Category Archives: movies

My Interview with Sigal Erez: Actress, Director, Screenwriter and Producer

A few weeks ago, I watched a beautiful short film, What’s Your Number? It’s a story about a Holocaust survivor who comes full circle sharing his life story with an African American child he meets at the park. The survivor and his sister’s lives were saved by the heroic action of an African American soldier during World War II.

Yesterday, I had the privilege to interview its writer, director and producer.

Sigal Erez was born to a Moroccan/Spanish/Jewish family. She has travelled extensively around the world and speaks four languages. She is the daughter of a merchant marine who became a rabbi, from whom she learned to appreciate the deeper meaning held within the bible and its teachings. Often, she holds spiritual gatherings and teachings at her home by the beach. Sigal is a mother, and her greatest accomplishment is being a mother. Her very vivid imagination and creative vision are her strengths. From a very young age, Sigal always said she would one day own a studio and write and direct great movies.

She completed the full program at Lee Strasberg New York and was later accepted to a master’s program in screenwriting at UCLA’s acclaimed Writer’s Program. As a newcomer in Los Angeles, she landed roles of many nationalities, including television shows such as Santa Barbara, Star Trek, and a lead in a pilot called DEA, as well as others. Sigal also scored the lead role in two feature films, that were either shelved or never made—Shape Shifter and Arrive Alive.

Although Erez is skillful at acting, improvisation, and a variety of international accents, her main passion is storytelling. She believes creativity is a platform that can raise the level of consciousness in the world.

In 2000, Sigal’s screenplay, Across The Line, was produced into a motion picture starring Brad Johnson. Sigal played the lead role of Miranda, winning acclaimed reviews. She was invited as a special guest to speak at Texas A&M University. Distributed by Lion’s Gate, the film won the Silver Award at the Houston Film Festival and Best Film at Texas A&M. The film received a new distribution deal with all the major networks in 2017.

Sigal also worked as a television writer and created 13 episodes for the TV drama— Hotel San Miguel for Televisa, under renowned writer and showrunner, Sabina Berman.

The screenplay, The Battle of Evermore, which Erezco-wrote with Martin Spottl, advanced to the semi-finals at the prestigious Nichol’s Fellowship. She was then hired to write creative proposals that led to successful ventures.

In addition to screenplays, Sigal writes lyrics and poetry. She has a charismatic personality and an ability to captivate an audience. In 2000, Sigal hosted a music festival with Mark Brown at the Hollywood Bowl and co-hosted the opening of a Latin theatre event with Colombian film star Rodrigo Obregon.

In 2018, Sigal wrote, directed, and produced the film What’s Your Number?, about the unlikely friendship between a holocaust survivor and an African-American boy. The film has been shown at many festivals and won many awards, including the Best Film Award at the Women’s Only Entertainment Film Festival and the Social Impact Award at the Marina Del Ray Film Festival. What’s Your Number? also won multiple awards at the South Cinematographic Academy of Film & Arts, including Best Lead Actor In A Short Film, Best Young Actor In A Feature Film, and Best Costume Design In A Short Film.

Her latest project, Serial Beauty, is currently in post-production. The movie is about a serial killer who targets beautiful women and poses their bodies in exquisite tableaus. Without any leads in a dead end of clues, the LAPD brings back two detectives who find mystical subtexts that lead to the unlikely killer.


https://www.imdb.com/video/vi3512843033/?playlistId=nm0258852&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Sources


https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0258852/?…
https://www.highwaterfilms.com/

https://weshort.com/collection?s=7037

Hooray for Hollywood

I don’t think there is one person on the planet who doesn’t know what Hollywood is, or what cultural significance it has. It is a place where dreams are turned into reality, and reality turned into dreams, sometimes nightmares.

This is just a pictorial blog about that place we all love and sometimes hate, or rather what is produced there The most visible symbol of the district is the Hollywood sign that overlooks the area. First built in 1923 (a new sign was erected in 1978), the sign originally said “Hollywoodland” (to advertise new homes being developed in the area), but the sign fell into disrepair, and the “land” section was removed in the 1940s when the sign was refurbished.

Greta Garbo and the Dubliner Cairbre, he was the first lion used by MGM, and was born in Dublin Zoo.

Judy Garland on the set of the Wizard of Oz

D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks founders of United Artists.

George Reeves as Superman

On the darker side of the entertainment business, The Hollywood Ten were a part of an industry-wide blacklisting of individuals thought to be connected to or involved with the Community Party.

Psycho

Born to be wild-The filming of Easy Rider

In a galaxy far, far away-Star Wars

We are going to need a bigger boat, and probably cinema-Jaws the first block buster.

source

https://historyinorbit.com/vintage-pictures-that-define-old-hollywood-2

Alternative World War II—In Cinema

I am always intrigued by “What if ?” scenarios, like what if Columbus had taken another route to India? Or what if JFK had not been in Dallas that day?

What intrigues me most of all is the question, “What if the Nazis would have won the war?” or alternatively “What if Hitler would have been killed sooner?” I am not the only one who ponders these questions. There have been many authors and filmmakers who had the same idea and put those ideas on paper and in film. I am only selecting a few for this blog.

The picture above is from the 1965 film “It Happened Here.”

It is the Second World War. The Nazis invaded Britain. There is a split between the resistance and those who prefer to collaborate with the invaders for a quiet life. The protagonist, a nurse, is caught in the middle. Following the British army’s retreat at Dunkirk, England has been invaded and conquered by Nazi Germany. Irish nurse Barbara Murray comes to London as part of a civilian evacuation forced by American resistance forces massing off the coast of Ireland. She finds that in order to get a job as a nurse her only choice is to join the pro-Nazi civilian organization known as Immediate Action, which she does even though she is avowedly non-political. However, once on the job, she is faced with complicity in a number of disturbing acts being conducted by Immediate Action.

“Fatherland” is a 1994 TV film written by Stanley Weiser and Ron Hutchinson and directed by Christopher Menaul as an adaptation of the 1992 novel of the same title by Robert Harris. The film was produced by HBO and starred Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson.

In a world where the Nazis won World War II, Germany corralled all European countries into a single state called “Germania” and continues fighting against the Soviet Union. It is now 1964 and Germany’s war crimes against the Jews have so far been kept a secret. Germany believes that an alliance with the United States would finally beat the Soviet war machine. As his 75th birthday approached, Adolf Hitler wants to talk about peace with President Joseph Kennedy. An S.S. homicide detective and an American journalist stumble into a plot to destroy all evidence of the genocide; evidence that could destroy the peace process with America and evidence that Nazi and S.S. leaders will stop at nothing to keep hidden.

“Inglourious Basterds” is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an alternate history story of two plots to assassinate Nazi Germany’s leadership—one planned by Shosanna Dreyfus, a young French Jewish cinema proprietor, and the other by the British but ultimately conducted solely by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine. Christoph Waltz co-stars in the role of Hans Landa, an SS colonel in charge of tracking down Raine’s group.

“Strange Holiday” is a 1945 American movie directed by Arch Oboler. Claude Rains is featured as a man who returns from a fishing vacation to find America controlled by fascists. Businessman John Stevenson returns from a camping holiday in the mountains to discover the whole of America has been taken over by foreign invaders. His family has been taken away and he is thrown into prison and must come to terms with the new USA.

So if you are ever bored I would recommend you look up these movies and watch them.

sources

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038125/?ref_=tt_mv_close

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/?ref_=tt_mv_close

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109779/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055024/

World War II in Cinema—Part 1

These are just some of my favourite World War II movies, in no particular order.

Tora Tora Tora
The photo above is a still from the 1970 movie Tora Tora Tora. The 1970 war epic was widely praised by critics and film fans, for how it detailed the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. Universally considered a classic, the film explores the Japanese preparation for war, U.S. military intelligence trying to decipher enemy communications, and the tragic catastrophe in Hawaii. Perhaps most admirable, the film was directed by filmmakers from both countries—with Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku shooting the Japanese segments and Richard Fleischer manning the American portion.

Enemy at the Gates
One of the few movies from the perspective of the Red Army, Enemy at the Gates is an epic movie about the Battle of Stalingrad.

Based on William Craig’s 1973 nonfiction book of the same name, Enemy at the Gates chronicles the events surrounding the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942. The film’s protagonist, Vasily Zaytsev, is based on a real Soviet sniper who tallied 242 kills in four months.

Schindler’s List
A movie that I think should be included in any school’s curriculum is Schindler’s List. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it chronicles the unspeakable liquidation of European Jews during World War II by Nazi Germany. The tragic drama follows the real Holocaust hero, Oskar Schindler and his efforts to save as many unwanted persons as possible by hiring them as workers producing kitchenware in his factory. Armed with the special privilege of the Germans deeming his business essential to the war effort, Schindler protected 1,200 Jews from extermination.

Mr Klein
A woman is examined by a male doctor. Middle-aged and afraid, she stands naked in his office, her arms crossed over her breasts. A nurse sits nearby, taking notes of what the doctor says. His manner is brisk, like that of a farmer buying a horse. He grasps the patient’s head, swivels it this way and that, and opens her mouth to inspect the gums. Her nostrils are measured, as is the distance between her nose and her lips. The doctor checks her hairline and pronounces it “low.” He orders her to walk and declares that she has flat feet. “Based on morphological and behavioural data, the person examined could well belong to the Semitic race,” he concludes. She gets dressed and asks how much she owes. The cost of her humiliation is fifteen francs.

Such are the opening minutes of Mr Klein, which is set in France in 1942. Very few films begin with this peremptory power.

Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange)
Although I am a proud Dutchman, I have to admit that I am not a great fan of Dutch movies. However, when it comes to World War II movies, no one does it better than the Dutch.

Soldaat van Oranje had a budget of ƒ 5,000,000 (€2,300,000), at the time the most expensive Dutch movie ever. With 1,547,183 viewers, it was the most popular Dutch film of 1977. The film received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980. At the 1999 Netherlands Film Festival, it was voted the second-best Dutch film of the twentieth century.

The film was released under the name Survival Run in the U.K.

This film depicts World War II through the eyes of several Dutch students. It follows them through the beginning of the war, the Nazi occupation and the liberation. Directed and co-written by Paul Verhoeven and produced by Rob Houwer, starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé. The film is set around the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II and shows how individual students have different roles in the war. The story is based on the autobiographical book Soldaat van Oranje by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema.

sources

worlhttps://allthatsinteresting.com/best-war-movies

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076734/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/09/the-hour-of-reckoning-descends-in-mr-klein

And the winner is?…..

The highlight of the year for the movie industry is without a doubt, or at least it used to be. But when did it all start?

In 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) was established by Louis B. Mayer, the founder of the Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation, which then would be joined into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Mayer’s purpose in creating the award was to unite the five branches of the film industry, actors, directors, producers, technicians, and writers. However it would take until 1929 before the first ceremony was held.

The first Academy Awards ceremony, held on May 16, 1929, was more like a corporate banquet than the star-studded spectacular we expect today. (It merited only a tiny, two-paragraph notice in The Times.) The location was the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, with roughly 270 people plunking down $5 per ticket. “It was just a family affair,” Janet Gaynor, winner of the first Academy Award for best actress, told The Times in 1982.

“I remember there was an orchestra, and as you danced, you saw most of the important people in Hollywood whirling past you on the dance floor. It was more like a private party than a big public ceremony.”

Douglas Fairbanks, the M.C. of the evening, handed out all 15 statues. Only five performers were nominated, and just two of them — Gaynor and Louise Dresser — were in attendance, as Gloria Swanson and Richard Barthelmess were traveling. Emil Jannings, the best actor winner, had returned to his native Germany, though he asked for, and received, his award before he left.

At the time of the first Oscar ceremony, sound had just been introduced into film. The Warner Bros. movie The Jazz Singer—one of the first “talkies”—was not allowed to compete for Best Picture because the Academy decided it was unfair to let movies with sound compete with silent films.

The distribution of the awards, by most accounts, clocked in at about 15 minutes.

The first official Best Picture winner was Wings, directed by William Wellman. The most expensive movie of its time, with a budget of $2 million, the movie told the story of two World War I pilots who fall for the same woman. Another film, F.W. Murnau’s epic Sunrise, was considered a dual winner for the best film of the year. German actor Emil Jannings won the Best Actor honor for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh, while 22-year-old Janet Gaynor was the only female winner. After receiving three out of the five Best Actress nods, she won for all three roles, in Seventh Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise.Back then, actors and actresses could win for more than one performance.

The Academy officially adopted the name “Oscar” for the trophies in 1939. However, the origin of the nickname is disputed.

One biography of Bette Davis, who was a president of the Academy in 1941, claims she named the award after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson. A frequently mentioned originator is Margaret Herrick, the Academy executive director, who, when she first saw the award in 1931, said the statuette reminded her of “Uncle Oscar”, a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce.

sources

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-academy-awards-ceremony

https://www.oscars.org/videos-photos/academy-originals

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Will Rock- The ‘love’ story of Will Smith and Chris Rock.

Generally I write mostly about the Holocaust and World War 2. However every now and then, when I see something utterly ridiculous , I just feel compelled to voice my opinion.

It will not have escaped anyone by now that there has been a bit of an issue at the Oscars. Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, after stand up comedian Chris had made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith’s current wife.

One might think that this came out of the blue, but it didn’t. In 2016 Chris Rock had made jokes about Jada Pinkett Smith at the Oscars. This was in relation to Jada and Will threatening to boycott the Oscars that year in support of #OscarsSoWhite. Which was started by April Reign. She created the Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite on January 15, 2015 to call attention to inequality in Hollywood and the lack of representation of people of color in the 87th Academy Awards nominations.

To put it in context in 2016 Jada was in de TV Show Gotham. She has appeared in 2 movies in 2015 and 2016. “Magic Mike XXL” rated 5.6 out of 10 on IMDB and “Bad Moms” rated 6.2 IMDB. Prior to that she had appeared in Madagascar 3 and Madly Madagascar, she had also an uncredited part in Men in Black 3, which starred her husband Will Smith, as far as I am aware he did not slap anyone in that movie for not giving Jada a credit.

Basically Jada had appeared in 2 exceptionally bad movies, and was in a TV show. It was her choice of movies that didn’t get her an Oscar nominations.

Chris Rock had this to say at the 2016 Oscars about the #OscarSoWhite boycott.

“What happened this year? People went nuts. Spike [Lee] got mad. Jada went mad. Will went mad. Everyone went mad, Jada said she’s not coming. I was like, ‘Isn’t she on a TV show?’ Jada’s gonna boycott the Oscars? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited.”

Rock continued, “Her man Will was not nominated for ‘Concussion.’ I get it. You get mad. It’s not fair that Will was this good and didn’t get nominated. You’re right. It’s also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for ‘Wild Wild West.'”

It was funny, witty, entertaining and above everything else, true.

Fast forward to March 27,2022. Will Smith was nominated for best Actor, one of the most important Oscars. Not only was he nominated he actually won it for, “King Richard” a sports drama film , about the life of Richard Williams, the father and coach of famed tennis players Venus and Serena Williams.

The thing Jada and Will had campaigned for, equality for African American actors was finally achieved. However instead of celebrating this as a highlight, Will Smith decided to slap Chris Rock on stage, for telling a harmless GI Jane joke. A joke Will had even laughed about himself, it was only after his wife gave an angry stare he decided to attack Chris Rock.

Personally I believe that Will Smith should not have been given the Oscar, he only received it after the altercation with Chris Rock.

I always liked Will Smith, I believe he should have received the Oscar for “I am Legend”. However the last few years he has been too busy promoting himself and his family a bit too much. Movies starring his son “After Earth” and “Karate Kid” both produced by Will Smith, flopped at the box office and rightfully so because they were awful movies.

I hope the Academy will learn from this incident, and leave political motivation out of the nominations. Filmmakers should be judged on the merits of their talents and not the color of their skin or their sexual orientation.

The movie industry was manipulated by politics before during the McCarthy era. It took great actors like Kirk Douglas to break that manipulation.

sources

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000586/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0#actress

https://www.nbcchicago.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/chris-rocks-prickly-oscar-night-history-with-will-smith-jada-pinkett-smith/2793355/

The forgotten James Bond songs

It has been a year now since the latest instalment of the James Bond franchise. There is no news as of yet who will replace Daniel Craig in the title role(no it’s not me)

Of course with every Bond movie there is also the obligatory Bond song, there have been so many classic songs from “Goldfinger” by Dame Shirley Bassey to “Skyfall” by Adele. However there are quite a few songs which seem to have been forgotten.

Here are just a few of them. Starting off with “Never say never again”. Maybe the reason why this one was forgotten is because, although Sean Connery had reprised his role as James Bond one last time, Never say never again was officially not a James Bond movie.

Never Say Never Again was based on the 1961 James Bond novel Thunderball, which had been previously adapted in a 1965 film under that name. Unlike the majority of Bond films, Never Say Never Again was not produced by Eon Productions but by Jack Schwartzman’s Taliafilm in association with Kevin McClory, one of the original writers of the Thunderball storyline with Ian Fleming and Jack Whittingham. McClory retained the filming rights of the novel following a long legal battle dating from the 1960s. 1983 also saw the release of another James Bond movie with Roger Moore, Octopussy”

Never Say Never Again was the title song to the 1983 film by the same name. It was sung by Lani Hall and composed by Michel Legrand with lyrics by Alan & Marilyn Bergman.

In 1979, Dame Shirley Bassey performed her 3rd and final James Bond song “Moonraker” another one that seems to have been forgotten, maybe because it was by far the worst Bond movie.

A song titled “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” sung by Shirley Bassey was originally slated to be the theme song of Thunderball. It was re-recorded by Dionne Warwick, but Albert Broccoli insisted the theme song must include the film’s title and also decided that the lyrics should not start before the film’s title Thunderball appears on-screen. A new song was composed and recorded at the eleventh hour titled “Thunderball”, performed by Tom Jones. The melody of “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” remains a major component of the film score.

The songs of the first 2 movies with Daniel Craig also have seen to be ended up in the dustbin of memories, even though they are both great rock songs.

“You Know My Name” is the theme song of the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale, performed by American musician Chris Cornell, who wrote and produced it jointly with David Arnold, the soundtrack’s composer. The film producers chose Cornell because they wanted a strong male singer. Cornell and Arnold tried to make the song a replacement theme for the character instead of the “James Bond theme” reflecting the agent’s inexperience in Casino Royale, as well as an introduction to Daniel Craig’s grittier and more emotional portrayal of Bond.

“Another Way to Die” is a song by American musicians Jack White and Alicia Keys. Written and produced by White as the theme song to the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace, it was released as a single in the United States on September 30, 2008 and in Europe on October 20, 2008. The song, which features White on vocals, guitar, piano and drums and Keys on vocals, is the first duet in the Bond film series.

“No Time to Die” is a song by American singer and songwriter Billie Eilish. It is the theme song for the upcoming James Bond film of the same name, and was released through Darkroom and Interscope Records on February 13, 2020.The song was written by Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell, and recorded in a bedroom studio .At age 18, Eilish is the youngest artist to have written and recorded a James Bond theme song. I am including this one in the list of forgotten Bond songs purely the whole movie was nearly forgotten because of the Covid pandemic.

Rolf Wenkhaus; Child actor and Luftwaffe crew member

I was reminiscing on TV shows I watched as a kid in the Netherlands. One of my favourite shows was a series called “Q&Q”. It was about 2 teenage detectives. The boys named Aristides Quarles and Wilbur Quant accidentally snap a photo of a dead body in the woods. After finding the place where the body was, they find it to be gone. Nobody believes them except Grandpa. They decide to investigate themselves. I will spare you the theme song because once you hear it, it will be in your head for days.

Then I also remembered a German movie I watched about some German teenage detectives, nowadays with Google and IMDB, it was relatively easy to find the title. The movie is called “Emil and the Detectives” .Turns out it is the birthday of the young main actor today. Rolf Wenkhaus was born on September 9,1917. The movie I was referring to earlier was made in 1931.

Rolf only made tow more movies, the last one was a Nazi propaganda movie titled “S.A.-Mann Brand”

Ironically the screenplay for Rolf Wenkhaus’s 1st movie, “Emil and the Detectives” was written by Billy Wilder, a Jewish Austrian screenwriter who lived in Berlin. After the rise of the Nazi Party, he moved to Paris, due to rampant antisemitism and discrimination against the Jewish people. He moved to Hollywood in 1933. That movie was also based on a novel by Erich Kästner, a pacifist and an opponent of the Nazi regime. The Gestapo interrogated Kästner several times, the national writers’ guild expelled him, and the Nazis burned his books as “contrary to the German spirit” during the book burnings of 10 May 1933, instigated by Joseph Goebbels.

After the outbreak of World War II, Rolf Wenkhaus enlisted in the military. At the time of his death, aged 24, he was in the aircrew of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, a four-engine bomber that specialized in attacks on shipping. Wenkhaus’s plane, with identification code F8 MH 0093, was shot down on 31 January 1942, off the coast of Bloody Foreland in County Donegal, Ireland by HMS Genista, a British Flower-class corvette being utilized as a convoy escort vessel.

The entire aircrew of six was killed. The body of the pilot, Werner Bornefeld, washed up at Bunbeg two weeks later, and was eventually reburied at a German War Cemetery at Glencree, Ireland.

Because Rolf Wenkhaus’s corpse has never been found they officially pronounced his dead only in 1948.

sources

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0921020/?ref_=tt_ov_st

https://prabook.com/web/rolf.wenkhaus/1928015

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_K%C3%A4stner#Berlin_1933%E2%80%931945

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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Happy Birthday Henry Mancini-Legendary composer and WWII Hero

American composer and conductor Enrico Nicola “Henry” Mancini was born in Cleveland on April 16 in 1924.But he grew up in Pennsylvania, where he played the flute flute with his father in an Italian immigrant music group called “Sons of Italy”,

At age eight, Mancini started to learn to play the piccolo.

He later studied piano and orchestral arrangement under Pittsburgh concert pianist and Stanley Theatre, currently called Benedum Center, conductor Max Adkins. Adkins also introduced Mancini to the up and coming bandleader Benny Goodman. So additionally to producing arrangements for the Stanley Theatre bands, Mancini also wrote one for Benny Goodman.

In 1942 Mancini went to the Juilliard School of Music in New York after a year at Carnegie Tech, but he never finished his studies. He was drafted to fight in World War II, in 1943 when he turned 18, and served in both the Army air forces and the infantry. During the war, he got to know some musicians who played in Glenn Miller’s Army Air Corps Band.

Mancini was first assigned to the 28th Air Force Band before being reassigned overseas to the 1306th Engineers Brigade in France. In 1945 he ,participated in the liberation of the Austrian Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.

After the war, Mancini arranged music and played piano for Miller’s band.

He was nominated for 18 Oscars and won four; in addition, he won 20 Grammys and 2 Emmys, made over 50 albums and had 500 works published. Mancini worked extensively together with Blake Edwards ,initially on TV’s Peter Gunn (1958), then on Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), which won him two Oscars; he won further Oscars for the titles song for Days of Wine and Roses (1962) and the score for Victor Victoria (1982); he will be best-remembered for the theme tune for The Pink Panther.

Mancini died of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles on June 14, 1994. He was working at the time on the Broadway stage version of Victor/Victoria, which he never saw on stage. Mancini was survived by his wife of 43 years, singer Virginia “Ginny” O’Connor, with whom he had three children.

Finishing the blog with the theme for the Pink Panther and Moon River of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The song I have often sung for my daughter as a lullaby.

sources

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000049/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm

https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1994/06/15/henry-mancini-1924-1994-his-work-was-music-for-the-ear-and-the-eye/

https://www.theglassfiles.com/images/1099

https://mst3k.fandom.com/wiki/Henry_Mancini

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/henry-mancini

Dora Gerson-Body lost or destroyed.

Dora

Dora Gerstein was a Jewish actress and singer  born  on 23 March 1899  in Berlin. She was murdered on February 14,1943 in Auschwitz. On one of the sites I used to do the research on Dora I noticed the line ‘Body lost or destroyed’.

Not only her body was destroyed but also her talent and beauty. Her short life is a poignant illustration how in a few years time, a poltical movement with a warped ideology impacted her life and ultimately caused her death.

In 1920 she starred in 2 silent films. Die Todeskarawane aka Caravan of Death and Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses aka In the Rubble of Paradise. She played the same character in both movies. The movies were based on novels by Karl May. Many Europeans have seen the Winnetou and Old Shatterhand westerns which were penned by Karl May. He was also admired by Albert Einstein  who said about him , “My whole adolescence stood under his sign. Indeed, even today, he has been dear to me in many a desperate hour.”

Ironically another admirer was Adolf Hitler who mentioned Karl May in Mein Kampf.

Between 1922 and 1924 Dora was married to the Actor/Director Veit Harlan. In less then 16 years after their divorce Harlan would become a pivotal figure in the Nazi propaganda machine. In 1940 he directed the anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß.

Jud

To escape Nazi persecution she moved to the Netherlands in 1936, where she met her 2nd Husband Max Sluizer. The couple had 2 children  Miriam Sluizer born on 19 November 1937 and Abel Juda Sluizer born on 21 May 1940,only 11 days after Germany invaded the Netherlands.

Dora and her family were all transported to Drancy internment camp and from there they were deported to Auschwitz where they were all murdered on February 14,1943.

pass

Finishing up with one of Dora’s recordings “Vorbei”  an emotional ballad, reminiscing pre-Nazi Germany.

!They’re gone beyond recall
A final glance, a last kiss
And then it’s all over
under the frame of eternity
A final word, a last farewell”

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of €2, however, if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thanks To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more than €2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks

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Sources

IMDB

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/110288165/dora-gerson

http://www.musiques-regenerees.fr/GhettosCamps/Camps/GersonDora.html

YouTube