Calendar: April 13

A Year: Day to Day Men: 13th of April

Parallel Bands of Teal

April 13, 1957 was the release date of the courtroom drama “12 Angry Men”.

The American film and television writer Reginald Rose’s screenplay for “12 Angry Men” was initially produced for television with Robert Cummings as Juror 8, the only one not voting with the majority. This teleplay was broadcast live on the CBS program Studio One in September of 1954. The success of this production resulted in a film adaption. Sidney Lumet, who produced dramatic productions for The Alcoa Hour and Studio One, was recruited by the producers Henry Fonda and Reginald Rose to direct. “12 Angry Men” was Sidney Lumet’s first feature film.

This trial film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or acquittal of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt, forcing the jurors to question their morals and values. In the United States, a verdict in most criminal trials by jury must be unanimous. The film is notable for its almost exclusive use of one set: out of 96 minutes of run time, only three minutes take place outside of the jury room.

The film explores many techniques of consensus-building and the difficulties encountered in the process among a group of men whose range of personalities adds intensity and conflict. It also explores the power one man has to elicit change. No names are used in the film; the jury members are identified by number. The defendant is referred to as “the boy” and the witnesses as “the old man” and “the lady across the street”. The film forces the characters and audience to evaluate their own self-image through observing the personality, experiences, and actions of the jurors.

At the beginning of the film, the cameras are positioned above eye level and mounted with wide-angle lens, to give the appearance of greater depth between subjects, but as the film progresses the focal length of the lenses is gradually increased. By the end of the film, nearly everyone is shown in closeup, using telephoto lenses from a lower angle, which decreases or “shortens” depth of field. Sidney Lumet stated that his intention in using these techniques with cinematographer Boris Kaufman was to create a nearly palpable claustrophobia.

In 2007 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The American Film Institute selected it as the second-best courtroom drama ever in their Top 10 List. The AFI also named Juror 8, played by Henry Fonda, in their list of 50 greatest movie heroes of the 20th century.

Calendar: April 6

A Year: Day to Day Men: 6th of April

Wet and Heated by the Sun

On April 6, 1906 the first drawn animation film is copyrighted by J. Stuart Blackton.

J. Stuart Blackton was an Anglo-American filmmaker, co-founder of the Vitagraph Studios and one of the first to use animation in his films. ”The Enchanted Drawing” in 1900 is considered to be the first film recorded on standard picture film that included some sequences that are sometimes regarded as animation. It shows Blackton doing some “lightning sketches” of a face, cigars, a bottle of wine and a glass. The face changes expression when Blackton pours some wine into the face’s mouth and takes his cigar.

The technique used in this film was basically the substitution splice: the single change to scenes was that a drawing was replaced by a similar drawing with a different facial expression (or a drawn bottle and glass were replaced by real objects). Thus the effect is not considered animation.

Blackton’s 1906 film “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” is often regarded as the oldest known drawn animation on standard film. He later copyrighted this film on April 6 in 1908. It features a sequence made with blackboard drawings that are changed between frames to show two faces changing expressions and some billowing cigar smoke, as well as two sequences that feature cutout animation.

Blackton’s “The Haunted Hotel” in 1907 featured a combination of live-action with practical special effects and stop-motion animation of objects, a puppet and a model of the haunted hotel. It was the first stop-motion film to receive wide scale appreciation. Especially a large close-up view of a table being set by itself baffled viewers; there were no visible wires or other noticeable well-known tricks. This inspired other filmmakers, including French animator Émile Cohl and Segundo de Chomón, to work with the new technique. De Chomón would release the similar “House of Ghosts” and “El Hotel Electrico” in 1908.

J Stuart Blackton left Vitagraph to go independent in 1917, but returned in 1923 as junior partner to Albert Smith. In 1925, Smith sold the company to Warner Brothers for a comfortable profit. Blackton did quite well with his share until the stock market crash in 1929, which destroyed his savings. He spent his last years on the road, showing his old films and lecturing about the days of silent movies. Blackton died August 13, 1941, a few days after he was hit by a car while crossing the street with his son. At the time of his death he was working for Hal Roach on experiments to improve color process backgrounds.

Calendar: April 4

A Year: Day to Day Men: 4th of April

Vik in Soapsuds

April 4, 1932 was the birthdate of the American actor and singer, Anthony Perkins.

Anthony Perkins was born in New York City, the son of stage and film actor Osgood Perkins and his wife Janet Esslstyn. He was a descendant of a Mayflower passenger John Howland, who was first an indentured servant and later personal secretary to Governor John Carver of the Plymouth Colony.

Anthony Perkins received a lot of attention for his role in the film “Friendly Persuasion”, playing the son of Gary Cooper under the direction of William Wyler. The film was very successful and he received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year-Actor and an Academy Award nomination. A life member of the Actors Studio, Perkins also acted in theater. In 1958 he was nominated for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in “Look Homeward, Angel” on Broadway. He played the role of Eugene Gant.

Perkins in youth had a boyish, earnest quality, reminiscent of the young James Stewart, which Alfred Hitchcock exploited and subverted when the actor starred as Norman Bates in the 1960 film “Psycho”. The film was a critical and commercial success, and gained Perkins international fame for his performance as the homicidal owner of the Bates Motel. His performance gained him the Best Actor Award from the International Board of Motion Picture Reviewers. The role and its multiple sequels affected the remainder of his career.

“Not many people know this, but I was in New York rehearsing for a play when the shower scene was filmed in Hollywood. It is rather strange to go through life being identified with this sequence knowing that it was my double. Actually, the first time I saw Psycho and that shower scene was at the studio. I found it really scary. I was just as frightened as anybody else. Working on the picture, though, was one of the happiest filming experiences of my life. We had fun making it – never realizing the impact it would have.” – Anthony Perkins on playing Norman Bates in “Psycho”

Calendar: March 29

A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of March

A London Morning

March 29, 1959 was the release date of the film “Some Like It Hot”, directed and produced by Billy Wilder and starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon.

“Some Like It Hot” was shot in California during the summer and autumn of 1958. Many scenes were shot at San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado which fit the look of the movie’s 1920s period and was near Hollywood. The soundtrack created by Adolph Deutsch has an authentic 1920s jazz feel using sharp, brassy strings to create tension.

For the cinematography, Billy Wilder chose to shoot the film in black and white as Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dressed in full drag costume and make-up looked ‘unacceptably grotesque’ in early color tests. Despite Marilyn Monroe’s contract requiring color film, she agreed to film in black and white after seeing the early color tests of the make-up.

The film is notable for featuring cross dressing, and for playing with the idea of homosexuality, which led to its being produced without approval from the Motion Picture Production Code. The code had been gradually weakening in its scope during the early 1950s, due to increasing social tolerance for previously taboo topics in film, but it was still officially enforced. The overwhelming success of “Some Like It Hot” is considered one of the final nails in the coffin for the Hays Code, the moral guidelines that was in effect from 1930 to 1968.

It was voted as the top comedy film by the American Film Institute on their list ‘AFI’s 100 Years…100 Laughs’ in 2000. In 1989, this film became one of the first twenty-five films inducted into the United States National Film Registry. Though sometimes said to have been “condemned” by the Roman Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency, that body gave the film its less critical rating as “morally objectionable”. In 2017, the BBC conducted an international survey for the best comedy in film history among 253 film critics from 50 countries, which ranked “Some Like It Hot” as number one.

Note: The studio United Artists hired Barbette, a famous female impersonator, to coach Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis on gender illusion for the film. Barbette, whose greatest fame came from his performances in Europe in the 1920’s and 30’s, may have been the inspiration for the 1933 German film, “Viktor und Viktoria”, which features a plot about a woman pretending to be a female impersonator, whose gimmick was removing her wig at the end of her act (Barbette’s signature gesture).

Calendar: March 27

Year: Day to Day Men: March 27

The Slithering Snake

The twenty-seventh of March in 1902 marks the birth date of Charles Bryant Lang Jr., one of the outstanding cinematographers of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Modest and yet a perfectionist, he spent the majority of his career at Paramount Studios where he contributed to its reputation for visual style.

Born in Bluff, Utah, Charles Lang studied law at the University of Southern California, but soon joined his father, photographic technician Charles Bryant Lang Sr., at an East Los Angeles film laboratory in 1918. Lang apprenticed as a laboratory assistant and still photographer before becoming an assistant cameraman. He worked with cinematographers Harry Kinley Martin and Lesley Guy Wilky who often collaborated with William C. DeMille. Quickly promoted, Lang soon worked with William DeMille and, later, followed him to Paramount Studios.

In 1929, Lang became a full director of photography at Paramount Studios. He was part of a team of cinematographers working at the studio that included such craftsmen as Victor Milner, Karl Struss and Lee Garmes. At this time, Paramount dominated the Academy Awards for cinematography, especially in the genre of black and white romantic and period film. The style of lighting that Lang introduced in Fred Borzage’s 1932 “A Farewell to Arms” became heavily identified with all of Paramount’s films during the 1930s and 1940s.

Charles Lang excelled in the use of chiaroscuro, light and shade, and was adept at creating a mood for every genre. His film work in this period included Henry Hathaway’s 1935 drama-fantasy “Peter Ibbetson”. Frank Borzage’s 1936 comedy drama “Desire” with Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, and Mitchell Leisen’s 1939 screwball comedy “Midnight”, scripted by Billy Wilder and starring Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche. Lang was especially appreciated by female stars, such as Dietrich, Hepburn and Helen Hayes, due to his ability to photograph them to their best advantage, often with subdued lighting and diffusion techniques.

Lang’s lighting effects adapted perfectly to the expressionist neo-realism of the 1950s film noir. His expert techniques strongly contributed to the mood in such films as Billy Wilder’s 1939 “Ace in the Hole” with Kirk Douglas as the exploitive newspaper reporter, and Sydney Boehm’s 1953 crime drama “Big Heat” with Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame. The success of such films as the 1954 “Sabrina” and the 1959 “Some Like It Hot”, all nominees for Lang’s cinematography, owed much of their success to his camera work.

Though he preferred black and white photography, Lang became equally proficient in color photography. He worked with different processes, including Cinerama and VistaVision, on richly-textured and sweeping outdoor westerns such as John Sturges’s 1960 “The Magnificent Seven” and John Ford and Henry Hathaway’s 1962 “How the West Was Won’. Lang also did the cinematography for romantic thrillers such as Stanley Donen’s 1963 romantic mystery “Charade” with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, and William Wyler’s art theft film “How to Steal a Million” with Audrey Hepburn, Peter O’Toole and Charles Boyer.

Charles Lang won an Academy Award Oscar, the second time he received a nomination, for his work on “Farewell to Arms”. He was nominated eighteen times which tied him with cinematographer Leon Shamroy who did most of his work for 20th Century Fox. In 1991, Lang received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographer for a career that included one hundred and fourteen feature films. Charles Lang died in Santa Monica, California in April of 1998 at the age of ninety-six.

Donal O’Keeffe, “Dead Ahead”

‘Dead Ahead’ is a postcard animation to the world of the horror movie genre. Our intrepid travellers head out into the wilderness on their road trip only to find one nightmare scenario after the other. With each step forward a new monster emerges paying homage to such classics as Friday the 13th, Jaws and Pet Sematary.

(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

Calendar: March 24

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

Tensile Strength of Cotton

March 24, 1887 is the birthdate of Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle, an American comedian and film director.

At twenty years of age Roscoe Arbuckle was already a veteran of carnivals, vaudeville, and traveling stock companies, with an act that consisted of jokes, songs, acrobatics, and magic tricks. Weighing between 250 and 300 pounds for most of his adult life, he amazed audiences with his physical prowess and gained a reputation for versatility.

Roscoe Arbuckle was hired by Mack Sennett’s Keystone comedy studio in 1913. Appearing opposite such seasoned clowns as Ford Sterling, Mabel Normand, and Charlie Chaplin, “Fatty” Arbuckle quickly emerged as one of Keystone’s top attractions. From late 1914 onward he wrote and directed virtually all the comedies in which he starred, including such classics as “Fatty and Mabel Adrift” and “He Did and He Didn’t”.

In 1917 Arbuckle took creative control of producer Joseph M. Schenck’s Comique Film Corporation, for which he directed and starred in a series of knockabout two-reelers. During this period he also discovered and nurtured the talents of the young Buster Keaton who costarred in several Arbuckle films. With “The Round Up” in 1920, Arbuckle became the first major comedy star to make the transition from short subjects to feature films. Though most of his subsequent features tended to downplay slapstick in favor of situational humor, his popularity grew unabated.

After completing three films back to back in September 1921, an exhausted Arbuckle attended a weekend party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. A few days after the drunken festivities, one of the participants, movie starlet Virginia Rappe, died of a ruptured bladder. On the basis of questionable “eyewitness” testimony, Arbuckle was accused of rape and manslaughter by a battery of politically ambitious prosecutors. He also endured a prejudicial “trial by headline,” orchestrated largely by newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. Ultimately, three court trials were held; the first two ended in hung juries, but the third resulted in a full acquittal.

This verdict notwithstanding, Hollywood’s top executives, hoping to deflect attention from other scandals in the motion picture industry, persuaded censorship czar Will Hayes to ban Arbuckle from the screen. Throughout the 1920s and early ’30s, Arbuckle found work as a film director using the pseudonym William Goodrich (his father’s name) and enjoyed modest success in vaudeville and as co-owner of a popular California nightclub. He made an impressive screen comeback in 1932 as the star of a series of Vitaphone two-reel comedies. On the evening of June 29, 1933 after signing a lucrative feature film contract with Warner Brothers, he died in his sleep.

Calendar: March 23

A Year: Day to Day Men: 23rd of March

Blades of Grass

March 23, 1910 was the birthdate of Japanese film director and screenwriter Akira Kurosawa, regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in cinema history.

Kurosawa entered the Japanese film industry in 1936. After years of working on numerous films as an assistant director and scriptwriter, he made his debut as a director during World War II with the popular action film “Sanshiro Sugata”, known as “Judo Saga”. After the war, the critically acclaimed film “Drunken Angel” made in 1948, in which Kurosawa cast then-unknown actor Toshiro Mifune in a starring role, cemented the director’s reputation as one of the most important young filmmakers in Japan.

His film “Rashomon”, which premiered in Tokyo, became the surprise winner of the Golden Lion Award, the highest prize at the 1952 Venice Film Festival. The film’s multiple conflicting eye-witness testimonies, the sound complexity, and the experimental cinematography combined to produce a classic film. The commercial and critical success of that film opened up Western film markets for the first time to the products of the Japanese film industry, which in turn led to international recognition for other Japanese filmmakers.

Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, including a number of highly regarded (and often adapted) films, such as “Ikuro” in 1952, “Seven Samurai” in 1954, and “Yojimbo” in 1961. After the 1960s he became much less prolific; even so, his later work—including his final two epics, “Kagemusha” in 1980 and “Ran” in 1985—continued to win awards, though more often abroad than in Japan. These two epic films, particularly “Ran”, are often considered to be among Kurosawa’s finest works. After the release of “Ran”, Kurosawa would point to it as his best film, a major change of attitude for the director who, when asked which of his works was his best, had always previously answered “my next one”.

Akira Kurosawa wrote the original screenplays “The Sea is Watching” in 1993 and “After the Rain” in 1995. While putting finishing touches on the latter work in 1995, Kurosawa slipped and broke the base of his spine. Following the accident, he would use a wheelchair for the rest of his life, putting an end to any hopes of him directing another film. After his accident, Kurosawa’s health began to deteriorate. While his mind remained sharp and lively, his body was giving up, and for the last half-year of his life, the director was largely confined to bed, listening to music and watching television at home. On September 6, 1998, Kurosawa died of a stroke in Setagaya, Tokyo at the age of 88.

“One thing that distinguishes Akira Kurosawa is that he didn’t make one masterpiece or two masterpieces. He made, you know, eight masterpieces.”- Francis Ford Coppola

“Let me say it simply: Akira Kurosawa was my master, and … the master of so many other filmmakers over the years.”- Martin Scorsese

Akira Kurosawa, “The Hidden Fortress”: Film History Series

Akira Kurosawa, “”Kakushi Toride sn san Akunin (The Three Villians of the Hidden Fortress)”, 1968, Starrring Toshiro Mifune, Cinematographer Kazuo Yamasaki

A grand-scale adventure as only Akira Kurosawa could make one, The Hidden Fortress stars the inimitable Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (a fierce Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This rip-roaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action, and compassionate humanity.

Calendar: March 19

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

White Anchors on Black

March 19, 1928 was the birthdate of Patrick Joseph McGoohan, an American-born Irish actor, writer and director.

In 1959, ITC Entertainment production executive Lew Grade approached Patrick McGoohan about a television series in which he would play a spy named John Drake. Having learned from bad contract experiences in the past, McGoohan insisted on several conditions in the contract before agreeing to appear in the program: all the fistfights should be different, the character would always use his brain before using a gun, and, much to the horror of the executives, no kissing. The series debuted in 1960 as “Danger Man”, a half-hour program geared toward an American audience. Production lasted a year and 39 episodes.

Patrick McGoohan was one of several actors considered for the role of James Bond in the movie “Doctor No” and later for the James Bond role in “Live and Let Die”, but turned both of them down. After he had also turned down the role of Simon Templar in “The Saint”, Lew Grade asked him if he would like to give John Drake another try. The show was resurrected in 1964 as a one-hour program, now known by the name “Secret Agent”. The scripts now allowed McGoohan more range in his acting. The popularity of the series led to McGoohan becoming the highest-paid actor in the UK, and the show lasted almost three more years.

Knowing of McGoohan’s intentions of leaving “Secret Agent”, Grade asked if he would at least work on something for him. McGoohan gave him a run-down of what would later be called a miniseries, about a secret agent who resigns suddenly and wakes up to find himself in a prison disguised as a holiday resort. Grade asked for a budget, McGoohan had one ready, and they made a deal over a handshake early on a Saturday morning to produce “The Prisoner”. Apart from being the star of “The Prisoner” in his role as Number Six, McGoohan was the executive producer, forming Everyman Films with series producer David Tomblin, and also wrote and directed several episodes, in some cases using pseudonyms.

Patrick McGoohan appeared in many films and television series: “Ice Station Zebra” in 1968, “Silver Streak” in 1976, “The Man in the Iron Mask” in 1977, “Escape from Alcatraz” in 1979, and received two Emmy Awards for his performances on the show “Columbo”. His last film role was as the voice of Billy Bones in the animated film, “Treasure Planet”, released in 2002. That same year, he received the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for his show “The Prisoner”.

Calendar: March 15

A Year: Day to Day Men: 15th of March

Flesh Against Teal

On March 15, 1972, the film “The Godfather” has its New York City premiere.

“The Godfather” is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on Mario Puzo’s best selling novel of the same name. Published in 1969, it became the best selling published work in history for several years. Paramount Pictures originally found out about Puzo’s novel in 1967 when a literary scout for the company contacted then Paramount Vice President of Production Peter Bart about Puzo’s sixty-page unfinished manuscript. Bart believed the work was “much beyond a Mafia story” and offered Puzo a $12,500 option for the work, with an option for $80,000 if the finished work were made into a film. Despite Puzo’s agent telling him to turn down the offer, Puzo was desperate for money and accepted the deal.

Paramount Pictures wanted the film to be directed by an Italian American to make the film “ethnic to the core”. Sergio Leone was Paramount’s first choice to direct: but Leone turned down the option to work on his own gangster film. Paramount had offered twelve other directors the job with “The Godfather” before Coppola agreed. Coppola agreed to receive $125,000 and six percent of the gross rentals.

Coppola’s request to film on location was observed; approximately 90 percent was shot in New York City and its surrounding suburbs, using over 120 unique locations. Several scenes were filmed at the Filmways Studio in East Harlem. The remaining portions were filmed in California, or on-site in Sicily, except for the scenes set in Las Vegas because there were insufficient funds to travel there. Savoca and Forza d’Argro were the Sicilian towns featured in the film. The opening wedding scene was shot in a Staten Island neighborhood using almost 750 locals as extras.

The world premiere for “The Godfather” took place in New York City on March 15, 1972, almost three months after the planned release date of Christmas Day in 1971, with profits from the premiere donated to The Boys Club of New York. Before the film premiered, the film had already made $15 million from rentals from over 400 theaters. The following day, the film opened in New York at five theaters.

Calendar: March 11

Year: Day to Day Men: March 11

Juxtaposition

The eleventh of March in 1887 marks the birth date of Raoul Walsh, an American film director, actor, and founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Born Albert Edward Walsh in New York, Raoul Walsh studied at Seton Hall College, a private Roman Catholic research university in New Jersey. In 1909, he began an acting career in New York City theaters. Walsh became an assistant to film director David Wark Griffith in 1914. He acted in his first full-length feature film, D.W. Griffith’s 1914 silent drama “The Life of General Villa”. Shot on location in Mexico, the film starred Pancho Villa as himself in actual as well as recreated filmed battles; Walsh played the role of Villa as a younger man.

In 1915, Walsh served as assistant director on D.W. Griffith’s silent epic “The Birth of a Nation”, the first non-serial American twelve-reel film ever made. In the film, he had the role of John Wilkes Booth, the stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. Walsh and Carl Harbaugh created the screenplay for Walsh’s directorial debut from an adaptation of Owen Kildare’s 1903 memoir “My Mamie Rose”. This critically acclaimed 1915 silent drama “Regeneration”, shot on location in Manhattan’s Bowery district, was the first full-length feature gangster film.

After his service in the United States Army during World War I, Raoul Walsh directed United Artist’s 1924 silent “The Thief of Bagdad” which starred and was produced by Douglas Fairbanks. One of the most expensive films of the 1920s, the film was lavishly staged on a Hollywood studio set and contained state of the art special effects. In 1926, Walsh directed “What Price Glory?”, a synchronized sound film with a music score and sound effects, that starred Dolores del Rio and Victor McLaglen.

Walsh directed the 1928 “Sadie Thompson”, which starred Gloria Swanson, and appeared in the role of Swanson’s boyfriend; this was his first acting role since 1915 and his last as well. While directing and acting in the 1928 western “In Old Arizona”, Walsh was in a car crash that resulted in the loss of his right eye; he would wear an eye patch for the rest of his life. Walsh directed his first widescreen film for Fox Studios in 1930, the epic wagon train western “The Big Trail” which starred the then unknown John Wayne, a former prop man. In 1933, he directed “The Bowery”, a historic drama of residents in New York’s Bowery district during the 1890s. The first film produced by Twentieth Century Pictures, it starred Wallace Beery, George Raft, Fay Wray, and child actor Jackie Cooper.

After an undistinguished period with Paramount Pictures, Raoul Walsh’s career soared with his work at Warner Brothers from 1939 to the end of his contract in 1953. During this period, he directed many of the major studio stars in Hollywood. Among his films were the 1939 “Roaring Twenties” with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart; the 1940 crime western “Dark Command”, made under Republic Pictures, with Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Walter Pidgeon and Roy Rogers; the 1941 “High Sierra” with Bogart and Ida Lupino: the 1941 “Manpower” with Edward G. Robinson, George Raft and Marlene Dietrich; and the 1949 “White Heat” with James Cagney.

Walsh made his last films as a freelancer for five different studios. Among these were the 1952 “Blackbeard the Pirate” with Robert Newton in the lead role; the 1953 “The Lawless Breed” with Rock Hudson in an early starring role as gunman John Wesley Hardin; the 1958 “The Naked and the Dead”, an adaptation of Norman Mailer’s World War II novel; and Walsh’s first Cinemascope production, the 1955 “Battle Cry” starring Tab Hunter, Aldo Ray and Hugh Van Heflin with a screenplay by author Leon Uris.

By the early 1960s, Raoul Walsh was suffering from physical difficulties, most notably fading sight in his good eye. He retired from the film industry in 1964. Walsh died from a heart attack on the last day of December in 1980 in Palm Springs, California at the age of ninety-three. His legacy of sixty-nine sound pictures as well as the many earlier silent films remains among the most-impressive bodies of work submitted by any Hollywood director.

Calendar: March 9

Year: Day to Day Men: March 9

The Cross Bearer

The ninth of March in 1940 marks the birth date of actor Raúl Rafael Carlos Juliá y Arcelay known for his intense and varied roles on stage and screen. For each of his film roles, Raúl Julia did extensive character research to familiarize himself with their experiences and ideologies. During his life, he did charitable work mostly focused on at-risk youth, the Latin-American community and the arts.

Born in a suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Raúl Julia attended a private Catholic school in Hato Rey. He later attended Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola where. interested in the works of Shakespeare, he organized and performed in plays of “Julius Caesar”, “Hamlet’, “King Lear”, and “The Tempest’. Julia studied for a year at New York City’s Fordham University before attending the University of Puerto Rico where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree. Although his parents wanted him to have a career in law, Julie chose acting as full-time career.

In Puerto Rico, Julia performed in several Shakespearean plays including “Macbeth” and “Othello” at San Juan’s theaters. He was subsequently recruited by actress and comedian Lillian Hurst to perform alongside her. During one of their performances, Julia was noticed by actor Orson Bean who suggested he continue his acting career in New York City. After working a variety of odd jobs in Manhattan, he sought work in both Broadway and off-Broadway productions.

After receiving his Actors Equity card, Raúl Julia was able to get a role in the production of “Bye Bye Birdie”. In September of 1968 after four auditions, he debuted in his first Broadway production as the character Chan in “The Cuban Thing”. In the following two years, Julia appeared in playwright Arthur Kopit’s 1969 production “Indians” and Mel Arrighi’s 1970 “The Castro Complex”. Julia also worked in the medium of television in the early 1970s as Rafael the Fix-It Man, a recurring role in the third season of “Sesame Street”.

Julia performed in several major theatrical productions during the 1970s. For his role of Proteus in the 1971 rock musical “Two Gentlemen of Verona”. he was nominated for a Tony Award and won the 1972 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance. In 1974, Julia received his second Tony Award nomination for his role of Charley Wykeham in the 1974 Broadway revival of “Where’s Charley”. In 1976, he was nominated a third time for his role of Mack the Knife in “The Threepenny Opera”. From late October of 1978 to June of 1979, Julia played the role of Count Dracula in the Broadway revival of “Dracula” with Edward Gorey’s stage sets.

Raúl Julia’s film career began with roles in three films during the early 1970s: the crime thriller “The Organization”; the drama “The Panic in Needle Park”, his first feature film; and the film adaption of Richard Fariña’s novel “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me”. The most notable of Julia’s film work at this time was his role of prison inmate Valentin Arregui, played opposite William Hurt as Luis Molina, in the 1985 drama “Kiss of the Spider Woman”. To understand his role, Julia traveled to South America where he interviewed rebels and ex-prisoners to familiarize himself with their experiences. He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award and won, along with William Hurt, the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Award for Best Actor.

In addition to being a distinguished actor in numerous film, television and theater productions, Julia continued the charitable work that had been done by his parents. Concerned about the rising levels of violence among teenagers, he sponsored screenwriting programs and supported young actors. Julia was constantly involved with the Latin American community and served as the chairman of the Joseph Papp Celebrity Coalition for Racial Harmony. As part of his work for The Hunger Project, he made monthly donations, promoted the program through advertisements and narrated its bilingual videos. Julia was given the Global Citizen Award for his work with The Hunger Project and, in 1992, received the Courage of Conscience Award.

Unknown to the public, Raúl Julia suffered from stomach cancer for three years prior to his death. During those years, he played the title role in the 1992 Broadway revival of “Man of La Mancha”, with performances eight times a week. Julia also reprised his role as Gomez Addams in the 1993 “Addams Family Values” and took a supporting role in the 1994 television series “Down Came a Blackbird”. In early 1994 during the filming of “The Burning Season” in Mexico, Julia was airlifted to a hospital in Los Angeles for medical attention. Upon his recovery, he finished the film.

On the sixteenth of October in 1994 after attending New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Julia was rushed by ambulance to the North Shore University Hospital in Long Island due to intense abdominal pains; his situation gradually worsened. On the night of the twentieth, Julia suffered a stroke, fell into a coma and was put on life support. Raúl Julia died on the twenty-fourth of October at the age of fifty-four from complications of a stroke, never having gained consciousness. His body was flown to Puerto Rico where a state funeral attended by thousands was held in San Juan.

Calendar: March 4

A Year: Day to Day Men: 4th of March, Solar Year 2018

Warmth of the Light

A preview by invitation of “Nosferatu” premiered on March 4, 1922 in the Marble Hall of the Berlin Zoological Garden.

The studio behind “Nosferatu”, Prana Film, was a short-lived silent-era German film studio founded in 1921 by Enrico Dieckmann and occultist-artist Albin Grau. Although the studio’s intent was to produce occult and supernatural themed films, “Nosferatu” was its only production. It declared bankruptcy in order to dodge copyright infringement suit from Bram Stoker’s widow Florence Balcombe.

Albin Grau had the idea to shoot a vampire film, the inspiration of which had risen from a war experience: in the winter of 1916, a Serbian farmer told him that his father was a vampire and one of the undead. Diekmann and Grau gave Henrik Galeen, a disciple of the German author Hanns Heinz Ewers, the task to write a screenplay inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula”, despite Prana Film not having obtained the film rights.

For cost reasons, cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner only had one camera available, and therefore there was only one original negative. Murnau, the director, followed Galeen’s screenplay carefully, following handwritten instructions on camera positioning, lighting, and related matters. Nevertheless, the director completely rewrote 12 pages of the script, as Galeen’s text was missing from the director’s working script.

This concerned the last scene of the film, in which Ellen sacrifices herself and the vampire dies in the first rays of the Sun. Murnau prepared carefully; there were sketches that were to correspond exactly to each filmed scene, and he used a metronome to control the pace of the acting.

The film was praised for its visual style; Murnau’s nature shots were praised as “mood-creating elements”. However, the Bram Stoker estate, acting for his widow, won the copyright infringement case against Prana Film Company. The court ordered all existing prints of “Nosferatu” burned, but one purported print of the film had already been distributed around the world. This print was duplicated over the years, kept alive by a cult following of viewers, making it an early example of a cult film. The film is regarded as one of the most foreboding and influential horror films in the history of cinema- a classic.

Calendar: February 27

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

Straw Hat

February 27, 1940, was the general release of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca”.

The film “Rebecca” is a 1940 American romantic psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was Hitchcock’s first American project under contract with David O. Selznick. It was based on the book of the same name by Daphne du Maurier with an adaption by Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan. The film star Laurence Olivier played the aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine played the young woman who became his second wife.

The film is a gothic tale shot in black and white. Maxim de Winter’s first wife Rebecca, who died before the events of the film, is never seen. Her reputation and recollections of her, however, are a constant presence in the lives of Maxim, the housekeeper Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson), and especially the new wife, Mrs. de Winter. The young bride’s first name is never mentioned in the film; she is always referred to as Mrs. de Winter.

At the 13th Academy Awards in 1941, “Rebecca” won two awards, ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Cinematography, Black and White’, out of a total 11 nominations. Olivier, Fontaine and Anderson also were Oscar-nominated for their respective roles as were Hitchcock and the screenwriters. It is the only film since 1936 (when awards for actors in supporting roles were first introduced) that, despite winning Best Picture, received no Academy Award for acting, directing or writing.

Selznick insisted that the film be faithful to the novel. According to the book “It’s Only a Movie”, Selznick wanted the smoke from the burning Manderley to spell out a huge “R”. Hitchcock thought the touch lacked subtlety. While Selznick was preoccupied by the production of “Gone with the Wind”, Hitchcock was able to replace the smoky “R” with the burning of a monogrammed négligée case lying atop a bed pillow.

According to Leonard J. Leff’s book “Hitchcock and Selznick”, Selznick took control of the film once Hitchcock had completed filming, reshooting many sequences and re-recording many performances. Some sources say this experience led Hitchcock to edit future pictures “in camera” -shooting only what he wanted to see in the final film, a method of filmmaking that restricts a producer’s power to re-edit the picture.