On November 3rd, 1976, Carrie saw a limited release in
Baltimore / Washington, D.C.
It took over the rest of the country over the next couple weeks.
Directed by Brian De Palma and starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, William Katt, P.J. Soles and John Travolta. Based on Stephen King’s first published novel.
40 years ago today On October 31st, 1981 the notorious L.A. hardcore band Fear was invited to play the Saturday Night Live Halloween show. The episode was hosted by Donald Pleasence.
John Belushi had become a fan of the band and pulled the necessary strings required to make this happen. Belushi also planned to bus in 15 to 20 fans from DC for the performance. The bus made some extra stops in Baltimore and Philly and showed up with twice that many. Fear and their fans had a pretty bad reputation of wreaking havoc wherever they went and did not disappoint on this occasion. The set was destroyed and profanities uttered on live television. They got through two songs but were shut down before a third.
This led to Fear joining an elite club of performers to earn a lifetime ban from the show. This was nothing new to the band as they seemed to get banned from everywhere they performed.
John had previously collaborated on a song with Fear for his black comedy film Neighbors, also starring Dan Ackroyd. The song was axed by executives (big surprise there) and the SNL performance was Belushi’s way of making it up to the band.
On October 30th, 1938 Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater company broadcast an audio version H.G. Wells’ 19th Century science fiction novel War of the Worlds on CBS radio.
Unfortunately a lot of people missed the intro and disclaimer at the beginning of the show at 8pm on a Sunday because they were listening to a more popular show on NBC radio.
They tuned in a little later to what sounded like an actual radio show with periodic news reports of strange happenings on the planet Mars, the small town of Grover Mills, New Jersey and subsequently across the country.
Since we seem to believe everything we see in the media a reported 1.2 million Americans believed that what they were hearing was reality and panic ensued.
Although her credits span 50 years of film and television, she is most well known for her role as the bride in The Bride of Frankenstein also starring Boris Karloff and Ernest Thesiger (dir. James Whale 1935).
