It’s December, which means it is time to fire up the Lindbergh beacon atop City Hall. Here it is, illuminating the skies over Los Angeles in 2014.
Update: I wrote this post a week ago and put it on the clock. I was thrilled to see the beacon fired up last week, but since then… nada. Maybe they were testing it?
A detail of a matchbook for Al Levy’s Tavern, 1627 N. Vine St., listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $6.95.
Much of the glamour of classic Hollywood grew out of the fame and atmosphere of its famous restaurants and nightclubs, oases of sophistication and excitement. Stars came to see and be seen, while dining at the same time. Some came because they enjoyed the ambiance or service of the establishments, others merely because the businesses reigned as the “it” spots of the moment. Many eateries remained popular for their excellence food, service, and welcoming presence, like Al Levy’s Tavern located at 1623-27 N. Vine St. Levy’s restaurant grew out of humble beginnings in downtown Los Angeles to reign as one of Hollywood’s premier nightspots for more than a decade.
For more than 50 years, Levy served Los Angeles and Hollywood residents, offering fine dining and festive atmosphere. He catered to the entertainment industry, offering a supportive haven for the film and stage crowd. Many could identify with the friendly and humble man, who saw his simple oyster cart grow into one of the Southland and West Coast’s most popular hotspots.
“Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory is now available at Amazon and at local bookstores.
We were pleased to see the Lindbergh beacon fired up on City Hall last night. We were so taken with the moment that we made our first Periscope broadcast with it. Here’s the link to watch it on your desktop.
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1938 Warner Bros. picture “Men Are Such Fools,” with Wayne Morris, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, Hugh Herbert, Johnnie Davis, Penny Singleton, Mona Barrie, Marcia Ralston and Gene Lockhart. The movie was directed by Busby Berkeley from a screenplay by Norman Reilly Raine and Horace Jackson, based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Faith Baldwin.
As far as I can tell, “Men Are Such Fools” has never been released on VHS or DVD. It aired on TCM in 2011 during a Busby Berkley birthday tribute.
If you look quickly you will see the Tower and Rialto theaters on Broadway during a car chase.
The Tower and Rialto theaters on Broadway, via Google Street View.
Note: This is a repost from 2011.
In 1962, I was a seventh-grader at Washington Junior High School in Naperville, Ill. On Dec. 7, Mr. Humbert, our social studies teacher, put aside the regular curriculum to give his young pupils a firsthand account of Pearl Harbor.
Many years later, I contacted Mr. Humbert. He didn’t remember me (I was not a stellar student) but he was thrilled to get a phone call from one of his former charges who wanted to hear once more about Pearl Harbor.
Rene P. Humbert died in 2002 at the age of 81. I was his student in a much more formal era of American life. Male teachers wore coats and ties, and didn’t share much about their personal lives. I don’t even remember him mentioning that his brother’s fighter plane had been shot down in June 1944 over France.
What I learned many years later was that Mr. Humbert joined the Navy at 19, went through all of World War II and was called back for the Korean War. Perhaps one reason he was a little hard on us Baby Boomers in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago was because he didn’t graduate from high school, but got a GED and started college at the age of 31 under the G.I. Bill
Mr. Humbert was on the San Francisco, a heavy cruiser, during the Pearl Harbor attack and the ship was untouched except for shrapnel because the Japanese were concentrating on the larger ships. He was also in the Battles of the Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal. In one battle, Rear Adm. Dan Callaghan and Capt. Cassin Young were killed by a 14-inch shell that hit the San Francisco’s bridge.
What follows is his account. I have edited his brief biography very lightly after scanning a typewritten copy with my optical character recognition software. And I have incorporated portions of his Pearl Harbor account from the Pearl Harbor Survivors website.
Photo 1: Rene Humbert, Washington Junior High, 1964.
Photo 2: Rene Humbert, no date.
Note: This is a repost from 2013.
Whenever I’m asked about my favorite books on Los Angeles, my first recommendation is “Nuestro Pueblo,” a selection of features by Times artist Charles Owens and writer Joseph Seewerker that appeared in The Times. I went through all of them when the blog was at latimes.com, so I won’t repeat them now, but if you’re a fan of Rediscovering Los Angeles, which was illustrated by Owens with commentary by Timothy Turner, you may enjoy “Nuestro Pueblo.” Unfortunately, Rediscovering Los Angeles was never published in book form and has languished in obscurity.
“Nuestro Pueblo” is long out of print and the prices have gone up since I started writing about it, with some dealers asking more than $100 for a copy. A patient shopper can still find a copy for less than $20, however. One of my favorite tools for finding out of print books is bookfinder.com, which shows wide price range on copies of “Nuestro Pueblo.”
And what are your gift recommendations for this holiday season?
Since almost the beginning of the motion picture industry, advertising tie-ups and promotions have stoked audience interest and desire in seeing certain moving pictures and movie stars. Studios quickly learned that partnering with another company or popular product cut the costs of advertising and promotion, as well as created huge audience awareness of their upcoming features. Stars often engaged in production promotion to gain financial rewards as well as to increase their popularity and name recognition with the public. If the studios or stars owned all or part of the tie-ups even better, as they earned huge profits on consumer spending for these items. As Moving Picture World described it in a June 28, 1919, the aim was not only to sell movies to exhibitors, but “to sell pictures to the public.”
In the early 1920s, Paramount Pictures joined in partnership with a novelty company for a special series of tins promoting several of the studios’ stars, in a bid to goose their actors’ popularity at the same time as the exploitation reminded the public of the studio’s development of attractive, vibrant motion picture personalities.
“Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory is now available at Amazon and at local bookstores.
Another book we are recommending for this year is “The 33” also known as “Deep Down Dark,” by my former Los Angeles Times colleague Hector Tobar. “The 33” is available at Book Soup, Skylight Books, Vroman’s, and online at Amazon.
Another book on our recommended list is the young adult novel “Dead to Me” by our friend and fellow Los Angeles history enthusiast Mary McCoy, reviewed here. “Dead to Me” is available from Amazon at $14.90 hardcover and $9.99 for the Kindle. Mary has announced that she has a second novel coming out in 2017 and we are looking forward to it’s arrival.
“Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory has been receiving lots of attention since it was released in October and we were quite pleased to add a copy to the Daily Mirror library.
The book is available from Amazon for $24.39. It is also available at $29.99 at Book Soup, Larry Edmunds Bookshop, Skylight Books and Vroman’s. (Check the bookstores’ websites for availability).
Or you can pick up a copy at the following book signings:
Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood.
Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. at Hollywood Heritage Museum, 2100 Highland Ave, Los Angeles.
Also on Saturday, Karie Bible will be signing books between films at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, 429 Castro St., San Francisco.
Dec. 12 at 1 p.m. Mary Mallory will speak at the Will and Ariel Durant Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, 7140 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.
Somewhere in Los Angeles, young men with too much testosterone and spray paint are spending what is apparently their abundant spare time vandalizing an abandoned church.
Judging by my Instagram feed, abandoned classrooms, theaters, auditoriums and other unsecured sites in Los Angeles receive similar treatment. But this is really infuriating. Can anyone identify this location and alert whoever is supposed to be in charge of it that it is being wrecked by idiots?
These photos are from the Instagram feeds of Los Angeles and acer._
December is upon us and as usual, we will be offering a few gift suggestions – some new, some retro — for the holiday season. And as is our tradition, we will be repost the retro drinking guide leading up to New Year’s.
Today’s suggestion is the newly released book by James Curtis, who is receiving much praise for “William Cameron Menzies: The Shape of Films to Come.”
James will be interviewed by TCM host Robert Osborne for four nights of Menzies’ films, airing in January.
He will also appear during a night of UCLA archival restorations at the Billy Wilder Theater, March 26.
And at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Oct. 1-8, 2016.
The book is available in the Los Angeles area at Book Soup, Skylight Books, Vroman’s at $40, and from Amazon at $28.94.
This week’s mystery film has been the 1941 Alexander Korda film “Lydia,” released through United Artists, directed by Julien Duvivier, with Merle Oberon, Alan Marshal, Joseph Cotton, Hans Jaray (“Yaray” in the screen credits), John Halliday, George Reeves, Sara Allgood and Edna May Oliver. The film was based on an original story by Duvivier and L. Bush-Fekete, with screenplay and dialogue by Ben Hecht and Samuel Hoffenstein. The production was designed by Vincent Korda and the photography was by Lee Garmes. The makeup (all the leads were heavily aged for the film) was by the House of Westmore. Music was by Miklos Rozsa.
The movie opened in Los Angeles on Aug. 21, 1941, and received a tepid review from Times critic Edwin Schallert, who said: “This reviewer found the production tedious in the telling. Especially, it would seem, cutting could be invoked in the later scenes…. How men will like the film, one can hardly say. Many will undoubtedly be bored by it.”
It is available on a Region 2 DVD from Amazon for $20.78.
When I began researching and writing my Arcadia Publishing book “Hollywoodland” almost five years ago, standard gossip stated that developers constructed the giant Hollywoodland sign in July 1923 as a billboard promoting the development, all with no documentation or backup. Neither the Los Angeles Times nor the Los Angeles Examiner ran such a story at the time, nor did any book. I even fell into the trap of believing something without legitimate sources backing it up.
After examining the subject over many years, I can safely say that Hollywoodland developers created their massive billboard in late November and early December 1923, thanks to multiple sources placing its construction at that time. There was no story in any newspaper the day it was completed, but Hollywoodland publicity chief L. J. Burrud immediately employed the mass media to publicize it and the development in big ways. Copying tactics from his past, adman Burrud developed stories of interest to newspapers, magazines, and newsreels, spreading the story of the glamorous hillside development across the United States.
“Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory is now available at Amazon and at local bookstores.
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1949 MGM feature “The Great Sinner,” starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas, Walter Huston, Ethel Barrymore, Frank Morgan and Agnes Moorehead, with Ludwig Donath, Curt Bois and Ludwig Stossel. The screenplay was by Ladislas Fodor and Christopher Isherwood from a story by Fodor and Rene Fueloep-Miller. The music was by Bronislau Kaper and conducted by Andre Previn. It was directed by Robert Siodmak.
I chose “The Great Sinner” because it was photographed by George Folsey, who also filmed last week’s mystery movie, “Kind Lady” and I wanted to take another look at his work. The film opened Aug. 26, 1949, in Los Angeles at the Fox Wilshire, Egyptian and Los Angeles theaters.
It is available from Warner Archive for $15.49.
“Weegee, Weegee, Tell Me Do,” courtesy of Mary Mallory.
What we know as the game of Ouija evolved out of spiritualism practices into a major fad of the early twentieth century. While some denounced it as a form of devil worship, others enjoyed its entertaining qualities or ties to their spiritualism practices. Its ability to answer questions or possibly foresee the future were employed as gimmicks to sell popular entertainment to audiences in a variety of fields.
Born out of a need to connect with the souls of departed loved ones and friends, spiritualism helped its practitioners feel at peace and ease in the world by asking questions of these spirits. It sprung out of potentially supernatural events at a Hydesville, New York farmhouse in 1848, when the Fox family experienced mysterious raps in the night. Youngest daughter Kate Fox challenged the ghostly spirit to repeat in raps the number of times she flipped her fingers; thus establishing a form of communication, these raps were employed as a way to answer questions.
“Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory is now available at Amazon and at local bookstores.
TCM’s showing of “At Sword’s Point” on Friday, part of its tribute to the late Maureen O’Hara, was preceded by what may be the oddest Robert Osborne introduction I have ever seen. Bob was taped against a black background and filmed from above, as if he were in a black hole. I do know that Bob has been taping his segments in New York in recent years rather than in Atlanta and perhaps there was some problem in getting his set ready – or something. But this was very strange indeed.
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1935 MGM picture “Kind Lady,” starring Aline MacMahon, Basil Rathbone, Mary Carlisle, Frank Albertson, Dudley Digges, Doris Lloyd, Nola Luxford, Murray Kinnell, Eily Malyon, Justine Chase, Barbara Shields, Donald Meek and Frank Reigher. It was directed by George B. Seitz. The script was by Bernard Schubert, adapted from a successful play by Edward Chodorov, based on a story, “The Silver Mask,” by Hugh Walpole. The remarkable photography was by George Folsey.
The film opens with Christmas music and you might be expecting a holiday tale – but you would be terribly wrong. “Kind Lady” is suspense-thriller about what happens when woman’s charity is misplaced. Judging by the clips in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, the film was eclipsed by the Broadway play, which ran for 82 performances in 1935 and was revived for 107 performances in 1940.
“Kind Lady” was remade in 1951 with Ethel Barrymore and Maurice Evans. Doris Lloyd is in both versions, but in different roles. As far as I can determine, “Kind Lady” is not currently available on DVD and was not released on VHS.
 Hazel Glab |
 In later life as Hazel Stoddard |
This is Part 2 of the story of Hazel Glab, flamboyant flapper, whose husband, John, died under mysterious circumstances June 18, 1928, at 12744 Ventura Blvd., in Studio City. Murder charges against her were dropped for lack of evidence.
The Case of the Clicking Heels, Part 1.
Hazel Glab disappeared from the scene until tragedy once again brought her name into newspaper headlines in 1935. Wealthy Los Angeles manufacturer Albert Cheney, 65, died of a heart attack March 13, 1935, in Las Vegas, only 10 days before he and his fiancee, Hazel, who was 36, were to wed. Newspapers reported on April 22 that the former Mrs. Glab would return to Los Angeles to enter into probate a will handwritten in purple ink on hotel stationery, which left almost his entire $400,000 estate to Hazel, with only his home and furnishings at 15 Berkeley Square left to his daughter, Mrs. Taylor.
“Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory is now available at Amazon and at local bookstores.
TCM recently aired several Wheeler and Woolsey films and we were happily surprised to see this establishing shot at the opening of the 1931 RKO picture “Cracked Nuts.” It is our old friend the Biltmore Hotel.
Let us also recall that the Biltmore makes an even earlier appearance in the 1930 Paramount film “For the Defense.”
ladailymirror.com 