 I stole a fortune, shot a guy, pushed an old lady, and jaywalked—all to impress you. Now will you go out with me? 
This poster was made to promote the thriller Drive a Crooked Road, which premiered today in 1954, and starred Mickey Rooney as a shy runt who finally meets the woman of his dreams in the form of Dianne Foster. Though this is classified as a film noir on some sites, that's off the mark. We call it a straight drama, and the experts at the American Film Institute agree. Rooney works in an auto garage and wants to be a racer. He's known around town to be a very good driver and an excellent mechanic. Through his new crush he meets Kevin McCarthy, who offers a deal—one-time use of Rooney's driving skills in exchange for $15,000 that will allow him to get into the racing game. What could McCarthy need Rooney behind the wheel for? Take a guess. But the scheme is trickier than it at first seems. For that matter, so is Dianne Foster, but no shock there—it's a given that the only way she could be interested in a lonely twerp like Rooney is if she were a honeytrap.
Of course, the funny part is that in real life Rooney was a legendary carouser. As a credited actor from age six, and a huge star during his teens, desirability was never an issue for him, which means he certainly must have thought he was playing against type here. We can picture him, all five-two of him, standing on a footstool and staring into his bathroom mirror asking himself, “How in the hell am I going to convincingly play this unattractive little geek when I am, in reality, such a strapping stud and masculine deity? I mean, geez—I've already been married to Ava Gardner and Martha Vickers. I mean, Liz Taylor blew me when she was fourteen for God's sake! I imagine in the future that will be a serious stain on my legacy, but I'll worry about that later. The question now is how will I manage to play this timid little wallflower?”
Well, that's why they call it acting. Rooney adopts a tentative voice and an unsteady gaze, and you really feel for the guy. His character is definitely in over his head. With a little nudge from femme fatale Foster he finally agrees to lend his skills to McCarthy as—you probably guessed—getaway driver for a bank robbery. $15,000 back then would be about $145,000 in today's money. Many people would kill for far less, so in a way you can't blame Rooney for taking the risk. But movie robberies rarely go off without a hitch, if not during the actual commission, then certainly afterward, and movie honeytraps are often all trap and no honey. Watching Rooney work his way through this maze is the attraction here, and he carries off his role flawlessly. Nice work, from starting gun to finish line.       
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1945—Hitler Marries Braun
During the last days of the Third Reich, as Russia's Red Army closes in from the east, Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker during a brief civil ceremony witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the next day, and their corpses are burned in the Reich Chancellery garden. 1967—Ali Is Stripped of His Title
After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before due to religious reasons, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his heavyweight boxing title. He is found guilty of a felony in refusing to be drafted for service in Vietnam, but he does not serve prison time, and on June 28, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses his conviction. His stand against the war had made him a hated figure in mainstream America, but in the black community and the rest of the world he had become an icon. 1947—Heyerdahl Embarks on Kon-Tiki
Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his five man crew set out from Peru on a giant balsa wood raft called the Kon-Tiki in order to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. After a 101 day, 4,300 mile (8,000 km) journey, Kon-Tiki smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, thus demonstrating that it is possible for a primitive craft to survive a Pacific crossing. 1989—Soviets Acknowledge Chernobyl Accident
After two days of rumors and denials the Soviet Union admits there was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Reactor number four had suffered a meltdown, sending a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Today the abandoned radioactive area surrounding Chernobyl is rife with local wildlife and has been converted into a wildlife sanctuary, one of the largest in Europe. 1945—Mussolini Is Arrested
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and fifteen supporters are arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting to escape the region in the wake of the collapse of Mussolini's fascist government. The next day, Mussolini and his mistress are both executed, along with most of the members of their group. Their bodies are then trucked to Milan where they are hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of a gas station, then spat upon and stoned until they are unrecognizable.
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