Sunday, October 14, 2012

See the dome, feel the power!

Today is Be Bald and Free Day - show off your chrome dome



Veritably and I show ours off every day, why don't you?


October 14, 1953 -
Possibly the ultimate film noir, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat opens in NYC on this date.



Bannion's wife Katie is played by Jocelyn Brando, older sister of Marlon Brando.



October 14, 1972 -
... that date should become a landmark in movie history comparable to May 29, 1913 — the night Le Sacre du Printemps was first performed—in music history. There was no riot, and no one threw anything at the screen, but I think it’s fair to say that the audience was in a state of shock, because Last Tango in Paris has the same kind of hypnotic excitement as the Sacre, the same primitive force, and the same thrusting, jabbing eroticism. - Pauline Kael



Well, the date isn't etched in cultural history but Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider and that imfamous stick of butter did premiere in New York City, on this date in history.


October 14, 1972 -
The TV-series Kung Fu, starring David Carridine, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



According to Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, Lee originated the concept and was intended to star in the series, but David Carradine was cast because the network felt the American audience was not ready for an Asian actor as the lead and Lee received no credit for his concept.


Today in History:
October 14, 1651 -
Massachusetts passed laws prohibiting the poor from dressing excessively, on this date.


It was felt that persons of limited means should save their money and learn to get by with simple vinaigrettes.


October 14, 1893 -
Never get caught acting - Lillian Gish



Lillian Diana Gish, was born on this date. Although she was the archetypal silent film heroine, she was a star of movies, television, radio, and the stage for nearly all of the 20th century. She closed her career in the 1987 film The Whales of August.


October 14, 1912 -
Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for a return to office, was shot in Milwaukee by a saloonkeeper named John Schrank.


What saves Teddy was the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after hitting both his steel eyeglass case and a copy of his speech he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt declined suggestions that he go to the hospital, and delivered his scheduled speech.




He spoke vigorously for ninety minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, doctors determined that he was not seriously wounded and that it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in his chest. Roosevelt carried it with him until he died.


Schrenk was captured and uttered the now famous words "any man looking for a third term ought to be shot."

Teddy Roosevelt, one of America's First Superheroes.


October 14, 1944 -
Field Marshal Rommel (James Mason) of Germany was visited by two of Hitler's personal staff on this date in history.



They informed him that he was suspected of involvement in the July 20th plot to assassinate the Fuhrer and that he would therefore be required either to (a) stand trial and die, or (b) just die. They brought some poison along to facilitate his decision.

Hitler always liked him.


October 14, 1947 -
American pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in a rocket-powered airplane, on this date. Yeager insisted it was already broken and consequently refused to repair it despite repeated admonitions by his mother.



It remains broken to this day. (The sound barrier should not be confused with the Long Island Sound barrier, sometimes referred to as the Throg's Neck Bridge.)


October 14, 1959 -
Omni-sexual actor and Nazi sympathizer Errol Flynn, dubbed "the most despicable human being yet born" (and that was by a friend), died of a heart attack in Vancouver. Flynn reported didn't have a sexual preference, he merely slept with anything with an orifice (and possibly a pulse) including (but not limited to) Truman Capote, Howard Hughes, as well as countless Hollywood starlets.



Presumably, not at the same time.


October 14, 1962 -
The US collected photographic evidence that the Soviet Union had positioned missiles about 90 miles off the US coast, in Cuba. The missiles were capable of transporting nuclear warheads.



The tense situation that arose in the next two weeks would bring the US and Soviet Union the closest the two countries had ever been to nuclear war.




And so it goes


Before I let you go - A friend of mine, Claudia Sherwood has a movie that finally came out on DVD, Women in Black:



Women In Black synopsis (from Cinema Guild):

The kaleidoscope of baby boomers' psyches features adults describing, with a sense a humor and a sense of survival, childhood experiences of physical and psychological punishment during their education by Catholic nuns, especially in the 1950's and 1960's. The film, includes commentary by contemporary nuns, and two prominent playwrights from New York, Albert Innaurato and Chris Durang. It breaks down the complicated dichotomy of the roots and reasons of punishment employed in Catholic education and offers an understanding of the austere differences in the lives of the nuns of that era.

If you can find it, you should check it out

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