10 random things that happened on this day, December 20th, in showbiz history
1945 Seventy-five years ago today the first feature film based on the comic strip Dick Tracy arrived. The syndicated newspaper hero had been a popular character in film serials since the mid 1930s. He'd get three more features (the last arriving in 1947) before being revived again for Warren Beatty's Oscar-winning spectacle in 1990.
1946 It's a Wonderful Life has ts world premiere in NYC. Why a Christmas classic opened in January for most of the nation is a mystery whose answer is surely lost in 1940s era moviegoing / holiday habits...
1951 The first of many film versions of the hit play Death of a Salesman (starring two time Best Actor winner Fredric March) arrives in movie theaters on its way to 5 Oscar nominations.
1964 Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster opens in Japan's movie theaters. It was the first Godzilla movie where Godzilla was viewed as the hero rather than the villain. It took about a year for it to make it to US cinemas.
1971 Intergenerational pitch-black comedy classic Harold and Maude opens in theaters. Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon were both Golden Globe nominated for their leading roles but Oscar ignored the film entirely.
1974 The Godfather Part II arrives in theaters. It will become the first sequel to win Best Picture. Only one other movie sequel has accomplished that feat (Lord of the Rings: Return of the King)
1979 Bob Fosse's second masterpiece All That Jazz (1979) opens. We were just obsessively thinking about it this week due to Ann Reinking's death.
1995 Today marks the 25th anniverary of the release of Oliver Stone's divisive Nixon. Where do you fall on the scale of Oliver Stone's work? Hate? Love? Indifferent? All over the place?
1996 Scream and One Fine Day both open in movie theaters. It may surprise you to hear that your host here was at Scream rather than the Michelle Pfeiffer movie on this very day in 1996 but that's because I was obsessed with this boy and he was going with a group of our mutual friends and he asked me if I was going so of course I pretended that I was going all along! We sat next to each other and I guess my trembling / screaming -- I'm not good with slasher flicks, even comic ones -- didn't turn him off because we became boyfriends a coupld of months later so the story has a happy ending. That said I felt tremendously guilty about skipping a Pfeiffer opening day. Naturally I also saw One Fine Day that weekend!
2019 Cats opens in movie theaters, an instant 'what were they thinking?' catastrophe. And come to think of it...
It’s one year to the day since the release of the Cats film - which, in hindsight, we should have all recognised as a harbinger of everything to come. pic.twitter.com/eBWVSL2y8g
— Nick Hern Books 🎅🏼🎄🎁 (@NickHernBooks) December 20, 2020
Today's Birthday (Skirt) Suit
122 years ago today glamorous funny Irene Dunne was born.
Other showbiz types with birthdays today: Director Kim Ki-duk (Pieta, Spring summer fall winter...and spring), Director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda), Oscar winning dirctor George Roy Hill (The Sting), Producer/Director Todd Phillips (Joker, Old School), Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Jenny Agutter (Logan's Run), Melanie Scrofano (Ready or Not), John Spencer (The West Wing), TV giant Dick Wolf (Law & Order), screenwriter Joe Cornish (Attack the Block, Ant Man), Dylan Wang (Meteor Garden), screenwriter Ron Leshem (Euphoria)