Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Born on this day – Christian Juttner:

 

Christian Juttner


Actor

May 20, 1964 – November 29, 2024

Credits:
ABC Afterschool Specials (1974–1977); Alice (1980); Ark II (1976); Bewitched (1972); Emergency! (1972); General Hospital (1981); I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978); Inside 'the Swarm' (1978); Ironside (1971–1974); Journey from Darkness (1975); Lou Grant (1979); Making the 'Return' Trip (2003); Medical Center (1976); Return from Witch Mountain (1978); Return of the Big Cat (1974); S.W.A.T. (1975); The Bionic Woman (1976); The Blair Witch Mountain Project (2002); The Boy Who Talked to Badgers (1975); The Ghosts of Buxley Hall (1980); The Healers (1974); The Magical World of Disney (1974–1980); The Million Dollar Dixie Deliverance (1978); The New Mickey Mouse Club (1977); The Rookies (1974); The Swarm (1978); The Walt Disney Comedy and Magic Revue (1985); Trapper John, M.D. (1979); Wonder Woman (1976).

On this day in movie history - The Devil’s Party (1938)


The Devil’s Party


directed by Ray McCarey,

written by Roy Chanslor, Charles Grayson and A. Dorian Otvos,

based on the novel Hell’s Kitchen Has a Pantry by Borden Chase,

was released in the United States on May 20, 1938.

Music by Charles Previn.

Cast:
Victor McLaglen, William Gargan, Paul Kelly, Beatrice Roberts, Frank Jenks, John Gallaudet, Samuel S. Hinds, Joe Downing, Arthur Hoyt, Scotty Beckett, Stanley Blystone, Tommy Bupp, Neal Burns, Howard Christie, Drew Demorest, George DeNormand, Mike Donovan, Bill Elliott, Allen Fox, Otto Fries, Jack Gardner, Edward Gargan, Eddie Hall, Oscar 'Dutch' Hendrian, Robert Homans, Hugh Huntley, Dickie Jones, Harvey Karels, Jack Kenney, Carl Knowles, Mike Lally, Larry McGrath, Charles McMurphy, Charles Murphy, Spec O'Donnell, David Oliver, Lee Phelps, Juanita Quigley, Fred Rapport, Mickey Rentschler, Jolane Reynolds, Addison Richards, Dick Rush, Tiny Sandford, Ralph Sanford, Charles Sherlock, Charles Sullivan, William Tannen, Charles Teske, Jerry Tucker, Minerva Urecal, Beryl Wallace, Norman Willis, Si Wills, Florence Wix, Arthur Yeoman.

On this day in movie and book history - The Killing (1956) and Clean Break (1956)


The Killing


directed and written by Stanley Kubrick,

dialogue written by Jim Thompson,

based on the novel Clean Break by Lionel White,

was released in the United States on May 20, 1956.

Music by Gerald Fried.

Cast:
Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Ted de Corsia, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Joe Sawyer, James Edwards, Timothy Carey, Kola Kwariani, Jay Adler, Tito Vuolo, Dorothy Adams, Herbert Ellis, James Griffith, Cecil Elliott, Joe Turkel, Steve Mitchell, Mary Carroll, William Benedict, Charles Cane, Robert B. Williams, Tom Coleman, Rodney Dangerfield, Franklyn Farnum, John George, Art Gilmore, Sol Gorss, Harry Hines, Kenner G. Kemp, Carl M. Leviness, Hal J. Moore, Harvey Parry, Richard Reeves, Frank Richards, Arthur Tovey.

Recommended reading:

Clean Break

by Lionel White.

Filmed as The Killing (1956), directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Published by Chosho Publishing.
First published 1955.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1958425516
ISBN-13: 978-1958425510
 

Description:

Johnny Clay, an ex-con determined to strike it rich, has worked out a fool-proof scheme to knock off a racetrack payroll. The two million bucks should be enough to last him a lifetime or two. But a two-faced dame has another idea: Let Johnny do the work, then she'll grab the swag for herself and her boyfriend.

Johnny Clay’s plan to rob the Long Island race track was daring and highly original. Johnny, an ex-convict, had spent his prison years thinking through every possible hitch to his scheme until he was sure it could go off like clockwork.

His four confederates were not known to the police for they were not professional criminals. They had been picked because they were ordinary nondescript men, all with money problems and a touch of larceny in their hearts. Mike Henty was a bartender at the track and George Peatty a cashier, both essential inside men. Martin Unger, a court stenographer, had put up the initial cash and Randy Kennan, a cop, was to get the money away from the track after Johnny had done the actual robbing.

There were in addition three others who were to do a specific jobs for a cash payment. To one of these men fell the assignment of shooting the favorite in the famous Canarsie Stakes. Once this was accomplished, the robbery was set into motion.

The crime in this story is a grand coup, fantastic yet completely possible if everything clicked. So too has Lionel White achieved a grand coup in the telling of the story as he concentrates first on one character then on another, picking up the individual threads and building them into a brilliantly integrated climax. Clean Break is a masterpiece of originality, a highly plotted and ingeniously executed story of suspense.


On this day in movie history - Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

 

Once Upon a Time in America

directed by Sergio Leone,

written by Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Franco Arcalli,

Franco Ferrini, Sergio Leone, Stuart Kaminsky and Ernesto Gastaldi,

based on the novel The Hoods by Harry Grey,

was released at the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 20, 1984.

Music by Ennio Morricone.

Cast:
Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams, Tuesday Weld, Burt Young, Joe Pesci, Danny Aiello, William Forsythe, James Hayden, Darlanne Fluegel, Larry Rapp, Dutch Miller, Robert Harper, Richard Bright, Gerard Murphy, Amy Ryder, Olga Karlatos, Mario Brega, Ray Dittrich, Frank Gio, Karen Shallo, Angelo Florio, Scott Tiler, Rusty Jacobs, Brian Bloom, Adrian Curran, Mike Monetti, Noah Moazezi, James Russo, Frankie Caserta, Joey Marzella, Clem Caserta, Frank Sisto, Jerry Strivelli, Julie Cohen, Marvin Scott, Mike Gendel, Paul Herman, Ann Neville, Joey Faye, Linda Ipanema, Tandy Cronyn, Richard Zobel, Baxter Harris, Arnon Milchan, Bruno Iannone, Marty Licata, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Estelle Harris, Richard Foronjy, Gerritt Debeer, Jennifer Connelly, Alexander Godfrey, Cliff Cudney, Paul Farentino, Bruce Bahrenburg, Mort Freeman, Sandra Solberg, Jay Zeely, Massimo Liti, Louise Fletcher, Terry Angus, Greg Anthony, Salvatore Billa, Bruno Bilotta, Matteo Cafiso, Nelson Camp, Rossana Canghiari, Scott Coffey, Doug Davis, Mark Frazer, Nunzio Giuliani, Dario Iori, Ole Jorgensen, Francesca Leone, Chuck Low, Claudio Mancini, Giuseppe Marrocco, Maria Pia Monicelli, Ron Nummi, Ryan Paris, Harry Peerce, Filippo Perego, Nicola Roberto, Gianni Sanjust, Alex Serra, Susan Spafford, Marco Stefanelli.

On this day in movie history - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)


Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull


directed by Steven Spielberg,

written by David Koepp,

based on a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson,

was released in the United States on May 20, 2008.

Music by John Williams.


Cast:
Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Igor Jijikine, Dimitri Diatchenko, Emmanuel Todorov, Ilia Volok, Pasha D. Lychnikoff, Andrew Divoff, Venya Manzyuk, Alan Dale, Joel Stoffer, Neil Flynn, Chet Hanks, Brian Knutson, Dean Grimes, Sasha Spielberg, Nicole Luther, Sophia Stewart, Chris Todd, Dennis Nusbaum, T. Ryan Mooney, Audi Resendez, Helena Barrett, Carlos Linares, Gustavo Hernandez, Maria Luisa Minelli, Nito Larioza, Ernie Reyes Jr., Jon Valera, Kevin Collins, Robert Baker.

On this day in the Star Trek universe - The Next Generation, Voyager:

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989)

Star Trek: Voyager (1996 & 1998)


Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 2. Episode 18.

Episode entitled: Up the Long Ladder.

Released May 20, 1989.

Directed by Winrich Kolbe.

Written by Melinda M. Snodgrass.

Created by Gene Roddenberry.

Music by Ron Jones.

Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, Diana Muldaur, Majel Barrett, Barrie Ingham, Jon DeVries, Rosalyn Landor, Colm Meaney, Dexter Clay, Fred Janos, Tim McCormack, Richard Sarstedt, Lainie Sims, Michael Stanhope, Floyd Weaver, Lloyd Weaver, Troy Weaver.


Star Trek: Voyager
Season 2. Episode 26.

Episode entitled: Basics, Part I.

Released May 20, 1996.

Directed by Winrich Kolbe.

Created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor.

Written by Michael Piller, Lisa Klink.

Based on Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry.

Music by Dennis McCarthy.

Cast: Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Biggs-Dawson, Jennifer Lien, Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang, Brad Dourif, Anthony De Longis, John Gegenhuber, Martha Hackett, Henry Darrow, Scott Haven, Majel Barrett, Tarik Ergin, Heather Ferguson, Holiday Freeman, Jennifer Gundy, Susan Henley, Kerry Hoyt, Donald R. Jankiewicz, Pat Jankiewicz, Ken Lesco, Susan Lewis, Dennis Madalone, Mark Major, Lorin McCraley, Louis Ortiz, Spiro Razatos, Shepard Ross, Scott Strozier, Patricia Tallman, John Alex Tampoya.

Star Trek: Voyager
Season 4. Episode 26.

Episode entitled: Hope and Fear.

Released May 20, 1998.

Directed by Winrich Kolbe.

Created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor.

Written by Brannon Braga, Joe Menosky, Rick Berman, Bryan Fuller, Lisa Klink.

Based on Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry.

Music by Dennis McCarthy.

Cast: Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Biggs-Dawson, Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang, Jeri Ryan, Ray Wise, Jack Shearer, Majel Barrett, Elle Alexander, John Austin, Terrence Beasor, Tarik Ergin, Ransom Gates, Kerry Hoyt, Diane Lee, Alicia Lewis, Joey Sakata.

On this day in television and book history - Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) and The Biography (2013)

 

Anne Frank: The Whole Story


a two-part TV miniseries directed by Robert Dornhelm,

written by Kirk Ellis,

based on the book Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller,

was released in the United States on May 20, 2001.

Music by Graeme Revell.
 
Cast:
Ben Kingsley, Hannah Taylor Gordon, Brenda Blethyn, Lili Taylor, Jessica Manley, Carly Wijs, Tatjana Blacher, Jean-Luc Julien, Joachim Król, Nicholas Audsley, Jan Niklas, Peter Bolhuis, Victoria Anne Brown, Jeff Caster, Rob Das, Cees Geel, Holger Daemgen, Michaela Horáková, Johannes Silberschneider, Jade Williams, Branka Katic, Klára Issová, Karel Dobrý, Veronika Nowag-Jones, Nancy Bishop, Dominique Horwitz, Suzanne Friedline, Pavel Kríz, Petra Lustigová, Joel Kirby, Robert Russell, David O’Kelly, Petr Meissel, Yanna Fabian, Zdenka Volencová, Howard Lotker, Michael E. Perry, Phil Jones, Nicky Kantor, Jaroslava Siktancova, Jelena Juklová, Jan Klíma, Lisa-Marie Gravell, Ela Lehotská, Olga Schmidtová, Kristina Beranova, Talya Gordon, Alec Gordon.

Recommended reading:

Anne Frank: The Biography:
Updated and Expanded with New Material

by Melissa Müller.

Published by Metropolitan Books.

Published 2013.

ISBN-10: 0805087311

ISBN-13: 978-0805087314

Description:

Praised as "remarkable," "meticulous," and "long overdue," Anne Frank: The Biography, originally published in 1998, still stands as the definitive account of the girl who has become "the human face of the Holocaust." For this nuanced portrait of her famous subject, biographer Melissa Müller drew on exclusive interviews with family and friends as well as on previously unavailable correspondence, even, in the process, discovering five missing diary pages. Full of revelations, Müller's richly textured narrative returned Anne Frank to history, portraying the flesh-and-blood girl unsentimentalized and so all the more affecting. Now, fifteen years after the book first appeared, much new information has come to light: letters sent by Otto Frank to relatives in America as he sought to emigrate with his family, the identity of other suspects involved in the betrayal of the Franks, and important details about the family's arrest and subsequent fate. Revised and updated with more than thirty percent new material, this is an indispensable volume for all those who seek a deeper understanding of Anne Frank and the brutal times in which she lived and died.