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.

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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.

October 3, 1941: "The Maltese Falcon" Premieres

October 3, 1941: The Maltese Falcon premieres, starring Humphrey Bogart as San Francisco private investigator Sam Spade. It was the 3rd film version of Dashiell Hammett's mystery novel, following the 1931 film of the same title (with Ricardo Cortez as Spade) and the 1936 film Satan Met a Lady (Warren William).

It is also the 1st film directed by John Huston, and the 1st time Bogart worked with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, who would co-star with him in other films, especially the next year's Casablanca. Mary Astor plays Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a.k.a. Ruth Wonderly, who manipulates Sam, until he utters the line, "I won't play the sap for you!"

Brigid and Greenstreet's Kasper Gutman are both after the Maltese Falcon, a jewel-encrusted bird that was intended as a tribute from the Knights Templar of Malta to King Charles V of Spain, who was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1519 to 1566. But it was stolen by pirates and covered with black tar. The artifact's fate remains a mystery, as the only one shown in the film turns out to be a fake, not worth dying for, or killing for -- even if Spade tells San Francisco Police Lieutenant Dundy, played by Barton MacLane, that the real thing is "the stuff that dreams are made of."

Hammett died in 1941, Greenstreet in 1954, Bogart in 1957, Lorre in 1964, MacLane in 1969, and Huston and Astor with a month of each other in 1987. The last surviving actor from the film was Elisha Cook Jr., who played Wilmer Cook, who worked for Gutman. He lived until 1995.

As it is arguably the most popular "film noir" of all time, there have been many parodies, including a 1969 episode of the British spy series The Avengers, a 2001 episode of Charmed, and a 2012 episode of Castle, "the Blue Butterfly."

In 1988, Star Trek: The Next Generation showed Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, being a fan of hard-boiled detective novels of the mid-20th Century, in particular stories about a character created for the show, San Francisco private eye Dixon Hill. A Holodeck simulation goes wrong, and he and 3 other crewmembers are stuck with 1941 technology and no safety protocols, a problem which comes into play when one of them gets shot. Laurence Tierney, who had appeared in some film noirs as a young man, played Cyrus Redblock, a tribute to Sydney Greenstreet. The title of the episode was a combination of 2 of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels: "The Big Goodbye."

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October 3, 1941 was a Friday. On this day, Ernest Evans (no middle name) is born in Spring Gully, South Carolina, and grows up in Philadelphia. Because he did a great impression of rock and roll pioneer Fats Domino, and was fat himself, his friends nicknamed him Chubby Checker. Ironically, his real voice is so distinctive, and his biggest hit song so iconic, that his own voice became one of the most imitated in music history.

This was an off-day in the World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers, Bogart's favorite team, and the New York Yankees. The Yankees would win the Series in 5 games. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NHL season didn't start until November 1. And the NFL played no games. But there were 8 college football games played that night:

* Manhattan College beat George Washington University, 23-0 at the Polo Grounds. Manhattan dropped their football team after the 1942 season, due to the manpower drain of World War II. GWU dropped theirs after 1966, since not having an on-campus stadium meant either building one or renting another stadium, neither of which was deemed cost-effective. Neither has ever resumed play.

* The University of Miami beat Elon University, 38-0 at Burdine Stadium in Miami. In 1959, that stadium would be renamed the Orange Bowl. Elon, of Elon, North Carolina, dropped to NCAA Division II in 1975, but rose to Division I FCS (formerly known as Division I-AA) in 1999.

* The University of Detroit beat crosstown Wayne State University, 54-0 at Titan Stadium on the UD campus. UD was founded as an all-male school by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1877. They dropped their football program after the 1964 season. Also in 1941, the Sisters of Mercy founded Mercy College of Detroit, for women. In 1990, the schools merged, to become the coeducational University of Detroit Mercy. Wayne State have played in NCAA Division II since 1975.

* Creighton University beat Saint Louis University, 18-8 at Creighton Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska. After the 1942 season, like Manhattan due to World War II, Creighton dropped its football program. SLU dropped theirs in 1949. Neither has ever resumed.

* Texas Tech beat Oklahoma A&M, 16-6 at Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City. A&M became Oklahoma State in 1958.

* Brigham Young University played Colorado State College of Education at Greeley, beating them 26-0 at what was known as "Y Stadium" on the BYU campus, in Provo, Utah. CSC became the University of Northern Colorado in 1970, but everybody outside of Colorado thinks of the Chapel Hill Tar Heels when they hear "UNC."

* Oregon beat Idaho, 21-7 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

* And Gonzaga University beat Albertson College, 14-0 at a stadium known as the Lettuce Bowl (I am not making that up) in Nampa, Idaho. Gonzaga, based in Spokane, Washington, dropped their football program after the 1941 season, due to World War II, and have never resumed it. Albertson renamed itself the College of Idaho in 2007. They suspended their football program in 1977, and resumed play in the NAIA in 2014.