View allAll Photos Tagged whodunnit
Jordan Voudouris, a father and stepfather of four, moved to Paeroa from Auckland in 2004 to set up "Mykonos Pizza and Pasta" on Belmont Rd.
He was shot dead at the back of his pizza shop, 18 June 2012.
To date, the case remains unsolved [www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/104788781/killer-of-pizza-...].
As is typical in any small community, theories abound...as is evidenced by this building in Corbett St.
==========
On 15 July 2019, Jordan's shop - renamed "Pizza Box" - was gutted by fire. Police said initial enquiries indicated no connection to the murder of Jordan Voudouris.
21 January 2013. Murder in the Library: An A-Z of Crime Fiction. A free exhibition in the Folio Society Gallery at the British Library, St. Pancras, London, England, UK.
A Year in Pictures image 21 of 365.
Hammett had a mexican switchblade and he was swingin' around while swiggin' on some weird tequila with a scorpion floating in it. I was scared straight. But then Kerry King came in and he was wearing a vest made entirely out of living scorpions. I was like, "nu-unh." and I knew right away, reality tv or a breast cancer survivor's group, this was intense. I burped three times, and this yuppie lesbo gave me a dirty look, and I said, "lot's of bitches are jealous of man's ability to burp, and no man is jealous he can't lactate." That was it, the lesbo was on me, like a puma on a crippled baby deer. She sunk her liberal fangs in my throat and I was puking up last year's blood. gangster. Oh yeah, the clouds were lookin' creepy and lecherous all day, like a bad ginsberg poem recited by a phillipino nun with three teeth. I'm serious.
I kept hearing somebody with a bad muffler cruising around our neighborhood just before midnight and then saw a truck make several whodunnits in our cul-de-sac. I headed up the drive to mainly to be seen as a crazy ol' fool best left alone when I saw a second car pull up behind the noisy one. My first thought was, "oh crap, there's 2 of them" when the red & blue lights came on and the deputy blipped their siren. Next thing I see from my hilltop perch is the noisy-ass truck leaving for good. Thank you, deputy!
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 756. Photo: London Films.
Balding and highly distinguished Roland Young (1887-1953) was an American film and theatre actor of British origin. He was best known for the role of Cosmo Topper in the three Topper film comedies.
Roland Young was born in 1887 in London, England. He was the son of an architect. Young enjoyed his school education at Sherborne College and later at London University. He decided to become an actor. Young acquired the necessary skills at the renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). In 1908, at the age of 21, Young appeared on stage in London for the first time in 'Find the Woman'. Four years later, he made his Broadway debut in 'Hindle Wakes' (1912). Until the mid-1910s, Young was still taking on engagements in England, which meant that he alternated between New York and London. Young became an American citizen in 1918 and then served briefly on the American side as a soldier in the First World War. In 1921, he married his first wife, Marjorie Kummer, to whom he remained married until 1940. Young made his debut as a film actor as Doctor Watson in Sherlock Holmes (Albert Parker, 1922), alongside John Barrymore as Holmes and Gustav von Seyffertitz as Moriarty. On Broadway, Young performed equally well in droll farces and classic drama. His standout credits included productions of 'Hedda Gabler' (1923) and 'The Last of Mrs. Cheyney' (1927). He signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and made his talkie debut in the murder mystery The Unholy Night (Lionel Barrymore, 1929) with Ernest Torrence and Boris Karloff. He was loaned to Warner Bros. to appear in the drama Her Private Life (Alexander Korda, 1929), with Billie Dove and to Fox, winning critical approval for his comedic performance as Jeanette MacDonald's husband in Don't Bet on Women (William K. Howard, 1931). He was again paired with MacDonald in the romantic comedy Annabelle's Affairs (Alfred L. Werker, 1931). He appeared in Cecil B. de Mille's Western The Squaw Man (1931), and played opposite Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in The Guardsman (Sidney Franklin, 1931). His final film under his MGM contract was Lovers Courageous (Robert Z. Leonard, 1932), opposite Robert Montgomery. He had a starring role in a risqué comedy for Fox entitled Pleasure Cruise (Frank Tuttle, 1933) alongside Genevieve Tobin.
Roland Young's roles were mostly limited to British characters, in which he embodied the stereotypical image of the aristocratic Englishman. He appeared with Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin and Maurice Chevalier in One Hour With You (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932). Alexander Korda invited him to return to Britain to make his British film debut in Wedding Rehearsal (1932). His best-known film was the screwball classic Topper (Norman Z. McLeod, 1937). Young played the bourgeois bank manager Cosmo Topper, whose orderly life is shaken up by the ghosts of his clients, Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. It was one of the most successful films of the year, and Young received an Oscar nomination for his role in the Best Supporting Actor category in 1938. He also starred in the sequels, Topper Takes a Trip (Norman Z. McLeod, 1938) and Topper Returns (Roy Del Ruth, 1941). Young is also known for his role as the villain Uriah Heep in the Charles Dickens adaptation David Copperfield (George Cukor, 1935) and for the British fantasy film The Man Who Would Change the World (Lothar Mendes, 1936) based on a short story by H.G. Wells. He often played eccentric characters, such as the inebriated Earl of Burnstead, who loses his valet Charles Laughton in a poker game, in Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935) or the rich uncle of Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940). He continued working steadily through the 1940s, playing small roles opposite some of Hollywood's leading actresses, such as Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Paulette Goddard and Greta Garbo in her final film, Two-Faced Woman (George Cukor, 1941). In 1945, he began his radio show and appeared in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's classic whodunnit And Then There Were None (René Clair, 1945). By the end of the decade, his film career had declined, and his final films, including The Great Lover (Alexander Hall, 1949), in which he played a murderer opposite Bob Hope, and Fred Astaire's Let's Dance (Norman Z. MacLeod, 1950), were not successful. Roland Young found his second wife, Dorothy Patience May DuCroz, in 1948, with whom he spent the last years of his life. Roland Young had no children. In 1953, he died in New York of natural causes at the age of 65. He was honoured with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his film and television work.
Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Led by the University of Buckingham, this event series included workshops and events around Dickens’s last unfinished novel, ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’. These events contributed to an ogoing international project which explores this unfinished work through a reading group and blog developed from a digital re-release of Dickens's original monthly instalments, becoming a crowd-sourced whodunnit inquiry into which character the public believe committed the murder of Edwin Drood.
Illustration by Alys Jones | Part 3 of The Drood Enquiry
Photo of Ideal's Electronic Detective game, taken from TV Cream Toys www.tvcreamtoys.co.uk - more photos, plus write ups, at the web site.
'POLICE INNER CORDON DO NOT CROSS'. An old crime scene in local woodlands. What, when, and whodunnit unknown.
"Nobody rests
This one constantly shifts his eyes
Hangs them on his head
And whether he wants it or not starts walking
backwards
He puts them on the soles of his feet
And whether he wants it or not returns walking
on his head
This one turns into an ear
He hears all that won't let itself be heard
But he grows bored
Yearns to turn again into himself
But without eyes he can't see how
That one bares all his faces
One after the other he throws them over the roof
The last one he throws under his feet
And sinks his head into his hands
This one stretches his sight
Stretches it from thumb to thumb
Walks over it walks
First slow then fast
Then faster and faster
That one plays with his head
Juggles it in the air
Meets it with his index finger
Or doesn't meet it at all
Nobody rests"
~ Vasko Popa, 1922-1991 ~
TED: "Dad likes Agafa Christy so it's not serprizin' that 'e chose to do this pussel wot shows covers frum 'er books. The peeces wuz ever so thin so it wuz 'ard to pick 'em up. I found sum of Dad's books to show yew - they mostly come frum charity shops so 'e ain't paid much for 'em - the ole meanie!"
2019 piece count: 70785
Puzzle 86
Have you listened to the Serial podcast yet? I started it within the last week, and I love it. It's a rather tense whodunnit (and what the heck happened?!) story, concerning the real-life murder of a high school student in 1999. Lots of people on the internets are discussing the show and the case, so this is my contribution.
This non-sequitur appeared in episode 5. As the host Sarah Koenig and show-intern Dana Chivvis drove around town, discussing the case, Dana saw a sign alongside the road. "There's a shrimp sale at the Crab Crib," she remarked, the "Crab Crib" being a seafood market. I've had this phrase stuck in my head since I first heard it, and I immediately knew I needed to stitch it.
This piece of cross stitch was done on white 14-count aida fabric. I couldn't make a decent-looking shrimp-shape, so I only managed a crab. The anchors were added to help divide the quote from the information at the bottom. I designed and made this stitch just today, so it's still in the embroidery hoop.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1234. Photo: Gabriel Pascal Prod. Publicity still for Pygmalion (Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard, 1938).
Dame Wendy Hiller DBE (1912-2003) was an English film and stage actress, who enjoyed a varied acting career that spanned nearly sixty years. She is best remembered as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (1938). Despite many notable film performances, she chose to remain primarily a stage actress.
Wendy Margaret Hiller was born in Bramhall, near Stockport, England in 1912. She was the daughter of Frank Watkin Hiller, a Manchester cotton manufacturer, and Marie Hiller-Stone. In a situation similar to her Doolittle character, Wendy's parents enrolled her in speech and refinement at the Winceby House School in Sussex in the hopes of disguising her humble Lancashire roots and receiving upperscale marriage proposals for her. Such hopes were vanquished when the highly determined Hiller set her career sights on the theatre. Hiller began her professional career as an actress in repertory at Manchester in the early 1930s. She first found success as slum dweller Sally Hardcastle in the stage version of Love on the Dole in 1934. The play was an enormous success and toured the regional stages of Britain. In this play she made her West End debut in 1935 at the Garrick Theatre. She married the play's author Ronald Gow, fifteen years her senior, in 1937. That same year as she made her film debut in the comedy Lancashire Luck (Henry Cass, 1937), scripted by Gow. The huge popularity of Love on the Dole took the stage production to New York in 1936, where her refreshingly frank performance attracted the attention of George Bernard Shaw. Shaw recognized a spirited radiance in the young actress, which was ideally suited for playing his heroines. He and his wife, who were childless, took a pronounced and parental liking to the budding, youthful star. Shaw cast her in several of his plays, including Saint Joan, Pygmalion and Major Barbara and his influence on her early career is clearly apparent. She was reputed to be Shaw's favourite actress of the time. At Shaw's insistence, she starred as Eliza Doolittle in the film Pygmalion (Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard, 1938) with Leslie Howard as Professor Higgins. The film won the 1939 Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay, and also received nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Howard) and Best Actress (Hiller). This was a first for a British actress in a British film. She was also the first actress to utter the word ‘bloody’ in a British film, when Eliza utters the line "Not bloody likely, I'm going in a taxi!". She followed up this success with another Shaw adaptation, Major Barbara (Gabriel Pascal, 1941) with Rex Harrison and Robert Morley. It was again both a critical and financial success. Powell and Pressburger signed her for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), but her second pregnancy led to Deborah Kerr being cast instead. Determined to work with Hiller, the film makers later cast her with Roger Livesey again for I Know Where I'm Going! (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1945), another classic of British cinema. Joel Hirschorn described her in Rating the Movie Stars (1984) as "a no-nonsense actress who literally took command of the screen whenever she appeared on film".
In the early 1940s, Wendy Hiller and husband Ronald Gow moved to Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where they brought up two children, Ann (1939–2006) and Anthony (1942). Despite her early film success and offers from Hollywood, Hiller returned to the theatre full-time after 1945 and only occasionally accepted film roles. In the course of her stage career, she won popular and critical acclaim in both London and New York. She excelled at rather plain but strong willed characters. After touring Britain as Viola in Twelfth Night (1943) she returned to the West End to be directed by John Gielgud as Sister Joanna in The Cradle Song (1944). The string of notable successes continued as Princess Charlotte in The First Gentleman (1945) opposite Robert Morley as the Prince Regent, Pegeen in Playboy of the Western World (1946) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1946-1947), which was adapted for the stage by her husband. Unlike other stage actresses of her generation, she did relatively little Shakespeare, preferring the more modern dramatists such as Henrik Ibsen and new plays adapted from the novels of Henry James and Thomas Hardy among others. In 1947, Hiller originated the role of Catherine Sloper, the painfully shy, vulnerable spinster in The Heiress on Broadway. The play, based on the Henry James novel Washington Square, also featured Basil Rathbone as her emotionally abusive father. The production enjoyed a year-long run and would prove to be her greatest triumph on Broadway. On returning to London, Hiller again played the role in the West End production in 1950. She did a two year run in N. C. Hunter's Waters of the Moon (1951–52), alongside Sybil Thorndike and Edith Evans. In the 1950s, Hiller returned to film. She portrayed an abused colonial wife in Outcast of the Islands (Carol Reed, 1952), with Robert Morley and Trevor Howard. She played mature, supporting roles with Sailor of the King (Roy Boulting, 1953) and a memorable victim of the Mau Mau uprising in Something of Value (Richard Brooks, 1957) starring Rock Hudson. In 1959, she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Separate Tables (Delbert Mann, 1958), as a lonely hotel manageress and mistress of Burt Lancaster. On stage. a season at the Old Vic in 1955–56 produced a notable performance as Portia in Julius Caesar among others. In 1957, Hiller returned to New York to star as Josie Hogan in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, a performance which gained her a Tony Award nomination as Best Dramatic Actress. British stage work included The Night of the Ball (1955), the Robert Bolt play Flowering Cherry (1958), and Toys in the Attic (1960).
Wendy Hiller received a BAFTA nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of the domineering, possessive mother in Sons and Lovers (Jack Cardiff, 1960) with Trevor Howard and Dean Stokwell. She reprised her London stage role in the southern gothic Toys in the Attic (1963), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination as the elder spinster sister in a film which also starred Dean Martin and Geraldine Page. In the West End she appeared in The Wings of the Dove (1963), A Measure of Cruelty (1965), A Present for the Past (1966), The Sacred Flame (1967) with Gladys Cooper, The Battle of Shrivings (1970) with John Gielgud and Lies (1975). Her final appearance on Broadway was in 1962 as Miss Tina in Michael Redgrave's adaptation of The Aspern Papers, from the Henry James novella. She received a third Oscar nomination for her performance as the simple, unrefined, but dignified Lady Alice More, opposite Paul Scofield as Thomas More, in A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966). As she matured, she demonstrated a strong affinity for the plays of Henrik Ibsen, as Irene in When We Dead Awaken (1968), as Mrs. Alving in Ghosts (1972), Aase in a BBC TV play of Peer Gynt (1972) and as Gunhild in John Gabriel Borkman (1975), in which she appeared with Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft. Later West End successes such as Queen Mary in Crown Matrimonial (1972) proved she was not limited to playing dejected, emotionally deprived women. Regarded as one of Britain's great dramatic talents, she was created an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1971 and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1975. Her role as the grand Russian princess in the Whodunnit star ensemble of Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974), won her international acclaim and the Evening Standard British Film Award as Best Actress. This Agatha Christie adaptation starring Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot was a huge commercial success. Other notable film roles included a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi Germany with her dying husband in Voyage of the Damned (Stuart Rosenberg, 1976) and the formidable London Hospital matron in The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980). On stage she revisited some earlier plays playing older characters, as in West End revivals of Waters of the Moon (1977-1978) with Ingrid Bergman and The Aspern Papers (1984) with Vanessa Redgrave. She was scheduled to return to the American stage in a 1982 revival of Anastasia with Natalie Wood, until Wood's death just weeks before rehearsals. In TV she played in BBC dramatizations of Julian Gloag's Only Yesterday (1986) and the Vita Sackville-West novel All Passion Spent (1986), in which she was the quietly defiant Lady Slane. This performance earned her a BAFTA nomination as Best Actress. Hiller made her final West End performance in the title role in Driving Miss Daisy (1988). Her last appearance, before retiring from acting, was the title role in the TV film The Countess Alice (Moira Armstrong, 1992), with Zoë Wanamaker. Her husband Ronald Gow died in 1993, but Hiller continued living at their home until her death a decade later. Despite a busy professional career, throughout her life she continually took an active interest in aspiring young actors by supporting local amateur drama societies, as well as being the president of the Chiltern Shakespeare Company until her death. Chronic ill health necessitated her eventual retirement from acting in 1992. She spent the last decade of her life in quiet retirement at her home in Beaconsfield, where she died in 2003 of natural causes at the age of 90.
Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
1 jun
The Archivist by Martha Cooley
"An insightful look at the psyche of an institutionalized woman, her husband and her family, interspersed with beautiful poetry, jazz and bossa nova.
Mathias, a Christian, gets his Jewish wife committed to a mental asylum soon after the end of WWII. Judith commits suicide while in the asylum, and leaves behind a journal. The book looks at how various characters deal with their grief, guilt and fears, and find a way to go on."
3 jun
Riot by Shashi Tharoor
"A broad look at the hows and whys of communal strife in the behemoth that is India, this book is as relevant today as when it was first published in 2001, a few after the Babri Masjid demolition. A fictional account of a Hindu-Muslim riot in a small town in India, this book is largely based on facts, containing stories within stories - of a bereaved Sikh grandfather who never loses courage, of a lonely educated IAS officer who fights with himself to retain his integrity, a Muslim woman who discovers the courage that comes from utter desperation, an American woman who comes to India to work for a social cause she believes in, a Hindu fundamentalist who acts on his convictions.
In today's India, with its aggressive Hindutva, its divisive politics and its legacy of horrors committed in the name of religion, Tharoor maintains an impartial and non-judgemental attitude in his writing. This is a splendid book, and the author is now on my to-read list."
4 jun
Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie (e-book)
Started out as a fun chic lit… and then rapidly degenerated into a mill & boons type romance.
13 jun
Devices and Desires by P D James
Really good, in fact much better than most of the other Adam Dalgliesh mysteries. Most of the characters come to life and catch hold of the reader's emotion and imagination.
15 jun
The Proposition by Judith Ivory (e-book)
"Ugh!
What at first glance promised to be a gender reversal of Shaw's Pygmalion, turns out to be an insipid magical happy ending Regency romance. A lady professor of phoenetics catches hold of a professional rat catcher and turns him into a cardboard ""gentleman"", then proceeds to fall in love with him. And the happy ending was clearly written more for the convenience of the writer than for the entertainment of the reader. Not a book I'd ever want to read again."
18 jun
The Alchemy Of Murder by Carol McCleary
Another good whodunnit. Old Paris comes alive in McCleary's writing. The intrepid lady investigative journalist gets a bit monotonous at times, but this is a good mystery novel nonetheless. And no, I didn't guess who the murderer was.
19 jun
Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World by Louis de Bernieres
Lovely! Adorable! Horridly short. Just 50 pages or so. But I fell in love with all the characters, and actually felt homesick for the neighbourhood.
23 jun
The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery Deaver
Definitely not one of Deaver's best. True, there are twists in the tale. But the tale itself is very very monotonous most of the time. I mean, the leading characters spend almost the entire novel chasing each other in a forest, with guns. Way too long for a chase-catch-and-kill sequence, Deaver!
30 jun
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (librarywala.com)
My second Picoult novel. And I really loved this one. Could actually feel a lot of sympathy for all the characters. And since the novel is in the form of chapters in the voice of all the main characters, it never gets monotonous.
My niece decided to have a murder/mystery whodunnit affair for her birthday. Yours truly played the role of Wing Commander Jerry Basher..... it wasn't me wotdunnit!
Most of the regalia came from one of the militaria shops on Bristol's Lower park Row; leather flying hat (1980's rather than 1940's), goggles (more WW1 rather than WW2) and the rather splendid leather jacket (a snip at £30). The handlebar face fungus was £2.99 from the Joke shop!
Commentary.
These two cottages have become iconic, National Treasures, almost legendary.
The one on the left was “Tom’s Cottage” in the superb
film, “Goodnight, Mr.Tom,” that chronicles the experiences
of a young boy, William Beech, when he is evacuated from London to Weirwold, in the country, and billeted to stay with
the apparently irascible widower, Tom Oakley during World War Two.
Both have had difficulties in their lives and the story explores very honestly and graphically the struggles they must bear to adapt to yet another immense challenge.
Several Junior classes, I taught over the years, studied this story as part of their History and English curriculum.
They then watched the film version starring John Thaw as Tom and Nick Robinson as William.
They were set the task to do a Critic’s comparison of the two.
The overwhelming consensus was that they preferred the book because it inevitably painted a fuller, more detailed picture.
However, they were totally absorbed by some of the emotional drama in the film version.
Quite a number of the pupils enjoyed buying their own version of book and film, by choice.
The cottage on the right was the Vicarage of Dibley’s new female Vicar, Geraldine Granger, played by Dawn French in the hilarious hit B.B.C. Sitcom. “Vicar of Dibley.”
The crazy idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of the characters making up the Parish Council of this English village is little short of a masterpiece.
On the chalky Chiltern Hill above and to the north of the village stands Cobstone Windmill.
This featured in the film “Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang” starring Dick Van Dyke.
Turville was also the setting for another World War Two film, “Went the Day Well.”
Television Crime “Whodunnit” dramas like “Midsomer Murders,” “Jonathan Creek” and “Marple” have also used Turville as the archetypal English village.
And that is it, that is why it has been used as a setting for so many filmed stories.
It has the essential qualities and features set in a gorgeous, lush green Chalk valley.
Hills, fields, windmill, old half-timbered rose-covered cottages,
the classic towered Parish church and graveyard, the ubiquitous village pub, “The Bull and Butcher,” the Village Hall, school, Post Office and grocer’s and Village Square or to be more exact, Circle.
If a first-time visitor to the U.K. said to me:-
“Show me a typical, classic English village.”
Turville would be high, if not first, on my list!
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 756a. Photo: Paramount.
Balding and highly distinguished Roland Young (1887-1953) was an American film and theatre actor of British origin. He was best known for the role of Cosmo Topper in the three Topper film comedies.
Roland Young was born in 1887 in London, England. He was the son of an architect. Young enjoyed his school education at Sherborne College and later at London University. He decided to become an actor. Young acquired the necessary skills at the renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). In 1908, at the age of 21, Young appeared on stage in London for the first time in 'Find the Woman'. Four years later, he made his Broadway debut in 'Hindle Wakes' (1912). Until the mid-1910s, Young was still taking on engagements in England, which meant that he alternated between New York and London. Young became an American citizen in 1918 and then served briefly on the American side as a soldier in the First World War. In 1921, he married his first wife, Marjorie Kummer, to whom he remained married until 1940. Young made his debut as a film actor as Doctor Watson in Sherlock Holmes (Albert Parker, 1922), alongside John Barrymore as Holmes and Gustav von Seyffertitz as Moriarty. On Broadway, Young performed equally well in droll farces and classic drama. His standout credits included productions of 'Hedda Gabler' (1923) and 'The Last of Mrs. Cheyney' (1927). He signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and made his talkie debut in the murder mystery The Unholy Night (Lionel Barrymore, 1929) with Ernest Torrence and Boris Karloff. He was loaned to Warner Bros. to appear in the drama Her Private Life (Alexander Korda, 1929), with Billie Dove and to Fox, winning critical approval for his comedic performance as Jeanette MacDonald's husband in Don't Bet on Women (William K. Howard, 1931). He was again paired with MacDonald in the romantic comedy Annabelle's Affairs (Alfred L. Werker, 1931). He appeared in Cecil B. de Mille's Western The Squaw Man (1931), and played opposite Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in The Guardsman (Sidney Franklin, 1931). His final film under his MGM contract was Lovers Courageous (Robert Z. Leonard, 1932), opposite Robert Montgomery. He had a starring role in a risqué comedy for Fox entitled Pleasure Cruise (Frank Tuttle, 1933) alongside Genevieve Tobin.
Roland Young's roles were mostly limited to British characters, in which he embodied the stereotypical image of the aristocratic Englishman. He appeared with Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin and Maurice Chevalier in One Hour With You (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932). Alexander Korda invited him to return to Britain to make his British film debut in Wedding Rehearsal (1932). His best-known film was the screwball classic Topper (Norman Z. McLeod, 1937). Young played the bourgeois bank manager Cosmo Topper, whose orderly life is shaken up by the ghosts of his clients, Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. It was one of the most successful films of the year, and Young received an Oscar nomination for his role in the Best Supporting Actor category in 1938. He also starred in the sequels, Topper Takes a Trip (Norman Z. McLeod, 1938) and Topper Returns (Roy Del Ruth, 1941). Young is also known for his role as the villain Uriah Heep in the Charles Dickens adaptation David Copperfield (George Cukor, 1935) and for the British fantasy film The Man Who Would Change the World (Lothar Mendes, 1936) based on a short story by H.G. Wells. He often played eccentric characters, such as the inebriated Earl of Burnstead, who loses his valet Charles Laughton in a poker game, in Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935) or the rich uncle of Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940). He continued working steadily through the 1940s, playing small roles opposite some of Hollywood's leading actresses, such as Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Paulette Goddard and Greta Garbo in her final film, Two-Faced Woman (George Cukor, 1941). In 1945, he began his radio show and appeared in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's classic whodunnit And Then There Were None (René Clair, 1945). By the end of the decade, his film career had declined, and his final films, including The Great Lover (Alexander Hall, 1949), in which he played a murderer opposite Bob Hope, and Fred Astaire's Let's Dance (Norman Z. MacLeod, 1950), were not successful. Roland Young found his second wife, Dorothy Patience May DuCroz, in 1948, with whom he spent the last years of his life. Roland Young had no children. In 1953, he died in New York of natural causes at the age of 65. He was honoured with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his film and television work.
Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
A cozy whodunit, spiced up with characters from the nineteenth century Boston literary world. Pearl draws heavily on his own academic research and experience at Harvard, and most of the time his atmospheric narration appears true to life.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is translating Dante Aligheri’s The Divine Comedy with the help of his friends as a means of coming to terms with losing his beloved wife in a tragic accident. His friends, most of them members of the real life Fireside Poets of the time, are Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, T. J. Fields, George Washington Greene, who are all members of the fictitious Dante Club.
Canticle One opens with the horrific accident / murder of Chief Justice Healey, who is found naked and writhing with maggots, wasps and insects, near his home. Healey dies after surviving four days of this torture and Widow Healey is demanding police investigation. Patrolman Nicholas Rey, Boston’s first mulatto policeman, and Police Chief John Kurtz are investigating, without success.
Next, Reverend Talbot is discovered half buried in the ground, with his feet put on fire. Boston police continues to be clueless, but Dr Holmes realizes the points of similarity between the two murders, and the punishments of hell described in Dante’s Inferno.
Pearl goes into too much detail about the petty jealousies and rivalries between the various members of the Dante Club, and his unnecessary literary name dropping often smacks of gimmickry throughout Canticle One.
In Canticle Two the members of Dante Club have taken their courage in their hands and have decided to investigate into the murders independent of the police. The reason for this is partly to protect the reputation of The Divine Comedy, and partly to ensure no suspicion falls on themselves regarding the murders.
The third murder that the Dante Club fails to prevent is of Phineas Jennison, Boston millionaire, patron of literature, and a personal friend of James Russel. Jennison is found cut in half, and once again the motive is suspected by no one outside the Dante Club.
Canticle Three gradually brings the Dante Club to the answer to the Dante riddles, and to the name of the murderer. The second climax is somewhat predictable and unnecessary.
However, Pearl, as a first time author, has to be admired for making sure that the murderer is someone the reader is already acquainted with, and various clues come together to form answers in the time honored tradition of all good murder mysteries.
Altogether a satisfying and rather atmospheric read, where the suspense part of the story could stand on its own merit even without the at times gratuitous preponderance of Boston literary figures who would otherwise have little to contribute to the main plot.
Photo published in: artuccino.com/index.php/the-dante-club-by-matthew-pearl/
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is Presented by Cold Theatre 7 in Special Arrangement with Samuel French Ltd. Written by Agatha Christie & Directed by Kevin Cruze.
In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger. A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten “soldiers” met his death until there were none. Eight guests who have never met each other on their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island, along with the two house servants, marooned.
A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead – poisoned. One down and nine to go! The excitement never lets up and the search for the murderer never ceases which keeps the audience at the edge of their seat.
This gripping 'whodunnit' will feature an alternate ending in each performance!
Special Guest Performance by members of The Old Joes' Choir
Co-Sponsor : Singer
In Association with : Cargills & Commercial Bank
Community Support Partner : KPMG Sri Lanka
Beverage Partner : Elephant House
Office Solutions Partner : Fellowes
Print Media Sponsor : The Sunday Times
Radio partner : Lite FM
!IMPORTANT:
- License: Creative Commons
- Please obtain permission form Cold Theatre 7 for distribution permission
- DO NOT DISTRIBUTE without permission!!!!!!
This is what is left from a heavy recycled rubber mulch ring. I gathered the pieces for this photo as they were spread everywhere. Whatever tore this apart was large. There are no large dogs in this neighborhood, only a couple of cats. Maybe mountain lion, coyote or was it the ellusive Chupacabra.
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is Presented by Cold Theatre 7 in Special Arrangement with Samuel French Ltd. Written by Agatha Christie & Directed by Kevin Cruze.
In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger. A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten “soldiers” met his death until there were none. Eight guests who have never met each other on their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island, along with the two house servants, marooned.
A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead – poisoned. One down and nine to go! The excitement never lets up and the search for the murderer never ceases which keeps the audience at the edge of their seat.
This gripping 'whodunnit' will feature an alternate ending in each performance!
Special Guest Performance by members of The Old Joes' Choir
Co-Sponsor : Singer
In Association with : Cargills & Commercial Bank
Community Support Partner : KPMG Sri Lanka
Beverage Partner : Elephant House
Office Solutions Partner : Fellowes
Print Media Sponsor : The Sunday Times
Radio partner : Lite FM
!IMPORTANT:
- License: Creative Commons
- Please obtain permission form Cold Theatre 7 for distribution permission
- DO NOT DISTRIBUTE without permission!!!!!!
Crime Does Not Pay / Heft-Reihe
> Who Dunnit? / The Case of the Murdered Bathing Beauty
art: Fred Guardineer
Lev Gleason Publications / USA 1947
Reprint / Comic-Club NK 2010
ex libris MTP
British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 169. Photo: Paramount. Roland Young and Leila Hyams in Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935).
Balding and highly distinguished Roland Young (1887-1953) was an American film and theatre actor of British origin. He was best known for the role of Cosmo Topper in the three Topper film comedies.
Roland Young was born in 1887 in London, England. He was the son of an architect. Young enjoyed his school education at Sherborne College and later at London University. He decided to become an actor. Young acquired the necessary skills at the renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). In 1908, at the age of 21, Young appeared on stage in London for the first time in 'Find the Woman'. Four years later, he made his Broadway debut in 'Hindle Wakes' (1912). Until the mid-1910s, Young was still taking on engagements in England, which meant that he alternated between New York and London. Young became an American citizen in 1918 and then served briefly on the American side as a soldier in the First World War. In 1921, he married his first wife, Marjorie Kummer, to whom he remained married until 1940. Young made his debut as a film actor as Doctor Watson in Sherlock Holmes (Albert Parker, 1922), alongside John Barrymore as Holmes and Gustav von Seyffertitz as Moriarty. On Broadway, Young performed equally well in droll farces and classic drama. His standout credits included productions of 'Hedda Gabler' (1923) and 'The Last of Mrs. Cheyney' (1927). He signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and made his talkie debut in the murder mystery The Unholy Night (Lionel Barrymore, 1929) with Ernest Torrence and Boris Karloff. He was loaned to Warner Bros. to appear in the drama Her Private Life (Alexander Korda, 1929), with Billie Dove and to Fox, winning critical approval for his comedic performance as Jeanette MacDonald's husband in Don't Bet on Women (William K. Howard, 1931). He was again paired with MacDonald in the romantic comedy Annabelle's Affairs (Alfred L. Werker, 1931). He appeared in Cecil B. de Mille's Western The Squaw Man (1931), and played opposite Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in The Guardsman (Sidney Franklin, 1931). His final film under his MGM contract was Lovers Courageous (Robert Z. Leonard, 1932), opposite Robert Montgomery. He had a starring role in a risqué comedy for Fox entitled Pleasure Cruise (Frank Tuttle, 1933) alongside Genevieve Tobin.
Roland Young's roles were mostly limited to British characters, in which he embodied the stereotypical image of the aristocratic Englishman. He appeared with Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin and Maurice Chevalier in One Hour With You (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932). Alexander Korda invited him to return to Britain to make his British film debut in Wedding Rehearsal (1932). His best-known film was the screwball classic Topper (Norman Z. McLeod, 1937). Young played the bourgeois bank manager Cosmo Topper, whose orderly life is shaken up by the ghosts of his clients, Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. It was one of the most successful films of the year, and Young received an Oscar nomination for his role in the Best Supporting Actor category in 1938. He also starred in the sequels, Topper Takes a Trip (Norman Z. McLeod, 1938) and Topper Returns (Roy Del Ruth, 1941). Young is also known for his role as the villain Uriah Heep in the Charles Dickens adaptation David Copperfield (George Cukor, 1935) and for the British fantasy film The Man Who Would Change the World (Lothar Mendes, 1936) based on a short story by H.G. Wells. He often played eccentric characters, such as the inebriated Earl of Burnstead, who loses his valet Charles Laughton in a poker game, in Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935) or the rich uncle of Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940). He continued working steadily through the 1940s, playing small roles opposite some of Hollywood's leading actresses, such as Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Paulette Goddard and Greta Garbo in her final film, Two-Faced Woman (George Cukor, 1941). In 1945, he began his radio show and appeared in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's classic whodunnit And Then There Were None (René Clair, 1945). By the end of the decade, his film career had declined, and his final films, including The Great Lover (Alexander Hall, 1949), in which he played a murderer opposite Bob Hope, and Fred Astaire's Let's Dance (Norman Z. MacLeod, 1950), were not successful. Roland Young found his second wife, Dorothy Patience May DuCroz, in 1948, with whom he spent the last years of his life. Roland Young had no children. In 1953, he died in New York of natural causes at the age of 65. He was honoured with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his film and television work.
Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is Presented by Cold Theatre 7 in Special Arrangement with Samuel French Ltd. Written by Agatha Christie & Directed by Kevin Cruze.
In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger. A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten “soldiers” met his death until there were none. Eight guests who have never met each other on their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island, along with the two house servants, marooned.
A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead – poisoned. One down and nine to go! The excitement never lets up and the search for the murderer never ceases which keeps the audience at the edge of their seat.
This gripping 'whodunnit' will feature an alternate ending in each performance!
Special Guest Performance by members of The Old Joes' Choir
Co-Sponsor : Singer
In Association with : Cargills & Commercial Bank
Community Support Partner : KPMG Sri Lanka
Beverage Partner : Elephant House
Office Solutions Partner : Fellowes
Print Media Sponsor : The Sunday Times
Radio partner : Lite FM
!IMPORTANT:
- License: Creative Commons
- Please obtain permission form Cold Theatre 7 for distribution permission
- DO NOT DISTRIBUTE without permission!!!!!!
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is Presented by Cold Theatre 7 in Special Arrangement with Samuel French Ltd. Written by Agatha Christie & Directed by Kevin Cruze.
In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger. A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten “soldiers” met his death until there were none. Eight guests who have never met each other on their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island, along with the two house servants, marooned.
A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead – poisoned. One down and nine to go! The excitement never lets up and the search for the murderer never ceases which keeps the audience at the edge of their seat.
This gripping 'whodunnit' will feature an alternate ending in each performance!
Special Guest Performance by members of The Old Joes' Choir
Co-Sponsor : Singer
In Association with : Cargills & Commercial Bank
Community Support Partner : KPMG Sri Lanka
Beverage Partner : Elephant House
Office Solutions Partner : Fellowes
Print Media Sponsor : The Sunday Times
Radio partner : Lite FM
!IMPORTANT:
- License: Creative Commons
- Please obtain permission form Cold Theatre 7 for distribution permission
- DO NOT DISTRIBUTE without permission!!!!!!