Congratulations to Don Herzefeldt, whose short Everything will be Okay won a jury prize for shorts at the Sundance Film Festival. It beat out live action as well as animated competitors.

Karl Cohen of ASIFA San Francisco just fowarded the news from Rome that famed Italian animator Emile Luzzatti has died. 1921-2007.
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Birthdays: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Thomas Paine, Oprah Winfrey, William Claude Dunkenfeld known as W.C. Fields, Victor Mature, Paddy Chayefsky, Tom Selleck, Heather Graham, Ed Burns, Greg Louganis, John Horsely (1817) the inventor of the Christmas Card-1842*

*Horsley was a Victorian artist at the Royal Academy in London who refused to draw nudes because it offended his morality. This earned him the nickname- Clothes Horsely.

1728-At this time all the rage in London was Italian Opera based on adaptations of Greek Mythology sung by castrated male sopranos. This day John Gay and Johann Pepuschs THE BEGGARS OPERA was first produced in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The play was a sensation because it was an opera in English using popular tunes of the time, and told the story not of gods or noble heroes, but highwaymen, bawdy girls and innkeepers.

1813- Jane Austin’s novel Pride and Prejudice first published.

1845- Edgar Allen Poe's poem the Raven first published. Nevermore.

1886-In Karlsruhe Germany, Dr. Karl Benz patented the internal combustion engine. To prevent gasoline explosions it utilized a fuel distribution system based on a ladies perfume atomizer spray ( the carburetor ). He called his horseless carriage at first a Motorvagen, but later names it after his partner Godfried Daimler’s daughter, Mercedes.

1920- WALT GETS A JOB- Nineteen year old Walt Disney, just out of the army, gets his first job as an artist. His brother Roy got him a job as an apprentice commerical artist at the Pesmen-Rubin Company of Kansas City. He did cartoon advertising for newspapers and slides for the local movie theater. There he also made friends with a shy artist with the Dutch name Ubbe Ette Iwerks,or Ub Iwerks.

1936- Dictator Benito Mussolini lays the first stone of Cinecitta’ Movie Studios.

1957- Patsy Cline recorded "Walkin' After Midnight."

1964- Stanley Kubrick's nuclear comedy "DR STRANGLOVE –OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB." premiered. It's use of hand held camera for action sequences and cutting inspired by the European New Wave ushered in a new style in Hollywood cinema. So, who was Tracey Reed? She played Miss Scott, George C. Scott’s bikini clad secretary and the only woman in the entire movie.