Jean Arthur, née Gladys Georgianna Greene poses for a promo photo made when she was filming the romantic comedy A Lady Takes a Chance with John Wayne. Arthur was a very big star who began in silent cinema, made the transition to talkies, and reached the height of her fame in her mid-thirties. She was billed above Wayne for Lady, and he was a huge star himself. Some of Arthur's other efforts include Shane and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The photo above dates from 1943, and A Lady Takes a Chance premiered in the U.S. today that same year. 

With a poster this amazing you’d expect a pretty good movie. It promotes the Japanese run of the thriller Second Chance, which opened there today in 1953 after premiering in the U.S. in July. The film is near impossible to find, but we already possessed a downloaded copy from years back because we long ago sought out all Robert Mitchum’s work due to his utter coolness. Second Chance has not only Mitchum, but the always excellent Linda Darnell, exteriors shot in the Mexican towns of Cuernavaca and Taxco, color film stock (which lost its vividness in the intervening decades), and a 3-D process (of course not replicated for the home viewer).

So, is it any good? Well, when technical innovations arrive in Hollywood, filmmakers often use them as gimmicks, with diminished regard for story flow and physical logic. You see the same phenomenon today with CGI. Because this was RKO Radio Pictures’ first 3-D movie, and it was in Technicolor, many scenes take advantage of those aspects, but fail to build characterization or advance the plot. So there you go. But the locations in hilly Taxco look great, the musical interludes are grandly staged, and it all climaxes with an extended cable car set piece where down-on-his-luck prizefighter Mitchum gets a chance at redemption by taking on hitman Jack Palance. We’ve seen better. But we’ve seen far worse.

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. 

And as long as we’re on the subject of the macabre, above and below are some covers of the classic Street & Smith pulp magazine The Shadow. This particular haunter of the dark came into being in a radio show in 1930, made the leap to print in 1931, and then to film starting with a series of short features that same year. He is one of the earliest—and certainly the best—of many New York City anti-heroes, and there are rumors he’ll appear on the screen again one day. That isn’t necessarily good news. The last version flopped with the talented Alec Baldwin in the lead role, and we doubt Hollywood has any new ideas how to handle the character except to wrap him in computer graphics and release him in 3D. But you never know. Six more covers below.

 

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.

The Argentine celeb magazine Radiolandia was launched in 1927 by publisher Julio Korn just seven years after Argentina’s first radio station, Radio Argentina, began broadcasting in Buenos Aires. Radiolandia quickly evolved to include coverage of the growing medium of cinema, and grew to become one of the best selling magazines in Argentina, part of a Korn empire that included Antena, Goles, Vosotras, TV Guía and Anteojito. Besides printing 7 million copies of these magazines a month, Korn also was heavily involved in publishing sheet music, something he had begun doing in 1924. His involvement in this industry was fitting, considering his first job was selling tango sheets from a market stall at age fourteen.

By the 1940s Korn’s magazines dominated the Argentine weekly market, and made him one of the country’s most influential men. Later he produced films, beginning with 1955’s La quintrala. The issues of Radiolandia below were published between 1943 and 1957, with cover stars Iván Casadó, Zully Moreno, Ricardo Passano, Elina Colomer, Julia Sandoval, Delia Garces, Berta Singerman, and Luisa Vehil. The painted covers are by Vitucho, who we’re trying to dig up more info on. As for Korn, perhaps we’ll get back to him later. 

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.

Above, a copy of the Uruguayan cinema magazine Cine Radio Actualidad, with a cover image of Marilyn Monroe in her famous Seven Year Itch pose. But since she was colorized and composited on a weird new background, she doesn’t look like she’s flirting with Tom Ewell so much as cringing away from a hot nuclear wind. Was that what the designers were going for? We doubt it. But sometimes you get lucky and end up with a great image anyway. This one hit newsstands today in 1955. 

The original King Kong took cinema by storm with its tale of a fantastic lost world, and its revolutionary visual effects. It also had the most consistently wonderful promo posters of possibly any film in history. All were great, but the best, in our opinion, is the version made for the world premiere at Radio City Music Hall, above. The numerous other versions are below, and all are stunning. King Kong, one of the most enduring movies ever made, opened in New York City today in 1933.