vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
American actress Nancy Guild’s name actually rhymed with “wild” not “guilt,” according to her, and since she’s armed we’ll call her anything she wants. She appeared in the noir thrillers Somewhere in the Night, which we talked about here, and Raymond Chandler’s The Brasher Doubloon, as well as about a dozen more films before quitting show business to marry producer Ernest H. Martin. This photo was made in 1947.
The war, a grenade, a head wound, and a case of amnesia bring a vet to Los Angeles in search of his identity. The only clue he has is the name of a presumed associate, not a nice guy, which makes the hero fearful, because who associates with not-nice guys but other not-nice guys? The main problem with Somewhere in the Night isn’t that the amnesiac soon learns, as even a casual viewer would suspect from the beginning, that he and the not-nice associate are one and the same. The problem is that the script never provides for another possibility. This makes for minimal suspense, a sin compounded by dialogue that crosses the line from hard boiled into ridiculous—like in this exchange:
Friend: “Something smells bad, believe me. It’s in the air—like an earthquake. Don’t stand too close. Don’t get hurt.”
Heroine: “I’m the girl with the cauliflower heart.”
Friend: “You think. You’re as tough as a love song. You’ve got your face turned up and your eyes closed, waiting to be kissed.”
This is a little out there even by the standards of 1940s melodramas. Classics like Casablanca and Gilda didn’t get too hip with the lingo, and that’s a big reason why those movies remain scintillating today. Somewhere in the Night wears its age poorly. Blame not only its overly slangy dialogue, but the lame plot, wooden performances from the supporting cast, and an uninspiring John Hodiak in the lead. But the poster is an absolute killer.
During the last days of the Third Reich, as Russia’s Red Army closes in from the east, Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker during a brief civil ceremony witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the next day, and their corpses are burned in the Reich Chancellery garden.
After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before due to religious reasons, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his heavyweight boxing title. He is found guilty of a felony in refusing to be drafted for service in Vietnam, but he does not serve prison time, and on June 28, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses his conviction. His stand against the war had made him a hated figure in mainstream America, but in the black community and the rest of the world he had become an icon.
Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his five man crew set out from Peru on a giant balsa wood raft called the Kon-Tiki in order to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. After a 101 day, 4,300 mile (8,000 km) journey, Kon-Tiki smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, thus demonstrating that it is possible for a primitive craft to survive a Pacific crossing.
After two days of rumors and denials the Soviet Union admits there was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Reactor number four had suffered a meltdown, sending a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Today the abandoned radioactive area surrounding Chernobyl is rife with local wildlife and has been converted into a wildlife sanctuary, one of the largest in Europe.
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and fifteen supporters are arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting to escape the region in the wake of the collapse of Mussolini’s fascist government. The next day, Mussolini and his mistress are both executed, along with most of the members of their group. Their bodies are then trucked to Milan where they are hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of a gas station, then spat upon and stoned until they are unrecognizable.
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond.
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced.
