# Odd Newspaper Headlines in Old Noir Movies



## Extollager (Jun 16, 2014)

Time for me to start another low-traffic thread.

You know how noirs often feature newspaper front pages.  Last night we were watching *Narrow Margin* -- a real RKO gem from 1952.  About ten minutes into the feature, we see a newspaper front page.  A small headline: MERCURY NEW X-RAY SOURCE, TWO SCIENTISTS REPORT.

I'll bet there are some other odd headlines that could be reported here and I'll bet I'm not the only person who watches for them when taking on these enjoyable old movies. 

So... how about it?


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## J Riff (Jun 17, 2014)

Good idea. I'm on it.


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## Cat's Cradle (Jun 17, 2014)

I love this thread idea, Extollager! My wife and I often freeze-frame movies when newspapers are shown, so we can see what the stories are! They don't show many old American or English films here in Finland, but any time they do, should newspapers be shown,  I shall diligently report back here. But I love the headline you mentioned above, it's wonderful!


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## Extollager (Jun 17, 2014)

You're another freeze-framer!

I'll also stop the DVD of an old movie or TV show if there's a scene in at a newsstand, a library or or bookstore, and if the viewer can see the covers of magazines or the titles of books.

By the way, here's the cover of _Daredevil _#7, showing a newspaper with the classic headline (right below the word "Sub-Mariner") *"Planarians Give New Clues to Early Migrations" *-- below the image I'll post a link for a larger view.






http://themightyblog.fr/2014/04/les-grands-moments-de-daredevil/


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## J Riff (Aug 21, 2014)

Dang, I forget the movie... but the small headline was : 100,000 Chinese living in trees after flooding.


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## fishhead (Jul 21, 2015)

Hi,

I joined the forum to pass this bit of info along. I goggled the phrase "Mercury New X-ray Source" and stumbled upon this forum. I was freeze framing episode 7 of the Andy Griffith show where they were looking at a picture of Barney, a hero for nabbing a crook. Upon closure examination of newspaper, the article that was supposed to be about Barney had the opening line "Mercury New X-ray Source Two Scientist Report". OP reports seeing this in a 1952 movie. It appears to have been used again in the 7th episode of Andy Griffith. I found it amusing and wished to pass it along.


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## Dave (Jul 22, 2015)

My take would be that the scriptwriters were doing it as some kind of joke/prank. To see what they were allowed to get away with before anyone in the studio hierarchy noticed! It is just a way of getting one over on the "man" without actually telling him where to go.

On _Star Trek: The Next Generation _they similarly kept inserting props, and references to the film _The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! _into the script. They also added the number _47 _into the script wherever and whenever possible (something that JJ Abrams has continued in his own films.) (The writer Joe Menosky began the 47 thing but then it spread to the other writers. Apparently, it is a local tradition at Ponoma College where he was a graduate.)

In 1952, films were made to be viewed by an individual once, in the cinema. TV was still a new medium. No one would have foreseen that in the future someone could have a library of films at home, or that anyone would freeze-frame and look at a fake Newspaper headline, much less that we would have technology to do it for us in our own homes, or then to query other references using a world-wide database. They never expected anyone to ever notice. Now, they do expect some fans to notice and so it has become an Easter egg hunt instead.


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## Toby Frost (Jul 22, 2015)

The only equivalent (if it is one) that I can think of, off the top of my head, is the text about the crew of the _Nostromo_ that scrolls past Sigourney Weaver's head in the boardroom scene in _Aliens_. I spent a while looking for it, but was disappointed when I found what it (probably) was. The articles on each character were wildly over the top, either as a joke or because that's what someone's view of SF entailed.


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## Jeffbert (Jul 25, 2015)

I frequently do  that, myself; though no headlines come to mind. TCM is currently running *SUMMER OF DARKNESS* (film noir), so there is an abundance of material for this thread. I did have an ALL-IN-WONDER, TV card with capture capability, but not any more. Zooming the DVR often disappoints, as the part I want to see is then off the screen.


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## Extollager (Jul 26, 2015)

Extollager said:


> Time for me to start another low-traffic thread.
> 
> You know how noirs often feature newspaper front pages.  Last night we were watching *Narrow Margin* -- a real RKO gem from 1952.  About ten minutes into the feature, we see a newspaper front page.  A small headline: MERCURY NEW X-RAY SOURCE, TWO SCIENTISTS REPORT.



I'm thrilled.  Just now was watching *Revenge of the Creature *(i.e. the Creature from the Black Lagoon) from 1955 -- and in a sequence with newspaper headlines about the monster on the loose, that Mercury headline -- the identical one -- appears again.  

Interesting that the first (?) use of the Mercury headline was in an RKO feature, while the Creature movie is a Universal International production.


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## Jeffbert (Jul 27, 2015)

but were there any headlines specific to that film?


I recall zooming on newsstands to see what magazines were there; though I cannot recall specifics.


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## Dave (Jul 27, 2015)

With three different instances of the same headline it would be worth looking at the staff working on the two films and the Andy Griffith show to see if anyone worked on all three. If so, then you have the joker. Unfortunately, I doubt he is still with us to ask him why.


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## Extollager (Jul 27, 2015)

Jeffbert said:


> I recall zooming on newsstands to see what magazines were there



Oh yes.  I've done that too.  And a paperback rack, etc.


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## Toby Frost (Jul 27, 2015)

Magazine covers briefly glimpsed on a newspaper stand in _Blade Runner._

http://io9.com/5913542/these-retrofuturistic-magazine-covers-sat-in-the-background-of-blade-runner


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## Vladd67 (Jul 27, 2015)

Toby Frost said:


> Magazine covers briefly glimpsed on a newspaper stand in _Blade Runner._
> 
> http://io9.com/5913542/these-retrofuturistic-magazine-covers-sat-in-the-background-of-blade-runner


I like the homage to Omni magazine, a magazine I really miss.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 28, 2015)

Freeze-framing computer displays can be fun too.

My favourite is this which comes from an American re-edit of a Japanese TV movie.  Somehow, to convey the utter complexity of an alien space fleet appearing on the view-screens of our heroes' ship, they thought it best to cut in an invoice/delivery note for a  an engineering firm in Utah.




Meanwhile on the Display Screen of a Japanese Spaceship... by the_junk_monkey, on Flickr


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## Vertigo (Jul 28, 2015)

Vladd67 said:


> I like the homage to Omni magazine, a magazine I really miss.


I used to own quite a collection of those. Sadly, long since lost now. I remember getting seriously twitchy waiting for the each edition to appear!


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## Victoria Silverwolf (Aug 14, 2015)

I have a habit of watching old episodes of _Dragnet_ courtesy of a thing called "Uncle Earl's Classic Television" (which also has a lot of old movies.)  I just started watching this one:

http://www.solie.org/alibrary/Dragnet_TheBigBounce.html

Less than one minute into it we get a lovely close-up of _The Los Angeles Examiner_.

The big headline is RECORD HEAT WAVE DUE.  The follow-up story starts with the sub-headline TEMPERATURES WILL SOAR TO HOTTEST POINT.

Above that, in slightly smaller print we see NEW FLYING SAUCER MYSTERY.  (It's in the same size type as COMPLETE RACES next to it.)  Down below we see the follow-up story with the sub-headline STRANGE OBJECT SIGHTED IN SKY.

Other, smaller headlines are SCIENTIST BARES NEW ATOMS USE, AUTOS CRASH IN SPEED RACE ON FREEWAY, and BUSINESS CHIEFS TELL OPTIMISM.


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## JunkMonkey (Aug 14, 2015)

I belong to a Flickr group called 'Name That Film'.  (People post obscure moments from films and we all try to guess what it is.)

Newspapers crop up from time to time:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=newspaper&group_id=62585667@N00


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## Extollager (Dec 29, 2015)

Bagged another choice plum!  This is from *Radar Secret Service*.  The main headlines are RADAR PATROL ROUNDS UP LEADERS OF CRIMINAL BAND   RECOVER BALANCE OF STOLEN ATOMIC MATERIAL -- but the other headline is delectable: DATA ON 8,000 ANTARCTIC METEORS

This appears in the last five minutes or so of the movie, in case you want to Rush Right Out and look it up.


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## Frost Giant (Jan 14, 2016)

_*Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) - Has Bats Gone Bats?*_
_*



 *_


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## Jeffbert (Jan 14, 2016)

Frost Giant said:


> _*Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) - Has Bats Gone Bats?
> *_


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## J Riff (Jan 15, 2016)

I keep seeing examples, but nothing interesting so far. Lots of mention of car accidents being a real problem, but usually it's mostly unreadable. But there are many more old B n W movies left on the playlist.


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## Extollager (Jan 24, 2016)

Extollager said:


> Last night we were watching *Narrow Margin* -- a real RKO gem from 1952.  About ten minutes into the feature, we see a newspaper front page.  A small headline: MERCURY NEW X-RAY SOURCE, TWO SCIENTISTS REPORT.



This same "Mercury" headline appears at 10:25 in the well-known classic *Twilight Zone *teleplay, "Time Enough at Last."


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## tinkerdan (Jan 24, 2016)

MERCURY NEW X-RAY SOURCE, TWO SCIENTISTS REPORT

scientific article published in 1934
Phys. Rev. 46, 542 (1934) - The Production of X-Rays by Swiftly Moving Mercury Ions
copy of 1937 news article pertaining to death of author of article.
Columbia Daily Spectator 22 March 1937 — Columbia Spectator


another sighting of the news in Kronos (1957
Gutbrain Records
Perry Mason episode where article shows
Perry Mason TV Series Wiki | EpisodePages / Show28
Witness to Murder
Gutbrain Records
Guns, Girls and Gangsters (1959)
Gutbrain Records


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## J Riff (Feb 17, 2016)

Okay, _Warning From Space_ (59?)- there's a headline in French, about the saucers, but you can also read the text in a few columns, and they are on about time-dilation, and a trip to a star nine light years away, and other fun stuff.


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## Daver (Mar 13, 2016)

Extollager said:


> Time for me to start another low-traffic thread.
> 
> You know how noirs often feature newspaper front pages.  Last night we were watching *Narrow Margin* -- a real RKO gem from 1952.  About ten minutes into the feature, we see a newspaper front page.  A small headline: MERCURY NEW X-RAY SOURCE, TWO SCIENTISTS REPORT.
> 
> ...



For what it's worth, that same exact headline also appears in a shot of a newspaper in the episode "Alibi Me" of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Season 2, Episode 7), which is from around 1957. It's at about the 06:27 mark. Interesting how these headlines, or newspaper pages, get reused.


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## That Guy (Jan 2, 2017)

Twilight Zone is a great source for these sort of article headlines too. In addition to the one mentioned above with the 'mercury xray story', a fake newspaper the series uses called 'The New York Chronicle' also displayed a different sub-headline seasons apart.  In the episode "The Mighty Casey" (S1;E35) The newspaper features the Casey character in the headline, but a sub-headline has an article titled "$3,000,000 For Aid Pledged to S.A. Earthquake Victims" which also shows up in yet another Twilight Zone episode four seasons later in the famed "Nightmare at 20,000 feet"(S5;E3) being read by William Shatner's character, Robert Wilson, as he starts to lose his composure aboard a plane under attack by a gremlin.


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## Extollager (Mar 28, 2017)

110,000 CHINESE LIVING IN TREES AS RESULT OF FLOOD

I think that was in *Slightly Honorable* (1940), but didn't write it down.




Say, for old movies, here are other good signs, along with newspaper headlines, in the kind of old movie I like:

1.Supporting cast listed in a diagonal arrangement across the screen, top at left, down to bottom at right.
2.Glum protagonist in diner.
3.Double exposures as guy has bad dreams or bad memories.
4.Location photography of gas stations, etc.
5.Disregard of geographical verisimilitude -- it is a real plus when a guy is driving through Ohio, say, and you see dry California mountains in the background.
6.The movie should last no more than about 80 minutes.
7.Worried eyes seen in rearview mirror of car.
8.Rain.
9.Venetian blinds.
10.Doors that are too short, so that there's a goodish gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.
11.Steep steps or staircases.
12.Elevators.
13.Cats in alleys.


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## Victoria Silverwolf (Mar 28, 2017)

14.  Torch singer in a nightclub.  Extra points if she sings the title of the film.
15.  Radio news broadcast that's relevant to the plot.
16.  Movie set in an exotic locale starts with a map of the world, zooming into the place where it's set.
17.  Flashing neon signs with generic names of businesses -- HOTEL or DINER.


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## J Riff (Mar 28, 2017)

That headline may be in a few movies, they must have had a generic newspaper template or two.
18: Newspaper headlines that spin as they are zoomed in on.


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