Ethel Merman
Also Known As: Ethel Agnes Zimmermann
Biography: Ethel Merman (January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's Coming Up Roses", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "It's De-Lovely", "Friendship", "You're the Top", "Anything Goes", and "There's No Business Like Show Business", which later became her theme song. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ethel Merman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Astoria, New York, USA
Birthday: January 16, 1908
Deathday: February 15, 1984
Adult: No
Gender: Female
Popularity:
Known For:
Airplane!
Overview: An ex-fighter pilot forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1980-07-02
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The Cave Club
Overview: Begins with night club life in the Stone Age and evolves to the modern world of 1930.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-05-07
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There's No Business Like Show Business
Overview: Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Youngest son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1954-12-16
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It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Overview: A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.
Genres: Action Adventure Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-11-07
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We're Not Dressing
Overview: Beautiful high society type Doris Worthington is entertaining guests on her yacht in the Pacific when it hits a reef and sinks. She makes her way to an island with the help of singing sailor Stephen Jones. Her friend Edith, Uncle Hubert, and Princes Michael and Alexander make it to the same island but all prove to be useless in the art of survival. The sailor is the only one with the practical knowhow to survive but Doris and the others snub his leadership offer. That is until he starts a clam bake and wafts the fumes in their starving faces. The group gradually gives into his leadership, the only question now is if Doris will give into his charms.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-04-27
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Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July
Overview: Winterbolt is trying to make the North Pole his evil wonderland, and it is up to Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and others to stop him.
Genres: Animation Fantasy Family TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1979-07-01
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Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood
Overview: A would-be filmmaker and actress shake up the industry with a trick dog who gets discovered by a studio bus driver in the 1920s.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1976-07-26
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Alexander's Ragtime Band
Overview: Classical violinist, Roger Grant disappoints his family and teacher when he organizes a jazz band, but he and the band become successful. Roger falls in love with the band's singer, Stella, but his reluctance to lose her leads him to thwart her efforts to become a solo star. When the World War separates them in 1917, Stella marries Roger's best friend and, when Roger returns home after the war, an important concert at Carnegie Hall brings the corners of the romantic triangle together.
Genres: Music Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-05-24
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Happy Landing
Overview: Bandleader and manager discover skater in Norway. They become rivals as she returns with them to America.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-01-23
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Call Me Madam
Overview: Washington hostess Sally Adams becomes a Truman-era US ambassador to a European grand duchy.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1953-03-25
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Muppet Treasures
Overview: Fozzie and Kermit have come across a priceless collection of great moments in the career of the Muppets. This collection features many Muppet TV segments, including episodes of "Pigs in Space," and "Veterinarian's Hospital."
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1985-07-09
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Broadway's Lost Treasures III: The Best of The Tony Awards
Overview: Broadway royalty and Tony-winners Tommy Tune, Carol Channing, Robert Goulet, and Harvey Fierstein are your hosts for this third compilation of great musical performances from the archives of the Tony Award® broadcasts. Legendary stars from legendary shows strut their stuff in 23 performances that have become part of Broadway history.
Genres: Music Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-08-07
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The Mountains of the Moon
Overview: A religious sect, cheated by an adventurer, wants to occupy an African territory not knowing that it is inhabited by a bloodthirsty tribe. Luckily Tarzan intervenes.
Genres: Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1967-11-24
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The Art of Love
Overview: Struggling artist fakes his own death so his works will increase in value.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1965-06-30
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Time on My Hands
Overview: In this surrealist entry, a fisherman deals with rebellious worms; a diver flirts with a Betty Boop-like mermaid who becomes Ethel Merman, singing the title song in live-action with a Bouncing Ball.
Genres: Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-12-22
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Strike Me Pink
Overview: Meek Eddie Pink becomes manager of an amusement park beset by mobsters.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-01-24
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Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Overview: Betty Boop, a nursemaid, meets a masher in the park; with the Bouncing Ball, Ethel Merman sings the title song.
Genres: Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-05-19
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You Try Somebody Else
Overview: Ethel Merman sings the title song with a Bouncing Ball. Animated sequence: a cat burglar, just out of jail, raids Betty Boop's icebox.
Genres: Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-07-28
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Anything Goes
Overview: A young man falls in love with a beautiful blonde. When he sees her being forced onto a luxury liner, he decides to follow and rescue her. However, he discovers that she is an English heiress who ran away from home and is now being returned to England. He also discovers that his boss is on the ship. To avoid discovery, he disguises himself as the gangster accomplice of a minister, who is actually a gangster on the run from the law.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-01-24
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Her Future
Overview: A defendant pleads her case in court and promises to stay out of trouble from now on through singing.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-04-22
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The Big Broadcast of 1936
Overview: Two-bit radio station owner Spud Miller doubles as the station's sole announcer. On the verge of bankruptcy, Spud is receptive to the wacky notions of George and Gracie, who've just invented a television device that can pick up and transmit any signal, any time, anywhere.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-09-20
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Betty Boop: Queen of the Cartoons
Overview: From the A&E "Biography" series, a review of the birth, development and cinematic history of Betty Boop, the flapper cartoon character who has been a popular icon since the 1930s.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-01-01
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Straight, Place and Show
Overview: The Ritz Brothers go to the race track. They raise training end entrance money in a wrestling match and help a young man train the horse of his fiancée.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-09-30
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Follow the Leader
Overview: A kooky waiter and sometimes vaudevillian promises to get his employer's daughter into a Broadway show. When he kidnaps the show's star, she gets her opportunity, as the understudy, to play the role and become a star herself.
Genres: Comedy Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-12-06
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Kid Millions
Overview: A musical comedy about a Brooklyn boy who inherits a fortune from his archaeologist father, but has to go to Egypt to claim it.
Genres: Music Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-11-10
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It's a Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie Point
Overview: Worlds collide in this unconventional essay film, when filmmaker, film historian, and archivist Daniel Kremer seamlessly edits Michelangelo Antonioni's legendary but controversial counterculture art film Zabriskie Point (1970) into the same narrative universe as Stanley Kramer's madcap epic comedy extravaganza It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). In creating these new sequences, Kremer comes to recognize that the exercise effortlessly draws cultural and historical parallels in twentieth-century American life that echo in present-day America. The editorial mashups weave a tangled web of social and cinematic history that root our notions of Americana in the mythology of the desert. As Kremer expounds in his narration on these often astonishing and sometimes shocking associations, his very personal ties to the subject matter become manifest.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2023-10-08
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You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story
Overview: Biographical portrait of one of Broadway's most brilliant songwriters. Told through the use of archival material and interviews with the rich and famous that knew him, this portrait concentrates on his career and his public life events.
Genres: Documentary History Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1990-07-23
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The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years
Overview: For the first time in their careers, all the Muppets (except the ones that couldn't make it, like the Doozers, Gorgs and most of the Fraggles) have gathered together in one place to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary and honor the one who brought them together: Kermit the Frog (and by doing so, Jim Henson).
Genres: Family Fantasy Music TV Movie Comedy Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1986-01-21
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Annie Get Your Gun
Overview: TV Movie musical of wild west sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
Genres: Western Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1967-03-19
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Television: The First Fifty Years
Overview: Trace the history of television and its impact on American culture with clips, newsreels, and exclusive interviews from television greats like Walter Cronkite, Carol Burnett, and Jay Leno.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1999-01-01
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Stage Door Canteen
Overview: A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of the theater and films appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance
Genres: Comedy Music Romance War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-06-24
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Be Like Me
Overview: Ethel runs a run down saloon in Nicaragua. Word arrives that the soldiers are pulling out, and most of the American miners and all of the women must ship out on a vessel bound for San Francisco, but her boyfriend has been ordered to remain.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-10-24
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Old Man Blues
Overview: A woman sundered from her sweetheart sings the title song as a duet with a personified Old Man Blues, in fog-shrouded woodland.
Genres: Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-03-19
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Devil Sea
Overview:
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-02-28
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Roaming
Overview: A medicine show singer finds her love.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-11-28
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Ireno
Overview: Singer Irene is in Reno for a divorce, though her friend Bob tries to convince her it's all a mistake. Then husband Cliff shows up.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-06-30
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Song Shopping
Overview: Fleischer Studios 'Screen Song' with Ethel Merman singing the songs.
Genres: Music Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-05-18
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A Special Sesame Street Christmas
Overview: Leslie Uggams hosts this take on A Christmas Carol, where she and fellow guest stars, Anne Murray, Imogene Coca, and Dickie Smothers try to get Oscar to stop being such a Grouch on Christmas.
Genres: Comedy Family TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-12-08
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Judy Garland Duets
Overview: Judy performs beloved musical numbers with Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, and more in this series of classic duets from The Judy Garland Show.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-06-04
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The Dean Martin Christmas Show
Overview: A Classic Holiday Celebration with Dean and Friends.
Genres: Comedy Music TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1968-12-19
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Six by Sondheim
Overview: This intimate documentary explores the life and career of the stage legend Stephen Sondheim through six of his best-known songs.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2013-12-09
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Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Overview: Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1975-08-06
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Something a Little Less Serious: A Tribute to 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World'
Overview: A star-studded documentary and tribute to the classic comedy, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
Genres: Comedy Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-01-01
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This Is Bob Hope...
Overview: During his career, Bob Hope was the only performer to achieve top-rated success in every form of mass entertainment. American Masters explores the entertainer’s life through his personal archives and clips from his classic films.
Genres: Documentary Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2017-12-29
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Great Broadway Musical Moments from the Ed Sullivan Show
Overview: Relive the dazzling show stopping songs, dances and production numbers from some of your favorite Broadway musicals. Great Broadway Musical Moments from The Ed Sullivan Show brings you legendary musical entertainment performed by a galaxy of great Broadway stars like Ethel Merman in "Annie Get Your Gun," John Raitt in "Oklahoma!," Julie Andrews in "Camelot," and more! This exciting event includes exclusive interviews with legends Shirley Jones, Joel Grey, and Rex Reed.
Genres: Music Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-07-22
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The Ford 50th Anniversary Show
Overview: The program was the first so-called "Television Spectacular". Ford presented the show without commercial interruption. It is believed to be the first time that Edward R. Murrow appeared on NBC in a professional capacity. Also, in 1953, it was necessary for Ford to buy time on two networks to ensure maximum coverage of US TV households - at the time, neither CBS nor NBC reached 100% of them. The famed 1953 television special celebrating the Ford Motor Company's 50th anniversary brought together two of the greatest leading ladies Broadway has ever known. The highlight of the program is Merman and Martin’s 13-minute duet medley, where they sing the songs that made them famous, plus much more. On their own, Merman sings “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Mademoiselle from Armetières” and Martin performs a brilliantly comic routine about changes in fashion over the first half of the 20th century.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1953-06-15
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The Best of Broadway
Overview: Tom Bosley hosts a tribute to the American musical theater taped before a live audience featuring dozens of stars recreating their original performances. Among the show-stoppers are Chita Rivera's Spanish Rose dance in "Bye, Bye, Bireie," Ray Walston as the Devil in "Damn Yankees," Nell Carter singing the Fats Waller classic "Cash for Trash" from "Ain't Misbehavin," Glynis Johns with "Send in the Clowns" from "A Little Night Music," Barry Bostwick from "Grease," and many more.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1985-05-24
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Marilyn
Overview: This 1963 documentary, released less than a year after Marilyn Monroe's death, showcases the star in memorable scenes from her 20th Century Fox films, including wardrobe tests and clips from her last, uncompleted project, "Something's Got To Give". Hosted and narrated by Rock Hudson.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-04-18
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Anything Goes
Overview: On an ocean liner, a nightclub singer tries to help a fellow American romance an English heiress who is being forced to return home to marry a man she doesn't love. The American must avoid his boss who is traveling on the same vessel and disguises himself as a gangster traveling with a minister who is, in fact, a disguised gangster on the lam.
Genres: Romance Comedy Music TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1954-02-28
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Around the World of Mike Todd
Overview: "Around the World with Mike Todd" serves as a summarization of the Todd's career, and his role in producing 'Around the World in 80 Days'. Numerous behind-the-scenes footage from the film.
Genres: Documentary Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1968-09-08
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Journey Back to Oz
Overview: Dorothy and Toto return to the Land of Oz to find the Scarecrow as ruler of the Emerald City. Unfortunately for the new mayor, the wicked Mombi is conspiring to take over the city for herself. With the help of the Tin Woodsman, the Cowardly Lion and other familiar friends, Dorothy sets out to save Oz.
Genres: Animation Family Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-12-14
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JFK: The Lost Inaugural Gala
Overview: Documentary about the star-studded pre-inaugural gala that took place on January 19, 1961 to celebrate John F. Kennedy's election.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2017-05-23
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The Muppets Go Hollywood
Overview: Kermit the Frog throws a glamorous party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub to celebrate the premiere of the Muppets' first feature film, The Muppet Movie. Hosts Dick van Dyke and Rita Moreno interview the wide array of celebrities and Muppets who attend the event. Gary Owens serves as off-camera announcer, and appears on-screen to introduce Miss Piggy.
Genres: TV Movie Family Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1979-05-16
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Musical Comedy Tonight
Overview: First of three programs about musical theatre hosted by writer-composer-lyricist Sylvia Fine.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1979-10-01
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S Wonderful, 'S Marvelous, 'S Gershwin
Overview: A musical tribute to brothers George and Ira Gershwin
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-01-17
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Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
Overview: Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award-winning filmmaker Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. He soon learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print - but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while more vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words — and not a moment too soon — Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends, how they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theatre. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film.
Genres: Music Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-04-03
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Night of 100 Stars
Overview: The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.
Genres: Comedy Music TV Movie Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-03-08
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Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History - The 1930s: Dancing Away the Great Depression
Overview: A two-hour in-depth exploration into the Hollywood musicals of the 1930s.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-01-01
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