As the 65th edition of the world's most glamorous film festival gets underway on the French Riviera, LIFE.com presents a gallery of both rare and classic pictures from Cannes taken by LIFE's Paul Schutzer in 1962.

Cast your vote daily through May 21st to preserve important places across the five boroughs of NYC. Your vote helps decide which sites receive $3 Million in grants from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express.

On the anniversary of Las Vegas' founding in 1905, LIFE.com presents photos of the town half a century later, in the mid-1950s — when the gambling mecca was in the midst of a building boom that would redefine it forever.

Of all the 20th century photographers who made a name for themselves with their portrait work, few managed to capture as dizzying an array of subjects as the Latvian-born master, Philippe Halsman.

The story is so improbable, so marvelous, that it feels more like the remnant of a dream, or a half-remembered myth, rather than something that unfolded within living memory … September 12, 1940. A warm afternoon in southwestern France.

On the anniversary of Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister of England, LIFE.com offers a selection of photos of the great British leader in quieter, private moments, far away from the world of governance.

In 1964, LIFE photographer Michael Rougier chronicled Japanese youth in rebellion, and came away with an intimate, unsettling portrait of a generation hurtling willfully toward oblivion.

LIFE magazine's Gjon Mili, a technical prodigy and lighting innovator, visited Pablo Picasso in the South of France in 1949. The meeting of these two marvelous minds and sensibilities was bound to result in something extraordinary.

On the 100th anniversary of the founding of Paramount Pictures, LIFE.com presents a series of photos capturing both the faded magic and the undeniable appeal of a uniquely self-absorbed industry: the movies.

On scientist and visionary Edwin H. Land's birthday, LIFE.com offers an appreciation of his genius and of his crowning achievement: the beautiful, compact universe embodied in the Polaroid SX-70 instant camera.