William Wadsworth Hodkinson, known more commonly as W. W. Hodkinson, was born in Independence, Kansas. Known as The Man Who Invented Hollywood, he opened one of the first movie theaters in Ogden, Utah in 1907 and within just a few years changed the way movies were produced, distributed, and exhibited. He became a leading West Coast film distributor in the early days of motion pictures and in 1914 he founded and became president of the first nationwide film distributor, Paramount Pictures Corporation. Hodkinson was also responsible for doodling the mountain that became the Paramount logo also in 1914. After being driven out of Paramount, he established his own independent distribution company, the W. W. Hodkinson Corporation, in 1917, before selling it off in 1924. He left the motion picture business in 1929 to form Hodkinson Aviation Corporation, and later formed the Central American Aviation Corporation and Companía Nacional de Aviación in Guatemala.
Ralph Joseph P. Burns was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Universal Newsreel was a series of 7- to 10-minute newsreels that were released twice a week between 1929 and 1967 by Universal Studios. A Universal publicity official, Sam B. Jacobson, was involved in originating and producing the newsreels. Nearly all of them were filmed in black-and-white, and many were narrated by Ed Herlihy. From January 1919 to July 1929, Universal released International Newsreel, produced by Hearst's International News Service—this series later became Hearst Metrotone News released first by Fox Film Corporation 1929–1934 and then by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer beginning in 1934.
Jeanette Loff was an American actress, musician, and singer who came to prominence for her appearances in several Pathé Exchange and Universal Pictures films in the 1920s.
Merely Mary Ann a 1931 American pre-Code romantic comedy drama film starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. Gaynor and Farrell made almost a dozen films together, including Frank Borzage's classics 7th Heaven (1927), Street Angel (1928), and Lucky Star (1929); Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress for the first two and F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The film, involving an orphan (Gaynor) and a flat-broke composer (Farrell), was written by Jules Furthman based upon Israel Zangwill's play of the same name and directed by Henry King.
The Man Who Came Back is a 1931 American Pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. The movie was adapted to screen by Edwin J. Burke from the play by Jules Eckert Goodman.
The Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll were polls on determining the bankability of movie stars. They began quite early in the movie history. At first, they were popular polls and contests conducted in film magazines, where the readers would vote for their favorite stars, like the poll published in New York Morning Telegraph on 17 December 1911. Magazines appeared and disappeared often and among the most consistent in those early days were the polls in the Motion Picture Magazine.
Leo Jaffe was an American film executive. He was chairman of the board of Columbia Pictures from 1973 until his retirement in 1981. He is the father of film producer Stanley R. Jaffe and film agent Andrea Jaffe.
Dewey Dallas Martin was an American film and television actor.
The Cock-Eyed World is a 1929 American pre-Code musical comedy feature film. One of the earliest "talkies", it was a sequel to What Price Glory? (1926), it was directed and written by Raoul Walsh and based on the Flagg and Quirt story by Maxwell Anderson, Tom Barry, Wilson Mizner, and Laurence Stallings. Fox Film Corporation released the film at the Roxy in New York on August 3, 1929.
The Amulet of Ogum is a 1974 Brazilian drama film directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos. It was entered into the 1975 Cannes Film Festival. It was also selected as the Brazilian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 48th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
The Motion Picture Herald (MPH) was an American film industry trade paper first published as the Exhibitors Herald in 1915, and MPH from 1931 to December 1972. It was replaced by the QP Herald, which only lasted until May 1973.
Stephen Wolf Previn was a German-born American director of television episodes and feature films and film production executive. Previn began his film career in 1943 as an editor for MGM and later Universal Studios. In 1950, he moved to Europe. Previn directed numerous television series, and a decade later, directed several features for Walt Disney in Europe.
Harold Young was an American film director, editor, and occasional actor.
John Jacob Sher was an American newspaper columnist, songwriter, film director, film writer, and producer.
Bryna Productions is an American independent film and television production company established by actor Kirk Douglas in 1949. The company also produced a handful of films through its subsidiaries, Michael Productions, Joel Productions and Douglas and Lewis Productions, and outside the United States through Brynaprod. Other subsidiaries included Eric Productions, which produced stage plays, Peter Vincent Music, a music publishing company, Bryna International, a photographic service company, and Public Relations Consultants, which supervised the publicity of its early films. Douglas named the main company after his mother, Bryna Demsky, while its primary subsidiaries were named after his sons: Michael Douglas, Joel Douglas, Peter Douglas and Eric Douglas. In 1970, Bryna Productions was renamed The Bryna Company, when Douglas welcomed his children and second wife into the firm. Nevertheless, Michael, Joel and Peter, wanting to establish individual identities, went on to form their own independent film production companies.
Martin Joseph Quigley Sr. was an American publisher, editor and film magazine journalist. He founded Exhibitors Herald, which became an important national trade paper for the film industry. He was also the founder of Quigley Publishing.
Motion Picture Daily was an American daily magazine focusing on the film industry. It was published by Quigley Publishing Company, which also published the Motion Picture Herald. The magazine was formed by the merging of three existing Quigley publications: Exhibitors Trade Review, Exhibitors Daily Review, and Motion Pictures Today. The first issue was published in April 1931. The magazine was in circulation until 1972.
The International Television & Video Almanac was an annual almanac of the television and video industry that was published from 1956 until 2014.
Paul Frederic Heard was an American film producer, director, and scriptwriter of religious films. From 1946 to 1951 he served as executive director of the Protestant Film Commission, which produced short films for distribution to denominational churches across the United States and Canada. He then formed his own independent production house for religious films. His short film Kenji Comes Home (1949) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
