John Michael Crichton was an American author, screenwriter and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavily feature technology and are usually within the science fiction, techno-thriller, and medical fiction genres. Crichton’s novels often explore human technological advancement and attempted dominance over nature, both with frequently catastrophic results; many of his works are cautionary tales, especially regarding themes of biotechnology. Several of his stories center specifically around themes of genetic modification, hybridization, paleontology and/or zoology. Many feature medical or scientific underpinnings, reflective of his own medical training and scientific background.
A Hatful of Rain is a 1957 American drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Eva Marie Saint, Don Murray, Anthony Franciosa, Lloyd Nolan and Henry Silva. The story is based on a 1955 Broadway play of the same name about the effects of morphine addiction.
The year 1972 in film involved several significant events.
Charles Edward Durning was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays. Durning's best-known films include The Sting (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), The Muppet Movie (1979), True Confessions (1981), Tootsie (1982), Dick Tracy (1990), and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for both The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and To Be or Not to Be (1983). Prior to his acting career, Durning served in World War II and was decorated for valor in combat.
Deep Cover is a 1992 American crime thriller film directed by Bill Duke from a screenplay by Henry Bean and Michael Tolkin. The film stars Laurence Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum, and Charles Martin Smith. Its plot focuses on a Cincinnati-based police officer who goes undercover in a Los Angeles sting operation to bring down a West Coast drug cartel.
Edward Rambach Pressman was an American film producer and founder of the production company Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation.
Coma is a 1978 American mystery thriller film based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Robin Cook. The film rights were acquired by director Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay, and the movie was produced by Martin Erlichmann for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The cast includes Geneviève Bujold, Michael Douglas, Elizabeth Ashley, Richard Widmark, and Rip Torn. Among the actors in smaller roles are Tom Selleck, Lois Chiles, and Ed Harris.
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his diverse work on stage and screen. He has received numerous accolades including six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and four Grammy Awards. Lithgow has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2005.
Homegrown is a 1998 American dark comedy-drama thriller film directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal and starring Billy Bob Thornton, John Lithgow and Hank Azaria. The plot follows marijuana harvesters in Northern California who become drawn into a world of crime bosses and corrupt cops. The film was released on April 17, 1998.
David Odell is an American screenwriter and film director.
Blue Hill Avenue is a 2001 American crime drama film directed and written by Craig Ross Jr., who was additionally its editor and executive producer. Produced by Asiatic Associates, Cahoots Productions and Den Pictures, the film is about young criminals in Roxbury, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The film stars Allen Payne, Angelle Brooks, Michael Taliferro, William L. Johnson, Aaron D. Spears, Andrew Divoff, Clarence Williams III and William Forsythe. The film's title is derived from Blue Hill Avenue, a major street in Roxbury and Dorchester.
Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues is a novel written by Michael Crichton, his ninth published novel. Authorship credit is shared with his brother Douglas Crichton, resulting in the only time the pseudonym Michael Douglas was used. It was originally published in 1970. It was serialized in the December 1970, January 1971 and February 1971 issues of Playboy magazine.
Valencia Tool & Die, (VT&D), was a 1980s San Francisco music venue and art gallery founded by Peter Belsito and Jim Stockford, that presented punk, new wave, and new music performances, as well as performance art, film, and visual art shows from 1980 through 1983.
Wallace is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Michael B. Jordan. Wallace is a 16-year-old drug dealer for the Barksdale Organization, who works in the low-rise projects crew known as "The Pit" with his friends and fellow dealers Bodie and Poot. When information he provides leads to the brutal death of Brandon Wright, the boyfriend of stick-up artist Omar Little, Wallace feels guilty and tries to leave the drug trade. He informs on the Barksdale Organization to the police, and as a result he is killed by Bodie and Poot under orders from drug kingpin Stringer Bell.
Our Time is a 1974 American drama film directed by Peter Hyams. The film was written by Jane C. Stanton and stars Pamela Sue Martin, Parker Stevenson, and Betsy Slade. The story follows two girls at a Massachusetts boarding school and their experiences with first love in the 1950s. It was released in theaters on April 10, 1974.
I Mobster is a 1959 film noir crime-drama film directed by Roger Corman. The film features a cameo of famous burlesque star Lili St. Cyr.
Robert Francis Lyons is an American actor of film and television. He is best known for guest starring in numerous popular television shows since the 1960s and for appearing in such films as Getting Straight (1970), Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981), Death Wish II (1982), Murphy's Law (1986) and Platoon Leader (1988).
Paul Williams, occasionally credited as actor, P. W. Williams, is an American director, writer, producer and actor best known for directing a series of films in the late-1960s to early-1970s exploring counterculture life: Out of It (1969) starring Barry Gordon and Jon Voight; The Revolutionary (1970) starring Robert Duvall, Voight, Seymour Cassell, and Jennifer Salt for United Artists; and Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972) starring Barbara Hershey and John Lithgow for Warner Brothers. He also directed Nunzio (1975) for Universal Pictures, Miss Right (1982) starring Karen Black, Margot Kidder, Virna Lisi, and Marie-France Pisier for Legacy Entertainment; The November Men (1993), starring James Andronica, Leslie Bevis, and himself; and Mirage (1995) starring Edward James Olmos and Sean Young for Universal. He appears in the documentary And the Walls Came Tumbling Down... (2003) about the preparation of his unproduced biopic on Pope John Paul II, written by Oscar-winner John Briley. His memoir Harvard, Hollywood, Hit Men & Holy Men was published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2023.
Dope is a 2015 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa and produced by Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi. It stars Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons, Kimberly Elise, Chanel Iman, Tyga, Blake Anderson, Zoë Kravitz, ASAP Rocky and Vince Staples. The film was also executive produced by Pharrell Williams and co-executive produced by Sean Combs.
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, poet, author, comedian and singer. He made his film debut in the comedy-drama Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972). He has since then appeared in over 50 films, countless television projects and on stage. Lithgow's first appearance on stage came in 1973, in a Broadway production of The Changing Room by David Storey, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play and a Drama Desk Award. Some of his other theater work he performed in were My Fat Friend (1974), Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1975) and the 1976 plays A Memory of Two Mondays / 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Secret Service and Boy Meets Girl. Lithgow subsequently acted in films such as Obsession (1976), The Big Fix (1978), the 1979 films All That Jazz with Roy Scheider and Rich Kids, Blow Out (1981) starring John Travolta, and I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982).
