Kepler is best known for his theories explaining the motion of planets.
April 27, 1922 -
Fritz Lang's Dr Mabuse, der Spieler (some have called it the first film-noir,) premiered in Berlin, Germany on this date.
Fritz Lang originally wanted the actress portraying Venus to be completely nude. When the first take was completed, he didn't like how the woman's pubic hair looked, and ordered her to shave it off. The actress indignantly refused, sending Lang into a tantrum. Eventually, a compromise was reached when a small strip of cloth was draped over the offending hair. This scene was predictably removed from the revival versions that circulated throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and has only recently been part of the film in the rare showings of the Fritz Lang archives' complete copy of Dr. Mabuse.
A Star Is Born 1937 -
William A. Wellman's drama (which has been remade three times,) A Star Is Born, starring Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Stander, and Owen Moore opened in the US on this date.
This is widely considered to be the first Technicolor film that was a bona-fide critical and box office success. Until A Star is Born and Nothing Sacred, color films had been garish, over-saturated and, as many critics complained, headache-inducing. Producer David O. Selznick insisted on muted, realistic color, and it was the success of these two films that paved the way for his Technicolor masterpiece Gone with the Wind.
April 27, 1940 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Hardship of Miles Standish, directed by Friz Freleng, and starring Elmer Fudd, debuted on this date. This cartoon is seldom shown on television today due to Native American stereotyping.
This cartoon was originally planned to be an Egghead cartoon directed by Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton, as with Confederate Honey. However, when Friz Freleng returned to the studio after a stint at MGM, the cartoon was taken over by him, who decided to use the Elmer Fudd character instead.
April 27, 1940 -
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Poor Fish, directed by Robert Clampett, and starring Porky Pig, debuted on this date.
Three sequences from the storyboard got cut from the finished short, which include a view of a mama fish and three little fishes, a "dog fish" and "cat fishes," a dance number from a turtle, and an alternative scene in which the cat tries to steal a fish hiding behind a lobster, but the other fishes find out and the flying fishes attack using light bulbs as bombs.
April 27, 1948 -
Alexander Korda's lavish remake of Anna Karenina directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richarson premiered in NYC on this date.
Vivien Leigh's costumes were made in Paris by Barbara Karinska to Cecil Beaton's designs. She was in such pain wearing them that she even went to her doctor fearing she had broken her ribs. It was subsequently discovered that the dresser had been putting the corsets on upside down.
April 27, 1963 -
Allied Artists released the sci-fi thriller The Day of the Triffids, directed by Steve Sekely and starring Howard Keel, Nicole Maurey, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore, and Mervyn Johns in the US on this date.
Kieron Moore and Janette Scott were only added to the cast when it was discovered upon completion of filming that there was only 57 minutes of good usable footage available. The whole lighthouse sequence, directed by veteran Cinematographer Freddie Francis, was only added to help extend the movie's running time - even though these scenes contain the movie's surprise- twist denouement. Presumably this was a last-minute script change. Freddie Francis, when asked about his uncredited contribution to the film, implied strongly that the whole production had been chaos.
April 27, 1969 -
Joe Cocker made his first U.S. TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, on this date. Together with the Grease Band, Cocker performed a cover of Dave Mason's Feelin' Alright.
The song would end up being a two-time charting hit for Cocker - in 1969 and again in 1972. Cocker included a version of the song on his 1970 double album, Mad Dogs & Englishmen.
April 27, 1971 -
CBS executives finally sobered up and the last episode of Green Acres aired on this date.
This was to have been the pilot for a proposed spin off featuring Elaine Joyce as Carol. Oliver and Lisa only appear briefly in the beginning as an excuse to introduce Carol and the pilot. Oliver appears later talking to Carol on the phone.
April 27, 1975 -
The cult action film Death Race 2000, directed by Paul Bartel, and starring David Carradine, Simone Griffeth, Sylvester Stallone, Mary Woronov, Martin Kove, and Don Steele, opened in the US on this date.
Both David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone did much of their own driving in this film. In addition, producer Roger Corman drove in scenes that were shot on public streets, since the custom-built cars that were used in the film were not street legal and the film's stunt drivers did not want to be caught driving them by the police.
April 27, 1990 -
The British film based on the lives and crimes of the English gangster twins Ronald and Reginald Kray, The Krays, starring Gary Kemp (of Spandau Ballet) and Martin Kemp, premiered in the UK on this date.
Roger Daltrey had originally intended to produce a film about the Kray twins life after acquiring the rights to John Pearson's book The Profession Of Violence. The idea was abandoned however once the Peter Medak version was announced.
April 27, 2001 -
And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that I'd said ...
The Bee Gees performed audience and viewer requests for tunes from their long career in a concert at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom on the A&E series, Live By Request, on this date.
Word of the Day
Today in History:
April 27, 1509 -
The entire state of Venice was excommunicated by Pope Julius II for an entirely secular reason:
the refusal to place parts of Romagna under the Pope's control.
Oh, those wacky Pre-counterreformation Popes.
April 27, 1521 -
In an hour long battle with Philippine Islanders, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his men were repeatedly jabbed with sharpened bamboo spears. After Magellan finally succumbs to his wounds, the natives hacked him to pieces with their swords, barbecued and consumed him on this date.
They were surprised that they were not hungry an hour after eating him as they had been after eating some Asian explorers previously.
April 27, 1822 -
Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War hero and 18th President of the United States, would have been 204 today.
And if the rumors are true, he is still buried in Grant's Tomb, which was dedicated on this date in 1897.
April 27, 1861 -
In a blatantly unconstitutional act, President Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus inside a zone between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The government could detain citizens indefinitely without ever filing charges. A year and a half later, Lincoln expanded the scope of his order to the entire nation.
I will grant you that President Obama might have read a little too much, but thank God that the previous resident of the White House didn't read much at all.
April 27, 1865 -
The worst steamship disaster in the history of the United States occurs on this date. The SS Sultana, carrying over 2,000 passengers, the majority being freed Union POWs from the notorious Andersonville and Cahaba Prisons, exploded on the Mississippi River, while en route to Cairo, Illinois.
Neither the cause of the explosion nor the final count of the dead (estimated at between 1,450 and 2,000) was ever determined. Today, the Sultana disaster remains the worst of its kind.
Talk about bad luck.
April 27, 1871 -
The American Museum of Natural History opened to the public in New York City, on this date. With a series of exhibits, the Museum’s collection went on view for the first time in the Central Park Arsenal, the Museum’s original home, on the eastern side of Central Park.
April 27, 1932 -
Writer Hart Crane was racked with self-doubt about his ability to write good poetry and agonizing over his sexuality, had been mentally unstable for some time. Crane stood on the railing of the ship Orizaba in his pajamas (en route to the United States from Mexico,) shouted, "Goodbye Everyone," to the other stunned passengers and jumped over the side of the ship on this date.
Life preservers were thrown to him, but he makes no effort to reach them and drowned. The ship halted in the water, ten miles off the Florida coast, but never recovers his body.
April 27, 1986 -
Someone interrupted the HBO satellite feed during the movie The Falcon and The Snowman on this date. For five minutes, two-thirds of their customer base receives the message: Good evening HBO from Captain Midnight. $12.95 a month?
(Showtime-Movie Channel Beware.) Captain Midnight turned out to be John R. MacDougall of Florida. After media pressure forces the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to act, MacDougall was charged and sentenced, per a plea bargain, to a $5,000 fine and one year’s probation.
April 27, 1987 -
After determining that Kurt Waldheim had "assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of persons" during his Nazi years, the Department of Justice places him on a watch list of undesirable aliens on this date. As such, the sitting President of Austria was disallowed entry into the U.S. It is the first time that a foreign head of state is legally forbidden from visiting America.
I suppose that he suffered from Waldheimer's Disease - it's having difficulty recalling that you're a Nazi
And so it goes.
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