 Some people just can't handle any excitement. 
It's hard to believe that Curtis Hanson—the man who directed The River Wild, the acclaimed L.A. Confidential, and the underrated Wonder Boys, got his start with Sweet Kill, which he directed and wrote, but it's true. Everyone has to start somewhere. Even Francis Ford Coppola started in nudie flicks. Sweet Kill stars Tab Hunter, who plays a sort of beach hunk version of Norman Bates who stabs women when he's sexually aroused—hence the movie's alternate title, The Arousers. Those arousers, who you'll see below in a series of production photos made for the film, include Roberta Collins. Cherie Latimer, Brandy Herred, and others.
Sweet Kill is an interesting mood piece but we can't call the movie a success on the whole because it isn't scary—an aspiration for slasher flicks (its main inspiration Psycho is scary, after all). The main problem here is the acting, that bugaboo of ambitious young directors the world over. Collins is okay, but Hunter is out of his depth, and the other participants clearly didn't have the time and talent to hone their performances. In the end what you get is a lot of standing around, a fair amount of nudity, and minor tension derived from whether Hunter can somehow curb his murderous urges. Spoiler alert: he can't. Sweet Kill premiered in the U.S. today in 1972.
      
 Never has a writer of such quality suffered so many bad adaptations of his work. 
Thirty-eight years ago today in Hollywood, sexploitation producer Roger Corman premiered a film based on H.P. Lovecraft’s macabre story The Dunwich Horror, and it was almost good. Wait, did we really just say that?
*sigh*
Not to get all self-pitying here, but us Lovecraft fans have been so desperate for so long for a truly great HPL movie, we’ll see merit in virtually any lame attempt. But when we are honest with ourselves—really truly brutally honest—we have to admit this movie is a stinkbomb. Lovecraft is simply difficult to adapt. So difficult, in fact, that if you remove Stuart Gordon from the discussion, virtually all the movies based on his material have been awful.
But even if The Dunwich Horror disappoints, the poster is rather interesting, with its implied violation by a hydra-like monstrosity. Incidentally, of special note here is the presence of writer Curtis Hanson, who would go on to direct the great L.A. Confidential. Nice comeback, Curtis. As for us, we’ll just plan on seeing the low budget Dunwich remake slated for release later this year, and hope Guillermo del Toro’s big budget At The Mountains of Madness actually films sometime this century.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond. 1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced. 1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission.
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