Desire, an Outcast, and Sports Illustrated

This Week (August 12-18) in 1954…

On Monday, the first issue of a new magazine called Sports Illustrated debuted. This magazine will focus on all things sports, and is a Time property. The initial cover shows Milwaukee Braves star Eddie Matthews at Bat, with New York Giants catcher Wes Westrum behind him. We’ll see if serious sports journalism can survive in the United States!

Two films debuted on August 15th: Human Desire, starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Gahame, and Broderick Crawford; and The Outcast, starring John Derek and Joan Evans.

Human Desire is a film noir directed by Fritz Lang and is based in the novel La Bete humaine by Emile Zola. This is the third filming of that novel, but the first in the United States. In this noir, Railroad supervisor Carl Buckley (Crawford) is fired from his job, and tries having his attractive wife Vicki (Grahame) use her feminine wiles to convince an important railroad customer to get his job back. He later becomes suspicious she’s done more than talk him into it…

The Outcast is a western, and directed by William Witney. In this film, Jet Cosgrave (Derek) has been cheated out of an inheritance by his uncle, Linton Cosgrave (played by Jim Davis). He’s then cast out and framed, and begins trying to clear his name — in the process, meeting the cute JJudy Polsen (Evans)…