(We are still in Pottsylvania at the The School for Wayward and Deplorable Children, watching SOS play rugby. The internet is non-existent (I would have better luck asking the kids in SOS' physics class help me make a Tesla coil) and I have developed the vapors. Bunkies, don't watch your kid play sports.)
For those of you not near your church calendar, today is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel. It's also known in England as Michaelmas Day. St. Michael is the patron saint of the sea and maritime lands, of ships and boatmen, of horses and horsemen. He was the Angel who hurled Lucifer down from Heaven for his offenses against God.
September 29, 1948 -
Laurence Olivier's powerful interpretation of Shakespeare's melancholy Dane, Hamlet premiered in New York City on this day.
When the movie was released, Laurence Olivier said it had been filmed in black and white for artistic reasons. The true reason, as he later admitted, was that "I was in the middle of a furious row with Technicolor".
September 29, 1953 -
The family comedy Make Room for Daddy, starring Danny Thomas, premiered on ABC TV on this date.
Danny Thomas was forced against his will to have Jean Hagen as his television wife. He could not stand her attitude, or what he considered her slovenly appearance. During one rehearsal, he is said to have have shouted, "For God's sake, Jean, put on a little lipstick." She left after the third season, and at the beginning of the fourth season, to assure that she could not come back, he had her character die.
September 29, 1954 -
The movie musical A Star Is Born, (the third version of the film, fourth, if you count What Price Hollywood) starring Judy Garland and James Mason, had its world premiere at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood on this date.
The film was re-edited several times. Premiering at 181 minutes, the studio (Warner Bros.) cut the film by 30 minutes despite the objections of director George Cukor and producer Sidney Luft (Judy Garland's husband). In 1983, all but five minutes of the cut footage was found and re-instated, but some footage had to be reconstructed using production stills.
September 29, 1954 -
United Artist released the Joseph L, Mankiewicz film, The Barefoot Contessa, starring Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart on this date. (If you haven't seen this movie, seek it out!)
While Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner had good chemistry on screen, off screen Bogart wasn't particularly impressed with her as an actress. He commented that Gardner gave him nothing to work with when they were performing together. Some believe Bogart's unfavorable feelings towards Gardner was due to the divorce between Gardner and his close friend Frank Sinatra.
September 29, 1955 -
The only film Charles Laughton directed, The Night of the Hunter opened in New York City on this date.
While the poor critical reviews are often cited as the reason Charles Laughton never directed another feature, Laughton himself said that he much preferred directing in the theatre. In the theatre you could constantly change and amend the production--adding lines, changing lighting and sets--but with film once it was done it could never be changed.
September 29, 1959 -
One of the first series that featured the lives of American teenagers, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, starring Dwayne Hickman, Bob Denver and Tuesday Weld premiered on CBS-TV on this date.
Max Shulman and his writers had little knowledge of beatniks, a term used by outsiders to refer to devotees of the Beat Generation philosophy, so Bob Denver visited Los Angeles area coffee shops and hipster hangouts in order to help create Maynard G. Krebs.
September 29, 1960 -
We were all welcomed into the Douglas household when My Three Sons, starring another of TV favorite alcoholic dads, Fred McMurray, premiered on ABC on this date.
At Fred MacMurray's insistence, all episodes were filmed out of sequence during the show's entire run using a technique now known as the MacMurray method. MacMurray would do all of his scenes in 65 nonconsecutive days. The cast regulars got haircuts once a week in order to maintain continuity. Guest stars would have to return months later to complete an episode. All kitchen scenes would be done together, then all scenes in the upstairs hallway would be filmed together, etc. This fact was well concealed until Dawn Lyn joined the cast as Dodie. Her upper front teeth grew in irregularly during the entire 1969-70 season, from being barely visible in scenes with MacMurray to being plainly visible in scenes without him. William Frawley never felt comfortable with this method of filming, having grown accustomed to filming I Love Lucy in sequence during its entire run.
September 29, 1963 -
My Favorite Martian, starring Ray Walston and Bill Bixby premiered on CBS-TV on this date.
Ray Walston admitted that he regretted taking the role of Uncle Martin. Walston felt that the role typecasted him and prevented him from getting substantial roles for many years. He took the role because the salary afforded him and his family a comfortable lifestyle. He did enjoy working with Bill Bixby and two remained lifelong friends.
September 29, 1967 -
Gerry Anderson's supermarionation take on superheroes, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons premiered on this date in the UK.
The Spectrum organizations' radio code SIG stood for Spectrum Is Green (essentially an OK), whilst the less used SIR stood for Spectrum Is Red (indicating a dangerous situation). Both radio codes have been borrowed by American private spaceflight firm SpaceX to describe its readiness for rocket launches, modified to "SpaceX Is Green" or "SpaceX Is Red."
September 29, 1985 -
The Sci-Fi anthology series created by Steven Spielberg, Amazing Stories, premieres on NBC-TV on this date.
Four directors who worked on the series, all of whom are best known as movie directors, later won the Academy Academy for Best Director: Steven Spielberg, won for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, Clint Eastwood, won for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, Martin Scorsese, won for The Departed, and Robert Zemeckis, won for Forrest Gump.
Didn't read that book
Today in History:
September 29, 1399 -
... For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings...
Richard II was deposed on this date,which only served him right for having posed in the first place. He was succeeded by Henry IV Part I.
September 29, 1513 -
Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean, on this date (although he may have discovered it four days earlier - I'm not sure what the Spanish Navy's stance was on the the whole rum ... question.)
How something that covers roughly a third of the earth's surface could have been lost for so long is a question that stumps historians to this day.
It's Miguel de Cervantes' birthday today. Born in 1547, Cervantes is best known as the author of Don Quixote, a cunning satire on mental illness. The work is an epic treatment of the perennial question, "wouldn't the world be better off if we were all crazy?"
Ever since the publication of Don Quixote, the idea of improving through world through mental illness has taken root in the popular culture of the west. From the good soldier Svjek and Prince Myshkin to Chauncy Gardener, Elwood P. Dowd and Forrest Gump, western readers and filmgoers have a galaxy of benevolent lunatics to show them the way to a better, purer existence. Grand mal seizures, delirium tremens, and hallucinations are merely the price of admission to their wistful world of blissful ignorance.
The sane and hard-working do not come off nearly so well in film or literature. In fact, sane and hard-working people seldom even appear in film or literature. No one wants to read about them, or spend good money to watch them go about their plodding lives, because most of us are surrounded by sane and hard-working people already and know what they're like—they're just like us, only less so.
Early to bed and early to rise may make a man healthy, and wealthy, and wise, but it won't do a goddamn thing for his Nielsens. In fact, if you're healthy, wealthy, wise, and well-rested, you're only going to piss the rest of us off. Lighten up, slack off, drink up, and spend plenty of quality time with imaginary friends.
That's the real road to happiness—or at least our acceptance, without which you have no right to be happy.
September 29, 1957 -
An explosion at the Chelyabinsk-40 complex, a Soviet nuclear fuel processing plant, irradiated the nearby city of Kyshtym with strontium-90, cesium-137 and plutonium on this date.
This accident releases twice the radioactivity of the Chernobyl incident.
Oops
September 29, 1976 -
At his birthday party, musician Jerry Lee Lewis accidentally shoots his bass player Norman Owens twice in the chest, trying to open a soft drink bottle with a .357 magnum. Owens survived and files a lawsuit.
September 29, 1988 -
Stacy Allison was one of several female mountaineers who took part in a competition to see who could be the first to climb Mount Everest.
After harsh weather conditions forced the other participants to turn around midway through their climb, Allison surprised many (including herself) by reaching the peak of 29,000 feet, being the first American woman to do so on this date.
September 29, 1989 -
Zsa Zsa Gabor, a person famous for no apparent reason and with no visible means of support (It's too weird to think that Zsa Zsa and her sisters were the original Kardashians, without the sex tapes), was convicted of slapping a Beverly Hills police officer on this date.
Gabor later complains that she was denied a jury of her peers, saying "It was not my class of people, There was not a producer, a press agent, a director, an actor."
And so it goes.
Before you go - Happy 5780
Rosh Hashanah begins on Sunday evening, so we here at ACME are wishing our friends L’shanah Tovah.
479
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