L.A. Philharmonic Opens Season — Glitter and Be Gay, but With Mozart

Posted on September 27, 2017 by lmharnisch

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The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s opening night program with a souvenir bit of golden film, one of thousands of pieces showered on the audience at the end of the performance.

Tuesday’s opening night of the Los Angeles Philharmonic 2017-18 season concluded by showering the audience with pieces of golden glitter – actually discs of thin, gold film — and yes, we have a metaphor going.

It was a night of bright, shiny objects — entertaining but not terribly substantial – certainly a description of pianist Yuja Wang’s skimpy, sparkly outfit. I attended courtesy of senior rush and at $20, the concert was a bargain. But if I had paid full price, I would be disinclined to go again.

(In case you are wondering, I was a music critic in a previous life and decided to jot a few lines about my impressions).
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Black Dahlia: Asshats on South Norton Avenue — No. 3

Posted on September 27, 2017 by lmharnisch

Black Dahlia Crime Scene

And in our continuing coverage of people being asshats at the Black Dahlia crime scene, we have today’s entry. Really, folks, does this seem like a good idea?

Also: Black Dahlia: Asshats on South Norton Avenue

Black Dahlia: Asshats on South Norton Avenue – No. 2

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Black Dahlia: Asshats on South Norton Avenue — No. 2

Posted on September 26, 2017 by lmharnisch

Black Dahlia Crime Scene

Sprawling on the ground at the Black Dahlia crime scene has apparently become a thing. Here’s another asshat.

People like this are one reason I quit giving Black Dahlia tours.

Also: Black Dahlia: Asshats on South Norton Avenue.

Posted in 1947, Black Dahlia, Hollywood, LAPD | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Black Dahlia: Asshats on South North Avenue

Posted on September 25, 2017 by lmharnisch

Sept. 25, 2017

Asshats like this are one reason I quit giving tours of the Black Dahlia crime scene. I don’t know which operator was responsible for this tour, but whoever it was, you need to do a better job riding herd on your guests.

Posted in 1947, Black Dahlia, Cold Cases, LAPD | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Studio City Goes to the Dogs

Posted on September 25, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

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Matchbook courtesy of Mary Mallory.

Pets bring happiness to people’s lives, giving unconditional love and support, truly man’s best friend. From the beginning of time, pets have served an integral part of people’s lives, shown off and treated as members of the family.

From 1928 to 1950, Studio City served as home to one of Southern California’s top dog breeders and groomers, Chris Shuttleworth, a bow-wow lover since childhood. The area would turn out gorgeous puppies just as it did motion pictures.

Hollywood at Play, by Donovan Brandt, Mary Mallory and Stephen X. Sylvester is now on sale.

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Posted in Animals, Film, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory, San Fernando Valley | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on September 25, 2017 by lmharnisch

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This week’s mystery movie has been the 1962 film “Advise and Consent,” starring Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Don Murray, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Gene Tierney, Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, Burgess Meredith, Eddie Hodges, Paul Ford, George Grizzard, Inga Swenson “and the voice of Frank Sinatra.” Also with Edward Andrews, Paul McGrath, Will Geer, Betty White, Tom Helmore, Rene Paul, Paul Stevens, Russ Brown, Malcolm Atterbury, Janet Jane Carty, Hilary Eaves, Michele Montau, J. Edward McKinley, William Quinn, Tiki Santos, Raoul De Leon, Chet Stratton, Larry Tucker, Bettie Johnson, John Granger, Sid Gould, Meyer Davis and his orchestra, White House Correspondents Assn., White House Press Photographers Assn., Irv Kupcinet, Robert C. Wilson, Alan Emory, Jessie Stearns Buscher, Milton Berliner, Allen W. Cromley, William Knighton, the Hon. Guy M. Gillette and the Hon. Henry Fountain Ashurst.   Truly a massive cast.

Music was by Jerry Fielding, production design by Lyle Wheeler, photography (in Panavision) by Sam Leavitt, set decoration by Eli Benneche, furs by Sol Schulman and diamond jewelry by Harry Winston. Miss Tierney’s clothes designed by Bill Blass, titles by Saul Bass, lyrics for “The Song From Advise and Consent” by Ned Washington, distributed by Columbia Pictures. Based on the novel by Allen Drury, screenplay by Wendell Mayes, produced and directed by Otto Preminger.

“Advise and Consent” is available on DVD from Amazon.

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Another Good Story Ruined: Gen. Otis’ ‘Death Car’ Rides Again

Posted on September 24, 2017 by lmharnisch

Harrison Gray Otis

Photo: Times President Gen. Harrison Gray Otis. Credit: Press Reference Library, 1912

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Evidently the folks at Esotouric (nee “The Crime Bus”) have neglected their homework when it comes to the bombing of The Times, judging by a recent story. Which once again shows historians’ aversion to original research.

So here we go again on Gen. Harrison Gray Otis’ supposed death-mobile. Also known as the “horseless carriage of doom” and many other nicknames.

Spoiler: The “cannon” was a horn. Honk! Honk!

Also: Another Good Story Ruined: Gen. Otis’ Armored Car.

From a 2011 post:

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Posted in Another Good Story Ruined, Books and Authors, Downtown, History, Libraries | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD – Part 5

Posted on September 19, 2017 by lmharnisch

Jan. 27, 1960, Dr. Finch

Dr. J. Paul De River analyzes accused killer R. Bernard Finch based on the left and right sides of his face in the Jan. 27, 1960, Herald-Express.

In case you just tuned in, we’re exploring some of the topics dealt with in Piu Eatwell’s new book “Black Dahlia, Red Rose,” which “solves” the Dahlia case by going back to one of the original suspects, Leslie Dillon, who investigators eliminated in the 1940s after he drew the attention of LAPD “sex crimes expert” Dr. J. Paul De River.

From previous posts, we know that De River reinvented himself, having been born in Louisiana as Joseph Paul Israel.

And we know that he was an ear, nose and throat specialist who reinvented himself as an expert on sex crimes and sex criminals.

Are you skeptical yet? Because there’s more.

The Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on September 18, 2017 by lmharnisch

Sept. 23, 2017, Mystery Photo
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1931 Fox film “Don’t Bet on Women,” with Edmund Lowe, Jeanette MacDonald, Roland Young, J.M. Kerrigan, Una Merkel and Helene Millard. It was directed by William K. Howard, screenplay and dialogue by Lynn Starling and Leon Gordon, from the story “All Women Are Bad” by William Anthony McGuire, staged by Henry Kolker, photographed by Lucien Andriot, with settings by Duncan Cramer and costumes by Sophie Wachner.

It was restored by the Museum of Modern Art with support from TCM and the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation.

“Don’t Bet on Women” is not commercially available on DVD or VHS.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 31 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Mack Sennett and Studio City’s Central Motion Picture District

Posted on September 18, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

 


Studio City CMPDistrict


Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

Eighty-five years ago, the Mack Sennett Studio opened at 4024 N. Radford in Studio City. The studio functioned as a magnet in hopes of drawing other film production companies and studios to the surrounding land owned by Central Motion Picture District.

The Central Motion Picture District land syndicate was conceived by Harry Merrick, formerly president of the Chicago Assn. of Commerce, now a local real estate man. Merrick helped organize Chicago’s Central Manufacturing District and recognized that the wide-open space near the Los Angeles River in North Hollywood could function in a similar fashion for the movie industry.

Note: Mary Mallory will give a free presentation on how a real estate mogul and ambitious Hollywood film executives tried to build a motion picture city, Saturday, Sept. 23, at 3:30 p.m. at the Studio City Library, 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City.

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Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD – Part 4

Posted on September 16, 2017 by lmharnisch

Feb. 24, 1949, Leslie Dillon
Feb. 24, 1949, Leslie Dillon
Feb. 24, 1949: Leslie Dillon files a claim against the city of Los Angeles for the LAPD’s massive screw-up in the Dahlia case. And yes, he collected.

 

Dear [redacted], a Comcast user from Spokane, Wash.

I’ll say it again: Leslie Dillon was in San Francisco when Elizabeth Short was killed, as investigators established beyond question through an exhaustive inquiry — and I mean exhaustive. Everything else is window dressing.

Executive summary on Piu Eatwell’s “Black Dahlia, Red Rose”: Brit writer stumbles into mass of disorganized documents and makes an elementary mistake, deciding that a suspect who was cleared in the 1940s was part of a massive conspiracy and coverup involving the police and “organized crime.”

The Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD – Part 3

Posted on September 14, 2017 by lmharnisch

The Mirror

The Mirror (that would be the other Mirror) jumps on the Dahlia Murder “Solved!” bandwagon.

Nobody “enjoys a good murder” as much as the Brits, so we are seeing a wave of publicity for Piu Eatwell’s new book, “Black Dahlia, Red Rose,” in which she “solves” the Black Dahlia case.

Executive summary: Brit writer stumbles into mass of disorganized documents and makes an elementary mistake, deciding that a suspect who was cleared in the 1940s was part of a massive conspiracy and coverup involving the police and “organized crime.”

CEO summary: Leslie Dillon was in San Francisco at the time Elizabeth Short was killed. Everything else is merely window dressing.

 

The Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD: Part 1 | Part 2

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Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD – Part 2

Posted on September 14, 2017 by lmharnisch

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“The Sexual Criminal,” by Dr. Joseph Paul De River, in a revised edition with an introduction by Brian King published in 2000. More about this book later. It will be important.


Where does one start in telling the curious story of Dr. Joseph Paul De River?

Certainly not with the Black Dahlia case.

As nearly as we can determine, De River was born Nov. 6, 1893, and died in April 12, 1977.

Beyond that, it’s complicated.

The Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD: Part 1

 

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Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD — Part 1

Posted on September 13, 2017 by lmharnisch

True Detective

The Paul De River/Leslie Dillon/LAPD coverup conspiracy theory in the 1947 Black Dahlia murder is getting some traction with the upcoming release of Piu Eatwell’s “Black Dahlia, Red Rose,” which purports to “solve” the Dahlia case.

Spoiler alert

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Posted in 1947, Black Dahlia, Books and Authors, Cold Cases, LAPD | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on September 11, 2017 by lmharnisch

Sept. 16, 2017, Mystery Photo
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1952 MGM picture “The Prisoner of Zenda” and, as many people pointed out, it is not as good as the Ronald Colman version (1937).

This version of “Zenda” stars Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr, with Louis Calhern, Jane Greer, Lewis Stone, Robert Douglas, James Mason, with a screenplay by John L. Balderston and Noel Langley, adapted by Wells Root from the novel by Anthony Hope and the dramatization by Edward Rose. Music by Alfred Newman, adapted by Conrad Salinger, photography by Joseph Ruttenberg, art direction by Cedric Gibbons and Hans Peters, set decoration by Edwin B. Willis and Richard Pefferle, costumes by Walter Plunkett, hair styles by Sydney Guilaroff and makeup by William Tuttle. It was produced by Pandro S. Berman and directed by Richard Thorpe.

“The Prisoner of Zenda” is available on DVD from Amazon.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 70 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: 2017 Cinecon Salutes Entertainment

Posted on September 11, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

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The entertaining 2017 Cinecon Film Festival offered a little something for everyone this year, showcasing over 50 silent films, talkies, television kinescopes, musical shorts, and even documentaries with lovely vintage prints and live accompaniment adding some extra pizzazz. Several of the films offered timely messages about issues that still plague us today, while others continued to entertain with their goofy or physical humor. The festival highlights materials mostly unseen since their original release and unlikely to air on TCM or even be released as DVDs or through streaming, from top rate releases of the day through general programmers screened in small town houses. Fifty-three years young, Cinecon remains the ultimate destination for those seeking out rare, obscure, and typical American film releases starring superstars to mid-level talent to virtually unknown character actors.

While perhaps not an outstanding program, this year’s festival featured some moving and knockout pictures, as well as many engaging ones, in which truth, justice, and the American way always succeeded in the end, unlike that in real life. A smorgasbord of unplanned themes and topics highlighted the films, including cross-dressing, false identities, gambling, underhanded double dealing, working women, potential philandering, financial struggle, judgmental busybodies, and prescient politics. Each day built on the other, with Monday, September 4 featuring the strongest and most memorable pictures.

 

Hollywood at Play, by Donovan Brandt, Mary Mallory and Stephen X. Sylvester is now on sale.

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Black Dahlia – Piu Eatwell’s ‘Black Dahlia, Red Rose’ Exhumes Leslie Dillon

Posted on September 10, 2017 by lmharnisch

Black Dahlia, Red Rose, cover

Since I learned a few months ago that British writer Piu Eatwell was going to “solve” the Black Dahlia case in the forthcoming book “Black Dahlia, Red Rose,” I have been waiting to see if she would open

— Door No. 1 (George Knowlton in Janice Knowlton’s “Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer”).

— Door No. 2 (Jack Anderson Wilson in John Gilmore’s “Severed”).

— Door No. 3 (Dr. George Hodel in Steve Hodel’s “Black Dahlia Avenger” franchise).

— Door No. 4 (Leslie Dillon in Jacque Daniel’s “The Curse of the Black Dahlia”).

This is, of course, assuming that nobody in their right mind would open Door No. 5 (Norman Chandler/Bugsy Siegel in Donald Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files”).   See “Blogging the Wolfe Book” for more information.

Or perhaps she had a completely new suspect.

Now, according to a new review in The Sunday Times, we have Door No. 4: Leslie Dillon.

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Posted in 1947, Black Dahlia, Books and Authors, Cold Cases, LAPD | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

‘Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood’ at the Toronto Film Festival – Oh Dear

Posted on September 8, 2017 by lmharnisch

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Scotty Bowers, author of the b.s.-laden book “Full Service,” is the subject of a “documentary” (cough, cough) by Matt Tyrnauer. Image courtesy of the Vanity Fair, which really ought to know better.

This is Scotty Bowers, who wrote a heaping pile of garbage called “Full Service,” which makes “Hollywood Babylon” look distinguished film scholarship. Back in 2012, I took a deep dive into fact-checking the book, which you can find here in 26 parts:

Fact-Checking “Full Service”: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 
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Posted in 2012, Another Good Story Ruined, Books and Authors, Film, Hollywood | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on September 4, 2017 by lmharnisch

Sept. 9, 2017, Mystery Photo
This week’s silent mystery movie has been the 1925 MGM film “Lady of the Night,” with Norma Shearer, Malcolm MacGregor (McGregor), Dale Fuller, George K. Arthur, Fred Esmelton, Lew Harvey, Gwen Lee and Betty Morrisey (Morrissey). It was directed by Monta Bell. Story by Adela Rogers St. Johns, scenario by Alice D.G. Miller, settings by Cedric Gibbons and photography by Andre Barletier.

The DVD is available from Warner Archive for $17.99.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , , | 44 Comments

Mary Mallory: Hollywood Heights – Keye Luke

Posted on September 4, 2017 by lmharnisch

Keye Luke Music

Image: “Just a Little Longer,” illustrated by Keye Luke for Harold Weeks Melody Shop. Credit: Mary Mallory.

 

Keye Luke Drawing Dec. 16, 1928 Note: This is an encore post from 2011.

Keye Luke, the talented and respected Chinese American actor, is probably best known to moviegoers and television viewers as the Number One son Lee Chan in 1930s Charlie Chan movies, as well as the role of Po in the 1970s TV show “Kung Fu.” Little do most people realize that he was also a talented artist whose job as an illustrator led to his career in acting.

As Charles Caldwell Dobie wrote in “The San Franciscan” in 1928, “Some twenty-five years ago, a young Chinese merchant who was born in San Francisco, upheld his native tradition by returning to China for a bride. He chose, or possibly his parents chose for him, a maiden with the charming name of Golden Chrysanthemum who lived in a village just outside of Canton bearing the equally charming name of Joyous People… As a result of this union, during the Festival of Rice Cakes, the little village of Joyous People found its population increased by the arrival of a prospective male citizen who was given the name of Keye Luke.”Hollywood at Play, by Donovan Brandt, Mary Mallory and Stephen X. Sylvester is now on sale.

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Posted in Art & Artists, Film, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory, Television | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments