December 15, 1993: "Schindler's List" Premieres

Left to right: The film's producer and director, Steven Spielberg;

and stars Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley

December 15, 1993: Schindler's List premieres, based on the 1980 historical novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Kenneally.

Oskar Schindler was born on April 28, 1908 in Zwittau, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Svitavy, Czechia). In 1936, he joined the Abwehr, Nazi Germany's military intelligence unit, collecting information on railways and troop movements. In 1938, the Czech government arrested him for espionage, but he was released under the terms of the Munich Agreement. In gratitude, he joined the Nazi Party.

In 1939, he bought an enamelware factory in Kraków, Poland. His connections allowed him to hire Jewish workers: At its peak in 1944, he employed 1,750 people, 1,000 of them Jews. In order to keep higher Nazi officials out of his business, he had to send ever-larger bribes and gifts. But he kept his workers from being deported to the death camps, all through World War II.

Oskar Schindler

By V-E Day, May 8, 1945, with Germany's surrender, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black market purchases of supplies for his workers. He moved to the new Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) after The War. He was supported by assistance payments from Jewish relief organizations.

After receiving a partial reimbursement for his wartime expenses, he moved with his wife, Emilie, to Argentina -- ironically, a country to which many ex-Nazis had escaped to avoid capture by the Allies. There, they took up farming. When he went bankrupt in 1958, Schindler left his wife, and returned to Germany, where he failed at several business ventures and relied on financial support from the people who had become known as Schindlerjuden -- "Schindler Jews," the people whose lives he had saved.

He died on October 9, 1974 in Hildesheim, Germany, and was buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, the only former member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way. In 1982, Thomas Kenneally published the novel Schindler's Ark, based on his story. Film director Steven Spielberg, born into a Jewish family after The War, read it, and decided that, one day, he would make it into a film.

In 1993, while Spielberg was finishing production on the film, Oskar and Emilie Schindler received the highest honor that the Israeli government can give to foreign citizens: "Righteous Among the Nations." They also gave that honor to his wife, Emilie.

In the film, Schindler was played by Liam Neeson. Caroline Goodall played Emilie, who lived until 2001, and was present at the film's premiere. Ben Kingsley played Itzhak Stern, Schindler's Jewish accountant, who survived The War, moved to Israel, and lived until 1969.

Ralph Fiennes, already known in his native Britain, became famous in America for playing Amon Göth, commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp. He was captured by the Allies, and, in 1946, became the 1st Nazi war criminal to be executed.

The film was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, winning 7, including Best Picture, Best Director for Spielberg, and Best Original Score for John Williams. Neeson and Fiennes were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively, but neither won.  

*

December 15, 1993 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 7 games played in the NBA:

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Boston Celtics, 108-98 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Denver Nuggets, 101-93 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 97-95 at the Target Center in Minneapolis.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 111-91 at the Alamodome in San Antonio. David Robinson led all scorers on the night with 37 points.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Golden State Warriors, 110-104  at the America West Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.

* The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Orlando Magic, 110-109 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Sacramento Kings, 96-95 at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento.

And there were 8 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Hartford Whalers, 5-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Boston Bruins, 5-4 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Ottawa Senators, 4-3 at the ThunderDome (now Tropicana Field) in St. Petersburg, Florida.

* The Montreal Canadiens and the Florida Panthers played to a tie, 3-3 at the Miami Arena.

* The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 1-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Dallas Stars, 3-2 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Vancouver Canucks, 7-2 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* And the St. Louis Blues beat the San Jose Sharks, 3-1 at the San Jose Arena (now the SAP Center).

December 15, 1939: "Gone With the Wind" Premieres

December 15, 1939: The film Gone With the Wind premieres at the Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, the city where most of the film's action takes place.

Until July 1940, the film played only advance-ticket engagements at a limited number of theaters, with a ticket price of $1.00, more than twice the price of regular features in those days -- $20.06 in 2022 money, so a bit more than most movie prices now.

Counting promotion costs, it took $7 million to make the movie -- about $140 million today. It has made over $390 million. It would remain the highest-grossing movie of all time until 1975, surpassed by Jaws. But, with inflation factored in, it's still the highest-grossing movie ever, at $7.8 billion. In comparison, Avengers: Endgame has generated $2.8 billion; Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope) has made $776 million, so with inflation from 1977, that's $3.6 billion, still not half as much as Gone With the Wind.

It was the most popular movie of its era because the novel on which it was based, published by Margaret Mitchell in 1936, was the most popular book of the era. It was a story of the Southern aristocracy before, during, and after the American Civil War, and it totally idealizes that culture. It aided the myth of the “Lost Cause,” suggesting that the Confederacy was honorable, just, and heroic. It also indulged in the stereotypes of Southern black people of the era, and does nothing to suggest that slavery was bad. It was. And it does nothing to suggest that the South deserved to lose the war. It did.

And let's say it: There is no hero in this movie: Scarlett O'Hara is a spoiled bitch, and Rhett Butler is an ass -- who ultimately decides that she is too much even for him. It's easy to take his side when he leaves Scarlett, and responds to her question about what she'll do without him by saying, in a line the producers fought the Hays Code to keep in the film, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." (The line, minus the word "Frankly," was in the book.)

The screenwriter, Sidney Howard, died before the premiere. On August 23, 1939, he was working on his farm in Tyringham, Massachusetts. He had turned his tractor on in his garage, but had neglected to put the brake on, and after he got out, it lurched back, and pinned him against the wall. He was only 48 years old. Having already received a Pulitzer Prize for his 1924 play They Knew What They Wanted, he received a posthumous Oscar.

Leslie Howard (no relation to Sidney), who played Ashley Wilkes -- both "Leslie" and "Ashley" were considered masculine names in 1860s America, when and where the story was set, and in 1890s Britain, when and where he was born -- was killed in action in 1943, when his plane was shot down by the Nazis.

Mitchell was killed in 1949, hit by a car in Atlanta. Also dying that year was director Victor Fleming, who also directed The Wizard of Oz in 1939. Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, died in 1952. George Reeves, who played Stuart Tarleton, and would go on to play Superman on television, died of a gunshot wound in 1959, officially a suicide, but this is widely doubted. Clark Gable, who played Butler, died in 1960. Producer David O. Selznick died in 1965. Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlett, battled mental illness and alcoholism, and died in 1967.

Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen, who played Prissy, lived until 1995. Cammie King, who played Scarlett and Rhett's daughter, Bonnie Butler, lived until 2010. Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie Wilkes Hamilton, lived to be 104 years old, dying in 2020 (not of COVID).

The last surviving castmembers? Mickey Kuhn, who died on November 20, 2022, at 90, was the last credited one. He played Beau Wilkes, son of Melanie and Ashley. Patrick Curtis died 4 days later, at 83. He played Beau Wilkes as a baby, but was not credited. He went on to become a film producer, and was, for 5 years, the 2nd of the 4 husbands of actress Raquel Welch. Caren Marsh Doll, 102, was an uncredited extra. Earlier in the year, she was Judy Garland's dance stand-in for The Wizard of Oz, making her the last surviving castmember of that film.

*

December 15, 1939 was a Friday. Singer Cindy Birdsong was born on this day. She sang with Patti LaBelle's Bluebelles from 1961 to 1966, then replaced replaced Florence Ballard in The Supremes, singing with them until 1977.

It was the off-season for baseball. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were no NHL games played that day. And the pro football season had just ended 5 days earlier, with the NFL Championship Game. The Green Bay Packers beat the New York Giants, 27-0, at the Dairy Bowl in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. The stadium has since been converted into an auto racing track called the Milwaukee Mile. So there were no scores on this historic day.

December 14, 1936: “You Can’t Take It With You” Premieres

Scene from the 1938 film version

December 14, 1936: You Can't Take It With You, a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, premieres at the Booth Theatre, which still stands at 222 West 45th Street. It is directed by Kaufman, and stars Henry Travers as Martin Vanderhof, a.k.a. Grandpa, and becomes one of the biggest comedies in Broadway history.

It was filmed in 1938, with Lionel Barrymore, Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur, Spring Byington, Ann Miller, Mischa Auer, Eddie Anderson (Jack Benny's "Rochester"), and, uncredited, dance icon Arthur Murray. It won Best Picture, and Best Director for Frank Capra, who in 1945 would direct It's a Wonderful Life, including Stewart, Barrymore and Travers (Clarence the angel -- and who also appeared in "The Bells of St. Mary's," which was showing at the Bedford Falls Bijou in IAWL).

I saw a version on CBS in 1979, with several veterans of the network: Art Carney, Jean Stapleton, Blythe Danner, Harry Morgan, Robert Mandan, Barry Bostwick, Howard Hesseman, and Alice castmembers Polly Holliday (Flo) and Beth Howland (Vera). CBS tried to make it a series in 1987, with Morgan as Grandpa, but set it in the present day, so that, instead of never having paid income taxes (the 16th Amendment had only passed 23 years before the play's debut), he hadn't paid any since 1962.

*

December 14, 1936 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football season was over, except for the New Year's Day bowl games. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL had no games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

December 10, 1962: "Lawrence of Arabia" Premieres

Peter O'Toole as T.E. Lawrence

December 10, 1962: Lawrence of Arabia premieres, directed by David Lean, and based on The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a memoir published in 1926 by Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, a British Army officer who aided the Arab peoples in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The real Lawrence was born in 1888 in Wales, and grew up in Oxford, England, where he studied archaeology at Oxford University. He was working in Ottoman-controlled Syria when the war broke out, and was stationed at the Arab Bureau in Egypt. There, and across the Middle East, he aided leaders such as the man who would become King Faisal I of Iraq. Lawrence led the capture of Damascus, the capital of Syria, a few days before the Armistice in 1918.

The real Lawrence

He then worked in the Foreign Office, working with the British government to establish the nations breaking off from the Ottoman Empire. In 1922, he retreated from public life, serving in the Royal Air Force and writing his books. In 1935, he wrecked his motorcycle in Dorset, England, and died 6 days later, only 46 years old.

Lawrence had already sensationalized his own story, much as American frontiersman Davy Crockett had. The film version did so even more. Albert Finney was Lean's 1st choice, but was fired 2 days after filming began. Marlon Brando was offered the part, and turned it down. Irish actor Peter O'Toole took a screen test, and Lean said, "This is Lawrence!"

Not everyone agreed: Lawrence was short, 5-foot-5, while O'Toole was 6-foot-2. And British playwright Noël Coward told O'Toole after the premiere, "If you had been any prettier, the film would have been called Florence of Arabia."

Laurence Olivier was originally supposed to play Faisal, but the role went instead to Alec Guinness, who had previously starred for Lean in Bridge On the River Kwai. Egyptian actor Omar Sharif played Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish, a composite character. He wasn't the only composite, and there were plenty of other inaccuracies for a film taking place less than half a century earlier. It would be like making a film about Watergate today, and making a single character play the roles of Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Chuck Colson.

Nevertheless, the film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, and won 7, including Best Picture, and Best Director for Lean. O'Toole was nominated for Best Actor, and Sharif for Best Supporting Actor, but neither won.

Lean died in 1991, Guinness in 2000, O'Toole in 2013, and Sharif in 2015.

*

December 10, 1962 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. No NHL games were scheduled.  One game was played in the NBA: The Detroit Pistons beat the Chicago Zephyrs, 109-100 -- but not in either team's home city. Rather, this game was played at the Baltimore Civic Center (now named the CFG Bank Arena). Walt Bellamy scored 36 points.

The failing Zephyrs franchise got the message, and moved the next season, becoming the Baltimore Bullets. They moved to Washington in 1973, and became the Washington Wizards in 1997.

November 29, 1945: "The Lost Weekend" Premieres

November 29, 1945: The Lost Weekend premieres, based on the novel by Charles R. Jackson, and directed by Billy Wilder. It is Hollywood's classic portrayal of alcoholism. And the title is a little misleading: Although it wraps around a weekend, it runs from Thursday afternoon to Tuesday morning, so The Lost Week might have been a better title.

Ray Milland plays Don Birnam, an alcoholic writer from New York, preparing for a weekend vacation with his brother Wick. Jane Wyman plays his girlfriend, Helen. He goes out for a drink, but, as so often happens, one drink becomes many, and he misses the train for his vacation.

Don tells Helen that he's 2 different people: "Don the Writer" and "Don the Drunk." He's lying, both to her and to himself, proving it by pawning his typewriter on Saturday so he can buy more booze. He wakes up in the alcoholics' ward of a hospital on Sunday. On Monday, he falls victim to delirium tremens, a.k.a. "The D.T.'s." His screams alert a neighbor, who calls Helen, who nurses him through the night. He commits to being Don the Writer, and begins to write his novel based on the events of the "weekend."

Milland won the Academy Award for Best Actor, preceding Richard Burton as the 1st actor from Wales to win one. He later appeared in Dial M for Murder and Love Story, directed for television, and became one of TV's finest character actors. He died in 1986, as a result of substance abuse -- not alcohol, but tobacco.

Wyman later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Johnny Belinda. She was married to Ronald Reagan from 1940 to 1949, and was the mother of his daughter Maureen. Together, they adopted a son, Michael. She was already a Republican, so his political switch, from liberal to conservative, was not one of the reasons they split. She later remarried, and starred on the TV series Falcon Crest. She lived until 2007.

*

November 29, 1945 was a Thursday. Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. No games were scheduled for the NHL.

There were 2 games in college football. Number 10 Texas beat their arch-rivals, Texas A&M, 20-10 at Kyle Field in College Station. And the University of Chattanooga (now the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) beat the University of Mississippi (a.k.a. Ole Miss), 31-6 at Chamberlain Field in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

November 26, 1942: "Casablanca" Premieres

November 26, 1942: Casablanca premieres at the Hollywood Theatre -- not in the Hollywood section, or any other section, of Los Angeles, but in New York. It is the greatest movie of all time.

No, Gone with the Wind is not the greatest. Nor is Citizen Kane. Nor is The Godfather. Nor is Star Wars (and certainly not The Empire Strikes Back).

Casablanca was based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, a play written in 1940 by Murray Burnett and Joan Allson, but not yet staged. It was written after the writers had visited Vienna in 1938, and saw what the Nazis were doing, including the refugee situation they were creating. They couldn't get anyone to produce the play, and sold it to the Warner Brothers film studio for $20,000 -- about $354,000 in today's money.

So the play was re-written by twin brothers Julius and Philip Epstein, and Howard Koch. (Philip's grandson is baseball executive Theo Epstein.) All 3 were Jewish New Yorkers.

The director was Michael Curtiz, a Hungarian Jew, although not a refugee: He came to America in 1926 because the Warner Brothers had been impressed with his work in the film industry in Germany's interwar Weimar Republic. He directed Errol Flynn in Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood. He directed James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He directed both Cagney and Humphrey Bogart in Angels with Dirty Faces. And he would later direct Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White Christmas. So he was equally at home with adventure films and musicals, and Casablanca has elements of both.

Casablanca is set in December 1941, apparently just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in Casablanca, in French-controlled Morocco -- or, as Captain Renault called it, "Unoccupied France." In the film, as in real life, it was a link in a chain of refugee ports. People would flee their various European homelands as they were taken over by the Nazis, and arrive in North Africa.

The example cited at the beginning of the film: French people would take the train from the capital of Paris to the port city of Marseille; then a ferry across the Mediterranean Sea to Oran, in Algeria, then controlled by France; then, any way they could across the North African desert, on foot if they had to, to Casablanca.

From there, they would try to obtain an exit visa, or a letter of transit, to get on a plane from Casablanca to Lisbon, Portugal. (Like neighboring Spain, Portugal then had a fascist government; but, also like Spain, they were neutral in World War II, not aiding the Nazis, and did not turn refugees over to them.) And from Lisbon, they would get on a transport ship to America. But if they couldn't get an exit visa or a letter of transit, they were stuck in Casablanca, to be preyed upon by the city's price-gougers and con artists.

The major characters:

* Humphrey Bogart plays Rick Blaine, a New York native who, for a reason the film never reveals, cannot return to America. Although he says he is neutral in the war, Captain Renault reveals that Rick aided both Ethiopia when invaded by Fascist Italy in 1935, and the Spanish Republic when the Fascists started the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Rick says he got paid handsomely both times. Renault reminds him that the winning side would have paid him more, and accuses him of secretly being a sentimentalist.

Rick runs what he calls "a saloon," but is also a casino. He does well, and is respected by the refugees, some of whom he employs, one of whom is his girlfriend. But he is also willing to allow Nazi officials inside. He receives 2 letters of transit for safekeeping, because the man who had them had killed 2 Nazi officers to get them, and is soon himself arrested and killed in custody.

* Arthur "Dooley" Wilson plays Sam (his last name is never revealed), Rick's piano player, who had been with him in Paris as well. Although Sam is black, and calls Rick "Boss" to his face and "Mr. Rick" to others, Rick treats him as a friend, and trusts him completely -- to the point where he hides the letters of transit in Sam's piano. In real life, Wilson was a drummer, and had never played piano before, so he had to fake playing it. Elliot Carpenter played the piano for the soundtrack. He and Wilson were the only black people on the film's set.

* Claude Rains, an English actor, plays Captain Louis Renault, police prefect of Casablanca. He tries to stay out of politics: "I blow with the prevailing wind, and the prevailing wind is from Vichy." Meaning the Nazi-dominated new French government. He is the man who must decide whether to approve exit visas from the city, and, with women, is not above trading the exit visas for sex  -- something the film can only imply, due to the Hays Code. But Rick says Louis always keeps his word. And there have been times when Louis has had to close Rick's saloon, and Rick has had to bribe him to reopen it.

* Ingrid Bergman, a Swedish actress, plays Ilsa Lund, a Norwegian woman with a flair for languages. In a flashback sequence, we see Rick and Ilsa in love in Paris. He asks her why she is not already married. She says she was, but that her husband is dead. As the Nazis arrive in June 1940, they have to flee. At the last minute, just as Rick and Sam are to board the last train out of Paris to Marseille, Sam hands Rick a note from Ilsa: She can't come with him. 

* Paul Heinreid, an Austrian actor, plays Victor Laszlo, a Czech resistance fighter, who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp, and is trying to reach America. He is Ilsa's husband, who had not been killed after all. And they show up at Rick's together.

* Conrad Veidt, a German actor with a Jewish wife, who rather enjoyed playing Nazis in order to make them look bad, plays Major Heinrich Strasser, the Nazi officer pursuing Laszlo.

Laszlo has been promised the letters of transit, to use for himself and Ilsa. Renault finds out that Rick and Ilsa used to be an item, and bets Rick 10,000 francs that he'll end up using the letters for himself and Ilsa, stealing Laszlo's wife and leaving him to the wolves.

Rick has a plan, which includes selling his casino to a rival, Signor Ferrari, played by British actor Sydney Greenstreet, with the promise to keep all his employees, including Sam, on at the same salary. In order for his plan to work, he has to let Renault -- and Ilsa -- think that Renault's prediction that he will sell Victor out is exactly what he's doing.

But when they get to the airport -- filmed at the Van Nuys airport outside Los Angeles, the only scene not filmed on a Hollywood soundstage -- Rick gives Laszlo the letters, and reveals that he's no longer neutral: He's on the Allies' side.

He then tells Ilsa to go with Victor, with the famous speech: "If that plane leaves the ground, and you're not on it, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life." She asks, "But what about us?" He says, "We'll always have Paris." And he closes by giving her the toast he used to deliver there: "Here's looking at you, kid."

As the plane is taxiing down the runway with the Laszlos aboard, Strasser arrives. He gets on the phone to air-traffic control to try to stop the plane. He and Rick shoot at each other, but, as Han Solo would in Star Wars, 35 years later, Rick shoots first, and kills him.

Renault discovers/recovers his patriotism as well, and covers for Rick, and tells him that the 10,000 francs he owes Rick will cover their escape expenses. As they walk off, not into a sunset like Western movie heroes but into a fog, the same fog into which the plane disappeared, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

(UPDATE: In 2026, for the website Nofilmschool.com, Jason Hellerman reminded us that, when the film was released, not only was The War -- as my grandmother, 18 at the time of its release, taught me, always Capital T, Capital W -- still underway, but nobody yet knew how it would end. In November 1942, in all theaters of operations, the Axis was winning. Hellerman wrote: "I can picture audiences sitting in the dark while World War II raged, hearing words that perfectly captured the exhausting, morally gray reality of a world on fire." And he had a point: Nobody in the movie was all good, not even Ilsa. But, in the end, the people who had to do the right thing did it. Hellerman added, "They had to feel ignited by this movie and its message.")

The 10,000 francs that Rick and Louis had bet? In December 1941, that was worth considerably less than it sounds to current American ears: About $214, or about $4,200 today, 80 years later. Still not an amount you want to lose, if only for pride. In current French money? 3,965 euros.

For the record: Ilsa tells Sam, "Play it, Sam, for old times' sake. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" Later, Rick tells Sam, "You played it for her, you can play it for me. If she can take it, I can. Play it." He never says, "Play it again, Sam."

There was an urban legend that Ronald Reagan, then a rising star in Hollywood, was the original choice to play Rick. It wasn't true, and it probably came about due to the facts that Reagan went on to become President, and "casa blanca" is Spanish for "white house."

It would take until 1991 for Everybody Comes to Rick's to be staged, as written, anywhere in the world, in London, running for 6 weeks. That same year, the Hollywood Theatre in New York, having long since become the Mark Hellinger Theatre, became the new home of the Times Square Church. The address is 237 West 51st Street.

Given how much the characters smoked and drank in the movie, it's enough to make a viewer wonder how any of them survived to see the end of the war. Indeed, Conrad Veidt had a bad heart, and died in 1943, only 50 years old, 2 years and a few days short of V-E Day.

Humphrey Bogart also smoked himself to death, dying in 1957. He was preceded in death by Dooley Wilson, who died in 1953 from an undisclosed long-term illness. Sydney Greenstreet, who played secondary character Ferrari, and co-starred with Bogart in several films, most notably The Maltese Falcon, was well overweight, and died in 1954. Peter Lorre, who played Ugarte, the man who gave Rick the letters of transit, and who was also in The Maltese Falcon, died in 1964, which pretty much buried a plan to film a live-action version of The Lord of the Rings, with Lorre playing Gollum.

Claude Rains lived until 1967, Ingrid Bergman until 1982, and Paul Heinreid made it to 1992. The last living actor from Casablanca was Madeleine Lebeau, who played Yvonne, who starts the film as Rick's girlfriend and ends it as the French refugee who had tearfully sung along with Laszlo's leading of "La Marseillaise." She left us on May 1, 2016.

On March 18, 2021, following the premiere of his version of Justice League, I wrote on Facebook: "If Zack Snyder had directed Casablanca, Major Strasser would have flown the plane that dropped The Bomb on New York. If Joss Whedon had directed Casablanca, Strasser would have captured Ilsa and ordered her to strip."

A friend responded: "If Terence Malick directed, the entire thing would have been narrated in voiceover by Bogie, but filmed with him walking constantly with a Steadicam camera DIRECTLY BEHIND HIS HEAD. Intercut with shots of an empty airport field."

I suppose if Quentin Tarantino had directed it, there would have been a massive shootout at the airport, and the movie would have ended with Victor massaging Ilsa's feet on the plane.

*

November 26, 1942 was a Thursday. In America, it was Thanksgiving Day. What was actually going on in Casablanca at the time? Two weeks earlier, the Allies launched Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa -- in a manner of speaking, World War II's 1st "D-Day."

Among the Allied troops was the U.S. Third Army, commanded by General George S. Patton. Among those under his command was Sergeant George Goldberg, who later changed his name to George Golden, so his wife wouldn't have to deal with the anti-Semitism that he faced. He hated war, but he hated the Nazis as much as they hated the Jews. So he found himself a non-combat role, but a critical one: He was an Army stenographer, vital in getting communications through.

He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant, came home, and became a commercial photographer, a New York taxi driver, a husband, a father, and a grandfather -- my grandfather.

The NFL didn't play games on Thanksgiving during World War II. But many college games were played:

* Virginia Tech played, but not against the University of Virginia: The Cavaliers had already finished their season the preceding Saturday. UVa and VT (or VPI, as Virginia Polytechnic Institute was then usually called ) did play on a holiday, but it was Halloween, and Tech won. On Thanksgiving, Tech played the Virginia Military Institute, beating them 20-6 at Victory Stadium in Roanoke.

* Elsewhere in Virginia, the College of William & Mary, ranked Number 19 beat the University of Richmond, 10-0 at City Stadium in Richmond.

* Wake Forest beat South Carolina, 33-14 on more or less neutral ground at American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.

* Louisiana State beat arch-rival Tulane, 18-6 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

* Missouri beat arch-rival Kansas, 42-13 at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Missouri.

* The University of Tulsa came in ranked Number 6, and beat Arkansas, 40-7 at Skelly Field in Tulsa. They rose to Number 4, before losing the Sugar Bowl to Tennessee.

* Number 18 Texas beat Texas A&M, 12-6 at Memorial Stadium in Austin.

* The University of Cincinnati beat arch-rival Miami University of Oxford, Ohio, 21-12 at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati. 

* In those days, Colorado had a major rival, but it wasn't Colorado State or Nebraska. It was the University of Denver. On Thanksgiving Day 1942, Colorado beat Denver, 31-6 at DU Stadium in Denver. That stadium hosted the DU program from 1926 until its suspension in 1960, and also hosted home games for the Air Force Academy from 1955 to 1961, and 1 home game for the Denver Broncos in their expansion season of 1960. It was torn down in 1971.

* Also in the Rocky Mountains, the University of Utah beats the University of Idaho, 13-7 at Ute Stadium in Salt Lake City.

However, most teams, including Rutgers, had already finished their seasons the preceding Saturday. Most of those that didn't played the following Saturday, including Notre Dame, who beat USC in Los Angeles; and Boston College, who blew a shot at the National Championship by getting clobbered by their arch-rivals in that era, Holy Cross. But that led to the cancellation of a victory party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, which caught fire and killed nearly 500 people.

Baseball was out of season, and there was no NBA yet. But there was NHL action, with four of the "Original Six" in action. It's worth noting that Canada does have a holiday named Thanksgiving Day, but it's in mid-October. For that reason, the NHL's 2 Canadian teams, the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, saw no reason to play on the day.

The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. And the New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium. The Ranger goals are scored by Lynn Patrick, son of general manager Lester Patrick; and Clint Smith, who lived until 2009, thus making him the last survivor of not just this game, but of the Rangers' 1940 Stanley Cup winners. 

November 21, 1946: “The Best Years of Our Lives” Premieres

Harold Russell

November 21, 1946: The Best Years of Our Lives premieres, directed by William Wyler. Many a film has looked at war. This was the first great film to look at what happens when the war is over.

The film features 3 veterans returning from World War II to the fictional Midwestern town of Boone City. Fredric March (nearly 50 years old, and too old for the role) is Army Technical Sergeant Al Stephenson, married to Milly, played by Myrna Loy. (As they said in those days, "Hubba hubba.") Dana Andrews is U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier Captain Fred Derry, married to Marie, played by Virginia Mayo. And Harold Russell is Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Homer Parrish, who, before the war, had intended to marry Wilma Cameron, played by Cathy O'Donnell.

Russell had lost both of his hands while serving in The War -- as my grandmother put it, always Capital T, Capital W -- and while his character of Homer has adjusted to the hooks that served as prosthetic hands in those days, he is sure Wilma won't want to marry him now. Al was a bank officer, but has fallen victim to alcoholism. And Fred has flashbacks, due to what was then called "battle fatigue," but is now usually called "post-traumatic stress disorder" or "PTSD." But, because this is 1940s Hollywood, all 3 men get a happy ending.

Composer Hoagy Carmichael played Homer's uncle. Drummer Gene Krupa, singer Tennessee Ernie Ford, future director Blake Edwards, and Wyler's daughters Catherine and Judy all appeared, uncredited.

The Best Years of Our Lives was the highest-grossing film of the 1940s. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, winning 7, including Best Picture, Best Director for Wyler, Best Actor for March, Best Supporting Actor for Russell (and it was legit, not just a nod to his disability>

Cathy O'Donnell died of cancer in 1970, only 47 years old. March died in 1975, Wyler and Carmichael in 1981, Andrews in 1992, Loy in 1993, Russell in 2002, and Mayo in 2005 (as did Teresa Wright, whose character also figures into the plot).

*

November 21, 1946 was a Thursday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 3 games played in the brand-new Basketball Association of America, the league that became the NBA 3 years later:

* The St. Louis Bombers beat the Boston Celtics, 65-53 at the Boston Garden.

* The Washington Capitols beat the Providence Steam Rollers, 66-58 at the Rhode Island Auditorium in Providence.

* And the Chicago Stags beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 65-63 at the Philadelphia Arena.

And there was 1 game played in the NHL: The Detroit Red Wings beat the New York Rangers, 3-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

November 20, 1976: "Rocky" Premieres

Sylvester Stallone and Talia Shire

November 20, 1976: The film Rocky premieres -- and the fact that it hit movie screens at all is as much of an underdog story as the story it tells.

Sylvester Stallone, a struggling actor, wrote the screenplay in 3 days in March 1975. It entered a complicated production process after Stallone refused to allow the film to be made without him in the lead role. United Artists eventually agreed to cast Stallone after he rejected a six-figure ($100,000 or more) deal for the film rights.

Principal photography began in January 1976, with filming primarily held in Philadelphia. Several locations featured in the film are now considered cultural landmarks. When Stallone ran up the 72 steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, they became known as the Rocky Steps. With an estimated production budget of under $1 million, Rocky popularized the "rags to riches" and "American Dream" themes of sports dramas which preceded it.

The film begins in November 1975, and Apollo Creed (played by former NFL player Carl Weathers), the Heavyweight Champion of this fictional world, is preparing to begin 1976, America's Bicentennial year, with a fight in the country's founding city, Philadelphia, on New Year's Day. (In real life, that year, Philly hosted the MLB, NBA and NHL All-Star Games, and the NCAA Final Four, but not a Heavyweight Championship Fight.)

The intended opponent has to back out due to an injury. Every other major contender is unavailable. Apollo decides to hire a local challenger, just so the investment in setting up the fight can pay off. The choice is Robert "Rocky" Balboa, of Italian descent, lefthanded, and with a pedestrian record, mostly in small gyms. Offered $150,000 -- $816,000 in 2022 money -- he accepts.

He begins training with Mickey Goldmill (Burgess Meredith), a Jewish boxer in the 1920s who became a trainer. Rocky's unusual training methods include punching sides of beef in a meat locker, drinking raw eggs, and running round the city, including up the 72 steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art -- which, at the end of Rocky V, he admits to his son Rocky Jr. (then played by Sly's real-life son, Sage Stallone), he'd never been inside.

Rocky's best friend is Paulie Pennino (Burt Young), and he begins to date Paulie's sister, Adrian (Talia Shire -- making Rocky lucky that he wasn't dating the character Shire was previously best known for, because her brother was Michael Corleone, The Godfather). Rocky and Mickey take Paulie on as a cornerman for the fight. Rocky tells Adrian he doesn't think he can win, but that his real goal is to go the full 15 rounds with Apollo, something no fighter has yet done.

New Year's Day arrives, and the fight is held at The Spectrum. (Although most of the movie was filmed in Philadelphia, the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena stood in for the home of the NBA's 76ers and the NHL's Flyers.) Before the fight, Joe Frazier, former Heavyweight Champion (1968-73), who lived his adult life in Philadelphia and opened a renowned boxing gym there, is introduced, playing himself. This indicates that he existed in the film’s universe, possibly as the champion immediately before Apollo, whose braggadocio and style were meant to evoke Muhammad Ali, if an overtly patriotic one who would never have dodged the draft. Which begs the question: Did Ali exist in those films? If so, did he never get the title back?

To everyone's shock, a left hook from Rocky knocks Apollo down, the 1st knockdown of his career. More stunned than hurt, he realizes that this apparent "tomato can" is serious, and he starts pounding him, winning the round anyway. Afterward, his trainer, Duke Evers (Tony Burton) tells Apollo what he already knows: "He doesn't know it's a damn show! He thinks it's a damn fight!"

The fight is hard. After the 14th round, Rocky's eye is swollen, and he can't see out of it. In a scene I've always found hard to watch, he says, "Cut me, Mick, cut me," and Mickey cuts his eyelid open with a razor, a wound that will have to be surgically repaired.

At the same time, in a moment reminiscent of Frazier and Eddie Futch at this point in the Thrilla in Manila, 3 months before this in real life, Duke (whom we learn in Rocky IV essentially raised him) tells Apollo, "Champ, you're bleedin' inside. I'm gonna stop the fight." Apollo says, "You ain't stoppin' nothin'!" Rocky is equally determined to finish, telling Mickey, "You stop this fight, and I'll kill you!"

Somehow, both survive the 15th round, and they are practically holding each other up at the final bell. Apollo says, "There ain't gonna be no rematch!" Rocky says, "Don't want one!"

Paulie distracts security, so that Adrian can get into the ring. Just as impressionists do Marlon Brando yelling, "Stella!" in A Streetcar Named Desire, impressionists always copy Stallone by yelling, "Adrian!" (Sure enough, film critic Roger Ebert, giving the film 4 stars, said that Stallone reminded him of the young Brando.) They embrace in the ring.

Rocky got what he wanted: The girl, and the respect, including the self-respect, that came from going the distance with the greatest boxer in the world. The audience can be excused for missing the announcement of a split decision in Apollo's favor, as the music composed by Bill Conti reaches its crescendo and the film ends.

The film was a smash, becoming beloved, especially by Italian-Americans, and has become regarded as the ultimate "sports underdog movie." It was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including acting nominations for Stallone, Shire, Meredith and Young. None won. The film won 3: Best Picture, Best Director for John G. Avildsen, and Best Film Editing (although boxing experts have called the staging of the fights in the Rocky films unrealistic). Conti and lyricists Carol Connors and Ayn Robbins were nominated for Best Original Song for the film's theme, "Gonna Fly Now," which hit Number 1 early in 1977.

Tourists in Philadelphia began running up the Art Museum steps, and posing with their arms raised like Rocky when they got to the top. They sought out other locations from the movie, including the Italian Market, centered on South 9th Street. (The rowhouse containing Rocky's apartment is not, however, in South Philadelphia: It's at 1898 East Tusculum Street, in the Kensington Section of Northeast Philly.)

But some fans couldn't handle the fact that Rocky lost in the end. So there had to be a sequel. Rocky II was released in 1979, and showed Rocky and Adrian's wedding, and Adrian nearly dying giving birth to Rocky Jr. The rematch, on Thanksgiving 1976, also went 15 harsh rounds, and they knocked each other down. Rocky got up at the count of 9, Apollo didn't. Rocky was the Champion.

Rocky III, in 1982, featured a twist: Both boxers from the 1st 2 films needed redemption. In the opening credits, Rocky is shown successfully defending his title 10 times. But none of them are as good as James "Clubber" Lang, played by Mr. T, a Chicago brawler who has become the Number 1 contender. Mickey doesn't want Rocky fighting Clubber. Rocky says it will be his last fight. Clubber knocks him out in the 2nd round, and Mickey dies of a heart attack.

At his lowest ebb, Rocky is approached by Apollo, who claims that Rocky has lost "the eye of the tiger." (A song by the band Survivor, "Eye of the Tiger," serves as the film's theme song, and hit Number 1 in 1983.) Apollo takes Rocky and Paulie to his old stomping grounds, the Watts ghetto of Los Angeles, and trains him Creed-style, until Rocky is more than ready for the rematch at Madison Square Garden on New Year's Day 1982.

Wearing Apollo's famed star-spangled boxing trunks, he fights like Apollo: He dodges punches instead of his usual tactics of simply taking them and showing how tough he is, dances around the ring, and taunts his opponent. Clubber's anger gets the better of him, and Rocky knocks him out in the 3rd round.

For this film, a statue of Rocky was commissioned, and places on the Art Museum steps. It was later moved to The Spectrum, but after that arena closed in 2010, instead of being moved across the street to its replacement, the Wells Fargo Center, it was moved back to the Art Museum, where it remains.

Rocky IV was released in 1985, at a rather chilly moment in the Cold War. Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) is the 1st Soviet professional boxer. He wants to fight Rocky, but Rocky is done. Apollo, great patriotic American that he is, steps in, and they fight in Las Vegas. But the steroided-up Drago literally kills Apollo in the 2nd round.

Rocky agrees to avenge his friend, and a fight with Drago is set for Christmas Day in Moscow. (The Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver stood in as the arena.) Rocky, Paulie and Duke (and, eventually, Adrian) train in Siberia, old-school, while Drago has the best training that 1980s Soviet technology can offer. And the Moscow crowd is totally behind Drago, with a Mikhail Gorbachev lookalike and various Red Army generals in the stands. And Drago is in his prime, while Rocky is nearly 40 years old. He has had no advantages whatsoever: The king of the underdogs has never been this much of an underdog before.

It looks like the fight will be no contest, but in the 2nd round, Rocky launches a punch that cuts Apollo. Duke tells him, "You see? He's not a machine! He's a man!" The implication is, a man can be beaten. As the fight goes on, Drago is way ahead on points, but Rocky has bloodied him a bit. The Soviet crowd, seeing Rocky's courage, begins to chant his name. Finally, in the 15th round, his face a pulp, and his vision again affected -- he tells Paulie, "I see three of him," and Paulie, as if addressing a drunk, says, "Hit the one in the middle" -- Rocky knocks Drago out.

After the fight, he addresses the crowd. He says that two men trying to kill each other is better than 20 million trying to do it. The crowd saw the humanity in him, and he saw it in them. He tells them, "If I can change... and you can change... everybody can change!" As the translation to Russian hits the crowd, they cheer one more time.

That should have been the end of the story. (Indeed, the original plan was for Rocky to win, then die, and close with Adrian giving a speech at the funeral.) But Stallone couldn't resist the desire for another story, or the money that would come with it. Rocky V, released in 1990, is a film that not all "Ring Cycle" fans agree should be considered canon, and it's regarded as the worst film in the series.

It begins right after the Drago fight, and Rocky can't stop his hands from shaking. When he gets back, its shown that Drago's punches didn't kill him, but did inflict brain damage. And a crooked account zapped Rocky's finances, so he has to move out of his Main Line mansion back to the old neighborhood. Rocky and Adrian are used to this, but Rocky Jr. has only known being rich, and he's not prepared to face city kids. His father teaches him some pointers, and he wins a fight, and is okay from there.

Rocky starts running Mickey's old gym, where he trains Tommy "The Machine" Gunn (played by real-life boxer Tommy Morrison). Union Cane (Michael Anthony Williams) wins the title vacated by Rocky's retirement. He is guided by promoter George Washington Duke. (He should not be confused with Apollo's trainer Duke Evers. He is played by Richard Gant, as an obvious parody of real-life promoter Don King).

Gunn rises through the ranks, and Duke signs him to a contract. Rocky is depressed, telling Adrian that training Gunn gave him new purpose, but Adrian tells him that Gunn never had his heart, and that's something that can't be taught. Sure enough, when Gunn beats Cane for the title, he walks right past Rocky, and gives all the credit to Duke at the press conference.

The public turns on Gunn, saying that he's not a "real champion," because Cane wasn't, because he didn't beat the champ (Rocky). Gunn and Duke know they have to have a fight with Rocky, so they go to the bar with a TV crew, and challenge Rocky on the spot. Rocky refuses. They keep taunting him, Paulie tells them to get lost, and Gunn sucker-punches Paulie, knocking him out.

Seeing this, Rocky challenges Gunn to a fight -- not with sanctioning and rules and promotions, but right outside, in the street. That's not what Duke wants, as he can't make any money off of it, but Gunn is fine with it: He knows the cameras will record it, and people will see him beat Rocky, and know who the real Champion is.

Unusually, Rocky has the upper hand at first. Gunn steps up his game, and knocks Rocky down. The force of the punches, and the brain damage he's suffered, making him think he's being hit by Lang and Drago. But it also causes him to hallucinate seeing Mickey, which spurs him to get up. With the crowd, including his wife, son and brother-in-law watching, Rocky knocks Gunn out. He then comes face-to-face with Duke, and looks like he wants to punch him. Duke says, "Come on, pug: Touch me, and I'll sue." Rocky punches him, and says, "Sue me for what?"

That should have been the end. He'd fought a champion. He'd fought a scarier one. He'd fought a scarier one still. He'd defeated the greatest opponent a man could ever face: His own self-doubt -- many times over. The story should have ended there. When I heard that a Rocky VI was in the works, I asked, "Who's he fighting next, Godzilla?" As it turns out, the opponent was one that eventually beats us all: Father Time.

Rocky Balboa -- no Roman numeral -- was released in 2006. Rocky seems to be fully recovered, at least physically, from the trauma he suffered against Drago. He runs a restaurant, named Adrian's. Unfortunately, the reason he named it after his wife is that Adrian had died. (Shire didn't want to do another Rocky movie.) Rocky Jr. (now played by Milo Ventimiglia), now going by his given name Robert, is a lawyer, and he and his father don't see eye-to-eye. He and Paulie both accuse Rocky of living in the past.

The current Heavyweight Champion of the World is Mason "The Line" Dixon (Antonio Tarver, then the real-life Light Heavyweight Champion). He's undefeated, but hardly undisputed: He's been accused of never having fought a true contender. To bruise his ego further, ESPN broadcasts a computer simulation of a fight between Dixon and prime Rocky (something to which neither fighter agreed), and Rocky wins by knockout.

Rocky sees this, and, despite being 60 years old, renews his boxing license, and starts training again. Hearing this, Dixon's promoters suggest a charity exhibition fight in Las Vegas. Concerned for his father's well-being, Robert seeks him out, and they reconcile over Adrian's grave. Duke Evers returns to train Rocky, making him stronger than ever despite being more than middle-aged.

In the fight, Dixon dominates at first, but injures his left hand in the 2nd round. Rocky knocks him down. The fight continues, intended for 10 rounds, and going that far. A microphone picks up Rocky calling Dixon "a great champion." Rocky's last fight ends the way his first fight for the title did: With his belief in himself renewed, and a standing ovation from the crowd, but with his opponent winning a split decision. Unlike Apollo, however, Dixon's reputation grows.

Okay, so that was the end of it, right? I mean, who's left for Rocky to face? Godzilla? Aliens? Does he travel to our world, and face Muhammad Ali? Does he fight Superman, like Ali once did in a comic book?

Creed premiered in 2015. Michael B. Jordan played Adonis "Donnie" Creed, son of Apollo. Rocky trains him, along with Tony Evers Jr., Duke's son, a.k.a. "Little Duke" (Wood Harris). The elder Duke and Paulie have since died (though Tony Burton and Burt Young had not yet), and Robert does not appear in the film. And Rocky fights the deadliest, most heartless opponent of all: Cancer.

Donnie fights the Light Heavyweight Champion, a British boxer named "Pretty" Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew), in Conlan's hometown of Liverpool, at Goodison Park, home of soccer team Everton F.C. As with Balboa-Creed I, the title character loses a split decision to the Champion, but gains the respect of the world. At the end, his treatment working, a weakened Rocky is led up the Art Museum steps by Donnie.

Creed II was released in 2018. Still trained by Rocky and Little Duke, Donnie wins the Heavyweight Championship, and marries his girlfriend, singer Bianca Taylor (Tessa Thompson, who was in the previous film).

Drago returns. I had always wondered what happened to him after losing: Did the country, both its people and his government, turn on him? His wife, Ludmilla, a former Olympic swimmer (Brigitte Nielson -- Stallone's real-life girlfriend at the time of Rocky IV), sure did: She divorced him, and Drago has been raising their son Viktor alone, in the Ukraine, holding modest jobs while training Viktor (Florian Munteanu) to become a boxer.

Donnie can't resist the challenge from the son of the man who killed his father. Viktor badly injures him, inflicting kidney damage, but is disqualified for punching Adonis while he is already down. As in the previous generation, the rematch is held in Moscow, and, never having gone beyond 4 rounds before, the younger Drago can't handle it. In the 10th round, behind on points, Donnie knocks Viktor down twice, and looks like he might really hurt him. Ivan throws in the towel, hugs his son, and tells him he's proud of him.

Father and son both get their redemption moment. Inspired by this, Rocky, again estranged from Robert, again makes peace with him, and meets his grandson, Logan. The film closes with Adonis, Bianca, and their infant daughter Amara at Apollo's grave.

So, that's it, right? No: Creed III is scheduled to be released in early 2023. And Stallone has talked about a Rocky prequel, showing his rise, which makes no sense, since Rocky didn't have a rise: He went straight from street-level boxer to a title shot. Pretty much the only loose thread left is Clubber Lang: Does he, like Ivan Drago, train a son as part of a redemption arc? Does Donnie have to fight Clubber Jr.? So far, Mr. T has refused to appear in any more Rocky films. If they recast the part of Clubber, as Mr. T (both in character and out) would say, I pity the fool who has to take up the iconic role.

Burgess Meredith died in 1997, Tommy Morrison (from AIDS) in 2013, Tony Burton in 2016, and the 1st film's director, John G. Avildsen, in 2017. As of November 20, 2022, pretty much everybody else of consequence in the Rocky films is still alive, including Talia Shire, Burt Young and Carl Weathers, whose characters are said to have died.

UPDATE: Young died in 2023, Weathers in 2024. Creed III was released on schedule, with Michael B. Jordan not only starring, but directing. It was the 1st film in the Rocky series in which Stallone did not appear. Donnie has avenged his defeat to Conlan, and retired, running his father's old L.A. gym with Little Duke. He is training the new Champion, Felix Chavez, nicknamed "El Guerrero," "The Warrior" (former Welterweight Champion José Luis Benavidez Jr.) for a fight against Viktor Drago.

Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors), an old friend of Donnie's, and a former Golden Gloves Champion, has just gotten out of prison. He hires a former fellow inmate to attack Viktor, sidelining him for the fight (something Donnie learns too late), and manipulates Donnie into giving him a title shot against Felix. "Dame" gets away with using dirty tactics, and wins the fight, and then publicly smears Donnie.

Bianca convinces Donnie to come out of retirement, and teach Dame a lesson. "The Battle of Los Angeles" is fought at Dodger Stadium, and Donnie is knocked down in the last round, barely getting up in time, before he knocks Dame out. They reconcile after the fight.

Creed III was a box-office success, and a Creed IV was announced. Come on, Mr. T: One more time. Have some fun in your old age.

*

November 20, 1976 was a Saturday. Olympic Gold Medal-winning gymnast Dominique Dawes was born. This was also the day that Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post, and baseball pitcher Wayne Garland received a contract he couldn't live up to. I have separate entries for those events.

Baseball was out of season. It was a college football day. Among the games played that day were these:

* Number 1 University of Pittsburgh and Number 16 Penn State had the week off, to prepare for each other as arch-rivals the next week. Pitt won, 24-7 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* Rivalry: Number 2 UCLA lost to Number 3 USC, 24-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. USC thus clinched the Pacific-Eight Conference title. They ended up beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl, then waited to see if Pitt lost the Sugar Bowl, which would have given USC the National Championship.

* Rivalry: Number 4 Michigan beat Number 8 Ohio State, 22-0 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, to clinch the Big Ten Conference title.

* Number 5 Texas Tech were upset by Number 9 University of Houston, 27-19 at Jones Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. This gave UH the Southwest Conference title.

* Rivalry: Number 6 Maryland beat Virginia, 28-0 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia. This clinched the Atlantic Coast Conference title. Maryland received a bid to the Cotton Bowl, where Houston beat them.

* Number 7 Georgia had the week off, to prepare for arch-rival Georgia Tech the next week. They won, 13-10 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. Having already won the Southeastern Conference title, they advanced to the Sugar Bowl, but lost to Pitt, who clinched an undefeated season and the National Championship.

* Number 11 Texas A&M beat Texas Christian University (TCU), 59-10 at Kyle Field in College Station.

* Number 13 Notre Dame beat the University of Miami, 40-27 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. This was not one of the more memorable games between those schools.

* Number 15 Colorado beat Kansas State, 35-28 at KSU Stadium (now Bill Snyder Family Stadium) in Manhattan, Kansas. This clinched the Big Eight Conference title, and a berth in the Orange Bowl. This was the 1st season in which the Big 10 allowed any of its schools to go to a bowl game other than the Rose, and Ohio State beat Colorado.

* Number 16 Oklahoma State beat Number 14 Iowa State, 42-21 at Lewis Field (now Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

* Rivalry: Kansas upset Number 19 Missouri, 41-14 at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri.

* Army and Navy had the week off, preparing for each other as arch-rivals the next week (Navy won, 38-10 at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia); while Air Force beat Wyoming 41-21 at Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

* Rutgers also had the week off. Five days later, on Thanksgiving, they beat Colgate, 17-9 at the new Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, and completed an undefeated season, 11-0.

* Rivalry: Villanova beat Temple, 24-7 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* Rivalry: The University of Richmond beat William & Mary, 21-10 at City Stadium in Richmond, Virginia.

* Rivalry: North Carolina beat Duke, 39-38 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

* Rivalry: Clemson beat South Carolina, 28-9 at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina.

* Rivalry: Kentucky beat Tennessee, 7-0 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Rivalry: Mississippi State beat Mississippi (Ole Miss), 28-11 at Mississippi Memorial Stadium in Jackson.

* Rivalry: Louisiana State University (LSU) beat Tulane, 17-7 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Rivalry: Indiana beat Purdue, 20-14 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana, to win the Old Oaken Bucket.

* Rivalry: Illinois beat Northwestern, 48-6 at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois.

* Rivalry: Wisconsin beat Minnesota, 26-17 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

* Rivalry: Brigham Young University (BYU) beat Utah, 34-12 at Rice Stadium (later Rice-Eccles Stadium) in Salt Lake City, to win the Beehive Boot.

* Rivalry: Stanford beat the University of California, 27-24 at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley.

* Rivalry: Oregon beat Oregon State, 23-14 at Parker Stadium (now Reser Stadium) in Corvallis, Arkansas.

* Rivalry: Washington beat Washington State, 51-32 at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Washington.

There were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Denver Nuggets, 120-115 at Madison Square Garden. David Thompson scored 35 points in defeat.

* The Washington Bullets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 109-103 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 123-106 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Boston Celtics, 116-110 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Bob Lanier scored 40 points.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Kansas City Kings, 127-126 in overtime at The Summit in Houston. (It's now the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Joel Osteen's "megachurch.") Ron Boone scored 37 points in defeat.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Buffalo Braves, 130-93 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the St. Louis Blues, 3-1 at the St. Louis Arena.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Minnesota North Stars, 8-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Darryl Sittler, Dave "Tiger" Williams and Jack Valiquette each scored 2 goals.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 5-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* And the Buffalo Sabres beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And there were 3 games played in the World Hockey Association:

* The New England Whalers and the Minnesota Fighting Saints played to a tie, 3-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 8-4 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* And the Houston Aeros beat the Phoenix Roadrunners, 5-2 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

And in English soccer, Arsenal and Liverpool played to a 1-1 draw at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.

November 19, 1975: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" Premieres

November 19, 1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest premieres, directed by Miloš Forman, and based on the 1962 novel by Ken Kesey. Kesey himself hated the film.

Maybe the film's star, Jack Nicholson, had something to do with it. After all, in 1980, Stanley Kubrick directed a film version of Stephen King's The Shining, and cast Nicholson as the lead, and King hated it.

Shortly after its publication, the novel had been produced on Broadway, starring Kirk Douglas. Gene Wilder, not yet a star, played Billy Bibbitt. Ed Ames, already a star, 6-foot-3, and, despite being Jewish, dark-skinned enough to have played Native Americans before and after, played Chief Bromden.

Douglas held the film rights to it, but it remained stuck in "development hell." He allowed his son, actor Michael Douglas, to produce the film. Michael hired Hal Ashby to direct, but Ashby decided that Kirk was now too old to play the lead, and Michael backed him up on this. When Forman, Kirk's first choice to direct but stuck in Communist Czechoslovakia, escaped to America, Ashby gracefully stepped aside, but Forman also maintained that Kirk was too old. (He was just short of turning 59 when the film was released.)

Oddly, Michael Douglas would have been about the right age (31 when the film was released), but things were already strained between him and his father, so he stepped aside, and served as producer only. Gene Hackman (45) and Marlon Brando (51) were also too old for the role, but were offered it, anyway. So were James Caan and Burt Reynolds, who were age-appropriate (35 and 39, respectively). All 4 turned it down. Nicholson (38) accepted.

The title comes from a nursery rhyme read to Chief Bromden as a child by his grandmother, mentioned in the book:

Vintery, mintery, cutery corn,

Apple seed and apple thorn,

Wire, briar, limber lock,

Three geese in a flock.

One flew East, one flew West,

And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.

It was filmed in the exact same place that the book takes place, the Oregon State Hospital, in the State capital of Salem, although the building where most of the action takes place has since been torn down. (Kesey lived most of his life in Oregon, and had worked as an orderly in that hospital.) Since it's a psychiatric hospital, the patients are "cuckoo," hence, "cuckoo's nest."

The film takes place in 1963, a year after the novel was published. We know it's 1963 because, when Randle Patrick McMurphy, played by Nicholson, asks the other inmates to imagine they're watching the World Series on television, he says that Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers is pitching against the New York Yankees.

McMurphy is 38, and has been arrested for assault many times. This time, he is convicted of the statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. The film makes no effort to suggest that he was innocent. Let me make that clear: McMurphy is not the hero of the film, or any kind of hero.

He is sentenced to a State work farm, but wants to avoid hard labor. He pretends to be insane -- which, of course, is what Nicholson spent much of the 1970s and 1980s doing for a living, pretending to be insane -- so that he can be transferred to a psychiatric institution, and avoid hard labor. He would have been better off leaving well enough alone, and serving his sentence and doing the labor. Let me make this clear, as well: McMurphy was not as smart as he thought he was.

Louise Fletcher plays Mildred Ratched, the "Big Nurse" (big in power, not in physical size -- she's not especially tall, and not fat) who runs the ward. Like the character of Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on the TV show M*A*S*H, she was an Army nurse. Unlike Margaret, she let her wartime experience turn her into a cold, passive-aggressive tyrant. She maintains her World War II-era hairstyle, as Kesey pointed out in the book that "life had stopped for her a long time ago." (In real life, years later, he ran into the woman on whom he modeled the character, recalling, "She was much smaller than I remembered, and a whole lot more human.")

She holds near-absolute power over the patients' access to medications, privileges, and basic necessities such as food and toiletries. She capriciously revokes these privileges whenever a patient displeases her. She maintains order, keeping the patients from acting out, either through antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs, or her own brand of psychotherapy, which consists mostly of humiliating patients into doing her bidding. They are terrified of her, and, since the doctors and the hospital administrators value order, they let her get away with it all. Let's make one more thing clear: The 1960s were not a golden age for the treatment of mental health.

Among the actors playing patients are Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd, not yet stars, and later reunited in the cast of the TV sitcom Taxi. Will Sampson, a 6-foot-7 member of the Muscogee Nation, plays Chief Bromden, a very tall Native American who acts as though he is deaf and mute. Brad Dourif, later to be the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play franchise, plays Billy Bibbitt.

McMurphy quickly realizes that some of the patients don't really belong there, and wouldn't be if people had just taken more care with them, especially Billy. McMurphy and Ratched begin a war of wills, which leads to her decision to have him given electroconvulsive therapy. It doesn't work, and only makes him more defiant. That inspires the other inmates.

But they're still too scared to stand up to Ratched. Murphy says he'll pick up the hydrotherapy console and throw it out the window, breaking it, and allowing the inmates to escape. He can't, as it's too heavy. He tells them, "At least I tried!"

Bromden reveals to McMurphy that he can hear and speak. They plan to escape. But first, McMurphy gets a hold of the ward's phone, and makes arrangements for what he calls "a Christmas party." He brings a pair of prostitutes over, with bottles of booze.

The next morning, Ratched sees the ward is a mess, and sees Billy and a prostitute named Candy sleeping naked together. She verbally abuses Billy, as always. This time, he stands up to her, and even loses his stutter. But she has one more "fear card to play": She threatens to tell his mother. He goes back to fear and stuttering, and is taken to the office. Billy breaks some glass, and slits his throat with it, killing himself. Upon learning this, McMurphy blames Ratched, and lunges at her, and tries to strangle her to death, before the orderlies can pull him off her.

Time passes without McMurphy being seen, and rumor spreads that he has escaped -- leaving Bromden behind, breaking his promise that they would do it together. But McMurphy is brought back to his bed. He has been lobotomized, and is now "a vegetable." Ratched appears to have won the war.

But Ratched has suffered the consequences of the attack: She is wearing a neck brace, and her voice is only a whisper. And McMurphy has kept his promise to Bromden, although not in the way he had hoped. Bromden carries out a "mercy killing," smothering McMurphy with a pillow, and ending his suffering. Bromden is strong enough to lift the hydrotherapy machine, and to throw it through the window. He escapes. Ratched and the orderlies can't stop him. The other inmates cheer -- but don't follow him. 

Bromden is the hero of the film. But, since neither the book nor the film have ever had an authorized sequel, we have no idea of what will happen to him afterward: Maybe he'll truly escape, maybe he'll get caught; maybe he can now "make it" in the outside world, maybe he can't. Given this, and given what happened to every inmate but Bromden, it's arguable that Ratched is still "the winner." The "bad guy" wins -- barely.

Bromden narrates the book, which, unlike the film, details his background: He became a paranoid schizophrenic due to his World War II experiences, and his white mother committed him to embarrass his Native father.

Another big difference from the book: McMurphy is considerably less violent in the film, which treats him as more of a con man than a serious threat. And the fishing trip isn't McMurphy hijacking a hospital bus on a whim, taking the patients with him, doing the fishing, and then taking them back rather than making it a permanent escape. In the book, it's planned by the doctors, but Ratched attempts to sabotage it.

The film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, and swept the 5 major "Oscars": Best Picture for producer Michael Douglas, Best Director for Forman, Best Actor for Nicholson, Best Actress for Fletcher, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Laurence Hauben and Bo Goldman. The only other films to do that have been It Happened One Night in 1934 and The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

Michael Douglas would later win Best Actor in 1988, for Wall Street. His 2nd wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, would win Best Supporting Actress in 2003, for Chicago. Kirk Douglas was nominated for Best Actor 3 times, but never won an Oscar, in any capacity. Jack Nicholson has 12 acting nominations (only Meryl Streep, who's won 3 times out of 21 nominations, has more), and 3 wins: Along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, he won Best Supporting Actor in 1983, for Terms of Endearment; and a 2nd Best Actor in 1997, for As Good As It Gets.

Laurence Hauben died in 1985, Will Sampson in 1987, Kirk Douglas in 2016 (at the age of 103), Miloš Forman in 2018, and Louise Fletcher earlier in 2022. As of November 19, 2022, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Brad Dourif, Bo Goldman and Michael Douglas are still alive. (UPDATE: Goldman died in 2023.)

*

November 19, 1975 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 6 games in the NBA:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Kansas City Kings, 113-103 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Golden State Warriors, 104-98 in overtime at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 120-114 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Houston Rockets, 118-110 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has been converted into the "Central Campus" of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.)

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns, 96-94 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Chicago Bulls, 97-87 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were 4 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets lost to the Virginia Squires, 110-100 at The Scope in Norfolk, Virginia.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Spirts of St. Louis, 119-106 at the St. Louis Arena.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Kentucky Colonels, 113-106 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* And the Indiana Pacers beat the Utah Stars, 130-110 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City.

There were 5 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Kansas City Scouts, 6-4 at Madison Square Garden. The Scouts played 2 seasons before moving, and won exactly 7 away games. This was the 6th. The Rangers had indeed fallen on hard times.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Washington Capitals, 5-2 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 3-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Minnesota North Stars, 6-0 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And there were 2 games in the World Hockey Association. The Cleveland Crusaders beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 4-3 in overtime at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio. And the Indianapolis Racers beat the New England Whalers, 3-1 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.