6 random things that happened on this day, December 28th, in showbiz history
1934 Big stars missing the Christmas box office but opening on this day in time for New Years Eve in movie theaters were Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes, Bing Crosby in Here is My Heart, and Katharine Hepburn in Little Minister.
1944 Sailors on leave musical comedy On the Town opens on Broadway. It will become a Gene Kelly movie five years later and be added to the National Film Registry two years ago...
1945 Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street both hit movie theaters. More on Spellbound tonight.
1960 One of the very first "spring break" movies (the first?) Where the Boys Are opens. It's a success and the theme song sung by Connie Francis in her film debut is even more popular. We first saw this a few years ago and were surprised at how serious and earnest it was (not quite the same species as the many teen beach movies which followed in the 1960s) even dealing with date rape. "Where the Boys Are" was not nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars though there was room for it that year.
2001 The last movies to open that year, disability drama I Am Sam starring Sean Penn, Dakota Fanning, and Michelle Pfeiffer, and the war action drama Black Hawk Down both score with Oscar voters.
2018 Stan & Ollie, a biopic about the later years of comedy team Laurel & Hardy starring Steve Coogan and John C Reilly opens in limited release. It can't manage one of those last-second Oscar contender strategies (which fail more often than people thing) but it does score a Golden Globe nomination and 3 BAFTA nods (Lead Actor, Makeup, and British Film of the Year)
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 41st to André Holland (Moonlight, High Flying Bird) today. Raise your hand if you miss The Knick which really seemed to get him as a leading man...
Showbiz birthdays or anniversaries today: Dame Maggie Smith (Gosford Park, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), Lt Uhura herself Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek, Heroes), Auteur F.W. Murnau (Sunrise, Nosferatu, Tabu), Oscar winning composer/actor John Legend (Selma, La La Land), Israeli star Lior Ashkenazi (Footnote, Walk on Water), personality Seth Meyers, Michael Spears (Into the West), Australia's Alex Dimitriades (Head On, Ghost Ship), Jessie Buckley (I'm thinking of ending things, Wild Rose), Denzel Washington (Fences, Malcolm X), Sienna Miller (American Sniper, Layer Cake), Joe Mangianello (True Blood), Noomi Rapace (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), 30s star Lew Ayres (Holiday, The Kiss), Thomas Dekker (Kaboom, Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles), Director James Foley (After Dark My Sweet), Belgium's Jan Bijvoet (Embrace of the Serpent, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Borgman), Taiwan's Chang Hsiao-chuan (Eternal Summer, Girlfriend Boyfriend) and the late comic book titan Stan Lee.