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Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) and helping her husband (Henreid), a Czechoslovak resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans. The screenplay is based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The supporting cast features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson. Warner Bros. story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to purchase the film rights to the play in January 1942. Brothers Julius and Philip G. Epstein were initially assigned to write the script. However, despite studio resistance, they left to work on Frank Capra's Why We Fight series early in 1942. Howard Koch was assigned to the screenplay until the Epsteins returned a month later. Principal photography began on May 25, 1942, ending on August 3; the film was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, with the exception of one sequence at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles. Although Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to stand out among the many pictures produced by Hollywood yearly.[7] Casablanca was rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier.[8] It had its world premiere on November 26, 1942, in New York City and was released nationally in the United States on January 23, 1943. The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run. Exceeding expectations, Casablanca went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Curtiz was selected as Best Director and the Epsteins and Koch were honored for Best Adapted Screenplay. Its reputation has gradually grown, to the point that its lead characters,[9] memorable lines,[10] and pervasive theme song[11] have all become iconic, and it consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films in history. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress selected the film as one of the first for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot Black-and-white film screenshot of several people in a nightclub. A man on the far left is wearing a suit and has a woman standing next to him wearing a hat and dress. A man at the center is looking at the man on the left. A man on the far right is wearing a suit and looking at the other people. Left to right: Henreid, Bergman, Rains and Bogart Duration: 2 minutes and 15 seconds.2:15 Original trailer In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine owns a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele, including Vichy French and Nazi German officials, refugees desperate to reach the neutral United States, and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, he ran guns to Ethiopia in 1935 and fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War. Petty crook Ugarte boasts to Rick of letters of transit obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearers to travel freely around German-occupied Europe and to neutral Portugal. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club and persuades Rick to hold them. Before he can meet his contact, Ugarte is arrested by the local police under Captain Louis Renault, the unabashedly corrupt prefect of police. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that Rick has the letters. Then the reason for Rick's cynical nature—former lover Ilsa Lund—enters his establishment. Spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam, Ilsa asks him to play "As Time Goes By". Rick storms over, furious that Sam disobeyed his order never to perform that song again, and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo, a renowned fugitive Czechoslovak Resistance leader. A flashback reveals Ilsa left Rick without explanation when the couple were planning to flee as the German army neared Paris, embittering Rick. Laszlo and Ilsa need the letters to escape, while German Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca to prevent just that. When Laszlo makes inquiries, Signor Ferrari, an underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. Laszlo returns to Rick's cafe that night and tries to buy them. Rick refuses to sell, telling Laszlo to ask his wife why. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of German officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein". Laszlo orders the house band to play "La Marseillaise". When the bandleader looks to Rick, the latter nods, and Laszlo begins to sing. Patriotic fervor grips the crowd, and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. Afterwards, Strasser has Renault close the club on a flimsy pretext. Black-and-white film screenshot of a man and woman as seen from the shoulders up. The two are close to each other as if about to kiss. Bogart and Bergman Later, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café; when he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun but then confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when they met and fell in love in Paris in 1940, she believed her husband had been killed attempting to escape from a concentration camp. Then she learned that Laszlo was alive and hiding near Paris. She left Rick without explanation to nurse her sick husband. Rick's bitterness dissolves. He agrees to help, letting her believe she will stay with him when Laszlo leaves. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl spirit Ilsa away. Laszlo, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety. When the police arrest Laszlo on a trumped-up charge, Rick persuades Renault to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains that he and Ilsa will use the letters to leave for America. When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, however, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with Laszlo, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed, "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life." Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. When Strasser attempts to stop the plane, Rick shoots him dead. Policemen arrive. Renault pauses, then orders them to "round up the usual suspects." He suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville. As they walk away into the fog, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Cast Black-and-white film screenshot of two men, both wearing suits. The man on the left is older and is nearly bald; the man on the right has black hair. In the background several bottles of alcohol can be seen. Greenstreet and Bogart The play's cast consisted of 16 speaking parts and several extras; the film script enlarged it to 22 speaking parts and hundreds of extras.[12] The cast is notably international: only three of the credited actors were born in the United States (Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page). The top-billed actors are:[13] Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's official website calls Ilsa her "most famous and enduring role".[14] The Swedish actress's Hollywood debut in Intermezzo had been well received, but her subsequent films were not major successes until Casablanca. Film critic Roger Ebert called her "luminous", and commented on the chemistry between her and Bogart: "she paints his face with her eyes".[15] Other actresses considered for the role of Ilsa included Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Luise Rainer, and Michèle Morgan. Producer Hal Wallis obtained the services of Bergman, who was contracted to David O. Selznick, by lending Olivia de Havilland in exchange.[16] Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who had emigrated in 1935, was reluctant to take the role (it "set [him] as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael[17]), until he was promised top billing along with Bogart and Bergman. Henreid did not get on well with his fellow actors; he considered Bogart "a mediocre actor"; Bergman called Henreid a "prima donna".[18] The second-billed actors are: Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser. Veidt was a refugee German actor who had fled the Nazis with his Jewish wife, but frequently played Nazis in American films. He was the highest paid member of the cast despite his second billing.[19] Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte Also credited are: Curt Bois as the pickpocket. Bois had one of the longest careers in cinema, spanning over 80 years. Leonid Kinskey as Sascha, the Russian bartender infatuated with Yvonne. Kinskey told Aljean Harmetz, author of Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca, that he was cast because he was Bogart's drinking buddy. He was not the first choice for the role; he replaced Leo Mostovoy, who was deemed not funny enough.[20] Madeleine Lebeau as Yvonne, Rick's soon-discarded girlfriend. Lebeau was a French refugee who had left Nazi-occupied Europe with her husband Marcel Dalio, who was a fellow Casablanca performer. She was the last surviving cast member until her death on May 1, 2016.[21] Joy Page, the step-daughter of studio head Jack L. Warner, as Annina Brandel, the young Bulgarian refugee John Qualen as Berger, Laszlo's Resistance contact S. Z. Sakall (credited as S. K. Sakall) as Carl, the waiter Dooley Wilson as Sam. Wilson was one of the few American-born members of the cast. A drummer, he had to fake playing the piano. Even after shooting had been completed, producer Wallis considered dubbing over Wilson's voice for the songs.[22] Notable uncredited actors are: Marcel Dalio as Emil the croupier. Dalio had been a star in French cinema, appearing in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion and La Règle du Jeu Helmut Dantine as Jan Brandel, the Bulgarian roulette player married to Annina Brandel Gregory Gaye as the German banker who is refused entry to the casino by Rick Torben Meyer as the Dutch banker who runs "the second largest banking house in Amsterdam" Corinna Mura as the guitar player who sings "Tango Delle Rose" (or "Tango de la Rosa") and later accompanies the crowd on "La Marseillaise" Frank Puglia as a Moroccan rug merchant Richard Ryen as Colonel Heinze, Strasser's aide Dan Seymour as Abdul the doorman Gerald Oliver Smith as the Englishman whose wallet is stolen Norma Varden as the Englishwoman whose husband has his wallet stolen Much of the emotional impact of the film, for the audience in 1942, has been attributed to the large proportion of European exiles and refugees who were extras or played minor roles (in addition to leading actors Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorre), such as Louis V. Arco, Trude Berliner, Ilka Grünig, Ludwig Stössel, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, and Wolfgang Zilzer. A witness to the filming of the "duel of the anthems" sequence said he saw many of the actors crying and "realized that they were all real refugees".[23] Harmetz argues that they "brought to a dozen small roles in Casablanca an understanding and a desperation that could never have come from Central Casting".[24] Even though many were Jewish or refugees from the Nazis (or both), they were frequently cast as Nazis in various war films, because of their accents. Jack Benny may have appeared in an unbilled cameo, as was claimed by a contemporary newspaper advertisement and in the Casablanca press book.[25][26][27] When asked in his column "Movie Answer Man", critic Roger Ebert first replied, "It looks something like him. That's all I can say."[26] In a later column, he responded to a follow-up commenter, "I think you're right. The Jack Benny Fan Club can feel vindicated".[28] Writing The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's.[29] The Warner Bros. story analyst who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum"[30] and story editor Irene Diamond, who had discovered the script on a trip to New York in 1941, convinced Hal Wallis to buy the rights in January 1942 for $20,000 (equivalent to $290,000 in 2021),[31] the most anyone in Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play.[32] The project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers.[33] Casablanca also shares many narrative and thematic similarities with Algiers (1938), which itself is a remake of the acclaimed 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, directed and co-written by Julien Duvivier.[34] The original play was inspired by a trip to Europe made by Murray Burnett and his wife in 1938, during which they visited Vienna shortly after the Anschluss and were affected by the antisemitism they saw. In the south of France, they went to a nightclub that had a multinational clientele, among them many exiles and refugees, and the prototype of Sam.[35] In The Guardian, Paul Fairclough wrote that Cinema Vox in Tangier "was Africa's biggest when it opened in 1935, with 2,000 seats and a retractable roof. As Tangier was in Spanish territory [sic], the theatre's wartime bar heaved with spies, refugees and underworld hoods, securing its place in cinematic history as the inspiration for Rick's Cafe in Casablanca."[36][37] The scene of the singing of "La Marseillaise" in the bar is attributed by the film scholar Julian Jackson as an adaptation of a similar scene from Jean Renoir's film La Grande Illusion five years prior.[38] The first writers assigned to the script were twins Julius and Philip Epstein[39] who, against the wishes of Warner Bros., left at Frank Capra's request early in 1942 to work on the Why We Fight series in Washington, D.C.[40][41] While they were gone, the other credited writer, Howard Koch, was assigned; he produced thirty to forty pages.[41] When the Epstein brothers returned after about a month, they were reassigned to Casablanca and—contrary to what Koch claimed in two published books—his work was not used.[41] The Epstein brothers and Koch never worked in the same room at the same time during the writing of the script. In the final budget for the film, the Epsteins were paid $30,416, (equivalent to $398,552 in 2021) and Koch earned $4,200 (equivalent to $55,797 in 2021).[42] In the play, the Ilsa character is an American named Lois Meredith; she does not meet Laszlo until after her relationship with Rick in Paris has ended. Rick is a lawyer. The play (set entirely in the cafe) ends with Rick sending Lois and Laszlo to the airport. To make Rick's motivation more believable, Wallis, Curtiz, and the screenwriters decided to set the film before the attack on Pearl Harbor.[43] The possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together, but as Casey Robinson wrote to Wallis before filming began, the ending of the film "set up for a swell twist when Rick sends her away on the plane with Laszlo. For now, in doing so, he is not just solving a love triangle. He is forcing the girl to live up to the idealism of her nature, forcing her to carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two little people."[44] It was certainly impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the Motion Picture Production Code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. The concern was not whether Ilsa would leave with Laszlo, but how this outcome would be engineered.[45] According to Julius Epstein, he and Philip were driving when they simultaneously came up with the idea for Renault to order the roundup of "the usual suspects", after which all the details needed for resolution of the story, including the farewell between Bergman and "a suddenly noble Bogart", were rapidly worked out.[46] The uncredited Casey Robinson assisted with three weeks of rewrites, including contributing the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa in the cafe.[47][48] Koch highlighted the political and melodramatic elements,[49][50] and Curtiz seems to have favored the romantic parts, insisting on retaining the Paris flashbacks.[51] In a telegram to film editor Owen Marks on August 7, 1942, Wallis suggested two possible final lines of dialogue for Rick: "Louis, I might have known you'd mix your patriotism with a little larceny" or "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".[52] Two weeks later, Wallis settled on the latter, which Bogart was recalled to dub a month after shooting had finished.[51] Bogart's line "Here's looking at you, kid", said four times, was not in the draft screenplays, but has been attributed to a comment he made to Bergman as she played poker with her English coach and hairdresser between takes.[53] Despite the many writers, the film has what Ebert describes as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script. Koch later claimed it was the tension between his own approach and Curtiz's that had accounted for this. "Surprisingly, these disparate approaches somehow meshed, and perhaps it was partly this tug of war between Curtiz and me that gave the film a certain balance."[54] Julius Epstein later noted the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better".[55] The film ran into some trouble with Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favors from visa applicants, and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together.[56][57] Extensive changes were made, with several lines of dialogue removed or altered. All direct references to sex were deleted; Renault's selling of visas for sex, and Rick and Ilsa's previous sexual relationship were implied elliptically rather than referenced explicitly.[58] Also, in the original script, when Sam plays "As Time Goes By", Rick exclaims, "What the —— are you playing?" This line was altered to "Sam, I thought I told you never to play ..." to conform to Breen's objection to an implied swear word.[59] Production Bogart in the airport scene Although an initial filming date was selected for April 10, 1942, delays led to production starting on May 25.[60] Filming was completed on August 3. It went $75,000 over budget for a total cost of $1,039,000 (equivalent to $13,803,000 in 2021),[61] above average for the time.[62] Unusually, the film was shot in sequence, mainly because only the first half of the script was ready when filming began.[63] The entire picture was shot in the studio except for the sequence showing Strasser's arrival and close-ups of the Lockheed Electra (filmed at Van Nuys Airport) and a few short clips of stock footage views of Paris.[64] The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film, The Desert Song,[65] and redressed for the Paris flashbacks. The film critic Roger Ebert called Wallis the "key creative force" for his attention to the details of production (down to insisting on a real parrot in the Blue Parrot bar).[15] The difference between Bergman's and Bogart's height caused some problems. She was two inches (5 cm) taller than Bogart, and claimed Curtiz had Bogart stand on blocks or sit on cushions in their scenes together.[66] Later, there were plans for a further scene, showing Rick, Renault and a detachment of Free French soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1942 invasion of North Africa. It proved too difficult to get Claude Rains for the shoot, and the scene was finally abandoned after David O. Selznick judged "it would be a terrible mistake to change the ending".[67][19] The background of the final scene, which shows a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior airplane with personnel walking around it, was staged using little person extras and a proportionate cardboard plane.[68] Fog was used to mask the model's unconvincing appearance.[69] Direction Wallis's first choice for director was William Wyler, but he was unavailable, so Wallis turned to his close friend Michael Curtiz.[70][19] Roger Ebert has commented that in Casablanca "very few shots ...are memorable as shots", as Curtiz wanted images to express the story rather than to stand alone.[15] He contributed relatively little to development of the plot. Casey Robinson said Curtiz "knew nothing whatever about story ...he saw it in pictures, and you supplied the stories".[71] Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory",[72] of which Sarris was the most prominent proponent in the United States. Aljean Harmetz has responded, "...nearly every Warner Bros. picture was an exception to the auteur theory".[70] Other critics give more credit to Curtiz. Sidney Rosenzweig, in his study of the director's work, sees the film as a typical example of Curtiz's highlighting of moral dilemmas.[73] Some of the second unit montages, such as the opening sequence of the refugee trail and the invasion of France, were directed by Don Siegel.[74] Cinematography The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson, a veteran who had previously shot The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein. Particular attention was paid to photographing Bergman. She was shot mainly from her preferred left side, often with a softening gauze filter and with catch lights to make her eyes sparkle; the whole effect was designed to make her face seem "ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic".[15] Bars of shadow across the characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the crucifix, the symbol of the Free French Forces and emotional turmoil.[15] Dark film noir and expressionist lighting was used in several scenes, particularly towards the end of the picture. Rosenzweig argues these shadow and lighting effects are classic elements of the Curtiz style, along with the fluid camera work and the use of the environment as a framing device.[75] Soundtrack The music was written by Max Steiner, who wrote scores for King Kong and Gone with the Wind. The song "As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld had been part of the story from the original play; Steiner wanted to write his own composition to replace it, but Bergman had already cut her hair short for her next role (María in For Whom the Bell Tolls) and could not reshoot the scenes that incorporated the song,[a] so Steiner based the entire score on it and "La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, transforming them as leitmotifs to reflect changing moods.[76] Even though Steiner disliked "As Time Goes By", he admitted in a 1943 interview that it "must have had something to attract so much attention".[77] Dooley Wilson, who played Sam, was a drummer but not a pianist, so his piano playing was performed by Jean Plummer.[78] Particularly memorable is the "duel of the anthems" between Strasser and Laszlo at Rick's cafe.[19] In the soundtrack, "La Marseillaise" is played by a full orchestra. Originally, the opposing piece for this iconic sequence was to be the "Horst Wessel Lied", a Nazi anthem but this was still under international copyright in non-Allied countries. Instead "Die Wacht am Rhein" was used.[79] The "Deutschlandlied", the national anthem of Germany, is used several times in minor mode as a leitmotif for the German threat, e.g. in the scene in Paris as it is announced that the German army will reach Paris the next day. It is featured in the final scene, giving way to "La Marseillaise" after Strasser is shot.[80][19] Other songs include: "It Had to Be You", music by Isham Jones, lyrics by Gus Kahn "Shine", music by Ford Dabney, lyrics by Cecil Mack and Lew Brown "Avalon", music and lyrics by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva and Vincent Rose "Perfidia", by Alberto Dominguez "The Very Thought of You", by Ray Noble "Knock on Wood", music by M. K. Jerome, lyrics by Jack Scholl, the only original song. Very few films in the early 1940s had portions of the soundtrack released on 78 rpm records, and Casablanca was no exception. In 1997, almost 55 years after the film's premiere, Turner Entertainment in collaboration with Rhino Records issued the film's first original soundtrack album for release on compact disc, including original songs and music, spoken dialogue, and alternate takes.[81] The piano featured in the Paris flashback sequences was sold in New York City on December 14, 2012, at Sotheby's for more than $600,000 to an anonymous bidder.[82] The piano Sam "plays" in Rick's Café Américain, put up for auction with other film memorabilia by Turner Classic Movies at Bonhams in New York on November 24, 2014, sold for $3.4 million.[83][84] Release Although an initial release date was anticipated for early 1943,[85] the film premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, to capitalize on Operation Torch (the Allied invasion of French North Africa) and the capture of Casablanca.[8][86] It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca Conference, a high-level meeting in the city between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Office of War Information prevented screening of the film to troops in North Africa, believing it would cause resentment among Vichy supporters in the region.[87] Irish and German cuts On March 19, 1943, the film was banned in Ireland for infringing on the Emergency Powers Order preserving wartime neutrality, by portraying Vichy France and Nazi Germany in a "sinister light". It was passed with cuts on June 15, 1945, shortly after the EPO was lifted. The cuts were made to dialogue between Rick and Ilsa referring to their love affair.[88] A version with only one scene cut was passed on July 16, 1974; Irish national broadcaster RTÉ inquired about showing the film on TV, but found it still required a dialogue cut to Ilsa expressing her love for Rick.[89] Warner Brothers released a heavily edited version of Casablanca in West Germany in 1952. All scenes with Nazis were removed, along with most references to World War II. Important plot points were altered when the dialogue was dubbed into German. Victor Laszlo was no longer a Resistance fighter who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Instead, he became a Norwegian atomic physicist who was being pursued by Interpol after he "broke out of jail". The West German version was 25 minutes shorter than the original cut. A German version of Casablanca with the original plot was not released until 1975.[90] Reception Initial response Casablanca received "consistently good reviews".[91] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "The Warners ... have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap." He applauded the combination of "sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue." Crowther noted its "devious convolutions of the plot" and praised the screenplay quality as "of the best" and the cast's performances as "all of the first order".[92] The trade paper Variety commended the film's "combination of fine performances, engrossing story and neat direction" and the "variety of moods, action, suspense, comedy and drama that makes Casablanca an A-1 entry at the b.o."[93] The review observed that the "[f]ilm is splendid anti-Axis propaganda, particularly inasmuch as the propaganda is strictly a by-product of the principal action and contributes to it instead of getting in the way".[93] Variety also applauded the performances of Bergman and Henreid and noted, "Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse."[93] Some reviews were less enthusiastic. The New Yorker rated Casablanca only "pretty tolerable" and said it was "not quite up to Across the Pacific, Bogart's last spyfest".[94] At the 1,500-seat Hollywood Theater, the film grossed $255,000 over ten weeks (equivalent to $3.4 million in 2021).[95] In its initial American release, Casablanca was a substantial but not spectacular box-office success, earning $3.7 million (equivalent to $49 million in 2021).[95][96] A 50th-anniversary re-release grossed $1.5 million in 1992.[97] According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $3,398,000 domestically and $3,461,000 in foreign markets.[4] Enduring popularity In the decades since its release, the film has grown in reputation. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow".[98] By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it the third-most-successful of Warners' wartime movies, behind Shine On, Harvest Moon and This Is the Army.[99] On April 21, 1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old movies. It proved so popular that a tradition began in which Casablanca would be screened during the week of final exams at Harvard University. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who had attended one of these screenings, has said that the experience was "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage".[100] The tradition helped the film remain popular while other films that had been famous in the 1940s have faded from popular memory. By 1977, Casablanca had become the most frequently broadcast film on American television.[101] Ingrid Bergman's portrayal of Ilsa Lund in Casablanca became one of her best-known roles.[102] In later years she said, "I feel about Casablanca that it has a life of its own. There is something mystical about it. It seems to have filled a need, a need that was there before the film, a need that the film filled."[103] On the film's 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles Times called Casablanca's great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey dialogue". Bob Strauss wrote in the newspaper that the film achieved a "near-perfect entertainment balance" of comedy, romance, and suspense.[104] Roger Ebert, wrote of Casablanca in 1992, "There are greater movies. More profound movies. Movies of greater artistic vision or artistic originality or political significance. ... But [it is] one of the movies we treasure the most ... This is a movie that has transcended the ordinary categories."[105] In his opinion, the film is popular because "the people in it are all so good" and it is "a wonderful gem".[15] Ebert said that he had never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticized, citing unrealistic special effects and the stiff character of Laszlo as portrayed by Paul Henreid.[71] The critic Leonard Maltin considers Casablanca "the best Hollywood movie of all time".[106] According to Rudy Behlmer, the character of Rick is "not a hero ... not a bad guy" because he does what is necessary to appease the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". Behlmer feels that the other characters are "not cut and dried" and come into their goodness over the course of the film. Renault begins as a collaborator with the Nazis who extorts sexual favors from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end, however, "everybody is sacrificing".[71] Behlmer also emphasized the variety in the picture. "It's a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue."[71] A remembrance written for the film's 75th anniversary published by The Washington Free Beacon said, "It is no exaggeration to say Casablanca is one of the greatest films ever made," making special note of the "intellectual nature of the film" and saying that "while the first time around you might pay attention to only the superficial love story, by the second and third and fourth viewings the sub-textual politics [of communitarianism and anti-isolationism] have moved to the fore".[107] A few reviewers have expressed reservations. To Pauline Kael, "It's far from a great film, but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism ..."[108] Umberto Eco wrote that "by any strict critical standards ... Casablanca is a very mediocre film". He viewed the changes that the characters manifest as inconsistent rather than complex. "It is a comic strip, a hotchpotch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects." However, he added that because of the presence of multiple archetypes that allow "the power of Narrative in its natural state without Art intervening to discipline it", it is a film reaching "Homeric depths" as a "phenomenon worthy of awe".[109] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 99% of 127 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 9.4/10. The website's consensus reads, "An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman."[110] On Metacritic, the film has a perfect score of 100 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[111] It is one of the few films in the site's history to achieve a perfect aggregate score.[112] In the November/December 1982 issue of Film Comment, Chuck Ross wrote that he retyped the Casablanca screenplay, reverting the title to Everybody Comes to Rick's and changing the name of Sam the piano player to Dooley (after Dooley Wilson, who played the character), and submitted it to 217 agencies. The majority of agencies returned the script unread (often because of policies regarding unsolicited screenplays) or did not respond. However, of those which did respond, only 33 specifically recognized it as Casablanca. Eight others observed that it was similar to Casablanca, and 41 agencies rejected the screenplay outright, offering comments such as "Too much dialogue, not enough exposition, the story line was weak, and in general didn't hold my interest." Three agencies offered to represent the screenplay, and one suggested turning it into a novel.[113][114][115] Influence on later works Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca. Passage to Marseille (1944) reunited actors Bogart, Rains, Greenstreet, and Lorre and director Curtiz in 1944,[116] and there are similarities between Casablanca and a later Bogart film, To Have and Have Not (also 1944).[117] Parodies have included the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946), Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978), and Out Cold (2001). Indirectly, it provided the title for the 1995 neo-noir film The Usual Suspects.[118] Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) appropriated Bogart's Casablanca character as the fantasy mentor for Allen's character.[119] The film was a plot device in the science-fiction television movie Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983), based on John Varley's story. It was referred to in Terry Gilliam's dystopian Brazil (1985). Warner Bros. produced its own parody in the homage Carrotblanca, a 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon.[120] The film critic Roger Ebert pointed out the plot of the film Barb Wire (1996) was identical to that of Casablanca.[121] In Casablanca, a novella by Argentine writer Edgar Brau, the protagonist somehow wanders into Rick's Café Américain and listens to a strange tale related by Sam.[122] The 2016 musical film La La Land contains allusions to Casablanca in the imagery, dialogue, and plot.[123] Robert Zemeckis, director of Allied (2016), which is also set in 1942 Casablanca, studied the film to capture the city's elegance.[124] The 2017 Moroccan drama film Razzia, directed by Nabil Ayouch, is mostly set in the city of Casablanca, and its characters frequently discuss the 1942 film.[125]

About this Item Title Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor Names Paramount Pictures, inc. Nolan, Edward Germanetti, George Fleischer, Dave Created / Published 1936 Headings - Animated films Genre Animated films Notes - Summary: The legendary sailors Popeye and Sindbad do battle to see which one is the greatest. - Credits: Voices: Jack Mercer (Popeye), Mae Questal (Olive Oyl), Gus Wickie (Sinbad), Lou Fleischer (Wimpy). Music: Sammy Timberg, Bob Rothberg, Sammy Lerner. Medium Film, Video Call Number/Physical Location Mavis identifier: 68306 Source Collection Husemann (Steve) Collection Repository Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division https://www.loc.gov/item/mbrs00068306/

Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor. Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring. Plot Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother. Directed by: Alan James, Ray Taylor Produced by: Nat Levine, J. Laurence Wickland (Associate) Written by: Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip) Music by: Harry Grey Cinematography: William Nobles, Edgar Lyons Edited by: Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney Distributed by: Republic Pictures Release date: February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial) Running time: 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial) Country: United States Language: English Starring cast Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk Lee Van Atta as Junior John Picorri as Dr Moloch Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1) Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1) Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson Supporting cast John Dilson as Ellery Brewster Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton Theodore Lorch as Paterno Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette (The Spider/ The Lame One) Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein Herbert Weber as Tony Martino Buddy Roosevelt as Burke George DeNormand as Flynn Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch - In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip. - Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead - There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tr...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Byrd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...

This is about a crime fighting newspaperman. Brad McKay, played by Lee Tracy, whom I have never heard of, works with the police to solve a case involving $100k and some murders. He is wisecracking and thinks his way, rapidly, out of the surprises. Visit: VintageNewscast.com Addeddate 2008-12-22 22:28:07 Color B&W Identifier thepayoff Sound sound Year 1935

Jigsaw by Fletcher Markle Publication date 1949 Usage Public DomainCreative Commons Licensepublicdomain Topics Crime, Drama, Film-Noir Publisher Tower Pictures Inc. The plot is about a shadowy group called the Crusaders, which has been organizing itself into a power center. Its poster shows a handsome Aryan lad against the waving American flag. Their slogan, "Join The Crusaders -- Fight for America!". The implication is clear...the Crusaders will be against anyone who doesn't look, sound or believe the way that Aryan poster boy does. When a columnist is killed while looking into the Crusaders, Howard Malloy finds himself appointed a special prosecutor. He also finds himself in a noxious mess that combines crime, nativism and the reactionary beliefs of some of the privileged few. You can play the amusing Hollywood game of Spot the Star Cameo. In unbilled bits that last a second or two are such luminaries as Burgess Meredith, John Garfield, Marsha Hunt, Everett Sloane, Henry Fonda and Marlene Dietrich. Contact Information www.k-otic.com Addeddate 2008-03-19 08:27:51 Color black & white Director Fletcher Markle Identifier Jigsaw_ Run time 70 min Sound sound Year 1949

The Universal Film Manufacturing Company was not known in the silent era as premier producer of motion pictures. Yet, in 1916 they produced a film that could not be made effectively without expensive special effects and special photography. The novel had previously been made as short films in 1907 by Georges Méliès and in 1913 by French company ÃÂclair.) Marshalling the expertise underwater experts Ernest and George Williamson, Universal financed the extensive production which would require location photography, large sets, exotic costumes, sailing ships, and a full-size navigable mock-up of the surfaced submarine Nautilus. https://archive.org/details/20000LeaguesUndertheSea

After the Thin Man is a 1936 American murder mystery comedy film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring William Powell, Myrna Loy and James Stewart. A sequel to the 1934 feature The Thin Man, the film presents Powell and Loy as Dashiell Hammett's characters Nick and Nora Charles. The film also features Elissa Landi, Joseph Calleia, Jessie Ralph, Alan Marshal and Penny Singleton (billed under her maiden name as Dorothy McNulty). Plot Nick and Nora Charles return from vacation on New Year's Eve to their home in San Francisco, where Nora's stuffy family expects the couple to join them for a formal dinner. Nick is disliked by Nora's aunt Katherine, the family matriarch, as his immigrant heritage and experience as a "flatfoot" are considered beneath Nora's station. Nora's cousin Selma tells Nora that her husband Robert has been missing for three days. David Graham is Selma's earlier fiancé and an old friend of Nora's family. He offers to pay Robert $25,000 to leave and grant Selma a divorce. Nora successfully badgers Nick into helping to locate Robert. Lobby card for After the Thin Man (1936) Robert is at the LiChi Club, a Chinese nightclub, where he has been in an affair with Polly, the club's star performer. Unknown to Robert, Polly and club owner Dancer plan to steal the money that David will pay Robert. Polly's brother Phil Byrnes wants money from her, but Dancer throws him out, just as Nick and Nora arrive looking for Robert. They tell Robert about David's offer and he agrees to it. After being paid off, Robert goes back into Aunt Katherine's home to retrieve some clothes and say goodbye to Selma, who begs him not to leave. Nick sees Dancer and nightclub co-owner Lum Kee each leave the club separately at the same time. Robert leaves at the stroke of midnight and is shot dead in the foggy street. David finds Selma standing over Robert, a pistol in her hand. Lt. Abrams considers Selma the prime suspect, and her fragile mental state only strengthens his belief. Selma insists that she never fired her gun, but her claim cannot be backed up as David had thrown the gun into San Francisco Bay, thinking she was guilty. Nick begins to investigate to find the actual murderer. Someone throws a rock with a note tied to it through Nick and Nora's window. The note accuses Polly and Dancer of conspiring to kill Robert while revealing that Phil Byrnes is an ex-con and Polly's husband. Lt. Abrams has found several checks from Robert to Polly, including one for $20,000, but Nick carefully compares them and sees that all but one are forgeries. Nick and Lt. Abrams find Phil murdered in his hotel room. Nick investigates Polly's apartment and discovers that someone using the name Anderson had bugged it from the apartment above. While in the upper apartment, Nick hears Dancer enter Polly's home. Nick pursues Dancer into the basement, but Dancer fires a round of bullets at Nick and disappears. Nick discovers the body of the building custodian, Pedro. Nora identifies Pedro as the former gardener from her father's estate. She finds a photo in Pedro's room of him with their other servants. Lt. Abrams says someone tried to call Nick from the building just before Pedro was killed. Nick has Lt. Abrams gather all the suspects in the Anderson apartment. Dancer and Polly confess that they had intended to use a forged check to steal Robert's money but claim that they are innocent of murder. David says that he has not seen Pedro in six years but remembers his long white mustache. But Nick notices that in the picture from six years ago that Nora had found, Pedro had a small, dark mustache, and Nick infers that David saw Pedro recently. Nick now reconstructs the murder. David is revealed to be Anderson. He hated Robert for taking Selma from him, and also secretly hated Selma for leaving him. He rented the apartment so that he could eavesdrop on Polly and Robert and kill them in the apartment. Instead, he killed Robert on the street and tried to frame Selma for the murder. While spying on Polly, he overheard Phil's real identity and Phil's plan to blackmail David. David murdered Phil and threw the message rock as a diversion. However, Pedro had recognized David as the mysterious Anderson, so David killed him as well. David brandishes a pistol and threatens to kill Selma and then himself. Lum Kee flings his hat in David's face, allowing Nick and Lt. Abrams to overpower him. This surprises Nora because Nick had Lum Kee's brother sent to prison for bank robbery, but Lum Kee explains: "I don't like my brother. I like his girl. You my friend." Nick and Nora leave San Francisco by train for the East Coast, accompanied by Selma. Later, alone with Nora, Nick notices that she is knitting a baby's sock and suddenly realizes that she is pregnant. Nora gently chides him, saying, "And you call yourself a detective." Cast The cast is listed in order as documented by the American Film Institute.[2] William Powell as Nick Charles, called "Nicholas" by Aunt Katherine Myrna Loy as Nora Charles James Stewart as David Graham Elissa Landi as Selma Landis Joseph Calleia as "Dancer" Jessie Ralph as Aunt Katherine Forrest Alan Marshal as Robert Landis Teddy Hart as Casper Sam Levene as Lieutenant Abrams Penny Singleton as Polly Byrnes (credited as Dorothy McNulty) William Law as Lum Kee George Zucco as Dr. Kammer Paul Fix as Phil Byrnes Skippy as Asta Harlan Briggs as Burton Forrest (uncredited) Harlan Briggs: Burton Forrest Maude Turner Gordon as Helen (uncredited) Tom Ricketts as Henry, the butler (uncredited) Zeffie Tilbury as Aunt Lucy (uncredited) Esther Howard as the woman at LiChi Club who says "Hello, handsome" to Nick (uncredited) Production The film's storyline was written by Dashiell Hammett based on his characters Nick and Nora, but not on a particular novel or short story. Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich wrote the original screenplay. The film was the second of six feature films based on the characters of Nick and Nora: The Thin Man (1934) After the Thin Man (1936) Another Thin Man (1939) Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) The Thin Man Goes Home (1945) Song of the Thin Man (1947) Reception The film was nominated for an Oscar in 1937 for Best Writing, Screenplay.[3] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes lists the film with a score of 100% based on reviews from 18 professional critics, with a rating average of 7.65/10.[4] After the Thin Man grossed a domestic and foreign total of $3,165,000: $1,992,000 from the U.S. and Canada and $1,173,000 elsewhere. It returned a profit of $1,516,000.[1] Radio adaptation An hour-long radio adaptation of After the Thin Man was presented on the CBS Lux Radio Theatre on June 17, 1940. Powell and Loy reprised their roles.[5] References in other media The film is name-checked by the 1938 American mystery novel The Listening House by Mabel Seeley during an interlude in which the book's protagonist goes to see a film called After the Dark Man. Home media After the Thin Man was released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection on January 26, 2021.[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Thin_Man

A Tale of Two Cities is a 1935 film based upon Charles Dickens' 1859 historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris. The film stars Ronald Colman as Sydney Carton and Elizabeth Allan as Lucie Manette. The supporting players include Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen, Basil Rathbone, Lucille La Verne, Blanche Yurka, Henry B. Walthall and Donald Woods. It was directed by Jack Conway from a screenplay by W. P. Lipscomb and S. N. Behrman. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Film Editing. The story is set in France and England and spans several years before and during the French Revolution. It deals with the evils that precipitated the Revolution and with an innocent family and their friends caught up in the horrors of the Terror. Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who has rejected his rank and moved to England, and Sidney Carton, an alcoholic English advocate, both fall in love with Lucie Manette. Lucie has brought her father to England to recover from 18 years of unjust imprisonment in the Bastille. Lucie befriends Carton and later marries Darnay. In the end, Carton saves Darnay's life by taking his place at the guillotine. The film is generally regarded as the best cinematic version of Dickens' novel and one of the best performances of Colman's career.[2] Plot The film opens with a portion of the famous introduction to the novel: “ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us... In short, it was a period very like the present...” Lucie Manette (Elizabeth Allan) and her servant and companion Miss Pross (Edna May Oliver) are informed by elderly banker Mr. Jarvis Lorry (Claude Gillingwater) that her father, Dr. Alexandre Mannette (Henry B. Walthall) is not dead, but has been a prisoner in the Bastille for eighteen years before finally being rescued. She travels with Mr. Lorry to Paris to take her father to her home in England. Dr. Manette has been cared for by a former servant, Ernest De Farge (Mitchell Lewis), and his wife (Blanche Yurka) who own a wine shop in Paris. The old man's mind has given way during his long ordeal, but Lucie's tender care begins to restore his sanity. On the return trip across the English Channel, Lucie meets Charles Darnay (Donald Woods), a French aristocrat who, unlike his uncle, the Marquis St. Evremonde (Basil Rathbone), is sympathetic to the plight of the oppressed and impoverished French masses. He has denounced his uncle, relinquished his title, changed his name and is going to England to begin a new life. The marquis has Darnay framed for treason, but he is defended by barrister C.J. Stryver (Reginald Owen) and his highly proficient but cynical colleague Sydney Carton (Ronald Colman). Carton goes drinking with Barsad (Walter Catlett), the main prosecution witness and tricks him into admitting that he framed Darnay. When Barsad is called to testify, he is horrified to discover that Carton is a member of the defense. He recants his testimony to save himself, and Darnay is acquitted. Following the trial, Carton is thanked by Lucie. He quickly falls in love with her. Darnay confesses to Dr. Manette he is the nephew of the Marquis St. Evremonde; Manette forgives him, but reserves the right to tell Lucie himself. On their way to church, Lucie meets Carton and invites him to join them and he accepts. Afterwards, she invites him into their home to celebrate Christmas, but he declines because he has been drinking. Lucie and Carton eventually become close friends. Carton has hopes that Lucie will requite his love, but one day she tells him that she is engaged to Darnay. Lucie and Darnay marry and have a daughter, also named Lucie, who is very fond of Carton. By this time, the French Revolution is beginning. Charles' uncle, the Marquis St. Evremond is one of its first victims, stabbed in his sleep by a man whose child had been fatally run down by his coach. The long-suffering peasants vent their fury on the aristocrats, condemning scores daily to Madame Guillotine. Darnay is tricked into returning to Paris and is arrested. Lucie and Dr. Manette travel to Paris to save Darnay. Manette pleads for mercy for his son-in-law, but Madame De Farge, seeking revenge against all the Evremondes, convinces the tribunal to sentence Darnay to death, using a letter Dr. Manette wrote while in prison, cursing and denouncing the entire Evremonde family. Upon learning of Darnay's imprisonment, Carton travels to Paris to comfort Lucie. Carton consults Mr. Lorry and tells him of his plan to rescue Darnay. Carton discovers Barsad is also in Paris and works as a spy in the prisons. Carton overcomes Barsad's reluctance to help him with his scheme to rescue Darnay by threatening to reveal that Barsad had been a spy for the Marquis St. Evremonde. Barsad takes Carton to visit Darnay in his cell; Carton renders Darnay unconscious with ether, switches clothes with him, and finishes the letter Darnay has been writing to Lucie and puts it in Darnay's pocket. Darnay is carried out of the cell without anyone noticing the switch. While Lucie prepares to return to England, Madame De Farge goes to provoke her into denouncing the Republic, but she is intercepted by Miss Pross inside the now-vacated apartment. Pross knows why Madame De Farge has come and is determined to stop her. The two women fight and De Farge pulls out a pistol, but in the ensuing struggle, Pross kills her. Darnay, Lucie, little Lucie, Lorry and Pross all escape safely. While awaiting execution, a condemned, innocent seamstress (Isabel Jewell) who was sentenced at the same time as Darnay, notices Carton has assumed his identity. She draws comfort from his bravery and sacrifice as they ride together to the guillotine. As Carton stands at the foot of the guillotine, drums roll and then fade away as the camera rises up past the guillotine to the city and the sky above. His voice is heard saying, "It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It's a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known." Cast Ronald Colman as Sydney Carton. Colman had long wanted to play Sydney Carton on film. He was even willing to shave off his moustache.[3] Elizabeth Allan as Lucie Manette Edna May Oliver as Miss Pross Reginald Owen as C.J. Stryver Basil Rathbone as Marquis St. Evremonde Blanche Yurka as Madame Therese De Farge (Madame Defarge in the book), in her film debut Henry B. Walthall as Dr. Alexandre Manette Donald Woods as Charles Darnay Walter Catlett as John Barsad Fritz Leiber as Gaspard H. B. Warner as Theophile Gabelle Mitchell Lewis as Ernest De Farge Claude Gillingwater as Jarvis Lorry Billy Bevan as Jerry Cruncher Isabel Jewell as the Seamstress Lucille LaVerne as The Vengeance Tully Marshall as a Woodcutter Fay Chaldecott as Lucie Darnay, a child Eily Malyon as Mrs. Cruncher E. E. Clive as Judge in Old Bailey Lawrence Grant as a Prosecutor Robert Warwick as Judge at tribunal Ralf Harolde as a Prosecutor John Davidson as Morveau Tom Ricketts as Tellson Jr. Donald Haines as Jerry Cruncher Jr. Barlowe Borland as Jacques Production Filming ran from June 4, 1935, to August 19, 1935[4] The picture premiered in New York City on December 15, 1935. The closing credits spell the name De Farge. Dickens spelled it Defarge in the novel. According to TCM's Genevieve McGillicuddy, “Selznick had no trouble finding a lead actor... Ronald Colman had coveted the part since he began his career and knew the novel intimately. In an interview seven years before being cast as Sydney Carton, Colman reflected on Dickens' forte for characterization, stating that Carton 'has lived for me since the first instant I discovered him in the pages of the novel.' "[5] In the book, Carton and Darnay are supposed to be as alike as twins. According to TCM, Selznick wanted Colman to play both roles, but Colman refused because of his experience with The Masquerader (1933). Selznick later commented, "I am glad now that he held out for that, because I think a great deal of the illusion of the picture might have been lost had Colman rescued Colman and had Colman gone to the guillotine so that Colman could go away with Lucie." In 1937, Colman did play a dual role for Selznick in The Prisoner of Zenda.[2] Judith Anderson, May Robson, Emily Fitzroy and Lucille LaVerne all tested for Madame De Farge. LaVerne's portrayal in another role, as "The Vengeance", inspired the character of the Evil Queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: She provided the voices for both the Queen and the hag. Blanche Yurka, a noted Broadway actress at the time, made her film debut playing Madame De Farge.[2] Reception Andre Sennwald wrote in The New York Times of December 26, 1935: "Having given us 'David Copperfield', Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer now heaps up more Dickensian magic with a prodigally stirring production of 'A Tale of Two Cities' ... For more than two hours it crowds the screen with beauty and excitement, sparing nothing in its recital of the Englishmen who were caught up in the blood and terror of the French Revolution ... The drama achieves a crisis of extraordinary effectiveness at the guillotine, leaving the audience quivering under its emotional sledge-hammer blows ... Ronald Colman gives his ablest performance in years as Sydney Carton and a score of excellent players are at their best in it ... Only Donald Woods's Darnay is inferior, an unpleasant study in juvenile virtue. It struck me, too, that Blanche Yurka was guilty of tearing an emotion to tatters in the rôle of Madame De Farge ... you can be sure that 'A Tale of Two Cities' will cause a vast rearranging of ten-best lists."[6] The Marquis St. Evrémonde was nominated for the 2003 American Film Institute list AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains.[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities_(1935_film)

Assunta Spina is a 1915 Italian silent film. Outside Italy, it is sometimes known as Sangue Napolitano ("Neapolitan Blood"). Plot Assunta Spina is a laundress living in Naples, engaged to a violent butcher named Michele Mangiafuoco. She is also courted intensely by Raffaele. When she accepts Raffaele's offer to dance during an open air feast in Posillipo, as she feels Michele is ignoring her, tragedy strikes. Michele, blinded by rage, slashes her face and is subsequently arrested. During the trial she bears witness in order to rescue him, saying he never wounded her, but the jury does not believe her. She is enticed by the court vice-chancellor to strike a bargain—Michele will stay in the nearby prison of Naples instead of Avellino, and at the end of the punishment Michele will kill the vice-chancellor before Assunta's eyes. She must take responsibility for the act before the eyes of the police in order to save her man. Production The original novel from which the story was taken was written by Salvatore di Giacomo, and had been adapted to a successful theatre drama in 1909. Before Francesca Bertini became a famous actress, she would perform in this drama as a walk-on in the laundry scenes. Five years later, when she had started her career as a film actress, she and actor-director Gustavo Serena adapted the drama for film. Bertini is sometimes listed as co-director of the film. Bertini claimed with some support that she was the director of the film.[1] The film stock was colorized with 4 colors and distributed worldwide by Caesar Film.[citation needed] Cast Francesca Bertini - Assunta Spina[1] Gustavo Serena - Michele Boccadifuoco Carlo Benetti - Don Federigo Funelli Luciano Albertini - Raffaele Amelia Cipriani - Peppina Antonio Cruichi - Assunta's father Alberto Collo - Officer Alberto Albertini Legacy This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (December 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Francesca Bertini fully displayed her talent for the first time, introducing a new style of acting on the Italian silver screen.[1] Her performance is generally rated as extraordinary,[citation needed] and in polar opposition to the work of writer and dramatist Gabriele D'Annunzio, who was very popular at the time. Scene from Assunta Spina For example, the movie Cabiria by Giovanni Pastrone (1914)—one of the first known films where a camera moves through scenes while filming—was once considered a masterpiece at least in part because D'Annunzio had written the captions, but to modern moviegoers they seem excessively emphatic and redundant. The same can be said of the marked gestures of many actors and actresses of the silent era. Bertini wanted to end this affected behavior, so she focused on realism. Her performances bear a closer resemblance to reality because of some acting devices: never look into the camera, use everyday gestures, and so on. This acting style also reduced the need for captions explaining the action. Other versions In 1930 the plot of Assunta Spina inspired a new film by Roberto Roberti. Another was produced in 1948, directed by Mario Mattoli, with Anna Magnani and Eduardo De Filippo as the protagonists.

The Coward is a 1915 American silent historical war drama film directed by Reginald Barker and produced by Thomas H. Ince. Ince also wrote the film's scenario with C. Gardner Sullivan, from a story Ince had bought from writer (and future director) Edward Sloman. The film stars Frank Keenan and Charles Ray.[2] John Gilbert also appears in an uncredited bit part.[3] A copy of The Coward is preserved at the Museum of Modern Art.[4] Plot Set during the American Civil War, Keenan stars as a Virginia colonel, with Charles Ray as his weak-willed son. The son is forced, at gunpoint, by his father to enlist in the Confederate States Army. He is terrified by the war and deserts during a battle. The film focuses on the son's struggle to overcome his cowardice. Cast Frank Keenan as Col. Jefferson Beverly Winslow Charles Ray as Frank Winslow Gertrude Claire as Mrs. Elizabeth Winslow Nick Cogley as a Negro Servant Charles K. French as a Confederate Commander Margaret Gibson as Amy Minnie Provost as Mammy John Gilbert as a Young Virginian (uncredited) Bob Kortman as a Union Officer (uncredited) Leo Willis as a Union Soldier (uncredited) Reception The Coward was both a critical and financial success and helped to launch Charles Ray's career.[3] Criticism Unusually at the time, the main character is not presented as a gallant Southerner who is eager to fight in the war.[5] The acting in this film was much more natural than earlier films, with cutting and camera angles helping the actor's use of facial expressions and pauses to convey dramatic tension.[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coward_(1915_film)

Martyrs of the Alamo (also known as The Birth of Texas) is a 1915 American historical war drama film written and directed by Christy Cabanne. The film is based on the historical novel of the same name by Theodosia Harris, and features an ensemble cast including Sam De Grasse, Douglas Fairbanks, Walter Long and Alfred Paget.[1] Fairbanks role was uncredited, and was his first role in film, although his first starring role, in The Lamb, was released prior to this picture.[2] The film features the siege of Béxar, the Battle of the Alamo, and the Battle of San Jacinto. While making claims to historical accuracy, the film depicts the Mexican population in San Antonio in 1836 as a group of ill-mannered drunks. One scene depicts a Mexican officer verbally assaulting a white woman and making advances on her. The white woman reports the incident to her husband, Almeron Dickinson, who in turn shoots the Mexican officer. In his book Remembering the Alamo, author Richard R. Flores, argues that the negative portrayal of the Mexican population is due to racism toward Mexicans in 1915, the year the film was produced.[3] A copy of the film is preserved at the Library of Congress.[1] Cast Sam De Grasse as Silent Smith (Deaf Smith) Allan Sears as David Crockett Walter Long as Santa Anna Alfred Paget as James Bowie Fred Burns as Almeron Dickinson John T. Dillon as Colonel Travis Douglas Fairbanks as Joe/Texan Soldier Juanita Hansen as Old Soldier's Daughter Ora Carew as Mrs. Dickinson Tom Wilson as Sam Houston Augustus Carney as Old Soldier

A Burlesque on Carmen is Charlie Chaplin's thirteenth film for Essanay Studios, originally released as Carmen on December 18, 1915. Chaplin played the leading man and Edna Purviance played Carmen. The film is a parody of Cecil B. DeMille's Carmen 1915, which was itself an interpretation of the popular novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée.[1] Chaplin's original version was a tightly paced two-reeler, but in 1916 after he had moved to Mutual, Essanay reworked the film into a four-reel version called A Burlesque on Carmen, or Charlie Chaplin's Burlesque on Carmen, adding discarded footage and new scenes involving a subplot about a gypsy character played by Ben Turpin.[1] This longer version was deeply flawed in pacing and continuity, and not representative of Chaplin's initial conception. Chaplin sued Essanay but failed to stop the distribution of the longer version; Essanay's tampering with this and other of his films contributed significantly to Chaplin's bitterness about his time there. The presence of Essanay's badly redone version is likely the reason that A Burlesque on Carmen is among the least known of Chaplin's early works. Historian Ted Okuda calls the two-reel original version the best film of Chaplin's Essanay period, but derides the longer version as the worst.[2] Further reissues followed, for instance a synchronized sound version in 1928 by Quality Amusement Corporation. It was re-edited from the 1916 Essanay reissue, with a newly shot introduction written by newspaper columnist Duke Bakrak. This version, with rewritten title cards, poor sequencing, and "fuzzy" in appearance from generation loss, can be found today on some budget home video releases.[1] Film preservationist David Shepard studied Chaplin's court transcripts and other evidence to more closely reproduce the original Chaplin cut.[2] This version was released on DVD by Image Entertainment in 1999[3] and has since been restored a second time in HD.[4] Background The story of Carmen was very popular in the 1910s, and two films under this title were released earlier in 1915. One was directed by Raoul Walsh, in which stage actress Theda Bara played Carmen, and the other by Cecil B. DeMille, in which the part was played by opera star Geraldine Farrar.[1] DeMille's film received positive reviews[5] but Chaplin thought it was ripe for parody. Synopsis 1916 advertisement Carmen, a gypsy seductress is sent to convince Darn Hosiery, the goofy officer in charge of guarding one of the entrances to the city of Sevilla, to allow a smuggling run. She first tries to bribe him but he takes the money and refused to let the smuggled goods in. She then invites him to Lillas Pastia's inn where she seduces him. After a fight at the tobacco factory where Carmen works, he has to arrest her but later lets her escape. At Lillas Pastia's inn, he kills an officer who is also in love with her and has to go into hiding and he joins the gang of smugglers. Carmen meets the famous toreador Escamillo and falls in love with him. She accompanies him to a bullfight but Darn Hosiery waits for her and when she tells him that she no longer loves him, he stabs her to death. But it is not for real, Chaplin shows that the knife was fake and both smile at the camera. Review In reviewing the four-reel version of this film that Essanay released in April 1916, four months after Chaplin's contract had expired with the studio, Julian Johnson of Photoplay panned the lengthy re-release of this comedy. Johnson declared, "In two reels this would be a characteristic Chaplin uproar. Four reels is watering the cream." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Burlesque_on_Carmen

Plane Crazy is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The cartoon, released by the Walt Disney Studios, was the first Mickey Mouse film produced, and was originally a silent film. It was given a test screening to a theater audience on May 15, 1928, and an executive from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer saw the film, but failed to pick up a distributor. Later that year, Disney released Mickey's first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie, which was an enormous success. Apart from that, Plane Crazy was released again as a sound cartoon on March 17, 1929.[1][2] It was the fourth Mickey film to be given a wide release after Steamboat Willie, The Gallopin' Gaucho and The Barn Dance (1929). Plot Mickey is trying to fly an airplane to imitate Charles Lindbergh. After building his own airplane, he does a flight simulation to ensure that the plane is safe for flight, but the flight fails, destroying the plane. Using a roadster and the remains of his plane to create another plane, he asks his girlfriend Minnie to join him for its first flight after she presents him with a horseshoe for good luck. They take an out-of-control flight with exaggerated, impossible situations. Clarabelle Cow briefly "rides" the aircraft.[4] Mickey uses a turkey's tail as a tail for his plane. Once he regains control of the plane, he repeatedly tries to kiss Minnie. When she refuses, he uses force: he breaks her concentration and terrifies her by throwing her out of the airplane, catching her with the airplane, and he uses this to kiss her. Minnie responds by slapping Mickey and parachutes out of the plane using her bloomers. While distracted by her, Mickey loses control of the plane and eventually crashes into a tree. Minnie then lands, and Mickey laughs at her exposed bloomers. Minnie then storms off, rebuffing him. Mickey then angrily throws the good luck horseshoe given to him by Minnie, and it boomerangs around a tree, hitting him, ringing around his neck, and knocking him out; this causes stars to fly out toward the screen, with one of the stars filling the screen up, ending the film.[5] Production The short was co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks was also the sole animator for this short and spent just two weeks working on it in a back room, at a rate of over 700 drawings a day.[6] It is also speculated Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising might have done work for the short as well.[7][8] The sound version contained a soundtrack by Carl W. Stalling, who recorded it on October 26, 1928, when he was hired, and a month before Steamboat Willie was released.[9] This was the first animated film to use a camera move. The point of view shot from the plane made it appear as if the camera was tracking into the ground.[10] In fact, when they shot this scene, they piled books under the spinning background to move the artwork closer to the camera.[citation needed] Reception The Film Daily (March 24, 1929): "Clever. Mickey Mouse does his animal antics in the latest mode via areoplane. [sic] The cartoonist has employed his usual ingenuity to extract a volume of laughs that are by no means confined to the juveniles. The sound effects are particularly appropriate on this type of film, and certainly add greatly to the comedy angle with the absurd squeaks, yawps and goofy noises."[11] Variety (April 3, 1929): "Walt Disney sound cartoon, produced by Powers Cinephone, one of the Mickey Mouse series of animated cartoons. It's a snappy six minutes, with plenty of nonsensical action and a fitting musical accompaniment. Constitutes an amusingly silly interlude for any wired house. Disney has derived some breezy situations, one or two of them a bit saucy but, considering the animal characters, permissible."[12] Home media The short was released on December 2, 2002 on Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White[13] and on December 11, 2007 on Walt Disney Treasures: The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.[14] Copyright and preservation status The silent version was copyrighted on May 26, 1928, eleven days after it was test screened.[15] The copyright for the silent version was renewed on March 14, 1956.[16] To this day, the silent version that premiered at the test screening has not been found by Disney. The sound version, however, is available. It was copyrighted on August 9, 1930 and was renewed on December 16, 1957,[17] however, the copyright of the film says 1929 (MCMXXIX). The sound version of the film will go in the public domain in 2025 in the United States according to current U.S. copyright law. Legacy In 1930, the story of Plane Crazy was adapted and used for the first story in the Mickey Mouse comic strip. This adaptation, entitled "Lost on a Desert Island," was written by Walt Disney with art by Ub Iwerks and Win Smith.[18] In the Mickey Mouse short The Nifty Nineties (1941), Mickey and Minnie's car runs out of control and runs into a cow. The scene was taken almost directly from Plane Crazy. The cartoon Mickey's Airplane Kit (1999) from the series Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse featured a similar premise in which Mickey built his own airplane to impress Minnie. In the feature film Walt Before Mickey, Plane Crazy was featured.[19] Plane Crazy plays in a continuous loop in the Main Street Cinema at Disneyland, albeit silently, next to Steamboat Willie.[20] The airplane, horseshoe, and "How to Fly" book are on display as props from Plane Crazy in the queue of the Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway attraction at Disneyland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_Crazy

The Circus is a 1928 silent romantic comedy film written, produced, and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film stars Chaplin, Al Ernest Garcia, Merna Kennedy, Harry Crocker, George Davis and Henry Bergman. The ringmaster of an impoverished circus hires Chaplin's Little Tramp as a clown, but discovers that he can only be funny unintentionally. The production of the film was the most difficult experience in Chaplin's career. Numerous problems and delays occurred, including a studio fire, the death of Chaplin's mother, as well as Chaplin's bitter divorce from his second wife Lita Grey, and the Internal Revenue Service's claims of Chaplin's owing back taxes, all of which culminated in filming being stalled for eight months.[2] The Circus was the seventh-highest grossing silent film in cinema history taking in more than $3.8 million in 1928.[1] The film continues to receive high praise. Plot At a circus midway, the penniless and hungry Tramp is mistaken for a pickpocket and chased by both the police and the real crook (the latter having stashed a stolen wallet and watch in the Tramp's pocket to avoid detection). Running away, the Tramp stumbles into the middle of a performance and unknowingly becomes the hit of the show. The ringmaster/proprietor of the struggling circus gives him a tryout the next day, but the Tramp fails miserably. However, when the property men quit because they have not been paid, he gets hired on the spot to take their place. Once again, he inadvertently creates comic mayhem during a show. The ringmaster craftily hires him as a poorly paid property man who is always stationed in the performance area of the big top tent so he can unknowingly improvise comic material. The Tramp befriends Merna, a horse rider who is treated badly by her ringmaster stepfather. She later informs the Tramp that he is the star of the show, forcing the ringmaster to pay him accordingly. With the circus thriving because of him, the Tramp also is able to secure better treatment for Merna. After overhearing a fortune teller inform Merna that she sees "love and marriage with a dark, handsome man who is near you now", the overjoyed Tramp buys a ring from another clown. Alas for him, she meets Rex, the newly hired tightrope walker. The Tramp eavesdrops as she rushes to tell the fortune teller that she has fallen in love with the new man. With his heart broken, the Tramp is unable to entertain the crowds. After several poor performances, the ringmaster warns him he has only one more chance. When Rex cannot be found for a performance, the ringmaster (knowing that the Tramp has been practicing the tightrope act in hopes of supplanting his rival) sends the Tramp out in his place. Despite a few mishaps, including several mischievous escaped monkeys, he manages to survive the experience and receives much applause from the audience. However, when he sees the ringmaster slapping Merna around afterward, he beats the man and is fired. Merna runs away to join him. The Tramp finds and brings Rex back with him to marry Merna. The trio go back to the circus. The ringmaster starts berating his stepdaughter, but stops when Rex informs him that she is his wife. When the traveling circus leaves, the Tramp remains behind. He picks himself up and starts walking jauntily away. Cast Charlie Chaplin as The Tramp Al Ernest Garcia as The Circus Proprietor and Ringmaster Merna Kennedy as The Ringmaster's Step-daughter, a Circus Rider Harry Crocker as Rex, a Tight Rope Walker (also a disgruntled property man and a clown) Henry Bergman as an Old Clown Tiny Sandford as The Head Property Man (as Stanley J. Sandford) John Rand as an Assistant Property Man (also a clown) George Davis as a Magician Steve Murphy as a Pickpocket Production Development Chaplin first began discussing his ideas for a film about a circus as early as 1920.[3] In late 1925, he returned from New York to California and began working on developing the film at Charlie Chaplin Studios. Set designer Danny Hall sketched out Chaplin's early ideas for the film, with Chaplin returning to one of his older films, The Vagabond (1916), and drawing upon similar story ideas and themes for The Circus.[4][5] Chaplin was a long time admirer of French comedian Max Linder, who had died in October 1925, and often borrowed gags and plot devices from Linder's films. Some critics have pointed out the similarities between The Circus and Linder's last completed film The King of the Circus.[6] Filming Filming began on January 11, 1926 and the majority was completed by November.[7][8] After the first month of filming, it was discovered that the film negative had been scratched; restoration work was able to eventually adjust the negative.[9] A major fire broke out at Chaplin's studios in September, delaying production for a month.[9][10] Chaplin was served with divorce papers by Lita Grey in December, and litigation delayed the release of the film for another year. Release The Circus finally premiered in New York City on January 6, 1928, at the Strand Theatre,[11] and in Los Angeles on January 27 at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre.[12] It came right at the beginning of the sound film era,[13] with the very first feature sound film, The Jazz Singer (1927), having been released just months earlier. Chaplin composed a new score for the film in 1967, and this new version of the film (see below) was copyrighted in 1968 to "The Roy Export Company Establishment" and released in 1969. Reception Advertisement from 1927 Motion Picture News The Circus was well received by audiences and critics, and while its performance at the box office was good, it earned less than The Gold Rush (1925).[14] Some critics consider it and The Gold Rush to be Chaplin's two best comedies.[15] In The New York Times, Mordaunt Hall reported that it was "likely to please intensely those who found something slightly wanting in The Gold Rush, but at the same time it will prove a little disappointing to those who reveled in the poetry, the pathos and fine humor of his previous adventure." Hall went on to write that there were passages "that are undoubtedly too long and others that are too extravagant for even this blend of humor. But Chaplin's unfailing imagination helps even when the sequence is obviously slipping from grace."[16] Variety ran a very positive review, stating that "For the picture patrons, all of them, and for broad, laughable fun - Chaplin's best. It's Charlie Chaplin's best fun maker for other reasons: because it is the best straightaway story he has employed for broad film making, and because here his fun stuff is nearly all entirely creative or original in the major point."[17] Commenting on the long wait for the film's release, Film Daily wrote that "it was worth it, for, if you are prone to favor superlatives here is an opportunity to coin several fresh ones" and that Chaplin was "as inimitable today as he was in the days of his two-reelers."[18] In The New Yorker, Oliver Claxton wrote that the film was "a little disappointing. There are one or two moments when it is very funny, but there are long stretches when it is either mild or dull."[19] Analysis Film historian Jeffrey Vance views The Circus as an autobiographical metaphor: He joins the circus and revolutionizes the cheap little knockabout comedy among the circus clowns, and becomes an enormous star. But by the end of the movie, the circus is packing up and moving on without him. Chaplin's left alone in the empty circus ring... It reminds me of Chaplin and his place in the world of the cinema. The show is moving on without him. He filmed that sequence four days after the release of The Jazz Singer (the first successful talkie) in New York. When he put a score to The Circus in 1928, Chaplin scored that sequence with "Blue Skies", the song Jolson had made famous, only Chaplin played it slowly and sorrowfully, like a funeral dirge.[20] In his commentary track for the Criterion Collection home video release of the film, Vance notes: Chaplin—a great cinema auteur—revealed his innermost feelings through his films. In The Circus, he fashioned a scenario that places The Tramp within the confines of a circus and, in so doing, documents, celebrates, and memorializes his own position as the greatest clown of his time. And, that accomplishment—beyond the wonderful comedy—ranks The Circus a major Chaplin film of considerable importance.[21] Musical rescoring In 1947, Hanns Eisler worked on music for the film. Eisler then used the music he composed for his Septet No. 2 ("Circus") for flute and piccolo, clarinet in B flat, bassoon, and string quartet. Eisler's sketch of scene sequences and rhythms is in the Hans Eisler Archive in Berlin.[22] In 1967, Chaplin composed a new musical score for the film and a recording of him singing "Swing Little Girl" playing over the opening credits.[23] A new version of the film opened in New York on December 15, 1969, with the new score.[24] It was released in London in December 1970.[25] Awards Charlie Chaplin was originally nominated for three Academy Awards, but the Academy took Chaplin out of the running by giving him a Special Award "for writing, acting, directing and producing The Circus."[25][26] The Academy no longer lists Chaplin's nominations in their official list of nominees, although most unofficial lists include him.[27] Academy Award Nominee Best Director, Comedy Picture Charlie Chaplin Best Actor Charlie Chaplin Best Writing (Original Story) Charlie Chaplin Preservation The Academy Film Archive preserved The Circus in 2002.[28] Home media The Circus was released on Blu-ray and DVD by the Criterion Collection in 2019, which include trailers of the film, archival footage from the production, and an audio commentary track by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance.[21] The film's copyright was renewed, so it will not go into the public domain until 2024.[29] Legacy The iconic image of the Tramp walking alone but jauntily into the distance that concluded several of Chaplin's earlier shorts, appears here for the first and only time in any of his feature-length film. (Modern Times had the Tramp with a companion.) The closing scene from The Circus is shown as the ending in both the 1992 biopic Chaplin and a 2021 documentary, The Real Charlie Chaplin.

Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!) is a 1980 American animated mystery comedy film produced by United Feature Syndicate and distributed by Paramount Pictures, directed by Bill Melendez and Phil Roman.[2] It was the fourth full-length feature film to be based on the Peanuts comic strip.[3] Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz wrote that he came up with the idea for the story while visiting the Manoir de Malvoisine in Le Héron, where he was stationed briefly as a soldier during World War II. The castle plays a large role in the film.[4] Paramount Home Entertainment released this film on VHS and Laserdisc in 1995 in 4:3 format, and released it to DVD (cropped to widescreen) on October 6, 2015.[5] The film was also released on Blu-ray for the first time on March 15, 2022 in the US.[6] Plot At Charlie Brown's school, Linus Van Pelt introduces to his class two French students, Babette and Jacques, who will be spending two weeks there in order to get accustomed to the United States. In exchange, Charlie Brown and Linus are chosen to go to France. Charlie Brown heads home and invites Snoopy and Woodstock to go with him. He gets a call from Peppermint Patty, who tells him that she and Marcie were also chosen to go to France as a student exchange. Charlie Brown also gets a letter from France, but cannot read it because it is written in French. He is not very positive about the trip because of the letter he got, but Marcie, who has been studying French, translates the letter, explaining that Charlie Brown has been invited to stay at a French chateau, the Château du Mal Voisin (House of the Bad Neighbor). Charlie Brown cannot understand why someone in France would invite him to their home, let alone know who he is. The group arrive first in London and head to Victoria Station, where they take the train to Dover. They ride across the English Channel from Dover to France via hovercraft. Then, they pick up a Citroën 2CV, which is driven by Snoopy (because the kids are too young to drive), although he grinds the gears out of it and causes a double fender bender when stopping to look for directions. Upon their arrival, the four go to their respective homes. Patty and Marcie go to stay at a farm in Morville-sur-Andelle, where they meet a boy named Pierre, who immediately attracts their attention. It is obvious that Marcie and Pierre have a spark between them – obvious to everyone except Patty, who manages to convince herself that Pierre likes her. Meanwhile, Charlie Brown, Linus, Snoopy, and Woodstock head to the chateau, which is actually owned by an unfriendly baron while his niece, Violette Honfleur, frequently leaves Charlie Brown and Linus food. Late one night, while Charlie Brown is asleep, a suspicious Linus investigates the chateau's attic and meets Violette. She explains to him that Charlie Brown's grandfather, Silas Brown, had served in the U.S. Army and helped them out during World War II. The baron returns home and Violette tries hiding Linus, but she drops her candle, starting a fire in the chateau's attic. Charlie Brown wakes up and hears Linus crying for help, and runs to get Peppermint Patty and Marcie and Pierre calls the fire department, while Snoopy and Woodstock get an old fashioned fire hose from a shed. Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Pierre rescue Linus and Violette, and Snoopy uses the hose to keep the fire under control until the fire department arrives to help. Thankful for the chateau's rescue, the baron has a change of heart and allows the gang inside, and Charlie Brown learns the truth behind the mysterious letter he received from Violette: one of the villagers toured the United States when he got a haircut from Charlie Brown's father, whereupon Violette was able to find Silas' grandson. Charlie Brown later wishes Violette and Pierre goodbye as he, Snoopy, Woodstock, Linus, Patty, and Marcie leave the chateau to see more of the French countryside, and eventually return home to the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Voyage,_Charlie_Brown_(and_Don%27t_Come_Back!!)

Victory Through Air Power is a 1943 American Technicolor animated documentary propaganda film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists on July 17, 1943. It is based on the 1942 book Victory Through Air Power by Alexander P. de Seversky. De Seversky appeared in the film, an unusual departure from the Disney animated feature films of the time.[1] Edward H. Plumb, Paul J. Smith and Oliver Wallace were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. Production Walt Disney read Victory through Air Power and felt that its message was so important that he personally financed the animated production of the book.[2] The film was primarily created to express Seversky's theories to government officials and the public. Movie critic Richard Schickel says that Disney "pushed the film out in a hurry, even setting aside his distrust of limited animation under the impulses of urgency" (the only obvious use of limited animation, however, is in diagrammatic illustrations of Seversky's talking points. These illustrations featured continuous flowing streams of iconic aircraft, forming bridges or shields, and munitions flowing along assembly lines). It was not until 1945 Disney was able to pay off his $1.2 million ($17m 2021) war film deficit. After Disney's main distributor at the time RKO Radio Pictures refused to release the film in theaters, Walt decided to have United Artists (the distributor of many of his shorts between 1932 and 1937) release it instead, making it the first and only Disney animated feature to be released by a different movie studio other than RKO or Walt Disney Studios. Reception On July 11, 1943, the New York Times devoted a half page, "Victory from the Air," to a feature consisting of pictures of scenes from the film with short captions. This was possibly the first time that such skilled use of visual description had been placed at the service of an abstract political argument. It is one thing to hear someone say that against modern bombers, 'bristling with armament ... small single-seater fighters will find themselves helpless, for their guns are not maneuverable—they are fixed and can only fire forward.' It is quite another to have this accompanied by vivid animations of swastika-tailed fighters jockeying for position and being shot down by beam-like animated blasts of fire from a bomber whose guns are "always in firing position." Schickel quotes film critic James Agee as hoping that: Major de Seversky and Walt Disney know what they are talking about, for I suspect that an awful lot of people who see Victory Through Air Power are going to think they do ... I had the feeling I was sold something under pretty high pressure, which I don't enjoy, and I am staggered at the ease with which such self-confidence, on matters of such importance, can be blared all over the nation, without cross-questioning. Impact A still from Victory Through Air Power, showing a rocket–bomb destroying a Nazi German U-boat pen On December 8, 1941, Disney studios were essentially converted into a propaganda machine for the United States government. While most World War II films were created for training purposes, films such as Victory Through Air Power were created to catch the attention of government officials and to build public morale among the U.S. and Allied powers.[3] Among the notables who decided after seeing the film that Seversky and Disney knew what they were talking about were Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.[4] Duration: 2 minutes and 11 seconds.2:11 Trailer for the film The Disney studio sent a print for them to view when they were attending the Quebec Conference. According to Leonard Maltin, "it changed FDR's way of thinking—he agreed that Seversky was right." Maltin also adds that "it was only after Roosevelt saw 'Victory Through Air Power' that our country made the commitment to long-range bombing", although that is incorrect as the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive had already begun on June 10, 1943, two months before Roosevelt saw the movie.[5] Roosevelt recognized that film was an effective way to teach and Disney could provide Washington with high quality information. The American people were becoming united and Disney was able to inform them of the situation without presenting excessive chaos, as cartoons often do. The animation was popular among soldiers and was superior to other documentary films and written instructions at the time.[6] The film played a significant role for the Disney Corporation because it was the true beginning of educational films.[3] The educational films would be, and still are, continually produced and used for the military, schools, and factory instruction. The company learned how to effectively communicate their ideas and efficiently produce the films while introducing the Disney characters to millions of people worldwide. Throughout the rest of the war, Disney characters effectively acted as ambassadors to the world. In addition to Victory Through Air Power, Disney produced Donald Gets Drafted, Education for Death, Der Fuehrer's Face, and various training films for the military, reusing animation from Victory Through Air Power in some of them.[7] One scene showed a fictional rocket bomb destroying a fortified German submarine pen. According to anecdote, this directly inspired the British to develop a real rocket bomb to attack targets that were heavily protected with thick concrete. Due to its origin, the weapon became known as the Disney bomb, and saw limited use before the war ended.[Note 1][8] In retrospect, some of Seversky's proposals were derided as impractical, such as operating a major long-range air bombardment campaign from the Aleutians, a series of islands reaching westward from Alaska, which is a remote area with a highly volatile climate that makes for dangerous flying conditions.[9] Home media After its release and re-release in 1943 and 1944, there was no theatrical release for 60 years, perhaps because it was seen as propaganda, or perhaps because it was deemed offensive to Germans and Japanese.[10] (It was, however, available in 16 mm prints and occasionally screened in film history retrospectives. Additionally, the introductory "history-of-aviation" scene was excerpted in various episodes of the Disney anthology series on TV).[11] In 2004, the film was released on DVD as part of the Walt Disney Treasures collection Walt Disney on the Front Lines. After the war, Disney's characters, especially Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, were enthusiastically received in Japan and Germany, where they remain immensely popular today.[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Through_Air_Power_(film)

Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor. Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring. Plot Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother. Directed by: Alan James, Ray Taylor Produced by: Nat Levine, J. Laurence Wickland (Associate) Written by: Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip) Music by: Harry Grey Cinematography: William Nobles, Edgar Lyons Edited by: Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney Distributed by: Republic Pictures Release date: February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial) Running time: 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial) Country: United States Language: English Starring cast Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk Lee Van Atta as Junior John Picorri as Dr Moloch Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1) Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1) Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson Supporting cast John Dilson as Ellery Brewster Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton Theodore Lorch as Paterno Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette (The Spider/ The Lame One) Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein Herbert Weber as Tony Martino Buddy Roosevelt as Burke George DeNormand as Flynn Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch - In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip. - Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead - There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tr...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Byrd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation 1915 The Birth of a Nation, originally called The Clansman,[5] is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play The Clansman. Griffith co-wrote the screenplay with Frank E. Woods and produced the film with Harry Aitken. The Birth of a Nation is a landmark of film history,[6][7] lauded for its technical virtuosity.[8] It was the first non-serial American 12-reel film ever made.[9] Its plot, part fiction and part history, chronicles the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth and the relationship of two families in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras over the course of several years—the pro-Union (Northern) Stonemans and the pro-Confederacy (Southern) Camerons. It was originally shown in two parts separated by an intermission, and it was the first American-made film to have a musical score for an orchestra. It pioneered closeups and fadeouts, and it includes a carefully staged battle sequence with hundreds of extras (another first) made to look like thousands.[10] It came with a 13-page Souvenir Program. It was the first motion picture to be screened inside the White House, viewed there by President Woodrow Wilson, his family, and members of his cabinet. The film was controversial even before its release, and it has remained so ever since; it has been called "the most controversial film ever made in the United States"[12]: 198  and "the most reprehensibly racist film in Hollywood history".[13] The film has been denounced for its racist depiction of African Americans.[8] The film portrays its black characters (many of whom are played by white actors in blackface) as unintelligent and sexually aggressive toward white women. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is portrayed as a heroic force, necessary to preserve American values, protect white women, and maintain white supremacy.[14][15] Popular among white audiences nationwide upon its release, the film's success was both a consequence of and a contributor to racial segregation throughout the U.S.[16] In response to the film's depictions of black people and Civil War history, African Americans across the U.S. organized and protested. In Boston and other localities, black leaders and the NAACP spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign to have it banned on the basis that it inflamed racial tensions and could incite violence.[17] Griffith's indignation at efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him to produce Intolerance the following year.[18] In spite of its divisiveness, The Birth of a Nation was a huge commercial success across the nation—grossing more than any previous motion picture—and it profoundly influenced both the film industry and American culture. The film has been acknowledged as an inspiration for the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, which took place only a few months after its release. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor. Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring. Plot Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother. Directed by: Alan James, Ray Taylor Produced by: Nat Levine, J. Laurence Wickland (Associate) Written by: Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip) Music by: Harry Grey Cinematography: William Nobles, Edgar Lyons Edited by: Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney Distributed by: Republic Pictures Release date: February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial) Running time: 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial) Country: United States Language: English Starring cast Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk Lee Van Atta as Junior John Picorri as Dr Moloch Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1) Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1) Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson Supporting cast John Dilson as Ellery Brewster Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton Theodore Lorch as Paterno Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette (The Spider/ The Lame One) Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein Herbert Weber as Tony Martino Buddy Roosevelt as Burke George DeNormand as Flynn Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch - In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip. - Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead - There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tr...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Byrd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...

Pool Sharks (also sometimes known as The Pool Shark) is a 1915 silent short film. The film is notable for being the film acting and writing debut of W. C. Fields and also features early instances of stop-motion animation during a game of pool. Plot summary Following a standard style of the era, the film is a romantic slapstick comedy short. Fields and his rival (played by Bud Ross) vie over the affections of a woman (played by Marian West). When their antics get out of hand at a picnic, it is decided that they should play a game of pool. Both of them are pool sharks, and after the game turns into a farce, a fight ensues. Fields throws a ball at his rival, who ducks. The ball flies through the window and breaks a hanging goldfish bowl, soaking the woman they are fighting over and leaving goldfish in her hair. She storms into the pool hall and rejects both men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_Sharks

Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island (1936) is a Republic movie serial starring Ray Mala. It was the fourth of the 66 serials produced by Republic and the last (of four) to be released in 1936. Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island is notable for being the first Republic serial to contain another common aspect of serials—a Re-Cap Chapter, similar to a clipshow in modern television, whereby the events of the previous chapters are repeated via clips (in order to save money). Contrary to popular belief, this was not the invention of the concept, which had been routinely used in serial production before the release of this serial. The serial was edited into the film Robinson Crusoe of Mystery Island, which was released in 1966. Plot Agent Mala, an intelligence operative, investigates sabotage on the remote Clipper Island. A gang of spies causes the eruption of a volcano, for which Mala is blamed. He convinces the native Princess Melani of his innocence and helps her ward off a takeover by rival high priest and spy collaborator Porotu and discover the identity of spy ringleader H.K. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_of_Clipper_Island

Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor. Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring. Plot Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother. Directed by: Alan James, Ray Taylor Produced by: Nat Levine, J. Laurence Wickland (Associate) Written by: Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip) Music by: Harry Grey Cinematography: William Nobles, Edgar Lyons Edited by: Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney Distributed by: Republic Pictures Release date: February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial) Running time: 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial) Country: United States Language: English Starring cast Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk Lee Van Atta as Junior John Picorri as Dr Moloch Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1) Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1) Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson Supporting cast John Dilson as Ellery Brewster Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton Theodore Lorch as Paterno Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette (The Spider/ The Lame One) Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein Herbert Weber as Tony Martino Buddy Roosevelt as Burke George DeNormand as Flynn Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch - In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip. - Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead - There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tr...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Byrd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...

Digital copy of the documentary Het Groote Mekka-Feest (The Great Mecca Feast) shot in 1928 by the Dutch East Indian filmmaker George E.A. Krugers (1890-1964), who lived in Bandung, Java. The film covers the pilgrimage to Mecca from Java and back, including the sea voyage on board SS Madioen. The film is 72 minutes long, consists of four reels and was shot in the traditional 24 by 36 mm format. Krugers shot the scenes with a large and heavy but portable Bell & Howell (B&H) film camera. They are the oldest moving images of the Arabian Peninsula. The film was released in 1928.Original nitrate reels of the film are preserved in Museum Beeld & Geluid, Hilversum, and EYE, Amsterdam.

Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black and white by Walt Disney Studios and was released by Pat Powers, under the name of Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, although both characters appeared several months earlier in a test screening of Plane Crazy. Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, but it was the first to be distributed, because Disney, having seen The Jazz Singer, had committed himself to produce one of the first fully synchronized sound cartoons. Steamboat Willie is especially notable for being one of the first cartoons with synchronized sound, as well as one of the first cartoons to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack, which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons, such as Inkwell Studios' Song Car-Tunes (1924–1926) and Van Beuren Studios' Dinner Time (1928). Disney believed that synchronized sound was the future of film. Steamboat Willie became the most popular cartoon of its day. Music for Steamboat Willie was arranged by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis, and it included the songs "Steamboat Bill", a composition popularized by baritone Arthur Collins during the 1910s, and "Turkey in the Straw", a composition popularized within minstrelsy during the 19th century. The title of the film may be a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928),[1] itself a reference to the song by Collins. Disney performed all of the voices in the film, although there is little intelligible dialogue.[b] The film has received wide critical acclaim, not only for introducing one of the world's most popular cartoon characters but also for its technical innovation. In 1994, members of the animation field voted Steamboat Willie 13th in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, which listed the greatest cartoons of all time.[2] As a work published in 1928, the cartoon will enter the public domain on January 1st, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat_Willie https://www.disney.com

Africa Screams From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Africa Screams Original theatrical release lobby card Directed by Charles Barton Written by Earl Baldwin Screenplay by Martin Ragaway Leonard B. Stern Produced by Huntington Hartford Edward Nassour Starring Bud Abbott Lou Costello Clyde Beatty Frank Buck Max Baer Buddy Baer Shemp Howard Joe Besser Cinematography Charles Van Enger Edited by Frank Gross Music by Walter Schumann Production companies Huntington Hartford Productions Nassour Studios Distributed by United Artists Release dates May 4, 1949 (New York City, New York) May 27, 1949 (United States) Running time 79 minutes Country United States Language English Budget $500,000[1] Box office $1.5 million[2] 1:18:56 The film before restoration Africa Screams is a 1949 American adventure comedy film starring Abbott and Costello and directed by Charles Barton that parodies the safari genre. The title is a play on the title of the 1930 documentary Africa Speaks! The supporting cast features Clyde Beatty, Frank Buck, Hillary Brooke, Max Baer, Buddy Baer, Shemp Howard and Joe Besser. The film entered the public domain in 1977. Plot Diana Emerson visits the book section of Klopper's department store seeking the book Dark Safari by the famed explorer Cuddleford. She tells the clerk, Buzz Johnson, that she will pay $2,500 for a map that is inside the book. Buzz's friend and coworker Stanley Livington, an armchair explorer, has read the book and says that he is familiar with a map within it. Buzz brings Stanley to Diana's home to draw the map, but when he overhears Diana offer Clyde Beatty $20,000 to lead an expedition to capture a legendary giant ape, Buzz realizes that the map is worth considerably more. Buzz negotiates for more money and for he and Stanley to join the safari. They travel to the Congo with Diana's team of explorers, including Harry "Boots" Wilson, Grappler McCoy and Gunner, a nearsighted professional hunter. When he learns that the expedition's true goal is not the giant ape but a fortune in diamonds, Buzz renegotiates their deal. However, the map in the book with which Stanley is familiar is one that he had drawn to plot the route to his job at Klopper's. However, Stanley's memory of the book's details bring the party to the region Diana in which is interested. There they run across famed animal collector Frank Buck. A cannibal tribe sets a trail of diamonds to lure and capture Buzz and Stanley. The boys are rescued by a grateful gorilla whom Stanley had inadvertently rescued from one of Frank Buck's traps. The cannibal chief offers Diana diamonds in exchange for Stanley, but Stanley flees while Buzz recovers the diamonds and hides them. While pursuing Stanley, the expeditionary team and the cannibals are frightened away by the giant ape whose existence had been dismissed as myth. The friendly gorilla recovers the diamonds before Buzz can do so. Distraught over the loss of his treasure, Buzz abandons Stanley in the jungle. Some time later, back in the United States, Stanley appears prosperous and owns his own skyscraper, and Buzz works as the elevator operator. Stanley's partner is the gorilla who had recovered the diamonds.[1] Cast Bud Abbott as Buzz Johnson Lou Costello as Stanley Livington Clyde Beatty as himself Frank Buck as himself Max Baer as Grappler McCoy Buddy Baer as Boots Wilson Hillary Brooke as Diana Emerson Shemp Howard as Gunner Joe Besser as Harry Burton Wenland as Bobo Charles Gemora as The Ape Production and history Africa Screams was filmed from November 10 through December 22, 1948 at the Nassour Studios in Los Angeles.[1] The film was produced by Edward Nassour and A&P heir Huntington Hartford. It was the second of Abbott and Costello's independently financed productions while they were under contract to Universal. It was released by United Artists.[1] Abbott and Costello surrounded themselves with family and friends, and the picture ran over budget. Nassour was so distressed that a running joke on the set was that the film should be retitled "Nassour Screams".[1] Clyde Beatty provided his own animals for the film.[3] The affectionate gorilla pursuing Costello was originally scripted as a female. However, the Breen Office censors who enforced the Motion Picture Production Code demanded that the gorilla's gender be changed to avoid suggestions of bestiality.[1] Africa Screams was Abbott and Costello's first production with Hillary Brooke and Joe Besser, both of whom would later become part of the ensemble cast of the television series The Abbott and Costello Show.[1] The film also marked the only time that Besser and Shemp Howard appeared together in a film; Besser would replace Howard as one of the Three Stooges following Howard's death in 1955.[1] The film was purchased in 1953 by Robert Haggiag, an independent distributor in New York. Haggiag failed to renew the copyright because he had lost interest in the film, and it fell into the public domain in 1977. Author and film historian Bob Furmanek contacted Haggiag in the late 1980s and obtained the original nitrate stock. Most of the original camera negative had decomposed, but the nitrate fine grain was still serviceable and Furmanek transferred it to 35mm for preservation.[4] Home media This film is in the public domain and has been released multiple times on VHS and DVD by several companies. Bob Furmanek launched a Kickstarter project to raise funds to restore the film on Blu-ray on December 1, 2019 and reached his original $7,500 goal in about 29 hours. The Blu-ray version was released in June 2020.[5] Historical references This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The main character's name of Stanley Livington suggests the surnames of British explorers Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone, who had a famous meeting in 1871. It is not known whether the change from Livingstone to Livington is the result of a typographical error or a deliberate change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa_Screams#Cast