Our Town is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder in 1938. Described by Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written", it presents the fictional American town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 through the everyday lives of its citizens.
Fay Okell Bainter was an American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Jezebel (1938) and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Martha Ellen Scott was an American actress. She was featured in major films such as Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959), playing the mother of Charlton Heston's character in both films. She originated the role of Emily Webb in Thornton Wilder's Our Town on Broadway in 1938 and later recreated the role in the 1940 film version, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Beulah Bondi was an American character actress; she often played eccentric mothers and later grandmothers and wives, although she was known for numerous other roles. She began her acting career as a young child in theater, and after establishing herself as a Broadway stage actress in 1925, she reprised her role in Street Scene for the 1931 film version.
Of Human Hearts is a 1938 American Drama Western film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Walter Huston, James Stewart and Beulah Bondi. Stewart plays a proud and ungrateful son who rebels against his preacher father and neglects his poverty-stricken mother. Bondi was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Rain is a 1932 pre-Code drama film that stars Joan Crawford as prostitute Sadie Thompson. Directed by Lewis Milestone and set in the South Seas, the production was filmed in part at Santa Catalina Island and what is now Crystal Cove State Park in California. The film also features Walter Huston in the role of a conflicted missionary who insists that Sadie end her evil ways, but whose own moral standards and self-righteous behavior steadily decay. Crawford was loaned out by MGM to United Artists for this film.
Olivia Joyce Compton was an American actress.
Guy Bridges Kibbee was an American stage and film actor.
Vivacious Lady is a 1938 American black-and-white romantic comedy film directed by George Stevens and starring Ginger Rogers and James Stewart. It was released by RKO Radio Pictures. The screenplay was written by P.J. Wolfson and Ernest Pagano and adapted from a short story by I. A. R. Wylie. The music score was by Roy Webb and the cinematography by Robert De Grasse.
Our Town is a 2003 American made-for-television film adaptation of the 1938 play of the same name by Thornton Wilder starring Paul Newman, who was nominated for both an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding acting. It was filmed at the Booth Theatre in Manhattan, where it played on Broadway in 2002. The production originated at the Westport Country Playhouse. The film originally aired May 24, 2003, on Showtime and was also shown on PBS as part of Masterpiece Theatre on October 5, 2003.
Cora Witherspoon was an American stage and film character actress whose career spanned nearly half a century. She began in theatre where she remained rooted even after entering motion pictures in the early 1930s. As Witherspoon’s career progressed, she carved a niche playing haughty society women or harridan housewives such as Princess Lina in Ferenc Molnár's 1928 play Olympia, or Agatha Sousè, W.C. Fields’ domineering spouse in the 1940 film The Bank Dick. John Springer and Jack Hamilton, authors of They Had Faces Then: Super Stars, Stars, and Starlets of the 1930s (1974), wrote that "Witherspoon was blessed with a face that might have been drawn by one of those cartoonists who specialize in dealing with the war between men and women."
Street Scene is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by King Vidor. With a screenplay by Elmer Rice adapted from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, Street Scene takes place on a New York City street from one evening until the following afternoon. Except for one scene which takes place inside a taxi, Vidor shot the entire film on a single set depicting half a city block of house fronts.
Our Town is a three-act opera by composer Ned Rorem and librettist J. D. McClatchy. It is the first opera to be adapted from Thornton Wilder's 1938 play of the same name. The opera was commissioned by Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Opera Boston, the Aspen Music Festival and School, North Carolina School of the Arts, Lake George Opera in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, Calif.
State Fair is a 1945 American Technicolor musical film directed by Walter Lang, with original music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is a musical adaptation of the 1933 film of the same name starring Janet Gaynor and Will Rogers. The 1933 film is an adaptation of the 1932 novel by Phil Stong. This 1945 musical film stars Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, Fay Bainter, and Charles Winninger. State Fair was remade in 1962, starring Pat Boone and Ann-Margret.
"Our Town" is a 1955 episode of the American anthology series Producers' Showcase directed by Delbert Mann and starring Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint. Sinatra plays the stage manager and Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint portray the teenagers who fall in love and get married. The episode is a musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder's 1938 play Our Town, with songs by Jimmy van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, mostly sung by Sinatra the stage manager between and during scenes from the play, and including a duet with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint. The 90-minute show was Sinatra's only performance in a dramatic role specifically for television until Contract on Cherry Street in 1977.
The War Against Mrs. Hadley is a 1942 American drama film directed by Harold S. Bucquet and starring Fay Bainter and Edward Arnold. The plot depicts how wealthy society matron Stella Hadley selfishly refuses to sacrifice her family or material comforts during World War II, until tragedy strikes an old rival. The script by George Oppenheimer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Tammy Tell Me True is a 1961 American Eastmancolor comedy film directed by Harry Keller and starring Sandra Dee and John Gavin, Beulah Bondi, Charles Drake, Virginia Grey and Julia Meade.
The Case Against Mrs. Ames is a 1936 American mystery drama film written by C. Graham Baker and Gene Towne based on a serial of the same name by Arthur Somers Roche originally published in Collier's Weekly magazine in 1934, and then as a novel in 1936. The film was directed by William A. Seiter and stars Madeleine Carroll and George Brent, and features Arthur Treacher, Alan Baxter, Beulah Bondi and Alan Mowbray.
Our Hearts Were Young and Gay is a 1944 American comedy film directed by Lewis Allen and written by Sheridan Gibney. It was based on the real life reminiscences of the comic misadventures of Emily Kimbrough and Cornelia Otis Skinner in their book Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. The film stars Gail Russell, Diana Lynn, Charlie Ruggles, Dorothy Gish, Beulah Bondi, Bill Edwards and James Brown. After its premiere in New York on October 12, 1944, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay went into general release.
Our Neighbors – The Carters is a 1939 American comedy film directed by Ralph Murphy and written by S.K. Lauren. The film stars Fay Bainter, Frank Craven, Edmund Lowe, Genevieve Tobin, Mary Thomas and Mildred Coles. The film was released on November 24, 1939, by Paramount Pictures.
