Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a 1927 American synchronized sound romantic drama directed by German director F. W. Murnau and starring George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingston. The film's plot follows a married farmer (O'Brien) who falls for a woman vacationing from the city (Livingston), who tries to convince him to murder his wife (Gaynor) in order to be with her. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using the Movietone sound-on-film process. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "The Excursion to Tilsit", from the 1917 collection with the same title by Hermann Sudermann.
Speed is a 1994 American action thriller film directed by Jan de Bont from a screenplay by Graham Yost, and starring Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton, and Jeff Daniels. It revolves around a bus that is rigged by an extortionist to explode if its speed falls below 50 miles per hour.
Duel is a 1971 American road action-thriller television film directed by Steven Spielberg. It centers on a traveling salesman driving his car through rural California to meet a client. However, he finds himself chased and terrorized by the mostly unseen driver of a semi-truck. The screenplay by Richard Matheson adapts his own short story of the same name, published in the April 1971 issue of Playboy, and based on an encounter on November 22, 1963, when a trucker dangerously cut him off on a California freeway.
Paul Temple is a fictional character created by English writer Francis Durbridge. Temple is a professional author of crime fiction and an amateur private detective. With his wife Louise, affectionately known as 'Steve' in reference to her journalistic pen name 'Steve Trent', he solves whodunnit crimes through subtle, humorously articulated deduction. Always the gentleman, the strongest expletive he employs is "by Timothy!".
Male and Female is a 1919 American silent adventure/drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan. Its main themes are gender relations and social class. The film is based on the 1902 J. M. Barrie play The Admirable Crichton.
Frankie Darro was an American actor and later in his career a stuntman. He began his career as a child actor in silent films, progressed to lead roles and co-starring roles in adventure, western, dramatic, and comedy films, and later became a character actor and voice-over artist. He is perhaps best known for his role as Lampwick, the unlucky boy who turns into a donkey in Walt Disney's second animated feature, Pinocchio (1940). In early credits, his last name was spelled Darrow.
The Three Musketeers is a 1933 American pre-Code film serial directed by Armand Schaeffer and Colbert Clark, and produced by Nat Levine for Mascot Pictures. The film serial was very loosely based on Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel The Three Musketeers, with the musketeers changed into three soldiers in the French Foreign Legion, and d'Artagnan being reconfigured as Lt. Tom Wayne, a pilot in the United States military.
Alpha Video is an entertainment company founded in 1985 as New Age Video, based near Philadelphia, that specializes in the manufacturing and marketing of public domain movies and TV shows on DVD. Alpha Video releases approximately 30 new DVD titles monthly and has over 3,500 DVDs in their active catalog, including hundreds of rare films and TV shows from Hollywood's past.
Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor.
The King of the Kongo (1929) is a Mascot film serial, and was the first serial to have sound, although only partial sound rather than the later "All-Talking" productions with complete sound. The first episode was a "three reeler" with the remaining nine episodes being "two reelers".
The Shadow of the Eagle is a 1932 American Pre-Code Mascot 12 episode film serial, directed by Ford Beebe and B. Reeves Eason and produced by Nat Levine. The film stars John Wayne in his first serial role. He would go on to star in two other serials for Mascot, The Hurricane Express (1932) and The Three Musketeers (1933). The Shadow of the Eagle is now in the public domain.
The Devil Horse is a 1932 American Pre-Code movie serial starring Harry Carey, Frankie Darro and Noah Beery, Sr. that was distributed by Mascot Pictures. This is regarded as the best of the three serials Harry Carey made in the early 1930s, the other two being Last of the Mohicans and The Vanishing Legion. Frankie Darro had co-starred with Carey previously in The Vanishing Legion. Lane Chandler played the murdered ranger Elliott Norton, uncredited.
Mascot Pictures Corporation was an American film company of the 1920s and 1930s, best known for producing and distributing film serials and B-westerns. Mascot was formed in 1927 by film producer Nat Levine. In 1935, it merged with several other companies to form Republic Pictures.
The Silent Flyer is a 1926 10-episode (chapter) American adventure film serial directed by William James Craft. The film serial was sold to Universal Pictures for $75,000 with the resulting funds used in the founding of Mascot Pictures.
Nat Levine, was an American film producer. He produced 105 films between 1921 and 1946. Born in New York City, he entered the film industry as an accountant for Metro Pictures and became personal secretary to Metro head Marcus Loew.
La Cucaracha is a 1934 American short musical film directed by Lloyd Corrigan. The film was designed by Robert Edmond Jones, who was hired by Pioneer Pictures to design the film in a way to show the new full-color Technicolor Process No. 4 at its best. Process No. 4 had been used since 1932, mainly in Walt Disney cartoons. Jock Whitney and his cousin C. V. Whitney, the owners of Pioneer, were also major investors in Technicolor. La Cucaracha was made like a short feature and cost about $65,000. The usual short film at that time cost little more than $15,000 to film.
Tarzan the Fearless is a 12 chapter American Pre-Code film serial starring Buster Crabbe in his only appearance as Tarzan. It was also released as a 61-minute feature film which consisted of the first four chapters edited together, and which was intended to be followed on a weekly basis by the last eight chapters in individual episode format, but which was often exhibited instead as a stand-alone feature film. Actress Jacqueline Wells co-starred; she later changed her name to Julie Bishop. The serial was produced by Sol Lesser, written by Basil Dickey, George Plympton and Walter Anthony, and directed by Robert F. Hill. The film was released in both formats on August 11, 1933.
Al St. John (1893–1963) was an American comic actor who appeared in 394 films between 1913 and 1952. Starting at Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company, St. John rose through the ranks to become one of the major comedy stars of the 1920s, though less than half of his starring roles still survive today. With the advent of sound drastically changing and curtailing the two-reel comedy format, St. John diversified, creating a second career for himself as a comic sidekick in Western films and ultimately developing the character of "Fuzzy Q. Jones", for which he is best known in posterity.
A serial film,film serial, movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Usually, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects.
Burn 'Em Up Barnes is a 1921 American silent comedy action film directed by George Beranger and starring Johnny Hines, Edmund Breese and George Fawcett. It was loosely remade as a 1934 film of the same title.
