Rita Hayworth's Atomic Bomb

For you history buffs out there, check out CONELRAD's in-depth article on the hunt to prove Rita Hayworth's image was on the fourth Atomic bomb tested. Interesting story!

* Boom *

Robert Taylor Fangirls

I'm just having too much fun with this theme - this time, with some calm, collected Robert Taylor fangirls:

 

30s-ish. What, no security?

 

Going "Above and Beyond" in 1952.
In this case, Eleanor Parker is the one doing the signing.

Montgomery Escadrille

 

The description is almost better than the photo itself, although I've never heard of Bob collecting a squadron of flying model planes before....Hollywood embellishment?

FILM STAR COLLECTS MINIATURE AIRPLANES

HOLLYWOOD --- Robert Montgomery, motion picture star, has gone aeronautical minded in a big way. He’s collecting miniature planes, and as soon as he has enough he’s going to form the Montgomery Escadrille. In this photo, Montgomery displays a miniature airplane given him on his birthday by his friend, Reginald Denny, screen actor. The plane is powered with a one-cylinder gasoline motor that enables it to stay aloft up to four hours, attaining an altitude of 4,000 feet. When the gasoline runs out it glides down to a “3-point” landing.

Photo is dated June 12, 1935

Life Movie Photos

The Life magazine archive on Google is now starting to have film stills appear:

Download larger image

If you do any searching, so far the only way I've been able to locate the stills is by searching for "cin." A handful of photos are tagged to their appropriate movie, such as Flight Command and Johnny Eager.

Enjoy!

Picspam: Flight Command (1940)

And the Robert Taylor picspam continues...

 

Apollo 11

Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 started its journey to put the first man on the moon. Take a few minutes this week to check out some of the articles and sites about the historic mission. One of my favorite stops, WeChooseTheMoon.com, for real-time updates on the mission. And click on over to a great article by John Noble Wilford over on NYTimes.com.

A Real Hero

Kudos to the National Aviation Hall of Fame for selecting Jimmy Stewart as a 2009 National Aviation Hall of Fame enshrinee. BGen. Stewart will be honored at their annual ceremony on July 18 in Dayton, OH.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy

All the best to a soldier...

And an actor...

Misc. Thoughts on Bombs, MGM, Princesses, etc.

I finished watching Robert Taylor & Eleanor Parker feud in Above and Beyond last night. The story of Col. Paul Tibbets & the atomic bomb, this has to be the only movie that made family life come off as more dangerous than nuclear war. Best scenes: listening to B-29 engines, the nuclear scientist fixing Mrs. Tibbets' kitchen faucet because she thought he was a plumber. Greenbriar Picture Shows has a good writeup if you want to learn more.

Speaking of nuclear bombs, if you're a fan of nuclear history (like me), you may enjoy the PBS special The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer. In between interviews and historical photos, the program recreats the "flogging," I mean "trial," of Oppenheimer via recreations. Best part, David Strathairn plays Oppenheimer.

Think you're a MGM fan? Check out Stars in Heaven: An MGM Blog. Michael & his wife are making their way through the MGM catalog and blogging their thoughts along the way.

Princess O'Rourke: Ahh, what a refreshing romantic comedy from the war years. Robert Cummings, Jack Carson, Charles Coburn, and Olivia DeHavilland make a great combo. Laura has a good overview on her blog - I'll lead you there...

I saw a commercial last night for a new Nicholas Cage movie Knowing. I'm already there. Oh wait, it looks National Treasure-ish, I might even go see it in the theater.

Finaly, your Bob schedule for March on TCM (check your local listings):

Sunday, March 1
4 a.m. Night Must Fall (1937)
A charming young man worms his way into a wealthy woman's household, then reveals a deadly secret. Cast: Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell, Dame May Whitty. Dir: Richard Thorpe.

Sunday, March 15
2 p.m. Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
A prizefighter who died before his time is reincarnated as a tycoon with a murderous wife. Cast: Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, Claude Rains. Dir: Alexander Hall.

Thursday, March 19
3 p.m. Night Must Fall (1937)
Again?!

Six & Twelve

Raquelle from Out of the Past blog has tagged me as part of a 12 Movies Meme started by Lazy Eye Theatre. I'm going to follow her pattern for my list: Six days of movies, each day having two films following a theme. Here goes nothing:

Monday
Theme: The Look, The Feel of Cotten
Films: Shadow of a Doubt, Since You Went Away
Reason: Joseph Cotten is way overlooked. Shadow is arguably Hitchcock's best thanks to him and Away, well, the uniform certainly doesn't hurt anything.

Tuesday
Theme: Your Pilot This Evening: John Wayne
Films: The High and the Mighty, Island in the Sky
Reason: These two films were released to DVD in the past few years after being stuck in the John Wayne family vaults. Mighty is beautiful in wide-screen color and is a fun representation of the yesteryears of airline travel. If you get the chance to see it on the big screen, do see it. Island in the Sky takes a look at survival in the arctic after a plane crash and also offers a great character from Andy Devine.

Wednesday
Theme: Flying With Cary
Films: Wings in the Dark, Only Angels Have Wings
Reason: Early Cary Grant is a fav. Early Cary with airplanes is even better. Dark features Myrna Loy who helps Cary's character return to the skies, sans vision. Angels offers a tougher Cary as the boss/pilot and Jean Arthur as the softer side.

Thursday
Theme: What a Dall
Films: Something in the Wind, The Corn is Green
Reason: What can I say, just giving some PR to another of my favorite actors: John Dall.

Friday
Theme: Keep Watching the Skies
Films: The Thing From Another World, The Day the Earth Stood Still
Reason: Everyone loves 50s sci-fi (or should). These films are arguably two of the better that came from that time frame. Klaatu Barata Nikto.

Saturday
Theme: Accent on Montgomery
Films: The Earl of Chicago, Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Reason: Yeah, I had to sneak Bob in here somewhere. For this theme, Bob leaves the eastern, and sometimes British-sounding, accent at home and picks up more of a local flair.

Home From The Pacific Front

Home From The Pacific Front . . . Lieutenant-Commander Robert Montgomery after more than a year in the battle zones in which he took part in a number of major engagements, the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer screen star has been temporarily stationed at a pacific port. This picture was taken at his home in Beverly Hills.

Believe it or not, the one part of the photo that interests me most is hidden on the right-hand side of the mantle:

After some digging around, I think he's standing next to the Navy/Marine version of the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the PBJ-1. Boy, aren't I being nerdy. I just think it's interesting that a photo like that would have a place on a mantle. If you've seen a larger version of the photo, please drop me a line.

Two Bobs

It's the weekend and I'm bored. That means you get an extra special weekend post - vintage color!

Airplanes on the Big Screen

The EAA Fly-In convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin is one again asking folks to vote on what aviation-themed Hollywood movies to play on their outdoor screen this year. As someone who's sat under the night-time summer sky at their event, I've got a bit of an interest in the voting. For consideration this year are:

• Air America (1990)
• The Dambusters (1955)
• The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
• Memphis Belle (1990)
• Always (1989)
• The Final Countdown (1980)
• Strategic Air Command (1955)
• Airplane! (1980)
• Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)
• Tora Tora Tora (1970)
  

My vote(s): Strategic Air Command & Bridges at Toko-Ri

As they say - vote early, vote often!

History's Mysteries: Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Y'all know I'm a film/aviation/history nerd by now. Here's a news bit that includes all three. A Luftwaffe pilot is claiming that he shot down the author/pilot Antoine de Saint Exupéry during WWII. Saint-Exupéry wrote The Little Prince and a number of aviation related stories, including Night Flight, which was made into a movie in 1933.

Horst Rippert, the Luftwaffe pilot, noted in an interview: "If I had known it was Saint Exupéry I would never have shot him down."

Oops.

In 1998, Saint Exupéry's P-38 aircraft wreckage was located, excavated, and given to a museum in France.

Reel Stuff Film Festival

Aviations & movies are getting together again for a three-day film festival this April in Dayton, OH.

From the play list, I recommend Rock Hudson's Battle Hymn. It's a somewhat forgotten Korean War film based on minister/USAF pilot Dean Hess' orphan rescue (available on DVD!)

Photo Friday - Airline Security

Larger photo

Danger in the Air . . . Walter Pidgeon and Rita Johnson are the center of a series of hair-raising episodes incidental to the story of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "Nick Carter," an exciting melodrama based on the famous detective of fiction. Pidgeon plays Carter and Miss Johnson is an airplane stewardess, who figures not only in the thrills, but also in a romance with the super-sleuth. Jacques Tourneur is the director and Lucien Hubbard is producing.

Oh Hell

A few highly valuable pages from a Hell's Angels movie program.

Ben Lyon

Howard Hughes

Just in the Nick of Time

One of the films shown by TCM in July was Sky Murder (1940). Now if you recall, TCM was playing a million aviation related films last month, including this one which I TiVo'd. TCM was stretching the theme a bit - there were no dogfights, no war heroes, no daredevil barnstormers - just a murder on a plane. I'll leave it to the link above to give you a plot overview.

Sky Murder stars Walter Pidgeon as detective Nick Carter. The feel of the film is similar to the other detective series' on fim of the time like The Saint and The Falcon. As a side note, watch for Tom Conway, who would later star in The Falcon series (as did his brother). The characters in Sky Murder are slightly cartoonish, but definitely unique. As I say for a lot of films, it isn't an Oscar winner, but it's a fun watch like many other detective films of the time.

Walter has made it to my TiVo favorites list...

Twelve O'Clock High

Two things related to the film Twelve O'Clock High recently caught my eye.

First, there's a new book out on the film and the television show of the same name (The 12 O'Clock High Logbook). Talk about detail. I've only read a bit of one of the chapters, but it's interesting stuff - if you're into the little production & promotion details of a movie.

If I can add a side-note, the book did mention Robert Montgomery was considered for the role of Gen. Frank Savage (along with 1/2 of Hollywood: James Cagney, Dana Andrews, Ralph Bellamy, Van Heflin, Burt Lancaster, Lloyd Nolan, Edmund O'Brien, Robert Preston, and Robert Young). As much as I love Bob, I just don't think it would have been his style - which also was the thought of the studio given who they chose. Gregory Peck truly nailed the role of Gen. Savage.

Second, Fox reissued Twelve O'Clock High on DVD as a "Special Edition." To be honest, I think the only thing that makes this edition "special" is that they seem to have shaved 10 years off of Gregory Peck's face in the box artwork. Oh, and there's cool little postcard-like reproductions of lobby cards in the box too.

Aviation Film Overload

I've got a few news items on classic aviation films, so I'll squish them all together in one post:

I don't live in the LA area, so I won't (can't) be attending, but AMPAS is showing The Right Stuff as part of their "Great to be Nominated" film series on June 11. There will also be a panel discussion with a few who were in the film or were part of the production. Awesome, awesome film - great characters & beautifully filmed scenes. Still chasing that demon...

EAA's AirVenture airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin will be showing aviation-themed films again at their outdoor Fly-In Theater:

Sunday, July 22: Wings (1927)
Monday, July 23: Twelve O’Clock High (1949)
Tuesday, July 24: Top Gun (1986)
Wednesday, July 25: Spirit of St. Louis (1957)
Thursday, July 26: Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Friday, July 27: Apollo 13 (1995) - Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell will introduce the film
Saturday, July 28: Flying Tigers (1942)

Finally, TCM is saluting aviation films in July. Five days throughout July will show 70, count 'em, 70 aviation-themed films. My TiVo will be burned out by the end of July...