January 27, 1918: Edgar Rice Burroughs’ jungle lord debuts on screen in Tarzan of the Apes, starring former Arkansas peace officer Elmo Lincoln.
February 2, 1922: Hollywood has a real whodunit on its hands when Paramount Pictures director William Desmond Taylor is found slain.
February 1, 1929: MGM’s The Broadway Melody premieres in Hollywood, becoming the first musical with an original score.
January 26, 1936: Filmmakers in Hollywood organize the Screen Directors Guild and name King Vidor as their president.
February 1, 1937: During Clark Gable‘s birthday party on the MGM lot, Judy Garland sings “You Made Me Love You,” a song she’ll perform in Broadway Melody of 1938.
January 31, 1943: Italian director Luchino Visconti‘s gritty drama Ossessione adds the phrase “neo-realism” to the cinematic lexicon.
January 28, 1952: The Screen Actors Guild negotiates the first contract granting performers residuals for films sold to television.
January 29, 1964: Originally intended as a tense Cold War thriller until evolving into a satire, Stanley Kubrick‘s Dr. Strangelove, with Peter Sellers, opens today.
February 1, 1966: After a career that spanned 50 years, with successes on stage, and in front of and behind the camera, Buster Keaton, 70, dies of lung cancer.
February 1, 1973: A record $5.00 ticket price is being charged at New York’s Trans-Lux East Theatre for Last Tango in Paris.
January 31, 1974: Legendary producer Sam Goldwyn of Guys and Dolls and The Best Years of Our Lives fame dies at the age of 74.
February 1, 1978: Just before he’s about to be sentenced for the statutory rape of a teenage girl at Jack Nicholson‘s L.A. home, director Roman Polanski flees the United States.