The original of these strange objects in the sky is not in question. They all came from Earth. They are not the stuff of science fictionza-well, except for one image of a craft built for sci-fi movie. Beyond that, the science here is all real, even if it appears a little strange at times.
This gallery celebrates aircraft—including jet packs; flying platforms, collapsible one-man helicopters and more– that show how badly people have wanted to fly, and the sorts of ingenuity we have unleashed in pursuit of that goal.
A slinky-like light pattern was produced by light-tipped rotor blades of a helicopter as it took off into the dark sky, 1949.
Andreas Feininger The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
An ascending gondola trailed a disk-shaped radio antenna during lift-off for high-altitude flight to observe the planet Venus, 1959.
Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Amphibious U.S. Navy plane, 1940.
Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A helicopter attempted a three-point landing atop the heads of three women holding plywood squares as landing “pads,” 1948.
Bernard Hoffman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A man dropped a briefcase into the basket on the nose of a helicopter, 1942.
Dmitri Kessel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A parachute jumper who was testing equipment for the Irving Air Chute Co. received some help while struggling to reel in his billowing chute, 1937.
Margaret Bourke-White The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Children tried to catch toys that were released by a kite, 1949.
Bernard Hoffman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Stunt man Jack Wylie soared over the Chicago River, 1958.
Maybe it’s because LIFE magazine covered the Second World War so extensively, with dozens of photographers and correspondents logging tens of thousands of miles, reporting from places like Iwo Jima, the Ardennes and Berlin in the final days of the Reich—maybe that’s why the tone of its March 1947 report on the Swiss resort of St. Moritz feels at-once amused, and slightly annoyed.
Of course, LIFE had always paid attention to the idle rich, and when it felt like it, the magazine could be as fulsome and as frothy in its coverage of that fascinating breed as any other publication of the era. The magazine’s editors were well aware, especially in the post-war years, that a steady diet of garcinia cambogia extract, austerity, disaster and other hard-news staples might earn LIFE accolades, but the only sure way to sell copies (and ads) was to make sure there were stories on celebrities, royalty and other “beautiful people” in the mix.
In its March 10, 1947, issue, LIFE took a look at those beautiful people, in one of their more beautiful playgrounds, and while the photographs by Alfred Eisenstaedt convey the sheer luxury of the life they led, it’s hard not to detect just the slightest hint of a sneer in the way the piece was introduced. There’s no real animosity here; but nor is there much hand-wringing over the fact that for at least some of St. Moritz’s more absurd, and absurdly rich, habitues the world was changing beneath their feet.
The exiled royalty, minor princes, beauties, near beauties, sportsmen and bankers of the International Set consider St Moritz the place to spend a winter holiday. It is not just because this village, tucked high in the Alps of southeast Switzerland, is world-renowned as a winter sports center, with a famous Olympic bobsled run, unparalleled ski slopes and miles of beautiful mountain trails. It is mostly because St. Moritz is the most fashionable village in Europe. For more than half a century royalty has assembled on its Alpine slopes, at its outdoor cocktail bars and in its luxurious dining rooms. St. Moritz has always been the place to see the world’s great. It has also been the place for the not-so-great to be seen.
Somehow St. Moritz got through the war without closing. This winter, despite currency restrictions, the resort has all the sybaritic elegance of prewar years…. Only nowadays, as one native observed, “The princes are not princes any more.”
Original caption: “Midday cocktails at St. Moritz are served on the private ice rink of the Palace Hotel at a bar made of snow.”
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Original caption: “Egyptian Princess Nasli Shah (left), wife of Prince Abdel Moneim, goes for a stroll through the snow with young Peter Zervudachi and Princess Sixte de Bourbon-Parme, sister-in-law of Austria’s last empress.”
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Original caption: “Sunday sleigh rides are an ancient custom among natives of Engadine. With menfolk seated behind, they set out for a round of visits in neighboring villages, making a picturesque spectacle for the town’s guests.”
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
St. Moritz ,1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Original caption: “A chihuahua gets more attention on street than the conglomerate costume of his mistress. St. Moritz was crowded with many fashionable dogs, including one with leg splints as a result of a curling accident.”
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Original caption: “Fashionable center is Palace Hotel where many of Europe’s crowned heads have been guests. The hotel has 200 rooms. Rates start at $80 per week for good room and meals but bills somehow add up to much more.”
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
St. Moritz, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
St. Moritz, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Original caption: “Thick coats, like those of Isabelle Nicole and her dogs, protect them from the 17-degree cold.”
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
St. Moritz, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
St. Moritz, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
St. Moritz, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Snow-covered winter-resort village. Hotel Chantarella in background. St. Moritz, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
St. Moritz, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Original caption: “Privileged dog gets thorough whisking when he returns to hotel from snowy streets.”
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Self-portrait of photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt standing in snow and holding his Leica camera while on assignment for LIFE in St. Moritz, Switzerland, 1947.
Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Decades after its 1960 debut, Spartacus is no longer a mere movie. Instead, the strange, flawed, enthralling sword-and-sandal epic long ago entered that thorny realm where unclassifiable cinematic touchstones (Vertigo, Night of the Hunter, Brazil, et al.) reside. Directed by a 32-year-old Kubrick with only two feature films under his belt, produced by and starring mid-century superstar Kirk Douglas and featuring a galaxy of acting luminaries, the 1960 blockbuster has been exalted, imitated and parodied; honored, derided and dissected; and after all these years, it still achieves what most three-hour, big-budget historical dramas can only dream of: it’s entertaining as hell.
Here, LIFE.com presents rare and unpublished photos from the Spartacus set by LIFE’s J.R. Eyerman, who, along with writer David Zeitlin, spent time chronicling behind-the-scenes action on the massive, $12 million production.
Critics were sharply divided over Spartacus when it was first released. TIME magazine called it “a new kind of Hollywood movie: a super-spectacle with spiritual vitality and moral force.” The New York Times‘ long-time film critic, meanwhile, dismissed the movie as “heroic humbug.” Over the years, most reviewers and movie fans, alike, have come around to the view that, while the film has its problems its pacing alone drives some viewers to distraction Spartacus remains one the most successful admixtures of action-flick and high-minded drama ever attempted .
The film’s eponymous star, Kirk Douglas, had teamed with Kubrick a few years earlier, in 1957, on one of the most powerful anti-war movies ever made the lean masterpiece, Paths of Glory. Everything about Spartacus was different, more complex, bigger than that first Douglas-Kubrick pairing. (Spartacus was produced by Douglas’ own production company, Bryna Productions, in association with Universal Studios.)
Still, Kubrick’s famously fertile filmmaker’s mind adapted itself to the vast production’s scope. For example, during the filming of one enormous battle scene, Kubrick placed “numbered signs among the ‘corpses’,” LIFE reported, “so that he could holler, ‘You there, next to number 163, move over or look dead or something.’ Otherwise, he would have hollered ‘you there’ and nine guys would have hollered back ‘Who, me?’ When he was ready to shoot they took the numbers away and shot. As a technique it worked fine, but on-screen the scene proved disappointing so they shot it all over again, this time indoors at Universal’s Hollywood studio.”
Along with the photos that offer insights into Kubrick’s method, this gallery also features images that, for film buffs, resonate with far more import than the simple action depicted. For instance, one Eyerman photograph captures one of the most memorable scenes in the entire movie, involving the character of Crassus (Laurence Olivier) attempting to seduce his slave, Antonius (played by Tony Curtis), during a glacially paced bathing scene. In an often-quoted exchange, Crassus quizzes Antonius on the latter’s taste in food—specifically, how the extremely able-bodied slave feels about gastropods and mollusks.
“Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?” Crassus asks, and then points out that “taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals.” When Antonius replies that such an assertion “could be argued so, master,” Crassus shares what was surely the worst-kept secret of the ancient world: “My taste,” he says, “includes both snails . . . and oysters.”
Its sheer, occasionally kitschy entertainment value notwithstanding, Spartacus is a movie with a message that today comes across as somehow melodramatic Slavery Bad, Freedom Good and politically pointed; in fact, the anti-authoritarian rumblings that inform so much of the film are, in retrospect, utterly unsurprising. The screenplay was written by the great Dalton Trumbo, after all perhaps the most famous of the men and women blacklisted during the “Red Scare” McCarthy era that rocked Hollywood, splintered friendships and torpedoed promising careers.
Trumbo, a member of the Communist party for five years in the 1940s, was blacklisted after refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and spent 11 months in a federal penitentiary. Many of his later screenplays were written under pseudonyms. But Kirk Douglas insisted that Trumbo’s credit for Spartacus be made public — an act of conscience that is often cited as the beginning of the end for the blacklist era.
“Senator McCarthy was an awful man,” Douglas once said. “He blacklisted the writers who wouldn’t obey his edict. The heads of the studios were hypocrites who went along with it. Too many people were using false names. I was embarrassed. I was young enough to be impulsive, so even though I was warned against it, I used [Trumbo’s] real name on the screen.”
Long before his noble gesture came to light, however, there was still a movie to be made from Trumbo’s script, and not everyone was certain that the hugely ambitious, expensive effort would bear fruit.
“Douglas,” wrote David Zeitlin in notes to his editors at LIFE, a year before the film’s release, “I am sure will once again be old blood and guts, gnashing teeth, and Big Hero. [But] I still have considerable respect for director Stanley Kubrick. We shall see.”
All these years later, the verdict is in: as cinematic landmark and popular entertainment, Spartacus still delivers.
Laurence Olivier (right) on the set of Spartacus, 1959.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Extras on the set of Spartacus, 1959.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A boom microphone slips into the frame of a photo capturing the famous “snails and oysters” scene between Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A view of the gladiator ring on the set of Spartacus, 1959.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Kirk Douglas on the set of Spartacus, 1959.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Kirk Douglas and Woody Strode on the set of Spartacus in 1959.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
World War II vet, decathlete and football star-turned-actor Woody Strode, as the gladiator Draba.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Kirk Douglas and athlete-turned-actor Woody Strode battle in a scene from Spartacus.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Of the scene above, LIFE wrote: “Shockers abound [in the film] … as Spartacus the slave leader deals a grisly death to cruel Marcellus, the gladiator trainer (Charles McGraw), by holding his head in a hot pot of stew until he perishes in the greasy stuff.”
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Spartacus’ Marcellus the gladiator trainer receives his just desserts.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Having dispatched the luckless gladiator trainer, Marcellus, confident slaves prepare to launch their inspiring, albeit doomed rebellion.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
The Roman Senate.
J.R. Eyerman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Characters played by Laurence Olivier and Peter Ustinov—as Batiatus, the owner of a gladiator school—confer during a scene. Ustinov won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance,
Each and every time a new James Bond movie comes to the big screen, media everywhere take a loving look back at the franchise, including the stock figure of the Bond Girl.
The voluptuous Swiss actress Ursula Andress is invariably cited as the “first Bond Girl,” and her initial appearance in Dr. No (1962) walking out of the sea in a white bikini is rightly touted as one of the most eye-popping entrances in movie history.
It’s worth pointing out, however, that while Andress was the first big-screen Bond Girl, another actress largely forgotten today but well-known in the 1940s and ’50s can lay claim to truly originating the onscreen Bond Girl persona.
Discovered in her native Mexico by the film star Errol Flynn, who reportedly became her lover and convinced her to move to Hollywood when she was barely out of high school, Linda Christian starred as “Valerie Mathis” in a TV adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1954—almost a full decade before Andress starred as Honey Ryder in Dr. No.
In that 1954 Royale, none other than Peter Lorre played Le Chiffre, while Bond (called “Jimmy” Bond throughout!) was played by the likable and, it must be said, not-very-debonair American actor, Barry Nelson.
Linda Christian’s life and career before landing the Mathis role was fairly dramatic in its own right. She was married to the movie star Tyrone Power for seven years, from 1949 to 1956, which in and of itself made her something of a household name. Her first significant national exposure, meanwhile, came in the pages of none other than LIFE magazine in 1945.
The Sept. 3, 1945, issue of LIFE introduced Linda Christian to its millions of readers this way:
Almost before the ink was dry on headlines announcing the crash of the first atomic bomb, Hollywood had turned the event to good publicity. At the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio Miss Linda Christians, a hitherto obscure starlet, was solemnly proclaimed the Anatomic Bomb. Half-Mexican, half-Dutch, Linda was born in Tampico, Mexico, thinks it was 22 years ago. Her real name is Blanca Rose Welter. Her father, an oil executive, traveled widely, taking his family with him. They were in Palestine in 1941 during a bomb scare. Linda was evacuated to Mexico with a bad case of malaria, recovered, went to Hollywood to join her brother, got a job modeling hats, was seen and singed by M-G-M. So far she has been in no pictures, the publicity role of the Anatomic Bomb being her first important assignment. With long residence in Holland, Italy, France and Switzerland, Linda thinks Hollywood is wonderful.
A few things to note about that little write-up: first, LIFE called her Linda “Christians,” instead of “Christian.” Second, her given name was Blanca Rosa, not Rose, Welter. Third, Christian actually had appeared in a few “pictures” by the time she graced the pages of LIFE albeit she went uncredited in her first four movies.
Christian’s marriage to Power was a match made in gossip-page heaven. She was 26 when they wed; he was 35. Before then she was best-known for her supporting role in the 1948 , Tarzan and the Mermaids. He was a bone fide movie star and leading man, a huge box office draw, a decorated WWII veteran and one of the few matinee idols of the ’30s and ’40s who constantly sought meatier, grittier film roles than the standard “pretty boy” are he was used to, while also spending significant time away from Hollywood to appear on the stage in London and on Broadway. He and Christian had two children together before their divorce in 1956. Tyrone Power died of a heart attack in 1958 when he was just 44 years old.
Linda Christian continued to act, although somewhat irregularly and more often than not in (terribly received) foreign films, well into the 1980s. She was married once more, to another actor, for a year in the early 1960s, and died in 2011 in Palm Desert, Calif., at the age of 87.
Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.
Linda Christian, 1945
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945.
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945.
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945.
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945.
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945.
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945.
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945.
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Linda Christian, 1945.
Bob Landry The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
In August of 1959, a blackout hit New York City. Power was out for 13 hours—not that long when viewed in retrospect. Though if you were in the middle of that blackout, and especially if you were operating a store that sold whipped cream and custard, (see photo gallery) you might have looked at it differently.
For its part, LIFE described the blackout in its Aug. 31, 1959, issue this way:
In the heart of glittering Manhattan island, a 500-block area lay swathed in darkness. Street lamps were out and no light shone from the many-windowed apartment houses. In their blacked-out homes, a half million new Yorkers made do without radio or TV. Those who ventured out found cafeterias taking on the candlelit airs of tea shoppes and taverns offering unrefrigerated beer without the usual juke-box blare. In the streets, people enjoyed watching police trying to unsnarl the minor traffic jams that resulted from the lack of traffic lights. Or they simply gathered in little groups to savor the strange aura of a seemingly lifeless city.
A massive failure had cut off almost all electricity in the section that bounded Central Park and for almost 13 hours the area was without power. The huge use of air conditioners and refrigerators brought on by a heat wave might have been the basic cause of the failure. When the lights went on, the city congratulated itself that there had been no panic and little misbehavior. In an area where crime incidence is fairly high, police reported only a few misdemeanors and a couple of picked pockets.
As a rule, photographers need good lighting to make their pictures, but in this case, a blackout created a notable exception.
New York City Blackout, 1959.
Joe Scherschel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
New York City Blackout, 1959.
Joe Scherschel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Original caption: “Candlelit automat provides dinner with a touch of old world atmosphere. Local storekeepers ran out of candles and flashlights in a couple of hours.”
“A national political campaign,” H.L. Mencken once observed, “is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.”
Baptisms and hangings aside, Mencken’s characterization of a campaign as a circus-like affair alternately thrilling, entertaining, silly and (occasionally) a matter of life and death still strikes a chord. Just like at the circus, during any hard-fought, high-profile campaign we watch, shake our heads and hold our breath, stunned by the spectacle and wondering how on earth the performers can keep going day after day, night after night.
But it’s also worth pointing out that, in some very elemental ways, pretty much all American political campaigns are very much alike, and (like circuses) they have looked and felt the same for as long as Democrats and Republicans have been vying for the House, the Senate, governors’ mansions and, of course, the Oval Office.
Here, LIFE.com presents photos of American politicians on the campaign trail: famous leaders and largely forgotten pols shaking hands, kissing babies, eating everything put in front of them, traveling in planes, trains and automobiles in search of one more vote. It’s not pretty but then, while it might be highly entertaining, no one ever said that politics was an especially attractive endeavor.
Republican presidential candidate Robert Taft, a U.S. Senator from Ohio, appears dismayed as he holds a rooster during his 1952 primary campaign.
Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
President Franklin D. Roosevelt talks to a young mother while sitting in his car during a trip to the West in 1936.
Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Vice Presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace throws a boomerang in a field in January 1940. Wallace, who was vice president during FDR’ second term and served as the secretary of both Commerce and Agriculture, was relatively famous for his prowess with the boomerang, and could occasionally be seen in the early morning near the Lincoln Memorial in the 1940s, hurling the curved, lethal-looking pieces of wood and catching them as they returned.
Thomas D. Mcavoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Republican candidate for Congress Raymond Leslie Buell gives a campaign speech on a platform surrounded by townspeople in a small Massachusetts park in August 1942.
Herbert Gehr Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Hamilton Fish, a Republican Congressman from New York who served 25 years in the House, stands before his likeness in the midst of a campaign.
Marie Hansen Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Gubernatorial candidate Gomer Smith talks to small gathering from the bed of a feed truck, Wagoner, Oklahoma, in June 1942.
Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
A car caravan takes GOP presidential candidate Thomas Dewey into the countryside in September 1948.
Ed Clark Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Thomas E. Dewey accepts the Republican nomination for President at the Republican Natlonal Convention in June 1948.
Gjon Mili Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Claude Pepper naps with his wife in the back seat of a chartered plane as they fly home after his last campaign speech in May 1950. Pepper, a Democrat, represented Florida in the Senate for 15 years (1936-1951), and the Miami area in the House for another 26 (from 1963 until his death in 1989).
Thomas D. Mcavoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower stands at a lectern delivering a speech during a “whistle stop tour” of the Midwest in September 1952. He would go on to defeat Democrat Adlai Stevenson in November of that year and serve two terms in the White House.
Joseph Scherschel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower accepts a pumpkin from an admirer during his whistle stop tour in September 1952.
Joseph Scherschel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt adjusts Richard Nixon’s tie prior to photo shoot during the 1960 presidential campaign.
Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
John F. Kennedy gives a speech while standing on a kitchen chair in Logan County, West Virginia
Hank Walker Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock images
Senator Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) talks with staff and reporters while on a plane in April 1960, before accepting John Kennedy’s offer to be his running mate.
Thomas D. Mcavoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Hubert Humphrey shakes hands with a voter while campaigning prior to the West Virginia primary in April 1960.
Paul Schutzer Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’ supporters in January 1964.
Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock
