Raoul Walsh
Raoul A. Walsh was an American film director, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of the silent screen actor George Walsh, he was known for portraying John Wilkes Booth in the silent classic The Birth of a Nation and for directing such films as The Big Trail, starring John Wayne, High Sierra, starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart. He directed his last film in 1964. Walsh was born in New York as Albert Edward Walsh to Elizabeth T. Bruff, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants, Thomas W. Walsh, an Englishman. Like his younger brother, he was part of Omega Gamma Delta in high school. Growing up in New York, Walsh was a friend of the Barrymore family. In life he lived in Palm Springs, California, he was buried at Ventura County, California. Walsh was educated at Seton Hall College, he began acting in 1909, first as a stage actor in New York City and as a film actor. In 1914 he became an assistant to D. W. Griffith and made his first full-length feature film, The Life of General Villa, shot on location in Mexico with Pancho Villa playing the lead and with actual ongoing battles filmed in progress as well as recreations.
Walsh played John Wilkes Booth in Griffith's epic The Birth of a Nation and served as an assistant director. This was followed by the critically acclaimed Regeneration in 1915 the earliest feature gangster film, shot on location in Manhattan's Bowery district. Walsh served as an officer in the United States Army during World War I, he directed The Thief of Bagdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Anna May Wong, Laurence Stallings' What Price Glory?, starring Victor McLaglen and Dolores del Río. In Sadie Thompson, starring Gloria Swanson as a prostitute seeking a new life in Samoa, Walsh starred as Swanson's boyfriend in his first acting role since 1915, he was hired to direct and star in In Old Arizona, a film about O. Henry's character the Cisco Kid. While on location for that film Walsh was in a car crash when a jackrabbit jumped through the windshield as he was driving through the desert, he never acted again. Warner Baxter won an Oscar for the role Walsh was slated to play. Walsh would wear an eyepatch for the rest of his life.
In the early days of sound with Fox, Walsh directed the first widescreen spectacle, The Big Trail, an epic wagon train western shot on location across the West. The movie starred John Wayne unknown, whom Walsh discovered as prop boy Marion Morrison and renamed after the Revolutionary War general Mad Anthony Wayne. Walsh directed The Bowery, featuring George Raft, Fay Wray and Pert Kelton. An undistinguished period followed with Paramount Pictures from 1935 to 1939, but Walsh's career rose to new heights after he moved to Warner Brothers, with The Roaring Twenties, featuring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. Walsh's contract at Warners expired in 1953, he directed several films afterwards, including three with Clark Gable: The Tall Men, The King and Four Queens and Band of Angels. Walsh retired in 1964, he died of a heart attack in 1980. Some of Walsh's film-related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives, to which scholars and media experts from around the world may have full access.
Walsh replaced director Bretaigne Windust, who fell ill, on The Enforcer and shot over half the film, but refused to take screen credit. The Conqueror The Big Trail Captain Horatio Hornblower R. N; the Lawless Breed Esther and the King The Men Who Made the Movies: Raoul Walsh Himself Moss. Marilyn Ann. Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director. University Press of Kentucky. Smith, Renee D.. The Films of Raoul Walsh: A Critical Approach excerpt and text search Paolo Bachmann. Raoul Walsh. Turin: Quaderni del Movie Club di Torino. Jean-Louis Comolli. "L'esprit d'aventure". Cahiers du cinéma, no. 154, April. Toni D'Angela, Toni. Raoul Walsh o dell'avventura singolare, Rome: Bulzoni. "Trafic", no. 28, Winter 1998. "La furia umana", no. 1. 2009. Http://www.lafuriaumana.it Raoul Walsh on IMDb Raoul Walsh at AllMovie Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database Raoul Walsh at Virtual History
Victor McLaglen
Victor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen was a British-American film actor. He was known as a character actor in Westerns, made seven films with John Ford and John Wayne. McLaglen won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1935 for his role in The Informer. McLaglen claimed to have been born in Tunbridge Wells, although his birth certificate records Stepney in the East End of London as his true birthplace, his father, Andrew Charles Albert McClaglen, was a bishop of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England. The McLaglen family is of South African origin, the name being a phonetic rendering of McLachlan into Dutch. A. C. A. McLaglen was born Andries Carel Albertus McLaglen in Cape Town on 4 April 1851. One of ten siblings, he had a sister. Four of his brothers became actors: Arthur, an actor and sculptor, Clifford and Kenneth. Other siblings included Frederick, Lewis and a sister, Lily. Another brother, Leopold McLaglen, who appeared in one film, gained notoriety prior to World War I as a showman and self-proclaimed world jujutsu champion, who authored a book on the subject.
He moved with his family to South Africa for a time, where his father was Bishop of Claremont, McLaglen left home at 14 to join the British Army with the intention of fighting in the Second Boer War. However, much to his chagrin, he was stationed at Windsor Castle in the Life Guards and was forced to leave the army when his true age was discovered. Four years he moved to Winnipeg, Canada, where he became a local celebrity, earning a living as a wrestler and heavyweight boxer, with several notable wins in the ring, he briefly served as a constable in the Winnipeg Police Force in 1907. One of his most famous fights was against heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in a six-round exhibition bout at the Vancouver Athletic Club on 10 March 1909; this was Johnson's first bout since winning the heavyweight title from Tommy Burns. Between bouts, McLaglen toured with a circus, which offered $25 to anyone who could go three rounds with him, he returned to Britain in 1913 and during the First World War served as a captain with the 10th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment.
He claimed to have served with the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He served for a time as military Assistant Provost Marshal for the city of Baghdad, he continued boxing, was named heavyweight champion of the British Army in 1918. After the war, he continued boxing, including a defeat at the hands of British champion Frank Goddard, his final fight was a loss by knockout to Arthur Townley in October 1920. He finished his professional career with a record of 16 wins, 8 losses, 1 draw. McLaglen was visiting a sporting club when spotted by a film producer, looking for a boxer to play the lead in a film, The Call of the Road. Although McLaglen had never acted before he auditioned and got the part, he was in the adventure films: Corinthian Jack, The Prey of the Dragon. He followed it with The Sport of Kings. Donald Crisp cast him in The Glorious Adventure and he was in A Romance of Old Baghdad, Little Brother of God, A Sailor Tramp, The Crimson Circle, The Romany, Heartstrings. McLaglen played leads in M'Lord of the White Road, In the Blood, The Boatswain's Mate and Diamonds, The Gay Corinthian.
He was in The Passionate Adventure, co written by Alfred Hitchcock, The Beloved Brute, The Hunted Woman, Percy. McLaglen's career took a surprise turn in 1925, he became a popular character actor, with a particular knack for playing drunks. He usually played Irishmen, leading many film fans to mistakenly assume he was Irish rather than English. McLaglen played one of the titular Unholy Three in Lon Chaney Sr.'s original silent version of the macabre crime drama. McLaglen had a support part in Winds of Chance, directed by Frank Lloyd made The Fighting Heart at Fox, directed by John Ford. Ford would have a major impact on McLaglen's career. McLaglen was in The Isle of Retribution, Men of Steel, Beau Geste, playing Hank in the latter. McLaglen was the top-billed leading man in director Raoul Walsh's First World War classic What Price Glory? with Edmund Lowe and Dolores del Rio. The film was a huge success, making over $2 million, Fox signed McLaglen to a long term contract. Fox put McLaglen in The Loves of Carmen with del Rio, directed by Walsh.
He was top billed in Mother Machree, directed by Ford. He was top billed in A Girl in co-starring Robert Armstrong and Louise Brooks, he starred in Hangman's House for Ford, a romantic drama set in Ireland, The River Pirate, Captain Lash. McLaglen made two films for Ford: Strong Boy and The Black Watch. McLaglen was one of many Fox stars, he was reunited with Edmund Lowe and Raoul Walsh in a sequel to What Price Glory?, The Cock-Eyed World, another huge success at the box office. McLaglen made a musical with Walsh, Hot for Paris made On the Level. A Devil with Women was a buddy comedy with Humphrey Bogart, he was borrowed by Paramount for Dishonored, starring Marlene Dietrich and directed by Joseph von Sternberg. He was in Not Exactly hada cameo in the short film The Stolen Jools. McLaglen and Walsh reunited for a second sequel to What Price Glory?, Women of All Nations. He was in Ann
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, poet and lyricist. Anderson was born in Atlantic, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent, his family lived on his maternal grandmother Sheperd's farm in Atlantic moved to Andover, where his father became a railroad fireman while studying to become a minister. They moved to follow their father's ministerial posts, Maxwell was sick, missing a great deal of school, he used his time sick in bed to read voraciously, both his parents and Aunt Emma were storytellers, which contributed to Anderson's love of literature. During a visit to his grandmother's house in Atlantic, at age 11, he met the first love of his life, Hallie Loomis, a older girl from a wealthier family, his autobiographical tale, Morning and Night told of rape and sadomasochism on the farm. It was published under John Nairne Michealson, to prevent offending family; the Andersons bounced between Andover, Richmond Center, Townville, Pa.
Edinboro, Pa. McKeesport, Pa. New Brighton, Pa. Harrisburg, Pa. to Jamestown, North Dakota in 1907, where Anderson attended Jamestown High School, graduating in 1908. As an undergraduate, he waited tables and worked at the night copy desk of the Grand Forks Herald, was active in the school's literary and dramatic societies, he obtained a BA in English Literature from the University of North Dakota in 1911. He became the principal of a high school in Minnewaukan, North Dakota teaching English there, but was fired in 1913 for making pacifist statements to his students, he entered Stanford University, obtaining an M. A. in English Literature in 1914. He became a high school English teacher in San Francisco: after three years he became chairman of the English department at Whittier College in 1917, he was fired after a year for public statements supporting Arthur Camp, a jailed student seeking status as a conscientious objector. Anderson moved to Palo Alto to write for the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, but was fired for writing an editorial stating that it would be impossible for Germany to pay off its war debt.
So he moved to San Francisco to write for the San Francisco Chronicle, but was fired after contracting the Spanish flu and missing work. Alvin Johnson hired Anderson to move to New York City and write about politics for The New Republic in 1918, but he was fired after an argument with Editor-in-Chief Herbert David Croly. Anderson found work at The New York Globe, the New York World. In 1921, he founded The Measure: A Journal of a magazine devoted to verse, he wrote his first play, White Desert, in 1923. Afterwards he resigned from the World, his plays are in varying styles, Anderson was one of the few modern playwrights to make extensive use of blank verse. Some of these were adapted as movies, Anderson wrote the screenplays of other authors' plays and novels – All Quiet on the Western Front and Death Takes a Holiday – in addition to books of poetry and essays, his first Broadway hit was the 1924 World War I comedy-drama, What Price Glory, written with Laurence Stallings. The play made use of profanity.
But when the chief censor was found to have written far more obscene letters to General Chamberlaine, he was discredited: soldiers did speak that way. The only one of his plays that he himself adapted to the screen was Joan of Lorraine, which became the film Joan of Arc starring Ingrid Bergman, with a screenplay by Anderson and Andrew Solt; when Bergman and her director changed much of his dialogue to make Joan "a plaster saint" he called her a "big, goddamn Swede!" Anderson was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1933 for his political drama Both Your Houses, twice received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, for Winterset, High Tor. Anderson enjoyed great commercial success with a series of plays set during the reign of the Tudor family, who ruled England and Ireland from 1485 until 1603. One play in particular – Anne of the Thousand Days – the story of Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn – was a hit on the stage in 1948, but did not reach movie screens for 21 years, it opened on Broadway starring Rex Harrison and Joyce Redman, became a 1969 movie with Richard Burton and Geneviève Bujold.
Margaret Furse won an Oscar for the film's costume designs. Another of his Tudor plays, Elizabeth the Queen opened in 1930 with Lynn Fontanne as Elizabeth and Alfred Lunt as Lord Essex, it was adapted to the screen as The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn. Directed by John Ford, Mary of Scotland was an adaptation of his play of the same name involving Elizabeth I, starring Katharine Hepburn as Mary, Queen of Scots, Fredric March as the Earl of Bothwell, Florence Eldridge as Elizabeth; the original play had been a hit on Broadway starring Helen Hayes in the title role. His play The Wingless Victory was written in verse and premiered in 1936 with Broadway actress Katharine Cornell in the lead role, it received mixed reviews. Honorary awards include the Gold Medal in Drama from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1954, an honorary doctor of literature degree from Columbia University in 1946, an honorary doctor of humanities degree from the University
United States Coast Guard Auxiliary
The United States Coast Guard Auxiliary is the uniformed auxiliary service of the United States Coast Guard. Congress established the USCG Aux on June 1939, as the United States Coast Guard Reserve. On February 19, 1941, the organization was re-designated as the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary; the Auxiliary exists to support all USCG missions except roles that require "direct" law enforcement or military engagement. As of 2018, there were 24,000 members of the U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. Collectively the Auxiliary contributes over 4.5 million hours of service each year and completed nearly 500,000 missions in service to support the Coast Guard. Every year Auxiliarists help to save 500 lives, assist 15,000 distressed boaters, conduct over 150,000 safety examinations of recreational vessels, provide boater safety instruction to over 500,000 students. In total the Coast Guard Auxiliary saves taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year; the development of the single-operator motorboat, the outboard engine, during the early 20th century increased the number of recreational boaters operating on United States federal waters.
By 1939 there were more than 300,000 personal watercraft in operation. The previous year the Coast Guard had received 14,000 calls for assistance and had responded to 8,600 "in-peril" cases; the Coast Guard Reserve Act of 1939 was passed by the United States Congress creating a civilian reserve force for the United States Coast Guard that would have four specified responsibilities. They were charged with promoting safety at sea, increasing boater efficiency for American citizens, assisting them with laws and compliance, supporting Active Duty members of the Coast Guard; this encompassed boat owners being organized into flotillas within Coast Guard districts around the United States. They conducted safety and security patrols and helped enforce the 1940 Federal Boating and Espionage Acts. In 1941 Congress passed a law to restructure the Coast Guard Reserve, created just two years earlier; the Coast Guard would hence forth have two reserve forces. The existing civilian organization would be renamed the Coast Guard Auxiliary.
In addition, the Coast Guard Reserve was created that year and would have military and law enforcement responsibilities. During World War II many Auxiliarists became temporary members of the Coast Guard Reserve. Coast Guard Headquarters issued policies allowing some of those boats to be equipped with machine guns and they could carry pistols and rifles on patrols. In 1941 the Coast Guard, Coast Guard Reserve, Coast Guard Auxiliary were transferred from the United States Treasury Department to the United States Department of the Navy and in 1942 the Coast Guard Auxiliary was authorized to wear military uniforms. During the war Auxiliarists would help the Coast Guard with recruiting and training active duty personnel. Beginning in 1942, in response to the growing German U-Boat threat to the United States, the U. S. Navy ordered the acquisition of the "maximum practical number of civilian craft in any way capable of going to sea in good weather for a period of at least 48 hours." A large number of vessels and piloted by Auxiliarists with crews made-up of Coast Guard reservists, made-up the bulk of the American coastal anti-submarine warfare capability during the early months of World War II.
As newly constructed warships took over the load, the Coast Guard abandoned the concept. None of the two thousand civilian craft, armed with depth charges stowed on their decks sank a submarine, though they did rescue several hundred survivors of torpedoed merchant ships. From 1942 through the rest of the war Auxiliarists and Coast Guard reservists served on local Port Security Forces to protect the shipping industry. In 1950 National Commodore Bert Pouncey was elected and the National Board for the Coast Guard Auxiliary was established. In 1955 Auiliarists started to participate in programs to support the recruitment of potential candidates for the United States Coast Guard Academy; the North American Boating Campaign was known as "Safe Boating Week," observed by the Coast Guard Auxiliary as a courtesy examination weekend in Amesbury, Massachusetts in June 1952. This tradition continued until 1957 when an official National Safe Boating Week observation took place sponsored by the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary in various parts of the country.
As a result, the U. S. Coast Guard prepared a Resolution, on June 4, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed PL 85-445, to establish National Safe Boating Week as the first week starting on the first Sunday in June. Early in 1973, budget cuts forced the closing of seven Coast Guard stations on the Great Lakes. At the request of the affected communities, Congress ordered the stations to be re-opened and operated by the Auxiliary; the local division captains took responsibility for manning them and ensuring that Auxiliarists' boats were always available to assist distressed vessels. The Auxiliary took over seven more stations on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. In 1976 the Coast Guard commissioned a study of the Auxiliary by a private research firm, University Sciences Forum of Washington. After interviewing key personnel in the Coast Guard and the Auxiliary and analyzing questionnaires filled out by about two thousand Auxiliarists, the researchers concluded that the Auxiliary was in good health.
"In summary," they wrote, "we consider the Auxiliary the greatest economical resource available to the COGARD. It performs in an outstanding manner and its personnel are among the most professional group of volunteers in the nation." Under Congressional legislation passed in 1996, the Auxiliary's role was expanded to allow members to assist in any Coas
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is physically recorded onto photographic film but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track, may record the signal either optically or magnetically. Earlier technologies were sound-on-disc, meaning the film's soundtrack would be on a separate phonograph record; the most prevalent current method of recording analogue sound on a film print is by stereo variable-area recording, a technique first used in the mid-1970s as Dolby Stereo. A two-channel audio signal is recorded as a pair of lines running parallel with the film's direction of travel through the projector; the lines change area depending on the magnitude of the signal. The projector shines light from a small lamp, called an exciter, through a perpendicular slit onto the film; the image on the small slice of exposed track modulates the intensity of the light, collected by a photosensitive element: a photocell, a photodiode or CCD.
In the early years of the 21st century distributors changed to using cyan dye optical soundtracks on color stocks instead of applicated tracks, which use environmentally unfriendly chemicals to retain a silver soundtrack. Because traditional incandescent exciter lamps produce copious amounts of infra-red light, cyan tracks do not absorb infra-red light, this change has required theaters to replace the incandescent exciter lamp with a complementary colored red LED or laser; these LED or laser exciters are backwards-compatible with older tracks. Earlier processes, used on 70 mm film prints and special presentations of 35 mm film prints, recorded sound magnetically on ferric oxide tracks bonded to the film print, outside the sprocket holes. 16 mm and Super 8 formats sometimes used a similar magnetic track on the camera film, bonded to one side of the film on which the sprocket holes had not been punched for the purpose. Film of this form is no longer manufactured, but single-perforated film without the magnetic track or, in the case of 16 mm, utilising the soundtrack area for a wider picture is available.
Three different digital soundtrack systems for 35 mm cinema release prints were introduced during the 1990s. They are: Dolby Digital, stored between the perforations on the sound side; because these soundtrack systems appear on different parts of the print, one movie can contain all of them, allowing broad distribution without regard for the sound system installed at individual theatres. All sound formats used with motion-picture film have been sound-on-film formats, including: Fox/Western Electric Movietone, are variable-density formats of sound film. RCA Photophone, a variable-area format now universally used for optical analog soundtracks—since the late 1970s with a Dolby encoding matrix. Tri-Ergon, the patent of this Berlin based company was bought by Fox in 1926. Dolby Stereo Dolby SR Ultra Stereo Dolby Digital Sony Dynamic Digital Sound Cinema Digital Sound, an optical format, the first commercial digital sound format, used between 1990 and 1992 Fantasound; this was a system developed by RCA and Disney Studios with a multi-channel soundtrack recorded on a separate strip of film from the picture.
It was used for the initial release of Walt Disney's Fantasia Phonofilm, patented by Lee De Forest in 1919, defunct by 1929 Charles A. Hoxie List of film formats List of film sound systems Movietone sound system Optigan Phonofilm RCA Photophone Eugène Lauste Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner Multichannel Film Sound
Edmund Lowe
Edmund Dantes Lowe was an American actor. His formative experience began in silent film, he was born in California. His father was a local judge, his childhood home was at San Jose. He attended Santa Clara College and entertained the idea of becoming a priest before starting his acting career, he died in Woodland Hills, California, of lung cancer and is buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, California. Edmund Lowe's career included over 100 films, he is best remembered for his role as Sergeant Quirt in the 1926 movie. Making a smooth transition to talking pictures he remained popular but by the mid 1930s he was no longer a major star although he played leading man to the likes of Jean Harlow, Mae West, Claudette Colbert, he remained a valuable supporting actor at the major studios while continuing in leads for such "Poverty Row" studios as Columbia Pictures where his skills could bolster low budget productions. He starred in 35 episodes of the 1950s television show, Front Page Detective and appeared as the elderly lead villain in the first episode of Maverick opposite James Garner in 1957.
After his first marriage to Esther Miller ended in early 1925, Lowe met Lilyan Tashman while filming Ports of Call. Lowe and Tashman were wed on September 21, 1925; the wedding occurred before the release of the film. The two made their home in Hollywood, they were married until Tashman's death in 1934. Lowe's third wife was costume designer Rita Kaufman, they were married from 1936 to 1950. Edmund Lowe on IMDb Edmund Lowe at the Internet Broadway Database Edmund Lowe at Find a Grave Edmund Lowe at Virtual History
