{"id":5620,"date":"2009-12-20T05:30:26","date_gmt":"2009-12-20T09:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=5620"},"modified":"2013-12-05T09:52:49","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T14:52:49","slug":"this-week-in-film-history-12-21-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=5620","title":{"rendered":"This Week In Film History 12-21-09"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 24, 1906<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Considered to be the first feature-length (70 minutes) motion picture, the Australian drama <em>The Story of The Kelly Gang<\/em> debuts in Melbourne.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 26, 1913<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Less than two years after the sinking of the Titanic, the disaster comes to the screen as the basis for the lavish Danish drama <em>Atlantis<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 21, 1923<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Cecil B. DeMille&#8217;s lavish, big budget biblical epic, <em>The Ten Commandments<\/em>, makes its premiere to glowing response.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 21, 1925<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Notable for its innovative &#8220;montage&#8221; shots, Sergei Eisenstein&#8217;s <em>The Battleship Potemkin<\/em> has its premiere at Moscow&#8217;s Bolshoi Theatre.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 22, 1933<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: In only his second film appearance, stage hoofer Fred Astaire finds a dance partner in Ginger Rogers, in RKO&#8217;s <em>Flying Down to Rio<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 21, 1937<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Contrary to many predictions, Walt Disney&#8217;s <em>Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs<\/em>, Hollywood&#8217;s first feature-length cartoon, opens to rave reviews. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 21, 1938<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: <em>Blondie<\/em>, the first of 28 movies starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake and based on the popular comic strip, opens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 21, 1946<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Frank Capra&#8217;s <em>It&#8217;s a Wonderful Life<\/em> opens to mixed reviews and fair box office, becoming a holiday classic only after repeated TV airings. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 25, 1946<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: On one of his least favorite days of the year&#8211; Christmas Day&#8211; famed screen comedian\/curmudgeon W.C. Fields dies at 67.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 26, 1951<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Akira Kurosawa&#8217;s landmark drama <em>Rashomon<\/em> is released in the U.S. and will set off a wave of interest in Japanese cinema in the West. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 22, 1971<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Clint Eastwood debuts as <em>Dirty Harry<\/em> in a role that was once to feature Frank Sinatra. Despite controversy, the film will become a big hit. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 26, 1973<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: <em>The Exorcist<\/em> opens on a limited basis around the country. The supernatural shocker causes a sensation, eventually grossing $165 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 26, 1974<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Stage, television and movie comic legend (and sometime violinist) Jack Benny dies in Beverly Hills at the age of 79.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 25, 1977<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Actor-director-producer-writer Charles Chaplin, once called &#8220;the most recognized face in the world,&#8221; dies in London at the age of 88. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 26, 1977<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Howard Hawks, whose directorial resum\u00e9 ran the gamut from <em>Bringing Up Baby<\/em> to <em>Red River<\/em>, dies at the age of 81. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 25, 1990<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: Francis Ford Coppola&#8217;s <em>The Godfather, Part III<\/em> opens, 14 years after the second Corleone family saga hit theaters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA; color: red;\">December 25, 1992<\/span><span style=\"font-family: VERDANA;\">: <em>The Crying Game<\/em> opens, and Miramax, its distributor, asks critics and audiences not to reveal the film&#8217;s big surprise.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 24, 1906: Considered to be the first feature-length (70 minutes) motion picture, the Australian drama The Story of The Kelly Gang debuts in Melbourne. December 26, 1913: Less than two years after the sinking of the Titanic, the disaster&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1227],"tags":[1347],"coauthors":[1711],"class_list":["post-5620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-week-in-film-history","tag-movie-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>This Week In Film History 12-21-09<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This Week In Film History: A list of historic and noteworthy movie events published weekly by Movies Unlimited on MovieFanfare.com. 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