vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
A long while back we showed you the French and German posters for the post-apocalyptic sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes. The U.S. posters are actually just as nice, if completely different. Four examples appear below. Planet of the Apes opened in the U.S. today in 1968.
Inspired by French author Pierre Boulle’s novel, Planet of the Apes is one of those films many can quote, but surprisingly few have seen. The premise—a group of astronauts crash land on a distant planet where apes are ascendant and humans are jungle-dwelling primitives—sounds like one-note cinema, but Planet of the Apes is an ambitious film that comments pointedly upon religion, nuclear proliferation, and the arrogance of man. Most know Charlton Heston as either a Biblical hero or a gun advocate, but in his day he was capable of creating compelling moments on film that didn’t involve the Old Testament or Michael Moore. Not that he was a master of his craft—but certain roles seemed almost constructed for him. In Planet of the Apes, Heston’s astronaut George Taylor is calculating, physical and, most importantly, stubborn. That stubbornness drives him toward a hard won freedom, but also prevents him from truly understanding cryptic warnings about what he’ll find in the Forbidden Zone. What follows is one of filmdom’s great shock endings. Planet of the Apes premiered in West Germany today in 1968 as Planet der Affen. As a bonus we’ve included the great French poster below.
New York Yankees outfielder Joe DiMaggio gets a hit in his fifty-sixth consecutive game. The streak would end the next game, against the Cleveland Indians, but the mark DiMaggio set still stands, and in fact has never been seriously threatened. It is generally thought to be one of the few truly unbreakable baseball records.
American Clara Adams becomes the first woman passenger to complete an around the world air journey. Her voyage began and ended in New York City, with stops in Lisbon, Marseilles, Leipzig, Athens, Basra, Jodhpur, Rangoon, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Wake Island, Honolulu, and San Francisco.
Eighteen Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, which reads in part: We think it is a delusion if governments believe that they can avoid war for a long time through the fear of [nuclear] weapons. Fear and tension have often engendered wars. Similarly it seems to us a delusion to believe that small conflicts could in the future always be decided by traditional weapons. In extreme danger no nation will deny itself the use of any weapon that scientific technology can produce.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are convicted in Dedham, Massachusetts of killing their shoe company’s paymaster. Even at the time there are serious questions about their guilt, and whether they are being railroaded because of their Italian ethnicity and anarchist political beliefs.
Adolf Hitler signs the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, and Germany begins sterilizing those they believe carry hereditary illnesses, and those they consider impure. By the end of WWII more than 400,000 are sterilized, including criminals, alcoholics, the mentally ill, Jews, and people of mixed German-African heritage.
Former model Ruth Ellis is hanged at Holloway Prison in London for the murder of her lover, British race car driver David Blakely. She is the last woman executed in the United Kingdom.
Richard Speck breaks into a Chicago townhouse where he systematically rapes and kills eight student nurses. The only survivor hides under a bed the entire night.
