 She debuted in a film about sailing but her career never got out of the harbor. 
Alice Moore was the niece of Mary Pickford, and in this lovely image she’s (we’re informed by the labeling on the back of the photo) wearing a trendy paper hat in French blue with a wildflower wreath. She was appearing in a bit role in the 1934 RKO Radio Pictures musical comedy Down to Their Last Yacht, which was her first movie role. We‘d never heard of this hilariously titled film but we would love to see it. Apparently, it’s about a rich family driven by financial misfortune to living on their yacht, and then—poor babies—renting it out to nouveaux riches for excursions. During one of these jaunts they’re marooned on a tropical island and all sorts of craziness and native dance numbers ensue. Anyway, despite Moore’s famous pedigree, she appeared in only a handful of films, and received credit in only two. Which goes to show that even connections and beauty aren’t guarantees of success in Hollywood. Moore died in 1960 at the age of forty-four.
 RKO crime drama overcomes its humble budget to create a bit of magic. 
This poster for the RKO crime drama Bunco Squad drew our attention because of the creepy, white-eyed woman at its center. We assumed she represented a phony psychic, and indeed, after an introductory overview of the various types of con artists that prey on the gullible public, the plot settles around a Los Angeles detective’s efforts to take down a ring of fake spiritualists. These spiritualists plan to entice a rich widow to add their organization, the Rama Society, to her last will and testament, after which they’ll arrange her death. There’s a love story here as well, between the detective and his actress girlfriend, and that thread is woven neatly into the crime plot when the detective gets the idea to have her pose as a spiritualist competing for the trust of the rich widow. All of that leads to a pretty cool scene in which one of the villains drops by to threaten the girlfriend, but instead finds himself in a dark room brawling with the detective and his partner, who are dressed in black head-to-toe sheaths that render them effectively invisible. The villain tries the old windmill-with-outstretched-fists technique, but gets his ass tossed out the door anyway, to the great amusement of the onlooking girlfriend. With car chases, fights, gunplay, humor, an interesting set of villains, a cameo by Dante the Magician, and good looks at a lot of gigantic 1950s-vintage autos, we’ll go ahead and call Bunco Squad a winner. It’s cheesy, moralistic, and over-earnest, but if you like old movies in general, you’ll probably enjoy it. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1950.
            
 Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games. 
For fans of pulp, Anita Ekberg’s adventure Back from Eternity might be a must see—or at least a good laugh. When stormy weather forces a plane to crash land in the South American jungle, the passengers must survive the conditions, themselves, and angry Jivaro indians who want to make them into a post-flight meal. This is actually director John Farrow’s remake of his earlier film, the plot-spoilingly titled Five Came Back. But even without the earlier title, it's quickly clear that not everyone will get out of this jungle alive, and that who does depends mostly on Rod Steiger, whose character is a criminal on his way to be executed. Try to find this film if you can. It was made on the cheap by RKO, and the airplane footage is hilarious because it’s a plastic model, but you get Ekberg in a wet catfight with Phyllis Kirk, and that alone makes it worth watching, right? Back from Eternity premiered in the U.S. today in 1957. Check the trailer here.
   
 Your big debut, like a dream come true. The famous Hollywood sign hovers over Los Angeles like a heat mirage, its white lettering visible all the way from the west side on a clear day. And like a mirage, it seems closer than it really is. Success can be that way too—tantalizingly near, yet never within reach. Maybe that’s what Peg Entwistle was thinking when she climbed a workman’s ladder to the top of the letter H in the big sign, and cast herself into oblivion. Entwistle, who you see above in an early publicity shot, was desperate to be a movie star. She’d acted on stage in New York and done well, but the bright lights of Hollywood beckoned. She plied the L.A. party circuit, met a few big shots, and scored a one-picture deal with the prestigious studio RKO. They cast her in Thirteen Women with Irene Dunn and Myrna Loy, who were both stars. The movie premiered September 16, 1932, and the critics yawned. Two nights later a heartbroken Entwistle scaled the big sign—which back then read Hollywoodland after the hillside subdivision it had been erected to promote. The H was fifty feet tall and Entwistle wasn’t fooling around. She dove headfirst into the ravine below, the impact killing her instantly. She lay there for two days until cops finally got an anonymous tip about a body in the brush. Entwistle was designated Jane Doe at the morgue, but had left behind a suicide note signed with her initials. So the police went to the press for help. Entwistle’s uncle read the resulting story, saw the initials, and realized his niece Peg might be the body in question. She’d been missing for two days. He contacted the police and was brought in to identify the body. Entwistle’s suicide note was short and to the point: “I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.” Her funeral was held in Hollywood, and her body was cremated, but she would never be forgotten. She remains a symbol of broken dreams, and a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of show business. That was today, in 1932.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1945—Hitler Marries Braun
During the last days of the Third Reich, as Russia's Red Army closes in from the east, Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker during a brief civil ceremony witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the next day, and their corpses are burned in the Reich Chancellery garden. 1967—Ali Is Stripped of His Title
After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before due to religious reasons, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his heavyweight boxing title. He is found guilty of a felony in refusing to be drafted for service in Vietnam, but he does not serve prison time, and on June 28, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses his conviction. His stand against the war had made him a hated figure in mainstream America, but in the black community and the rest of the world he had become an icon. 1947—Heyerdahl Embarks on Kon-Tiki
Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his five man crew set out from Peru on a giant balsa wood raft called the Kon-Tiki in order to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. After a 101 day, 4,300 mile (8,000 km) journey, Kon-Tiki smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, thus demonstrating that it is possible for a primitive craft to survive a Pacific crossing. 1989—Soviets Acknowledge Chernobyl Accident
After two days of rumors and denials the Soviet Union admits there was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Reactor number four had suffered a meltdown, sending a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Today the abandoned radioactive area surrounding Chernobyl is rife with local wildlife and has been converted into a wildlife sanctuary, one of the largest in Europe. 1945—Mussolini Is Arrested
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and fifteen supporters are arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting to escape the region in the wake of the collapse of Mussolini's fascist government. The next day, Mussolini and his mistress are both executed, along with most of the members of their group. Their bodies are then trucked to Milan where they are hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of a gas station, then spat upon and stoned until they are unrecognizable.
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