John Huston was born in Nevada, Missouri, in 1906. Son of the actor Walter Houston, John survived a sickly youth (enlarged heart and kidney problems) to become a professional boxer and rise to the top rank in California only to have his career ended in 1921 by a badly broken nose during a fight. Huston them dabbled in painting, horseback riding, opera and finally began to follow in his father's footsteps by accepting minor acting roles in off-Broadway productions.
A career detour to Mexico found Huston teaching horsemanship and becoming an honorary member of the Mexican cavalry. On the side he began writing and authored a play called "Frankie and Johnny". It quickly sold. This encouraged him and soon he was back in California working as a script editor for Samuel Goldwyn Productions. After a number of personal misadventures, he then went to work for Warner Brothers Studio as a script writer, co-authoring scripts for a number of major pictures including Sergeant York. The success of this film and an Academy Award nomination provided leverage for Huston to request and get a chance to direct a film on the condition that his next script become a hit. With that incentive he wrote High Sierra which became a resounding success under the direction of Raoul Walsh and made a star of the little know actor (at that time), Humphrey Bogart.
In his directorial debut in 1941, Huston work on a Dashiell Hammett detective story, The Maltese Falcon. This was a risk as two previous movie versions of this novel had been box office failures, so Warner was taking a gamble on Huston's ability to avoid the problems that plagued the previous versions. The bet paid off with Huston sticking close to the novel, keeping much of the dialogue, tightly...
... middle of paper ...
...nations. His films were visually magnetic, tight and directed economically in such a way that little was ever left on the cutting room floor. John Houston left us with a rich heritage of films that will continue to entertain for generations to come.
Works Cited
"John Huston--Biography." IMDb. IMDb.com, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001379/bio, Web. 21 June 2014.
"John Huston." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huston, 07 June 2014. Web. 22 June 2014.
"John Huston." TCM. TCM.com, http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/510041%7C86038/John-Huston/ Web. 21 June 2014.
"The African Queen (film)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_African_Queen, 07 June 2014. Web. 22 June 2014.
"The Maltese Falcon (1941 Film)." TCM. TCM.com, http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/510291%7C86058/Maltese-Falcon/ Web. 21 June 2014
born in 1894. He wrote the play in 1945 and set it in 1912 because he
With his popularity rising, Frank Capra utilized his movie techniques to create films that dealt with the Great Depression and films that could empathize with the American people. Capra tried to instill his own ideas into his films that successfully swayed his viewers with thematic issues of faith and patriotism. His movies displayed many aspects of the American Dream, that can be traced back to his origins as a poor boy, to his future as a famous film director. This in part influenced the public as they watched as dreams do come true in his captivating motion pictures. People of today still remember Capra by rewatching his famous films such as the...
Orson Wells’ film Citizen Kane received terrific reviews as soon as it opened in 1941. While the average movie buff would not value Citizen Kane as much, for the critics, directors and film students: it provides a technical handbook as to the nuts and bolts of how a film is to be assembled. It has now been chosen as the greatest American film in a number of polls due to the many remarkable scenes and performances, cinematic and narrative techniques and experimental innovations in photography, editing and sound.
John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California (Winters). After he graduated from high school, he enrolled at Stanford University, but was never able to complete his degree so in 1925, he moved to New York City looking for work (Winters). He eventually grew
Director John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), one of the first film noirs ever made, tells the story of the hard-boiled detective Sam Spade when he takes on a case brought by a beautiful but mysterious woman, Miss Wonderly. As he becomes involved in a complex entanglement filled with crime and deception, troubles arise not only when Spade’s partner, Miles Archer, is shot to death but also when he is confronted by a man who requests his help to find a valuable statuette known as the Maltese Falcon. In creating this film, Huston incorporated a number of different styles and elements that would later become hallmarks of film noirs. Among many others elements used in the
He was born and raised in Modesto, California, the same state that Hollywood or Los angeles is in where most movies are made. He must have had some influence from the movies made there to get
Cleopatra. Dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison. Twentieth Century Fox Productions, 1963.
John Evans was born on November 4th, 1946 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Ellis and Dorothy Evans. Ellis was an educator and a principle at both the junior high and the high school John attended. Dorothy ran a newspaper for five years before she got married and became a housewife after marriage. His family moved around quite a few times, but settled in Merrill, Wisconsin once he began attending Lincoln elementary school. Throughout elementary school, he was a bit of a troublemaker, and recalled one
John Wayne Gacy was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 17 1942. Gacy had an uneventful childhood up until the age of eleven. While out playing he had been struck on the head by a swing. Subsequently he suffered fainting fits for many years.
John Ford. Dear Reader, what more can one say about the man, the myth, the legend of an artist and director? When naming the great classic movie moguls from the experimental days of cinematography, John Ford is one of the towering giants who changed movie making forever! Often, film students compare Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford neck to neck, and Alfred is usually given the title of “Best Director Of All Time’”. Oh, but what a mistake! Hitchcock is great in his own right, but John Ford brings so much style and pioneering creativity to the round table of movie experts. “why ?” one might ask, “why are you so adamant on the title of BDOAT belongs to Ford??’’ Ah my Dear Reader, patience and I will explain everything and soon, you too will
For someone who completed just three big feature films in his brief career, the effect of James Dean on popular culture is truly remarkable. It is not just the films themselves, but the persona and the magnetism that James Dean exhibited that attracts such fascination and admiration. James Dean's performances hint at so much more. His reaction to the world around him seems to sum up how so many young people around the world relate to their lives.
David Leavitt was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 1961, the son of Harold Jack Leavitt and Gloria Rosenthal Leavitt. David was raised in Palo Alto, California after his family moved there. David also had 2 other siblings, a brother, John, and a sister, Emily. (David Leavitt Biography, 2015) The early years of his life were a bit nomadic. The family had to move frequently, following the course of his father’s career. His father, Harold, taught at Rensselear, then at the University of Chicago. It was in Chicago that his brother and sister were born. Afterwards the family then moved to Pittsburgh so his father could teach at Carnegie-Mellon. David was born here in 1961. When David was a toddler about 4 or 5 years old, his father Harold, then took a position at the Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. (Leavitt, n.d.) It was in Palo Alto where David spent most of his childhood.
According to the directors commentary of the movie, Robert Zemeckis admits that the story was Tom Hanks idea. Hanks hired the writer William Broyles Jr. and they worked together on the script. Approximately five years later the film went into production (Cast Away). Since he was part of the initial development of the film, the main character, Chuck Noland, was written with Hanks in mind. Indeed, after seeing his sincere and confident performance, it is hard to imagine anyone else playing the role. In pr...
Through materialism, Kane became a self-invested individual. The highly acclaimed Citizen Kane creates drama and suspense for the viewer. Orson Welles designed this film to enhance the viewer’s opinion about light and darkness, staging, proxemics, personal theme development, and materialism. Creating one of the most astounding films in the cinematography world, Welles conveys many stylistic features as well as fundamentals of cinematography. It is an amazing film and will have an everlasting impact on the world of film.
despite him being my favorite director and I just watched it few weeks ago. By watching that film you can see his unique style and the technique he used to shot that film which is amazing.