Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress, model and dancer. A stage, film, and television star, during her 60-year professional career she was known for her strong, realistic screen presence and versatility. She was a favorite of directors, including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra, and made 85 films in 38 years before turning to television.
Double Indemnity is a 1944 American crime thriller film noir directed by Billy Wilder, co-written with Raymond Chandler, and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. The film was based on James M. Cain's novel of the same name, which ran as an eight-part serial in Liberty magazine beginning in February 1936.
Frederick Martin MacMurray was an American actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films and a successful television series in a career that spanned nearly a half-century. His career as a major film leading man began in 1935, but his most renowned role was in Billy Wilder's film noir Double Indemnity. From 1959 to 1973, MacMurray appeared in numerous Disney films, including The Shaggy Dog, The Absent-Minded Professor, Follow Me, Boys!, and The Happiest Millionaire. He starred as Steve Douglas in the television series My Three Sons.
The following is an overview of 1956 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.
The year 1954 in film involved some significant events and memorable ones.
The year 1953 in film involved some significant events.
Gordon Cameron Jackson, was a Scottish actor best remembered for his roles as the butler Angus Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs and as George Cowley, the head of CI5, in The Professionals. He also portrayed Capt Jimmy Cairns in Tunes of Glory, and Flt. Lt. Andrew MacDonald, "Intelligence", in The Great Escape.
Kansas Pacific is a 1953 American Cinecolor Western film released by Allied Artists Pictures and directed by Ray Nazarro. It stars Sterling Hayden and Eve Miller. While the film was released in 1953, the title screen clearly states "Copyright MCMLII" (1952). The film offers a fictionalized account of the struggle to build the Kansas Pacific Railway in the early 1860s just prior to the American Civil War. In the film the building of the railroad in Kansas is opposed by sympathizers of the South before it forms the Confederacy.
Thomas McCreery Powers was an American actor in theatre, films, radio and television. A veteran of the Broadway stage, notably in plays by George Bernard Shaw, he created the role of Charles Marsden in Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude. He succeeded Orson Welles in the role of Brutus in the Mercury Theatre's debut production, Caesar. In films, he was a star of Vitagraph Pictures and later became best known for his role as the victim of scheming wife Barbara Stanwyck and crooked insurance salesman Fred MacMurray in the film noir classic Double Indemnity (1944).
Pushover is a 1954 American film noir crime film directed by Richard Quine, starring Fred MacMurray, Phil Carey and Kim Novak in her first credited role. The motion picture was adapted from two novels – Thomas Walsh's The Night Watch and William S. Ballinger's Rafferty – by Roy Huggins, who went on to great success creating television series, including The Fugitive, Maverick, and The Rockford Files.
Remember the Night is a 1940 American Christmas romantic comedy trial film starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray and directed by Mitchell Leisen. The film was written by Preston Sturges and was the last of his scripts shot by another director, as Sturges began his own directorial career the same year with The Great McGinty.
The Golden Boot Awards were an American acknowledgement of achievement honoring actors, actresses, and crew members who made significant contributions to the genre of Westerns in television and film. The award was sponsored and presented by the Motion Picture & Television Fund. Money raised at the award banquet was used to help finance various services offered by the Fund to those in the entertainment industry.
Edgeworth Blair "Elliott" Reid was an American actor.
There's Always Tomorrow is a 1956 American romantic melodrama film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Joan Bennett. The screenplay by Bernard C. Schoenfeld was adapted from the novel of the same name by Ursula Parrott. The plot concerns a man's unhappiness with his domestic life and romantic relationship with a former employee. The film was produced by Ross Hunter for Universal Pictures, which had also produced the 1934 adaptation of Parrott's novel. It was released in the United States on January 8, 1956.
B.F.'s Daughter is a 1948 drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin. It was adapted from John P. Marquand's 1946 novel of the same name, about a prominent couple whose marital tensions come to a boiling point during World War II. The book was controversial for its treatment of social conflicts and adultery, but the film is a sanitized and fairly conventional love story.
East Side, West Side is a 1949 American melodrama crime film, starring Barbara Stanwyck, James Mason, Van Heflin, and Ava Gardner. Based on the 1947 novel of the same title, written by Marcia Davenport, screenplay by Isobel Lennart, produced by Voldemar Vetluguin, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The Detroit Film Critics Society is a film critic organization based in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 2007, and comprises a group of over twenty film critics. To become a member, the critic must have reviewed at least twelve films a year in an established publication, with no more than two different critics per publication admitted. It presents annual awards at the end of the year, for the best films of the preceding year.
Maurice Zimring, known as Maurice Zimm, was an American radio, television and film writer, whose most famous creation was the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The son of Jewish immigrants who settled in Iowa shortly after the turn of the century, Zimring moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, and wrote for such mystery and drama radio series as Hollywood Star Playhouse and Murder By Experts under the pen name of Maurice Zimm.
Phantom of the Rue Morgue is a 1954 American mystery horror film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Karl Malden, Claude Dauphin and Patricia Medina. The film is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Sierra No. 3, often called the "Movie Star locomotive", is a 19th-century steam locomotive owned by the State of California and preserved at Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown, California.
