Remember, Elmo (himself) didn't do a damn thing to those young men; he's just a puppet.
February 3, 1932 -
Paramount Pictures released Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express, starring Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook and Anna Mae Wong in Los Angeles on this date.
China initially banned the movie, demanding its withdrawal from worldwide circulation. The ban was lifted when Paramount pledged not to make another film involving Chinese politics.
February 3, 1944 -
Robert Stevenson's classic presentation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, premiered in NYC on this date. (Look for Elizabeth Taylor in an uncredited role in the film.)
After securing the screen rights, David O. Selznick originally approached Orson Welles to play the role of Rochester opposite Selznick contractee Joan Fontaine. He got Aldous Huxley, John Houseman and Robert Stevenson involved. Ultimately, though, he sold the package to Darryl F. Zanuck and Twentieth Century Fox.
February 3, 1945 -
Walt Disney's The Three Caballeros, premiered in the US, on the date.
With the exception of Mickey Mouse's brief appearance with Leopold Stokowski in Fantasia, this was the first time Walt Disney attempted to combine animation with live actors since the Alice Comedies in the 1920s.
February 3, 1951 -
Another great Sylvester cartoon, Canned Feud, premiered on this date.
This cartoon is particularly violent for the series and for a Sylvester cartoon in particular.
February 3, 1960 -
Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg premiered in Rome on this date.
It seems that term "paparazzo" was coined by Federico Fellini himself. Paparazzo means "sparrow" in one Italian dialect (in normal usage the Italian for "sparrow" is "passero"). Fellini explained that the photographers hopping and scurrying around celebrities reminded him of sparrows.
February 3, 1964 -
Just prior to the Beatles invasion of the US, Meet the Beatles went 'gold' on this date.
Meet the Beatles! was The Beatles first "official" album in America, released on January 20, 1964 by Capitol Records, the sister company within EMI to their British label, Parlophone.
February 3, 1973 –
Elton John' song Crocodile Rock became his first US Billboard Hot 100 hit on this date.
The falsetto hook from Pat Boone's 1962 hit, Speedy Gonzales has some similar "La La"s, and that song's writers spoke out, accusing Elton of plagiarism. There was no legal action taken, and Elton has copped to the influence, saying Crocodile Rock was "a really blatant homage to 'Speedy Gonzales' and all the great '50s and '60s records that we used to love."
Another failed ACME Product
Today in History:
February 3, 1468 -
About 600 years ago a child was born in the city of Mainz, in what is today Germany. His name was Johannes Gutenberg. He worked as a goldsmith and gem cutter until finally converting a wine press into a printing press.
He printed 200 copies of the Bible and gradually went broke. He died on this date.
February 3, 1637 -
Considered the first major speculative bubble, the sale and collection of tulips in the Netherlands reached extraordinary heights before collapsing spectacularly on this date.
At the height of the tulip mania, one bulb could sell for more than ten times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. And you could not smoke that crap.
February 3, 1882 -
P.T. Barnum purchased the elephant Jumbo on this date. He kept him for three years until the animal's skull was crushed by a train.
After his death, Jumbo's skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The elephant's heart was sold to Cornell University. Jumbo's hide was stuffed by William J. Critchley and Carl Akeley, both of Ward's Natural Science, and the mounted specimen traveled with Barnum's circus for a number of years.
In 1889, Barnum donated the stuffed Jumbo to Tufts University, where it was displayed until destroyed by a fire in 1975, coincidentally a fate that befell many of Barnum's exhibits during his own lifetime. The great elephant's ashes are kept in a 14-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the office of the Tufts athletic director.
February 3, 1913 -
In one of the blackest days in U.S. history, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on this date. This amendment created the income tax.
Please check on your Qanon supporting neighbor; they might do themselves harm on this day. You know what, upon further thought, leave them be.
The United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3, 1917. The Germans were very upset by this and tried to make America jealous by flirting with Mexico. Britain overheard Germany's sweet talk and told America everything she'd heard. Unfortunately for Germany, however, it didn't make America jealous. It made America angry. A few months later the United States declared war on Germany.
(Less than two years later, World War I ended with Germany's defeat. This made Germany upset again, and they spent the next two decades planning how they'd get even. Eventually this led to World War II, which also ended, once again, with Germany's defeat. Germany remains upset to this day, but, having been deprived of an army, poses no serious threat to anyone but France.)
February 3, 1927 -
Some very famous directors have started in the mail room, which is just getting inside the studio, getting to know people, getting to know the routine.
Kenneth Anger, American underground avant-garde film-maker, author of the notorious book Hollywood Babylon and professional Dan Rather impersonator, was spawned on this date.
February 3, 1956 -
It's Nathan Lane's birthday today.
Pound for pound, one of the funniest guest on a talk show.
February 3, 1959 -
The Day the Music Died:
A small plane carrying The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), Buddy Holly and Richie Valens crashed near Mason City, Iowa, while en route to a show in Fargo, North Dakota. Richardson had developed a case of the flu during the tour (erroneously thought to have been caused by riding on the unheated bus) and asked one of Holly's bandmates, Waylon Jennings, for his seat on the plane; Jennings agreed to give up the seat. Dion DiMucci of Dion and The Belmonts, who was the fourth headliner on the tour, was approached to join the flight as well; however, the price of $36 was too much. Dion had heard his parents argue for years over the $36 rent for their apartment and could not bring himself to pay an entire month's rent for a short plane ride.
The plane crashed during a blizzard, smashing into a cornfield at over 220 mph, flipping over on itself and tossing the passengers into the air. The victims were jettisoned from the plane, landing yards from the wreckage, and lay there for ten hours as snowdrifts formed around them. Because of the weather, no one reached the crash site until later in the morning.
Unfortunately the Surf Theatre's Winter Dance Party in Clear lake, Iowa, has been cancelled this year due to the pandemic. If you're in the area, catch it next year!
February 3, 1971 -
New York Police Officer Frank Serpico was shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn on this date and survived to later testify against police corruption.
Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.
And so it goes
As a historian of animation, you'll enjoy "Wild Minds." Here's one passage(page 328)that caught my eye regarding Max Fleischer and his son Richard, who became a noted film director: "Max often took him to the movies. The first they saw together was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."
ReplyDeleteRichard Fleischer directed 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Walt Disney. Disney and the Fleischers owned rival animation studios. The younger Fleischer was concerned that Disney would hold it against him that he was the son of his former rival. Disney did not and was very helpful with his advice on the film.
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