July 6, 1944: "Double Indemnity" Premieres

July 6, 1944: Double Indemnity premieres, directed by Billy Wilder, and based on the 1943 novella by James M. Cain. Two other Cain works were turned into 1940s film noirs: Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Walter Neff (played by Fred MacMurray) is an insurance salesman. He makes a house call to Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), about her husband's automobile insurance. Phyllis asks about getting a policy on her husband's life without his knowledge. Neff deduces she is contemplating murder, and wants no part of it. Phyllis visits Neff's apartment. He concocts a plan to murder Mr. Dietrichson, and trigger the "double indemnity" clause, increasing the payout. Neff commits the murder.

The president of Neff's insurance company believes the death was suicide. But Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), the company's claims manager, scoffs at the idea, but he does find it strange Dietrichson did not file a claim after breaking his leg. He grows to suspect Phyllis. He deduces she had an accomplice who will split the insurance money. The company refuses to pay out the accidental death clause, because Dietrichson was unaware of the policy.

Dietrichson's daughter Lola (Jean Heather) befriends Neff. She thinks her stepmother Phyllis killed her father and his first wife. Neff fears Phyllis will murder her, since Dietrichson changed his will in Lola's favor.

Neff warns Phyllis that pursuing the insurance claim in court risks exposing the murder. He urges Phyllis to lie low while he convinces his boss to pay out the claim. Neff learns that Lola's hotheaded boyfriend Nino (Byron Barr) has been visiting Phyllis every night since the murder. Trying to prevent Lola's death, Neff confronts Phyllis. 

Neff tells Phyllis he knows about her and Nino. He figures her plan was to manipulate Nino into murdering Lola and maybe him. He threatens to kill Phyllis and blame Nino. Phyllis shoots him. He dares her to shoot again. She does not, and he takes her gun. She says she never loved him "until a minute ago, when I couldn't fire that second shot." As they embrace, Neff shoots her twice.

Nino comes to the house. Neff warns him not to go inside. Neff drives to his office and starts recording a confession: "I did it for the money, and I did it for the girl. I didn't get the money, and I didn't get the girl." (Of course not: The Hays Code was still in effect, meaning that evildoers cannot profit from their scheme. Phyllis doesn't, either.) Keyes arrives, and hears the truth. Neff plans to flee to Mexico, but collapses before he can leave the building.

Wilder originally shot an ending with Neff surviving being shot, but being sent to the gas chamber for the murder. Paramount Pictures dropped the scene.

The film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Wilder for Best Director, and Stanwyck for Best Actress, but won none.

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July 6, 1944 was a Thursday. It was also the day of the deadly Hartford Circus Fire. I have a separate entry for that event.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-0 at Yankee Stadium. Hank Borowy pitched a 4-hit shutout to beat Mel Harder.

* The New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Loius.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 10-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 13-3 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Bob Muncrief pitched a 4-hit shoutout.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Mickey Haefner pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-5 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the Boston Braves, 11-6 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. 

June 15, 1960: "The Apartment" Premieres

Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine

June 15, 1960: The Apartment premieres, directed by Billy Wilder. It is a dark comedy. A very dark one.

Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter -- the initials stand for Calvin Clifford, "but everybody calls me Bud," which isn't true, because, throughout the film, he gets called "Buddy Boy" more than anything else -- an accountant for a New York insurance company, and narrates the film, stating that the action begins on November 1, 1959.

He says he makes $94.70 a week. With inflation factored in, that $94.70 comes to $952.39 in today's money. Multiply that by 4 weeks, and you've got $3,809.56. His eponymous apartment is at 51 West 67th Street, "just half a block from Central Park," and he says his rent is $85 a week, or $854 in today's money. I guarantee you, you're not going to get a room, much less an apartment, at that monthly rent in Manhattan in 2022; and even $3,809.56 might not cover a month's rent on an apartment at that particular location today.

In nearly 4 years on the job, he had gotten nowhere in the company, until, through his own social clumsiness, he began letting the higher-ups at his company use his apartment for flings with their mistresses. Those higher-ups are led by Fred MacMurray, in a rare bad-guy role for him that upset many of his fans. In the case of MacMurray's J.D. Sheldrake, the mistresses include elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the woman Baxter can't bring himself to tell that he loves.

While it has some funny moments, this film is quite dark, including a suicide attempt by Fran, once she realizes that Sheldrake isn't going to leave his wife for her. The tactics of Sheldrake and the other executives -- making this film something of a precursor to the 2007-15 AMC TV series Mad Men, which took place from 1960 to 1971 -- would not be put up with in the #MeToo era. Indeed, just 20 years later, in the film 9 to 5, feminism had already made this film an anachronism.

Fortunately, as he did in Mister Roberts in 1955, Lemmon plays a man who, emboldened by a horrible event, stands up to his horrible boss. Unlike in Mister Roberts, where he was serving in the Navy and on board a ship, so it wasn't possible, in The Apartment, Lemmon gets the girl.

The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning 5, including Best Picture, and Best Director for Wilder. Lemmon and MacLaine were both nominated, but lost.

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June 15, 1960 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees and the Kansas City Athletics were tied 7-7 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium, when it was called due to curfew after 12 innings. It was never resumed. Yogi Berra and Clete Boyer hit home runs. Roger Maris went 4-for-5 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Mickey Mantle did not play.

* A doubleheader was split at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Cleveland Indians won the opener, 10-2. The Baltimore Orioles won the nightcap, 13-5. Over the 2 games, Brooks Robinson went 3-for-7 with a walk.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Ray Sadecki pitched a 3-hit shutout. Stan Musial did not play. Frank Robinson went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium the next year.) Frank Malzone singled Pete Runnels home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning. Ted Williams went 1-for-4 with a walk. Al Kaline went 0-for-5.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Washington Senators, 6-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* A doubleheader was split at Milwaukee County Stadium. The Milwaukee Braves won the 1st game, 5-4. The Chicago Cubs won the 2nd game, 8-5, despite 2 home runs from Eddie Mathews. Over the 2 games, Hank Aaron went 2-for-7 with 2 walks, and Ernie Banks went 2-for-9 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 14-2 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.  Sandy Koufax went the distance for the win.

* And the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants, 14-6 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda hit home runs.

March 16, 1961: "The Absent-Minded Professor" Creates an Early "Shared Universe"

March 16, 1961: The Absent-Minded Professor premieres. Not to be confused with the 1963 film The Nutty Professor, this film is also a screwball comedy, based on the 1943 story "A Situation of Gravity" by Samuel W. Taylor. The film was produced by Walt Disney, directed by Robert Stevenson, and starring Fred MacMurray.

MacMurray plays Ned Brainard, a professor of physical chemistry at fictional Medfield College. 

On his blackboard, he reverses a sign in the equation for enthalpy to energy plus pressure times volume. As a result, he accidentally invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface. He names his discovery "Flubber," a portmanteau of "flying rubber." In the excitement of his discovery, he misses his own wedding to Betsy Carlisle (played by Nancy Olson), not for the first time, but the third.

He makes tires out of Flubber, and makes his Model T (already an old car by that point) fly. But he can't sell it that way, since cars are still relatively expenses. But everybody wears shoes, and he demonstrates Flubber by coating the soles of the sneakers of the Medfield basketball team with it. Now able to jump like Michael Jordan in Space Jam, 35 years later, they win. (Presumably, the NCAA stepped in after that, and banned its use.) Finally winning a government contract by flying his Model T over the U.S. Capitol, he can afford to marry Betsy.

The Absent-Minded Professor would have a sequel in 1963, Son of Flubber, and both films are set at Medfield College, thus producing one of the earliest "fictional universes" in pop culture. as the Disney films The Shaggy Dog, The Shaggy D.A., The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Now You See Him, Now You Don't, and The Strongest Man in the World.

Keenan Wynn would play the film's antagonist, businessman Alonzo Hawk, again in Son of Flubber, and again in Herbie Rides Again, introducing the Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own, suggesting that the Herbie/Love Bug movies also take place in the same fictional universe. Wynn played a different, but similar, character in The Shaggy D.A.

Wynn and Robert Stevenson died in 1986, Fred MacMurray in 1991, Samuel W. Taylor in 1997. As of March 16, 1928, Nancy Olson is still alive.

The Absent-Minded Professor was remade in 1997, with Robin Williams in Flubber.

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March 16, 1961 was a Thursday. Comic book artist Todd McFarlane was born.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There was 1 game played in the NBA: The Syracuse Nationals beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 115-114 at the Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, New York. Wilt Chamberlain scored 32 points for the Warriors. After the next season, the Warriors moved to San Francisco, where they are now known as the Golden State Warriors. After one more season, the Nationals replaced them, becoming the Philadelphia 76ers.

And there was 1 game in the NHL: The Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-2 at the Montreal Forum.