Don't let them tell you otherwise, today is actually Independence Day - The US Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain on this day (in 1776);
the formal Declaration of Independence was approved two days later on July 4.
July 2, 1946 -
Orson Welles first attempt at restarting his Hollywood career, The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Orson Welles premiered in Los Angeles, on this date. (This was the first mainstream American movie to feature footage of Nazi concentration camps following World War II.)
Knowing Orson Welles' reputation for long exposition scenes, International Pictures gave editor Ernest J. Nims the freedom to cut any sequences from the film that he felt were unnecessary. To Welles' disgust, Nims ended up cutting almost 30 minutes of Welles' final version, including 19 minutes from the film's opening. The footage is believed lost, as even the original negatives have gone missing.
July 2, 1958 -
The Michael Curtiz, musical drama, King Creole (based on the Harold Robbins novel, A Stone for Danny Fisher,) starring Elvis, Carolyn Jones and Walter Matthau premiered in the US on this date.
James Dean was at one point in the running for the role that, several years later, would be played by Elvis Presley. At this stage, the film was to be a gritty urban drama. Following Dean's death and the casting of Elvis, it was retooled to suit Elvis.
July 2, 1959 -
Ed Wood's greatest opus (not counting Glen or Glenda), Plan 9 from Outer Space, opened on this date.
One of the legends about the production of this film was that Edward D. Wood Jr. used everything from automobile hubcaps to pizza pans to pie tins and even paper plates as flying saucers. The truth is that he bought a number of the Lindberg 1/48 scale "Flying Saucer" plastic model kits for use as props. One was modified with a wooden block, to represent the squared walled flying saucer set (the UFO seen landing in the graveyard).
July 2, 1966 -
The title track of Frank Sinatra's comeback album, Strangers in the Night reached the number one spot (on this date) on the Billboard charts and marked his return to the top of the pop charts in the mid-'60s.
Glen Campbell, who was then a session musician for hire, played rhythm guitar on this track. According to Campbell, he was one of four guitarists, and the only one using a capo (playing E-Flat). They rehearsed the song about 15 times before Sinatra arrived, then did just three takes before producer Jimmy Bowen stopped the session and selected the first take.
July 2, 1971 -
Gordon Parks' classic crime-drama Shaft, starring Richard Roundtree, premiered on this date.
One of only three films MGM released in 1971 that made a profit, and it helped save the studio from bankruptcy.
July 2, 1980 -
The David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker smash comedy, Airplane!, starring Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty premiered in the US on this date.
Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker chose actors such as Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, and Leslie Nielsen because of their reputation for playing no-nonsense characters. Until this film, these actors had not done comedy, so their "straight-arrow" personas and line delivery made the satire in the movie all the more poignant and funny. Bridges was initially reluctant to take his role in the movie, but his sons persuaded him to do it.
July 2, 1997 -
Columbia Pictures released the science fiction comedy film Men in Black, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio and Rip Torn, on this date.
The "known aliens" visible on the screen include Al Roker, Isaac Mizrahi, Danny DeVito, director Barry Sonnenfeld, Chloe Sonnenfeld (Barry's daughter), Sylvester Stallone, Dionne Warwick, Newt Gingrich, Anthony Robbins, George Lucas, and executive producer Steven Spielberg.
Another ACME court ordered PSA
Today in History -
One day in the second half of the ninth century, a poor young woman on her way to the market dropped her basket of eggs, breaking all of them.
The local bishop had been out for his morning stroll and happened to see the entire episode. He attempted to console the woman, but she was having none of it. Without the eggs, she had nothing to sell at market. Nothing to sell meant no money to sustain her family. Being unable to sustain her family meant, well, what it usually means: degradation, illness, and eventually death. Soothing words from a bishop weren't much help.
The bishop then prayed for her pain to be eased. When he was done praying, the woman looked into her basket and saw that all of the eggs had been made whole.
"Wot's all that about, then?" she asked.
"Tis a sign of God's grace and compassion," the bishop said. "I am but his -"
"God fixed me eggs, what?"
"All things are possible with God," the bishop began, but the poor young woman interrupted again.
"All-powerful God? All-knowing God? I work meself to death eight days to the week, and when he finally comes through with a miracle - it's fixin' me eggs? What about a floor for me hut? What about clothes for me young-uns? What about -"
It is probably not necessary to record the full text of the woman's stirring solecism.
History tells us very little about St Swithun, besides the fact that he died when he did, which is why I bring him up: someone ought to invent a life for the guy. Maybe he was raised by honey badgers. Maybe he was kidnapped by cross-dressing pirates. Maybe he met three witches in the forest and they hailed him as the Thane of Cawdor. Or maybe he fell in love with the beautiful red-headed daughter of a rival landowner and they had a tempestuous love affair before tragedy struck her down and Swithun turned to religion for consolation. Who knows? Nobody.
So make up a St Swithun you can live with.
139 years ago today, Charles J. Guiteau stood up in the lobby of the B&O Railroad Depot in Washington, DC, and yelled, "I am a stalwart and Arthur is President now!" (Maybe it would have sounded less crazy if he said it in Latin - Ego sum a stalwart quod Arthur est Praesieo iam! All future Presidential assassins should take up Latin. ) The event might have passed without notice had Guiteau not been shooting President James Garfield at the time.
A wounded President Garfield lingered for 11 weeks, during which time surgeons attempted to find the bullet which had lodged in his back. The state-of-the-art technology for removing foreign objects from the body was at that time the hand. Dozens of physicians, nurses, and curious hangers-on probed Garfield's wound with their fingers in search of the bullet that had struck him. The inevitable infection of his wound killed him.
Charles Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882.
July 2, 1900 -
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's airship LZ-1, took the first zeppelin flight over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
"LZ" stood for Luftschiff Zeppelin, or "Airship Zeppelin"
July 2, 1937 -
Attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane, Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific with her drunken navigator, Fred Noonan, on this date. (Apparently drunkenness is a prerequisite to fly with aviation heroes.)
She still holds the record for a spouse going out for a carton of milk and not returning.
July 2, 1947 -
An object speculated to be a UFO crashes near Roswell, New Mexico on this date, though the United States Air Force claims it is a weather balloon.
I love a good 'faked' alien footage.
59 years ago today Ernest Hemingway blew his brains out at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. Hemingway was a writer. He was also a man. He knew things about being a man. He also knew things about trying to be a man.
He wrote about them, those things. He wrote love stories and stories about fishermen and soldiers. He liked to write. And in the end he blew his brains out. Maybe that means something. Maybe it doesn't. Either way, don't bother asking for whom the bell tolled.
It wasn't for you.
On this date in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination.
The way our former President was treated by Congress is proof that America has remained a paragon of racial harmony to this very day.
July 2, 1982 -
Larry Walters, a truck driver, using 45 helium filled weather balloons to lift him and his lawn chair three miles high on this date. He later was barely able to control his descent using a BB gun shooting holes in balloons when he accidentally dropped his pellet gun overboard. Walters then slowly descended back down to the ground.
He landed in a residential neighborhood in Long Beach where got tangled in some power lines, causing a 20 minute power blackout. Walters was able to climb to the ground.
And so it goes.
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