Blog Archives

  The film King Kong opens at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on this day in 1933.

 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world’s first full-length cartoon feature film,  premieres on this day in 1937.  The film by Walt Disney was wildly successful even thought it was initially greeted with skepticism in the industry and in Disney’s family.

Casablanca, the movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres on this day in 1942 in New York City.

Hollywood Ten screenwriters are “blacklisted “by the major movie studios on this day in 1947 following their refusal to cooperate with Congressional investigators.  The writers, including Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner, were accused of having been involved in the communist party.  After being blacklisted, the writers were prevented from working on major movies. The incident is part of the accelerating  “Red Scare” of the late 40s and early 50s in which wild accusations of subversion were used to ruin the lives of innocent people.

Communist influence in Hollywood is the topic of an investigation begun on this day in 1947 in the US House UnAmerican activities committee.

Leni Riefenstahl controversial film director and producer is born on this day in 1902. She is best known for glorifying the Nazi party in the 1930s, especially by directing the film “Triumph of the Will.”  She was arraigned at the 1945 – 47 war crimes trial at Nuremberg, but claimed that she was politically naive. She was detained for almost four years for “de-Nazification.” She was found to be a Nazi “sympathizer,” and was released from detention in disgrace and worked in part as a photographer until her death in 2003.   Like others who served the Nazis, her excuse that she was just following orders was not accepted, and the ethics question has not been answered in her favor. Riefenstahl’s life and career shows how very much further the impact and responsibility of filmmakers, artists and writers extends beyond the camera lens.

 Metropolis,  a dystopian science fiction film by  Fritz Lang,  is released on this day in Germany in  1927.  A classic of the German expressionist movement, the film concerns the struggle between rich and poor, and the idea that compassion must overcome stereotypes and class hatred. Lang was among the many artists, writers and scientists who were forced to flee Nazi Germany in the 1930s due to persecution.  His Hollywood career was also considered brilliant, if ahead of the times, and many of Lang’s American films are examples of the Film Noir genre.  These include Lang’s 1945 film Scarlet Street  and his 1953 police drama The Big Heat.    

Timité Bassori, Ivorian filmmaker, actor, and writer, is born on this day in 1933.  

 Stan Lee, American publisher, producer, and actor is born on this day in 1922.  Lee is best known for creating a host of Marvel Comics characters which have spun off into dozens of popular films.

Lumière brothers first films are premiered  on this day in 1895 at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines  in Paris, marking the beginning of the age of cinema. The Lumiere’s contribution was both technical and conceptual.  Their device allowed motion pictures to be projected on a screen for a large audience, unlike the earlier Kinetoscope, invented by Thomas Edison, which was only designed for  “peepshow” style individual viewing.  The Lumiere vision was to“get the picture out of the box,” and to put it on a big screen where everyone could see it.  Auguste and Luis Lumiere (pictured to the right), along with their father Antoine,  ran a company that was already the leader in French still photography, (like Kodak in the US). Louis had patented a method for dry plate photography at the age of 17, and the Lumiere factory in Lyon employed dozens of workers churning out photo chemicals, plates and papers.   The breakthrough came in 1894, when, one night, unable to sleep, a solution to the problem of projecting film came to Luis. The system allowed film to be advanced, held, and exposed (or projected), using a mechanism similar to a sewing machine. The amazing first Lumiere films can be seen today on the digital screen, here (on YouTube) and here (on OpenCulture).