COLD CASE

No, I'm listening. Really. You're scintillating. Please continue.

This production photo shows U.S. actress Kathleen Case, one of the great Hollywood beauties, who appeared in such films as Human Desire, Running Wild, and on the television series Big Town. We consider her underused in the films of hers we’ve seen, but we’ll see if she features more prominently in future efforts. This shot was made for her 1956 crime drama Calling Homicide.


Ready, aim, when the concession manager bends over we all nail him in the ass.


Today in 1955 the soon-to-be global tourist attraction Disneyland debuted to 28,000 invited guests, media, and assorted celebrities on hand to lend a bit of glitz to the kitsch. Stars who were present included Eddie Fisher, who hosted the festivities, Debbie Reynolds, Danny Thomas, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Art Linkletter, Irene Dunne, Jeff Chandler, Eve Arden, Marilyn Maxwell, George Gobel, Margaret Whiting, Gale Storm, Charlton Heston, and many more. The above photo shows, left to right, Adelle August, Steve Rowland, and Kathleen Case enjoying the air rifle attraction, and Case in particular must have been a hell of a shot, firing away from the hard-to-master seated position. No word on whether any of the trio won a prize, but we doubt it. On the other hand, considering the congestion and the mess 28,000 people can make maybe the prize was being allowed to the front of every line and having a celebrity potty watched over by a furry mascot wielding a mop and bucket. We aren’t sure how long Case and Co. hung around—it was 101 degrees Fahrenheit that day and the water fountains weren’t functioning—but it looks like they went above and beyond the call of publicity. If we had to guess, though, we’d say they left immediately after Case felt the monkey’s warm anus on her bare shoulder.

Hello? Is this the Screen Writers Guild? We need a script doctor, and fast.

Calling Homicide, which premiered today in 1956, is a little known procedural crime drama about two cops who try to solve a Tinseltown murder and stumble upon other heinous crimes. It starred Bill Elliot, and was one of four movies in which he played the same character—Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department homicide detective Andy Doyle. In true b-movie fashion, these four films hit cinemas in a rush—between December 1955 and April 1957—and as you might guess, when you churn flicks out that quickly things like deep characterization and plot complexity take a back seat. But Calling Homicide isn’t bad. It just lacks distinction.

The truth is, we watched this solely because of Kathleen Case, who we think is real purty. But her role, while pivotal, is also minimal, despite her second billing. For an actress with numerous credits there isn’t a ton about her online. She’s probably best known for an automobile accident. On February 5, 1967, six years after her most recent acting job, she crashed her car into actor Dirk Rambo’s, and he burned up in the fire that resulted. She was charged with felony drunk driving and manslaughter, but at trial she was found not at fault. She wasn’t at fault in Calling Homicide either. Like her co-stars, she did her best. But you can only overcome so much.

Someone in the sleeping compartment isn't going to wake up.

Film noir teaches us that anyone can get in too deep, even a railroad engineer. In Human Desire, Fritz Lang’s retelling of Emile Zola’s 1890 novel La Bête humaine, Glenn Ford finds himself trapped between lust for Gloria Grahame and reluctance to kill to have her. He’s already helped her cover up another killing and gotten in the middle of a blackmail plot, but every man has his limits. This is flawed but canonical noir, with a cocky Ford, a quirky Grahame, a brutish Broderick Crawford, and Kathleen Case playing the loyal gal pal, who for our money is much more alluring than Grahame. Ford figures that out too, eventually. Too bad his realization is sandwiched between two murders on his train. Human Desire premiered today in 1954.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1955—Cy Young Dies

American baseball player Cy Young, who had amassed 511 wins pitching for five different teams from 1890 to 1911, dies at the age of 88. Today Major League Baseball’s yearly award given to the best pitcher of each season is named after Young.

1970—Feral Child Found in Los Angeles

A thirteen year-old child who had been kept locked in a room for her entire life is found in the Los Angeles house of her parents. The child, named Genie, could only speak twenty words and was not able even to walk normally because she had spent her life strapped to a potty chair during the day and bound in a sleeping bag at night. Genie ended up in a series of foster homes and was given language training but after years of effort by various benefactors never reached a point where she could interact normally in society.

1957—Soviets Launch Dog into Space

The Soviet Union launches the first ever living creature into the cosmos when it blasts a stray dog named Laika into orbit aboard the capsule Sputnik II. Laika is fitted with various monitoring devices that provide information about the effects of launch and weightlessness on a living creature. Urban myth has it that Laika starved to death after a few days in space, but she actually died of heat stress just a few hours into the journey.

1989—Los Angeles Herald-Examiner Folds

William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, which had gained notoriety for its crime and scandal focus, including coverage of the Black Dahlia murder and Charles Manson trials, goes out of business after eighty-six years. Its departure leaves the Los Angeles Times as the sole city-wide daily newspaper in L.A.

1938—Seabiscuit Defeats War Admiral

At Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore, Maryland, the thoroughbred stallion Seabiscuit defeats the Triple Crown champion War Admiral in a match race that had been promoted as “The match of the Century” in horse racing. The victory made Seabiscuit a symbol of triumph against the odds during the dark days of the Depression, and his story became the subject of a 1949 film, a 2001 book, and a 2003 film, Seabiscuit, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Uncredited cover art for Lesbian Gym by Peggy Swenson, who was in reality Richard Geis.
T’as triché marquise by George Maxwell, published in 1953 with art by Jacques Thibésart, also known as Nik.

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