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1640, William was a great-great-great grandson of Francis Lewis of New York, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence. His much beloved mother was an Irish immigrant named Cecilia McCarthy, Wellman was expelled from Newton High School in Newtonville, Massachusetts, for dropping a stink bomb on the principals head. Ironically, his mother was an officer who was asked to address Congress on the subject of juvenile delinquency. In World War I Wellman enlisted in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps as an ambulance driver, N.87, les Chats Noir was stationed at Lunéville in the Alsace-Lorraine sector and was equipped with Nieuport 17 and later Nieuport 24 pursuit aircraft. Wellmans combat experience culminated in three recorded kills, along with five probables, although he was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire on March 21,1918. Wellman survived the crash but he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Wellmans credits, January 19,1918 a German Rumpler shot down in front of American lines in Lorraine by Wellman, March 9,1918 shot down a German Rumpler, killed the rear Gunner, Pilot killed by airman Ruamps. March 18,1918 shot down a German Rumpler, not confirmed as fight took above German Lines, maréchal des Logis Wellman received a medical discharge from the Foreign Legion and returned to the United States a few weeks later. He spoke at War Savings Stamp rallies in his French uniform, in September 1918 his book about French flight school and his eventful four months at the front, Go Get Em. was published. He joined the United States Army Air Service but too late to fly for America in the war, stationed at Rockwell Field, San Diego, he taught combat tactics to new pilots. While in San Diego, Wellman would fly to Hollywood for the weekends in his Spad fighter, using Fairbanks polo field in Bel Air as a landing strip. Wellman was hired for the role of an officer in Evangeline, but was fired for slapping the leading lady, the actress Miriam Cooper. Wellman hated being an actor, thinking it an unmanly profession and his first assignment as an assistant director for Bernie Durning provided him with a work ethic that he adopted for future film work. One strict rule that Durning enforced was no fraternization with screen femme fatales, which almost immediately Wellman broke, leading to a confrontation, despite his transgression, both men became lifelong friends, and Wellman steadily progressed to more difficult first unit assignments. Wellman made his directorial debut in 1920 at Fox with The Twins of Suffering Creek
2.
Darryl F. Zanuck
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Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American film producer and studio executive, he earlier contributed stories for films starting in the silent era. He played a part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors. He earned three Academy Awards as producer for Best Picture during his tenure, but was responsible for many more, Zanuck was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, the son of Louise and Frank Zanuck, who owned and operated a hotel in Wahoo. Zanuck was of part Swiss descent and was raised a Protestant, at age six, Zanuck and his mother moved to Los Angeles, where the better climate could improve her poor health. At age eight, he found his first movie job as an extra, in 1918, despite being sixteen, he deceived a recruiter, joined the United States Army, and served in France with the Nebraska National Guard. Upon returning to the US, he worked in many jobs while seeking work as a writer. He found work producing movie plots, and sold his first story in 1922 to William Russell and he moved into management in 1929, and became head of production in 1931. In 1933, Zanuck left Warners over a dispute with studio head Jack L. Warner. A few days later, he partnered with Joseph Schenck to form 20th Century Pictures, Inc. with financial help from Josephs brother Nicholas Schenck, mayer, President and Studio head of Loews, Inc and its subsidiary Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, along with William Goetz and Raymond Griffith. 20th Century released its material through United Artists, after a dispute with United Artists over stock ownership, Schenck and Zanuck negotiated and bought out the bankrupt Fox studios in 1935 to form Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. Zanuck was Vice President of Production of this new studio and took an approach, closely involving himself in scripts. When the U. S. who was chauffeured by limousine to Long Island each morning from a luxury Manhattan hotel. Appalled by such privileged cosseting, Zanuck stormed down to Washington, D. C. and into the War Department, demanding a riskier assignment from Chief of Staff and he even persuaded Lord Mountbatten to allow him along on a secret coastal raid across the Channel to occupied France. The daring nighttime attack on a German radar site was a success, navy even before the U. S. entered the war, and he was horrified to discover himself drafted into Zanucks Africa unit. Cant I ever get away from you, I bet if I die and go to heaven, youll be waiting for me under a sign reading Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. Unlike Col. Warner, most colonels from the studio system—Col, Frank Capra, Col. Anatole Litvak, Col. Hal Roach—were actually doing their cinematic jobs, often, like Zanuck, under enemy fire. Nonetheless, when Col. Zanuck was named in this investigation in 1944, whatever the reason, despite having published his own first-person account of his wartime adventures he resigned. Zanuck returned to Twentieth Century-Fox in 1944 and he avoided the studio and instead read books at home, surrounded by his growing family, and caught up on all the films he had missed while overseas in his private screening room
3.
James Cagney
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James Francis Cagney Jr. was an American actor and dancer, both on stage and in film, though he had his greatest impact in film. Known for his energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing, he won acclaim. He is best remembered for playing multifaceted tough guys in movies such as The Public Enemy, Angels with Dirty Faces, and White Heat, and was typecast or limited by this view earlier in his career. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its list of greatest male stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Orson Welles said of Cagney, maybe the greatest actor who appeared in front of a camera. In his first professional acting performance, Cagney danced costumed as a woman in the line of the revue Every Sailor. He spent several years in vaudeville as a dancer and comedian and he secured several other roles, receiving good notices, before landing the lead in the 1929 play Penny Arcade. After rave reviews, Warner Bros. signed him for an initial $500-a-week, three-week contract to reprise his role, Cagneys seventh film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for a scene in which Cagney pushes a grapefruit against Mae Clarkes face. He became one of Hollywoods biggest stars and one of Warner Bros. biggest contracts, in 1938, he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, for Angels with Dirty Faces, for his subtle portrayal of the tough guy/man-child Rocky Sullivan. In 1942, Cagney won the Oscar for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me, Cagney retired from acting and dancing in 1961 to spend time on his farm with his family. He exited retirement,20 years later, for a part in the movie Ragtime, Cagney walked out on Warner Bros. several times over the course of his career, each time returning on much improved personal and artistic terms. In 1935, he sued Warner for breach of contract and won and this was one of the first times an actor prevailed over a studio on a contract issue. In reference to Cagneys refusal to be pushed around, Jack L, Warner called him the Professional Againster. Cagney also made numerous morale-boosting troop tours before and during World War II and was president of the Screen Actors Guild for two years, Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. His biographers disagree as to the location, either on the corner of Avenue D. His father, James Francis Cagney, Sr. was of Irish descent, at the time of his sons birth, he was a bartender and amateur boxer, though on Cagneys birth certificate, he is listed as a telegraphist
4.
Jean Harlow
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Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Harlow became a lady for MGM, starring in a string of hit films including Red Dust, Dinner at Eight, Reckless. Harlows popularity rivaled and soon surpassed that of her MGM colleagues Joan Crawford and she had become one of the biggest movie stars in the world by the late 1930s, often nicknamed the Blond Bombshell and the Platinum Blonde, she was also popular for her Laughing Vamp movie persona. Harlow died at age 26 during the 1937 filming of Saratoga, the film was completed using body doubles and released a little over a month after Harlows death. The American Film Institute ranked her as the 22nd greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema, Harlow was born Harlean Harlow Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri. The name is incorrectly spelled Carpentier, following later studio press releases. Her father, Mont Clair Carpenter, son of Abraham L. Carpenter and her mother, Jean Poe Carpenter, was the daughter of a wealthy real estate broker, Skip Harlow, and his wife, Ella Harlow. The marriage was arranged by Jeans father in 1908, Jean was resentful and became very unhappy in the marriage. The couple lived in Kansas City in a owned by Jeans father. Harlean was nicknamed The Baby, a name that would stick with her for the rest of her life and she did not learn that her name was actually Harlean until the age of five, when she began to attend Miss Barstows Finishing School for Girls in Kansas City. Harlean and Mother Jean, as she became known when Harlean became a film star, Harleans mother was extremely protective and coddling, reportedly instilling a sense that her daughter owed everything she had to her. She was always all mine, she said of her daughter, when Harlean was at school, her mother filed for a divorce that was finalized uncontested on September 29,1922. She was granted custody of Harlean, who loved the father who would survive her by thirty-seven years. However, Harlean would rarely see him again, Mother Jean moved with Harlean to Hollywood in 1923 with hopes of becoming an actress, but was too old at 34 to begin a film career. Young Harlean attended the Hollywood School for Girls and met Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Joel McCrea, Harlean dropped out of school at age 14 in the spring of 1925. Finances dwindling, she and her mother moved back to Kansas City after Skip Harlow issued an ultimatum that he would disinherit Jean if she did not return. Several weeks later, Skip sent his granddaughter to a camp, Camp Cha-Ton-Ka, in Michigamme, Michigan. Her mother traveled to Michigan to care for her, rowing herself across the lake to the camp, Harlow next attended the Ferry Hall School in Lake Forest, Illinois
5.
Joan Blondell
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Rose Joan Blondell was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for half a century. After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career, establishing herself as a sexy, wisecracking blonde, she was a Pre-Code staple of Warner Bros. pictures, and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions. She was most active in films during the 1930s, and during time, she co-starred with Glenda Farrell in nine films. Blondell continued acting in film roles for the rest of her life. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Blue Veil, Blondell was seen in featured roles in two films — Grease and The Champ — released shortly before her death from leukemia. Rose Joan Blondell was born in New York to a vaudeville family and her father, known as Ed Blondell, was born in Indiana in 1866 to French parents, and was a vaudeville comedian and one of the original Katzenjammer Kids. Blondells mother was Kathryn Cain, born April 13,1884, in Brooklyn and her younger sister, Gloria Blondell, also an actress, was briefly married to film producer Albert R. Broccoli. Blondell also had a brother, Ed Blondell, Jr and her family comprised a vaudeville troupe, the Bouncing Blondells. Joan had spent a year in Honolulu and six years in Australia and had much of the world by the time her family, who had been on tour, settled in Dallas, Texas. Around 1927, she returned to New York, joined a company to become an actress. In 1930, she starred with James Cagney in Penny Arcade on Broadway, Penny Arcade lasted only three weeks, but Al Jolson saw it and bought the rights to the play for $20,000. He then sold the rights to Warner Bros. with the proviso that Blondell, placed under contract by Warner Bros. she moved to Hollywood, where studio boss Jack L. Warner wanted her to change her name to Inez Holmes, and she began to appear in short subjects, and was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931. During the Great Depression, Blondell was one of the individuals in the United States. In 1937, she starred opposite Errol Flynn in The Perfect Specimen, by the end of the decade, she had made nearly 50 films. She left Warner Bros. in 1939, in 1943, Blondell returned to Broadway as the star of Mike Todds short-lived production of The Naked Genius, a comedy written by Gypsy Rose Lee. She was also featured prominently in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in 1948, she left the screen for three years and concentrated on theatre, performing in summer stock and touring with Cole Porters musical, Something for the Boys. Blondell returned to Hollywood in 1950 and her performance in her next film, The Blue Veil, earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
6.
Warner Bros.
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Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
7.
Sound film
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A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s, at first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as talking pictures, or talkies, were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects, the first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon, in the United States, they helped secure Hollywoods position as one of the worlds most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence. In Europe, the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, in Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. In India, sound was the element that led to the rapid expansion of the nations film industry. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27,1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison, the two inventors privately met. No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope, essentially a peep-show system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph. The two devices were brought together as the Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection and these appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Phonorama and yet another sound-film system—Théâtroscope—were also presented at the Exposition, three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation. The primary issue was synchronization, pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, sufficient playback volume was also hard to achieve. Finally, there was the challenge of recording fidelity, cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways. In 1902, Léon Gaumont demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons
8.
Pre-Code Hollywood
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Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1,1934, with the establishment of the Production Code Administration. Strong female characters were ubiquitous in such films as Female, Baby Face. Gangsters in films like The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, along with featuring stronger female characters, films examined female subject matters that would not be revisited until decades later in US films. Nefarious characters were seen to profit from their deeds, in cases without significant repercussions. Many of Hollywoods biggest stars such as Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, Other stars who excelled during this period, however, like Ruth Chatterton and Warren William, would wind up essentially forgotten by the general public within a generation. Beginning in late 1933 and escalating throughout the first half of 1934, in 1922, after some risqué films and a series of off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, the studios enlisted Presbyterian elder William H. Will Hays, a figure of unblemished rectitude, to rehabilitate Hollywoods image, Hays, later nicknamed the motion picture Czar, was paid the then-lavish sum of $100,000 a year. The Supreme Court had already decided unanimously in 1915 in Mutual Film Corporation v, lords concerns centered on the effects sound film had on children, whom he considered especially susceptible to their allure. Several studio heads, including Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, met with Lord, after some revisions, they agreed to the stipulations of the Code. One of the motivating factors in adopting the Code was to avoid direct government intervention. It was the responsibility of the Studio Relations Committee, headed by Colonel Jason S. Joy, to film production. The Code was divided into two parts, the first was a set of general principles which mostly concerned morality. The second was a set of applications which was an exacting list of items that could not be depicted. Some restrictions, such as the ban on homosexuality or the use of curse words, were never directly mentioned but were assumed to be understood without clear demarcation. Miscegenation, the mixing of the races, was forbidden and it stated that the notion of an adults-only policy would be a dubious, ineffective strategy that would be difficult to enforce. However, it did allow that maturer minds may easily understand, the Code sought not only to determine what could be portrayed on screen, but also to promote traditional values. Sexual relations outside of marriage could not be portrayed as attractive and beautiful, presented in a way that might arouse passion, nor be made to seem right, All criminal action had to be punished, and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience. Authority figures had to be treated respectfully, and the clergy could not be portrayed as characters or villains
9.
Gangster film
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Mob films — or gangster films — are a subgenre of crime films dealing with organized crime, often specifically with the Mafia. Especially in early mob films, there is overlap with film noir. The American movie The Black Hand is thought to be the earliest surviving gangster film. In 1912, D. W. Griffith directed The Musketeers of Pig Alley, critics have also cited Regeneration as an early crime film. Though mob films had their roots in such silent films, the genre in its most durable form was defined in the early 1930s and it owed its innovations to the social and economic instability occasioned by the Great Depression, which galvanized the organized crime subculture in the United States. The years 1931 and 1932 saw the genre produce three enduring classics, Warner Bros and those suffering from the Depression were able to relate to the gangster character who worked hard to earn his place and success in the world, only to have it all taken away from him. As the appeal and attraction of gangster movie stars such as Cagney, Robinson, Muni, during the early years of crime film, Scarface, arguably the most violent of gangster films created during the entire decade, particularly was the subject of criticism. This is illustrated by James Cagneys role as a law officer in the 1935 movie G Men and these pictures demonstrate the growing acceptance of crime films during the 1930s as long as criminals were not portrayed in a flattering light. It was now the law officers that the films attempted to glamorize, politics combined with the social and economic climate of the time to influence how crime films were made and how the characters were portrayed. Many of the films imply that criminals are the creation of society, rather than its rebel, the institution of Prohibition in 1920 led to an explosion in crime, and the depiction of bootlegging is a frequent occurrence in many mob films. However, as the 1930s progressed, Hollywood also experimented with the stories of the criminals and bank robbers, such as John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson. However, as the FBI increased in power there was also a shift to favour the stories of the FBI agents hunting the criminals instead of focusing on the criminal characters. In fact, in 1935 at the height of the hunt for Dillinger, many of the 1930s crime films also dealt with class and ethnic conflict, notably the earliest films, reflecting doubts about how well the American system was working. As stated, many films pushed the message that criminals were the result of a moral and economic society. In the 1970s there was a revival of mob films, notably with The Godfather and it was followed by two sequels, The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III. It also inspired other mob films such as The Valachi Papers, the 1983 remake of Scarface was not particularly well received at the time of its release, but over time it has come to be seen as a classic of the mob film genre. It went on to films such as King of New York. On the other hand, Sergio Leone shot an epic drama film Once Upon a Time in America, starring Robert De Niro
10.
Donald Cook (actor)
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Donald Cook was an American stage and film actor who had a prolific career in Pre-Code Hollywood films and on Broadway. He was also one of the first actors to play Ellery Queen, Cook was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and originally studied farming but later worked for a lumber company. Cook attended the University of Oregon and he joined the Kansas Community Players and through this received an offer of stage work. He started screen work in shorts before going on to feature films, Cook was known for his portrayal of Mike Powers in the film The Public Enemy. He also was one of the first film actors to portray Ellery Queen, immigrant Inspector of the Deporting Squad in the 1936 movie, Ellis Island. Cook made his Broadway debut in 1926 as Donn Cook in Seed of the Brute and his credits included a 1948 revival of Private Lives and the original 1951 Broadway run of The Moon Is Blue. Walter Matthau took over Cooks leading role in the following his death. Cook is buried at River View Cemetery in Portland, Oregon, for his contributions to the motion picture industry, Cook was honored with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star located at 1718 Vine Street. Television Masquerade 36148 Donald Cook at the Internet Broadway Database Donald Cook at the Internet Movie Database Donald Cook at Find a Grave
11.
Organized crime
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Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, are politically motivated. Sometimes criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts money from shopkeepers for so-called protection, gangs may become disciplined enough to be considered organized. A criminal organization or gang can also be referred to as a mafia, mob, or crime syndicate, European sociologists define the mafia as a type of organized crime group that specializes in the supply of extra-legal protection and quasi law enforcement. There is a tendency to distinguish organized crime from other forms of crime, such as crime, financial crimes, political crimes, war crime, state crimes. This distinction is not always apparent and academics continue to debate the matter, for example, in failed states that can no longer perform basic functions such as education, security, or governance, organised crime, governance and war sometimes complement each other. The term Oligarchy has been used to describe democratic countries whose political, social and economic institutions come under the control of a few families, in the United States, the Organized Crime Control Act defines organized crime as he unlawful activities of a highly organized, disciplined association. Criminal activity as a process is referred to as racketeering. In the UK, police estimate that organized crime involves up to 38,000 people operating in 6,000 various groups, bureaucratic/corporate organized crime groups are defined by the general rigidity of their internal structures. An estimate on youth street gangs nationwide provided by Hannigan, et al. marked an increase of 35% between 2002 and 2010, the term “street gang” is commonly used interchangeably with “youth gang, ” referring to neighborhood or street-based youth groups that meet “gang” criteria. Some reasons youth join gangs include to feel accepted, attain status, a sense of unity brings together many of the youth gangs that lack the family aspect at home. Zones of transition are deteriorating neighborhoods with shifting populations, in such areas, conflict between groups, fighting, turf wars, and theft promote solidarity and cohesion. Participation in gang-related events during adolescence perpetuate a pattern of maltreatment on their own children years later, klein like Spergel studied the effects on members of social workers’ interventions. More interventions actually lead to greater participation and solidarity and bonds between members. Downes and Rock on Parker’s analysis, strain theory applies, labeling theory, control theory and these may also be defined by age or peer group influences, and the permanence or consistency of their criminal activity. These groups also form their own identity or public representation which are recognizable by the community at large. Some studied street gangs involved in drug dealing - finding that their structure, members saw themselves as organized criminals, gangs were formal-rational organizations, Strong organizational structures, well defined roles and rules that guided members’ behavior. Also a specified and regular means of income, padilla agreed with the two above. However some have found these to be rather than well-defined and lacking persistent focus, there was relatively low cohesion, few shared goals
12.
Prohibition in the United States
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Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. One result was that many communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries introduced alcohol prohibition, Prohibition supporters, called drys, presented it as a victory for public morals and health. Promoted by the dry crusaders, a movement was led by rural Protestants and social Progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic and it gained a national grass roots base through the Womans Christian Temperance Union. After 1900 it was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League, Prohibition was mandated in state after state, then finally nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. Enabling legislation, known as the Volstead Act, set down the rules for enforcing the ban, for example, religious uses of wine were allowed. Private ownership and consumption of alcohol were not made illegal under federal law, in the 1920s the laws were widely disregarded, and tax revenues were lost. Opposition mobilized nationwide, and Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, some states continued statewide prohibition, marking one of the last stages of the Progressive Era. Anti-prohibitionists, known as wets, criticized the ban as an intrusion of mainly rural Protestant ideals on a central aspect of urban, immigrant. Some researchers contend that its failure is attributable more to a changing historical context than to characteristics of the law itself. Criticism remains that Prohibition led to unintended consequences such as the growth of urban crime organizations, as an experiment it lost supporters every year, and lost tax revenue that governments needed when the Great Depression began in 1929. The U. S. Senate proposed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 18,1917, upon being approved by a 36th state on January 16,1919, the amendment was ratified as a part of the Constitution. The Wartime Prohibition Act took effect June 30,1919, with July 1,1919, on October 28,1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, the popular name for the National Prohibition Act, over President Woodrow Wilsons veto. The act established the definition of intoxicating liquors as well as penalties for producing them. Although the Volstead Act prohibited the sale of alcohol, the government lacked resources to enforce it. By the terms of the amendment, the country went dry one year later, by 1925, in New York City alone, there were anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 speakeasy clubs. While Prohibition was successful in reducing the amount of liquor consumed, it stimulated the proliferation of rampant underground, organized, many were astonished and disenchanted with the rise of spectacular gangland crimes, when prohibition was supposed to reduce crime. Prohibition lost its advocates one by one, while the wet opposition talked of personal liberty, new tax revenues from legal beer and liquor, and the scourge of organized crime. On March 22,1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Cullen–Harrison Act, legalizing beer with a content of 3. 2%
13.
Beryl Mercer
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Beryl Mercer was an actress of stage and screen who was based in the United States. Beryl Mercer was born to British parents in Seville on 13 August 1882 and her father was Edward Sheppard Mercer, said to be Spanish despite his name, and her mother was the actress Effie. She became an actor, making her debut on 14 August 1886 at the Theatre Royal, Yarmouth. She returned to the stage when she was ten, in London she appeared in The Darling of the Gods and the production by Oscar Asche of A Midsummer Nights Dream. In 1906 she appeared as a Kaffir slave in the West End play The Shulamite and she traveled with this play to the USA, where she received good reviews. Mercer was best known as an actress for her motherly roles. She played Lew Ayres mother in All Quiet on the Western Front and she also regularly appeared as a grandmother or cook or maid in some high-profile films. She appeared in more than fifty films between 1916 and 1939 but her career was at a peak in the 1930s when she appeared in between five and ten films a year. Mercer appeared in Cavalcade as a cook, and in Jane Eyre, The Little Minister and she was in two talkie versions of Three Live Ghosts and The Little Princess as Queen Victoria. Mercer was married to one Maitland Paisley early in her life and her only other marriage was much later in the late 1920s briefly to actor Holmes Herbert. She had one child, Joan Mercer, later Bitting, born on September 16,1917, Mercer died in Santa Monica, California in 1939 aged 56 following surgery for an undisclosed ailment. Beryl Mercer at the Internet Movie Database Beryl Mercer at the Internet Broadway Database Beryl Mercer at Find a Grave
14.
Mae Clarke
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Mae Clarke born Violet Mary Klotz was an American actress. Both films were released in 1931, mae Clarke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was a theater organist and she studied dancing as a child and began on stage in vaudeville and also worked in night clubs. Mae Clarke started her career as a dancer in New York City. She subsequently starred in films for Universal Studios, including the original screen version of The Front Page. Clarke played the role of Henry Frankensteins fiancee, Elizabeth, who is attacked by the Monster, on her wedding day. The Public Enemy, released that year, contained one of cinemas most famous scenes, in which James Cagney pushes a half grapefruit into Clarkes face. Clarke appeared as Myra Deauville in the 1931 pre-Code version of Waterloo Bridge, Clarke also appeared in the modest pre-code Universal film Night World, with Lew Ayres, Boris Karloff, Hedda Hopper, and George Raft. By the mid-1930s, Clarke was no longer a leading lady and was featured in small parts through to the 1960s. In the early 1930s Clarkes face had been left partially scarred as a result of a car crash, in 1949 Clarke was the female lead of Republic Pictures 12-chapter movie serial King of the Rocket Men that introduced their popular atomic rocket-powered hero. On television, Clarke acted in the series Perry Mason and Batman, Clarke was married and divorced three times, to Fanny Brices brother Lew Brice, Stevens Bancroft, and Herbert Langdon. Early in her career, Clarke and Joan Crawford were roommates, Clarke died from cancer on April 29,1992, at age 81, in Woodland Hills, California. She is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery
15.
Al Capone
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Alphonse Gabriel Al Capone, sometimes known by the nickname Scarface, was an American gangster who attained fame during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as crime boss ended when he was 33 years old, Capone was born in Brooklyn in New York City to Italian immigrants. He was considered a Five Points Gang member who became a bouncer in organized crime such as brothels. A conflict with the North Side Gang was instrumental in Capones rise, Torrio went into retirement after North Side gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone. Capone apparently reveled in attention, such as the cheers from spectators when he appeared at ball games and he made donations to various charities and was viewed by many to be a modern-day Robin Hood. The federal authorities became intent on jailing Capone, and they prosecuted him for tax evasion in 1931, a federal crime and a novel strategy during the era. During the highly publicized case, the judge admitted as evidence Capones admissions of his income, Capone was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. After conviction, he replaced his old team with experts in tax law, and his grounds for appeal were strengthened by a Supreme Court ruling. He was already showing signs of syphilitic dementia early in his sentence, on January 25,1947, Capone died of cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke. Al Capone was born in Brooklyn in New York City on January 17,1899 and his parents were Italian immigrants Gabriele Capone and Teresa Capone. His father was a barber and his mother was a seamstress, ralph and Frank worked with him in his criminal empire. Frank did so until his death on April 1,1924, ralph ran the bottling companies early on, and was also the front man for the Chicago Outfit for some time until he was imprisoned for tax evasion in 1932. Gabriele Capone worked at a barber shop at 29 Park Avenue. When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Capone showed promise as a student, but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. His schooling ended at the age of 14, after he was expelled for hitting a teacher in the face. He worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store, during this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor. Capone initially became involved with gangs that included the Junior Forty Thieves. He then joined the Brooklyn Rippers, and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan, during this time, he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale, a bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn
16.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
17.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
18.
Robert Emmett O'Connor
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Robert Emmett OConnor was an American film actor. He appeared in 204 films between 1919 and 1950 and he is probably best known as the warmhearted bootlegger Paddy Ryan in The Public Enemy and as Detective Sergeant Henderson pursuing the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera. He also appeared as Jonesy, in Billy Wilders 1950 film Sunset Boulevard and he also made a cameo appearance at the very beginning and very end of the MGM cartoon short Who Killed Who. Robert Emmett OConnor at the Internet Movie Database
19.
Rum-runner
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Rum-running, or bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. Smuggling is usually done to circumvent taxation or prohibition laws within a particular jurisdiction, the term rum-running is more commonly applied to smuggling over water, bootlegging is applied to smuggling over land. The term rum-running most likely originated at the start of Prohibition in the United States and it was said that some ships carried $200,000 in contraband in a single run. It was not long after the first taxes on alcoholic beverages that someone began to smuggle them, the British government had revenue cutters in place to stop smugglers as early as the 16th century. Pirates often made extra money running rum to heavily taxed colonies, an irony of the history of prohibition in North America is that industrial-scale smuggling flowed both ways across the Canada–US border at different points in the early twentieth century. National prohibition in the United States did not begin until 1920, as well, Canadas version of prohibition had never included a ban on the manufacture of liquor for export. Soon the black-market trade was reversed with Canadian whisky and beer flowing in large quantities to the United States, again, this illegal international trade undermined the support for prohibition in the receiving country, and the American version ended in 1933. One of the most famous periods of rum-running began in the United States with the Prohibition began on January 16,1920 and this period lasted until the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed with ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, on December 5,1933. At first, there was action on the seas. This was the start of the Bimini–Bahamas rum trade and the introduction of Bill McCoy, with the start of Prohibition Captain McCoy began bringing rum from Bimini and the rest of the Bahamas into south Florida through Government Cut. The rum-running business was good, and McCoy soon bought a Gloucester knockabout schooner named Arethusa at auction. He installed an auxiliary, mounted a concealed machine gun on her deck. In the days of rum running, it was common for captains to add water to the bottles to stretch their profits, any cheap sparkling wine became French champagne or Italian Spumante, unbranded liquor became top-of-the-line name brands. McCoy became famous for never watering his booze, and selling only top brands, although the phrase appears in print in 1882, this is one of several folk etymologies for the origin of the term The real McCoy. On November 15,1923, McCoy and Tomoka encountered the U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca, a boarding party attempted to board, but McCoy chased them off with the machine gun. Tomoka tried to run, but the Seneca placed a shell just off her hull, the small, quick boats could more easily outrun Coast Guard ships and could dock in any small river or eddy and transfer their cargo to a waiting truck. They were also known to float planes and flying boats. Soon others were following suit, the limit became known as Rum Line
20.
Leslie Fenton
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Leslie Fenton was an English-born American actor and film director. He appeared in 62 films between 1923 and 1945, Fenton was born on 12 March 1902 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. He moved to America with his mother, Elizabeth Carter, and they sailed as steerage passengers on board the R. M. S. Celtic, which departed from Liverpool,11 September 1909, and arrived at New York, immigrant Inspection on 19 September, they were quickly admitted and continued their journey by rail to join his father, shoe manufacturers representative Richard Fenton, in Mifflin, Ohio. As a teenager, Leslie worked as an office clerk and he moved to New York and began a career on the stage. His film career began later with Fox Studios and he also directed 19 films between 1938 and 1951. Fenton saw active service during the Second World War, in spring 1941, he was commissioned into the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. In 1942, as commander of a motor vessel, he took part in the St Nazaire Raid. He was injured in the raid and spent months convalescing in Devon, unable to return to sea, he took a desk job at the War Office. He married American actress Ann Dvorak in 1932, Dvorak moved to Britain with Fenton while he served in the British armed forces during the Second World War. The union was childless and ended in divorce in 1945, Fenton died 25 March 1978 in Montecito, California, aged 76. Some sources, including IMDB, incorrectly cite Frank Fenton, the screenwriter and novelist. Frank Fentons parents were John Fenton and Eveline Edgington, as evidenced by the ships manifest for the RMS Caronia, aboard which Frank Fenton arrived in the US on 21 April 1906
21.
Louise Brooks
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Mary Louise Brooks, who worked professionally as Louise Brooks, was an American film actress and dancer noted as an iconic symbol of the flapper, and for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known as the lead in three films made in Europe, Pandoras Box, Diary of a Lost Girl, and Miss Europe. She starred in seventeen silent films and eight sound films before retiring in 1938, Brooks published her memoir, Lulu in Hollywood, in 1982, three years later she died of a heart attack at the age of 78. Rude was a talented pianist who played the latest Debussy and Ravel for her children, inspiring them with a love of books and music. When she was nine years old, a neighborhood predator sexually abused Louise. For me, nice, soft, when Brooks at last told her mother of the incident, many years later, her mother suggested that it must have been Louises fault for leading him on. Brooks began her entertainment career as a dancer, joining the Denishawn modern dance company in Los Angeles in 1922, in her second season with the company, Brooks had advanced to a starring role in one work opposite Shawn. The words left an impression on Brooks, when she drew up an outline for a planned autobiographical novel in 1949, The Silver Salver was the title she gave to the tenth. As a result of her work in the Follies, she came to the attention of Paramount Pictures producer Walter Wanger, Brooks made her screen debut in the silent The Street of Forgotten Men, in an uncredited role in 1925. Soon, however, she was playing the lead in a number of silent light comedies and flapper films over the next few years, starring with Adolphe Menjou. She was noticed in Europe for her pivotal role in the Howard Hawks directed silent buddy film. In an early sound film drama, Beggars of Life, Brooks played a country girl who kills her foster father in a moment of desperation. A hobo, Richard Arlen, happens on the scene and convinces Brooks to disguise herself as a young boy. In a hobo encampment, or jungle, they meet another hobo, Brookss disguise is soon uncovered and she finds herself the only female in a world of brutal, sex-hungry men. Her distinctive bob haircut helped start a trend, many women styled their hair in imitation of her, Paramount attempted to use the coming of sound films to pressure the actress, but she called the studios bluff. It was not until 30 years later that this move would come to be seen as arguably the most savvy of her career, securing her immortality as a silent film legend. Actress Margaret Livingston was hired to dub Brookss voice for the film, once in Germany, she starred in the 1929 film Pandoras Box, directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in his New Objectivity period. The film is based on two plays by Frank Wedekind and Brooks plays the figure, Lulu. This film is notable for its treatment of modern sexual mores
22.
Hollywood
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
23.
Barry Paris
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Barry Paris is an author and journalist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Paris best-known works include biographies of film stars Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo and he is a movie reviewer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and co-host of a weekly radio show on WQED-FM. Paris has won awards for cultural and investigative reporting and he is currently engaged in writing a biography of Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States. Louise Brooks is Pariss biography of the silent film star, Louise Brooks was named Film Book of the Year by Leonard Maltin. In reviewing the book, the Daily Express stated Barry Paris has written the model of a movie biography, similarly, the Irish Times added, In a short review it is impossible to give even a taste of the splendor of Mr Pariss work. It is one of the best biographies I have ever read, erudite, literate, the book was published in Europe and South America and remains in print in the United States. Along with this biography, Paris has written articles on the actress and scripted the Emmy-nominated documentary Louise Brooks, Paris contributed 15 Minutes, But Whos Counting. A second, Paris-edited, collection of Stella Adlers talks is in preparation, as well as the above-mentioned books, Paris published profiles of the novelist and Mozart biographer Marcia Davenport and the early film star Lina Basquette in The New Yorker. Other publications to which he has contributed articles, reviews and interviews include Vanity Fair, Opera News, American Film, Art and Antiques and. Paris is a 1969 graduate of Columbia University and of the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich, where he wrote Russian Cinema and the Soviet Film Industry, an early survey of the subject. Paris is fluent in Russian, Czech, Ukrainian, and Spanish, since 1981, he has co-hosted Sunday Arts Magazine on radio station WQED-FM. The weekly program covers the Pittsburgh/Western Pennsylvania cultural and classical music scene, among his journalistic awards are the National Sunday Magazine Editors Best Feature, Pennsylvania Press Associations Best Cultural Story and three Matrix Awards. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette bio Barry Paris at the Internet Movie Database Louise Brooks Studies page Appearances on C-SPAN
24.
Sinners' Holiday
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Sinners Holiday is a 1930 all-talking Hollywood Pre-code crime drama film starring Grant Withers, Evalyn Knapp and featuring James Cagney, Lucille La Verne, and Joan Blondell. It is based on the 1930 play Penny Arcade by Marie Baumer, both Cagney and Blondell reprised the roles they played in the original Broadway production. Ma Delano runs a penny arcade on an amusement pier at Coney Island with her children Jennie, Joe, underneath La Vernes establishment, Mitch McKane is running a bootleg operation. In order to escape detection, McKane doubles as a sideshow operator, Angel Harrigan, who works as a barker, is in love with Jennie. When McKane attempts to flirt with Jennie he is thwarted by Angel, Harry secretly becomes involved in McKaness bootlegging operation, against the wishes of his mother. When McKane gets picked up by the police on suspicion of bootlegging, Harry takes over his operations, McKane is unexpectedly released from prison and discovers Harrys treachery. He encounters Harry on a pier but Harry shoots him before he can act. Harry confesses everything to his mother, but she attempts to place the blame on Angel, the film survives complete, a print is preserved at the Library of Congress. In 2015 Sinners Holiday was released by Warner Archive on DVD, Sinners Holiday at the Internet Movie Database Sinners Holiday at the TCM Movie Database Sinners Holiday at AllMovie
25.
Blonde Crazy
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In 2014 Blonde Crazy was released on DVD in a Forbidden Hollywood box set. The cover features a publicity photo of Cagney and Blondell in the scene from the film. Bert Harris works for a hotel as a bellboy, one day he meets Anne Roberts, who signs up as a chambermaid. He takes a fancy to her and lets her in on his racket, james Cagney as Bert Harris Joan Blondell as Anne Roberts Louis Calhern as Dapper Dan Barker Noel Francis as Helen Ray Milland as Joe Reynolds Guy Kibbee as A. Rupert Johnson Jr. Polly Walters as Peggy William Burress as Col. Bellock Maude Eburne as Mrs Snyder Nat Pendleton as Hank/Pete A Pre-Code scene shows partial nudity, of Joan Blondell, in the bathtub. Time felt the ending of the film was out of place with the rest of the film and was only inserted there to provide a moralistic law and order ending. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists,2005, AFIs 100 Years.100 Movie Quotes, Bert Harris, That dirty, double-crossin rat. – Nominated Blonde Crazy at the Internet Movie Database Two Peas in a Pod - Blondell and Cagney in Blonde Crazy Watch Blonde Crazy at Warner Archive Instant
26.
Footlight Parade
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Footlight Parade is a 1933 American, pre-Code, musical film starring James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell and featuring Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert and Ruth Donnelly. The movie was written by Manuel Seff and James Seymour from a story by Robert Lord and Peter Milne, the films songs were written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin and Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal, and include By a Waterfall, Honeymoon Hotel, and Shanghai Lil. In 1992, Footlight Parade was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Kent is so overwhelmed with work that he doesnt realize that his secretary, Nan, has fallen in love with him, Kent locks himself and his staff in the offices to prevent espionage leaks while they choreograph and rehearse the three production numbers. Kent then stages Honeymoon Hotel, By a Waterfall, featuring the famous Human Waterfall, Gould protegé Frank McHugh as Francis, dance director Ruth Donnelly as Harriet Bowers Gould, the producers nepotistic wife Guy Kibbee as Silas Si Gould, producer Hugh Herbert as Charlie Bowers, Mrs. It is often written that John Garfield made his debut in this film. According to the 2003 Turner Classic Movies documentary The John Garfield Story, it is not Garfield. for the lead in Footlight Parade, Cagney had only fallen into his gangster persona when he and Edward Woods switched roles three days into the shooting of 1931s The Public Enemy. That role catapulted Cagney into stardom and a series of gangster films, ceballos also claimed to have created a number later used in the Warner Bros. film Wonder Bar, which was credited to Berkeley. Dorothy Tennant was originally tapped to play Mrs. Gould instead of Ruth Donnelly, other actors considered for various roles included Eugene Pallette, George Dobbs and Patricia Ellis. Footlight Parade was shot at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, California and it premiered on September 30,1933, and was released generally on October 21. The film made a profit of $819,080, for example, Dick Powells character is being kept by Mrs. Gould until he falls in love with another girl. Joan Blondell tells her roommate, who tries to steal Cagney away from her, that as long as there are sidewalks, in the Shanghai Lil number, it is clear that Lil and all the other girls are prostitutes working the waterfront bars. One character in the film, played by actor Hugh Herbert acts as the censor for Kents productions and his character is portrayed as buffoonish and comical, saying disagreeable lines to Kent such as You must put brassieres on those dolls. uh uh, you know Connecticut. This character foreshadows the coming Production Code, which was in full force less than a year later. org, Footlight Parade essay by Randy Skretvedt, loc. gov, accessed August 4,2015
27.
Smart Money (1931 film)
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This was nominated at the 4th Academy Awards for the now defunct Best Story category. The nominated duo was Lucien Hubbard and Joseph Jackson, Nick Venizelos, a prosperous small-town barber, provides his customers with gambling in his back room. He is so lucky that one suggests he go to the big city to take on famous gambler named Hickory Short, not lacking in self-confidence, Nick puts up half of the $10,000 stake himself, while the others raise the rest. He leaves the shop under the supervision of his assistant, Jack and he learns from Marie, the pretty blonde working at the hotel cigar stand, where Hickory is holding his illegal, high-stakes poker game. Nick sits down at the game, but loses all his money, later, however, he sees a newspaper article reporting that the real Hickory Short has just been released from prison far away in Florida. The man he thought was Hickory is actually conman Sleepy Sam, when Nick foolishly tries to get his money back, Sleepy Sam and the other fake poker players beat him up. After he gets out of the hospital, he vows to get revenge, Nick goes back to barbering and raises another stake. Six months later, he tracks down Sleepy Sam and his gang in another city and he proposes a one-on-one game, each man putting up $50,000 and playing until one man has all the money. Nick insists on sending out for fresh decks of cards, just to be safe, when Nick wins and tries to leave, the con artists reach for their guns, but Jack and another man burst in with their guns already drawn. Nick then gloats, pointing out that he simply cheated better than Sam by using shaved cards and he finally gets to play the real Hickory Short, a Walter Winchell column reports the rumor that Nick beat Hickory to the tune of $300,000. Nick becomes the king of gambling in the city, with Jack as his right-hand man. However, he still has a weakness for women, particularly blondes, as they are driving by, they are stopped and asked to take a young woman who has been fished half drowned out of the river to the hospital. Irene revives during the ride, but Nick insists she stay at his mansion until she is fully recovered, eventually, she is so touched by Nicks kindness, she confesses she is fleeing from a charge of blackmail, but he is unconcerned. Nick is so brazen that public outrage puts pressure on District Attorney Black, Black threatens to prosecute her unless she cooperates in incriminating Nick, but she refuses at first. Finally, he gets her to agree to put a form in Nicks coat. Jack finds out, but when he tries to warn his friend, Nick becomes furious, the police raid the illegal casino, and Black arrests Nick. Then they discover that Jack is dead, aghast, Irene begs Nick for forgiveness, which he generously gives. He is sentenced to ten years, as he is boarding the train to go to prison, he offers to bet that he will be out in five
28.
Edward G. Robinson
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Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star on stage and screen during Hollywoods Golden Age, he appeared in 40 Broadway plays and he is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as a gangster, such as his star-making film Little Caesar and Key Largo. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was a public critic of fascism and Nazism. His activism included contributing over $250,000 to more than 850 organizations involved in war relief, along with cultural, educational, during the 1950s, he was called to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare, but was cleared of any Communist involvement. Robinson received an Honorary Academy Award for his work in the film industry and he is ranked #24 in the American Film Institutes list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classic American cinema. Robinson was born as Emanuel Goldenberg to a Yiddish-speaking Romanian Jewish family in Bucharest, the son of Sarah and Morris Goldenberg, after one of his brothers was attacked by an antisemitic mob, the family decided to emigrate to the United States. Robinson arrived in New York City on February 14,1903, at Ellis Island I was born again, he wrote. Life for me began when I was 10 years old, an interest in acting and performing in front of people led to him winning an American Academy of Dramatic Arts scholarship, after which he changed his name to Edward G. Robinson. He served in the US Navy during World War I, but was never sent overseas and he began his acting career in the Yiddish Theater District in 1913 and made his Broadway debut in 1915. In 1923 made his debut as E. G. Robinson in the silent film. He played a gangster in the 1927 Broadway police/crime drama The Racket. Robinson went on to make a total of 101 films in his 50-year career. In 1939, at the time World War II broke out in Europe, he played an FBI agent in Confessions of a Nazi Spy, the first American film which showed Nazism as a threat to the United States. He volunteered for service in June 1942 but was disqualified due to his age at 48, although he became an active. The following year he played Paul Ehrlich in Dr. Ehrlichs Magic Bullet and Paul Julius Reuter in A Dispatch from Reuters and his career rehabilitation received a boost in 1954, when noted anti-communist director Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the traitorous Dathan in The Ten Commandments, the film was released in 1956, as was his psychological thriller Nightmare. As it turned out, Robinson died only days later. He had been notified of the honor, but died two months before the ceremony, so the award was accepted by his widow, Jane Robinson
29.
Little Caesar (film)
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Little Caesar is a 1931 American pre-Code crime film distributed by Warner Brothers, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and starring Edward G. Robinson, Glenda Farrell, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. The film tells the story of a hoodlum who ascends the ranks of organized crime until he reaches its upper echelons, the storyline was adapted from the novel of the same name by William R. Burnett. Little Caesar was Robinsons breakthrough role and immediately made him a film star. The film is listed as one of the first full-fledged gangster films. Small-time criminals Caesar Enrico Rico Bandello and his friend Joe Massara move to Chicago to seek their fortunes, Rico joins the gang of Sam Vettori, while Joe wants to be a dancer. Olga becomes his partner and girlfriend. Joe tries to drift away from the gang and its activities, despite orders from underworld overlord Big Boy to all his men to avoid bloodshed, Rico guns down crusading crime commissioner Alvin McClure during the robbery, with Joe as an aghast witness. Rico accuses Sam of becoming soft and seizes control of his organization, rival boss Little Arnie Lorch tries to have Rico killed, but Rico is only grazed. He and his gunmen pay Little Arnie a visit, after which Arnie hastily departs for Detroit, the Big Boy eventually gives Rico control of all of Chicagos Northside. Rico becomes concerned that Joe knows too much about him and he warns Joe that he must forget about Olga and join him in a life of crime. Rico threatens to kill both Joe and Olga unless he accedes, but Joe refuses to give in, Olga calls Police Sergeant Flaherty and tells him Joe is ready to talk, just before Rico and his henchman Otero come calling. Rico finds, to his surprise, that he is unable to take his friends life, when Otero tries to do the job himself, Rico wrestles the gun away from him, though not before Joe is wounded. Hearing the shot, Flaherty and another cop give chase and kill Otero, with information provided by Olga, Flaherty proceeds to crush Ricos organization. Desperate and alone, Rico retreats to the gutter from which he sprang, while hiding in a flophouse, he becomes enraged when he learns that Flaherty has called him a coward in the newspaper. He foolishly telephones the cop to announce he is coming for him, shortly following Little Caesar, Robinson would later parody his gangster persona in the 1933 film The Little Giant. The box office triumph of Little Caesar also spawned the production of several successful gangster films, Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico. This quote is an example of Hollywood censorship, in the novel the line reads Mother of God, is this the end of Rico. And a take was filmed with Robinson saying it verbatim, when the film was released, Burnett apparently drew this same conclusion about the screen version of the character
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Turner Classic Movies
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Turner Classic Movies is an American movie-oriented basic cable and satellite television network owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner. TCM is headquartered at the Techwood Campus in Atlanta, Georgias Midtown business district, historically, the channels programming consisted mainly of featured classic theatrically released feature films from the Turner Entertainment film library – which comprises films from Warner Bros. However, TCM now has licensing deals with other Hollywood film studios as well as its Time Warner sister company, Warner Bros. and occasionally shows more recent films. The channel is available in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America, France, Spain, Nordic countries, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. In 1986, eight years before the launch of Turner Classic Movies, concerns over Turner Entertainments corporate debt load resulted in Turner selling the studio that October back to Kirk Kerkorian, from whom Turner had purchased the studio less than a year before. As part of the deal, Turner Entertainment retained ownership of MGMs library of films released up to May 9,1986, Turner Broadcasting System was split into two companies, Turner Broadcasting System and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and reincorporated as MGM/UA Communications Co. The film library of Turner Entertainment would serve as the form of programming for TCM upon the networks launch. After the library was acquired, MGM/UA signed a deal with Turner to continue distributing the pre-May 1986 MGM and to begin distributing the pre-1950 Warner Bros. film libraries for video release. Turner Classic Movies debuted on April 14,1994, at 6,00 p. m. Eastern Time, the date and time were chosen for their historical significance as the exact centennial anniversary of the first public movie showing in New York City. The first movie broadcast on TCM was the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, at the time of its launch, TCM was available to approximately one million cable television subscribers. AMC had broadened its content to feature colorized and more recent films by 2002. In the early 90s AMC abandoned its format, leaving TCM as the only movie-oriented cable channel to devote its programming entirely to classic films without commercial interruption. In 1996, Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner, which besides placing Turner Classic Movies, in March 1999, MGM paid Warner Bros. and gave up the home video rights to the MGM/UA films owned by Turner to Warner Home Video. In 2008, TCM won a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting, in April 2010, Turner Classic Movies held the first TCM Classic Film Festival, an event – now held annually – at the Graumans Chinese Theater and the Graumans Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. In 2007, some of the films featured on TCM were made available for streaming on TCMs website. The networks programming season runs from February until the following March of each year when a retrospective of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated movies is shown, called 31 Days of Oscar. Turner Classic Movies presents many of its features in their original aspect ratio whenever possible – widescreen films broadcast on TCM are letterboxed on the standard definition feed. TCM also regularly presents widescreen presentations of films not available in the format on any video release
