Curtain at Eight | |
---|---|
Directed by | E. Mason Hopper |
Written by | Edward T. Lowe Jr. (screen story) Octavus Roy Cohen (novel The Back Stage Mystery ) |
Produced by | Larry Darmour (executive producer) Phil Goldstone (producer) |
Starring | C. Aubrey Smith Dorothy Mackaill Paul Cavanagh |
Cinematography | Ira H. Morgan |
Edited by | Otis Garrett |
Production company | Larry Darmour Productions |
Distributed by | Majestic Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 68 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Curtain at Eight is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery film directed by E. Mason Hopper and starring C. Aubrey Smith, Dorothy Mackaill and Paul Cavanagh. [1]
Wylie Thornton is the star of "Isle of Romance" at the Edwin Booth Theater. He is two-timing his wife, Alma Thornton, as well as Lola Cresmer, her sister Anice Cresmer, and Doris Manning, three actresses in the play. Thornton has been nice to Geraldine, the chimpanzee, and she has a crush on the handsome man. Geraldine has figured out how to open and close her wheeled cage, numbered "7", which is in the Property Room of the theater. Mack, the property master, does not like that, or her, and mistreats the "monk". In the Property Room, Geraldine gets her hands on a .32 caliber unrifled revolver and in handling the gun, accidentally fires it.
Roaming the dressing rooms, Geraldine takes a photograph of Thornton from his room back to her cage. Upset by Thornton's two-timing, Anice Cresmer, who plays "Tonga" in "Isle of Romance", takes her own life; she is found by her sister Lola. Wylie Thornton has gambling debts and in a row with his wife, Alma, gets called a "cackling boudoir rooster" and a "flannel mouth Romeo". Alma takes his money and then gives Wylie forty dollars while making him owe her seventy five dollars. Wylie Thornton is leaving for a bigger engagement in New York and a farewell party is held for him. He gets a birthday cake with thirty four candles; Mack, who was putting in the candles, says "that ham is forty four if he's a day". Geraldine, on the loose again, has evaded the property master and climbs up into the flies of the theater. In preparation for the presentation of the cake, the lighting on stage is turned off and the lit cake is brought out, to everyone's delight. Thornton blows out the candles.
In the darkness, a shot rings out and is followed by screams like those that a chimpanzee would make. When the lights come back on, Thornton is found dead. This precipitates the arrival of the young and quick to jump to conclusions Captain Marty Gallagher, the Captain of Detectives, whose catch phrase is "It's in the bag!". Mooney, the newspaper reporter, calls him "'Arrest 'em in a hurry' Gallagher". Another detective, the older and methodical Jim Handley, labeled by Gallagher as the "new dick from the D.A.'s office", is also on the case. Mooney tags along with Gallagher and occasionally gives him some tips. While Gallagher is getting everyone locked up, Handley finds the revolver in a drop hanging from the flies. Alma Thornton is found shot in her apartment. In the operating room, Handley is told that in her delirium, Alma has been saying "lovely".
That leads him to question Loveley Holmes about the Thornton's and the gambling debts. Handley returns to the theater to find a crowd outside the Property Room. He goes in and finds the room in disorder and Geraldine on the loose. Firing a shot, he orders her to get back into her cage, to which she complies. Handley then finds the prop master in the room, dead. Gallagher arrives and quickly wraps up the case. As Handley is leaving the theater, he meets Lola. He tells her that he would have done the same thing if that was his sister, meaning that he would have shot Thornton just as she had. He tells her that she does not have to worry, as Gallagher proved it was the chimpanzee that shot Wylie Thornton and that Lovely Holmes will be charged with shooting Alma Thornton.
Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 American psychological thriller film noir directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story for Gordon McDonell.
Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, completed in 1948. He began working on the play in 1945 as Chart of Anatomy, derived from his short stories "Oriflamme" and the then-work-in-progress "Yellow Bird". The phrase "summer and smoke" probably comes from the Hart Crane poem "Emblems of Conduct" in the 1926 collection White Buildings. After a disappointing Broadway run in 1948, the play was a hit Off-Broadway in 1952. Williams continued to revise Summer and Smoke in the 1950s, and in 1964 he rewrote the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale.
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton, was an American singer and songwriter of blues and R&B.
Kiss of Death is a 1995 American crime thriller film directed and produced by Barbet Schroeder, and starring David Caruso, Samuel L. Jackson, Nicolas Cage, Helen Hunt, Ving Rhames and Stanley Tucci.
The Mirror Crack'd is a 1980 British mystery film directed by Guy Hamilton from a screenplay by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler, based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1962). It stars Angela Lansbury, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, Edward Fox, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, and Elizabeth Taylor. Scenes were filmed at Twickenham Film Studios in Twickenham, London, and on location in Kent.
The Big Over Easy is a 2005 novel written by Jasper Fforde. It features Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant, Sergeant Mary Mary.
The Ice Harvest is a 2005 American neo-noir black comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, written by Richard Russo and Robert Benton, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Scott Phillips and starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Connie Nielsen, with Randy Quaid and Oliver Platt in supporting roles. It was distributed by Focus Features, and it was released on VHS and DVD on February 28, 2006, making it the last Focus Features film released on VHS format. The Ice Harvest grossed $10.2 million worldwide.
Tarzan and His Mate is a 1934 American pre-Code action adventure film based on the Tarzan character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Directed by Cedric Gibbons, it was the second in the Tarzan film series and starred Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan.
Clue The Musical is a musical with a book by Peter DePietro, music by Galen Blum, Wayne Barker and Vinnie Martucci, and lyrics by Tom Chiodo, based on the board game Clue. The plot concerns a murder at a mansion, occupied by several suspects, that is solved by a detective, while the ending is decided by the audience.
Drive-Thru is a 2007 American dark comedy slasher film directed and written by Brendan Cowles and Shane Kuhn, starring Leighton Meester and Nicholas D'Agosto. It is set in Orange County, California and involves an evil clown as a serial killer. The film was released direct-to-video on May 29, 2007.
Lola Montès is a 1955 historical romance film, and the last completed film of German-born director Max Ophüls. Based on the novel La vie extraordinaire de Lola Montès by Cécil Saint-Laurent, the film depicts the life of Irish dancer and courtesan Lola Montez (1821–1861), portrayed by Martine Carol, and tells the story of the most famous of her many notorious affairs, those with Franz Liszt and Ludwig I of Bavaria. A co-production between France and West Germany, the dialogue is mostly in French and German, with a few English-language sequences.
The Bat Whispers is a 1930 American pre-Code mystery film directed by Roland West, produced by Joseph M. Schenck, and released by United Artists. The film is based on the 1920 mystery play The Bat, written by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, and is the second film version by the same director, previously adapted in 1926. An early talkie and one of the first widescreen films, West financed the cinematography, which required two cameramen and several techniques. It was considered a lost film for many years, but was restored from duplicate filmstock in 1988.
Hit the Deck is a 1955 American musical film directed by Roy Rowland and starring Jane Powell, Tony Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Walter Pidgeon, Vic Damone, Gene Raymond, Ann Miller, and Russ Tamblyn. It is based on the 1927 stage musical of the same name – which was itself based on the hit 1922 play Shore Leave by Hubert Osborne – and was shot in CinemaScope. Although the film featured some songs from the stage musical, the plot was different. Standards featured in the film include "Sometimes I'm Happy", "I Know that You Know", and "Hallelujah".
Elizabeth Lloyd King was the murderer of Charles Goodrich, whom she is said to have shot three times in the head on 20 March 1873 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. The murder was headline news in the city, until her capture more than three months after the event. Her inquest drew large crowds, and prisoner church sermons drew requests for attendance from the general public, some of whom were granted entry. After a year in jail, a psychological assessment deemed that she was unfit to stand trial, and she was committed to a life sentence at the State Lunatic Hospital at Auburn.
Charlie Chan in Rio is a 1941 American mystery film directed by Harry Lachman and featuring the Asian detective Charlie Chan. It was the tenth film to feature Sidney Toler as the title character, who is called upon to investigate the death of a suspected murderer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Eye of the Cat is a 1969 American horror film directed by David Lowell Rich and starring Michael Sarrazin, Gayle Hunnicutt, and Eleanor Parker. The screenplay is by Joseph Stefano, best known as the co-creator and writer for the tv-series The Outer Limits, and who wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
The Frozen Ground is a 2013 American thriller film directed and written by Scott Walker, in his directorial debut, starring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, Vanessa Hudgens, Katherine LaNasa, Radha Mitchell, and 50 Cent. Based on the crimes of the real-life Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen, the film depicts an Alaskan State Trooper seeking to apprehend Hansen by partnering with a young woman who escaped from Hansen's clutches.
Gemini is a 2017 American mystery thriller film written, directed and edited by Aaron Katz. It stars Lola Kirke, Zoë Kravitz, Greta Lee, Nelson Franklin, Reeve Carney, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Ricki Lake, and John Cho. The plot follows the assistant of a Hollywood actress who must clear her name after her starlet boss is found murdered in her home.
Poppy Cat is a British preschool television series|preschool animated television series, which first aired on 2 May 2011 and last aired on 5 February 2016. It is based on a series of books created by British illustrator and writer Lara Jones, and is a co-production of Coolabi Productions, King Rollo Films, Ingenious Media, and Cake Entertainment for Nick Jr. and Channel 5.
NASCAR K&N Pro Series West driver St. James Davis and his wife, LaDonna, had a pet chimpanzee named Moe, whom they treated as if he were a child. After Moe bit several people, the city of West Covina, California seized and placed him in an animal sanctuary near Bakersfield, California. St. James and LaDonna waged a long, unsuccessful legal battle to recover him.