Really, a very Merry Christmas spirit is out there

Charles Brown, that's what Christmas is about.

Godzilla lost her cell phone while we were at our friends holiday party.  A very nice person found it on the street and called us to tell us that they had found it.

Today's Christmas special:  Another guest programmer


December 22, 1932 -
Universal Pictures released the horror film The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff on this date.



So many layers of cotton were glued to Boris Karloff's face to create the wrinkled visage of Imhotep as a mummy that Karloff was unable to move his facial muscles enough even to speak.


December 22, 1949 -
The film version of Maxwell Anderson's play (Joan of Lorraine,) Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman opened in Los Angeles on this date.



According to some biographies of Ingrid Bergman, Howard Hughes saved her from possible injury during a visit to the set when she fell off her horse. He caught her, but rather awkwardly, with one hand firmly on her crotch.


December 22, 1959 -
Joseph L. Mankiewicz' film version of Tennesse Williams' strange one act play (about rape, incest, homosexuality, and cannibalism - I know that was probably a huge selling point,) Suddenly, Last Summer, premiered on this date.



Katharine Hepburn was reportedly so furious at the way Montgomery Clift was treated by Sam Spiegel and Joseph L. Mankiewicz during the filming that, after making sure that she would not be needed for retakes, she told both men off and actually spat at them.


December 22, 1965 -
David Lean's Russian epic, Dr Zhivago, premiered in the US, on this date.



The film was torn apart by critics when first released. Newsweek, in particular, made comments about "hack-job sets" and "pallid photography." David Lean was so deeply affected by these criticisms (despite the popularity of the film with the general public) that he swore he would never make another film.


December 22, 1975 -
A beautiful study of love and madness (and the razor's edge between them), L'histoire d'Adele H, opened in the US on this date.



Initially planned as a grand-scale spectacular drama with Jeanne Moreau to play the lead, then Catherine Deneuve (then having an affair with François Truffaut) was considered for the role. The film took 7 years to be made, and finally Truffaut decided on Isabelle Adjani whom he noticed on a TV broadcast of the Comédie Française.


Today in History:
December 22, 1879 -
It's Stalin's birthday (again)! Hey, when you're a dictator, you get to celebrate your birthday on more than one day. Unfortunately, the proper way to celebrate - oppress, torture and murder millions of your fellow country men - is frowned upon.

So smack someone upside the head for no reason.


December 22, 1937 -
The center tube of the Lincoln Tunnel was opened to traffic today, charging $0.50 per passenger car.

Some of those cars are still trying to get through the tunnel.


December 22, 1940 -
Strange death of the day - Author Nathanael West and his wife, Eileen McKenney, died in an auto accident on this date.

Distraught over hearing of his friend's F. Scott Fitzgerald's death (who passed away a few days earlier of a massive heart attack,) he crashed his car after ignoring a stop sign.


December 22, 1955 -
The corpse of Evita Peron was stolen by anti-Peronistas on this date.  For 26 years, her corpse makes a world-wind turn before it's returned for burial in Buenos Aires.



30 years later (to the day), Madonna's Like a Virgin single goes #1 for weeks.



Make of the coincidence what you will.


December 22, 1984 -
Bernhard Goetz shot 4 teenage boys on the NYC subway after one of them asks him for money.



Again, this practice is frowned upon, so smack someone upside the head.


December 22, 2001 -
Richard Reid attempts to blow up an American Airlines transatlantic flight by igniting a plastic explosive concealed in his shoe. Other passengers beat the living daylights out of him.

They knew, they smacked him upside the head.



And so it goes