Category: movie

Calendar: May 30

A Year: Day to Day Men: 30th of May

Sitting in a Field of White Cotton

May 30, 1896 was the birthdate of American film director, producer and screenwriter Howard Hawks.

By the end of April in 1917 Howard Hawks was working on De Mille’s “The Little American” and later on on the Mary Pickford film “The Little Princess” directed by Marshall Neilan. Hawks began directing at age 21 after he and cinematographer Charles Rosher filmed a double exposure dream sequence with Mary Pickford. He worked with Pickford and Neilan again on another film before joining the United States Army Air Service. After the war he returned again to Hollywood.

Hawks first major film was the 1926 “Road to Glory”, the story of a young woman going blind and trying to spare her loved ones of the burden of her illness. Ir was filmed in two months and premiered in April of 1926, It received good reviews from critics but Hawks was dissatisfied with the film. Immediately after completing the film, he began writing his next film, his first comedy “Fig Leaves”. It was released in July of 1926 and was Hawks’ first hit as a director.

In March 1927, Howard Hawks signed a one-year, three-picture contract with 20th Century Fox and mad “A Girl in Every Port” in 1928. This film is considered by film scholars to be the most important film of Hawks’ silent career. It is the first of his films to utilize many of the distinctive themes and characters that would define much of his subsequent work.”A Girl in Every Port” was his first “love story between two men,” within which two men bonded over their duty, skills and careers and, as a result, considered their friendship to be more important than their relationships with women. Hawks wrote the original story and developed the screenplay with James Kevin McGuinness and Seton Miller. The film was released in February 1928, successful in the US, and a hit in Europe.

Over his career Howard Hawks directed and produced many important films in a wide variety of genres. He was a versatile director, whose career included comedies, dramas, gangster films, science fiction, film noir and westerns. His most popular films include” the 1932 “Scarface”, “Binging Up Baby” with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, the 1940 “His Girl Friday”, “The Big Sleep” with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, the western “Red River” starring Montgomery Clift and John Wayne, the sci-fi classic “The Thing from Another World”, and the 1959 “Rio Bravo” with John Wayne and Dean Martin.

Howard Hawks popularized a particular female archetype in his films; women were portrayed as strong, less effeminate characters. Such an emphasis had never been done in the 1920s and therefore was seen to be a rarity. Hawks’ directorial style and the use of natural, conversational dialogue in his films are cited as major influences on many noted filmmakers, including Robert Altman, John Carpenter, and Quenton Tarantino. Howard Hawks received his only Oscar in 1975 as an Honorary Award from the Academy.

Calendar: May 28

A Year: Day to Day Men: 28th of May

A Small White Space

The musical film “On with the Show!” by Warner Brothers Studio was released on May 28, 1929.

Filmed in Two-strip Technicolor, “On with the Show!” is noted as the first all-talking, all-color feature length movie. Warner Brothers promoted the film as being in “natural color”. This would be the first of a series of contracted films by Warner Brothers to be made in the Technicolor process. The film generated much interest in Hollywood; and other studios began shooting films in the process. The film, though a success, was eclipsed by the success of their next color film “Gold Diggers of Broadway”.

“On with the Show!” was a combination of a backstage musical using the ‘show within a show” format, a comedy and a mystery. The story and dialogue were written by Robert Lord with the music and lyrics by Harry Akst. William Bakewell was in the role of the head usher eager to get his sweetheart played by Sally O’Neil. Betty Compson played the temperamental star and the whiny young male star of the show was Arthur Lake. The vaudeville actor Joe E. Brown had a role as a comedian in the show; through this role his career shot to stardom status.

The film was a box office hit, with a worldwide gross of over two million dollars. Reviews from critics were mixed. Many thought the length was too long and the story was bad; however, most were impressed with the color process. Josh Mosher, the first regularly assigned film critic of the New Yorker magazine, wrote that the film was “completely undistinguished for wit, charm, or novelty, except that it is done in color. Possibly in the millennium all movies will be colored. In these early days of the art, however, not much can be said for it, except that it is not really distressing.”

The original color print of “On with the Show!” is lost, a fate of many of the early films printed on a nitrate film base. Only black and white prints of the film have survived. A 20 second fragment of an original color print surfaced in 2005; it was found in a toy projector. Other original color fragments have been discovered in 2014. The Library of Congress has long held a copy of the black and white version in its collection.

Calendar: May 27

A Year: Day to Day Men: 27th of May

The Path of Roses

May 27, 1922 is the was the birthdate of the English actor Sir Christopher Lee.

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains.

After attending Wellington College from age 14 to 17, Lee worked as an office clerk in a couple of London shipping companies until 1941 when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Following his release from military service, Lee joined the Rank Organization in 1947, training as an actor and playing a number of bit parts in such films as the 1948 “Corridor of Mirrors”. He also made a brief appearance in the Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film “Hamlet”.

Lee had numerous parts in film and television throughout the 1950s. However, playing the monster in the 1957 Hammer film “The Curse of Frankenstein” proved to be a blessing in disguise, since the film was successful. It led to him being signed on for many future roles in Hammer Film Productions. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing often than not played contrasting roles in Hammer films, where Cushing was the protagonist and Lee the villain, whether it be Van Helsing and Dracula respectively in “Horror of Dracula”, or John Banning and Kharis the Mummy respectively in “The Mummy”.

Lee continued his role as “Dracula” in a number of Hammer sequels throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s. During this time, he co-starred in the Sherlock Holmes film “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. Lee also made numerous appearances as Fu Manchu, most notably in the first of the series “The Face of Fu Manchu”. By the mid-1970s, Lee was tiring of his horror image and tried to widen his appeal by participating in several mainstream films, such as; “The Three Musketeers” in 1973 and the 1974 James Bond film “The Man with the Golden Gun”.

The success of these films prompted him in the late 1970s to move to Hollywood, where he remained a busy actor but made mostly unremarkable film and television appearances, and eventually moved back to England. The beginning of the new millennium relaunched his career to some degree, during which he has played Count Dooku in two Star Wars movies (2002 and 2005). He also had the role of Saruman the White in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

On June 16, 2001, Christopher Lee was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to drama. He was created a Knight Bachelor on June 13, 2009 in the Queen’s Birthday Honors List for his services to drama and charity. Lee died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on June 7, 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday there.

Calendar: May 25

A Year: Day to Day Men: 25th of May

Afternoon in the Bayou

May 25, 1969 was the release date for the film “Midnight Cowboy”.

“Midnight Cowboy” is a drama film based on the 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy with the screenplay written by Waldo Salt. It was directed by the English film and stage director John Schlesinger and starred Jon Voight as the young Joe Buck alongside Dustin Hoffman playing the con man Enrico Salvatore “Ratso” Rizzo.

Jon Voight was paid “scale”, or the Screen Actor Guild minimum wage, for his portrayal of Joe Buck, a concession he willingly made to obtain the part. The director John Schlesinger was reluctant to hire Dustin Hoffman because Hoffman was associated by the public with the clean-cut image of Benjamin Braddock in “The Graduate”. Schlesinger checked out Hoffman in an Off-Broadway play in which he was performing. He saw Hoffman in a scruffy beard, disheveled clothes and speaking with a Bowery accent; he gave Hoffman the role of Ratso Rizzo.

The famous scene in which Joe and Ratso attempt to walk across the street and almost get hit by a cab was filmed guerilla-style, with a camera in a van across the street. The scene was a difficult shoot, logistically, because those were real pedestrians and there was real traffic. Director Schlesinger also wanted to do it in one shot—he didn’t want to cut the scene. After several attempts, the two actors figured out how to properly time the walk but then almost got run over by a cab. Dustin Hoffman yelled the line ‘I’m walking here’ at the cab meaning, ‘We’re shooting a scene here, and this is the first time we ever got it right.” That improvised, out-of-script, now famous yell remained in the film.

Upon initial review by the Motion Picture Association of America, “Midnight Cowboy” received a “Restricted” (“R”) rating. However, after consulting with a psychologist, executives at the United Artists studio were told to accept an “X” rating, due to the “homosexual frame of reference” and its “possible influence upon youngsters”. The studio refused to edit anything out; so the film was released with an “X” rating. The MPAA later broadened the requirements for the “R” rating to allow more content and raised the age restriction from sixteen to seventeen. The film was later rated “R” for a reissue in 1971. The film today retains its “R” rating.

The film won three Academy Awards in 1970: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first gay-related Best Picture winner and the only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture, although such a classification no longer exists. At the British Academy Film Awards it won in six categories: Best Film, Best Direction, Best Leading Actor – Dustin Hoffman, Best New Leading Newcomer – Jon Voight, Best Screenplay and Best Editing.

Calendar: May 19

 

A Year: Day to Day Men: 19th of May

Marked Encounters

May 19, 1971 marked the death of British-American actor, Alan Young.

Alan Young was born Angus Young on November 19, 1919, in North Shields, Northumberland, England, to Scottish parents. The family moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, when he was a toddler, and to West Vancouver, Canada, when he was six years old. Bedridden as a child because of severe asthma, he came to love listening to the radio. By the time he was in high school, Young already had his own comedy radio series on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation network.

After leaving the Canadian armed service, Alan Young moved to Toronto and resumed his Canadian radio career, where he was discovered in 1944 by an American agent who brought him to New York to appear on American radio. He first appeared on the Philco Radio Hall of Fame. This led to his own American radio show, “The Alan Young Show”, a NBC summer replacement for entertainer Eddie Cantor’s show.

Alan Young’s film debut was in the 1946 film “Margie”, a romantic comedy that became a box office hit. Moving to TV, he wrote a pilot for CBS in 1950, resulting in live variety revue “The Alan Young Show” that earned him the 1951 Best Actor Emmy and the nomination for outstanding personality. After that show’s cancellation, Young acted in “Androcles and the Lion”, “Gentlemen Marry Brunettes” and two films produced by George Pal: the 1958 “Tom Thumb” and the 1960 film “The Time Machine” base on the story by H.G. Wells and starring Rod Taylor.

Young was best known, however, for the CBS television show “Mister Ed” which ran from 1961 to 1966. In this series, he starred as Wilbur Post, the owner of Mr. Ed, a talking horse who would not talk to anyone but him, thus causing comic situations for Wilbur Post, with his wife, neighbors, and acquaintances. Young was approached for “Mister Ed” by producer Arthur Lubin, who had created the popular 1950 film “Francis the Talking Mule”. Young initially turned down the part but eventually accepted it. Owning a portion of the show, he made a fortune off the royalties.

During the 1970s he became active in voice acting. He voiced Scrooge McDuck for numerous Disney films, and voiced Haggis McHaggis on “The Ren and Stimpy Show”. With Bill Burt, Young wrote the autobiography “Mr. Ed and Me,” which was published in 1995.

After 1997, Alan Young lived in Woodland Hills, California, at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital, a retirement community, where he died of natural causes on May 19, 2016 at the age of 96.

Calendar: May 18

A Year: Day to Day Men: 18th of May

A Bright New Day

May 18, 1927 marks the opening day of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California.

Grauman’s Chinese Theater is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame. After the success of his Egyptian Theater, Sid Grauman secured a long-term lease on the property site at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard from Francis Bushman, the owner of the existing mansion located at that address. The firm of Meyer and Holler, with Raymond Kennedy as the principal architect, was contracted to design a “palace-type theater” of Chinese design. Grauman financed the theater’s two million dollar cost and owned one-third interest in the theater. His partners, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Howard Schenck owned the remaining two thirds.

During construction, Grauman hired Jean Klossner to formulate an extremely hard concrete for the forecourt of the theater. Norma Marie Talmadge, the American actress and film producer of the silent era, is traditionally recognized as the first person to put a footprint in the concrete. The theater’s third founding partner, Douglas Fairbanks, was the second celebrity to be immortalized in the concrete. Nearly two hundred Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints and autographs are now imprinted in the concrete of the theater’s forecourt.

The exterior of Grauman’s theater is meant to resemble a giant, red Chinese pagoda. The design features a huge Chinese dragon across the facade, with two authentic Ming Dynasty guardian lions guarding the main entrance and the silhouettes of tiny dragons along the sides of the copper roof.

One of the highlights of the Chinese Theatre has always been its grandeur and décor. In 1952, John Tartaglia, the artist of nearby Saubt Sophia Cathedral, became the head interior decorator of the Chinese Theatre, as well as the theatre chain then owned by Fox West Coast Theaters. Celebrities also contributed to the theater’s decor. Xavier Cugat painted the trees and foliage between the pillars on the side walls. Keye Luke painted the Chinese murals in the lobby. The lobby features programs from some of the Hollywood premieres that have been hosted there, as well as a collection of classic movie costumes.

The Chinese Theatre was declared a historic and cultural landmark in 1968, and has undergone various restoration projects in the years since then.In 2000, Behr Browers Architects, a firm previously engaged by Mann Theaters, prepared a restoration and modernization program for the structure. The program included a seismic upgrade, new state-of-the-art sound and projection, new vending kiosks and exterior signage, and the addition of a larger concession area under the balcony.

Calendar: May 14

A Year: Day to Day Men: 14th of May

The Soft Shadow of the Sun

On May 14, 1970, Billie Burke, the American actress, died of natural causes at the age of 85.

Billie Burke, born Mary Burke, was an American actress who was famous on Broadway, in early silent films and later in sound films. As a child, she toured the United States and Europe with her father, a singer and a clown for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. At the age of nineteen, Burke began acting on stage, making her debut in London in “The School Girl”. She eventually returned to America to star in Broadway musical comedies.

Burke played leads on Broadway in the plays “Suzanne”, “The Runaway”, and “The Land of Promise” during the years from 1910 to 1913, along with a supporting role in the revival of “The Amazons”. It was during this revival that she caught the eye of producer Florenz Ziegfeld who married her in 1914.

Burke was soon signed for movies and made her debut in the 1915 film “Peggy”. Her success was phenomenal, and she was soon earning what was reputedly the highest salary ever granted to a motion picture actress up to that time. By 1917 she was a favorite with silent movie fans, rivaling Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford. Burke starred primarily in provocative society dramas and comedies. The star’s girlish charm rivaled her acting ability; and as she dressed to the hilt in fashionable gowns, furs and jewelry, she became a fashion trendsetter in the 1920s.

In 1937, Burke appeared in the first of the “Topper” films, about a man haunted by two socialite ghosts, played by Cary Grant and Constance Bennett, in which she played Cosmo Topper’s wife, the twittering and daffy Clara Topper. In 1938 at the age of 54, she was chosen to play Glinda the Good Witch of the North, in the musical film “The Wizard of Oz” directed by Victor Fleming and released in 1939. This became her iconic role among future film viewers.

Billie Burke was 75 when she made her final screen appearance as Cordelia Fosgate in John Ford’s 1960 western “Sergeant Rutledge”. After this film she retired from acting and lived in Los Angeles until her death. For her contributions to the film industry, Billie Burke was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a star located at 6617 Hollywood Boulevard. Her fame is also in the stars: a crater near the north pole of the planet Mercury is  named after her.

Calendar: May 12

A Year: Day to Day Men: 12th of May

Green Lives on Water

Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow-Up” wins the Grand Prix at Cannes on May 12, 1967.

“Blow-Up” is a 1966 British-Italian mystery thriller film directed by Antonioni about a fashion photographer who believes he has unwittingly captured a murder on film.  This film was Antonioni’s first production entirely in English. The actor in the film’s photographer role was David Hemmings, chosen by Michaelangelo Antonioni after Sean Connery turned down the role. Hemmings at that time was not a major star but acting in small theater productions in London.

There were several known stars in cast of this film, Including John Castle and Vanessa Redgrave. However there were several noted cameo roles. One of these cameos was the musical group The Yardbirds, who performed “Stroll On” near the end of the film and smashed their instruments. In that scene of the nightclub, Michael Palin, not yet a member of Monty Python, can be seen in the crowd watching the Yardbirds.

The plot was inspired by a short story by Julio Cortazar entitled “The Devil’s Drool”, based in part  on the life of swinging London photographer David Bailey. The film was scored by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock- the first of his many soundtracks. Except for the music for the opening and closing title and credit sequences, the music is diegetic. Herbie Hancock noted: “It is only there when someone turns on the radio or puts on a record”.

“Blow-Up” won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film in the main competition section of the 1967 Cannes Film Festival- the highest honor of the festival. The film was also nominated in the categories of Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best British Film for the 1967 Academy Awards.

The American release by MGM, a major Hollywood studio, of this counter-culture era film with its explicit sexual content was in direct defiance of the contemporary standards of the Production Code. MGM did not gain approval for this film. The film was also condemned by the Nation Legion of Decency, a United States Catholic organization which rated films. The collapse of the Production Code was foreshadowed when MGM released the film through a subsidiary distributer and “Blow-Up” was shown widely in North American cinemas despite the code. In 1968 the MPAA rating system was established when the Code was abandoned.

Calendar: May 11

Year: Day to Day Men: 11th of May

Communicating with Nature

May 11, 1969 is the birthdate of the British comedy troupe, Monty Python.

John Cleese was writing for TV personality David Frost and actor/comedian Marty Feldman, when he recruited Graham Chapman as a writing partner and “sounding board”.  BBC had offered the pair a show of their own in early May of 1969.  John Cleese reached out to former “How to Irritate People” writing partner Michael Palin, to join the team.  Palin invited his own writing partner Terry Jones and colleague Eric Idle over from rival ITV.  Eric Idle in turn wanted American-born Terry Gilliam for his animations.

The Pythons considered several names for their new program, including “Owl Stretching Time”, “The Toad Elevating Moment”, “Vaseline Review” and “A Horse, a Spoon and a Bucket”. “Flying Circus” had come up as well.  The Flying Circus name stuck when BBC revealed that they had already printed flyers with this name and were not interested in printing any revisions.

The show was a collaborative process, beginning with the first broadcast on October 5, 1969. With no writers of their own, the six would divide into groups and write their own material.  Whether any given sketch would make it into the program, was always a democratic process.

Different Python factions were responsible for different elements of the team’s humor. The work of the Oxford educated Terry Jones and Michael Palin was more visual, and a little more off the wall. The Spanish Inquisition arriving in a suburban apartment is a prime example.  The Cambridge educated John Cleese and Graham Chapman were more confrontational – “This is abuse. I came here for an argument”. Any skit that got utterly involved with words was the work of Eric Idle, such as the ‘Man who Spoke in Anagrams’.  Terry Gilliam was the personality behind all the peculiar animation.

The Pythons shared a dislike for “capping” bits with punchlines, and experimented with ending sketches by cutting abruptly to another scene, or breaking the rules altogether by addressing the camera directly. Terry Gilliam’s animations were a favorite technique to use: a 16 ton weight would drop from the sky and end the skit.

The Flying Circus broke new ground with techniques like the “cold open”. With no titles, credits, or opening theme, Michael Palin would crawl across the tundra a la Robinson Crusoe, looking into the camera and saying “It’s…  And off the skits went. The cold open sometimes lasted until the middle of the show. Occasionally, the Pythons fooled viewers by rolling closing credits halfway through, usually continuing the gag by fading to the BBC logo while John Cleese parodied the tones of a BBC announcer. On one occasion the closing credits ran directly after the opening titles.

Calendar: May 9

A Year: Day to Day Men: 9th of May

The Stag Tattoo

May 9, 1959 was the release date of Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller “Vertigo”.

The film noir “Vettigo”, produced and directed by Hitchcock, was based on the 1954 novel “From Among the Dead” by Boileau-Narcejac. The star of the film James Stewart plays Scottie, a detective forced into early retirement, because an incident in the line of duty, causing him to develop a fear of heights, resulted in the death of a policeman. He is hired as a private investigator to follow an acquaintance’s wife, played by Kim Novack, who is behaving strangely.

“Vertigo” was filmed from September to December 1957, with the principal photography beginning on location in San Francisco. The film uses extensive location footage of the Bay Area, with its steep hills and tall, arching bridges. In the driving scenes shot in the city, the main characters’ cars are almost always pictured heading down the city’s steeply inclined streets.

The scene in which Madeleine falls from the tower was filmed at Mission San Juan Bautista. A steeple, added sometime after the mission’s original construction and secularization, had been demolished following a fire. So Hitchcock added a bell tower using scale models, matte paintings, and trick photography at the Paramount studio in Los Angeles.The original tower was much smaller and less dramatic than the film’s version. The tower’s staircase was later assembled inside a studio.

Hitchcock popularized the dolly zoom in this film, leading to the technique’s nickname “the Vertigo effect”. This “dolly-out/zoom-in” method involves the camera physically moving away from a subject whilst simultaneously zooming in, so that the subject retains its size in the frame, but the background’s perspective changes. Hitchcock used the effect to look down the tower shaft to emphasize its height and Scottie’s disorientation. Following difficulties filming the shot on a full-sized set, a model of the tower shaft was constructed, and the dolly zoom was filmed horizontally.

“Vertigo” premiered in San Francisco on May 9, 1958 at the Stage Door Theater. While the film did break even upon its original release, it earned less than other Hitchcock productions. Tghe film was nominated for two Academy Awards in the technical categories: Best Art Direction and Best Sound. Upon Hitchcock’s death in 1973, “Vertigo” was one of five Hitchcock films taken out of circulation. It wasn’t until ten years later that it was re-released  after restoration and reprinting on 35mm stock.

Calendar: May 5

A Year: Day to Day Men: 5th of May

Barroco Tesouro

May 5, 1914 is the birthdate of American film actor Tyrone Edmund Power III.

Tyrone Power went to Hollywood in 1936. The director Henry King was impressed with his looks and poise, and he insisted that Power be tested for the lead role in “Lloyd’s of London”. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck decided to give Power the role, believing Power had a great screen presence. Power had fourth billing in the credits; but he had the most screen time of the actors. On the night of the movie premier, he walked in an unknown and walked out a star.

Power racked up hit after hit from 1936 until 1943, when his career was interrupted by military service. In those years he starred in comedies, westerns, dramas, and swashbucklers such as: “Thin Ice”, “Blood and Sand”, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, “Jesse James”, “The Black Swan” and”The Mark of Zorro”. Power was named the second biggest box office draw in 1939, surpassed only by Mickey Rooney.

In 1940 the direction of Power’s career took a dramatic turn when his movie “The Mark of Zorro” was released. Power played the role of Don Diego Vega/Zorro, fop by day, bandit hero by night. The film was a hit, and 20th Century Fox often cast Power in other swashbucklers in the years that followed. Power was a talented swordsman in real life, and the dueling scene in “The Mark of Zorro” is highly regarded. The great Hollywood swordsman Basil Rathbone, who starred with him in the film, commented, “Power was the most agile man with a sword I’ve ever faced before a camera. Tyrone could have fenced Errol Flynn into a cocked hat.”

The 1955 movie “Untamed” was Tyrone Power’s last movie made under his contract with 20th Century Fox. The same year saw the release of “The Long Gray Line”, a successful military John Ford film for Columbia Pictures with Power playing the lead role. Power’s old boss, Darryl F. Zanuck, persuaded him to play the lead role in the 1957 “The Sun Also Rises”, adapted from the Hemingway novel. This was his final film with Fox.

For Power’s last completed film role, he was cast against type as the accused murderer Leonard Vole in the first film version of Agatha Christie’s “Witness for the Prosecution”, directed by Billy Wilder. Robert Fulford, film critic of the Washington Post, commented on Power’s “superb performance” as “the seedy, stop-at-nothing exploiter of women”. The movie was well received and a success at the box office.

In September of 1958 Tyrone Power went to Spain to film the epic “Solomon and Sheba”. He had filmed about 75 per cent of his scenes when he was stricken by a massive heart attack while filming a dueling scene with his co-star and friend George Sanders. Power died in Madrid on November 15, 1958 at the age of 44. On his tombstone at Hollywood Forever Cemetery are the masks of comedy and tragedy, with the inscription “Good night, sweet prince”.

Calendar: May 2

A Year: Day to Day Men: 2nd of May

Nestled in Slate-Gray Sheets

May 2, 1946 was the release date of the film “The Postman Always Rings Twice”.

The film noir “The Postman Always Rings Twice” is one of the earliest prototypes of today’s erotic thrillers. The screenplay by Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch was based on the 1934 controversial first novel of the same name by crime fiction writer James M. Cain. Cain was known for novels with forbidden lust, love triangles, brutal, raw sexiness, and adultery-motivated murder. Two previous, sexually-charged classic film noirs adapted from Cain’s novels had met with both critical and box-office success: “Double Indemnity” and “Mildred Pierce”.

In early February 1934, before Cain’s novel was published, a synopsis of his story was submitted to the Production Code Administration, which reviewed movie scripts against the morals code established for motion picture industry. The PCA persuaded RKO Studio to abandon its plans to film Cain’s story, calling it “definitely unsuitable for motion picture production.”

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased the rights to make a movie adaptation a full twelve years prior the film’s release. They were dissuaded from moving forward with the project earlier because of fears that its themes of adultery and murder would run afoul of the production code that began to be rigorously enforced not long after they had acquired the rights. The studio finally decided to proceed with the film in 1944.

The film was a breakthrough in the battle against screen censorship. Although the Production Code Administration had kept James M. Cain’s novel off the screen for twelve years, they approved the 1946 picture despite its sizzling love scenes. Shocked fans even insisted the two stars, Lana Turner and John Garfield, were French kissing on screen.

“The Postman Always Rings Twice” was a big hit, earning about five million dollars at the box office, recording a profit of about two million dollars. Despite the profit, Louis B. Mayer of MGM hated the film. Although known now as a one of the key works in the development of the film noir style, it did not receive even one Academy Award nomination.

Calendar: April 24

A Year: Day to Day Men: 24th of April

A Lavish Display

April 24, 1944 was the release date of the thriller movie “Double Indemnity”.

The movie “Double Indemnity” is a 1944 film noir, co-written by Billy Wilder and detective fiction writer Raymond Chandler. The screenplay was based on the novella of the same name by James M. Cain which was originally presented as an eight-part serial. The term ‘double indemnity’ refers to a clause in certain life insurance policies that doubles the payout in rare cases when death is caused accidentally, such as while riding a railway.

The film starred Fred MacMurray as the insurance salesman, Edward G Robinson as the insurance claims adjuster who job is to find phony claims, and Barbara Stanwyck as a housewife who wishes her husband were dead. Fred MacMurray is infatuated with Barbara Stanwyck and devises a plan to make the murder of her husband appear to be an accidental fall from a train, thus triggering the double indemnity clause in the husband’s insurance policy.

The story began making the rounds in Hollywood shortly after it was published as a serial in 1936. Its author James Cain had already made a name for himself the year before with the “Postman Always Rings Twice”, a story of murder and passion between a migrant worker and the unhappy wife of a café owner. Cain’s agent sent copies of the novella to all the major studios and within days, all were competing to buy the rights for $25,000. Then a letter went out from Joseph Breen at the Hays Office, the enforcers of the 1930 Production Code, saying the story was unacceptable. All the studios withdrew their bids.

Eight years later, Paramount resubmitted the script to the Hays Office, but the response was nearly identical to the one eight years earlier. The studio then submitted a film treatment crafted by Wilder and his writing partner Charles Brackett, and this time the Hays Office approved the project with only a few objections: the portrayal of the disposal of the body, a proposed gas-chamber execution scene, and the skimpiness of the towel worn by the female lead in her first scene.

Praised by many critics  when first released, “Double Indemnity” was nominated for seven Academy Awards but did not win any. Widely regarded as a classic, it is often cited as a model for the film noir style and as having set the standard for the films that followed in that genre. Wilder himself considered “Double Indemnity” his best film in terms of having the fewest scripting and shooting mistakes and always maintained that the two things he was proudest of in his career were the compliments he received from James Cain about “Double Indemnity” and from Agatha Christie for his handling of her “Witness for the Prosecution”.

Calendar: April 17

A Year: Day to Day Men: 17th of April

The Seat of the Revelation

April 17, 1918 was the birthdate of William Franklin Beedle Jr., known to the public as William Holden, one of the biggest stars of the 1950s and 1960s.

William Holden’s first starring role was in the 1939 film “The Golden Boy”, costarring Barbara Stanwyck, in which he played a violinist turned boxer. He was still an unknown actor at the time, while Stanwyck was already a film star. She liked Holden and went out of her way to help him succeed, devoting her personal time to coaching and encouraging him.

Next he starred with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart in the 1939 Warner Brothers gangster epic “Invisible Stripes” followed by the role of George Gibbs in the film adaptation of “Our Town”. After Columbia Pictures picked up half of his contract, he alternated between starring in several minor pictures for Paramount and Columbia before serving as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Air Force during World War II, where he acted in training films for the First Motion Picture Unit.

Holden’s career took off in 1950 when director Billy Wilder tapped him to star in “Sunset Boulevard”, in which he played a down-on-his-heels screenwriter taken in by a faded silent-screen star, played by Gloria Swanson. Holden earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination with the part. Getting the part was a lucky break for Holden, as the role was initially cast with Montgomery Clift, who backed out of his contract.

Following this breakthrough film, his career quickly grew as Holden played a series of roles that combined his good looks with cynical detachment, including a prisoner-of-war entrepreneur in the 1953 “Stalag 17”, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. His most widely recognized role was an ill-fated prisoner of war in the 1957 “The Bridge on the River Kwai” co-starring with Alec Guinness. He also starred in John Ford’s western “The Horse Soldiers” playing an American Civil War military surgeon opposite John Wayne.

William Holden co-starred as Humphrey Bogart’s younger brother, a carefree playboy, in the 1954 “Sabrina” starring Audrey Hepburn. It was Holden’s third film with director Billy Wilder. His career peaked in 1957 with the enormous success of “The Bridge Over the River Kwai”, but Holden spent the next several years starring in a number of films that rarely succeeded commercially or critically.

By the mid-1960s, the quality of his roles and films had noticeably diminished. A heavy drinker most of his life, Holden made a comeback in 1969 when he starred in director Sam Peckinpah’s graphically violent Western “The Wild Bunch”, winning much acclaim. Holden gave two more great performances, in the 1974 “Towering Inferno” and the 1976 “Network”, until his shock death from blood loss due to a fall at his apartment while intoxicated. In 1982, actress Stefanie Powers, with whom Holden had been in a relationship since 1975, helped set up the William Holden Wildlife Foundation and the William Holden Wildlife Education Center in Kenya, an area where Holden was active in animal sanctuary.