Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in Grand Hotel (1932), as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934), and his titular role in The Champ (1931), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 films during a 36-year career. His contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stipulated in 1932 that he would be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio. This made Beery the highest-paid film actor in the world during the early 1930s. He was the brother of actor Noah Beery and uncle of actor Noah Beery Jr.
The Rains Came is a 1939 20th Century Fox film based on an American novel by Louis Bromfield. The film was directed by Clarence Brown and stars Myrna Loy, Tyrone Power, George Brent, Brenda Joyce, Nigel Bruce, and Maria Ouspenskaya.
Jane Darwell was an American actress of stage, film, and television. With appearances in more than 100 major movies spanning half a century, Darwell is perhaps best remembered for her poignant portrayal of the matriarch and leader of the Joad family in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Richard Quine was an American director, actor, and singer.
Richard Thorpe was an American film director best known for his long career at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Noah Nicholas Beery was an American actor who appeared in films from 1913 until his death in 1946. He was the older brother of Academy Award-winning actor Wallace Beery as well as the father of prominent character actor Noah Beery Jr. He was billed as either Noah Beery or Noah Beery Sr. depending upon the film.
Noah Lindsey Beery was an American actor often specializing in warm, friendly character roles similar to many portrayed by his Oscar-winning uncle, Wallace Beery. Unlike his more famous uncle, however, Beery Jr. seldom broke away from playing supporting roles. Active as an actor in films or television for well over half a century, he was best known for playing James Garner's character's father, Joseph "Rocky" Rockford, in the NBC television series The Rockford Files (1974–1980). His father, Noah Nicholas Beery enjoyed a similarly lengthy film career as an extremely prominent supporting actor in major films, although the elder Beery was also frequently a leading man during the silent film era.
AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars is the American Film Institute's list ranking the top 25 female and 25 male greatest screen legends of American film history and is the second list of the AFI 100 Years... series.
A slave ship is a vessel used to transport slaves.
Treasure Island is a 1934 film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, and Nigel Bruce. It is an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous 1883 novel of the same name. Jim Hawkins discovers a treasure map and travels on a sailing ship to a remote island, but pirates led by Long John Silver threaten to take away the honest seafarers’ riches and lives.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 1935 American romantic comedy fantasy film of William Shakespeare's play, directed by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, and starring James Cagney, Mickey Rooney, Olivia de Havilland, Jean Muir, Joe E. Brown, Dick Powell, Ross Alexander, Anita Louise, Victor Jory and Ian Hunter. Produced by Henry Blanke and Hal B. Wallis for Warner Brothers, and adapted by Charles Kenyon and Mary C. McCall Jr. from Reinhardt's Hollywood Bowl production of the previous year, the film is about the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the story is set. The play, which is categorized as a comedy, is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world. Felix Mendelssohn's music was extensively used, as re-orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The ballet sequences featuring the fairies were choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska.
Tugboat Annie is a 1933 American pre-Code film directed by Mervyn LeRoy, written by Norman Reilly Raine and Zelda Sears, and starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery as a comically quarrelsome middle-aged couple who operate a tugboat. Dressler and Beery were MGM's most popular screen team at that time, having recently made the bittersweet Min and Bill (1930) together, for which Dressler won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Souls at Sea is a 1937 American adventure film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Gary Cooper and George Raft. Based on a story by Ted Lesser, the film is about a first mate on a slave ship who frees the slaves on the ship after a mutiny overthrows the ship's captain. The title of this film was spoofed in the Laurel and Hardy comedy film Saps at Sea (1940). The supporting cast features Frances Dee, Harry Carey, Joseph Schildkraut, Robert Cummings, George Zucco, Tully Marshall, Monte Blue, and an uncredited Alan Ladd and Edward Van Sloan.
Captain Tugboat Annie is a 1945 second sequel to the classic Tugboat Annie (1933), this time starring Jane Darwell as Annie and Edgar Kennedy as Horatio Bullwinkle. The movie was directed by Phil Rosen, and is also known as Tugboat Annie's Son.
Stablemates is a 1938 American sports drama film directed by Sam Wood and starring Wallace Beery and Mickey Rooney.
Family Classics is a Chicago television series which began in 1962 when Frazier Thomas was added to another program at WGN-TV. Thomas not only hosted classic films, but also selected the titles and personally edited them to remove those scenes which he thought were not fit for family viewing. After Thomas' death in 1985, Roy Leonard took over the program. The series continued sporadically until its initial cancellation in 2000.
Huckleberry Finn (1931) is an American pre-Code comedy film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer and Junior Durkin as Huckleberry Finn. The picture was based upon the 1884 novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
The Singing Marine is a 1937 American musical film directed by Ray Enright and Busby Berkeley and starring Dick Powell. It was the last of Powell's trio of service-related Warners films: 1934's Flirtation Walk paid tribute, of sorts, to the Army, and 1935's Shipmates Forever to the Navy. This one is distinguished by its two musical sequences directed by Busby Berkeley.
Wife, Doctor and Nurse is a 1937 American comedy film directed by Walter Lang and starring Loretta Young.
Malibu Beach Party is a 1940 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on September 14, 1940.
