The Band Wagon is a 1953 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. It tells the story of an aging musical star who hopes a Broadway show will revive his career. However, the play's director wants to make it a pretentious retelling of the Faust legend and brings in a prima ballerina who clashes with the star. Along with An American in Paris (1951) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), it is regarded as one of the finest Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals, although it was a box-office disappointment on first release.
Rex Lloyd Lease was an American actor. He appeared in over 300 films, mainly in Poverty Row westerns.
Ben-Hur is a 1959 American religious epic film directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist, and starring Charlton Heston as the title character. A remake of the 1925 silent film with a similar title, it was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg, but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The cast also features Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell and Sam Jaffe.
László Benedek was a Hungarian-born film director and cinematographer, most notable for directing The Wild One (1953).
The Sound Barrier is a 1952 British aviation drama film directed by David Lean. It is a fictional story about attempts by aircraft designers and test pilots to break the sound barrier. It was David Lean's third and final film with his wife Ann Todd, but it was his first for Alexander Korda's London Films, following the break-up of Cineguild. The Sound Barrier stars Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, John Justin and Nigel Patrick. It was known in the United States as Breaking Through the Sound Barrier and Breaking the Sound Barrier.
Ivan Tors was a Hungarian playwright, film director, screenwriter, and film and television producer with an emphasis on non-violent but exciting science fiction, underwater sequences, and stories involving animals. He started a Miami-based film studio now known as Greenwich Studios, and later a music company.
A fake Shemp is a type of body double who appears in a film to replace another actor or person, usually when the original actor has died, or is unable or unwilling to reprise their role. Their appearance is disguised using methods such as heavy make-up, filming from the back, dubbing in audio and splicing in past footage from the original actor's previous work, using a sound-alike voice actor, or using partial shots of the actor.
The Lost Planet is a 1953 American science fiction serial film 15-chapter serial which has the distinction of being the last interplanetary-themed sound serial ever made. It was directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet with a screenplay by George H. Plympton and Arthur Hoerl. It appears to have been planned as a sequel to the earlier chapterplay Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere and shares many plot-points, props and sets, as well as some of the same cast. However, the Video Rangers do not appear, and their uniforms are instead worn by "slaves" created electronically by Reckov, the dictator of the Lost Planet with the help of mad scientist Dr. Grood and enslaved "good" scientist Professor Dorn.
Rex Reason was an American actor best known for his role in This Island Earth (1955). He was the elder brother of actor Rhodes Reason.
The Phantom is a 1943 15-chapter cliffhanger superhero serial, produced by Rudolph C. Flothow, directed B. Reeves Eason, and starring Tom Tyler in the title role. It is based on Lee Falk's comic strip The Phantom, first syndicated to newspapers in 1936 by King Features Syndicate. The serial also features Jeanne Bates as the Phantom's girlfriend Diana Palmer, and Ace the Wonder Dog as the Phantom's trusty German shepherd Devil.
Seven Years in Tibet is a 1997 American biographical war drama film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It is based on Austrian mountaineer and Schutzstaffel (SS) sergeant Heinrich Harrer's 1952 memoir of the same name, about his experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951. Seven Years in Tibet stars Brad Pitt and David Thewlis, and has music composed by John Williams with a feature performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Today We Live is a 1933 American pre-Code romance drama film produced and directed by Howard Hawks and starring Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Robert Young and Franchot Tone.
Myron Daniel Healey was an American actor. He began his career in Hollywood, California during the early 1940s and eventually made hundreds of appearances in movies and on television during a career spanning more than half a century.
Blazing the Overland Trail is a 1956 American western serial film directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and starring Lee Roberts. It was the 57th and last serial produced by Columbia Pictures, and the last American serial ever produced for theaters. Universal Pictures had disbanded its serial unit in 1946 with The Mysterious Mr. M, and Republic Pictures had ceased serial production in 1955 with King of the Carnival.
Kenneth MacDonald was an American film actor. Born in Portland, Indiana, MacDonald made more than 220 film and television appearances between 1931 and 1972. His name is sometimes seen as Kenneth McDonald; his later roles sometimes credited him as Kenneth R. MacDonald.
Men of the Fighting Lady is a 1954 American war drama film directed by Andrew Marton and starring Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon, Louis Calhern and Keenan Wynn. The screenplay was written by U.S. Navy Commander Harry A. Burns, who had written a Saturday Evening Post article, "The Case of the Blinded Pilot", an account of a U.S. Navy pilot in the Korean War, who saves a blinded Navy pilot by talking him down to a successful landing. Men of the Fighting Lady was also inspired by another Saturday Evening Post article, "The Forgotten Heroes of Korea" by James A. Michener. The original music score was composed by Miklós Rózsa. It is also known as Panther Squadron. It is not to be confused with the 1944 documentary The Fighting Lady, which was mainly filmed aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-10).
Dante's Inferno is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Henry Otto that was released by Fox Film Corporation and adapted from Inferno, part of Dante Alighieri's epic poem Divine Comedy. The film mixes material from Dante's "Inferno" with plot points from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The book was filmed earlier in 1911 in Italy as L'Inferno, and Fox later remade the film in 1935, again as Dante's Inferno, starring Spencer Tracy in the lead role.
Flight is a 1929 American pre-Code adventure and aviation film directed by Frank Capra. The film stars Jack Holt, Lila Lee and Ralph Graves, who also came up with the story, for which Capra wrote the dialogue. Dedicated to the United States Marine Corps, the production was greatly aided by their full cooperation.
Andrew Marton was a Hungarian-American film director. In his career, he directed 39 films and television programs, and worked on 16 as a second unit director, including the chariot race in Ben Hur (1959).
Demon of the Himalayas is a 1935 German-Swiss co-production adventure film directed by Andrew Marton and starring Gustav Diessl, Erika Dannhoff, and Günter Oskar Dyhrenfurth. It is part of the Mountain film genre which was popular during the era.
