Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Sept. 17, 1907
Los Angeles
Mexican Independence Day was celebrated in a grand program sponsored by the Club Porfiro Diaz of Los Angeles at Turner Hall, 325 S. Main (demolished 1951), which was decorated with American and Mexican flags.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1944 MGM picture “Barbary Coast Gent,” with Wallace Beery, Binnie Barnes, John Carradine, Bruce Kellogg, Frances Rafferty, Chill Wills, Noah Beery Sr., Henry O’Neill and Ray Collins.
It was produced by Orville O. Dull, screenplay by William R. Lipman, Grant Garrett and Harry Ruskin, from an original story by William R. Lipman and Grant Garrett. Photography by Charles Salerno Jr., musical score by David Snell, art direction by Cedric Gibbons and William Ferrari, set decoration by Edwin B. Willis and Glen Barner, costume supervision by Irene and Kay Dean, makeup by Jack Dawn, directed by Roy Del Ruth.
“Barbary Coast Gent” has never been commercially released on DVD or VHS, but can be found on the gray market.
A postcard of Hamburger’s Department Store is listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $2.99.
Note: This is an encore post from 2013.
The classy, oversize May Co. Department Store located at 801 S. Broadway in downtown Los Angeles is up for sale. Today, the mostly empty Broadway Trade Center hosts makeshift swap meet stalls on the first floor in this once celebrated building, the largest department store west of the Mississippi River. Once known as Hamburger’s Department Store, the facility later operated as the May Co. Original owner Hamburger’s was a more elegant and upscale Wal-Mart, hosting every type of business under its roof, even a movie theater.
Hamburger’s Department Store ranked as one of Los Angeles’ premier shopping centers in the early 1900s. Asher Hamburger and his son David immigrated to Los Angeles from Sacramento in 1881, establishing the 20 x 100 foot People’s Store at Main Street and Requena. This department store featured mass but quality goods at fair prices, popular with penny-pinching consumers.
Also by Mary Mallory
Keye Luke
Auction of Souls
Busch Gardens and Hogan’s Aristocratic Dreams
Also on the Daily Mirror
On Location, the May Co.
Movieland Mystery Photo – Architecture Edition
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Sept. 16, 1907
Los Angeles
Occidental’s fall semester has gotten underway with a boisterous gathering in the Hall of Letters. The first order of business was to punish underclassmen who dared to wear corduroy trousers, a right restricted to the upper classes. “Offending students were unceremoniously shorn of the ‘extreme pegs,’ ” The Times said. “ In the roughhouse, Dean Ward was among those who went to the floor.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Low flying charges have been filed by the Civil Aeronautics Administration against Stanley Beltz, Lockheed test pilot, who reportedly took a four-engined Constellation down to 200 feet or less over a Playa Del Rey residential district last Friday.
The complaint, turned over to the CAA, declares Beltz violated minimum altitudes (1,000 feet), endangering lives and property.
Beltz denied being as low as householders reported. He explained he descended toward the coast to test a radio altimeter offshore.
This little brief appears to be nothing more than yet another of the many Times stories about pilots buzzing Los Angeles after the war, which seems to have occurred nearly every day. But in fact it leads to heartache and death.
Stanley A. Beltz was a prominent test pilot and after joining Lockheed in 1943 flew almost every type of plane the company made, except the F-90 and F-104 Starfighter. He piloted the first test flight of the C-130 transport from Burbank to Edwards Air Force Base in 1954.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
The ram’s horn, once a trumpet of war but now a symbol of faith, sounded at sundown yesterday in Los Angeles synagogues to mark the dawn of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana.
In Temple Emanuel, Beverly Hills, Rabbi Ernest Trattner told the congregation that “New beginnings come, not in new seasons, but in new attitudes. Solutions of life’s problems come, not in the passing of time, but in self-discipline and self-dedication. Let us start the year with God and keep step with Him all the year and peace and power and gladness shall be ours.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Further note: Rotten Tomatoes, gives this film 32% on the Tomatometer.
“The Black Dahlia,” directed by Brian De Palma, screenplay by Josh Friedman based on the novel by James Ellroy. Starring Josh Hartnett (Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert), Aaron Eckhart (Leeland “Lee” Blanchard), Scarlett Johansson (Kay Lake), Hillary Swank (Madeleine Linscott) and Mia Kirshner (Elizabeth Short). Universal Pictures.
(Contains spoilers. You have been warned)
Sept. 14, 1947: Let’s see. White couples or single women wanted. Age limit 55 years.
No, we don’t do this anymore.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Someday an inquisitive person studying the history of transportation and urban planning will tell the world exactly what became of Los Angeles’ 1947 blueprint for dealing with transit problems. In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for the knowledge that at least they made a valiant effort. They certainly knew what was coming—without much argument, you could call them futurists.
A committee sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce spent 19 months studying transportation issues and warned that someday Los Angeles would have a population of 5 million (the 2000 population of Los Angeles County was 9,519,338, with 3,694,820 for the city of L.A.).
“High-speed rail transit arteries plus a system of downtown subways alone can save Los Angeles from disintegration into a hodge-podge of unconnected municipalities,” The Times said in quoting the project’s advocates.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Sept. 13, 1907
Los Angeles
The family was too poor to take a streetcar, so Concepcion Parra, 60, and her sister Mrs. J.L. Ghiotto began walking the 12 miles to El Monte with Parra’s 5-year-old granddaughter, Delphina Verde, to see the girl’s mother. To save time, they took a shortcut along the streetcar tracks.
Around State Street, they jumped back to avoid a southbound car from Pasadena and were hit by a northbound car. Parra (or Parras) and Ghiotto were thrown clear by the collision, but Delphina was crushed under the wheels.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Henry R. Wagner of San Marino will be 85 years old Sept. 27 but the Zamorano Club couldn’t wait that long. In order to surprise Dr. Wagner, it celebrated his birthday at its monthly dinner Wednesday night—and the members got a surprise, too.
Never before had a woman been introduced to the club, but at that dinner Mrs. Wagner, Dorothy Huggings of San Francisco and Ruth Frye Axe, Dr. Wagner’s present secretary, were honor guests.
Here’s the sequence of shots in “The Unfaithful” showing Angels Flight, photographed by Ernest Haller, edited by Alan Crosland Jr.
In image No. 1, we have a news vendor and the upper entrance to the funicular.
“Boogie-Woogie Blue Plate” is No. 2on this week’s juke box hits.
Sept. 11, 1947: KLAC disc jockey Al Jarvis replies to Earl Griffin’s criticisms in last week’s Sentinel. “To knowingly plug a sponsor who discriminates against the Negro race is contrary to every belief I have ever had or ever will have.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
“Big Bill,” driver for Maier & Zobelein, blockaded a procession of cars on Spring Street yesterday afternoon because he was insulted and angry. He had driven his big brewery wagon too close to the tracks and a passing car rolled one of the kegs of beer into the gutter and spilled the contents. For revenge, “Bill” drove his wagon into such a position that not a car could pass north on Spring Street and the trolley coaches began to pile up behind the foam cart.
The team was allowed to stand and “Bill” went into the saloon to refresh himself and cool off as much as possible.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Sept. 11, 1907
Direct Wire From New York
Wow! Now this is the kind of quote one simply doesn’t see every day, at least in the 21st century. The Victorians certainly had a different attitude toward women’s physiques:
“The woman who gets the proper sort of corset will have the fashionable figure, even if she weighs a ton.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
OK, I’ve had my fun with Ellroy’s copies of the “Avenger” books. The hardback stands at $38 and the paperback at $29. Despite my minimum bids, there is always the risk that I might end up with these turkeys!
Good luck, folks, I will be watching on the sidelines, listening to John Coltrane’s “Love Supreme.”
A fascinating look at what middle America saw at the movies from the 1910s through the 1950s, the 54th Annual Cinecon Classic Film Festival provided an excellent slate of films running the gamut from silents to sound, musicals to westerns, revealing how films can unite audiences rather than create walls.
While no major finds rose to the top, overall the entire program provided solid entertainment and featured such recurring motifs as odd wards entrusted with children, mad writers, sardines, a financially struggling population, immigration, and an “arrogance of power.” Favorite actors unexpectedly popped up multiple times, from Walter Brennan, Andy Devine, Monty Woolley, Zasu Pitts, J. Carroll Naish, T. Roy Barnes, Walter Catlett, Louise Fazenda, Luis Alberni, John George, and Allison Skipworth, and such stars as Colleen Moore and Jack Oakie, received multiple opportunities to shine.
Festivities kicked off Thursday night with a 1913 Kinetophone short following the reception. A primitive early attempt at uniting picture and sound, the experiment failed because of multiple technical issues. This short demonstrated that, a prelude to the “Singin’ In the Rain” scene where unctuous Julius Tannen overenunciates to emphasize that this is a talking picture.
Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1948/1950 Warner Bros. film “Backfire,” with Viveca Lindfors, Dane Clark, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Gordon MacRae, Ed Begley, Frances Robinson, Richard Robert, Sheila Stephens and David Hoffman.
Screenplay by Larry Marcus, Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts from a story by Larry Marcus. Photography by Carl Guthrie, art direction by Anton Grot, set decoration by William Wallace, makeup by Perc Westmore, Miss Lindfors’ gowns by Milo Anderson, Miss Mayo’s gowns by Leah Rhodes. Music by Daniele Amfitheatrof, produced by Anthony Veiller and directed by Vincent Sherman.
“Backfire” is available on DVD from Warner Archive in a film noir set that includes “Cornered,” “Desperate,” “The Phenix City Story,” “Dial 1119” “Armored Car Robbery,” “Crime in the Streets” and “Deadline at Dawn.”
Befuddled and often tongue-tied onscreen, beloved character actor Charlie Ruggles possessed sharp business and organizational skills off screen. He parlayed a love of dogs into a profitable kennel business for several years in the 1930s and 1940s, working to ensure proper, healthy living conditions and behavior for the canines in his charge.
Born in Los Angeles in 1886, Ruggles began appearing on the stage not long after graduating from high school, though his father hoped he would follow him into the wholesale drug business. The young man quickly found his footing, earning wide praise for theatrical appearances around California and on the Broadway stage in 1914. Not long after, Ruggles followed his younger brother Wesley, a future director, into the moving picture business, becoming a well respected performer for over 50 years.
Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
There are some obstacles that even love cannot overcome, or so David Everett has discovered. The 30-year-old mechanic is in critical condition at Torrance General Hospital after shooting himself in the head and neck in despondency over his frustrated love for his 17-year-old first cousin Janet. And yes, she lives in a trailer park.
Everett is the man who was handing out $100 tips the other day after withdrawing all his money from the bank. Not just to Flora Killingsworth for bringing him ham and eggs, but to 15-year-old newsboy Edward Grant for a nickel paper, and to a cabdriver who took him to Glendale. To top it off, Everett ripped up some $100 bills and threw them in the street.
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