vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Italian artist Sandro Symeoni painted posters for all genres of film, from zany comedies to spaghetti westerns, but we like him in thriller mode best. Above are five examples of his work promoting 1950s and 1960s crime and horror movies. Their English titles are, top to bottom, The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll, Deadly Inheritance, Scandal Incorporated, Grisbi, and The Revenge of Frankenstein. Plenty more Symeoni to see—just click his keywords below.
Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne in France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.
Dion O’Banion, leader of Chicago’s North Side Gang, is assassinated in his flower shop by members of rival Johnny Torrio’s gang, sparking the bloody five-year war between the North Side Gang and the Chicago Outfit that culminates in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, with instructions to report on Hollywood subversives. He eventually testifies before HUAC, where he fingers several people as Communist agitators. He also accuses the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front.
German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation. In practical terms, the phenomenon makes possible such devices as electroscopes, solar cells, and night vision goggles.
Nazi Germany’s first large scale act of anti-Jewish violence begins after the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, and in total the violent rampage destroys more than 250 synagogues, causes the deaths of nearly a hundred Jews, and results in 25,000 to 30,000 more being arrested and sent to concentration camps.
In Munich, Germany, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in the Beer Hall Putsch, an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government. Also known as the Hitlerputsch or the Hitler-Ludendorff-Putsch, the attempted coup was inspired by Benito Mussolini’s successful takeover of the Italian government.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create temporary winter jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.
