Rie Nakagawa loses battle with cancer.
We talked just last week about Rie Nakagawa's film Danjo Seiji-gaku: Kojin jugyo, aka Man & Woman Sexology: Private Lessons, and we also wrote up her film Kaben no shizuku, aka Beads from a Petal back in February. News came that she died of cancer in Tokyo yesterday. Though known mainly for her roman porno films, she had continued working and had appeared on television as recently as last year. Japanese cinema is a bit less luminous today.
Tips for perking up a wilting flower.
This beautiful poster was made for the drama Kaben no shizuku, which was known in English as Beads from a Petal, as in beads of moisture. A lot of Japanese softcore movies have titles referencing beads of moisture, or dew, or the various parts of flowers, such as pistils and petals and whatnot. In this one Rie Nakagawa plays a married woman who is unfulfilled by sex. When her husband strays, the betrayal sends her seeking help, which she eventually gets from a psychiatrist (an ex of hers actually, which we're sure is unethical, but whatever) and he is able to determine that her aversion to sex has to do with the repressed memory of having seen her parents making love when she was young. Nakagawa really chews the scenery in this one with a performance we can only call overwrought, complete with multiple bouts of hysterical screaming, but you'll get used to it. Kaben no shizuku premiered in Japan today in 1972.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.
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