1.
Film poster
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A film poster is a poster used to promote and advertise a film. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and they normally contain an image with text. Todays posters often feature photographs of the main actors, prior to the 1990s, illustrations instead of photos were far more common. The text on film posters usually contains the title in large lettering. It may also include a tagline, the name of the director, names of characters, film posters are displayed inside and on the outside of movie theaters, and elsewhere on the street or in shops. The same images appear in the film exhibitors pressbook and may also be used on websites, DVD packaging, flyers, advertisements in newspapers and magazines, film posters have been used since the earliest public exhibitions of film. They began as outside placards listing the programme of films to be shown inside the hall or movie theater, by the early 1900s, they began to feature illustrations of a film scene or an array of overlaid images from several scenes. Other posters have used artistic interpretations of a scene or even the theme of the film, as an economy measure, the NSS regularly recycled posters that were returned, sending them back out to be used again at another theater. During this time, a film could stay in circulation for several years and those posters which were not returned were often thrown away by the theater owner, but some found their way into the hands of collectors. Today there is a thriving market in film posters, some have become very valuable. The record price for a poster was set on November 15,2005 when $690,000 was paid for a poster of Fritz Langs 1927 film Metropolis from the Reel Poster Gallery in London. The 1931 Frankenstein six-sheet poster, of only one copy is known to exist, is considered to be the most valuable film poster in the world. Over the years, old Bollywood posters, especially with hand-painted art, have become collectors items, occasionally, rare film posters have been found being used as insulation in attics and walls. In 2011,33 film posters, including a Dracula Style F one-sheet, from 1930-1931 were discovered in an attic in Berwick, Pennsylvania, as a result of market demand, some of the more popular older film posters have been reproduced either under license or illegally. Although the artwork on reproductions is the same as originals, reproductions can often be distinguished by size, printing quality, several websites on the Internet offer authentication tests to distinguish originals from reproductions. Original film posters distributed to theaters and other venues by the movie studios are never sold directly to the public. However, most modern posters are produced in quantities and often become available for purchase by collectors indirectly through various secondary markets such as eBay. Accordingly, most modern posters are not as valuable, however some recent posters, such as the recalled Pulp Fiction Lucky Strike U. S. one sheet poster, are quite rare
2.
Robert Mitchum
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Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, director, author, poet, composer, and singer. Mitchum rose to prominence for his roles in several classic films noir. His best-known films include Out of the Past, The Night of the Hunter, Mitchum is rated number 23 on the American Film Institutes list of the greatest male stars of Classic American Cinema. Mitchum was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut into a Methodist family, a sister, Annette, was born in 1914. James Mitchum was crushed to death in a accident in Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1919. After his fathers death, his mother was awarded a government pension, and soon realized she was pregnant with her son, John. She remarried to a former Royal Naval Reserve officer, Major Hugh Cunningham Morris, Ann and the Major had a daughter, Carol Morris, who was born July 1927 on the family farm in Delaware. When all of the children were old enough to attend school, throughout Mitchums childhood, he was known as a prankster, often involved in fistfights and mischief. When he was 12, his mother sent Mitchum to live with his grandparents in Felton, Delaware, a year later, in 1930, he moved in with his older sister, to New Yorks Hells Kitchen. He experienced numerous adventures during his years as one of the Depression eras wild boys of the road, at age 14 in Savannah, Georgia, he was arrested for vagrancy and put on a local chain gang. By Mitchums own account, he escaped and returned to his family in Delaware, during this time, while recovering from injuries that nearly cost him a leg, he met the woman he would marry, a teenaged Dorothy Spence. He soon went back on the road, eventually riding the rails to California, Mitchum arrived in Long Beach, California, in 1936, staying again with his sister Julie. Soon, the rest of the Mitchum family joined them in Long Beach, during this time, he worked as a ghostwriter for astrologer Carroll Righter. His sister Julie convinced him to join the local theater guild with her, in his years with the Players Guild of Long Beach, he made a living as a stagehand and occasional bit-player in company productions. He also wrote short pieces which were performed by the guild. According to Lee Servers biography, Mitchum put his talent for poetry to work writing song lyrics, in 1940, he returned East to marry Dorothy Spence, taking her back to California. He remained a character until the birth of their first child, James. Mitchum then got a job as a machine operator with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation
3.
Rita Hayworth
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Rita Hayworth was an American actress and dancer. She achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the top stars. The press coined the term love goddess to describe Hayworth after she had become the most glamorous screen idol of the 1940s and she was the top pin-up girl for GIs during World War II. Hayworth is perhaps best known for her performance in the 1946 film noir, Gilda, opposite Glenn Ford, Fred Astaire, with whom she made two films, called her his favorite dance partner. Her greatest success was in the Technicolor musical Cover Girl, with Gene Kelly and she is listed as one of the top-25 female motion picture stars of all time in the American Film Institutes survey, AFIs 100 Years.100 Stars. In 1980, Hayworth was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease, which contributed to her death at age 68, the public disclosure and discussion of her illness drew attention to Alzheimers, and helped to increase public and private funding for Alzheimers research. Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1918 as Margarita Carmen Cansino and her father, Eduardo Cansino, Sr. was from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a little town near Seville, Spain. Her mother, Volga Hayworth, was an American of Irish-English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies and they also had two sons, Eduardo Cansino, Jr. and Vernon Cansino. Margaritas father wanted her to become a dancer, while her mother hoped she would become an actress. Her paternal grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was renowned as a Spanish classical dancer and he popularized the bolero, and his dancing school in Madrid was world-famous. Hayworth later recalled, From the time I was three and a half … as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons. She noted I didnt like it very much … but I didnt have the courage to tell my father, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood. She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex and she performed publicly from the age of six. In 1926 at the age of eight, she was featured in La Fiesta, in 1927, her father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it and he established his own dance studio, where he taught such stars as James Cagney and Jean Harlow. During the Great Depression, he lost all his investments as commercial interest in his dancing classes waned, in 1931, Eduardo Cansino partnered with his 12-year-old daughter to form an act called the Dancing Cansinos. Since under California law Margarita was too young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work across the border in Tijuana, in the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist spot for people from Los Angeles. Because she was working, Cansino never graduated high school
4.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California and it is one of the worlds oldest film studios. In 1971, it was announced that MGM would merge with 20th Century Fox, over the next thirty-nine years, the studio was bought and sold at various points in its history until, on November 3,2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM Resorts International, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MGM, is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios, the studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were released through other studios, mostly United Artists. Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and a film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up production, as well as keeping production going at UA. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production, the studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt, MGM was bought by Pathé Communications in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais, the major creditor. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso, and Australias Seven Network in 1996, the debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGMs ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem and he had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for a steady supply of films for his large Loews Theatres chain. With Loews lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 to improve the quality, however, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. Mayer, Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17,1924, Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Irving Thalberg as head of production. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years, in 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loews passed to Nicholas Schenck, in 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew familys holdings with Schencks assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision, Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds
5.
Roger Ebert
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Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic and historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the two verbally sparred and traded humorous barbs while discussing films. They created and trademarked the phrase Two Thumbs Up, used when both hosts gave the film a positive review. After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert continued hosting the show with various co-hosts and then, starting in 2000, Ebert lived with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands from 2002. This required treatments necessitating the removal of his jaw, which cost him the ability to speak or eat normally. His ability to write remained unimpaired, however, and he continued to publish frequently both online and in print until his death on April 4,2013. Roger Joseph Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois, the child of Annabel, a bookkeeper, and Walter Harry Ebert. He was raised Roman Catholic, attending St. Marys elementary school and his paternal grandparents were German immigrants and his maternal ancestry was Irish and Dutch. In his senior year, he was president and editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper. In 1958, he won the Illinois High School Association state speech championship in radio speaking, regarding his early influences in film criticism, Ebert wrote in the 1998 parody collection Mad About the Movies, I learned to be a movie critic by reading Mad magazine. Mads parodies made me aware of the machine inside the skin – of the way a movie might look original on the outside, I did not read the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe. Pauline Kael lost it at the movies, I lost it at Mad magazine, Ebert began taking classes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an early-entrance student, completing his high-school courses while also taking his first university class. After graduating from Urbana High School in 1960, Ebert then attended and received his degree in 1964. As an undergraduate, he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, One of the first movie reviews he ever wrote was a review of La Dolce Vita, published in The Daily Illini in October 1961. Ebert spent a semester as a student in the department of English there before attending the University of Cape Town on a Rotary fellowship for a year. He returned from Cape Town to his studies at Illinois for two more semesters and then, after being accepted as a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. Instead Kogan referred Ebert to the city editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, Jim Hoge and he attended doctoral classes at the University of Chicago while working as a general reporter at the Sun-Times for a year
6.
Werner Herzog
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Werner Herzog is a German screenwriter, film director, author, actor, and opera director. Herzog is considered one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Schröter, and Wim Wenders. Herzogs films often feature heroes with impossible dreams, people with unique talents in obscure fields, French filmmaker François Truffaut once called Herzog the most important film director alive. American film critic Roger Ebert said that Herzog has never created a film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons. He was named one of the 100 most influential people on the planet by Time magazine in 2009, Herzog was born Werner Stipetić in Munich, to Elizabeth Stipetić, an Austrian of Croatian descent, and Dietrich Herzog, who was German. When Werner was two old, his mother took refuge in the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang, after the house next to theirs was destroyed during a bombing raid in World War II. In Sachrang, Herzog grew up without running water, a flushing toilet and he never saw films, and did not even know of the existence of cinema until a traveling projectionist came by the one-room schoolhouse in Sachrang. When Herzog was 12, he and his moved back to Munich. His father had abandoned the early in his youth. Werner later adopted his fathers surname Herzog, which he thought sounded more impressive for a filmmaker, the same year, Herzog was told to sing in front of his class at school, and he adamantly refused, and was almost expelled. Until he was age eighteen, Herzog listened to no music, sang no songs and he later said that he would easily give ten years from his life to be able to play the cello. At an early age, he experienced a phase in which he converted to Catholicism. He started to embark on long journeys, some of them on foot, in the commentary for Aguirre, the Wrath of God, he says, I dont consider it theft. I had some sort of right for a camera, a tool to work with. He won a scholarship to Duquesne University and lasted only a few days, after graduating from high school, he was intrigued by the Congo after its independence, but only reached the south of the Sudan where he fell seriously ill. While already making films, he had a stint at Munich University. He earned money by participating in preproduction of a documentary for NASA with KQED, summoned to the immigration office because of a violation of his visa status, he chose to flee to Mexico. Before leaving school, he bought a house in the UK, there he learned to speak English
7.
Western (genre)
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Cowboys and gunslingers typically wear Stetson hats, bandannas, spurs, cowboy boots and buckskins. Other characters include Native Americans, bandits, lawmen, bounty hunters, outlaws, mounted cavalry, settlers, Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape of deserts and mountains. Often, the vast landscape plays an important role, presenting a. mythic vision of the plains, specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns, saloons, railways and isolated military forts of the Wild West. Many Westerns use a plot of depicting a crime, then showing the pursuit of the wrongdoer, ending in revenge and retribution. The Western was the most popular Hollywood genre, from the early 20th century to the 1960s, Western films first became well-attended in the 1930s. John Fords landmark Western adventure Stagecoach became one of the biggest hits in 1939, Westerns were very popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the most acclaimed Westerns were released during this time – including High Noon, Shane, The Searchers, the Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor and personal, direct or private justice–frontier justice–dispensed by gunfights. These honor codes are played out through depictions of feuds or individuals seeking personal revenge or retribution against someone who has wronged them. The popular perception of the Western is a story that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, a showdown or duel at high noon featuring two or more gunfighters is a stereotypical scene in the popular conception of Westerns. In some ways, such protagonists may be considered the descendants of the knight errant which stood at the center of earlier extensive genres such as the Arthurian Romances. And like knights errant, the heroes of Westerns frequently rescue damsels in distress, similarly, the wandering protagonists of Westerns share many characteristics with the ronin in modern Japanese culture. The Western typically takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, Westerns often stress the harshness and isolation of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape. Apart from the wilderness, it is usually the saloon that emphasizes that this is the Wild West, it is the place to go for music, women, gambling, drinking, brawling and shooting. The American Film Institute defines western films as those set in the American West that embodies the spirit, the struggle, the term Western, used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article in Motion Picture World Magazine. Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th century popular Western fiction and were firmly in place before film became an art form. Protagonists ride between dusty towns and cattle ranches on their trusty steeds, Western films were enormously popular in the silent film era. With the advent of sound in 1927-28, the major Hollywood studios rapidly abandoned Westerns, leaving the genre to smaller studios and these smaller organizations churned out countless low-budget features and serials in the 1930s. Released through United Artists, Stagecoach made John Wayne a mainstream star in the wake of a decade of headlining B westerns
8.
Frank Langella
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Frank A. Langella, Jr. is an American stage and film actor. Additionally, Langella has won two Obie Awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in the production of Frost/Nixon. Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne. He remains a brother of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity, Langella appeared off-Broadway before he made his first foray on a Broadway stage in New York in Federico García Lorcas Yerma at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center, on December 8,1966. Despite his initial misgivings about continuing to play the role, he was persuaded to star opposite Laurence Olivier in the subsequent film directed by John Badham. But Langella would continue to film and television with his stage work. He repeated the role on Broadway in 1987 in Charles Marowitzs play Sherlocks Last Case and that same year, Langella would also portray the villain Skeletor in Masters of the Universe, which he has described as one of his favorite roles. In 1988, Langella co-starred in the film And God Created Woman, in 1993, he made a three-episode appearance on Star Trek, Deep Space Nine as the devious Jaro Essa. He also appeared as Al Baker in Dominance, a 2003 episode of Law & Order, on film, he played Clare Quilty in Adrian Lynes adaptation of Lolita and appeared as a villainous pirate in the summer 1995 release Cutthroat Island. His film work includes roles in George Clooneys Good Night. Langella received critical acclaim as well as the Boston Society of Film Critics Award in 2007 for his portrayal of an elderly novelist in Starting Out in the Evening. He was cast as Richard Nixon in Peter Morgans Frost/Nixon, which received enthusiastic reviews during a run at the Donmar Warehouse, jacobs Theater in April 2007, culminating in Langellas third Tony Award. He reprised the role of Nixon in the 2008 Oscar nominated Best Picture film Frost/Nixon and he received Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and BAFTA nominations for Best Actor for his performance. He was also nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Actor category for the role, in 2000, he played the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in a musical version of A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. He starred as Sir Thomas More in the 2008 Broadway revival of A Man for All Seasons, in late 2009, he starred alongside Cameron Diaz and re-united with Superman Returns co-star James Marsden in the Richard Kelly film The Box. Langella starred in the drama thriller Unknown, which was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, in October and November 2013, Langella played King Lear at the Minerva, Chichester Festival Theatre in Chichester, UK. It travelled to the Harvey Theater at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in 2014, in 2016, he played the title role in Doug Hughes production of the US premiere of Florian Zellers play The Father at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway. Langella was married to Ruth Weil from June 14,1977 to their divorce in 1996 and he also then lived with actress/comedian Whoopi Goldberg, whom he had met on the set of Eddie
9.
Requiem for a Heavyweight
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Requiem for a Heavyweight was a teleplay written by Rod Serling and produced for the live television show Playhouse 90 on 11 October 1956. Six years later, it was adapted as a 1962 feature film starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, the teleplay won a Peabody Award, the first given to an individual script, and helped establish Serlings reputation. Nelson and Serling won Emmy Awards for their work, jack Palance portrays Harlan Mountain McClintock, a once-promising but now washed-up boxer who faces the end of his career after he is savagely defeated by a younger boxer. Keenan Wynn portrays McClintocks manager Maish, Keenans father Ed plays McClintocks cut man, McClintock is suffering from Dementia pugilistica or punch drunk syndrome—brain damage caused by his career. A fight doctor refuses to certify McClintock for further boxing, saying that another rough match could blind or even kill him. Boxing is all McClintock has ever known, and hes terrified of trying something new, and intensely loyal to Maish, who has nurtured him from his youth. Maish has troubles of his own, however, he owes money to the Mafia, kim Hunter portrayed Grace Carney, an employment agency worker who tries to help the boxer make a transition to a new career. Maish persuades the boxer to turn to professional wrestling, though McClintock is proud that he never had a fight and is uncomfortable with the staged, predetermined wrestling match. Army disapproves of Maishs plans and refuses to be a part of them, just before he is scheduled to go into the wrestling ring in a humiliating mountain man costume, McClintock learns of Maishs betting against him, and parts ways with his manager and mentor. Though he feels that boxing can ruin mens lives, Maish finds another promising young boxer to train, McClintock takes a chance on working with children at summer camp. Because Serling and Palance were both experienced boxers, they brought a level of authenticity to Requiem for a Heavyweight, although there was very little boxing depicted in the broadcast. Requiem for a Heavyweight was the beginning of what one of the new mediums most successful creative teams, writer Rod Serling. Co-starring with Connery were Warren Mitchell and Rakoffs future wife Jacqueline Hill, michael Caine was featured in a small role in a new scene written by Rakoff. This production was reviewed in The Times newspaper the following day and it is unfortunate that Mr. Serling has allowed a saccharine romance to intrude into this self-sufficient and wholly masculine situation. Although physically miscast as the fighter, Mr. Sean Connery played with a shambling and this version has not survived, although the discovery of a complete recording of the soundtrack was announced in 2014. It had been in possession of Rakoff, who had made a recording at the time of transmission for posterity, in 1959 Dutch television adapted the story as Requiem voor een zwaargewicht. Ko van Dijk as Malloy Ton van Duinhoven as Manager Jan Blaaser as Verzorger In 1974 Radio Television Belgrade adapted the story as Rekvijem za teškaša, afterward, Maish is confronted by bookies who threaten his life if he fails to repay the bet he just lost on the fight. The film version is darker in its plotline than the original teleplay
10.
Fate Is the Hunter (film)
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Fate Is the Hunter is a 1964 black-and-white aviation disaster film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Aaron Rosenberg, directed by Ralph Nelson, that stars Glenn Ford, Nancy Kwan, and Rod Taylor. Fate is the Hunter also features Jane Russell, Nehemiah Persoff, Wally Cox, dorothy Malone also makes an uncredited appearance. The film features a film score by composer Jerry Goldsmith. The films storyline concerns the crash of an airliner that killed all its passengers. Pilot error seems to be the cause, until an airliner executive ramps up the investigation, a bird strike on one of its two engines shortly after takeoff downs a Consolidated Airlines passenger jet, killing all 53 passengers aboard and all but one of the crew. Pilot Jack Savage is suspected of drinking and causing the crash that leaves flight attendant Martha Webster the sole survivor of the flight. Early in the investigation, it is found that the Captain shut down the one good engine for no apparent reason. The captains wartime buddy, airline executive Sam C, McBane, is convinced of his friends innocence and doggedly investigates. Flashbacks deal with both Jacks past and Sam meeting him, plus others they used to know, eventually, a test flight is organized as part of the investigation. Piloted by McBane, its purpose is to recreate in every detail the flight of the ill-fated airliner. Every detail is replicated in sequence, after take off, flight attendant Webster brings McBane coffee, just as she did to the original flight crew. He shuts down an engine, simulating the bird strike, a short time later an emergency arises, A warning light and alarm indicates there is a serious engine fire in the remaining good engine. McBane deduces that the original pilots coffee cup was sitting atop the instrument console, the spilled liquid leaked through the consoles seams onto the electronics, causing a malfunction of the airliners engines warning system. In reality the still had a fully functioning jet engine that could have prevented the crash. McBane ignores the warning and goes to full power on both engines, returning safely to the airfield, a minor chance accident and the ensuing electronics fault, not pilot error, is proven to be the cause of the Consolidated airliner crash. In his autobiography, A Hostage to Fortune, Gann wrote, They obliged and, as a result, I deprived myself of the TV residuals, a medium in which the film played interminably. The Consolidated Airways jet aircraft used in the film was one of two fabricated from DC-7 donors, the second was used to create the crash scene. The wings were removed and reversed, a Boeing 707 nose cone along with supersonic spike were also added in order to achieve the appearance of a modern jet airliner
