HC/SWCD Libraries: Performing Arts: Early Film

Genres

Film Noir: Topic
Genre of dark, cynical crime film.
Musical: Topic
20th-century form of dramatic musical performance, combining elements of song, dance, and the spoken word, often characterized by lavish staging and large casts.

Directors

Frank Capra (1897-1991): Topic
Film director. Earned Oscars for It Happened One Night (1934), Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and You Can’t Take It With You (1938); also made It’s A Wonderful Life (1947).
Walt Disney (1901-1966): Topic
US film producer, animator, and pioneer of family entertainment. Disney created many world-famous cartoon characters, including Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, made phenomenally successful feature-length animated films, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
Howard Hawks (1896-1977): Topic
Film director, screenwriter, and producer of a broad spectrum of genres, from gangster films (Scarface, 1932) and Westerns (Red River, 1948) to screwball comedies (Bringing Up Baby, 1938) and musicals (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953).
Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980): Topic
English-American film director, writer, and producer. In his suspense thrillers, Hitchcock unsettled audiences both through the use of intense set pieces and the suggestion that normality as usually defined masks humanity's true and much darker nature.
John Huston (1906-1987): Topic
Film director, screenwriter, and actor. His masterpiece was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1947), for which he won Academy Awards for best director and best screenplay.
Elia Kazan (1909-2003): Topic
Stage and film director. He won two Academy Awards as best director for Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) and On the Waterfront (1954).
Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003): Topic
Notorious for having made the Nazi propaganda movie Triumph of the Will (1935).

Producers

Samuel Goldwyn (1882-1974): Topic
US film producer. He founded the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation in 1917, which merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1924, although he was not part of the deal.
Louis B. Mayer (1885-1957)
From The Reader's Companion to American History
Motion picture producer.
Studio System
From Encyclopedia of American Studies
The studio system was a key feature of Hollywood moviemaking in the period between about 1920 and 1954.
Warner Brothers
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
American movie studio executives and producers. Sons of poor E European Jewish immigrants, the brothers were Harry Morris (1881-1958), Albert (1884-1967), Samuel Louis (1887-1927), all b. Poland, and Jack Leonard (1892-1978), b. London, Ontario, Canada

Darryl Zanuck (1902-1979): Topic
Of all the movie magnates he was probably the most involved with his studio's products, taking an active part in creative and editorial processes.

Actors

Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968)
From The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography
American actress. She was born in Huntsville, Alabama, and her uninhibited, rather disreputable public persona belied her staid establishment origins.

Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982): Topic
Bergman is best known for her performances in Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s – most famously Casablanca (1942), in which she starred opposite Humphrey Bogart.

Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957)
From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
He created an indelible and enduring screen persona of the lone wolf; cynical but heroic, abrasive, romantic and stubbornly faithful to his own code of ethics.

Marlon Brando (1924-2004): Topic

Film and stage actor, born in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. A product of the New York Actors’ Studio, he made his debut in 1943, and appeared in several plays before achieving fame in A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).

Joan Crawford (1908-1977): Topic
Appeared in several “working-girl-makes-good-but-doesn't-necessarily-achieve-happiness” roles which were extremely popular with audiences and earned Crawford a place among the most popular actors of the 1930s.

Bette Davis (1908-1989): Topic
Film actress, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, USA.

Doris Day (1924-2019): Topic
Singer and actress. Her singing was sweet, smooth, and intimate, and because she looked like everyone’s ideal ‘girl next door’, she was soon making light romantic comedies (39 films in all).

Henry Fonda (1905-1982): Topic
Film and stage actor. His film debut in The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935) led to more than 100 screen appearances, culminating with his Oscar-winning role in On Golden Pond (1981).

Judy Garland (1922-1969): Topic

A Hollywood legend, Judy Garland achieved the status of superstar before dependence on drugs and alcohol prematurely ended her life. Her portrayal of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1938) made her an international star.

Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993): Topic
Audrey Hepburn was internationally famous for her elegance and beauty as well as for her elfin charm; her most memorable roles include the call girl Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964).

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003)
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
US actor. An acclaimed actor of the classical Hollywood era, Hepburn won four Academy Awards and was nominated on 12 separate occasions. Feisty self-assurance was her trademark in both comic and dramatic roles. Hepburn was named the top female screen legend in an American Film Institute poll in 1999.

Carole Lombard (1908-1942): Topic
Carole Lombard was one of the best comedic talents of the 1930s and held the unofficial title of “screwball comedy queen."

Marx Brothers: Topic
Comedy team, all born in New York City, New York, USA. The three most prominent were Chico (b. Leonard) (1886–1961); Harpo (b. Adolph, but known as Arthur) (1888–1964); and Groucho (b. Julius Henry) (1890–1977).

James Mason (1909-1984): Topic
Actor, born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, N England, UK. He became one of the most prolific, distinguished, and reliable of cinema actors.

Robert Mitchum (1917-1997): Topic
US film actor. Mitchum's hard-boiled performances in a series of war films, melodramas, films noirs, and Westerns of the 1940s and early 1950s established him firmly in the pantheon of Hollywood's leading male performers.

Donald Pleasence (1919-1995): Topic
English character actor.

George Scott (1927-1999): Topic
Stage and film actor, born in Wise, Virginia, USA.

James Stewart (1908-1997): Topic
US film actor. His films included Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), for which he won an Academy Award, and It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

Mae West (1893-1980): Topic
Mae West raised the spirits of cinemagoers during the Depression of the 1930s with her unique blend of comedy and sexuality.