Frank Winfield Woolworth was an American entrepreneur, the founder of F. W. Woolworth Company, and the operator of variety stores known as "Five-and-Dimes" which featured a selection of low-priced merchandise. He pioneered the now-common practices of buying merchandise directly from manufacturers and fixing the selling prices on items, rather than haggling. He was also the first to use self-service display cases, so that customers could examine what they wanted to buy without the help of a sales clerk.
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company and one of the pioneers of the five-and-dime store. It was among the most successful American and international five-and-dime businesses, setting trends and creating the modern retail model that stores follow worldwide today.
William Washington Beaudine was an American film director. He was one of Hollywood's most prolific directors, turning out films in remarkable numbers and in a wide variety of genres.
Barbara Woolworth Hutton was an American debutante, socialite, heiress, and philanthropist. She was dubbed the "Poor Little Rich Girl"—first when she was given a lavish and expensive debutante ball in 1930 amid the Great Depression, and later due to a notoriously troubled private life.
Alice White was an American film actress. Her career spanned late silent films and early sound films.
Blackmail is a 1929 British thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard. Based on the 1928 play of the same name by Charles Bennett, the film is about a London woman who is blackmailed after killing a man who tries to rape her.
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in February to July 1960, primarily in the Woolworth store—now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum—in Greensboro, North Carolina, which led to the F. W. Woolworth Company department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. While not the first sit-in of the civil rights movement, the Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action, and also the best-known sit-ins of the civil rights movement. They are considered a catalyst to the subsequent sit-in movement, in which 70,000 people participated. This sit-in was a contributing factor in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
The Mayor of Hell is a 1933 American pre-Code Warner Brothers film starring James Cagney. The film was remade in 1938 as Crime School with Humphrey Bogart taking over James Cagney's role and Hell's Kitchen with Ronald Reagan in 1939.
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
Edward J. Kay was an American film composer and musical director, who worked on over 340 films from the 1930s into the 1960s, and was nominated on multiple occasions for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, although he never won. On his last film, 1962's The Creation of the Humanoids, he was also a producer.
Penrod and Sam is a 1923 American silent comedy-drama film directed by William Beaudine and starring Ben Alexander, Joe Butterworth, and Buddy Messinger. Wendy L. Marshall stated that "Beaudine had the Midas touch when it came to directing children" in films like this and Boy of Mine. In 1931, Beaudine directed a sound adaptation of the novel.
Federal Fugitives is a 1941 American film noir directed by William Beaudine. The film stars Neil Hamilton, Doris Day, Victor Varconi, and Charles C. Wilson.
Fugitives is a 1929 sound American pre-Code drama film directed by William Beaudine and starring Madge Bellamy, Don Terry and Arthur Stone. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. Future stars Jean Harlow and Virginia Bruce both had small parts in the film.
Hard to Get is a 1929 American all-talking sound pre-Code comedy film directed by William Beaudine and starring Dorothy Mackaill, Charles Delaney and James Finlayson.
Wedding Rings is a 1929 American all-talking sound Pre-Code drama film directed by William Beaudine and starring H.B. Warner, Lois Wilson and Olive Borden. It is considered a lost film. Due to its adult subject matter, the film was banned from being shown by censors in many locations. First National Pictures had previously filmed the story back in 1924 until the title of the source novel, namely, The Dark Swan.
Make Me a Star is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic comedy film starring Stuart Erwin, Joan Blondell, and ZaSu Pitts. Directed by William Beaudine, the film is a remake of the 1924 silent film Merton of the Movies, based upon the 1922 novel of that name, and the 1923 play adapted from the novel by George S. Kaufman, and Marc Connelly. It was remade again as Merton of the Movies in 1947.
Robert North was an American vaudeville performer who became a success as a stand-up comedian. Later he became a prolific motion picture producer.
Bert Moorhouse was an American character actor whose career began at the very tail end of the silent era, and lasted through the mid-1950s.
Hubert Templeton Parson was an American businessman who served as president of the F. W. Woolworth Company.
A Wonderful Life is a 1951 black-and-white short drama film produced by the National Council of Churches of Christ and distributed by the Protestant Film Commission. It is an adaptation of Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life for the Christian film industry. Directed by William Beaudine, it stars James Dunn, Allene Roberts, and Arthur Shields. The film retells the life of an ordinary Christian family man in flashback as his family and friends remember all the good he did through his devotion to church and community. The film emphasizes the power of faith, love, and community service for living a meaningful life, together with the message that people do not realize the true worth of others until after they have died. The film was not released commercially, but was distributed to some 30,000 churches throughout the United States and Canada.
