John Huston's version of Maxwell Anderson's play, Key Largo, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall premiered in New York on this date.
Lionel Barrymore was severely disabled by arthritis (clearly visible in his hands) and was confined to a wheelchair, making the scene in which his Mr. Temple character gets up and falls taking a swing at Toots more than a dramatic moment.
July 16, 1951 -
One of the best adaptations of a Charles Dickens' novel, David Lean's Oliver Twist was released in the US on this date.
John Howard Davies was only eight at the time, and child labor laws prohibited children under the age of thirteen from working in movie studios, but David Lean managed to get around the restriction. Davies recalled that Lean "was unfailingly nice, unfailingly courteous. He used various devices on me. When I felt inhibited about doing something, he would often shoot the rehearsal. He wasn't silly enough not to do the take. But I pretty soon cottoned on to this because my hearing was even better than his, with his large ears, and I could detect the sound of a Mitchell turning over."
July 16, 1958 -
The classic Vincent Price Sci-Fi film, The Fly, opened in San Francisco on this date.
David Hedison suggested that his character wear progressive makeup effects that showed him in a mixed part human/part fly state when his face is finally revealed, instead of just a fully formed Fly mask as depicted in the film. The producers declined due to the cost and time required to achieve the mixed human/fly look, as well as it being too harsh and grotesque for audiences at the time. This concept was later embraced fully in the 1986 remake, which did focus on the lead scientist devolving slowly into a mutated fly/human creature.
July 16, 1966 -
Tommy James and the Shondells' single Hanky Panky goes to No. #1 of the Billboard Charts on this date.
Tommy James & the Shondells initially formed in 1959 as Tom and the Tornadoes, with the then 12-year-old Tommy Jackson as lead singer. In 1963, he renamed the band The Shondells, after one of his idols, guitarist Troy Shondell. At first, they played straightforward rock and roll (as their first hit proves), but soon became involved in the budding Bubblegum music movement. From 1968, the group members tried themselves as songwriters, penning the psychedelic classic Crimson And Clover. The group carried on with constant success until early 1970, when James became exhausted from the strenuous touring and decided to drop out.
July 16, 1974 –
In TV’s first live suicide, news presenter Christine Chubbuck, during her TV broadcast, suddenly stopped reading the teleprompter and said, “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first: an attempted suicide.”
July 16, 1977 –
The Commodores'single Easy was No. 1 on the R&B Billboard Charts on this date.
Commodores lead singer Lionel Richie wrote this song, which became a crossover hit for the band, bringing them into pop and adult contemporary territory when they were previously pure funk. This led to more soft hits for the band like Still and Three Times A Lady. When Richie went solo in 1981, he became a soft rock superstar with similar songs.
July 16, 1982 –
A very silly movie, Young Doctors in Love, directed by Garry Marshall and starring Sean Young, Michael McKean, Harry Dean Stanton, Dabney Coleman, Patrick Macnee and Demi Moore, opened on this date.
The movie featured a number of cameos and guest appearances by television stars from the ABC network's soap operas. The film was produced by ABC Motion Pictures, the former feature film division of ABC TV. As a result, several actors from the ABC series General Hospital had cameos in the film including young Janine Turner and Demi Moore.
July 16, 1999 -
Stanley Kubrick final film, Eyes Wide Shut, was released on this date.
Due to Stanley Kubrick's fear of travel, virtually the entire film was shot in and near London (despite the movie's New York City setting). Elaborate street sets built at Pinewood Studios were used for all the scenes showing Tom Cruise walking around the city.
July 16, 2000 -
Coldplay went to No. #1 on the UK album charts on this date with their debut release Parachutes.
The album produced four singles: Shiver, Yellow, Trouble, and Don't Panic. Parachutes later went on to earn the British outfit their first Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2002.
Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts
Today in History:
July 16, 1054 -
The 'Great Schism' between the Western and Eastern churches began over rival claims of universal pre-eminence.
Remember kids, there's no schism like a great schism.
Mary Baker Eddy was born on this date in 1821.
Ms. Eddy invented Christian Science, and was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995 for having been the only American woman to found a worldwide religion without exposing her breasts.
July 16, 1860 -
A decree from Emperor Norton I of San Francisco, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, ordered the dissolution of the United States of America on this date.
July 16, 1945 -
...If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One - I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds....
Fittingly, in a desert named Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death,) code-named Trinity, the first experimental plutonium bomb (The Gadget) was detonated in a United States test of an atomic explosion at Alamogordo Air Base, Los Alamos, New Mexico on this date. The explosion yields the equivalent 18,000 tons of TNT.
If you have the time and the chance, watch the bio-pix about Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project - Oppenheimer.
July 16, 1951 -
The Catcher in the Rye was published 74 years ago today. The book contained secret code words through which its author, J.D. Salinger, was able to transmit diabolical commands to his evil minions.
Salinger was a one-hit wonder. (He did write several other books, but these are of interest only to insomniacs and people in need of furniture shims.) The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, and Salinger subsequently retreated to the hills of Vermont, emerging from his self-imposed cloister only briefly - to serve as Prime Minister of Canada, and then again to appear as a corpse at his own funeral. For nearly half a century, The Catcher in the Rye has captured the imagination of the American teenager like no other book without pictures.
Holden Caulfield, the hero and narrator of Salinger’s slim classic, may be the finest portrait of twentieth-century American teenage angst bequeathed to posterity.
Either him or Archie, it's hard to say.
July 16, 1964 -
In accepting the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, Barry M. Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and that "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Goldwater's speech ultimately doomed his candidacy but revived the American Conservative movement and gave birth to the political rise of Ronald Reagan.
July 16, 1969 -
56 years ago on this date, the 363-foot-tall Apollo 11 space vehicle was launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, at 9:37 a.m. (As I have gotten older, I have only now put it together that some sick puppies at NASA (probably some of the 'Good Germans') arranged to have the launch on the anniversary of the Trinity test.)
It carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.
July 16, 1973 -
In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Ervin Committee on Watergate), former presidential assistant Alexander Butterfield disclosed that President Richard Nixon had tape recorded all of his conversations in the White House and Executive Office Building.
Bad, Nixon, bad.
July 16, 1999 -
26 years ago today, John F.Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. (Don't hitch a ride with a Kennedy.)
He was flying a Piper Saratoga II HP from Essex County Airport in New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy and his wife were traveling together to the wedding of his cousin Rory in Hyannis, Massachusetts, while Lauren was to have been dropped off at Martha's Vineyard en route.
And so it goes.
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