July 22, 1934: After seeing MGM’s Manhattan Melodrama at Chicago’s Biograph Theater, gangster John Dillinger is gunned down outside by G-men. July 20, 1938: The major film studios are named to a governmental antitrust lawsuit over their dominance in both…
Read more →Articles by: Jay Steinberg
This Week In Film History, 07.11.10
July 14, 1908: Edison Company actor D.W. Griffith makes his directing debut with The Adventures of Dollie, the first of over 500 works to come. July 12, 1912: Adolph Zukor releases a French film, Queen Elizabeth, starring stage star Sarah…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 07.04.10
July 8, 1932: Audiences are repelled by scenes of real-life sideshow stars in Tod Browning‘s horror film Freaks, which will go on to become a cult classic. July 8, 1953: Otto Preminger‘s comedy The Moon Is Blue, which contains the…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 06.27.10
July 3, 1905: The long tradition of cinematic canine heroes begins in England with the debut of the seven-minute melodrama Rescued by Rover. June 30, 1929: Alfred Hitchcock‘s Blackmail, which nearly saw completion as a silent film, was re-shot with…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 06.20.10
June 24, 1916: Mary Pickford signs Hollywood’s first “million-dollar contract,” guaranteeing her at least $10,000 a week over its two-year term. June 25, 1951: After 27 years at the helm of MGM, Louis B. Mayer resigns following a heated feud…
Read more →This Week In Film History: 06.13.10
June 19, 1905: The first “nickelodeon” opens its doors, on Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh, charging a five-cent fee. First attraction: The Great Train Robbery. June 16, 1916: The merger of Famous Players and Jesse Lasky Feature Play Co. brings together…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 06.06.10
June 11, 1922: The “father of the documentary film,” Robert Flaherty, releases his greatest achievement, Nanook of the North. June 6, 1933: The first drive-in theater opens on a 10-acre site on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden, N.J. Now Showing:…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 05.30.10
June 2, 1916: Victor Schertzinger composes the first original film score for an American feature, Thomas H. Ince’s Civilization. June 1, 1943: The plane carrying refined British actor Leslie Howard, 50, is shot down by German fighters over the Bay…
Read more →Clint Eastwood: Happy 80th Birthday!
The weathered features, steel-eyed squint and take-no-prisoners demeanor are immediately recognizable to the global cinema audience that has raised this onetime Army swimming instructor to a remarkable 40+years at the forefront of box-office draws. Born in San Francisco to a…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 05.23.10
May 28, 1935: Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Corporation unite to form 20th Century Fox, overseen by Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck. May 28, 1941: Animators and artists at the Walt Disney Studios launch an acrimonious two-month strike…
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