Note: This is a post from 2013. Happy Thanksgiving!
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 a repost from 2011. Happy Thanksgiving!
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.
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“The Great Corbett Fight” at Tally’s theater.
Former Texan T. L. (Thomas) Tally pioneered early film exhibition practices in the film metropolis of Los Angeles, catering to the needs of his audiences. Always enamored with technology, he seemed to anticipate and lead trends in advancing both the presentation of films as well as their selling and distribution. Though Tally was recognized as an innovator, his history has been promulgated with repeated errors that distort history.
In my first post, I presented the first part of the factual history regarding Tally’s life. Born in Rockport, Texas in 1862, he established his first phonograph parlor in San Antonio in 1890 and first visited Los Angeles that year. Fascinated with engineering and mechanical marvels that produced sound and images, he began seeking out these products.
Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: T.L. Tally – L.A.’s Pioneer Film Exhibitor, Part 1
This week’s mystery movie has been MGM’s 1929 film “The Kiss,” which was the studio’s (and Greta Garbo’s) last silent film. It stars Garbo, Conrad Nagel and Holmes Herbert. From the story by George M. Saville, scenario by Hans Kraly, musical synchronization by Dr. William Axt, titles by Marian Ainslee, art direction by Cedric Gibbons, photography by William Daniels, gowns by Adrian and editing by Ben Lewis. It was directed by Jacques Feyder. With Anders Randolf, Lew Ayres and George Davis.
“The Kiss” is available from Warner Archive for $17.99.
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1936 RKO film “Two in the Dark,” with Walter Abel, Margo Grahame, Wallace Ford, Gail Patrick, Alan Hale, Leslie Fenton, Eric Blore, Erin O’Brien-Moore, Erik Rhodes, J. Carroll Naish and Addison Randall. It was directed by Ben Stoloff, with a screenplay by Seton I. Miller, based on a novel by Gelett Burgess, art direction by Van Nest Polglase and Al Herman and gowns by Bernard Newman.
The film was photographed by Nick Musuraca, who was my reason for selecting this picture.
It is not commercially available on DVD or VHS, but airs occasionally on TCM.
The Studio Club in Photoplay, 1917.
Note: This is an encore post from 2013.
T he advent of the 20th century offered the possibility of more freedom and opportunity for women. For decades, women had advocated for the right to vote, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Others clamored for more work opportunities beyond teaching, librarian, and secretarial positions.
The relatively new medium of motion pictures also tantalized audiences with many new possibilities beyond their hometowns: exciting new cities, novel hobbies and recreations, and modern employment opportunities. In fact, many people considered the growing film industry itself an excellent field to try their luck, especially movie-struck, naïve young women.
ALSO BY MARY MALLORY
Magic Castle
Mack Sennett
Brand Library
Auction of Souls
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1948 British film “No Orchids for Miss Blandish,” from the novel by James Hadley Chase, with Jack La Rue, Hugh McDermott, Linden Travers, Walter Crisham, Leslie Bradley, Zoe Gail, Jack Durant, Charles Goldner, Macdonald Parke, Lilly Molnar, Danny Green, Percy Marmont, Michael Balfour, Frances Marsden, Jack Lester, Halama and Konarski and Toy and Wyng. Photography by Gerald Gibbs, art direction by Harry Moore and music by George Melachrino. The film was written and directed by St. John L. Clowes.
The DVD is available from Amazon.
Note: This is an encore post from 2012.
From its days as an elegant bank building to its abandoned and forgotten existence in the 1980s and 1990s, the former Security Trust and Savings Bank at Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga Boulevard has served as both a local institution and location setting for films and books. Not as beautiful as the empty bank building at Hollywood and Highland Avenue, the banking veteran still survives as an example of an attractive building for an utilitarian function.
Pier Angeli and friend remind the Daily Mirror readers to turn the clock back one hour.
I think we have found one presumably young and aspiring reporter who apparently believes in doing absolutely no research whatsoever.
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1945 Paramount film “The Stork Club,” with Betty Hutton, Barry Fitzgerald, Don DeFore, Robert Benchley, Bill Goodwin, Iris Adrian, Mikail Rasumny, Mary Young and Andy Russell. It was written by B.G. DeSylva and John McGowan and directed by Hal Walker.
The DVD is available from Amazon.com.
Note: This is an encore post from 2013.
Music was an integral part of silent films, giving emotional texture or humorous voice to the films’ precious images. Different types of music and musicians accompanied them: orchestras, bands, photoplayers, pianists and organists. Leading the pack as one of Los Angeles’ premier silent film musicians was organist C. Sharpe Minor, a major talent with an attention-grabbing name.
Born June 24, 1885, in Louisiana, Charles Sulzer Sharpe Minor supposedly arrived in Los Angeles in 1907, but virtually nothing is known about him until he turns up in San Francisco with his wife Barbara Jane in 1917, accompanying films at the Rialto Theatre under the name C. Sharpe Minor. A few authors claim that he added his mother’s maiden name, Sharpe, realizing the eye-catching opportunities of employing this name on theatre marquees. Newspapers called him an extraordinary organist, and he played afternoon and evening shows adding a bit of entertainment with his trick effects and novelty arrangements.
Music: C. Sharpe Minor: “Parade of the Immortals.”
Minor worked at the Rialto for a year before being appointed a first lieutenant in the Army in September 1918. Immediately upon war completion, the organist returned to the theatre, for a short time accompanying films and giving concerts, before landing his first Los Angeles job at the Million Dollar Theatre in March 1919. Ads proclaim him a master organist, and he even earned his own slot in the stage show. By 1920, however, Minor played at San Francisco’s California Theatre.
At top, an account of the massacre in the Daily Southern Cross of Auckland, New Zealand, Dec. 9, 1871,
Above, a detail of a Los Angeles map displayed in the Globe Lobby of the Los Angeles Times Building showing the Plaza and what the newspaper account described as “Negro Alley.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2013.
This is the anniversary of the Chinese Massacre of 1871. Here’s a series of posts I did several years ago:
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Apparently YouTube tutorials on Black Dahlia makeup are a thing. Please reconsider your choices. We think Harley Quinn or Mad Moxxi are much better Halloween costume options rather than dressing up like the victim of a gruesome murder.
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1962 film “Carnival of Souls,” with Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger, Art Ellison, Stan Levitt, Tom McGinnis, Forbes Caldwell, Dan Palmquist, Bill de Jarnette, Steve Boozer, Pamela Ballard, Larry Sneegas, Cari Conboy, Karen Pyles, T.C. Adams, Sharon Scoville, Mary Ann Harris, Peter Schnitzler, Bill Sollner. Photography was by Maurice Prather, screenplay by John Clifford, music by Gene Moore, produced and directed by Herk Harvey.
“Carnival of Souls” is available from Criterion on DVD ($23.96) and Blu-ray ($31.96).
Do make a point of reading E. Yarber’s comments on the film. Most rewarding and insightful!
The Hollywood Reporter Building at 6715 Sunset Blvd., in 2015, via Google Street View.
The venerable Hollywood Reporter building on Sunset Boulevard offers a striking salute to Golden Age Hollywood with its patina of class and sophistication. Designed by architect Douglas Honnold for industry power broker and Reporter publisher William “Billy” R. Wilkerson, the building served as the headquarters for Wilkerson’s real estate fiefdom and his powerful trade paper. A landmark building in the evolution of Hollywood as an industry and as a point of influence in architecture, the structure represents the epicenter of the Hollywood publishing industry and its impact on Tinseltown filmmaking.
The edifice represents the glamorous dreams of its owner, Wilkerson. Ambitious and driven, he rose from small town Tennessee boy to king maker by absorbing every facet of the film business in his rise to the top. Beginning as a local theatre manager, Wilkerson moved on to jobs as booking agent, publicity and exploitation chief, regional distribution manager, distributor, production manager, producer, and director before entering publishing when he became acting editor and publisher of Exhibitor’s Daily Review in 1928. This diverse and educational journey prepared him for a leading role in shaping entertainment production at the Reporter.
Hollywood at Play, by Donovan Brandt, Mary Mallory and Stephen X. Sylvester is now on sale.
Just a quick reminder, since Investigation Discovery aired the first episode of “Horror at the Cecil Hotel” last night.
There is nothing to show that Elizabeth Short (“the Black Dahlia”) ever set foot in the Cecil Hotel. She was last seen at the Biltmore. The Cecil Hotel claim is a relatively recent urban legend.
See also:
Black Dahlia and the Hotel Cecil: L.A.’s Noir Folklore
Black Dahlia and the Cecil Hotel: Another Good Story Ruined
Black Dahlia: The Cecil Hotel and Halloween: Another Good Story Ruined
This mystery movie has been the 1930 RKO film “Conspiracy,” by Robert Baker and John Emerson (note that IMDB says they are uncredited. Oops). With Bessie Love, Ned Sparks, Hugh Trevor, Ivan Lebedeff, Rita LaRoy, Gertrude Howard, Otto Matiesen (sic), Walter Long, Donald MacKenzie and Jane Keckley. Directed by Christy Cabanne, produced by William LeBaron. Scenery and costumes by Max Ree, screenplay by Beulah-Marie Dix, photography by Nick Musuraca.
I was interested in “Conspiracy” primarily because of this establishing shot of the Biltmore. What’s especially interesting is that this seems to be an early example of a zoom shot. And I have no idea how they pulled it off.
Here it is in mid-zoom.
And dissolve to…..
There are much better shots of the Biltmore in “For the Defense,” a Paramount picture, also from 1930.
The DVD is available from Warner Archive for $17.99.
T.L. Tally, Moving Picture World, 1915.
Los Angeles has stood at the forefront of not only motion picture production, but the fields of exhibition and distribution as well. Former Texan T. L. (Thomas Lincoln) Tally pioneered in these fields, seeming to anticipate changes in the marketplace during the early decades of the Twentieth Century. Shrewd and risk-taking, Tally earned a fortune entertaining the citizens of Los Angeles, introducing several firsts to the city, including the first theatre built exclusively to show motion pictures and the first to cause a nitrate fire. As early as the 1920s, articles and books proclaim him as the pioneer exhibitor in Los Angeles, but “printing the legend” instead of the facts as to when he entered the moving picture business.
Little is known of his early life, save that Tally was born July 6, 1862, in Rockport, Texas (per ship passenger logs). By 1890 he resided in San Antonio per the March 26, 1890, San Antonio Daily Express and first visited Los Angeles in April, when the April 6, 1890, Los Angeles Herald lists him as a guest at the permanent exhibit of California on Wheels.
Hollywood at Play, by Donovan Brandt, Mary Mallory and Stephen X. Sylvester is now on sale.
Donald Freed in Piu Eatwell’s “Black Dahlia, Red Rose.”
There are many names and many claims in Piu Eatwell’s new book, “Black Dahlia, Red Rose,” but the most important for our purposes is that of Donald Freed, a very pleasant fellow who has written books on O.J. Simpson, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the assassination of John F. Kennedy (with Mark Lane). I think you get the idea.
There’s more about Freed, Dr. Joseph Paul De River and the Black Dahlia case in Brian King’s introduction to his reissue of De River’s “The Sexual Criminal,” which King has posted to the Web.
To quote King’s interview with Freed:
The Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Black Dahlia: Piu Eatwell’s ‘Black Dahlia, Red Rose’ – A Bad Beginning
ladailymirror.com 