October 28, 1933: "The Kennel Murder Case" Premieres

Etienne Girardot (left) and William Powell

October 28, 1933: The Kennel Murder Case premieres. Michael Curtiz directed, and would later direct James Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces and Yankee Doodle Dandy, Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, and Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce.

William Powell, in what could be seen as a warmup to playing Nick Charles in the Thin Man movies, plays Philo Vance, a private detective created by art critic Willard Huntington Wright, who, to protect his reputation with his main job, wrote mystery novels under the name S.S. Van Dine.

Mary Astor also stars, perhaps as a warmup for playing Brigid O'Shaughnessy in the 1941 version of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon opposite Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade.

French actor Etienne Girardot plays the coroner, Dr. Doremus. In this film, he says, "I'm a doctor, not a detective." A moment later, he says, "I'm a doctor, not a magician." This predates DeForest Kelley using, "I'm a doctor, not a... " on Star Trek by 33 years, although there's no hint that any Trek writer ever used this movie as inspiration.

*

October 28, 1933 was a Saturday. The only team sport then in season in North America was football. Among the notable college games played were these:

* Army beat Yale, 21-0 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut. Army went undefeated until their last game, on December 2, losing to Notre Dame, 13-12 in front of 73,594 fans at Yankee Stadium.

* Navy beat the University of Pennsylvania, 13-0 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* Notre Dame may have gone on to beat Army, but they had a bad season, 3-5-1, including a loss on this day, to the University of Pittsburgh, 14-0 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* Michigan beat the University of Chicago, 28-0 at Stagg Field in Chicago. Michigan won the Big Ten Conference title, and went undefeated, the only blemish on their record a 0-0 draw at home to Minnesota.

* Stanford lost to the University of Washington, 6-0 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. In spite of this, Stanford won the Pacific Coast Conference title, and go to the Rose Bowl.

* In what would eventually become a major rivalry, Nebraska beat Oklahoma, 16-7 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nebraska went on to win the Big Six Conference title. (Forerunner of the Big Eight and the Big 12.)

* Among New York City teams: Columbia beat Penn State, 33-0 at Baker Field in Upper Manhattan; Fordham beat Alabama, 2-0 in front of 60,000 fans at the Polo Grounds; New York University (NYU) lost to Georgia, 25-0 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

Columbia's only loss of the season was dealt by Princeton. Columbia went on to beat Stanford in the Rose Bowl.

* Rivalry: Kansas State beat Kansas, 6-0 at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas.

* And among New Jersey's teams, Princeton beat Washington & Lee, 6-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton; while Rutgers beat Lehigh, 27-0 at Neilson Field in New Brunswick.