October 13, 1950: 'Fasten Your Seatbelts'

Today in 1950 · Friday, October 13, 1950

Bette Davis as Margo Channing in the trailer for All About Eve (1950)

Bette Davis as Margo Channing in the trailer for All About Eve (1950) · 20th Century-Fox trailer screenshot, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On this Friday night in 1950, at the Roxy in New York, 'All About Eve' had its world premiere — and the movies got their sharpest portrait of ambition ever put on film. Joseph L. Mankiewicz's backstage drama gave Bette Davis the role of her life as Broadway star Margo Channing, Anne Baxter as the adoring fan dismantling her idol from within, and George Sanders as the critic Addison DeWitt, narrating the whole feast of knives.

The Roxy tried something novel for the run: scheduled performances with no late seating — and abandoned the policy after one week, because 1950 audiences were simply used to wandering into movies whenever they pleased. The picture itself proved harder to walk away from. It collected a record fourteen Academy Award nominations — one more than 'Gone with the Wind,' a mark not even tied until 'Titanic' 47 years later — and won six Oscars, including Best Picture, with Mankiewicz taking both director and screenplay.

One record still stands alone: four women from a single film nominated for acting — Davis, Baxter, Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter. Add a bit part by a young Marilyn Monroe and Davis's immortal warning — 'Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night' — and October 13, 1950 becomes one of the best nights out the movies ever offered.

Also on this day

  • In Beijing, the Politburo held its final deliberations on entering the Korean War.
  • Japan lifted purge restrictions on more than 10,000 wartime officials as occupation policy softened.

🎵 On the radio that week: America’s No. 1 song was “Goodnight Irene” by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers (Billboard best sellers) — a folk song adapted by Lead Belly, who died broke in December 1949 — one year before it became the biggest hit of 1950. That sound never really left — we recreate 1950s doo-wop and slow-dance ballads every week: read the stories behind our songs or listen on the lovesong1950s channel.
🎬 At the movies: Today's main story was the movie news — and while “All About Eve” opened in New York, “Sunset Boulevard” kept Hollywood's other backstage tale on screens nationwide.
⚾ In sports: The NHL raised its curtain with a Stanley Cup Final rematch, Detroit over the Rangers 3-2 — Gordie Howe returning from his head injury to begin the season that brought his first scoring title.

Sources: AFI Catalog: All About Eve · TCM: All About Eve · Wikipedia: October 1950 · Billboard best-seller charts, 1950 (issue scans) · Variety National Boxoffice Survey, 1950 (Lantern scans) · Sports records: www.hockey-reference.com. Every fact above is drawn from the records linked here — no dramatization, no invented details.

More from this series: Today in 1950 — the daily archive · every post from October 2026

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