- published: 29 Jul 2013
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Irving Lerner (7 March 1909, New York City - 25 December 1976, Los Angeles) was an American filmmaker.
Before becoming a filmmaker, Lerner was a research editor for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, getting his start in film by making documentaries for the anthropology department. In the early 1930s, he was a member of the Workers Film and Photo League, and later, Frontier Films. He made films for the Rockefeller Foundation and other academic institutions, becoming a film editor and second-unit director involved with the emerging American documentary movement of the late 1930s. Lerner produced two documentaries for the Office of War Information during WW II and after the war became the head of New York University's Educational Film Institute. In 1948, Lerner and Joseph Strick shared directorial chores on a short documentary, Muscle Beach. Lerner then turned to low-budget, quickly filmed features. When not hastily making his own thrillers, Lerner worked as a technical advisor, a second-unit director, a co-editor and an editor.
Muscle Beach refers to the exclusive Santa Monica location of the birthplace of the physical fitness boom in the US during the 20th century, started in 1934 with predominantly gymnastics activities on the south side of the Santa Monica Pier.Muscle Beach Venice is the contemporary title of the outdoor weightlifting platform constructed in Venice, California, a distinct neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, 18 years after Muscle Beach was established.
Muscle Beach Venice was officially titled in 1987 by the City of Los Angeles with the distinguishing name 'Venice' added to the location to honor the original Santa Monica site. The contemporary Muscle Beach Venice is located two blocks north of Venice Boulevard on Ocean Front Walk in Venice, California.
Santa Monica's "Muscle Beach" landmark derives its name from the growing local and national reputation of gymnastics and strength athletes who congregated at what was first known simply as the "Santa Monica Beach Playground", with the 'muscle' term gaining momentum by 1940. The 1940 opening of the first of an eventual nationwide chain of weightlifting gyms by famed pioneer gym chain operator, Vic Tanny, only two city blocks from Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, is commonly considered a key contributor to the increasing attraction of bodybuilders and strength lifters to Muscle Beach from across the nation.
Murder by Contract is a 1958 film noir directed by Irving Lerner. Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Ben Maddow did uncredited work on the film. Centering on an existentialist hit man assigned to kill a woman, the film is often praised for its spare style and peculiar sense of cool.
Though not widely seen at the time of its release, it finally appeared on DVD, included in the boxed set, "Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 1 (The Big Heat / 5 Against the House / The Lineup / Murder by Contract / The Sniper)," released November 3, 2009. The film has exerted an influence on American cinema, most notably on director Martin Scorsese, who famously cited Murder by Contract as "the film that has influenced [him] most."
Vince Edwards plays Claude, a disaffected man who, in search of money, decides to become a contract killer. After successfully killing targets in a barber shop and a hospital, as well as his own boss, Claude is given a contract to kill the witness in a high-profile trial in Los Angeles. At first calm about the assignment, Claude becomes more nervous when he discovers the witness in question is a woman (Caprice Toriel). Claude scrambles to find a way to kill the witness, who never leaves her closely guarded house. After several complicated attempts (which involve high voltage and flaming arrows), Claude is convinced he has killed the witness, but discovers that the police have faked her death. Convinced he will be unable to fulfill the contract, Claude quits, only to find the two men who have been assisting him have now been instructed to kill him. After killing the men, Claude finally succeeds in sneaking into the witness's house, but hesitates when he's about to strangle her. The relief police arrive; Claude attempts to escape but is killed during a shoot-out.
Joseph Strick (July 6, 1923 – June 2, 2010) was an American director, producer and screenwriter.
Born in the Pittsburgh area town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Strick briefly attended UCLA before enrolling in the Army during World War II. In the Army, he served as a cameraman in the Army Air Forces.
In 1948, he and Irving Lerner produced Muscle Beach. For several years in the 1950s, Lerner, Strick, Ben Maddow, and Sidney Meyers worked part-time on the experimental documentary The Savage Eye (1959).
Strick was also a successful businessman, founding Electrosolids Corp (1956), Computron Corp. (1958), Physical Sciences Corp (1958), and Holosonics Corp. (1960) In 1977 he invented the usage of six-axis motion simulators as entertainment systems and applied it to new machines used now in Disney theme parks as "Star Tours."
In the 1960s, during his first marriage, Strick commissioned what would be the only house designed by Oscar Niemeyer in North America. The marriage ended in divorce before construction was completed, though, and Strick never occupied the house, located on the edge of Santa Monica Canyon.
Martin Charles Scorsese (/skɔːrˈsɛsi/ or [skorˈseːze]; born November 17, 1942) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian, whose career spans more than 45 years. Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Sicilian-American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption,machismo, modern crime, and gang conflict. Many of his films are also notable for their depiction of violence and liberal use of profanity.
Part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers in cinema history. In 1990, he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation. He is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won an Academy Award, a Palme d'Or, Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award, Silver Lion, Grammy Award, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.
La caza real del Sol | Irving Lerner | 1969
Martin Scorsese on Murder by Contract (1958)
"Murder by Contract" (1958): Killing Montage
Σκοτώνω με συμβόλαιο (1958) Ελληνικοί υπότιτλοι
City of Fear (1959) Film
General Custer and his men are annihilated by the Sioux and Lakota at the Little Big Horn
Rabbi Lerner Eulogizes Dr Irving Moskowitz
Muscle Beach (Joseph Strick, 1951)
"Murder by Contract" (1958): "Waiting for the Call" Montage
Children Must Learn, The (1940)
http://pejino.com/ ... Blog de Cine - Título: La caza real del Sol, The Royal Hunt of the Sun - Director: Irving Lerner - Reparto: Robert Shaw, Christopher Plummer, Nigel Davenport, Leonard Whiting, Michael Craig, Andrew Keir - Citas: Génesis1:1, Génesis1:27, Hechos de los Apóstoles 1:3, Marcos 14:12-16, Juan 19:17 - País: Usa - Año: 1969. Obra de Peter Shaffer. http://pejino.com/ ... Blog de cine, cuidada selección de directores y películas de todos los géneros. Todas las películas estan enlazadas con el eMule, Si lo tienes instalado solo pinchar link puesto en el blog pejino http://pejino.com/ . Las originales con los subtítulos, etc. Cientos de títulos puestos, erótico, adultos, oeste, aventuras, bélico, terror, musical, blanco y negro, dramas, comedias, romanos, eróticas, etc..
Martin Scorsese talks about the film Murder by Contract by Irving Lerner. The movie is part of the list: A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. The list can be check here: http://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/a+personal+journey+with+martin+scorsese+through+american+movies/
Clip of "Murder by Contract" (1958) by Irving Lerner, starring Vince Edwards (as Claude) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051959/
Murder By Contract 1958 Ο Claude είναι ένας αδίστακτος και αποτελεσματικός δολοφόνος, μέχρι να βρει τον επόμενο στόχο του, που είναι μια γυναίκα. Director: Irving Lerner Writer: Ben Simcoe Stars: Vince Edwards, Phillip Pine, Herschel Bernardi
City of Fear (1959) A black-and-white film noir directed by Irving Lerner. For classic car lovers there's lots of cars & trucks from the fifties in rare form! An escaped convict, heading to Los Angeles, has gotten hold of a canister of Cobalt-60, a substance dangerous enough to kill everyone in the city. What he doesn't know is that exposure to the element is slowly killing him, as the authorities try to locate him and the canister. Make sure to visit http://www.dannywhitfield.com/ for a high quality print of your car.
Clip from "Custer of the West" (1967) Robert Shaw, Mary Ure, Ty Hardin, Jeffrey Hunter, Lawrence Tierney, Mark Lawrence, Robert Siodmak, Irving Lerner, Bernard Gordon, America, Western, Indians, Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull, battle
The original Muscle Beach, located south of the Santa Monica Pier, was constructed in 1934 by the Works Progress Administration with the intention of creating a park on a public beach. By the 1940s however, Muscle Beach frequently appeared as a standing joke in trade magazines and was often mentioned with innuendo in Hollywood gossip columns. For filmmaker Joseph Strick, however, the beach scene offered an opportunity to observe and document an emerging subculture of gymnasts, bodybuilders and exhibitionists. His 1948 short Muscle Beach, made with assistance from fellow filmmaker Irving Lerner, can be considered a carefree and wholesome portrait of a site that was then of questionable reputation. The film would be the first of Strick’s early efforts to highlight documentary footage of Los ...
Clip of "Murder by Contract" (1958) by Irving Lerner, starring Vince Edwards (as Claude) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051959/
Educating the children of Appalachia. Director: Willard Van Dyke. Script: Spencer Pollard. Photography: Bob Churchill. Narration: Myron McCormick. Editor: Irving Lerner. Music: Fred Stewart. We digitized and uploaded this film on behalf of the Prelinger Archives. Email us at footage@avgeeks.com if you have questions about the footage and are interested in using it in your project.