For Monday, we have a mystery guest. His companions have been cropped out due to insufficient mysteriousness and will appear later.
For Tuesday, Monday’s mysterious fellow has a mystery companion, Top of the Head Guy (a.k.a. Digging for Mustard Guy). Continue reading
Reminder: Boxy and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on the Black Dahlia case Tuesday, Dec. 5, at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on YouTube and on Instagram.
I’ll give an update on the book and discuss Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer, by Janice Knowlton and Michael Newton.
Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them! I’ll also get to the backlog of questions from previous sessions. The video will be posted once the session ends so you can watch it later.
Remember, this is only Black Dahlia questions. I have a separate Ask Me Anything on George Hodel on Dec. 19, at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
Oct. 24, 1957
Los Angeles
The wages of sin was a hilltop mansion in Bel-Air for Donald De Munck, who according to The Times provided his home at 10689 Somma Way as a location to shoot stag films.*
The Times account of the pornography raid shows that by the 1950s the adult
film industry had a heavy presence in the San Fernando Valley and that the ring operated much like a regular studio.
George W. Richter, 63, 9721 Lemona Ave., a North Hills man with a long history in the porn industry, provided the film processing lab while his sons George F., 13019 Bracken St., Pacoima, and Robert C. Richter, Northridge, operated the cameras, The Times said.
Distribution was handled by Jack Rappaport, 51, through his luggage store at 1734 S. Vermont Ave., and Lee La Beau, 42, of 5651 Melrose Ave. (an address belonging to Aldik Artificial Flower Co., according to city directories and newspaper ads), The Times said.
And then there was the on-screen talent: Donald Harvey, 10660 E. Dorado Ave., Pacoima, and Barbara Jean Elliott, a.k.a. Kathryn Douglas. Continue reading
A postcard c. 1908 of poinsettias, “California’s Christmas flower,” listed on EBay.
Note: This is an encore post from 2020.
Euphorba Pulcherrima, better known as the poinsettia plant, has been popular in Los Angeles since the late 1800s. Some call it flor de fuego (fire flower) or flor de la noche buena (flower of the holy night) because of its bright red leaves or bracts. First used as centerpieces or accents during the holiday season, since the leaves turn color quickly during the shorter winter days, the blazing plant gained popularity at the hands of Hollywood residents, now one of the most popular flowers highlighting homes across the United States at Christmas.
Indigenous in Mexico and Central America, these bright red and green plants grow as shrubs and small trees as tall as 13 feet. The Aztecs employed the striking flower for medicinal purposes, such as healing pulmonary infections.
Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1949 Twentieth Century-Fox film Come to the Stable, with Loretta Young, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Gomez, Dorothy Patrick, Basil Ruysdael, Dooley Wilson, Regis Toomey and Mike Mazurki. Continue reading
Agnes O’Malley Marx in the Los Angeles Daily News, 1954.
The early moving picture industry offered opportunity to diverse workers: immigrants, women, and people of color more easily found jobs and opportunities for growth and leadership in the new field. Those with creativity, ambition, and drive could succeed unlike in more settled and traditional fields. Like other young women, Pennsylvania born Agnes O’Malley yearned for the chance to make her mark in Hollywood and contribute to the success of motion pictures. While basically unknown today, O’Malley’s moxie and smarts led her to early film publicity, selling the movies as she sold herself.
Born June 12, 1897 in Allegheny, Pennsylvnaia to Irish immigrant John and local girl Annie, Agnes K. O’Malley was one of four children who learned to scrap early. Her family struggled as her father originally worked in a mill before becoming a street foreman in Pittsburgh. She would later claim to have attended college, but city records show her working as a stenographer in Pittsburgh in 1920. Looking for excitement and adventure she moved in Los Angeles and Hollywood in 1922, hoping to find a job in the booming film industry.
Note: This is an encore post from 2013.
A wartime Thanksgiving in Los Angeles, with many service personnel welcomed into people’s homes for a holiday meal.
The Times published cooking tips for war workers, advising cooks who were otherwise engaged “for the duration” to use prepared mixes, packaged pie crust and canned pumpkin to cut preparation time.
Note: This is an encore post from 2011.
Here’s a traditional roast turkey recipe from the “Every-Day Cook-Book and Family Compendium,” written about 1890 by Miss E. Neill. Be sure your fire is bright and clear and watch out for the gall-bag.
Continue reading
Here’s Boxy and I with this month’s “Ask Me Anything” on George Hodel.
I talked about Steve Hodel’s Internet squabble with Esotouric and his bizarre new book “Black Dahlia Avenger IV.”
Then I went over the LAPD guidelines for managing a stakeout to lay the groundwork for delving into what the George Hodel bugging transcripts truly say, rather than what Steve Hodel claims that they say.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1943 Twentieth Century-Fox picture The Gang’s All Here, with Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Phil Baker, Benny Goodman and His Orchestra, Eugene Pallette, Charlotte Greenwood, Edward Everett Horton, Tony De Marco, James Ellison, Sheila Ryan and Dave Willock. Continue reading
Photo: The trailer for the restored version of Abel Gance’s “Napoleon.”
Credit: San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
Note: This is an encore post from 2012.
In the mid-1920s, the world was looking for inspiration on how to live passionately, doggedly pursue dreams, and fulfill destinies. The apogee of these paths came together in the historic figure of Napoleon Bonaparte. Dead for over 100 years, the great leader inspired patriotic fervor in his countrymen and elicited wonder and awe in others. In certain quarters, he became the first cultural icon and his name part of the general lexicon.
Reminder: Boxy and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on George Hodel and Steve Hodel next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time on YouTube and Instagram.
This time, we’ll take a look at what’s going on in Steve Hodel’s world (he got into an Internet spat with Esotouric and published his latest book) and begin an examination of the George Hodel transcripts. Does the surveillance audio of the Sowden House really show what Steve Hodel says it does?
Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them! The video will be posted once the session ends so you can watch it later.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1947 Paramount film Welcome Stranger, with Bing Crosby, Joan Caulfield, Barry Fitzgerald, Wanda Hendrix, Frank Faylen, Elizabeth Patterson, Robert Shayne, Larry Young, Percy Kilbride, Charles Dingle and Don Beddoe. Continue reading
Joan Bennett photographed by Fred Archer, Modern Screen Magazine.
Note: This is an encore post from 2015
As stillsmen Elmer Fryer and Fred Archer wrote in the 1928 article for “Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers,” “In the advertising field, the still picture is used to illustrate and help plant the articles broadcast by the publicity department throughout the periodical world and it is used for lobby displays…A good “still” will attract and hold attention where many poor ones will receive but a passing glance.”
Photographic stills sold films both to exhibitors and to the public long before the advent of television and broadcast media. Movie studios sent out publicity stills en masse to magazines and newspapers looking for free copy in which to sell their product. Photographers in the 1920s-1940s devised glamorous, artistic images deifying motion picture stars, defining the glamorous iconography idolized and worshipped by decades of movie lovers.
Mary Mallory’s “Hollywood land: Tales Lost and Found” is available for the Kindle.
Here’s this month’s Ask Me Anything on the Black Dahlia case. I talked about the Cleveland Torso Killings and why they aren’t related to the murder of Elizabeth Short. I also took an extended look at John Gilmore’s dreadful Severed, which is 25% mistakes and 50% fiction.
Coming up on YouTube: On Nov. 21 at 10 a.m. Pacific time, I’ll do an Ask Me Anything on George Hodel. Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them! The video will be posted once the session ends so you can watch it later.
Long before Iron Eyes Cody was outed as non-Native American, silent film actress Josephine Workman claimed full Native American heritage, though only her maternal grandmother was actually Native American. Accentuating her dark, exotic looks and embroidered background, she took the screen name Princess Mona Darkfeather to gain fame as an Indian maiden in moving pictures in the mid-1910s, following after actual Native American Lillian St. Cyr, who had christened herself Princess Red Wing a few years earlier.
Perhaps realizing the success of Red Wing in moving pictures, Workman had decided to follow suit. St. Cyr had been performing on stage since the mid 1900s under the name Princess Red Wing, and was the first to appear on film in 1908, soon starring in shorts eponymously named and produced and directed by her husband James Young Deer, born James Young Johnson. In these shorts, Red Wing set the standard for decades worth of portrayals by Native American women – though stars, their characters often sacrificed themselves for white people who had befriended them, virtually never getting a happy ending or being the herioine of their own story. Continue reading
This week’s mystery movie was the 1946 Eagle Lion picture Caesar and Cleopatra, with Vivien Leigh, Claude Rains, Stewart Granger, Flora Robson, Francis Sullivan, Basil Sydney, Cecil Parker, Ernest Thesiger, Michael Rennie, Antony Eustrel, Robert Adams, Raymond Lovell, Olga Edwardes, Stanley Holloway, Esme Percy, Allan Wheatley and Leo Genn. Continue reading
Little known beyond animation circles, Margaret J. Winkler was one of the earliest distributors and producers of animated cartoons, the first woman in her field. Possessing savvy and a sharp eye, she signed two animators early in their career who would become superstars, Max Fleischer and Walt Disney. One hundred years ago, October 16, 1923, Winkler agreed to distribute Disney’s first animation series, the Alice comedies, launching his iconic career.
Born April 22, 1895 in Hungary, Winkler moved to America with her family as a chlld. She first found a position in the moving picture field as Harry Warner’s secretary in 1918. Observant and a quick study, she watched executive Warner at work purchasing film properities, coming to understand the complex, commercial nature of the artistic business.
Reminder: Boxy and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on the Black Dahlia case Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on YouTube and on Instagram.
I’ll give an update on the book and talk about another “suspect of the month,” the so-called Cleveland torso killings.
I’ll also discuss John Gilmore’s very bad book Severed, and its influence on John Douglas’ The Cases That Haunt Us.
Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them! I’ll also get to the backlog of questions from previous sessions. The video will be posted once the session ends so you can watch it later.
Remember, this is only Black Dahlia questions. I have a separate Ask Me Anything on George Hodel on Nov. 21, at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1935 Paramount picture Rumba, with George Raft, Carole Lombard, Lynne Overman, Margo, Gail Patrick, Iris Adrian, Monroe Owsley and Jameson Thomas.
For Monday, we have a mysterious woman. She does not know what to make of such goings-on. Continue reading
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