vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above is a beautiful alternate poster in the elongated style known as a three-sheet for the thriller Green for Danger, which we talked about last year. We love this piece. The movie deals with medical mishaps—or is it murder?—in a London hospital during World War II, and stars Alistair Sim, Trevor Howard, Sally Gray, and Rosamund John. It premiered in England today in 1946. You can read more here.
London born Sally Gray has an interesting aka—she was Constance Vera Browne, Baroness Oranmore and Browne. From 1930 to 1952, billed as Gray, she appeared in more than twenty films, including Danger in Paris, Green for Danger, I Became a Criminal, and the 1949 film noir Obsession. We don’t have a date on this photo but the noir style of it, Gray’s youthful appearance, and the fact that she made no films between 1942 and 1945 leads us to triangulate it to around 1946. Don’t quote us on it.
Edit: Some sources have since claimed the photo was made for Gray’s 1949 film The Hidden Room, but we’ve found one with a press sticker on the flipside and it says this:
Just right for informal evening wear is this emerald green jumper in fine silk with wool crepe with its well-cut simple black skirt and bright gold buttons; seen on Sally Gray appearing in the new Two Cities Film of Compton Mackenzie’s “Carnival”, starring Sally Gray and Michael Wilding, with Stanley Holloway and Bernard Miles; directed by Stanley Haynes at Denham Studios.
Carnival was a period movie in which Gray wore no modern wardrobe, so this is not a shot of her in character from the film. It may be one of those promos unassociated with any film. Actors shot sessions all the time just to keep their visual material current. However, in either case, Carnival was made in 1946, so our guess about the year was spot-on.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted for conspiracy to commit espionage related to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet spies, are executed at Sing Sing prison, in New York.
American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, riding as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stutz and maintained by Lou Gordon. Earhart would four years later go on to complete a trans-Atlantic flight as a pilot, leaving from Newfoundland and landing in Ireland, accomplishing the feat solo without a co-pilot or mechanic.
In France, Eugen Weidmann is guillotined in the city of Versailles outside Saint-Pierre Prison for the crime of murder. He is the last person to be publicly beheaded in France, however executions by guillotine continue away from the public until September 10, 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi becomes the last person to receive the grisly punishment.
In Washington, D.C., five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. The botched burglary was an attempt by members of the Republican Party to illegally wiretap the opposition. The resulting scandal ultimately leads to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and also results in the indictment and conviction of several administration officials.
Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris. The western press reported that it was his love for Chilean heiress Clara Saint that triggered the event, but in reality Nuryev had been touring Europe with the Kirov Ballet and defected in order to avoid punishment for his continual refusal to abide by rules imposed upon the tour by Moscow.
