FUTURE PAST

Will murder for food.

Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir Blade Runner is now thirty-one years old, though its vision of a wrecked future still looks new. Studio meddling harmed the initial release, but once Scott was able to recut the film without the jarring narration and tacked on blue sky/beaming sun ending, the movie finally took its true, brilliant form. A Blade Runner sequel to be directed by Scott is in the works, but that isn’t good news. His incoherent Alien prequel Prometheus proved once and for all that big budget movies in Hollywood—even those guaranteed to be huge hits—must above all else be predictable lest 0.1% of their potential audience be turned off. Blade Runner took risks. Its sequel will not. Don’t even bother hoping it will—you know better. But whatever happens we’ll always have the original. This amazing promo image of Daryl Hannah in character as the homicidal (and gymnastic) Pris symbolizes its genius.

Blade Runner, Daryl Hannah, Ridley Scott, sci-fi

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

January 18

1967—Boston Strangler Convicted

Albert DeSalvo, the serial killer who became known as the Boston Strangler, is convicted of murder and other crimes and sentenced to life in prison. He serves initially in Bridgewater State Hospital, but he escapes and is recaptured. Afterward he is transferred to federal prison where six years later he is killed by an inmate or inmates unknown.

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.