Gangster Chic & Patriarchy Toppling? Tell Me About It, Stud.
Monday, September 26, 2016 at 9:30AM
NATHANIEL R in Crocodile Dundee, Edmund Gwenn, George Gershwin, George Raft, Gone Girl, JFK, Miracle on 34th Street, Olivia, T.S. Eliot, The Music Man, West Side Story, politics

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1877 Edmund Gwenn is born. Wins the Oscar seventy years or so later as Kris Kringle, helping adults to believe in Santa Claus again in Miracle on 34th Street (and yes, that's one of the all time best wins in Supporting Actor. Do you agree?)
1888 T.S. Eliot, one of the 20th century's great poets, is born. Though few movies are made from his work he did lead to Cats on Broadway. He was played by Willem Dafoe in the movie Tom & Viv (1994)
1898 A true musical genius George Gershwin is born in Brooklyn. Movies and TV shows still use his music today.

gangsters and musicals after the jump


1901
George Raft is born in Hell's Kitchen. Later plays memorable coin flipping gangsters in the movies (Scarface, Some Like It Hot) and was too friendly with real gangsters in life. Joe Mantegna played him in the movie Bugsy ninety years later

1948 Olivia Newton John is born. Without her we don't have movie musicals Grease or Xanadu and the world is an empty barren place
1956 Linda Hamilton is born. Later battles robot assassins from the future; they just keep coming long after Hamilton taps out! 
1957 West Side Story opens on Broadway. The next summer it wins only two Tony Awards (scenic design & choreography) losing the big prizes to The Music Man. Positions reverse when the two classics become movies in the early 60s with West Side Story (1961) sweeping the Oscars and The Music Man (1962) winning only one statue. 
1960 The very first televised US Presidential debate happens between JFK vs Nixon. They still make movies about both of them. Fifty-six years later it's Clinton vs Trump. Will they be making movies about them in fifty-six years?
1962 "The Beverly Hillbillies" premieres on TV, an instant hit that runs for nine years.

Topple the patriarchy!

1965 Transparent creator and two time Emmy winner Jill Soloway is born in Chicago. Have you watched Season Three yet?
1973 The fine Scandinavian actress Maria Bonnevie (Reconstruction, I Am Dina, Insomnia) is born 
1984 Yaniv Schulman who has made an entire career from his breakthrough doc Catfish
1985 "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe," Lily Tomlin's classic one woman show  
1986 Crocodile Dundee opens in theaters becoming a huge sleeper hit
2014 Gone Girl opens in theaters. Narrowly misses my personal top ten list and now I regret it because it's kind of essential to its year and endlessly rewatchable, flaws and all

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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