ARTINFO - New York, NY, USA By ARTINFO LONDON - A 17th-century painting looted by Nazis during World War II has been discovered among offerings at Christie's London and will be returned ... http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27163/nazi-looted-painting-recovered-at-christies/

Inside: The Goring Collection. In search of Nazi stolen art Intelligence agent Sue Grady interviews Holocaust descendent regarding families lost Monet.

Several days after we laid Uncle Bernie to rest I thought about the incident and returned to the gallery to inquire about the painting, but they brushed me off. They told me they couldn't say anything during the investigation and it seemed that they had absolutely no interest in helping me find the painting."

"That night at the gallery, did you think it was your family painting?" Sue asked.

"Well, Uncle Bernie obviously did, and it certainly looked like the photo I saw in the German magazine." "Tell me about that old painting and where it came from," Sue urged. "It was a gift left to the family by my great grandfather. It seems that the old man went to Paris sometime around 1895 and purchased a painting from an artist by the name of Claude Monet. It was a beautiful picture titled Garden at Giverny and of course as Monet's reputation grew so did the worth of the painting. And from what I can tell, it became a source of great pride to the family."

"What happened to the painting?" Sue asked.

"The Nazi's came to the house and took it away just before my Grandparents and Uncle Bernie were shipped off to the concentration camp."

In the Quest for the Triple Crown

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Let's go to the Movies Part VI Final chapter.

Jesse and Sam were learning a basic lesson about showmanship. The audience makes the show a success or failure. It happens at the Kentucky Derby, the Worlds Fair, and it happens in the theatre. Emotion as well as laughter is infectious. Sam and Jesse would eventually become masters at choosing the size and makeup of a preview audience.

The ultimate judge of a films success or failure is not an executive or even the critic; it's the people who pay at the box office. Movie magic is really made by the audience. Those film buyers that viewed Brewster's Millions laughed and to the delight of Jesse and Sam they also bought the picture.

It was during this same time frame and not far away in upper Manhattan and the Bronx, at the Edison Company and the Biograph Studios, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett were working on their styles of movie magic. Griffith discovered the first major film star, a young Canadian actress Mary Pickford, who would later be known as America's sweetheart. D.W. Griffith was the first producer of the screen spectacular, making two giants of that genre, ‘Birth Of A Nation' and ‘Intolerance.' Mack Sennett went the comedy route and signed future stars Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle along with Mabel Normand, the girl most likely to be tied to the railroad tracks by the hands of some shady villain. Sennett's Keystone Company was manufacturing one and two-reel farce, featuring the likes of crossed eyed Ben Turpin, Chester Conklin and Marie Dressler. And when you mix the talent of Sennett with his new found screen personalities you wind up with knock down, slapstick, pie in the face comedy forever known as The Keystone Cops.

Those fast paced flickering comedies, turned out by the dozens, lasted for years and gave future comedians material to emulate and copy forever. In the meantime sign makers in California were performing surgery on the big white HOLLYWOODLAND sign trimming off the LAND portion and leaving HOLLYWOOD to look down on and advertise the motion picture industry in that valley of make-believe. Orange groves and farm land would give way to masses of people coming out to seek their fortune in the new found movie industry of Southern California.

Coming Attractions: We'll listen to some banter and wit at The Algonquin Round Table. Hurricane watch begins June 1st and ends November 30th

Writers Corner: Coming on the heels of the Keystone Cops is a timely observation made by one of Broadway's most prolific comedy writers. Neil Simon develops character first, and then plot. But he has said on a number of occasions that the main force that drives his comedy is conflict.

About the Author

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter. Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

www.tombarnes39.com

www.RocktheTower.com