 In search of the perfect O. 
  There's nothing special about this poster for Mado kara Roma ga mieru, aka Roma dalla finestra, aka Rome from a Window, other than perhaps that it's double-sided, as you see at right. But the movie does feature Kimiko Nakayama, which is no small thing. Shot in Italy by a Japanese director with a mostly Italian cast and crew, it's the story of a photographer named Carlo, his wife, Nakayama's character O, and the various sexual entanglements these three experience, both between themselves and with others. This being an erotic movie made by Shochiku-Fuji Company but modeled after Nikkatsu Studios' very popular roman porno flicks, it's in no way a surprise that the photographer meets O because he comes across her peeing. She happens to be doing this at the monument marking the site where Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered in 1975, beaten to death by an assailant or assailants then run over several times with his own car. When Carlo and O get together later for fun and games she comments upon the prodigious size of his member, to which he responds that he is of normal Italian size. As a joke, it can cut both ways, as can many aspects of the movie. In general, it's all very weird, possibly because director Masuo Ikeda, who also wrote the screenplay, was foremost a painter, sculptor, ceramist, printmaker and award-winning novelist who only dabbled in film direction. The sense of artistic freedom, in terms of not being concerned with following norms, really shows. With an atmospheric soundtrack from Paul Mauriat that's better remembered than the actual movie, Mado kara Roma ga mieru, aka Roma dalla finestra premiered in Japan today in 1982. And just because we had it laying around, below is a shot of Nakayama to go along with one we shared several years ago.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1920—Negro National Baseball League Debuts
The first game of Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana. The league, one of several that would be formed, was composed of The Chicago American Giants, The Detroit Stars, The Kansas City Monarchs, The Indianapolis ABCs, The St. Louis Giants, The Cuban Stars, The Dayton Marcos, and The Chicago Giants. 1955—Williams Wins Pulitzer
American playwright Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his controversial play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which tells the story of a southern family in crisis, explicitly deals with alcoholism, and contains a veiled subtext concerning homosexuality in southern society. In 1958 the play becomes a motion picture starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. 1945—Germany Announces Hitler's Death
German radio in Hamburg announces that Adolf Hitler was killed in Berlin, stating specifically that he had fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany. But in truth Hitler had committed suicide along with his mistress Eva Braun, and both bodies were immediately thereafter burned. 1960—Powers Is Shot Down over U.S.S.R.
Francis Gary Powers, flying in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane, is shot down over the Soviet Union. The U.S. denies the plane's purpose and mission, but is later forced to admit its role as a covert surveillance aircraft when the Soviet government produces its remains and reveals Powers, who had survived the shoot down. The incident triggers a major diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. 1927—First Prints Are Left at Grauman's
Hollywood power couple Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who co-founded the movie studio United Artists with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, become the first celebrities to leave their impressions in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, located along the stretch where the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame would later be established.
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