Gort: Tannenbaum baringa! Futurism in 1958.
I bought a Kindle Fire a few days ago and since it arrived I’ve been thinking about John T. Frye W9EGV.
Unless you are an electronics geek of a certain age, it’s likely you have never heard of Frye. In the 1950s and early ‘60s, his stories about two teenage electronics geeks named Carl and Jerry appeared every month in Popular Electronics, sort of like the Hardy Boys with a soldering iron and schematic diagrams.
Dec. 22, 1941: The Navy releases three personal accounts of the Pearl Harbor attack. Many acts of heroism are described, and these few lines shed more light on the presence of African Americans (recall that the armed services were segregated at the time):
“A Negro mess attendant who never before had fired a gun manned a machine gun on the bridge until his ammunition was exhausted.”
On the jump:
Looking for an experienced domestic? Check The Times’ classified.
Tom Treanor writes about a Korean American girl who came to school wearing a button showing the flags of the U.S. and Korea so classmates will know she’s not Japanese.
Jimmie Fidler says it’s unfair for the Hollywood Women’s Press Club to name Marlene Dietrich as one of the year’s most uncooperative stars.
Mamie Gould, Pittsburgh Gene Autry fan, has obtained 165,000 signatures on a petition demanding a special Academy Award for Autry, Fidler says.
Dec. 21, 1941: Philip K. Scheuer writes: “Citizen Kane” is, for this column, picture of 1941. It would be that if only because it jolted Hollywood once again into realizing the possibilities of the screen as a storytelling medium in sight and sound. But it is also a tremendously exciting experience — one that bears repeating — and a good show, to say nothing of the prospects it uncovers for a whole raft of actors and technicians, including, of course, Orson Welles himself.
The faux pas of the year is Greta Garbo’s “Two-Faced Woman.” The film has been rushed back to editing room to be re-cut, but the damage has been done, Scheuer says.
Jimmie Fidler says: Anyone who calls Hobart Bosworth “old” should try to keep pace with him during his daily health hike.
We’re very curious at the Daily Mirror HQ these days about what sort of pistol Robert Downey Jr. is using in “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.” For example, in this picture he’s got a nice broomhandle Mauser. Notice that it’s in his right hand.
At first, I had the dim recollection that in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mysteries, Holmes never carries a gun, but then I recalled that Holmes dispatches the Hound of the Baskervilles with a revolver:
But the next instant Holmes had emptied five barrels of his revolver into the creature’s flank. With a last howl of agony and a vicious snap in the air, it rolled upon its back, four feet pawing furiously, and then fell limp upon its side. I stooped, panting, and pressed my pistol to the dreadful, shimmering head, but it was useless to press the trigger. The giant hound was dead.
Art directors love these Mausers, which turn up in many films — even adapted to become Han Solo’s blaster in “Star Wars.”
Now the Mauser is in his left hand!
Los Angeles City Hall is in the background. Where was this shot and what’s the movie?
December 19, 1941: The suicide of Dr. Rikita Honda, who slashed his wrists while in custody at Terminal Island, revealed that he was the director of a vast spy ring, the FBI says. Honda was head of the Imperial Comradeship Society, which allegedly had 4,800 members in Western states, including California and Arizona.
An FBI report on Honda is here.
A report on the association is here.
In an interview, Harry Yoshio Ueno, who led a riot at Manzanar in 1942, says there were stories that Honda was tortured to death.
one of the relatives went over and verified his corpse. He opened up the sheet and saw that both hands showed that wire or something had been tied up very deeply around his wrists. He looked at that and said to himself, “He must have been tortured to death.” That’s what he told a friend of mine who lived in back of my house.
Tom Treanor writes about a test in Griffith Park of an air raid warning device.
Restaurant owners in Portland, Ore., say that changing the names of the hamburger and the frankfurter because of the war is silly. But German pancakes will be known as egg pancakes and Italian meatballs will be known as meatballs.
Jimmie Fidler says: Mickey Rooney-Ava Gardner marriage is set for Jan. 12 at the Mission Inn, Riverside. Mickey has presented his bride-to-be with a $2,500 engagement ring.
“Dumbo” opens today at the Carthay Circle and United Artists downtown.
Photo: Image of a horse-drawn hearse, part of a group of five pictures listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $300.
Queen of the Dead – dateline December 19, 2011
• Word has come in of the long-expected but still sad death of Christopher Hitchens, one of my favorite essayists, on December 15, at the far too young age of 62. He made Vanity Fair worth reading, and though I strongly disagreed with him on certain topics (really, you hate the Clintons and support the Iraq invasion that much?), his books God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice have honored places on my shelf (his expose of Mother Teresa’s deadly fanaticism and hypocrisy alone make him one of the more important writers of his era, up there with Jacob Riis and Thomas Paine). I’m sure his many enemies are rubbing their hands gleefully picturing him in hell—but as “Hitch” pointed out (to paraphrase Ethel Barrymore), “that’s all there is, there isn’t any more.”
Photo: Olive and 5th via Google’s Street View. Notice the vacant lot where Philharmonic Auditorium used to be. Demolition is forever.
This truly awesome 1911 Christmas card, showing Philharmonic Auditorium and part of what is now Pershing Square, has been listed on EBay. I’ve never seen anything like this. Very cool. Bidding starts at $4.99.
Dec. 18, 1941: Louis A. Tyler reports to the Navy recruiting office after receiving a telegram informing him of the death of his son, Fireman 3rd Class George L. Tyler, at Pearl Harbor. “My purpose is to take my son’s place and carry on in the capacity for which I am best fitted,” he says. (The Times didn’t follow up on this story to report whether Tyler was accepted).
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences cancels its annual banquet, due to the war. The awards will be given out later in some informal gathering, Edwin Schallert writes.
Jimmie Fidler says: Gracie Allen is already wearing George Burns’ Christmas gift: a full-length stone marten coat, tres expensive. Marlene Dietrich owns the only other local one.
[Update: This is Evelyn Daw in the 1937 film “Something to Sing About,” in which James Cagney plays a bandleader.]
Here’s a mystery lady from the amazing collection of Steven Bibb!
There’s a new photo on the jump!
Wake Island will fall to the Japanese on Dec. 23, 1941.
Dec 17, 1941: Police Chief C. B. Horrall demotes former Chief Arthur C. Hohmann from deputy chief to lieutenant and assigns him to the Highland Park station. Hohmann, who traded jobs with Horrall earlier in the year when he stepped down as chief, refused to accept the demotion and didn’t report for duty. Of the strange episodes in LAPD history, the Hohmann story is one of the most peculiar.
Also on the jump:
Charles Owens draws a war map showing Japan’s attack on Maui.
Loretta Young stars in the new film “The Men in Her Life” with the slogan: “She lived dangerously and paid the price.”
Jimmie Fidler says: Radio event to which I look forward to each December: Lionel Barrymore’s performance of Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol.”
This photo of a window display at Mullen and Bluett, at Broadway and 6th Street, has been listed on EBay. This photo is undated and I would have pegged this as the 1940s, but The Times clips shows that Timely suits were selling for $35 about 1935, which would fit with the lettering. Bidding on this photo starts at $19.85.
Here are some recommendations for things that might please a Daily Mirror reader. The out of print books can usually be found on Bookfinder.com.
Here’s a mystery pair from the incredible collection of Steven Bibb – in the news business this pose is often called a “grip and grin.”
[Update: Producer Harlan Thompson welcomes Gladys Swarthout to Hollywood to appear in “Champagne Waltz,” 1936. ]
Terrific artwork from the incredible Milton Caniff.
Dec. 15, 1941: A group of soldiers was stopping motorists on Sepulveda Boulevard near the airport to strip off blue cellophane that had been illegally put over the headlights in the new wartime blackout. Dr. Harry Brandel, assuming that the soldiers were hitchhiking, ignored the order to stop and Private Eugene I. Tuttle, 19, fired what he said was a warning shot. The bullet struck the car, killing Brandel’s wife, Adele. The case was turned over to military authorities and The Times never published anything further about the resolution of matter.
Hedda Hopper writes a Hollywood version of the “Yes, Virginia” Christmas column, which was an old chestnut 60 years ago.
Jimmie Fidler says: A few minutes after war was declared, Rosalind Russell and Linda Darnell led a daylong parade of screen stars who volunteered their services to the Women’s Emergency Corps of Beverly Hills.
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Dec. 14, 1941: The Rose Parade is canceled and the Rose Bowl – between Duke and Oregon State – is moved to Durham, N.C. The streets of Pasadena were oddly quiet on New Year’s Day as millions reviewed memories of previous parades in all their glory, The Times said.
The comics of the “Greatest Generation”: flogging a woman who won’t cook. And this is “Brenda Starr,” drawn by Dale Messick.
Tom Treanor writes that until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America had been suffering “a mania of superiority.”
Jimmie Fidler talks with Laird Cregar.
Fidler asks: “Why, if I may pry, are you not married?”
Cregar: “I’ve never felt I could afford it. Now that I am making a movie salary I–well, I am looking around.”
Gosh, a mystery photo in color? Yes, thanks to Steven Bibb! And no, I can’t think of any Native Americans who actually dress like this, except for Hollywood Indians.
[Update: This is Lisa Gaye. Please congratulate CandyC, Don Danard and Gary Martin for identifying her! ]
Dec. 13, 1941: The Daily Mirror HQ was thrilled to see a brief appearance by Jimmie Fidler in “Garden of the Moon,” so here he is, in case you ever wondered what he looked like.
On the jump:
Times artist Charles Owens provides a map of the latest war news.
President Roosevelt announces that the military will not release casualty lists to avoid giving information to the enemy. Military personnel will notify families directly, and the news media will only be given totals of casualties. Roosevelt also asked the news media to stop compiling its own casualty lists from death notices submitted by relatives.
Frank Capra, a math instructor in the military during World War I, is expecting to be called for the Army Signal Corps.
Chief County Jailer William J. Bright says authorities have arrested so many suspected enemy Japanese (345), Germans (82) and Italians (14) that the county jails are being forced to move other inmates to prison farms, The Times says.
Jose Ferrer and Ruth Wilk announce the withdrawal of the Broadway play “The Admiral Had a Wife,” Lowell Barrington’s comedy about Pearl Harbor. The play dealt with a socially ambitious Navy wife who wants to advance the rank of her husband, a lieutenant. The play got mixed reviews in Baltimore and was revised after the war as “Commander’s Wife.”
Jimmie Fidlersays that Hugh Herbert is tired of his eight-year stint of saying “woo-woo” after an unplanned moment caught on camera while shooting the 1933 film “Diplomaniacs.”
And, “the better local niteries are frowning on femmes who step out in slacks,” Fidler says.
A Witzel photo of Sid Ziff, the Mirror’s sports editor from 1950 to 1962 and a sports columnist at The Times until his retirement in 1967, has been listed on EBay. Ziff was “one of the most controversial and opinionated sports writers in Los Angeles history,” according to his 1991 obituary by the legendary Shav Glick. Bidding starts at $9.95.
