 From Here to Oscar night. 
 American actor Burt Lancaster posed for the promo photo you see above when he was filming the World War II drama From Here to Eternity in the Hawaiian Islands in 1953. The movie, based on James Jones' novel, was one of the highest grossing productions of the 1950s, and film noir vet Lancaster in the lead as Sergeant Warden was a prime reason why. The movie also starred Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, and Ernest Borgnine, making for a supremely talented cast. In the end From Here to Eternity scored thirteen Academy Award nominations and won eight, including Best Picture.
 Mitchum finds himself second to nun. 
Above is an Italian poster for the World War II drama L’anima e la carne, which would translate as “the soul and the flesh,” but was better known as Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. It was directed by John Huston, who was one of the greats and the man behind what many consider the first film noir The Maltese Falcon, but he wasn’t a strong stylist. He looked at himself as more of a technician, and often took on projects merely because they offered an opportunity for travel. He shot Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr, in Trinidad and Tobago, and it’s an African Queen-like tale of a marine marooned on a Pacific island with a nun, and the romantic feelings that develop. The movie did well at the box office, but while there’s plenty of entertaining action, the romantic aspects are generally tepid. When a man and woman are marooned together, possibly for life, we accept that thoughts of romance can develop, but it would have been nice if there were some other reason for it to happen than the fact they’re—for all intents and purposes—the last people on Earth. Mitchum loves Kerr, but she’s not funny, or charming, or unusual in any respect. She’s just there, behaving exactly as you’d expect  a real nun to behave. If she had a spark that lit Mitchum’s flame we’d have liked the film a lot more. The romance angle is a red herring anyway—Mitchum’s Corporal Allison has zero chance to woo Kerr’s Sister Angela, and considering the lack of heat between the characters, it’s probably for the better. As an aside, the movie has a terrible title, don’t you think? Not that it matters in terms of the final product, but you’d never think a film called Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison features two stranded Americans dealing with serious hunger, nearly drowning, and generally being put through a wringer reminiscent of Naked and Afraid (but without the naked). Later they dodge Japanese troops, almost get bombed, and barely escape being blasted by a grenade. The title came from Charles Shaw’s novel, but it should have been changed. We can thank the movie for one thing, though—it made Mitchum fall in love with Trinidad and Tobago’s calypso, and led directly to him releasing an album of the music. 
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1953—NA Launches Recovery Program
Narcotics Anonymous, a twelve-step program of drug addiction recovery modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous, holds its first meeting in Los Angeles, California. 1942—Blimp Crew Disappears without a Trace
The two-person crew of the U.S. naval blimp L-8 disappears on a routine patrol over the Pacific Ocean. The blimp drifts without her crew and crashes in Daly City, California. The mystery of the crew's disappearance is never solved. 1977—Elvis Presley Dies
Music icon Elvis Presley is found unresponsive by his fiancée on the floor of his Graceland bedroom suite. Attempts to revive him fail and he's pronounced dead soon afterward. The cause of death is often cited as drug overdose, but toxicology tests have never found evidence this was the case. More likely, years of drug abuse contributed to generally frail health and an overtaxed heart that suddenly failed. 1969—Woodstock Festival Begins
The Woodstock Music & Art Fair, which was billed as an Aquarian Exposition, takes place on a 600 acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York. It would run for three sometimes rainy days and feature thirty-two acts performing at all hours of the day and night. Today the festival is regarded as one of the greatest events in popular music history. 1977—Radio Signal Arrives from Deep Space
An unidentified radio signal, nicknamed the WOW Signal for the notation a scientist made on a computer readout, is briefly detected by the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) project's Big Ear radio telescope. Despite a month of searching the same section of space, the signal is never found again.
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