The Natural (film)
The Natural is a 1984 American sports film based on Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel of the same name, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall. Like the book, the film recounts the experiences of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great "natural" baseball talent, spanning the decades of Roy's career, it was the first film produced by TriStar Pictures. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress, it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Many of the baseball scenes were filmed in 1983 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, New York, built in 1937 and demolished in 1988. All-High Stadium in Buffalo, stood in for Chicago's Wrigley Field in a key scene; as a young boy growing up on a Nebraska farm in the 1910s, Roy Hobbs learns to play baseball from his father with whom he plays catch regularly. One afternoon, the elder Hobbs collapses underneath a mighty oak tree in front of their house and dies from a heart attack.
Shortly thereafter, lightning strikes the oak tree during a thunderstorm, splits the trunk down the middle. Hobbs takes a piece of the tree and carves it down into a baseball bat, using a wood burning kit to write the name “Wonderboy” into the barrel. Several years in 1923, a now 19-year-old Hobbs shares with his girlfriend Iris that he has an opportunity to try out for the Chicago Cubs, he boards a train en route to the try outs, meets a legendary ball player nicknamed “Whammer”, the best hitter in the big leagues, as well as sportswriter Max Mercy. On a stopover along the journey, the passengers visit a carnival where Hobbs wins at a game requiring him to knock over a stack of bottles with a ball; as he and his scout walk through the carnival they are taunted by Mercy. Hobbs' friend bets Mercy. Hobbs proceeds to strike Whammer out to the surprise of Mercy; the feat catches the attention of Harriet Bird, a mysterious woman, fawning over Whammer. Hobbs and Bird board the train separately but she approaches him and they talk.
In Chicago they each have a room and she phones Hobbs and invites him to her room. When Hobbs arrives at her room Bird is wearing a black outfit, including a veil, she questions whether Hobbs will be the “best there was” like he wishes to be. He confidently confirms that he will be, after which Bird pulls a small handgun from her purse and shoots Hobbs in the abdomen, it is discovered that Bird had targeted other top athletes such as an Olympian and a football star. Sixteen years in 1939, Hobbs is now 35 and is signed by a scout to the New York Knights, a struggling ball club sitting in last place; the team is managed by Pop Fisher, who dislikes that Hobbs has joined the team, believing that at his age he would be more of a hindrance than help. After several games of sitting on the bench, Pop challenges Hobbs to be at practice the next day, though Hobbs reminds Fisher that he's always there; the following game, Fisher benches star outfielder Bump Bailey after a reckless play. Pop pinch hits with Hobbs, who knocks the cover off of the baseball.
Shortly after this, Bailey tragically dies when he crashes through an outfield wall trying to make a play, resulting in Hobbs being made starting outfielder. Hobbs begins to turn the Knights' fortunes around. Mercy finds Hobbs to be a familiar character, but is unable to recognize him as the pitcher who struck the Whammer out 16 years earlier. One night Hobbs has dinner after a game with the team's bench coach, Red Blow, where Red explains the ownership situation of the Knights, he tells Hobbs that if Pop loses the pennant this year his ownership share of the team will revert to the team's majority owner, The Judge and Pop will be out of the game for good. Hobbs is asked to meet with The Judge, whom remains in a darkened office high above the playing field at the Knights’ ballpark; the Judge compliments Hobbs success thus far, but offers him a $5,000 bribe to throw the season, which he refuses. At a formal dinner, Marcy introduces Hobbs to Gus Sands, a bookie whom Hobbs learns enjoys placing large bets against him.
He meets Memo Paris, who turns out to be Pop's niece. The two begin spending more time together with a growing romantic interest, Hobbs’ gameplay concurrently begins slumping. One night while Pop is waiting in a hotel lobby, he sees Hobbs come in with Memo, he cautions Hobbs about Memo, but Hobbs disregards him. Hobbs continues to slump until one day in a day game against the Cubs, Hobbs breaks out of his slump when a woman in white stands in the seats, catching Hobbs’ attention, he proceeds to hit a home run to deep center field, shattering the clock on the scoreboard at Wrigley Field. After hitting the home run, he runs to the dugout to try and see the woman again, but the abundant flash photography blinds him, he realizes it's his childhood sweetheart, Iris. The two meet at a diner where they catch up, with Hobbs telling her how he had been shot several years before and had lost his way as a result. Iris shares with Hobbs; the encounter breaths life into Hobbs' game again. The boost causes the Knights to surge into first place.
One day as the team is coming off the field after practice, some of his teammates ask him to throw a pitch in because they want to hit a few more. Hobbs obliges, throws a strike so hard the ball wedges into the netting behind home plate to the awe o
The Mask of Zorro
The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the character of the masked vigilante Zorro created by Johnston McCulley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stuart Wilson; the film features the original Zorro, Don Diego de la Vega, escaping from prison to find his long-lost daughter and avenge the death of his wife at the hands of the corrupt governor Rafael Montero. He is aided by his successor, pursuing his own vendetta against the governor's right-hand man while falling in love with de la Vega's daughter. Producer Steven Spielberg had developed the film for TriStar Pictures with directors Mikael Salomon and Robert Rodriguez, before Campbell signed on in 1996. Salomon cast Sean Connery as Don Diego de la Vega, while Rodriguez brought Banderas in the lead role. Connery dropped out and was replaced with Hopkins, The Mask of Zorro began filming in January 1997 at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City, Mexico; the film was released in the United States on July 1998 to critical and commercial success.
The Legend of Zorro, a sequel starring Banderas and Zeta-Jones and directed by Campbell, was released in 2005, but did not fare as well as its predecessor. In 1821, Don Diego de la Vega, a Spanish-born California nobleman, fights against soldiers in the Mexican War of Independence as Zorro, a mysterious masked swordsman who defends the Mexican peasants and commoners of Las Californias. Don Rafael Montero, the corrupt governor of the region, learns of De La Vega's alter ego and attempts to arrest him. De la Vega's wife Esperanza, who Montero was in love with, is killed during the ensuing scuffle. Montero imprisons de La Vega and takes his infant daughter, Elena, as his own before returning to Spain. Twenty years Montero returns to California as a civilian, alongside Elena who has grown into a beautiful woman and resembles her late mother. Montero's reappearance motivates de La Vega to escape from prison, he encounters Alejandro Murietta who, as a child, saved Zorro's life during his last fight.
De la Vega decides that fate has brought them together, agrees to make Alejandro his protégé, grooming him to be the new Zorro. Alejandro agrees to undergo de La Vega's training regimen in Zorro's secret cave underneath the ruins of his family estate in order to be able to take revenge on Captain Harrison Love Montero's right-hand man, responsible for killing Alejandro's brother, Joaquin. While still being trained, Alejandro steals a black stallion resembling Zorro's steed Tornado from the local garrison. De La Vega scolds Alejandro, claiming that Zorro was a servant of the people, not a thief and adventurer, he challenges Alejandro to gain Montero's trust instead. Alejandro poses as a visiting nobleman named Don Alejandro del Castillo y García, with de la Vega as his servant, attends a party at Montero's hacienda. At the party, he gains Elena's admiration and enough of Montero's trust to be invited to a secret meeting where several other noblemen are present. Montero hints at a plan to retake California for the Dons and proclaim it as an independent republic by buying it from General Santa Anna, who needs money to fund his upcoming war with the United States.
Montero takes Alejandro and the noblemen to a secret gold mine known as "El Dorado," where peasants and prisoners are used for slave labor. Montero plans to buy California from Santa Anna using gold mined from Santa Anna's own land. De la Vega uses this opportunity to become closer to Elena, though he identifies himself as "Bernardo" the servant, learning that Montero told Elena that her mother died in childbirth. While walking in a market, Elena meets the woman, her nanny who tells Elena her parents' real identity. De la Vega sends Alejandro, dressed as Zorro, to steal Montero's map leading to the gold mine. Zorro duels Montero and their guards at the hacienda; when Zorro escapes, Elena attempts to retrieve Montero's map from the swordsman, but he seduces her, leading to a passionate kiss before he flees. Terrified of Santa Anna's retribution if he discovers that he is being paid with his own gold, Montero, at Love's urging, decides to destroy the mine and kill the workers. De la Vega tells Alejandro to release the workers on his own.
Alejandro sets off. De la Vega corners Montero at the hacienda and reveals his identity, but Montero captures him by threatening Elena; as he is taken away, de la Vega tells Elena the name of the flowers, she recognized upon her arrival in California, convincing her that he is her father. She releases de la Vega from his cell and they proceed to the mine, where Alejandro and de la Vega defeat and slay Love and Montero. Elena and Alejandro free the workers before the explosives go off, find the mortally wounded de la Vega, he makes peace with Alejandro and Elena and gives his blessings for Alejandro to marry his daughter before dying. On in the movie and Elena are married and have a son named Joaquin and Alejandro tells him the story of how his grandfather was the first Zorro and how he became and died a hero with Elena listening. Alejandro and Elena share a passionate kiss before Joaquin starts Elena calms him down; the film ends with Alejandro walking down the corridor of his mansion before the door closes with Zorro pulling out his sword and making his mark with it being engulfed in flames.
Antonio Banderas as Alejandro Murrieta / Zorro: Despite claims made by several media outlets and Antonio Banderas himself, Banderas was not the first Spanish actor to portra
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California. The city was named after Harry Culver; as of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883. It is surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Over the years, it has annexed more than 40 pieces of adjoining land and now comprises about five square miles. Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a center for motion picture and television production, best known as the home of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. From 1932 to 1986, it was the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment have headquarters in the city; the NFL Network studio is based in Culver City. Archaeological evidence suggests a human presence in the area of present-day Culver City since at least 8,000 BC; the region was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieliño Native Americans. The city was founded on the lands of the former Rancho La Ballona, Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes, Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera.
In 1861, during the American Civil War, Camp Latham was established by the 1st California Infantry under Col. James H. Carleton and the 1st California Cavalry under Lt. Col. Benjamin F. Davis. Named for California Senator Milton S. Latham, the camp was the first staging area for the training of Union troops and their operations in Southern California, it was located on land of the Rancho La Ballona, on the South side of Ballona Creek, near what is now the intersection of Jefferson and Overland Boulevards. The post was moved to Camp Drum, which became the Drum Barracks. Harry Culver first attempted to establish Culver City in 1913; the first film studio in Culver City was built by Thomas Ince in 1918. Silent film comedy producer Hal Roach built his studios there in 1919, Metro Goldwyn Mayer in the'20s. During Prohibition and nightclubs such as the Cotton Club lined Washington Boulevard. Culver Center, one of Southern California's first shopping malls, was completed in 1950 on Venice Boulevard near the Overland Avenue intersection.
Many other retail stores, including a Rite Aid and several banks and restaurants, have occupied the center since then. Hughes Aircraft opened its Culver City plant in July 1941. There the company built the H-4 Hercules transport. Hughes was an active subcontractor in World War II, it developed and patented a flexible feed chute for faster loading of machine guns on B-17 bombers, manufactured electric booster drives for machine guns. Hughes produced more ammunition belts than any other American manufacturer, built 5,576 wings and 6,370 rear fuselage sections for Vultee BT-13 trainers. Hughes grew after the war, in 1953 Howard Hughes donated all his stock in the company to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. After he died in 1976, the institute sold the company, which made it the second-best-endowed medical research foundation in the world; the Hal Roach Studios were demolished in 1963. In the late 1960s, much of the MGM backlot acreage, the nearby 28.5-acre of the RKO Forty Acres, once owned by RKO Pictures and Desilu Productions, were sold by their owners.
In 1976 the sets were razed to make way for redevelopment. Today the RKO site is the southern expansion of the Hayden Industrial Tract, while the MGM property has been converted to a subdivision and a shopping center known as Raintree Plaza. In the 1990s, Culver City launched a successful revitalization program in which it renovated its downtown as well as several shopping centers in the Sepulveda Boulevard corridor near Westfield Culver City. Around the same time, Sony's motion picture subsidiary, Columbia Pictures, moved into the old MGM lot; the influx of many art galleries and restaurants to the eastern part of the city, formally designated the Culver City Art District, prompted The New York Times in 2007 to praise the new art scene and call Culver City a "nascent Chelsea."In 2012 Roger Vincent of the Los Angeles Times said that, according to local observers, the city's "reputation as a pedestrian-friendly destination with upscale restaurants, gastropubs and a thriving art scene is less than a decade old."
Hundreds of movies have been produced on the lots of Culver City's studios: Sony Pictures Studios, Culver Studios, the former Hal Roach Studios. These include The Wizard of Oz, The Thin Man, Gone with the Wind, the Tarzan series, the original King Kong. More recent films made in Culver City include Grease, Raging Bull, E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, City Slickers, Air Force One, Wag the Dog and Contact. Television series made on Culver City sets have included Las Vegas, Cougar Town, Mad About You, Hogan's Heroes, The Green Hornet, Arrested Development, The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, U. S. M. C. Jeopardy!, The Nanny, Hell's Kitchen, MasterChef, the syndicated version of Wheel of Fortune and Tosh. O; the television series The Green Hornet featured Bruce Lee as Kato. John Travolta's "Stranded at the Drive-In" sequence in Grease was filmed at the Studio Drive-In on the corner of Jefferson and Sepulveda, it served as a set including Pee-wee's Big Adventure. The theatre was closed in 1993 and demolished in 1998.
Culver City's streets have been featured in television series. Since much of the
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation is an American film studio, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is located on its namesake studio lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. For over 84 years, it was one of the "Big Six" major American film studios. In 1985, the studio was acquired by News Corporation, succeeded by 21st Century Fox in 2013 following the spin-off of its publishing assets. In 2019, The Walt Disney Company acquired 20th Century Fox through its merger with 21st Century Fox. Starting with Breakthrough, all studio releases will be distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Disney now owns the rights to the studio's pre-merger film library. Twentieth Century Pictures' Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck left United Artists over a stock dispute, began merger talks with the management of financially struggling Fox Film, under President Sidney Kent. Spyros Skouras manager of the Fox West Coast Theaters, helped make it happen.
The company had been struggling since founder William Fox lost control of the company in 1930. The new company, 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31, 1935. Kent remained at the company, joining Zanuck. Zanuck replaced Winfield Sheehan as the company's production chief; the company established a special training school. Lynn Bari, Patricia Farr and Anne Nagel were among 14 young women "launched on the trail of film stardom" on August 6, 1935, when they each received a six-month contract with 20th Century Fox after spending 18 months in the school; the contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years. For many years, 20th Century Fox claimed to have been founded in 1915, the year Fox Film was founded. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915; the company's films retained the 20th Century Pictures searchlight logo on their opening credits as well as its opening fanfare, but with the name changed to 20th Century-Fox.}
After the merger was completed, Zanuck signed young actors to help carry 20th Century-Fox: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Carmen Miranda, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Sonja Henie, Betty Grable. Fox hired Alice Faye and Shirley Temple, who appeared in several major films for the studio in the 1930's. Higher attendance during World War II helped Fox overtake RKO and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to become the third most profitable film studio. In 1941, Zanuck was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the U. S. Signal Corps and assigned to supervise production of U. S. Army training films, his partner, William Goetz, filled in at Fox. In 1942, Spyros Skouras succeeded Kent as president of the studio. During the next few years, with pictures like The Razor's Edge, Gentleman's Agreement, The Snake Pit and Pinky, Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Fox specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as Ben Ames Williams' Leave Her to Heaven, starring Gene Tierney, the highest-grossing Fox film of the 1940s.
Fox produced film versions of Broadway musicals, including the Rodgers and Hammerstein films, beginning with the musical version of State Fair, the only work that the partnership wrote for films. After the war, with the advent of television, audiences drifted away. 20th Century-Fox held on to its theaters until a court-mandated "divorce". That year, with attendance at half the 1946 level, 20th Century-Fox gambled on an unproven gimmick. Noting that the two film sensations of 1952 had been Cinerama, which required three projectors to fill a giant curved screen, "Natural Vision" 3D, which got its effects of depth by requiring the use of polarized glasses, Fox mortgaged its studio to buy rights to a French anamorphic projection system which gave a slight illusion of depth without glasses. President Spyros Skouras struck a deal with the inventor Henri Chrétien, leaving the other film studios empty-handed, in 1953 introduced CinemaScope in the studio's groundbreaking feature film The Robe. Zanuck announced in February 1953.
To convince theater owners to install this new process, Fox agreed to help pay conversion costs. Seeing the box-office for the first two CinemaScope features, The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire, Warner Bros. MGM, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures and Disney adopted the process. In 1956 Fox engaged Robert Lippert to establish a subsidiary company, Regal Pictures Associated Producers Incorporated to film B pictures in CinemaScope. Fox produced new musicals using the CinemaScope process including Carousel and The King and I. CinemaScope brought a brief upturn in attendance; that year Darryl Zanuck announced his resignation as head of production. Zanuck moved to Paris, setting up as an independent producer being in the United States for many years. Zanuck's successor, producer Buddy Adler, died a year later. President Spyros Skouras brought in a series of production executives, but none had Zanuck's success. By the early 1960s, Fox was in trouble. A new version of Cleopatra had begun in 1959 with Joan Collins in the
CBS
CBS is an American English language commercial broadcast television and radio network, a flagship property of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major production facilities and operations in New York City and Los Angeles. CBS is sometimes referred to as the Eye Network, in reference to the company's iconic symbol, in use since 1951, it has been called the "Tiffany Network", alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of William S. Paley, it can refer to some of CBS's first demonstrations of color television, which were held in a former Tiffany & Co. building in New York City in 1950. The network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc. a collection of 16 radio stations, purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paley's guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, one of the Big Three American broadcast television networks.
In 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known as CBS, Inc. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation acquired the network in 1995, renamed its corporate entity to the current CBS Broadcasting, Inc. in 1997, adopted the name of the company it had acquired to become CBS Corporation. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself into two separate companies and re-established CBS Corporation – through the spin-off of its broadcast television and select cable television and non-broadcasting assets – with the CBS television network at its core. CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which controls the current Viacom. CBS operated the CBS Radio network until 2017, when it merged its radio division with Entercom. Prior to CBS Radio provided news and features content for its portfolio owned-and-operated radio stations in large and mid-sized markets, affiliated radio stations in various other markets.
While CBS Corporation owns a 72% stake in Entercom, it no longer owns or operates any radio stations directly, though CBS still provides radio news broadcasts to its radio affiliates and the new owners of its former radio stations. The television network has more than 240 owned-and-operated and affiliated television stations throughout the United States; the company ranked 197th on the 2018 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue. The origins of CBS date back to January 27, 1927, with the creation of the "United Independent Broadcasters" network in Chicago by New York City talent-agent Arthur Judson; the fledgling network soon needed additional investors though, the Columbia Phonograph Company, manufacturers of Columbia Records, rescued it in April 1927. Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18, 1927, with a presentation by the Howard L. Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, fifteen affiliates. Operational costs were steep the payments to AT&T for use of its land lines, by the end of 1927, Columbia Phonograph wanted out.
In early 1928 Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the network's Philadelphia affiliate WCAU, their partner Jerome Louchheim. None of the three were interested in assuming day-to-day management of the network, so they installed wealthy 26-year-old William S. Paley, son of a Philadelphia cigar family and in-law of the Levys, as president. With the record company out of the picture, Paley streamlined the corporate name to "Columbia Broadcasting System", he believed in the power of radio advertising since his family's "La Palina" cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio. By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchhheim share of CBS and became its majority owner with 51% of the business. During Louchheim's brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 to A. H. Grebe's Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC, which would become the network's flagship station. WABC was upgraded, the signal relocated to 860 kHz.
The physical plant was relocated – to Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan, where much of CBS's programming would originate. By the turn of 1929, the network could boast to sponsors of having 47 affiliates. Paley moved right away to put his network on a firmer financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered into talks with Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures, who planned to move into radio in response to RCA's forays into motion pictures with the advent of talkies; the deal came to fruition in September 1929: Paramount acquired 49% of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3.8 million at the time. The agreement specified that Paramount would buy that same stock back by March 1, 1932 for a flat $5 million, provided CBS had earned $2 million during 1931 and 1932. For a brief time there was talk that the network might be renamed "Paramount Radio", but it only lasted a month – the 1929 stock market crash sent all stock value tumbling, it galvanized Paley and his troops, who "had no alternative but to turn the network around and earn the $2,000,000 in two years....
This is the atmosphere in which the CBS of today was born." The near-bankrupt movie studio sold its CBS shares back to CBS in 1932. In the first year of Paley's wa
Cliffhanger (film)
Cliffhanger is a 1993 American action adventure film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker and Janine Turner. Based on a concept by climber John Long, the film follows Gabe, a mountain climber who becomes embroiled in the failed heist of a U. S. Treasury plane flying through the Rocky Mountains; the film earned $255 million worldwide. Rangers Gabriel "Gabe" Walker and Jessie Deighan are dispatched to rescue their friend Hal Tucker and his girlfriend, after Hal suffered a knee injury and stranded them on a peak in the Colorado Rockies; as they try to rescue Sarah, part of her harness breaks, though Gabe is able to grab her, her gloved hand slips out, she falls to her death. Hal blames Gabe for Sarah's death and Gabe is overcome with guilt, taking an extended leave. Eight months Gabe returns to the ranger station to gather his remaining possessions and persuade Jessie to leave with him. While there, they receive a distress call from a group of stranded climbers.
Hal goes to locate the climbers and Jessie is able to persuade Gabe to help out. Hal remains bitter towards Gabe over Sarah's death, at one point threatening to push Gabe off a ledge; when they find the climbers, they discover the distress call was a ruse and are taken prisoner by former Military Intelligence operative Eric Qualen and several mercenaries including brutal Kynette, sadistic Delmar and pilot Kristel. Qualen, along with turncoat U. S. Treasury agent Richard Travers, were able to steal three suitcases full of uncirculated bills valuing over $100 million, their escape plan backfired when a dead FBI agent shoots and damages the hydraulics, sending their plane crashing into the mountain, they now require Gabe and Hal's help to locate the cases with the help of beacon locators. At gunpoint and Gabe lead them to the first case, located upwards on a steep rock face. Gabe is tethered and forced to climb up the face to reach the case, but they try to yank him down, prompting Gabe to sever the rope.
The mercenaries open fire on Gabe, causing an avalanche. When they see the money from the first case fluttering away, Qualen believes Gabe is dead, orders Hal to lead them onward. Gabe races ahead to find Jessie at an abandoned cabin, they recover old mountaineering gear to reach the second case. By the time Qualen arrives and Jessie have emptied the case and left only a single bill with the taunting message "Want to trade?" on it. Qualen orders his men to split up, allowing Gabe to dispatch two more of Qualen's men. Gabe attempts to call for help from Frank, their rescue helicopter pilot, on one of the mercenaries' radios, but Hal alerts him to explosives Qualen has rigged above them on the mountain. Gabe and Jessie escape the falling debris in time. Elsewhere, when Hal sees two friends and Brett, he warns them away before Qualen orders his men to open fire. Brett is killed while Evan is wounded, though he manages to ski off the mountain and parachute to safety. Night falls on the mountain and both groups take shelter.
Frank, having not heard from Gabe or the others, scouts the mountain in the helicopter, spots Evan's parachute, is able to get him to safety while contacting the authorities. When morning breaks and Jessie beat Qualen to the last case. Meanwhile, the mercenaries flag down Frank in the helicopter, by the time he realizes it's a trap it is too late, he is shot by dies, but not before slipping Hal a knife. As the mercenaries split up to look for the other case, Hal is able to use the knife to wound Delmar, kill him with his own shotgun, escape. Elsewhere Hal finds Gabe, together they kill Travers, now insane after finding that Gabe managed to get the last case before him. However, at the same time, Qualen takes Jessie hostage when she waves down the helicopter, believing that Frank was flying it. Qualen tells Gabe and Hal over the radio that he is holding Jessie captive on board the helicopter, demanding Gabe and Hal to surrender the money from the third case at a high elevated rendezvous point and threatens to kill her should they refuse to cooperate.
Gabe and Hal agree, they meet at a cliff side bridge. However, Qualen tries to challenge Gabe into throwing the case into the helicopter, but when he threatens to kill Jessie again, Gabe orders Qualen to free her at a safe distance away from the cliff. Qualen reluctantly agrees, uses a winch to lower Jessie to the ground. Once Jessie is safely down, Gabe throws the bag of money into the helicopter's rotors, shredding the money. Enraged, Qualen attempts to use the helicopter to kill Gabe, but Gabe has used the winch cable to tether the helicopter to a steel ladder up the cliff face; the ladder snaps and leaves Gabe and Qualen atop the wreckage of the helicopter hanging by the cable. Gabe fights Qualen and manages to climb to safety as the wreckage snaps off the cable, sending Qualen to his death. Gabe reunites with Jessie and Hal as they were found by Treasury agents led by Walter Wright in a helicopter after they get a bead on a frequency between Travers and Qualen and he arrange a transportation as Gabe and Jessie sitting on top of a mountain peak, just like Gabe and Sarah at the beginning.
Sylvester Stallone as Gabriel "Gabe" Walker, a former mountain climber and rescue ranger haunted by his failure to save the girlfriend of his best friend, Hal Tucker John Lithgow as Eric Qualen, a sadistic British former military intelligence officer, now leader of the gang of thieves trying to rob $100 million from the U. S. Treasury Michael Rooker as Hal Tucker, Gabe's best friend and a mountain ranger who blames Gabe for failing to save Sarah Janine Turner as Jessie Deighan, a helicopter pilot and Gabe's girl
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film studio, production company and film distributor, a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Entertainment's Sony Pictures subsidiary of the Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony Corporation. What would become Columbia Pictures, CBC Film Sales Corporation, was founded on June 19, 1918 by Harry Cohn, his brother Jack Cohn, Joe Brandt, it went public two years later. In its early years, it was a minor player in Hollywood, but began to grow in the late 1920s, spurred by a successful association with director Frank Capra. With Capra and others, Columbia became one of the primary homes of the screwball comedy. In the 1930s, Columbia's major contract stars were Cary Grant. In the 1940s, Rita Hayworth became the studio's premier star and propelled their fortunes into the late 1950s. Rosalind Russell, Glenn Ford, William Holden became major stars at the studio, it is one of the leading film studios in the world and is a member of the "Big Five" major American film studios.
It was one of the so-called "Little Three" among the eight major film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. Today, it has become the world's fifth largest major film studio; the studio was founded on June 19, 1918 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn and Jack's best friend Joe Brandt, released its first feature film in August 1922. Brandt was president of CBC Film Sales, handling sales and distribution from New York along with Jack Cohn, while Harry Cohn ran production in Hollywood; the studio's early productions were low-budget short subjects: "Screen Snapshots", the "Hall Room Boys", the Chaplin imitator Billy West. The start-up CBC leased space in a Poverty Row studio on Hollywood's famously low-rent Gower Street. Among Hollywood's elite, the studio's small-time reputation led some to joke that "CBC" stood for "Corned Beef and Cabbage". Brandt tired of dealing with the Cohn brothers, in 1932 sold his one-third stake to Harry Cohn, who took over as president. In an effort to improve its image, the Cohn brothers renamed the company Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10, 1924.
Cohn remained head of production as well. He would run one of the longest tenures of any studio chief. In an industry rife with nepotism, Columbia was notorious for having a number of Harry and Jack's relatives in high positions. Humorist Robert Benchley called it the Pine Tree Studio, "because it has so many Cohns". Columbia's product line consisted of moderately budgeted features and short subjects including comedies, sports films, various serials, cartoons. Columbia moved into the production of higher-budget fare joining the second tier of Hollywood studios along with United Artists and Universal. Like United Artists and Universal, Columbia was a horizontally integrated company, it controlled distribution. Helping Columbia's climb was the arrival of Frank Capra. Between 1927 and 1939, Capra pushed Cohn for better material and bigger budgets. A string of hits he directed in the early and mid 1930s solidified Columbia's status as a major studio. In particular, It Happened; until Columbia's existence had depended on theater owners willing to take its films, since as mentioned above it didn't have a theater network of its own.
Other Capra-directed hits followed, including the original version of Lost Horizon, with Ronald Colman, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which made James Stewart a major star. In 1933, Columbia hired Robert Kalloch to be women's costume designer, he was the first contract costume designer hired by the studio, he established the studio's wardrobe department. Kalloch's employment, in turn, convinced leading actresses that Columbia Pictures intended to invest in their careers. In 1938, the addition of B. B. Kahane as Vice President would produce Charles Vidor's Those High Gray Walls, The Lady in Question, the first joint film of Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. Kahane would become the President of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1959, until his death a year later. Columbia could not afford to keep a huge roster of contract stars, so Cohn borrowed them from other studios. At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the industry's most prestigious studio, Columbia was nicknamed "Siberia", as Louis B. Mayer would use the loan out to Columbia as a way to punish his less-obedient signings.
In the 1930s, Columbia signed Jean Arthur to a long-term contract, after The Whole Town's Talking, Arthur became a major comedy star. Ann Sothern's career was launched when Columbia signed her to a contract in 1936. Cary Grant signed a contract in 1937 and soon after it was altered to a non-exclusive contract shared with RKO. Many theaters relied on westerns to attract big weekend audiences, Columbia always recognized this market, its first cowboy star was Buck Jones, who signed with Columbia in 1930 for a fraction of his former big-studio salary. Over the next two decades Columbia released scores of outdoor adventures with Jones, Tim McCoy, Ken Maynard, Jack Luden, Bob Allen, Russell Hayden, Tex Ritter, Ken Curtis, Gene Autry. Columbia's most popular cowboy was Charles Starrett, who signed with Columbia in 193
