Passage 1:
Konstantin Lopushansky
Konstantin Sergeyevich Lopushansky (Russian: Константин Сергеевич Лопушанский; born June 12, 1947) is a Soviet and Russian film director, film theorist and author. He is best known for directing the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films Dead Man's Letters (1986), A Visitor to a Museum (1989), Russian Symphony (1994), and The Ugly Swans (2006).
In 1997, Lopushansky was awarded the Honored Artist of the Russian Federation honorary title. In 2007, he was awarded the People's Artist of Russia honorary title, the highest Russian civilian honor for performing arts.

Biography
Early life
Konstantin Lopushansky was born on June 12, 1947, in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukrainian SSR. His mother was Sofia Petrovna Lopushanskaya, who worked as a linguistic professor at Volgograd State University. His father was Sergei Timofeyevich Lopushansky, a front-line soldier who died in 1953 from wounds he sustained in war.

Education and early career
In 1970, Konstantin Lopushansky graduated from Kazan Conservatory as a violinist, and in 1973 he completed a postgraduate course at Leningrad Conservatory with a Ph.D. thesis in art criticism. Afterwards, Lopushansky taught at the Kazan and Leningrad conservatories for several years. Lopushansky took higher courses for scriptwriters and film directors from the director's department at the workshop of Emil Loteanu.Upon graduating from the directorial courses in 1979, Lopushansky assisted Andrei Tarkovsky in directing the legendary film Stalker, based on the novel Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky.Lopushansky's thesis film Solo made in 1980 was about a musician playing his last concert during the Siege of Leningrad.Since 1980 Lopushansky has worked as a production director at the Lenfilm cinema studio.

Dead Man's Letters and breakthrough
In 1986, Konstantin Lopushansky made his feature film directorial debut with the post-apocalyptic film Dead Man's Letters, which was co-written by Boris Strugatsky. It was screened at the International Critics' Week section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1987 and received the FIPRESCI prize at the 35th International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg.Lopushanksy's 1989 film A Visitor to a Museum was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Silver St. George and the Prix of Ecumenical Jury.Lopushansky's 1994 film Russian Symphony was screened in the Forum section of the 45th Berlin International Film Festival where it received the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.Lopushansky made the 2006 film The Ugly Swans, based on the novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The science-fiction film was about a writer who visits a boarding school for gifted children where the teachers are mutants.Lopushansky's 2013 drama film The Role told the story of an actor who decides to impersonate a deceased commander of the Red Army. It was shown in competition at the 35th Moscow International Film Festival. It received the Nika Award for Best Screenplay.Konstantin Lopushansky's drama film Through the Black Glass was released in 2019.

Filmography
Passage 2:
Vyacheslav Rybakov
Vyacheslav Rybakov (Russian: Вячеслав Михайлович Рыбаков; born January 1954 in Leningrad), is a Russian science fiction author and an orientalist, interested in the medieval bureaucracy of China. He is a frequent collaborator with science fiction director Konstantin Lopushansky. Screenwriting for his films The Ugly Swans, based on the 1972 novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. As well as Dead Man's Letters in 1986, which he would later receive a Governmental Award of the RSFSR for the screenplay in 1987 after its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

Biography
Rybakov graduated from the Oriental Studies Department of the Leningrad State University in 1976, mostly focusing on writings about the medieval bureaucracy of China and started. Soon after he studied at the Leningrad branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences Oriental Institute where he was able to publish over 40 thesis papers. While studying at Leningrad, the KGB had gained access to rough drafts of his anti-Soviet novel Trust due to Rybakov sending drafts to friends and classmates. This resulted in the copies being seized by the KGB and a warning. Although the KGB has checked in with Rybakov several years later, Rybakov insisted on writing the final draft of the novel using previous remaining drafts and memory. The novel was later published a decade later. In 1983, Rybakov had met Konstantin Lopushansky to discuss writing the screenplay for his film Dead Man's Letters. The process of developing the film allowed both artists to freely express their visions for the production of the film and further productions further on, this was a stark contrast to Russia's strict censorship rules at the time.

Science fiction
Among Rybakov's works were first published and include the prize-winning novels: Fireplace on a Tower (Ochag na bashne, 1990), and Gravilyot Tsesarevitch (1993) which depicts an alternative world featuring a Russian Empire in which communism is merely a religion, and our world is just an insane scientific experiment.
His Death of Ivan Ilyich (1997) reveals the inner world of a contemporary person in a moment before his death.
The novel Na budushchiy god v Moskve (In the adjacent year in Moscow, 2003) explores a Russia torn apart into small, poor countries, ruled by those idealists of the late Soviet Union who sincerely hated totalitarianism but didn't notice any good features of the nation, ruined the whole system of government and survived with help of the West. In the story, space is ruled by Darths and Vaders, and a Russian rocket scientist Ivan Obiwankin attempts to resurrect his people's feelings of nationalism by launching his own space ship.
Rybakov preaches equality of cultures and states that cultures are often based on restrictions, and that simply removing the restrictions as anti-democratic may ruin the culture. Rybakov's novel also examines the Russian mentality, criticizing its tendency to understand and agree with the positions of others as an inappropriate way to deal with the encroaching Western civilization. He argues that all living civilizations are unique, and that in the future it may become essential to save some other civilization from stagnation, because a world ruled by only one civilization has no future.
He shows through an example of the ruined family of the main character Alexey that,

"the surest way for you to cease being esteemed and appreciated... even just loved... is to implicitly cede something essential and principal."
Vyacheslav Rybakov and Igor Alimov were also the authors  of There are no bad people. The work was originally attributed to Holm van Zaichik but was later proved to be a hoax. The series tells the story of the world of the Orduss, a fictional country with a humane and rich culture, that unifies lands of China, Russia and the Near East.

English translations
Artist (Story)
The Trial Sphere (Story)
Passage 3:
The Dance of Death (1948 film)
The Dance of Death (French: La danse de mort, Italian: La prigioniera dell'isola) is a 1948 French-Italian drama film directed by Marcel Cravenne and starring Erich von Stroheim, Denise Vernac and Palau. It is based on August Strindberg's The Dance of Death.
The film's sets were designed by Georges Wakhévitch.

Plot
An egocentric artillery Captain and his venomous wife engage in savage unremitting battles in their isolated island fortress off the coast of Sweden at the turn of the century. Alice, a former actress who sacrificed her career for secluded military life with Edgar, reveals on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary, the veritable hell their marriage has been. Edgar, an aging schizophrenic who refuses to acknowledge his severe illness, struggles to sustain his ferocity and arrogance with an animal disregard for other people. Sensing that Alice, together with her cousin and would-be lover, Kurt, may ally against him, retaliates with vicious force. Alice lures Kurt into the illusion of sharing a passionate assignation and recruits him in a plot to destroy Edgar.

Cast
Erich von Stroheim as Edgar
Denise Vernac as Théa
Palau as Le sergent / Il sergente
Massimo Serato as Stéphane / Stefano
Paul Oettly as Le général / Il generale
Marie Olivier
Henri Pons as Le timonier / Il timoniere
Roberto Villa
Galeazzo Benti
Margo Lion as Mathilde - la servante
Jean Servais as Kurt
María Denis as Rita
Roberto Bertea
Passage 4:
Dead Man's Letters
Dead Man's Letters (Russian: Письма мёртвого человека, romanized: Pis'ma myortvogo cheloveka), also known as Letters from a Dead Man, is a 1986 Soviet post-apocalyptic drama film directed and written by Konstantin Lopushansky. He wrote it along with Vyacheslav Rybakov and Boris Strugatsky. It marks his directorial debut.
The film was screened at the International Critics' Week section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1987
and received the FIPRESCI prize at the 35th International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg.In the aftermath of nuclear apocalypse, a group of people are forced to live underground in bunkers. They cannot go outside their dwellings without wearing protective clothing and gas masks. They try to find hope in the disturbing new world. Among these people is a history teacher who tries to contact via letters his missing son.

Plot
The film is set in a town after a nuclear war; the town is destroyed and polluted with radioactive elements. The main character, Professor Larsen, played by Rolan Bykov, is a Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, who lives in the basement of a museum along with his sick wife and several other people who used to work at the museum. He often writes letters to his son Eric, though he has no way of contacting him. Larsen believes the war has ended and that more surviving humans exist outside the central bunker, but nobody else believes his theories.
Larsen visits an orphanage where the current caretaker of the surviving children explains that she's thinking of evacuating to the central bunker, though may have to leave the children behind as they likely won't be allowed in since they're sick, to Larsen's disapproval. Larsen is informed that he also might be rejected from entering the central bunker due to his old age. With his wife's health declining, Larsen sneaks past several soldiers during curfew hours and attempts to find medicine for his wife, escaping from a military raid in the process. When he returns to the museum's basement, however, he finds that his wife died. The other museum employees bury her body.
In one of his letters to Eric, Larsen tells a darkly humorous story on how someone failed to prevent the nuclear war. According to him, an operator from an electronics center had a chance to cancel the first missile launch (which happened due to a computer error), but was unable to reach the computer in time to abort the launch as he was slowed down by a cup of coffee in his hands. The operator then hung himself in return.
Larsen makes a trip to the central bunker in an effort to find Eric. After sneaking into a medical facility, he enters the children's department, only to find all the children sick, injured, and screaming in agony, much to Larsen's horror.
After returning to the museum's basement, he finds that a museum employee is about to take his life as he thinks the history of mankind has ended and that mankind was doomed from the very beginning. He then leaves the group, lies down in a grave, and shoots himself dead, to the horror of his son. Later, while salvaging books from a flooded library, Larsen talks with a man who disagrees with his theory on how there's hope for mankind, referencing how Jesus said mankind was doomed.
Larsen visits the orphanage where he learns the children were rejected from entering the central bunker. The caretaker leaves the children for Larsen to look after, as she is evacuating to the central bunker herself. The remaining museum employees also evacuate to the central bunker, though Larsen stays behind to look after the children (it's assumed they're the only people left in the town). On Christmas Day, Larsen creates a makeshift Christmas tree out of sticks and candles while the children design Christmas ornaments to decorate it with. In his final letter to Eric, Larsen writes that he finally found purpose in life and that he hopes his son doesn't leave him alone in the world.
The final scene is narrated by one of the children Larsen looked after, who explains that Larsen died some time later. On his deathbed, he told the children to leave the museum and find somewhere else to go while they have the strength, still believing that life exists elsewhere. The film ends with the children wandering through the apocalyptic landscape together, their fates unknown.

Cast
Rolan Bykov - Professor Larsen
Vatslav Dvorzhetsky - Pastor
Vera Mayorova - Anna
Vadim Lobanov
Viktor Mikhaylov
Svetlana Smirnova - Theresa
Vladimir Bessekernyh
Vyacheslav Vasiliev - doctor dosimetrist
Natalya Vlasova

Themes
Due to the heated climate between North America and Russia during the events of The Cold War, many critics believe that Dead Man's Letters is a response to American films like WarGames and The Day After discussing their perspective on the Nuclear Arms Race. TBS purchased the rights to show Dead Man's Letters, deciding to air it alongside Amerika, a twelve-hour ABC miniseries about what the United States would be like as a Soviet satellite state. The heavy reliance on themes like warfare, uncertainty, and grief as well as Americans involved in the war are interwoven through the production design from Yelena Amshinskaya and Viktor Ivanov. The use of defense equipment in the film, including gas masks and shelter equipment,  makes its portrayal of a post-nuclear setting an eerie mirror image of the Soviet program.

Production
Around the time the film started production, it was common knowledge that Russia had a strict censorship policy following the death of Stalin, resulting in a three year waiting period for Lopushansky and the crew consisting of various re-rewrites, possibly most likely due to Vyacheslav Rybakov's involvement with anti-Soviet literature and run-ins with the KGB. However, censorship started to loosen around the mid to late 80s towards discussing sensitive topics regarding current or previous events in Russia's history, so producers and film studios became more lenient with what was shown in cinemas. Gorbachev established a policy of allowing more open discussion of previously sensitive political issues making it possible for well connected civil defense skeptics to popularize their views. The patronage of Anatoly Gromyko-historian, member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and son of Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko enabled the production by Lenfilm in 1986 of the first portrayal of the aftermath of nuclear war in Soviet cinema.Before production started on this film and his short Solo, Lopunshansky served as an apprentice for Tarkovsky and would later work as a production assistant for his 1979 film Stalker. Tarkovsky's teachings played a huge influence on Lopushansky's directing style as well as many aspects of the film from the set design, cinematography, and signature slow yet otherworldly pacing. In a 2017 interview with Indie Cinema, Lopunshansky states  "I noticed that his lectures, in fact, are not about certain professional skills, but are more philosophical, about understanding the essence of art, its essence." This can be seen through the film's brutal realism and constant feelings of hopelessness and confusion, a sentiment shared with by various members of the crew. The use of monochrome coloring on the film stock gives a resemblance to the greenish tint seen in various scenes in Stalker, in order to give the film a more foreboding atmosphere.

Reception
In 1989, The New York Times  published a somewhat positive review of the film. Praising the film for its brutal realism and stunning set design, but found that the film was somewhat dismissed by its meandering in certain scenes stating "despite its technical virtues, seems just a bit too contrived to truly convince, much less to deeply move. Yet, in stripping the ideological gloss from the vision of ultimate calamity, Mr. Lopushinsky does succeed in creating a cultural artifact that makes the specter of the most dreadful possible event common to both sides of the superpower divide".

See also
Vyacheslav Rybakov
List of nuclear holocaust fiction
Nuclear weapons in popular culture
Passage 5:
Michael Verhoeven
Michael Verhoeven (born 13 July 1938) is a German film director.

Life and work
Verhoeven is the son of the German film director Paul Verhoeven (not to be confused with the Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven). He married actress Senta Berger in 1966; their sons are actor-director Simon Verhoeven (born 1972) and actor Luca Verhoeven (born 1979). Together, the couple have a production company to make films. The 1970 anti-Vietnam War film, o.k. was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival, but led to a scandal that forced the collapse of the festival without the awarding of any prizes.In 1982, Verhoeven released Die weiße Rose (The White Rose), which, with the Best Foreign film nomination of Das schreckliche Mädchen (The Nasty Girl) in 1990, cemented his reputation as an important political contributor to German film. Along with his films My Mother's Courage and documentary Der unbekannte Soldat (The Unknown Soldier), they have been hailed as an unstinting examination of Germany's Nazi period. In 1992, he was a member of the jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.

Awards
1990 Silver Bear for Best Director, 40th Berlin International Film Festival for The Nasty Girl
1995 Bavarian Film Awards, Best Production
2006 Bavarian Film Awards, Honorary Award

Selected filmography
Director
Film

The Dance of Death (1967) – based on The Dance of Death by August Strindberg
Up the Establishment (1969) – screenplay by Franz Geiger
Student of the Bedroom (1970) – screenplay by Volker Vogeler, based on a novel by Finn Søeborg
o.k. (1970)
He Who Loves in a Glass House (1971)
MitGift (1976)
Scrounged Meals (1977) – screenplay by Elke Heidenreich and Bernd Schroeder
Sunday Children (1980) – based on a play by Gerlind Reinshagen
Die weiße Rose (1982)
Killing Cars (1986)
The Nasty Girl (1990)
My Mother's Courage (1995) – based on a story by George Tabori
Let's Go! (2014) – based on an autobiographical novel by Laura WacoTelevision

Der Kommissar: Dr. Meinhardts trauriges Ende (1970, TV series episode)
Tatort: Kressin und der Mann mit dem gelben Koffer (1972, TV series episode)
Ein unheimlich starker Abgang (1973) – based on a play by Harald Sommer
Krempoli – Ein Platz für wilde Kinder (1975, TV series)
Die Herausforderung (1975) – screenplay by Elke Heidenreich and Bernd Schroeder
Bier und Spiele (1977, TV series) – screenplay by Bernd Schroeder
Das Männerquartett (1978) – based on a novel by Leonhard Frank
1982: Gutenbach (1978) – screenplay by Michael Mansfeld
Verführungen (1979) – screenplay by Elke Heidenreich
Freundinnen: Edith und Marlene (1979, TV series episode) – screenplay by Elke Heidenreich and Irene Rodrian
Am Südhang (1980) – screenplay by Manfred Bieler, based on a novella by Eduard von Keyserling
Die Ursache (1980) – based on a novella and a play by Leonhard Frank
Die Mutprobe (1982)
Das Tor zum Glück (1984)
Stinkwut (1986) – based on a play by Fitzgerald Kusz
Gundas Vater (1987)
Gegen die Regel (1987) – screenplay by Daniel Christoff
Ignaz Semmelweis – Arzt der Frauen (1988) – biographical film about Ignaz Semmelweis
Die schnelle Gerdi (1989, TV series)
Schlaraffenland (1990)
Lilli Lottofee (1992, TV series)
Eine unheilige Liebe (1993)
Zimmer mit Frühstück (2000) – screenplay by Conny Lens
Enthüllung einer Ehe (2000) – screenplay with Nicole Walter-Lingen
Die schnelle Gerdi, second season (2004, TV series)
Tatort: Die Spieler (2005, TV series episode)
Bloch: Vergeben, nicht vergessen (2008, TV series episode)
Bloch: Heißkalte Seele (2012, TV series episode)
Bloch: Die Lavendelkönigin (2013, TV series episode)
Glückskind (2014) – based on a novel by Steven UhlyDocumentary and short films

Tische (1970)
Bonbons (1971)
Coiffeur (1973)
Liebe Melanie (1983) – film about Melanie Horeschowsky
Das Mädchen und die Stadt oder: Wie es wirklich war (1990)
The Legend of Mrs. Goldman and the Almighty God (1996) – with George Tabori
George Tabori – Theater ist Leben (1998) – film about George Tabori
Der Fall Liebl (2001)
Die kleine Schwester – Die weiße Rose: Ein Vermächtnis (2002)
Der unbekannte Soldat (The Unknown Soldier, 2006)
Menschliches Versagen (Human Failure, 2008)
The Second Execution of Romell Broom (2012)

Producer
Die Spider Murphy Gang (dir. Georg Kostya, 1983)
Welcome to Germany (dir. Simon Verhoeven, 2016)

Actor
The Flying Classroom (1954), as Ferdinand
Marianne of My Youth (1955), as Alexis
The Crammer (1958), as Peter Wieland
That's No Way to Land a Man (1959), as Horst Burkhardt
The Juvenile Judge (1960), as Fred Kaiser
Mit 17 weint man nicht (1960), as Richard Denger
The House in Montevideo (1963), as Herbert
Tales of a Young Scamp (1964), as Karl Schultheiss
Onkel Filser – Allerneueste Lausbubengeschichten (1966), as Karl Schultheiss
Der Kommissar: Dr. Meinhardts trauriges Ende (1970, TV series episode), as Harro Vogt
Der Kommissar: Kellner Windeck (1971, TV series episode), as Johannes Windeck
Passage 6:
W. Augustus Barratt
W. Augustus Barratt (3 June 1873 – 12 April 1947) was a Scottish-born, later American, songwriter and musician.

Early life and songs
Walter Augustus Barratt was born 3 June 1873 in Kilmarnock, the son of composer John Barratt; the family later lived in Paisley. In 1893 he won a scholarship for composition to the Royal College of Music.
In his early twenties he contributed to The Scottish Students' Song Book, with three of his own song compositions and numerous arrangements.
By the end of 1897 he had published dozens of songs, such as Sir Patrick Spens, The Death of Cuthullin, an album of his own compositions, and arrangements of ten songs by Samuel Lover.
He then, living in London, turned his attention to staged musical comedy, co-creating, with Adrian Ross, The Tree Dumas Skiteers, a skit, based on Sydney Grundy's The Musketeers that starred Herbert Beerbohm Tree. He co-composed with Howard Talbot the successful Kitty Grey (1900).He continued to write songs and to receive recognition for them. The 1901 and 1902 BBC Promenade Concerts, "The Proms", included four of his compositions, namely Come back, sweet Love, The Mermaid, My Peggy and Private Donald.
His setting of My Ships, a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, was performed by Clara Butt and republished several times. It also appeared four times, with different singers, in the 1913 and 1914 Proms.

America
In September 1904 he went to live in New York City, finding employment with shows on Broadway, including the following roles:

on-stage actor (Sir Benjamin Backbite) in Lady Teazle (1904-1905), a musical version of The School for Scandal;
musical director of The Little Michus (1907), also featuring songs by Barratt;
co-composer of Miss Pocahontas (1907), a musical comedy;
musical director of The Love Cure (1909–1910), a musical romance;
composer of The Girl and the Drummer (1910), a musical romance with book by George Broadhurst. Tried out in Chicago and elsewhere, it did not do well and never reached Broadway;
musical director of The Quaker Girl (1911–1912);
co-composer and musical director of My Best Girl (1912);
musical director of The Sunshine Girl (1913);
musical director of The Girl who Smiles (1915), a musical comedy;
musical director and contributor to music and lyrics of Her Soldier Boy (1916–1917);
composer, lyricist and musical director of Fancy Free (1918), with book by Dorothy Donnelly and Edgar Smith;
contributor of a song to The Passing Show of 1918;
composer and musical director of Little Simplicity (1918), with book and lyrics by Rida Johnson Young;
contributor of lyrics to The Melting of Molly (1918–1919), a musical comedy;
musical director of What's in a Name? (1920), a musical revue

1921 in London
Though domiciled in the US, he made several visits back to England. During an extended stay in 1921 he played a major part in the creation of two shows, both produced by Charles B. Cochran, namely

League of Notions, at the New Oxford Theatre, for which he composed the music and co-wrote, with John Murray Anderson, the lyrics;
Fun of the Fayre, at the London Pavilion, for which similarly he wrote the music and co-wrote the lyrics

Back to Broadway
Back in the US he returned to Broadway, working as
composer and lyricist of Jack and Jill (1923), a musical comedy;
musical director of The Silver Swan (1929), a musical romance

Radio plays
In later years he wrote plays and operettas mostly for radio, such as:

Snapshots: a radioperetta (1929)
Sushannah and the Brush Wielders: a play in 1 act (1929)
The Magic Voice: a radio series (1933)
Men of Action: a series of radio sketches (1933)
Say, Uncle: a radio series (1933)
Sealed Orders: a radio drama (1934)
Sergeant Gabriel (with Hugh Abercrombie) (1945)

Personal
In 1897 in London he married Lizzie May Stoner. They had one son. In 1904 he emigrated to the US and lived in New York City. His first marriage ended in divorce in 1915 and, in 1918, he married Ethel J Moore, who was American. In 1924, he became a naturalized American citizen. He died on 12 April 1947 in New York City.

Note on his first name
The book British Musical Biography by Brown & Stratton (1897) in its entry for John Barratt refers to "his son William Augustus Barratt" with details that make it clear that Walter Augustus Barratt is the same person and that a "William" Augustus Barratt is a mistake. For professional purposes up to about 1900 he appears to have written as "W. Augustus Barratt", and thereafter mostly as simply "Augustus Barratt".
Passage 7:
Dance of Death (film)
Dance of Death, also called Danse Macabre, is a late-medieval allegory of the universality of death.
Dance of Death or The Dance of Death may also refer to:

Books
Dance of Death, a 1938 novel by Helen McCloy
Dance of Death (Stine novel), a 1997 novel by R. L. Stine
Dance of Death (novel), a 2005 novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Theatre and film
The Dance of Death (Strindberg play), a 1900 play by August Strindberg
The Dance of Death, a 1908 play by Frank Wedekind
The Dance of Death (Auden play), a 1933 play by W. H. Auden

Film
The Death Dance, a 1918 drama starring Alice Brady
The Dance of Death (1912 film), a German silent film
The Dance of Death (1919 film), an Austrian silent film
The Dance of Death (1938 film), crime drama starring Vesta Victoria; screenplay by Ralph Dawson
The Dance of Death (1948 film), French-Italian drama based on Strindberg's play, starring Erich von Stroheim
The Dance of Death (1967 film), a West German drama film
Dance of Death or House of Evil, 1968 Mexican horror film starring Boris Karloff
Dance of Death (1969 film), a film based on Strindberg's play, starring Laurence Olivier
Dance of Death (1979 film), a Hong Kong film featuring Paul Chun

Music
Dance of Death (album), a 2003 album by Iron Maiden, or the title song
The Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites, a 1964 album by John Fahey
The Dance of Death (Scaramanga Six album)
"Death Dance", a 2016 song by Sevendust

See also
Dance of the Dead (disambiguation)
Danse Macabre (disambiguation)
Bon Odori, a Japanese traditional dance welcoming the spirits of the dead
La danse des morts, an oratorio by Arthur Honegger
Totentanz (disambiguation)
Passage 8:
The Dance of Death (1967 film)
The Dance of Death (German: Paarungen) is a 1967 West German drama film directed by Michael Verhoeven and starring Lilli Palmer, Paul Verhoeven and Karl Michael Vogler. It is an adaptation of August Strindberg's play of the same title. It was shot in Eastmancolor.

Plot
An egocentric artillery Captain and his venomous wife engage in savage unremitting battles in their isolated island fortress off the coast of Sweden at the turn of the century. Alice, a former actress who sacrificed her career for secluded military life with Edgar, reveals on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary, the veritable hell their marriage has been. Edgar, an aging schizophrenic who refuses to acknowledge his severe illness, struggles to sustain his ferocity and arrogance with an animal disregard for other people. Sensing that Alice, together with her cousin and would-be lover, Kurt, may ally against him, retaliates with vicious force. Alice lures Kurt into the illusion of sharing a passionate assignation and recruits him in a plot to destroy Edgar.

Cast
Lilli Palmer as Alice
Paul Verhoeven as Edgar
Karl Michael Vogler as Kurt
Ilona Grübel as Judith
Michael von Harbach as Allan
Melanie Horeschowsky as Maja
Dietrich Kerky as Prisoner
Dieter Klein as Ekmark
Inken Sommer as Jenny
Passage 9:
Elsa Barker
Elsa Barker (1869–1954) was an American novelist, short-story writer and poet. She became best known for Letters from a Living Dead Man (1914), War Letters from the Living Dead Man (1915), and Last Letters From the Living Dead Man (1919), books containing what she said were messages from a dead man produced through automatic writing.

Biography
Barker was born in 1869 in Leicester, Vermont to Albert G. and Louise Marie Barker, both of whom died while she was young. Her earliest work was as a shorthand reporter, teacher, and newspaper writer. She was an  editor of the Consolidated Encyclopedia Library in 1901, was a lecturer for the New York Board of Education in 1904-1905, and was on the editorial staff of Hamptons magazine in 1909-1910. She also authored a "labor play", The Scab, produced in New York and Boston in 1904-1906. Her first novel, The Son of Mary Bethel, was published in 1909.Barker's father had been interested in the occult and she shared this interest, becoming a member of the Theosophical Society. She also was initiated into the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega.Barker lived in Europe from 1910 to 1914, first in Paris and then in London. She was in London at the outbreak of World War I. In 1912, while in Paris, she felt compelled to write a passage, although she said she did not know where the words came from. She said she was "strongly impelled to take up a pencil and write." She signed the passage "X", which at first meant nothing to her. She was told that "X" was the nickname of a Los Angeles judge called David P. Hatch and then discovered that Hatch had died before she "received" the message. In 1914 she published a book of these messages called Letters from a Living Dead Man. She said that the passages were genuine messages from the dead man and Hatch's son also believed that the communications were from his father. She published two more volumes of Hatch's messages — War Letters from the Living Dead Man (1915), and Last Letters From the Living Dead Man (1919).
Around the time of the publication of War Letters from the Living Dead Man in 1915, Barker developed an interest in psychoanalysis. By 1919 she was studying 14 hours a day. From 1928 to 1930 she lived on the French Riviera. Barker died August 31, 1954.

Selected works
The Son of Mary Bethel (1909)
The Frozen Grail & Other Poems (1910)
Stories from the New Testament for Children (1911)
The Book of Love (1912)
Letters from a Living Dead Man (1914, 1920)
War Letters from the Living Dead Man (1915)
Songs of a Vagrom Angel (1916)
Last Letters From the Living Dead Man (1919)
Fielding Sargent (1922)
The Cobra Candlestick (1928)
The C.I.D. of Dexter Drake (1929)
The Redman Cave Murder (1930)
Passage 10:
Avenger X
Avenger X (Italian: Mister-X) is a 1967 film based on the Italian comic series Mister-X.

Plot
George Lamarro is the head of a pharmaceutical company that is also involved in the production and distribution of illegal narcotics.  When his secretary attempts to blackmail him for a share of the profits and his hand in marriage, he has her killed with her death arranged in a way to implicate a master criminal called "Mister X" who is a master of disguise, efficient killer and professional golf champion.  The real Mister X uses his skills to discover the criminals are involved in a scheme by an unnamed foreign nation using the company and a Scottish and an American criminal to distribute illegal narcotics in the Western World.

Cast
Pier Paolo Capponi as Mister X
Gaia Germani as Timmy
Armando Calvo as George Lamar
Anna Zinnemann as Dolly
Umberto Raho as MacDoug
Renato Baldini as Jack Caruso
Franco Fantasia as Inspector Roux
Dante Posani as Jim
Helga Liné as Gloria

Production
Avenger X was based on the comic series Mister-X as created by writer Cesare Melloncelli and drawing artist Giancarlo Tenenti. The comic was first published by Milan's Edizioni Cervinia in October 1964. Unlike other fumetti neri of the era, Mister-X had very little violent content, with the titular character being a gentleman thief similar to Arsène Lupin. In the film, the titular character Mister X visually differs from the comics design who had a black hood and leotard opposed to the red cape, white boots and hood that covers his face that his comic book counterpart wears.Parts of the film were shot in Rome including location shooting at the Stadio dei Marmi.

Release
Avenger X was released in Italy in 1967 as Mister X. The English-language title of the film ignores the characters name and is titled Avenger X. Director Piero Vivarelli stated most of the violent scenes in the film were removed from the Italian version of the film to earn a V.M.14 rating.  Censors documents only suggested that 47 seconds of the film were cut in Italy This included scenes where a blowtorch approaches Mister-X's bare chest and a shot of a speedboat moving towards a reef. The film grossed 112 million Italian lire in Italy during its theatrical run. The film was distributed by Euro International.The film was released in Spain on 22 January 1968 where it sold 707,889 admissions.

See also
List of films based on comics
List of Italian films of 1967
List of Spanish films of 1967


Passage 1:
Thomas Scott (diver)
Thomas Scott (1907 - date of death unknown) was an English diver.

Boxing
He competed in the 10 metre platform at the 1930 British Empire Games for England.

Personal life
He was a police officer at the time of the 1930 Games.
Passage 2:
William Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton
William George Hervey Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton (2 December 1898 – 14 November 1967), was a British peer and soldier.
Hylton was the son of Hylton Jolliffe, 3rd Baron Hylton, and Lady Alice Adeliza Hervey. He achieved the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Coldstream Guards and also served as Lord Lieutenant of Somerset from 1949 to 1964. Lord Hylton married Lady Perdita Rose Mary Asquith, daughter of Katharine and Raymond Asquith, eldest son of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, in 1931. He died in November 1967, aged 68.
He was succeeded in his titles by his elder son Raymond. The writer (of eg. Raymond Asquith: Life and Letters) John Hedworth Jolliffe is his younger son; his daughter Mary is the wife of John Paget Chancellor, son of Christopher Chancellor of Reuters. Mary and John Chancellor are the parents of the actress Anna Chancellor and the financial historian Edward Chancellor.
Passage 3:
William Jolliffe, 1st Baron Hylton
William George Hylton Jolliffe, 1st Baron Hylton  (7 December 1800 – 1 June 1876), known as Sir William Jolliffe, Bt, between 1821 and 1866, was a British soldier and Conservative politician. He was a member of the Earl of Derby's first two administrations as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1852 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury between 1858 and 1859.

Background
Jolliffe was the son of Reverend William John Jolliffe, the son of William Jolliffe and his wife Eleanor Hylton, daughter and heir of Sir Richard Hylton, 5th Baronet (who had assumed the surname of Hylton in lieu of his patronymic Musgrave; see Musgrave Baronets) and his wife Anne, sister and co-heiress of John Hylton, de jure 18th Baron Hylton. Jolliffe first served in the Army and achieved the rank of captain in the 15th Dragoons. He notably took part in the events at St Peter's Field in Manchester in 1819 (the "Peterloo Massacre"). In 1821, at the age of twenty, Jolliffe was created a Baronet, of Merstham in the County of Surrey.

Political career
Jolliffe served a year as High Sheriff of Surrey in 1830 and then sat as a Member of Parliament for Petersfield from 1830 to 1832, 1837 to 1838 and 1841 to 1866 and served under the Earl of Derby as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1852 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury from 1858 to 1859. He was admitted to the Privy Council in 1859 and in 1866 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Hylton, of Hylton in the County Palatine of Durham and of Petersfield in the County of Southampton.

Cricket
Jolliffe played a single first-class match for Hampshire in 1825 against Sussex. Jolliffe scored 12 runs in the match.

Family
Lord Hylton married, firstly, Eleanor Paget, daughter of the Hon. Berkeley Thomas Paget, in 1825. Their eldest son Hylton Jolliffe was a captain in the Coldstream Guards but died from cholera during the Crimean War. Hylton married, secondly, Sophia Penelope, daughter of Sir Robert Sheffield, 4th Baronet, and widow of William Fox-Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester, in 1867. He died at Merstham House near Reigate on 1 June 1876, aged 75, and was succeeded in his titles by his second but eldest surviving son from his first marriage, Hedworth. His granddaughter Gertrude Crawford became the first commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force.
Passage 4:
Bill Smith (footballer, born 1897)
William Thomas Smith (9 April 1897 – after 1924) was an English professional footballer.

Career
During his amateur career, Smith played in 17 finals, and captained the Third Army team in Germany when he was stationed in Koblenz after the armistice during the First World War. He started his professional career with Hull City in 1921. After making no appearances for the club, he joined Leadgate Park. He joined Durham City in 1921, making 33 league appearances in the club's first season in the Football League.He joined York City in the Midland League in July 1922, where he scored the club's first goal in that competition. He made 75 appearances for the club in the Midland League and five appearances in the FA Cup before joining Stockport County in 1925, where he made no league appearances.
Passage 5:
Etan Boritzer
Etan Boritzer (born 1950) is an American writer of children’s literature who is best known for his book What is God? first published in 1989. His best selling What is? illustrated children's book series on character education and difficult subjects for children is a popular teaching guide for parents, teachers and child-life professionals.Boritzer gained national critical acclaim after What is God? was published in 1989 although the book has caused controversy from religious fundamentalists for its universalist views. The other current books in the What is? series include: What is Love?, What is Death?, What is Beautiful?, What is Funny?, What is Right?, What is Peace?, What is Money?, What is Dreaming?, What is a Friend?, What is True?, What is a Family?, and What is a Feeling? The series is now also translated into 15 languages.
Boritzer was first published in 1963 at the age of 13 when he wrote an essay in his English class at Wade Junior High School in the Bronx, New York on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His essay was included in a special anthology by New York City public school children compiled and published by the New York City Department of Education.
Boritzer now lives in Venice, California and maintains his publishing office there also. He has helped numerous other authors to get published through How to Get Your Book Published! programs. Boritzer is also a yoga teacher who teaches regular classes locally and guest-teaches nationally. He is also recognized nationally as an erudite speaker on The Teachings of the Buddha.
Passage 6:
Henry Hylton, de jure 12th Baron Hylton
Henry Hylton, de jure 12th Baron Hylton (1586 – 30 March 1641) was an English nobleman.
Hylton was the eldest son of Thomas Hylton (himself the son of William Hylton, de jure 11th Baron Hylton) and his wife, Anne née Bowes (daughter of Sir George Bowes of Streatlam Castle). In 1600, Hylton inherited the right to the barony of Hylton from his grandfather.

Sources
Henry Hylton b.1585 - AncestryUK.com
The Gentlemen's Magazine, March 1821
Passage 7:
Theodred II (Bishop of Elmham)
Theodred II was a medieval Bishop of Elmham.
The date of Theodred's consecration unknown, but the date of his death was sometime between 995 and 997.
Passage 8:
Hylton Jolliffe, 3rd Baron Hylton
Hylton George Hylton Jolliffe, 3rd Baron Hylton (10 November 1862 – 26 May 1945) was a British peer and Conservative politician.Hylton was the eldest son of Hedworth Jolliffe, 2nd Baron Hylton, and Lady Agnes Mary Byng. Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey was his maternal great-grandfather.

Career
George succeeded the barony in 1899; prior to that he was educated at Eton college and Oriel College, Oxford. He pursued a brief military career as capital for the Somerset imperial yeomanry, then diplomatic service in 1888, then 3rd secretary in 1890 and 2nd secretary in 1894. He became Justice of the peace and county Alderman for Somerset where he sat in politics.Hylton entered the Diplomatic Service in 1888, but in 1895 he was elected to the House of Commons for Wells. He held this seat until 1899, when he succeeded his father as third Baron Hylton and entered the House of Lords. In June 1915 Hylton was appointed a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) in the newly formed coalition government, and in 1918 he was promoted him to Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard. The coalition government of David Lloyd George fell in 1922, but Hylton continued as Deputy Chief Whip also under Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin. However, after the first Baldwin government fell in January 1924, he never returned to office.
He was created Viscount Hylton and owned much of Chaldon, of which he was Lord of the manor.Lord Hylton married Lady Alice Adeliza Hervey, daughter of Frederick Hervey, 3rd Marquess of Bristol, in 1896. He died in May 1945, aged 82, and was succeeded in his titles by his son William George Hervey Jolliffe. Lady Hylton died in 1962.
Passage 9:
Hedworth Jolliffe, 2nd Baron Hylton
Hedworth Hylton Jolliffe, 2nd Baron Hylton DL (23 June 1829 – 31 October 1899), was a British peer and Conservative Member of Parliament.

Birth and education
Hylton was the second son of William George Hylton Jolliffe, 1st Baron Hylton, and Eleanor Paget. He was educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford.

Crimean War service
In 1849, he joined the 4th Light Dragoons and served in the Crimean War, where his older brother was killed at Sebastopol. He was present at the Charge of the Light Brigade. He retired from the Army in 1856, following his election to Parliament.

Parliamentary service
He was elected to the House of Commons for Wells in 1855, a seat he held until 1868.
In 1870 he succeeded his father as second Baron Hylton and entered the House of Lords.

Marriages
Lord Hylton married his second cousin, Lady Agnes Mary Byng, daughter of George Byng, 2nd Earl of Strafford, in 1858. Their divorce was a Cause célèbre. There were children of this marriage, sons and a daughter, Agatha Eleanor Augusta Jolliffe, who married Ailwyn Fellowes MP.
Lord Hylton married again to Anne, daughter of Henry Lambert, who was the second wife and the widow of the third Earl of Dunraven.

Death and succession
He died in October 1899, aged 70, and was succeeded in his titles by his surviving son Hylton George Hylton Jolliffe.

Notes
Passage 10:
William Jolliffe (1745–1802)
William Jolliffe (16 April 1745 – 20 February 1802) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons  from 1768 to 1802.

Life
He was the eldest son of the politician John Jolliffe and his wife Mary, daughter of Samuel Holden. He was educated at Winchester College and Brasenose College, Oxford.Jolliffe was elected as Member of Parliament for Petersfield in 1768, a seat controlled by his father, who died in 1771 leaving him a sitting patron. He held it until 1802.
He was a Lord of Trade from 1772 to 1779 and Lord of the Admiralty during 1783.He bought the lease for his residence on King Street in 1772 for what he called "very cheap," but Edward Gibbon described the place as "excellent." After his death, his son Hylton sold it to Henry Francis Greville, who opened it as the Argyll Rooms.

Family
He married Eleanor Hylton, daughter and heir of Sir Richard Hylton, 5th Baronet, and Anne, sister and co-heiress of John Hylton, de jure 18th Baron Hylton. Jolliffe died in February 1802, aged 56, after falling through a trapdoor into a cellar at his home. His wife died the same year. Their grandson William George Hylton Jolliffe became a prominent Conservative politician and was created Baron Hylton in 1866.

Notes


Passage 1:
Immilla of Turin
Immilla (also Emilia, Immula, Ermengard, or Irmgard) (born c. 1020; died January 1078) was a duchess consort of Swabia by marriage to Otto III, Duke of Swabia, and a margravine of Meissen by marriage to Ekbert I of Meissen. She was regent of Meissen during the minority of her son, Ekbert II.

Life
Immilla was the daughter of Ulric Manfred II of Turin and Bertha of Milan and thereby a member of the Arduinici dynasty. Her older sister was Adelaide of Susa.
Her first husband was Otto III, Duke of Swabia, whom she married c. 1036. After Otto's death in September 1057, Immilla married again (c.1058). Her second husband was Ekbert I of Meissen.In 1067, shortly before his death, Ekbert I attempted to repudiate Immilla in order to marry Adela of Louvain, daughter of Lambert II, Count of Louvain and the widow of Otto I, Margrave of Meissen. After Ekbert's death in 1068, Immilla spent some time at the imperial court with her niece Bertha, before returning to Italy. It is possible that she acted as regent for her young son, Ekbert II, at this time.Immilla died in Turin in January 10, 1078. She is sometimes said to have become a nun before her death.

Marriages and children
With her first husband, Otto, Immilla had five daughters:

Bertha (or Alberada) (died 1 April 1103), married firstly Herman II, Count of Kastl, and married secondly Frederick, Count of Kastl
Gisela, inherited Kulmbach and Plassenburg, married Arnold IV, Count of Andechs
Judith (died 1104), married firstly Conrad I, Duke of Bavaria, and secondly Botho, Count of Pottenstein
Eilika, abbess of Niedermünster
Beatrice (1040–1140), inherited Schweinfurt, married Henry II, Count of Hildrizhausen and Margrave of the NordgauWith her second husband, Ekbert I, Immilla had the following children:

Ekbert II
Gertrude
Passage 2:
Volkold
Volkold of Meissen (also Wolcold, Folcold, Folchold, Volhold, Volkhuld, Volchrad, Vocco; died 23 August 992) was the second Bishop of Meissen.

Life
Before his elevation to the episcopate all that is known of Volkold's life is that he was at the court of Emperor Otto I as one of the tutors of the Emperor's son, the  future Otto II. He seems to have been appointed Bishop of Meissen in 969. Before his elevation Volkold was the patron of the young Willigis, later Saint Willigis, and used his influence to obtain for him a position in the Imperial service. In 972 Volkold attended a synod in Ingelheim.When Boleslaus II, Duke of Bohemia, besieged the Albrechtsburg and the town of Meissen in 984 in support of the Imperial ambitions of Henry II of Bavaria after the death of Otto II, Volkold was obliged to seek refuge from the Sorbs in Erfurt, under the protection of Willigis, and was not able to return to his badly-damaged headquarters until after the re-conquest by Ekkehard I, Margrave of Meissen, in 987. In that year he put the diocese under Imperial protection.Doubtless as compensation for the bishopric's many losses he received from Otto II several gifts of estates, tolls and uses.While on a visit to Prague he suffered a stroke, on Good Friday 992, and returned paralysed to Meissen, where he died on 23 August and was buried.
Passage 3:
Albrecht I of Meissen
Albrecht I of Meissen (died 1 August 1152) was Bishop of Meissen from 1150 to 1152.

Life
Albrecht I is not extensively documented. He was supposedly from a family of the Sorbian nobility. Before his elevation to the bishopric he was a cathedral provost. Otto von Freising mentions Albrecht in 1151 in connection with the dispute between Friedrich II of Berg and Herman van Horne over the office of bishop of Utrecht.
With the agreement of the Pope, the bishopric of Meissen, like that of Naumburg, was under the protection of Burggraf Conrad I of Meissen, in return for which the bishops were expected to undertake appropriate tasks from time to time. At the beginning of 1152 Conrad III entrusted Albrecht, who had the reputation of being talented at languages, with a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. The bishop died either on the way to Constantinople or in the city itself.
Passage 4:
John I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen
John I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen (born: before 1322; died: 23 May 1367) was provost of the St. Alexandri Minster in Einbeck.
He was the son of Duke Henry I "the Marvelous" of Brunswick-Grubenhagen and his wife Agnes of Meissen, daughter of Margrave Albert II of Meissen.
Passage 5:
Agnes of Waiblingen
Agnes of Waiblingen (1072/73 – 24 September 1143), also known as Agnes of Germany, Agnes of Poitou and Agnes of Saarbrücken, was a member of the Salian imperial family.  Through her first marriage, she was Duchess of Swabia; through her second marriage, she was Margravine of Austria.

Family
She was the daughter of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Bertha of Savoy.

First marriage
In 1079, aged seven, Agnes was betrothed to Frederick, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty; at the same time, Henry IV invested Frederick as the new duke of Swabia. The couple married in 1086, when Agnes was fourteen. They had twelve children, eleven of whom were named in a document found in the abbey of Lorsch:

Hedwig-Eilike (1088–1110), married Friedrich, Count of Legenfeld
Bertha-Bertrade (1089–1120), married Adalbert, Count of Elchingen
Frederick II of Swabia
Hildegard
Conrad III of Germany
Gisihild-Gisela
Heinrich (1096–1105)
Beatrix (1098–1130), became an abbess
Kunigunde-Cuniza (1100–1120/1126), wife of Henry X, Duke of Bavaria (1108–1139)
Sophia, married Konrad II, Count of Pfitzingen
Fides-Gertrude, married Hermann III, Count Palatine of the Rhine
Richildis, married Hugh I, Count of Roucy

Second marriage
Following Frederick's death in 1105, Agnes married Leopold III (1073–1136), the Margrave of Austria (1095–1136). According to a legend, a veil lost by Agnes and found by Leopold years later while hunting was the instigation for him to found the Klosterneuburg Monastery.Their children were:
Adalbert
Leopold IV
Henry II of Austria
Berta, married Heinrich of Regensburg
Agnes, "one of the most famous beauties of her time", married Wladyslaw II of Poland
Ernst
Uta, wife of Liutpold von Plain
Otto of Freising, bishop and biographer
Conrad, Bishop of Passau, and Archbishop of Salzburg
Elisabeth, married Hermann, Count of Winzenburg
Judith, m. c. 1133 William V of Montferrat. Their children formed an important Crusading dynasty.
Gertrude, married Vladislav II of BohemiaAccording to the Continuation of the Chronicles of Klosterneuburg, there may have been up to seven other children (possibly from multiple births) stillborn or who died in infancy.
In 2013, documentation regarding the results of DNA testing of the remains of the family buried in Klosterneuburg Abbey strongly favor that Adalbert was the son of Leopold and Agnes.In 1125, Agnes' brother, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, died childless, leaving Agnes and her children as heirs to the Salian dynasty's immense allodial estates, including Waiblingen.
In 1127, Agnes' second son, Konrad III, was elected as the rival King of Germany by those opposed to the Saxon party's Lothar III. When Lothar died in 1137, Konrad was elected to the position.
Passage 6:
Margaret of Sicily
Margaret of Sicily (also called Margaret of Hohenstaufen or Margaret of Germany) (1 December 1241, in Foggia – 8 August 1270, in Frankfurt-am-Main) was a Princess of Sicily and Germany, and a member of the House of Hohenstaufen. By marriage she was Landgravine of Thuringia and Countess Palatine of Saxony (German: Landgräfin von Thüringen und Pfalzgräfin von Sachsen).
She was the daughter of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily and Germany, by his third wife, Isabella of England.  Her paternal grandparents were Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor and Constance of Sicily. Her maternal grandparents were John of England and Isabella of Angoulême.

Birth
The date of her birth is difficult to ascertain because there is controversy over the exact number of children borne by her mother. Some sources say that she was the first or second child, born by the end of 1237; others say that she was the last child, born in December 1241, when Isabella died in childbirth. Historians commonly accept the latter date.

Life
Shortly after her birth (1242), Margaret was betrothed to Albert "the Degenerate", eldest son and heir of Henry III "the Illustrious", Margrave of Meissen. The marriage took place in June 1255, the bride receiving Pleissnerland (the towns of Altenburg, Zwickau, Chemnitz and Leisnig) as her dowry.
The couple settled at his residence in Eckartsberga and later moved to Wartburg, where she bore five children: three sons (Henry, Frederick and Dietzmann) and two daughters (Margaret and Agnes). Through her second son Frederick – later Margrave of Meissen – Margaret was the direct ancestor of the Electors and Kings of Saxony and English Queen consorts Margaret of Anjou and Anne of Cleves.
In 1265 her husband received the titles of Landgrave of Thuringia and Count Palatine of Saxony (German: Pfalzgräf von Sachsen) after the abdication of his father, who retained control of Meissen.
After the execution of her nephew Conradin (29 October 1268), Margaret, as the next legitimate relative, became the rightful Queen of Sicily and the general heiress of the Hohenstaufen claims over the Duchy of Swabia and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (despite the fact she was not descended from the Kings of Jerusalem, her father Frederick II had claimed the kingdom for himself). Her son Frederick assumed by some time this titles on her right.
After discovering the adultery of her husband with Kunigunde of Eisenberg, Margaret left Wartburg; according to a legend, before her departure she bit her son Frederick in the cheek; he was called henceforth Frederick the Bitten (de: Friedrich der Gebissene). The flight took place on 24 June 1270. Margaret went to Frankfurt-am-Main and was supported there by the citizens. She died there six weeks later.

Issue
Margaret and Albert had five children:

Henry (b. 21 March 1256 – d. 25 January/23 July? 1282), inherited the Pleissnerland in 1274.
Frederick (b. 1257 – d. Wartburg, 16 November 1323), Margrave of Meissen.
Theodoric, called Dietzmann (b. 1260 – murdered Leipzig, 10 December 1307), Margrave of Lusatia.
Margaret (b. 1262 – d. young, after 17 April 1273).
Agnes of Meissen (b. 1264 – d. September 1332), married before 21 July 1282 to Henry I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen.
Passage 7:
Elisabeth of Meissen
Elisabeth of Meissen, Burgravine of Nuremberg (22 November 1329 – 21 April 1375) was the daughter of Frederick II, Margrave of Meissen and Mathilde of Bavaria and a member of the House of Wettin.

Marriage and children
She was born in Wartburg.  On 7 September 1356, at the age of twenty six, she married Frederick V, Burgrave of Nuremberg in Jena. In 1357 her husband succeeded to the title, and from that time until her death in 1375, she was styled as Burgravine of Nuremberg. Together Frederick and Elisabeth had nine children, seven girls and two boys, who survived to adulthood:

Elisabeth (1358–26 July 1411, Heidelberg), married in Amberg 1374 to Rupert of Germany.
Beatrix (c. 1362, Nuremberg–10 June 1414, Perchtoldsdorf), married in Vienna 1375 Duke Albert III of Austria
Anna (c. 1364–after 10 May 1392), a nun in Seusslitz.
Agnes (1366 – 22 May 1432), Convent in Hof (1376–1386) married in Konstance 1386 Baron Friedrich of Daber, Returned to Convent in Hof (1406) Abbess in Hof (1411–1432).
John (c. 1369–11 June 1420, Plassenburg).
Frederick (1371–1440) was the last Burgrave of Nuremberg from 1397 to 1427 (as Frederick VI), Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach from 1398, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach from 1420, and Elector of Brandenburg (as Frederick I) from 1415 until his death. He became the first member of the House of Hohenzollern to rule the Margraviate of Brandenburg.
Margarete (died 1406, Gudensberg), married in Kulmbach 1383 Landgrave Hermann of Hesse.
Katharina (died 1409), Abbess in Hof.
Veronica of Hohenzollern, married Barnim VI, Duke of Pomerania.Elisabeth died at the age of 45.
Passage 8:
Agnes II, Abbess of Quedlinburg
Agnes II (Agnes of Meissen; 1139 – 21 January 1203) was a member of the House of Wettin who reigned as Princess-Abbess of Quedlinburg.

Life
She was born in Meissen as the daughter of Conrad, Margrave of Meissen, and Luitgard of Swabia. In 1184, she was elected successor to Princess-Abbess Adelaide III.
Agnes was a significant patron of art, as well as miniaturist and engraver. During her reign, the nuns of Quedlinburg Abbey made large curtains that are indispensable in the study of the art industry of the era. She also wrote and illuminated books for divine service. However, her greatest masterpiece was the manufacture of wall-hangings, of which one set was intended to be sent to the Pope; this tapestry is the best preserved piece of Romanesque textile. She was known for combining her embroidering with her literary composition and even composed Latin verses on a piece of tapestry.She died in Quedlinburg Abbey on 21 January 1203.

Legacy
Agnes is a featured figure on Judy Chicago's installation piece The Dinner Party, being represented as one of the 999 names on the Heritage Floor.
Passage 9:
Albert, Margrave of Meissen (1934–2012)
Prince Albert Joseph Maria Franz-Xaver of Saxony, Duke of Saxony, Margrave of Meissen (30 November 1934 – 6 October 2012) was the head of the Royal House of Saxony and a German historian. The fourth child and youngest son of Friedrich Christian, Margrave of Meissen and his wife Princess Elisabeth Helene of Thurn and Taxis, he was the younger brother of Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen, who was his predecessor as head of the Royal House of Saxony. Had he been King he would have been known as Albert II

Life
Albert received his secondary education at the Federal Gymnasium in Bregenz, Austria. He passed his matura in 1954.  His parents and their children then moved to Munich, with support from his mother's relatives from the Thurn und Taxis dynasty.  In Munich, Albert studied at the Ludwig Maximilian University. He initially studied macroeconomics, and later switched to history and ethnography.  On 13 February 1961, he received his PhD for a thesis on his great-great-grandfather, King John of Saxony, and his reform of Saxon commercial law.
On 30 January 1960 the Studiengruppe für Sächsische Geschichte und Kultur e.V. ("Study group for Saxon history and culture") was founded by Albert together with his parents, his elder brother Maria Emanuel, some other Saxon nobles, the Chapter of the Military Order of St. Henry, the chapter of the association of people from Dresden, and the association of Heimatvertriebene in the history department of the University of Munich. This study group became one of the largest historical societies in West Germany. After completing his studies, Albert worked as a historian and referent. He studied the history of the Duchy of Saxony and the Kingdom of Saxony, in particular the relationship of Saxony to Bavaria.
At times, he was vice president of the Bund der Mitteldeutschen ("Association of Central Germans").  In 1972, he joined the Mitteldeutschen Kulturrat e.V. ("Central German Culture Council"), where he represented the interests of the Free State of Saxony.
In the summer of 1982, he was allowed to visit Saxony for the first time since his youth. He visited again in 1983 and 1985. He was then not allowed to enter the German Democratic Republic again, for unknown reasons, until 1989/1990. On 22 January 1990, he participated in a Monday demonstration in Dresden and was unexpectedly asked to address the crowd. He told his audience about their task to rebuild Saxony and ended with the words "Long live Saxony, Germany, Europe and the western-Christian culture."
In the subsequent elections for the Saxon parliament, he ran as a DSU candidate; he was not elected, nor did the newly elected government of Saxony employ him as an advisor. After the German reunification, he has tried to reclaim some of his family's former possessions.

Marriage
Albert morganatically wed Elmira Henke in a civil ceremony on 10 April 1980 in Munich, and in a religious ceremony on 12 April 1980, in the Theatine Church, also in Munich. Elmira assisted Albert with his scientific and historical studies; she specialized in ethnographic topics. Albert and Elmira had no children.

Succession
The headship of the Royal House of Saxony is a matter of dispute in the Saxon Royal Family. The conflict stems from the fact that the last undisputed head of the house Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen, and the other princes of his generation either had no children or, in the case of Prince Timo, had children (including Prince Rüdiger of Saxony) who were deemed not to be members of the Royal House of Saxony.The first designated dynastic heir of Maria Emanuel was his and Albert's nephew Prince Johannes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, only son of their youngest sister Princess Mathilde of Saxony by her marriage to Prince Johannes Heinrich of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, dynast of a ducal branch of the House of Wettin senior patrilineally to the royal branch. After the early death of Prince Johannes, the heirless Maria Emanuel then considered as potential heir another nephew, Alexander Afif, the eldest son of Princess Anna of Saxony and her husband Roberto Afif, despite the Afif-Saxony marriage being contrary to the traditional laws of the House of Saxony which required equal marriages for descendants to inherit dynastic rights. On 14 May 1997 the Margrave of Meissen proposed his nephew Alexander Afif as heir and drew up a document that was signed by the other male and female members of the Royal House (including previously non-dynastic spouses of princes) setting out that Alexander would succeed on his death. The document was signed by: Anastasia, Margravine of Meissen, Prince Albert and his wife, née Elmira Henke, Prince Dedo (for himself, for his brother Prince Gero and for their stepmother née Virginia Dulon – his brother Prince Timo had died in 1982), the Princesses Maria Josepha, Anna and Mathilde, and Prince Timo's third wife, née Erina Eilts. Two years later on 1 July 1999 the Margrave adopted his nephew Alexander Afif, who had used the title Alexander, Prince of Saxe-Gessaphe since 1972, based on his patrilineal descent from the once-sovereign Lebanese "Afif" (or Gessaphe) dynasty.The 1997 agreement proved to be controversial and in the summer of 2002 three of the signatories, Princes Albert, Dedo and Gero (the latter consented via proxy but had not personally signed the document) retracted their support for the agreement. The following year Prince Albert wrote that it is through Prince Rüdiger and his sons that the direct line of the Albertine branch of the House of Wettin will continue, and thus avoid becoming extinct. Until his death, however, the Margrave, as head of the former dynasty, continued to regard his nephew and adopted son, Prince Alexander, as the contractual heir entitled to succeed.Immediately following the death of Maria Emanuel in July 2012, Prince Albert assumed the position of head of the Royal House of Saxony. According to the Eurohistory Journal prior to the Margrave's funeral Albert met with his nephew, Alexander, and recognised him as Margrave of Meissen. However this claim is contradicted by Albert himself in his final interview, given after the funeral, where he states that he needs recognition as Margrave of Meissen. Prince Alexander, citing the 1997 agreement, has also assumed the headship. Albert, Margrave of Meissen died at a hospital in Munich on 6 October 2012 at the age of 77.
Prior to the requiem for Margrave Maria Emanuel, Rüdiger, who had sought to be recognised by his cousin as a dynastic member of the House of Saxony but was refused, conducted a demonstration outside the cathedral with Saxon royalists in protest against the late Margrave Maria Emanuel's decision to appoint Alexander as heir.
The family website of Prince Rüdiger states that, prior to his death, Albert determined Rüdiger to be his successor and instituted a clear succession plan. On this basis following Albert's death Prince Rüdiger assumed the headship of the house.

Ancestry
Publications by Prince Albert
Die Reform der sächsischen Gewerbegesetzgebung (1840–1861), PhD thesis, University of Munich, 1970
Dresden, Weidlich, Frankfurt 1974, ISBN 3-8035-0474-0
Leipzig und das Leipziger Land, Weidlich, Frankfurt 1976, ISBN 3-8035-8511-2
Die Albertinischen Wettiner — Geschichte des Sächsischen Königshauses (1763–1932), 1st ed., St.-Otto-Verlag, Bamberg, 1989, ISBN 3-87693-211-4; 2d ed., Gräfelfing, 1992, ISBN 3-87014-020-8
Weihnacht in Sachsen, Bayerische Verlagsanstalt, Munich, 1992, ISBN 3-87052-799-4
Die Wettiner in Lebensbildern, Styria-Verlag, Vienna, Graz and Cologne, 1995, ISBN 3-222-12301-2
Die Wettiner in Sachsen und Thüringen, König-Friedrich-August-Institut, Dresden, 1996
Das Haus Wettin und die Beziehungen zum Haus Nassau-Luxemburg, Bad Ems, 2003
Bayern & Sachsen — gemeinsame Geschichte, Kunst, Kultur und Wirtschaft (with Elmira of Saxony and Walter Beck), Universitas, Munich, 2004, ISBN 3-8004-1462-7
Königreich Sachsen: 1806–1918; Traditionen in Schwarz und Gelb, Verlagsgesellschaft Marienberg, 2007, ISBN 978-3-931770-67-9
Passage 10:
Agnes of Meissen
Agnes of Meissen (born before 1264 – died after September 1332) was a noblewoman, the daughter of Albert II, Margrave of Meissen and his wife Margaret of Sicily.Agnes was married with Henry I "the Marvelous" of Brunswick-Grubenhagen, in 1282. They had 16 children:

Elizabeth (born c. 1282), married Frederick, Count of Beichlingen
Otto (born c. 1283, died in or before 1309)
Albert (born c. 1284, died after 1341), joined the Teutonic Order
Adelaide (1285–1320), married King Henry I of Bohemia
Facie (daughter; born c. 1286, died before or in 1312)
Agnes, Abbess of Osterode
Henry II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Frederick
Adelheid of Brunswick, married to Andronikos III Palaiologos
Conrad (c. 1294 – c. 1320)
Mechtild (c. 1295 – 14 March 1344), married John II of Werle
Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen
William, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen
Richardis, Abbess of Osterode
Margaret (born c. 1300, died in or after 1312)
John I, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen


Passage 1:
Cry of the Hunted
Cry of the Hunted is a 1953 American crime film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis.  The drama features Vittorio Gassman, Barry Sullivan and Polly Bergen.

Plot
An obsessive lawman (Barry Sullivan) who works for the state chases an escaped fugitive (Vittorio Gassman) through the Louisiana bayou.

Cast
Vittorio Gassman as Jory
Barry Sullivan as Lieutenant Tunner
Polly Bergen as Janet Tunner
William Conrad as Goodwin
Mary Zavian as Ella
Robert Burton as Warden Keeley
Harry Shannon as Sheriff Brown
Jonathan Cott as Deputy Davis

Reception
According to MGM records the film earned $376,000 in the US and Canada and $249,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $179,000.

Critical response
Film critic Hal Erickson, of Allmovie, has praised the directing of the film, writing, "On the whole, the MGM B product of the 1950s contained some of the studio's best-ever 'small' pictures...Cry of the Hunted is directed with flair by Joseph H. Lewis, who always managed to rise above the slimmest of budgets and the barest of production values."TV Guide in its film guide also wrote well of the film, "Stylishly directed chase film from Lewis who had previously shown his talent in Gun Crazy...At one point he is caught but again breaks free, only to be recaptured again at the finale. Interesting subplot has Conrad waiting for Sullivan to make a wrong move so he can grab his job."

Noir analysis
Critics Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, in various sections of their analysis of the film, discuss a sub silentio theme found in the movie: the homosexual undercurrent of the protagonists; they write, "After an initial scene, in which Sullivan and Gassman wrestle each other to exhaustion and then sit sharing cigarettes like brothers," and, "...even in his sleep [Sullivan] is obsessive as he dreams of the escapee in homoerotic terms," and, "Gassman too seems drawn to his pursuer."Film critic Eddie Muller, in an interview for Bright Lights Film Journal, agrees, "I once showed this goofy B film called Cry of the Hunted, with Barry Sullivan and William Conrad — it's swamp noir. In Los Angeles, the audience adored it. They howled, especially at the over-the-top gay subtext between the two lead actors. They fight, and when it's obvious the fight is over, they're still wrestling around the floor. Then they lie against the wall and smoke cigarettes. The L.A. audience ate it up."
Passage 2:
The Hunted (2015 film)
The Hunted is a 2015 American film based on the action comedy web series The Hunted (2001) created and directed by Robert Chapin. Starring Chapin and Monique Ganderton in lead roles. It tells the story of a struggling actor who leads a group of misfit slayers against an army of vampires. The film is one of the first to be produced under SAG’s New Media contract and was distributed online through Vimeo VOD.

Plot
Coming to terms with his unsuccessful attempts at becoming an actor, Bob (Chapin) is bitten by a vampire named Susan, (Ganderton) who is the daughter of a crazed vigilante slayer. Consequently, Bob becomes one of the Hunted, a small group of humans, bitten but not turned, who use cold steel and fighting technique to fend off vampires. The vampires, however, have developed an immunity to everything over the years, and the only way they can be killed is with a sword. Luckily, Bob knows how to wield a sword, mostly due to his starring role in a cheesy 80’s action flick called, “Vampslayer”. Find How Bob helps Susan and the Hunted defend the vampires forms the rest of the story.

Cast
Robert Chapin as Bob
Monique Ganderton as Susan
David Lain Baker as Harry
Gary Kasper as Dragos
Tex Wall as Lore Master
Andrew Helm as Kevin
Anthony De Longis as Vincent

Production
Conception and writing
The Hunted began in 2001 as a long-standing Internet series, created by Chapin in an effort to train his credentials as a stuntman and VFX-artist. Embracing his skills with a sword and his technical abilities behind the camera, he collaborated with his friends and colleagues in order to combine their talents and undertake an underdog story of LA-based vampire hunters. The fact that user-generated content created by fans became the main content source for the online series is reflected in the theme of the film, where soccer moms learn to become vampire slayers, just like fans learning to become filmmakers, thus providing everyone a chance to discover their true potential. The dialogues in the film make use of copious lines from well-known films and poems, ranging from Scarface (1983) and Independence Day (1996) to Shakespeare.

Filming
The film received financial support in June 2011 via a Kickstarter campaign. The film was shot in Hollywood, California in 2012 and is co-produced by New Deal Studios, the Academy Award-winning effects studio behind numerous blockbuster films, including Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014). Post-production was completed in March 2015. The majority of the film's cast consisted of stunt people.
Passage 3:
Scotty Fox
Scott Fox is a pornographic film director who is a member of the AVN Hall of Fame.

Awards
1992 AVN Award – Best Director, Video (The Cockateer)
1995 AVN Hall of Fame inductee
Passage 4:
Adrian Brunel
Adrian Brunel (4 September 1892 – 18 February 1958) was an English film director and screenwriter. Brunel's directorial career started in the silent era, and reached its peak in the latter half of the 1920s. His surviving work from the 1920s, both full-length feature films and shorts, is highly regarded by silent film historians for its distinctive innovation, sophistication and wit. With the arrival of talkies, Brunel's career ground to a halt and he was absent from the screen for several years before returning in the mid-1930s with a flurry of quota quickie productions, the majority of which are now classed as lost. Brunel's last credit as director was in a 1940 comedy film, although he worked for a few years more as a "fixer-up" for films directed or produced by friends in the industry.After decades of neglect, Brunel's work has latterly been rediscovered and has undergone a critical re-evaluation. His lost films are eagerly sought, and the British Film Institute includes two, The Crooked Billet (1929) and Badger's Green (1934), on its "75 Most Wanted" list of missing British feature films.

Early life and career
Born in Brighton in 1892, Brunel was educated at Harrow School. His mother Adey was a drama teacher so he grew up in a stage milieu and dabbled in acting and writing plays, as well as training in opera. On leaving school he worked for a time as a local journalist in Brighton before taking employment in London in the bioscope show distribution division of music hall chain Moss Empires. This spurred his interest in cinema, and in 1916 he and a friend formed a company called Mirror Films, which produced one film, The Cost of a Kiss, the following year.In 1920 Brunel joined with actor Leslie Howard and author A. A. Milne to set up Minerva Films, which produced six comedy shorts over a two-year period. Brunel's major break came in 1923, when he was offered the directorial role for the film The Man Without Desire, starring Ivor Novello. His feature film debut was a time-travelling story set in Venice and included location filming in the Italian city. Studio and post-production work took place in Germany, and the resulting work has been described as "one of the stranger films to emerge from Britain in the 1920s".

Comedy shorts
Between 1923 and 1925, Brunel directed a series of sophisticated comedy burlesque short films, frequently lampooning fads or institutions of the day. Initially these were produced and distributed independently, but their popularity among film insiders and cognoscenti brought them to the attention of Michael Balcon, who offered Brunel the opportunity to produce them through Gainsborough Pictures. These films were replete with punning intertitles and playful visual wit, with a number parodying the silhouette animation technique pioneered by Lotte Reiniger by using live actors in place of animated cutouts (Two-Chinned Chow, Shimmy Sheik, and Yes, We Have No...! – in which a man is driven to distraction by the ubiquity of the song "Yes! We Have No Bananas" and travels to ever-more exotic and outlandish locations to escape it, only to find that no matter where in the world he goes, the song has got there first).
Other films were self-referential in highlighting the ability of film to produce a manipulated and distorted picture of reality. Brunel's most highly admired production of this period is 1924's Crossing the Great Sagrada, a spoof of the hugely popular travelogue genre of the time, in which its conventions are laid bare as the absurdities they are. Brunel uses the film to satirise the prevalent colonial view of "native people", while highlighting the dishonesty inherent in the genre with ludicrously incongruous intertitles, tagging a view of an African mud-hut village as Wapping, and a sequence of the heroes struggling across a desert landscape as Blackpool beach. Critic Jamie Sexton notes: "The film's surreal humour prefigures that of later innovative British comedy, such as Monty Python's Flying Circus.Brunel also targeted the British film industry itself, with So This Is Jollygood bemoaning what he saw as its general ineptitude in comparison with its American counterpart, and Cut It Out attacking the over-zealousness of the British film censors.

Gainsborough films
Impressed with Brunel's short film output, Balcon invited him to try his hand at directing full-length features for Gainsborough. This resulted in five films between 1926 and 1929, all of which were high profile, big-budget productions with star names, and were designed as serious prestige vehicles with none of the opportunities for the humour and facetiousness of most of Brunel's earlier work. The first release was Blighty, a class-based study of life during World War I, written by Brunel's friend Ivor Montagu. It was reported that Brunel was initially uneasy about directing a "war film" as it went against his moral values; however the finished product contained no militaristic or jingoistic material, concentrating instead on the effects of the unseen war on an English family.In 1928 there followed two films which reunited Brunel with Novello as his leading actor: the first screen adaptation of Margaret Kennedy's best-selling novel The Constant Nymph and a version of the Noël Coward play The Vortex. Brunel's third film of 1928 was A Light Woman starring Benita Hume, while 1929 brought the Madeleine Carroll vehicle The Crooked Billet, which Brunel described in his autobiography as "my last, and perhaps my best, silent film". The film's "lost" status however precludes it from being critically evaluated alongside his surviving work.

Later career
With the introduction of talkies to British cinema, Brunel's career impetus came to a sudden halt. It is not exactly clear why Brunel in particular should have found his career so comprehensively derailed at this time, although it is suggested that his pursuance of a legal claim against Gainsborough for alleged non-payment of fees may well have tarnished his reputation in the film industry by making him appear a potential trouble-maker. After writing and partly directing 1930's Elstree Calling for British International Pictures, he was sacked by the studio, who enlisted Alfred Hitchcock to finish the picture, and no further film offers were forthcoming.Brunel returned to film directing in 1933, and over the following four years made 17 quota quickies, mainly for Fox British. As was the norm with quota quickie directors, Brunel's films in this period encompassed a range of genres from comedy and musicals, through drama, to thrillers and crime. However, few of these films are known to survive. Brunel's last three feature films, The Rebel Son (1938); The Lion Has Wings (1939), a three-way directorial venture with Michael Powell and Brian Desmond Hurst; and The Girl Who Forgot (1940), were more visible productions which do survive.
Following these, Brunel drew a line under his directorial career, although he did continue for a time to offer uncredited help as a favour, most notably to his old friend Leslie Howard on The First of the Few (1942) and The Gentle Sex (1943). He published an autobiography Nice Work in 1949, and died in February 1958, aged 65.
In an assessment of Brunel's significance in British cinema history, Geoff Brown concludes: "...(his) career was clearly not what it might have been, and the apparent absence of surviving copies of many of his talkies makes a thorough re-evaluation of his work difficult. But the burlesque comedies alone give him a distinctive place in British cinema history as a satirical jester, and a key player in the film industry's uneasy war between art and commerce."

Filmography (director)
Bibliography
Brunel wrote two guides to filmmaking and a memoir detailing his time in the industry.
Filmcraft: the Art of Picture Production (1935)
Film script: The Technique of Writing for the Screen (1948)
Nice Work: Thirty Years in British Films (1949)
Passage 5:
Joseph H. Lewis
Joseph H. Lewis (April 6, 1907 – August 30, 2000) was an American B-movie film director whose stylish flourishes came to be appreciated by auteur theory-espousing film critics in the years following his retirement in 1966. In a 30-year directorial career, he helmed numerous low-budget westerns, action pictures, musicals, adventures, and thrillers. Today he is remembered for mysteries and film noir stories: My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) and So Dark the Night (1946) as well as his most highly regarded features, 1950's Gun Crazy, which spotlighted a desperate young couple (Peggy Cummins and John Dall) who embark on a deadly crime spree, and the 1955 film noir The Big Combo, with its stunning cinematography by John Alton.

Life and career
Born in Brooklyn, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Ernestine (née Miriamson) and Leopold Lewis. His father was an optometrist. He grew up on the Upper East Side of New York City and attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and when his brother, Ben, moved to Hollywood in 1927, he decided to follow with the hope of becoming an actor. Ben found him a job as camera assistant and, subsequently, young Joseph became an assistant film editor just as the film industry was converting to sound.  He began his directorial career (1937–40) by turning out low-budget B-Westerns starring Bob Baker, Charles Starrett, and Bill Elliott. Film editors referred to Lewis as "Wagon-Wheel Joe,"  because of his tendency to use wagon wheels in the foreground to create interesting visual compositions.
Lewis served with the United States Army Signal Corps as a Sergeant during World War II, making training films at the Army's Astoria Studios. One on how to shoot the M-1 rifle was shown well into the 1960s.
Lewis was equally comfortable working in different genres: horror (Bela Lugosi, The Invisible Ghost), comedy (The East Side Kids, That Gang of Mine), detective mystery (Tom Conway, The Falcon in San Francisco), costume adventure (Larry Parks, The Swordsman), and musicals (Benny Fields, Minstrel Man). Lewis's creative compositions for Minstrel Man won him the assignment of staging the musical sequences for The Jolson Story.
Today, Lewis is primarily known for his work in film noir during the 1940s and early 1950s. Gun Crazy is a dark romance about gun-obsession, notable for its use of location photography and, for film students and buffs, a particularly arresting shot which lasts for ten minutes, as the audience suddenly becomes a passenger in the getaway car following a bank robbery committed by the young leads.
Toward the end of Lewis's career, he worked in television, directing mostly westerns:  The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, and the pilot for Branded. He also directed the 1961 CBS crime adventure-drama series The Investigators.
Lewis suffered a major heart attack at the age of 46, but continued working until his 59th birthday in April 1966, at the end of the 1965–66 TV season. He later lectured at film schools and fan gatherings as well as at retrospectives such as the Telluride Film Festival, along with European venues in France, Germany and other locations.  In 1997 he became the recipient of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
Nearly five months after his 93rd birthday, Lewis died at his home in Los Angeles County's seaside community of Marina del Rey.  Active until the end, he made his final public appearance five weeks earlier to introduce a screening of Gun Crazy at the University of California at Los Angeles. He was married to Buena Vista Lewis; they had one daughter, Candy Lewis Sangster.

Selected filmography
Passage 6:
The Hunted (2003 film)
The Hunted is a 2003 American action thriller film directed by William Friedkin and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio del Toro, and Connie Nielsen.

Plot
U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Aaron Hallam, a former Delta Force operator, has spent much of his career performing covert assassinations and black operations for the U.S. government. He is awarded the Silver Star for his service in the Kosovo War, but is left wracked with PTSD from the atrocities he witnessed.
In the wilderness of Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, Hallam encounters two hunters equipped with expensive scoped rifles. Hallam tells them that, due to their use of guns and scopes, they are not "true hunters". Insulted, the hunters pursue him, but are overwhelmed by Hallam's tactics and traps and are killed.
L.T. Bonham, a former civilian instructor of military survival and combat training, lives secluded deep in the woods of British Columbia. He is approached by the FBI, who ask him to help apprehend Hallam, one of his former students. Bonham agrees and joins the FBI task force pursuing Hallam, led by Assistant Special Agent in Charge Abby Durrell. Bonham discovers Hallam's personal effects in a tree and encounters Hallam. As the two of them fight, Hallam is struck by an FBI tranquilizer and taken into custody.
During his interrogation, Hallam is uncooperative and looks mainly to Bonham, who he views as a father figure. The FBI, unsure what to do, hand him to the custody of his fellow JSOC operators, who tell the FBI that Hallam cannot stand trial due to the classified operations he had participated in. While being transported, the operators indicate that they intend to kill Hallam to ensure his silence; Hallam manages to kill all the operatives and escape.
Alerted to the incident, Bonham and the FBI search for Hallam. Bonham finds him at the house of his ex-girlfriend and her daughter in Portland, but he flees after Abby arrives to apprehend him. Pursued by the FBI and the Portland Police Bureau, Hallam ambushes and kills pursuing FBI agents in a sewer and attempts to board a streetcar to blend in. The police block the bridge the streetcar is on, and he dives off the bridge, fleeing upstream.
Resurfacing up the river, Hallam crafts a knife out of reclaimed metal, as Bonham taught him. Meanwhile, Bonham crafts his own knife out of stone and enters the wilderness alone in search of Hallam. Bonham is caught by one of Hallam's traps and is thrown down a waterfall. Surviving, he meets Hallam at the bottom, and they engage in hand-to-hand combat. The two sustain severe injuries, and Bonham's knife is broken, but Bonham manages to gain the upper hand and stab Hallam with his own knife, killing him as Abby and the FBI arrive.
Bonham, mostly recovered, returns to his home in British Columbia. He starts to burn Hallam's letters, in which he expressed his concerns over the things he witnessed during his service.

Cast
Tommy Lee Jones as L.T. Bonham
Benicio del Toro as Sergeant Aaron Hallam
Connie Nielsen as FBI Special Agent Abby Durrell
Leslie Stefanson as Irene Kravitz
John Finn as FBI Special Agent Ted Chenoweth
José Zúñiga as FBI Special Agent Bobby Moret
Ron Canada as FBI Special Agent Harry Van Zandt
Mark Pellegrino as Dale Hewitt
Jenna Boyd as Loretta Kravitz
Aaron DeCone as Stokes (as Aaron Brounstein)
Carrick O'Quinn as Kohler
Lonny Chapman as Zander
Rex Linn as Powell, The Hunter
Eddie Velez as Richards, The Hunter
Johnny Cash as The Narrator (uncredited)

Production
The film was partially filmed in and around Portland, Oregon and Silver Falls State Park. Portland scenes were filmed in Oxbow Park, the South Park Blocks, the Columbia Blvd Treatment Plant, and Tom McCall Waterfront Park. The technical adviser for the film was Tom Brown Jr., an American outdoorsman and wilderness survival expert. The story is partially inspired by a real-life incident involving Brown, who was asked to track down a former pupil and Special Forces sergeant who had evaded capture by authorities. This story is told in Tom's book, Case Files Of The Tracker. Chapter 2 of this book, "My Frankenstein," describes Brown's tracking and fight with a former special operations veteran.The hand-to-hand combat and knife fighting in the film featured Filipino Martial Arts. Thomas Kier and Rafael Kayanan of Sayoc Kali were brought in by Benicio del Toro. They were credited as knife fight choreographers for the film.

Reception
Box office
The box office for the film was less than its reported production budget of $55 million. The Hunted opened on March 14, 2003 at #3 in 2,516 theaters across North America and grossed $13.48 million during its opening weekend. It went on to gross $34,244,097 in North America and $11,252,437 internationally markets for a worldwide total of $45,496,534.Buena Vista International handles the distribution in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands and parts of Latin America.
Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International handles Finnish & Swedish theatrical distribution through its then distribution partner Nordisk Film.
In United Kingdom - Redbus Film Distribution handles distribution under the name Helkon SK. It was released on 6th June 2003 (despite being renamed to Redbus on 6th May 2003).

Critical response
The overall critical reaction to the movie was negative. It scored a "Rotten" 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 148 reviews.Many reviewers noted striking similarities to First Blood, with which this film was unfavorably compared. Rolling Stone called it "Just a Rambo rehash." While there was some praise for the cinematography and the action scenes, much criticism was directed at the thin plot and characterization, and the general implausibility. Rex Reed of the New York Observer called it a "Ludicrous, plotless, ho-hum tale of lurid confrontation." The UK magazine, Total Film said the film was "scarcely exciting to watch."However, the film also received praise from other high profile critics, particularly for the fact it kept the special effects and stunts restrained. For example, Roger Ebert said, "We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so with Friedkin's characters." He reviewed the film on his own site and scored it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars. Time Out London was also positive saying, "Friedkin's lean, mean thriller shows itself more interested in process than context, subtlety and character development pared away in favour of headlong momentum and crunching set pieces."
Passage 7:
Elliot Silverstein
Elliot Silverstein (born August 3, 1927) is a retired American film and television director. He directed the Academy Award-winning western comedy Cat Ballou (1965), and other films including The Happening (1967), A Man Called Horse (1970), Nightmare Honeymoon (1974), and The Car (1977). His television work includes four episodes of The Twilight Zone (1961–1964).

Career
Elliot Silverstein was the director of six feature films in the mid-twentieth century. The most famous of these by far is Cat Ballou, a comedy-western starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin.
The other Silverstein films, in chronological order, are The Happening, A Man Called Horse,  Nightmare Honeymoon, The Car, and Flashfire.
Other work included directing for the television shows The Twilight Zone, The Nurses, Picket Fences, and Tales from the Crypt.
While Silverstein was not a prolific director, his films were often decorated. Cat Ballou, for instance, earned one Oscar and was nominated for four more. His high quality work was rewarded in 1990 with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Directors Guild of America.

Awards
In 1965, at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival, he won the Youth Film Award – Honorable Mention, in the category of Best Feature Film Suitable for Young People for Cat Ballou.
He was also nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear.In 1966, he was nominated for the DGA Award in the category for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Cat Ballou).
In 1971, he won the Bronze Wrangler award at the Western Heritage Awards in the category of Theatrical Motion Picture for A Man Called Horse, along with producer Sandy Howard, writer Jack DeWitt, and actors Judith Anderson, Jean Gascon, Corinna Tsopei and Richard Harris.In 1985, he won the Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America.
In 1990, he was awarded the DGA Honorary Life Member Award.

Personal life
Silverstein has been married three times, each ending in divorce. His first marriage was to Evelyn Ward in 1962; the couple divorced in 1968. His second marriage was to Alana King. During his first marriage, he was the step-father of David Cassidy.
He currently lives in North Hollywood, Los Angeles. Actively retired, Silverstein has taught film at USC and continues to work on screen plays and other projects.

Filmography
Tales from the Crypt (TV Series) (1991–94)
Picket Fences (TV Series) (1993)
Rich Men, Single Women (TV Movie) (1990)
Fight for Life (TV Movie) (1987)
Night of Courage (TV Movie) (1987)
Betrayed by Innocence (TV Movie) (1986)
The Firm (TV Series) (1982–1983)
The Car (1977)
Nightmare Honeymoon (1974)
A Man Called Horse (1970)
The Happening (1967)
Cat Ballou (1965)
Kraft Suspense Theatre (TV Series) (1963–64)
The Defenders (TV Series) (1962–64)
Arrest and Trial (TV Series) (1964)
The Doctors and the Nurses (TV Series) (1962–64)
Twilight Zone (TV Series) (1961–64)
Breaking Point (TV Series) (1963)
Dr. Kildare (TV Series) (1961–63)
The Dick Powell Theatre (TV Series) (1962)
Belle Sommers (TV Movie) (1962)
Naked City (TV Series) (1961–62)
Have Gun - Will Travel (TV Series) (1961)
Route 66 (TV Series) (1960–61)
Checkmate (TV Series) (1961)
The Westerner (TV Series) (1960)
Assignment: Underwater (TV Series) (1960)
Black Saddle (TV Series) (1960)
Suspicion (TV Series) (1958)
Omnibus (TV Series) (1954–56)
Passage 8:
Salvage with a Smile
Salvage with a Smile is a 1940 British, black-and-white, sponsored war film, directed by Adrian Brunel and starring Ronald Shiner as the Dustman. It was produced by Ealing Studios and the Ministry of Supply for the Ministry of Information.

Synopsis
The educational film aims to help the "people back home" save paper, bones and metal, for the war effort.

Cast
Aubrey Mallalieu as The Professor
Kathleen Harrison as The Housekeeper
Ronald Shiner as The Dustman
Phyllis Morris as Miss Green
Passage 9:
Ben Palmer
Ben Palmer (born 1976) is a British film and television director.
His television credits include the Channel 4 sketch show Bo' Selecta! (2002–2006), the second and third series of the E4 sitcom The Inbetweeners (2009–2010) and the Sky Atlantic comedy-drama Breeders (2020). Palmer has also directed films such as the Inbetweeners spin-off, The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) and the romantic comedy Man Up (2015).

Biography
Palmer was born and raised in Penny Bridge, Barrow-in-Furness. He attended Chetwynde School.His first directing job was the Channel 4 sketch show Bo' Selecta!, which he co-developed with its main star, Leigh Francis. Palmer directed the second and third series of the E4 sitcom The Inbetweeners in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

Filmography
Bo' Selecta! (2002–06)
Comedy Lab (2004–2010)
Bo! in the USA (2006)
The Inbetweeners (2009–2010)
The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)
Comedy Showcase (2012)
Milton Jones's House of Rooms (2012)
Them from That Thing (2012)
Bad Sugar (2012)
Chickens (2013)
London Irish (2013)
Man Up (2015)
SunTrap (2015)
BBC Comedy Feeds (2016)
Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back (2016)
Back (2017)
Comedy Playhouse (2017)
Urban Myths (2017–19)
Click & Collect (2018)
Semi-Detached (2019)
Breeders (2020)
Passage 10:
Sex with a Smile II
Sex with a Smile II (originally titled Spogliamoci così, senza pudor) is a 1976 commedia sexy all'italiana film directed by Sergio Martino. Like its predecessor, Sex with a Smile, it is an anthology sex comedy film with a series of four comedic sketches that parody Italian sexual mores.

Cast
Ursula Andress: Marina
Johnny Dorelli: Marco Antonioli
Aldo Maccione: the detective
Barbara Bouchet: Violante
Enrico Montesano: Dante Zatteroni
Alberto Lionello: Giangi Busacca
Nadia Cassini: Françoise
Ninetto Davoli: Pietro
Maria Baxa: Maria
Alvaro Vitali: Broccolini
Gianrico Tedeschi: Silvestri
Brenda Welch: soccer player
Daniele Vargas: Lawyer Sante Zenaro

See also
List of Italian films of 1976