Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights — Nelson Evans, Hollywood’s Early Forgotten Portrait Photographer

Posted on April 10, 2017 by lmharnisch

Nelson Evans

Photo: Nelson Evans

Note: This is an encore post from 2012.

Unlike the theatrical world, the early motion picture industry was slow in recognizing the importance of photographs to help publicize and sell its films. While Broadway producers hired great New York portrait studios like Sarony, White, Lumiere, Vandamm, and Moody to shoot scene and portrait stills of stars for newspaper and magazine coverage in the early 1900s, film studios, particularly those here on the West Coast, did not engage in the practice until the mid-teens.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on April 3, 2017 by lmharnisch

April 8, 2017, Spy in Black

This week’s mystery movie (and sadly, a fairly poor print) has been the 1939 British film “Spy in Black,” the debut of “the Archers”: director Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger. It featured Conrad Veidt, Sebastian Shaw and Valerie Hobson, with Marius Goring, June Duprez, Athole Stewart, Agnes Laughlan, Helen Haye, Cyril Raymond, George Summers, Hay Petrie, Grant Sutherland, Robert Rendel, Mary Morris, Margaret Moffatt, Kenneth Warrington and our mystery guest from last week, Torin Thatcher.

The movie was produced by Irving Asher, based on a story by J. Storer Clouston, screenplay by Pressburger and scenario by Roland Pertwee. The supervising art director was Vincent Korda, with art direction by Frederick Pusey, photography by Bernard Browne, music by Miklos Rozsa and musical direction by Muir Mathieson.

The DVD is available from a number of sources on Amazon and Amazon UK. The Valerie Hobson Collection (out of print, apparently) supposedly has a sharp transfer of the film, judging by reviews on Amazon.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Buster Keaton’s ‘The Italian Villa’

Posted on April 3, 2017 by lmharnisch

buster_keaton_home

Note: This is an encore post from 2012.

Buster Keaton seemed to have it all in the mid-1920s. His career was riding high, as the public loved his film comedies, making him one of America’s top film personalities. He had a beautiful wife, Natalie Talmadge, and two lovely boys, though the public didn’t know that behind the scenes, the marriage was shaky. All he needed was a grand house to complete the image of the successful gentleman.

The Keatons first built a nice though average size home that Natalie considered too small for the family and staff once completed. After selling it off, Buster began planning an elaborate estate for his wife, one to rival that of her more successful sisters Norma and  Constance, as well as top stars Harold Lloyd and Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on March 27, 2017 by lmharnisch

April 1, 2017, Mystery Photo

This week’s mystery movie has been the 1952 Columbia picture “Affair in Trinidad,” with Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Alexander Scourby, Valerie Bettis, Torin Thatcher, Howard Wendell, Karel Stepanek, George Voskovec, Steven Geray, Walter Kohler, Juanita Moore. The screenplay was by Oscar Saul and James Gunn, from a story by Virginia Van Upp and Bernie Giler,  photography by Joseph Walker, art direction by Walter Holscher, set decoration by William Kiernan. The movie was produced and directed by Vincent Sherman. Dances for Miss Hayworth created by Valerie Bettis.

The DVD was released in Sony’s Martini Movies collection and  is available from Amazon.com.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 42 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: TCM Classic Film Festival Returns to Hollywood

Posted on March 27, 2017 by lmharnisch

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The TCM Classic Film Festival returns to Hollywood for its seventh year April 6-9, 2017, dedicated to the late genial host Robert Osborne. It opens Thursday afternoon with a tribute by Osborne’s colleagues and friends, with all programs that day preceded by an Osborne video tribute.

The festival features a little something for general film fans looking to see classic films on the big screen, the way they were meant to be seen. This year’s theme highlights “Comedy in the Movies,” though the schedule includes pre-code, film noir, westerns, musicals, and dramas spanning the 1920s through 2000s. Introductions by stars, critics, authors, filmmakers, and family members usually precede each screening.

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Posted in 2017, Coming Attractions, Film, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory, Preservation | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Second Universal City Celebrates Its Centennial

Posted on March 20, 2017 by lmharnisch

Feb. 10, 1915, Universal City
Universal City in the Washington Times, Feb. 10, 1915.

Note: This is an encore post from 2015.

In an age where businesses come and go, bought up by larger competitors or going under due to bad financial decisions, finding one in business for decades and at the same location is very rare. Film conglomerate NBC-Universal has operated for over a century at its current Universal City location, the thriving second Universal City for the company, celebrating its Centennial, March 15, 2015.

Founder Carl Laemmle jumped into the film business as a Chicago exhibitor in 1906, quickly turning his Laemmle Film Service into one of the largest film exchanges in the country in 1909. After threats and questions by the Motion Picture Patents Company, Laemmle established his own production company, IMP Corporation (Independent Motion Picture Corporation).

Mary Mallory’s “Hollywood land: Tales Lost and Found” is available for the Kindle.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Week 2 — Updated + + + +)

Posted on March 13, 2017 by lmharnisch

March 25, 2017, Roughly Speaking
The two weeks’ mystery movie has been the 1945 Warner Bros. film “Roughly Speaking,” with Rosalind Russell, Jack Carson, Robert Hutton, Jean Sullivan, Donald Woods, Alan Hale, Andrea King, Ann Doran, Mona Freeman, Robert Arthur, Ray Collins, John Qualen, Kathleen Lockhart and Ann Todd. The screenplay was by Louise Randall Pierson from her book. The film was photographed by Joseph Walker, with art direction by Robert Haas, set decorations by George James Hopkins, dialogue direction by Frederick de Cordova, wardrobe by Leah Rhodes, Russell’s gowns by Travis Banton, music arrangements by Hugo Friedhofer, musical direction by Leo F. Forbstein, music by Max Steiner, produced by Henry Blanke and directed by Michael Curtiz.

It is available on DVD from Warner Archive for $17.99.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 54 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Heart of California Offers Intriguing Look at Cowboy Life

Posted on March 13, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

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A poster for “Heart of California,” courtesy of Dwight Manley.


In honor of Brea, California’s Centennial Celebration, a fraction of Dwight Manley’s stunning silent motion picture poster collection is currently on exhibit in that city. Containing everything from one-sheets to 24-sheets (billboards) to photographs and paperwork, the exhibition includes posters from Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks films, as well as many from lesser known or even unidentified films.

One six-sheet in the exhibit, titled “The Heart of California,” remained virtually unidentified until now. Thanks to detective work, I have discovered that it is a lost Art Acord title, one documenting California rodeo stars, cowboys, and the history of the state. Rodeo organizer F. J. Griffin shot actual cowboys in action at the Bakersfield Rodeo in 1914 to capture their talents and skills, with former 1912 world steer bulldogging champion Acord starring in the picture.

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

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Daylight Saving Time: A Reminder From Pier Angeli and the Daily Mirror

Posted on March 12, 2017 by lmharnisch

Pier Angeli

Pier Angeli and her little friend remind Daily Mirror readers that Daylight Saving Time begins today and to set your clocks forward one hour.

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Google Fail: This Woman Is Not Tabitha Babbitt

Posted on March 7, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

Not Tabitha Babbitt
Does this woman look like a Quaker who died in the 19th century? Probably not. But Google thinks so. Here’s the story.

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Posted in Another Good Story Ruined | Tagged , | 2 Comments

RIP Robert Osborne (1932 – 2017)

Posted on March 6, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

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Robert Osborne, the always affable TCM host, has died at 84 after years of declining health.

TCM Remembers Robert Osborne (video).

Los Angeles Times.

Variety.

Washington Post.

New York Times profile.

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Obituaries, Television | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on March 6, 2017 by lmharnisch

'The Beast of the City'
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1932 MGM film “The Beast of the City,” with Walter Huston, Jean Harlow, Wallace Ford, Jean Hersholt, Dorothy Peterson, Tully Marshall, John Miljan, Emmett Corrigan, Warner Richmond, Sandy Roth and J. Carroll Naish, and directed by Charles Brabin. It was a Cosmopolitan production, from a story by W.R. Burnett, with photography by Norbert Brodine.

I hadn’t planned to do another pre-code so soon, but this was too good to pass up.

“The Beast of the City” is available from Warner Archive for $17.99.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 40 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Hillview Apartment Building Graces Hollywood Boulevard

Posted on March 6, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

Hillview Apartments, Postcard
A postcard of the Hillview Apartment Building, from the California State Library.


Long an elegant sight on Hollywood Boulevard, the Hillview Apartment Building’s (now the Hollywood Hudson Apartments) central location in Hollywood and its graceful look attracted entertainers of all fields looking for a comfortable but stylish home. Almost 100 years old, the structure still operates as an apartment building for those trying to climb the rungs of the Hollywood entertainment ladder.

Hollywood functioned mostly as a sleepy little farming community until the moving picture industry discovered it in the 1910s, turning the burg into a busy industrial center by the early 1920s. Movie-struck people from around the country poured into the community hoping to gain their fame in the Hollywood game. As the town grew, its main street, Prospect Avenue, filled with stately Victorian mansions and parks, evolved into the commercially driven Hollywood Boulevard. Between 1915-1935, Hollywood Boulevard between Argyle Avenue and El Centro functioned as the film industry’s main street, a prime shooting location, entertainment center, and shopping mecca.

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

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on February 27, 2017 by lmharnisch

March 4, 2017, Mystery Photo
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1952 RKO film “Blackbeard, the Pirate,” with Robert “Yarr” Newton, Linda Darnell, William Bendix, Keith Andes, Torin Thatcher, Irene Ryan, Alan Mowbray, Richard Egan, Skelton Knaggs, Dick Wessel, Anthony Caruso, Jack Lambert, Noel Drayton and Pat Flaherty.

The screenplay was by Alan LeMay from a story by DeVallon Scott, with music by Victor Young, photography by William E. Snyder, art direction by Albert S. D’Agostino and Jack Okey, set decorations by Darrell Silvera and John Sturtevant, costumes by Michael Woulfe, musical direction by C. Bakaleinikoff and makeup by Mel Berns. Dialogue direction was by Hal A. “Yarr” Long. The movie was produced by Edmund Grainger and directed by Raoul Walsh.

It is available on DVD from multiple sources.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 56 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: 940 N. Highland Ave. Salutes Animals

Posted on February 27, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

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940 N. Highland Ave. via Google Street View.

Long a striking icon on Highland Avenue, 940 N. Highland Avenue’s attractive facade highlights the building’s original use as a dog and cat hospital. Simple and elegant, its sleek modernistic look hints at streamline moderne with its horizontal window and door lines, as stylish now as it looked at its 1930 opening.

Veterinarian Dr. Alexander (Alex) Moxley purchased the property to expand his veterinary practice beyond his 1410 E. Washington Blvd. office location. Born November 2, 1888 in Missouri, Moxley arrived in Los Angeles around 1910, as he and his wife Helen are listed in the 1910 U. S. census as living in Los Angeles. The 1910 Los Angeles city directory lists his veterinary practice at 528 S. San Pedro St. In 1912 his business is located at 1900 S. Central Ave., where he was also operating an auction house. Moxley had some renown, as a wire photo ran in multiple newspapers showing him operating on a zoo elephant. The 1917 directory lists his veterinary business at 1410 E. Washington Blvd.

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

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Posted in Animals, Architecture, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Eve Golden’s YouTube Theater: Some People . . .

Posted on February 21, 2017 by lmharnisch

Gypsy--Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman in Gypsy on the cover of Playbill.

So Barbra Streisand is still talking about playing Mama Rose in Gypsy. Now, I love Babs, but she is 74, and when Dainty June and Rose Louise went into vaudeville in the early 1920s, “Mama Rose” was only in her early 30s. Seriously, Barbra, who’s going to play your Dainty June, Madonna?

By the way, here is some footage of the actual Dainty June Havoc, aged six, in a Harold Lloyd comedy:

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Posted in Eve Golden, Music, Stage | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on February 20, 2017 by lmharnisch

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This week’s mystery movie has been the 1931 RKO picture “Millie,” based on the novel by Donald Henderson Clarke, directed by John Francis Dillon, produced by Charles R. Rogers, adapted by Charles Kenyon, with dialogue by Charles Kenyon and Ralph Murphy, music by Nacio Herb Brown and photography by Ernest Haller. The movie features Helen Twelvetrees, Lilyan Tashman, Robert Ames, James Hall, John Halliday, Joan Blondell, Anita Louise, Edmund Breese, Frank McHugh, Charlotte Walker, Franklin Parker, Charles Delaney and Harry Stubbs.

The movie is available on Amazon.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 35 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights – Hollywoodland’s Kanst Art Gallery

Posted on February 20, 2017 by lmharnisch

 

kanst_art_gallery
Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

The Hollywoodland housing development possessed many unique features when it opened in 1923. The neighborhood was the first themed housing development built on hillsides, the first to include a shopping center in its environs, and the first to house an art gallery. While the developers planned the first two elements on their own, the art gallery came into existence because of the dream of its builder, John F. Kanst. Kanst was Los Angeles’ veteran established art dealer when he bought land on Mulholland Highway to construct his dream home and art space.

Kanst arrived in Los Angeles in 1895 at the age of 32 intent on teaching the finer points of art to the public, training them to recognize and appreciate great works to buy for decoration of their homes. He arrived at a time when most people hung “chromos” or copies on their walls instead of original works. Kanst began buying paintings from Southern California artists and slowly began the process of educating the public about what art was and why it was important. As he would state, “An original painting of good quality is a living presence in the home.”

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

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L.A. Times Recants 1942 Editorials on Internment of Japanese Americans

Posted on February 19, 2017 by lmharnisch

1942_0219_times_headline
Feb. 21, 1942: The Times reports President Roosevelt’s executive order on the evacuation of Japanese Americans. Note the byline: Future Nixon booster Kyle Palmer.

2017_0219_times_editorial

Feb. 19, 2017: The Los Angeles Times recants its 1942 editorials on the internment of Japanese Americans.

Although long overdue, this is a rare admission for a newspaper. Of course, The Times wasn’t the only newspaper that took embarrassing editorial positions during the war. Here’s an editorial in the Los Angeles Examiner (d. 1962) against allowing Japanese Americans to return to California.

Oct. 16, 1944, Los Angeles Examiner

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Black Dahlia: Remembering ‘Severed’ Con Man John Gilmore

Posted on February 17, 2017 by lmharnisch

John Gilmore 'Bonanza'

I promised I would tell a few tales about the late John Gilmore, author of “Severed.” It’s on L.A. Review of Books. (Though prone to exaggeration, Gilmore actually had a few small roles as an actor, including this 1960 appearance in “Bonanza” in an episode titled “The Gunmen.”)

Posted in 1947, 2016, Another Good Story Ruined, Black Dahlia, Hollywood, Obituaries, Television | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments