 Even Powell and Loy's legendary act was bound to get tired eventually. 
There's nice Roger Soubie art on this French poster for Song of the Thin Man, the last of six movies in the Thin Man series, which premiered in the U.S. in 1947 and reached France today in 1948. After six sessions the concept might seem a little worn to some viewers, but it still has William Powell and Myrna Loy as the leads. The mystery involves the death of an orchestra musician and the search for a missing bandleader, which leads to Powell and Loy exploring New York City's jazz underground. It's an all-white underground spread across various clubs, gambling boats, and parties, populated by at least fifty musicians, none of them of color. Of all the sight gags in the movie, the barring of black musicians from a film revolving around the art form they invented is the most notable one of all, but that's mid-century moviemaking for you.
The jazz gimmick is useful anyway, because it gives the filmmakers the opportunity to have Powell—as upper class supersleuth Nick Charles—play the role of a fish out of water. He understands neither the hipster jazzcats nor their customs and slang, and in about half a decade probably turns into the white-haired bartender from The Wild One. Even so, he needs to find and unmask a murderer in order to free a wrongly accused acquaintance from police custody. In true Thin Man fashion, he quips his way through the proceedings, plays cagey with femmes fatales Marie Windsor and Gloria Grahame, and finally unveils the killer in a nightclub populated by all the suspects. Loy is reliable as always in the sidekick role, and even amusingly picks up a few words of hep lingo.
While Dashiell Hammett originated the two characters of Nick and Nora Charles, he didn't touch Song of the Thin Man. Instead it was written by veteran crime novelist Steve Fisher and comedy writer Nat Perrin. Their union, unlike Nick and Nora's marriage, is an uneasy pairing, though it's hard to put a finger on what exactly is wrong. The mystery has an interesting backdrop, but is never compelling, while the humor seems clunkier than in the past. Powell and Loy do their best, but the movie failed to earn back its production budget, and the franchise came to an end. There were screenwriting and production issues, but we suspect that the real culprit was simple boredom—slayer of movie series and marriages alike. Audiences had simply moved on. World War, generational cynicism, and the emergence of grittier cinema will tend to cause that. Song of the Thin Man premiered today in 1947.
 There's a severe Price to pay for being a bad wife. 
This French poster was painted by Roger Soubie for the cheeseball horror flick La nuit de tous les mystères, which was better known as House on Haunted Hill. Basically, Vincent Price offers $10,000 to anyone who can spend the night in a scary house, but in the meantime he hopes to get rid of his not-so-loving wife Carol Ohmart. That's not a spoiler—in the first few minutes of the film he tells her he wants her dead. And she him. The question is will he do it? Will she kill him? Or will they kiss and make up? You could watch and learn the answers, but in our opinion, considering how much more sophisticated horror became, this one is little more than an amusing cinematic curiosity, not worth watching, though it's notable for its exteriors of the iconic Ennis House in Los Angeles (see below). House on Haunted Hill opened in the U.S. in 1960 and reached France today in 1961.   
 “This place is amazing. Nice bay windows, original wood floors—” Booooo.... get ooout! “Too bad we can't stay.” 
French illustrator Roger Soubie has a long and impressive résumé. He painted more than 2,000 posters during a career spanning four decades, and produced iconic promos such as those for Lolita and The Unholy Wife. The above effort is for The Haunting, called in France La Maison du diable. Based on Shirley Jackson's classic novel The Haunting of Hill House, it's about an anthropologist who rents a creepy old mansion in order to determine whether it's haunted. Of course it is—and it proceeds to seriously flip out the anthropologist and the witnesses he's brought along to verify his findings.
Jackson wrote her chiller in 1959, and it's considered by many to be the greatest haunted house tale of all time. Director Robert Wise uses zooms and odd angles to jar the audience but follows the novel's plot closely, which was a good decision. Today his movie is likewise considered to be one of the finest in the horror genre. Horror has really improved with time, but The Haunting holds up nicely. If you haven't seen it, know going in it's fueled by atmosphere rather than events, but we think it's worth a gander. After its 1963 Stateside premiere it opened in France today in 1964.     
 Bogart counts down to zero hour. 
This striking Roger Soubie promo poster for La maison des otages, aka The Desperate Hours, doesn't leave much doubt about what happens to Humphrey Bogart, but even without the poster there wouldn't be any doubt. Bogart stars, in his last villain role, as an ex-con who takes a family hostage in order to use their home as a hideout. During the Leave It To Beaver 1950s there was no way his character was going to go unpunished for pointing a gun at a kid. Even seeing it in the promo image below makes you cringe a little, doesn't it? But the inevitable consequences of Bogart's actions aren't the point—how he struggles to maintain the constantly evolving hostage scenario is what generates the drama, and the imprisoned family aren't his only problem. La maison des otages is a later noir, but a better one. It opened in France today in 1956.
 
 Come, human female. We will go to my crib and get to know each other better. 
 Spanish artist Carlos Escobar painted this poster for the sci-fi flick Planeta prohibido, better known as Forbidden Planet, which premiered in the U.S in 1956 and reached Spain today in 1957. Escobar was a master of realistic figures, such as those he painted of Sharon Tate and Beba Lončar, but for this piece he used a more stylized technique to depict Robby the Robot and an unconscious figure we suppose is Anne Francis. We don't remember Robby carrying her in the film, but it's been a while since we watched it, so maybe we've spaced that. But in any case this is a fantastic piece of promo art. We especially love the trippy sky. It reminds us of this time we dropped acid in Bryce Canyon National Park.
Interestingly, French artist Roger Soubie painted an almost identical promo, which you see here also. We can only assume the studio dictated the look of the poster and each artist expressed their personal style with the backgrounds. Why not use the same poster in both Spain and France? We don't know the answer to that. We can't help but think it would have been more economical than paying two artists to reproduce the same basic image. But it's fine with us, because all these years later we have two top shelf promos to admire. As a bonus, we've uploaded a Robby and Anne Francis promo photo below. For a robot, Robby's got game. Leslie Nielsen better be careful or the far reaches of the galaxy are going to get a lot colder. 
 Diana Dors dirties her golden locks for another turn as a woman behind bars. 
The excellent promo above for Le femme et le rôdeur, aka The Unholy Wife was created by Roger Soubie, one of the best French poster artists of the mid-century period. His art drew us to the movie, which we watched only to discover Diana Dors in identical grime mode as in her prison drama Yield to the Night. Not only do both productions feature Dors locked down with her blonde tresses gone brown due to lack of available dye, but both involve her being on death row for murder. Since The Unholy Wife was the next film she did after Yield to the Night we can only assume her initial foray into  crime and incarceration was such a success it needed to be repeated. Like almost exactly. Unfortunately, two visions of a bruise-eyed Dors about to receive state-sponsored revenge were too much for audiences, and her repeat excursion was roundly panned. And sadly, we must agree. Dors is living in California and is married to a Napa winery baron, but since she’s also sharing her affections with a hot young lover, she soon ponders murdering her unsuspecting hubby for his estate. When we lived in Berkeley, just south of the California wine country, we rarely pondered anything more than sunlit grapes and a nice Schug Syrah. But okay, The Unholy Wife is a film noir, which means Dors is no more happy with her heaven-on-Earth existence than a Wall Street stockbroker is with his untaxable Cayman Islands shadow fortune. Both inexplicably want more. Dors starts the film in prison and tells her story via flashback, so we already know her schemes backfired. If only the same were true for stockbrokers. The Unholy Wife premiered in England in the summer of 1957 and premiered in France today the same year.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1918—Wilson Goes to Europe
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office. 1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends
In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life. 1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.
In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on university property. 1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low
Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again. 1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate
In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy's career.
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