THE LITTLE MERMAID

William Powell discovers a rare species of marine life.

Today we’re looking at a decidedly non-pulp movie—Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, a featherweight comedy starring William Powell and Ann Blyth. We watched it because we featured Blyth as a femme fatale last year. She was wearing a mermaid costume in the photo we shared, and an image like that will make one curious. In the movie a fifty-year-old man having a bit of a two-thirds-life crisis takes a Caribbean trip with his wife, stumbles across a youthful mermaid, and falls in love with her. Powell is good, of course, as he is in everything, and Blyth is expressive—which is to say she doesn’t speak. Why would she? She’s a fish, silly. She does hiss, though. Irene Hervey as Powell’s hot wife has a bit of a wandering eye herself, but for an actual man rather than a fantastical creature, and Andrea King plays a woman intent on making the moves on Powell. With all these potential infidelities there’s lots of dramatic potential, but this is a family comedy, which means nothing too taxing to the average moviegoer occurs and everyone ends up where they belong—Powell and Hervey recommitted to their marriage, and Blyth recommitted to the sea. Cute stuff. Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid premiered in the U.S. today in 1948.

Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, William Powell, Ann Blyth, Irene Hervey, Andrea King, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

January 17

1950—The Great Brinks Robbery Occurs

In the U.S., eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car company’s offices in Boston, Massachusetts. The skillful execution of the crime, with only a bare minimum of clues left at the scene, results in the robbery being billed as “the crime of the century.” Despite this, all the members of the gang are later arrested.

January 17

1977—Gary Gilmore Is Executed

Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on Capital punishment in the United States. Gilmore’s story is later turned into a 1979 novel entitled The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer, and the book wins the Pulitzer Prize for literature.

January 16

1942—Carole Lombard Dies in Plane Crash

American actress Carole Lombard, who was the highest paid star in Hollywood during the late 1930s, dies in the crash of TWA Flight 3, on which she was flying from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after headlining a war bond rally in support of America’s military efforts. She was thirty-three years old.

January 15

1919—Luxemburg and Liebknecht Are Killed

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. Freikorps was a term applied to various paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. Members of these groups would later become prominent members of the SS.

January 14

1967—Summer of Love Begins

The Human Be-In takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with between 20,000 to 30,000 people in attendance, their purpose being to promote their ideals of personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization, communal living, ecological preservation, and higher consciousness. The event is considered the beginning of the famed counterculture Summer of Love.