Above is a colorful Japanese poster for the American drama Love Has Many Faces, which starred Lana Turner and Cliff Robertson. In Japan it was called Akapuruko no dekigoto, which means something like “Acapulco Happening,” and indeed the film takes place on and around the beaches of Acapulco and follows a troubled marriage after the body of one of the husband’s friends washes ashore. Turner did much better during her career than this sun-splashed, gigolo-laden, jet-set melodrama, but it’s still worth a gander for her fans (or fans of expensive resort wear), and has a good bullfighting scene near the end. It played in Japan for the first time today in 1965.
1937—Carothers Patents Nylon
Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.