Gods of the Lightning | |
---|---|
Written by | Maxwell Anderson |
Date premiered | October 24, 1928 |
Place premiered | Little Theatre New York City, New York |
Original language | English |
Genre | Drama |
Setting | Lyceum Restaurant, District Attorney's office, Supreme Court court room |
Gods of the Lightning was a 1928 Broadway three-act drama written by Maxwell Anderson and Harold Hickerson, produced by Hamilton MacFadden and Kellogg Gary and staged by MacFadden. It ran for 29 performances from October 24, 1928 to November 1928 at the Little Theatre. The Sacco-Vanzetti case was the play's inspiration, Charles Bickford in the Sacco character role. Anderson later wrote an updated Sacco-Vanzetti play titled Winterset .
Johnny Belinda is a 1948 American drama film, directed by Jean Negulesco, based on the 1940 Broadway stage hit of the same name by Elmer Blaney Harris. The play was adapted for the screen by writers Allen Vincent and Irma von Cube.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison.
Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration. He is known for The Cradle Will Rock and for his off-Broadway translation/adaptation of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. His works also include the opera Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes; the Broadway musical Juno, based on Seán O'Casey's play Juno and the Paycock; and No for an Answer. He completed translation/adaptations of Brecht's and Weill's musical play Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children with music by Paul Dessau. Blitzstein also composed music for films, such as Surf and Seaweed (1931) and The Spanish Earth (1937), and he contributed two songs to the original 1960 production of Hellman's play Toys in the Attic.
Charles Ambrose Bickford was an American actor known for supporting roles. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for The Song of Bernadette (1943), The Farmer's Daughter (1947), and Johnny Belinda (1948). His other roles include Whirlpool (1950), A Star Is Born (1954), and The Big Country (1958).
William Leroy Prince was an American actor who appeared in numerous soap operas and made dozens of guest appearances on primetime series as well as playing villains in movies like The Gauntlet, The Cat from Outer Space and Spontaneous Combustion.
Alvan Tufts Fuller was an American businessman, politician, art collector, and philanthropist from Massachusetts. He opened one of the first automobile dealerships in Massachusetts, which in 1920 was recognized as "the world's most successful auto dealership", and made him one of the state's wealthiest men. Politically a Progressive Republican, he was elected a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1916, and served as a United States representative from 1917 to 1921.
Winterset is a play by Maxwell Anderson.
The Male Animal is a 1942 American comedy-drama film produced by Warner Bros., starring Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Leslie.
Boston is a novel by Upton Sinclair. It is a "documentary novel" that combines the facts of the case with journalistic depictions of actual participants and fictional characters and events. Sinclair mixed his fictional characters into the prosecution and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
Fast and Loose is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and starring Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard and Frank Morgan. The film was written by Doris Anderson, Jack Kirkland and Preston Sturges, based on the 1924 play The Best People by David Gray and Avery Hopwood. Fast and Loose was released by Paramount Pictures.
Winterset is a 1936 American crime film directed by Alfred Santell, based on the 1935 play of the same name by Maxwell Anderson, in a loose dramatization of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and execution in 1928. The script retains elements of the blank verse poetic meter on which Anderson based his 1935 Winterset Broadway theater production.
Reginald Edward Oliphant Jewesbury was an English actor, notable for his film, stage and television work and as a member of the Renaissance Theatre Company. In 1982, he appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing and in Cyrano de Bergerac, the latter two of which he brought to Broadway in 1984, together with Derek Jacobi and Sinéad Cusack. In his later years he appeared in such television comedies as Yes Minister and Blackadder II.
South Sea Rose is a 1929 American comedy-drama film distributed by the Fox Film Corporation and produced and directed by Allan Dwan. This picture was Dwan's second collaboration with star Lenore Ulric, their first being Frozen Justice. Much of the cast and crew on Frozen Justice returned for this film.
No Other Woman is a 1933 American pre-Code melodrama film starring Irene Dunne, and featuring Charles Bickford, Gwili Andre and Eric Linden. It was directed by J. Walter Ruben from a screenplay by Wanda Tuchock and Bernard Schubert, based on the play Just a Woman by Eugene Walter, which ran for 136 performances on Broadway in 1916, and was previously made into silent films called Just a Woman in 1918 and 1925.
Hamilton MacFadden was an American actor, screenwriter and film director.
The Farmer Takes a Wife is a 1935 American romantic comedy film directed by Victor Fleming, written by Edwin J. Burke, and starring Janet Gaynor, Henry Fonda and Charles Bickford. It is based on the 1934 Broadway play The Farmer Takes a Wife by Marc Connelly and Frank B. Elser, with Fonda reprising his stage role as the farmer. The film was released on August 2, 1935, by 20th Century-Fox.
Harmony at Home is a 1930 pre-Code domestic-comedy film directed by Hamilton MacFadden. It was produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation. It was based on a 1925 Broadway play, The Family Upstairs by actor, writer, composer Harry Delf.
The 1928 Massachusetts gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1928.
Herbert B. Ehrmann (HBE) was an American lawyer and activist. He gained fame also for authoring books on the famous Sacco and Vanzetti case.
Chant public devant deux chaises électriques is a play by Armand Gatti written in 1964 and premiered in 1966 at the Théâtre National Populaire. The subject is the Sacco and Vanzetti affair. It made headlines, and was panned by some critics but praised as a masterpiece by others, such as Gérard Guillot.