On This Day In Movie History

December 1, 1903: Edwin S. Porter’s , The Great Train Robbery is the first motion picture to use intercutting scenes to form a unified narrative, is released.

December 1, 1938: The first movie with an “all-midget cast,” the B-western The Terror of Tiny Town, opens to a Lilliputian box office.

November 29, 1939: The legendary rivalry between gossip queens Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons begins when Parsons is scooped on the divorce of James Roosevelt.

November 25, 1940: Voiced by Mel Blanc, Woody Woodpecker laughs his way into cartoon fame in the Andy Panda short Knock Knock.

November 26, 1942: Taking advantage of Allied landings that put the North African city in the news, Warner Bros. opens Casablanca in New York.

November 30, 1942: B-western star Buck Jones dies from injuries sustained in a Nov. 28 fire at Boston’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub that claimed 491 lives.

November 30, 1947: The director whose glossy costume dramas and romantic comedies were marked by “That Lubitsch Touch,” German-born Ernst Lubitsch, dies at 55.

November 30, 1952: Though decades old, 3-D films catch a wave of popularity with the American public, beginning with United Artists’ Bwana Devil.

November 30, 1981: Actress Natalie Wood, 43, dies in a mysterious drowning accident off her and husband Robert Wagner’s yacht.

November 26, 1990: Japanese company Matsushita purchases MCA, parent company of Universal Pictures, for $6.13 billion.