The Funny Papers, 1931

Posted on March 19, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 19, 1931, Gasoline Alley  
  “Gasoline Alley” by Frank King  

March 19, 1931: After wandering through the comics pages of 1941, I thought it would be interesting to roll the clock back to 1931. There are a few familiar faces, like “Gasoline Alley,” above; as well as “Tarzan” by Rex Maxon; “Ella Cinders” by Bill Conselman Jr. and Charlie Plumb; and “Harold Teen” by Carl Ed.

You may also recognize a very early “Winnie Winkle,” a strip by Martin Branner that lasted for decades; and  “The Gumps” by Sidney Smith. “Mr. and Mrs.” was an unsigned strip done by other artists in the style of Clare Briggs, who died in 1930.
 
“Life of Riley,” a one-panel strip about dogs by D.T. Carlisle, was new to me, as was “Reg’lar Fellers,” by Gene Byrnes.

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Posted in 1931, art and artists, Comics | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 18, 1941

Posted on March 18, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 18, 1941, U-Boat May Raid Off U.S.  

  March 18, 1941, Comics  

March 18, 1941: Lee Shippey has a letter from author Harlan Ware about attempts to deport Jan Valtin, who wrote “Out of the Night.”  This is the book that Tom Treanor mentioned recently. I never heard of this title before I ran across it in the old newspapers. I’ll have to add it to my Zombie Reading List.

Orson Welles arrives in town Saturday to remake seven scenes for "Citizen Kane," which will be released with those changes in May, Jimmie Fidler says.

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From the Vaults — ’13 Rue Madeleine’

Posted on March 18, 2011 by lmharnisch

  Jan. 23, 1947, 13 Rue Madeleine  

  13 Rue Madeleine  

Robert “Bob” Sharkey (James Cagney) and Charles Gibson (Walter Abel) discuss the incoming class of American secret agents in “13 Rue Madeleine.”  One of their students is a Nazi spy!

After a longwinded exposition, the 1947 film “13 Rue Madeleine” turns out to be a fast-moving suspense story of a double agent concealed among intelligence officers preparing for the invasion of Europe in World War II. Once the Nazi spy’s identity is revealed, the story unfolds rapidly and ends quickly, before anyone can have second thoughts about the resolution. It’s enjoyable as a lesser-known film of James Cagney, in which he is half  G-Man and half-crook on the side of good.  As he warns his class of agents, they should forget their American sense of good sportsmanship because the Axis doesn’t play by those rules!

Please notice: The ad says "Go ahead and tell the ending. It's too terrific to keep secret," which is your cue that spoilers are ahead, but I’ll keep them to a minimum.  

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Posted in 1947, Film, From the Vaults, Hollywood | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 17, 1941

Posted on March 17, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 17, 1941, 45 Killed  

  March 17, 1941, Comics  

March 17, 1941: Turn back the Hollywood clock about two years to the time when an ex-vaudevillian was struggling for radio recognition. After two or three broadcasts he found himself on the proverbial horns of a dilemma; he couldn't do his best work without an audience, and none of the fans who streamed in and out of the station was intrigued enough to attend his show.

Then came a great idea! Our hero bribed the studio page boys to rope off the corridor so that fans leaving the very popular program immediately preceding his own were automatically diverted into the studio from which he broadcast. One there, they usually remained.

The schemer's name? Read on…

 

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Jim Murray, March 17, 1961

Posted on March 17, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 17, 1961, Lyle LeBere  
  March 17, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 17, 1961: There have been a great many heroes of Irish ancestry in the world of sport. But I suppose the one who always comes to mind first is John L. Sullivan. John L., pounding on the bar with his great fist and shouting "When John L. Sullivan drinks, everybody drinks” and "I can lick any man in the house" has become part of the legend of sport, Jim Murray says.
 
I can’t quite make out the artist’s name on today’s drawing. It seems to be Art Brewer or Art Brewyer. Either way, when is the last time you heard anyone talk about the Long Beach Paramounts?

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Posted in #Jim Murray, 1961, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Sports | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Pages of History — ‘The Truth About Los Angeles’

Posted on March 17, 2011 by lmharnisch

  Louis Adamic The Truth About Los Angeles  

Thanks to the Huntington Library, I was able to obtain a photocopy of Louis Adamic’s “The Truth About Los Angeles,” one of hundreds of little pamphlets published by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. I was vaguely aware of these pamphlets but it wasn’t until Christopher Hawthorne began his “Reading L.A.” series that I learned Adamic had been a contributor.

There is (of course) a website devoted to Haldeman-Julius’ publications with a searchable database of  nearly 2,000 items.

According to the database, Adamic wrote:

Yugoslav Proverbs (380)

The Truth About Los Angeles (647)

Facts You Should Know About California (752)

The Word of Satan in the Bible (1307)

Hollywood From the Inside (1401)

One of the more tantalizing items is the pamphlet “The Personal Element in Business” (1296) with essays by three major writers on Los Angeles: Adamic, who wrote “Dynamite”; Morrow Mayo, the author of “Los Angeles”:  and Carey McWilliams, author of “Southern California: An Island on the Land.”  Why they were writing about “The Personal Element in Business” is truly a mystery.

Mayo also contributed an essay to “The Bigotry Trust in the U.S.A.” (1314)

 

Other Haldeman-Julius titles with a Los Angeles or California connection are:

"Anti-Evolution Strikes California" in "Is Death Inevitable?" by Maynard Shipley (271)

"Address at the Grave of Luther Burbank" (724)

Edgcumb Pinchon's "Life Among Hollywood's 'Extra' Girls" (755)

"How 'Wicked' Is Hollywood?" (1591);  which includes "How 'Wicked' is Hollywood?" by H. A. Woodmansee; "Los Angeles — The Heaven of Bunk-Shooters" by Farnsworth Crowder; "How Aimee Semple McPherson Gets the Kale" by Eric Wolfe; and "Pasadena — A Charming City, But" by A. C. Senske.

A bit of online research shows that the Oviatt Library Special Collections at Cal State Northridge has a nearly complete collection of the Haldeman-Julius publications, although it is apparently missing “The Truth About Los Angeles.”

 

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 16, 1941

Posted on March 16, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 16, 1941, Drowning  
  March 16, 1941, Drowning  

March 16, 1941: In one of the famous tragedies of Hollywood lore, Christopher Quinn, the son of Anthony and Katherine De Mille Quinn, drowns in a fish pond on the estate of W.C. Fields, 2015 De Mille Drive.  
 
Lee Shippey writes about philosophies in parenting – using Deanna Durbin as a point of departure.

Tom Treanor visits an orange grove in Covina where half the laborers are from Arkansas and others are from the Dust Bowl. They call the trees “bushes” and they don’t pick oranges, they “pluck” them, Treanor says.

How quickly Paul Muni faded from the box office inner circle, Jimmie Fidler says.

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Jim Murray, March 16, 1961

Posted on March 16, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 16, 1961, This Day in Sports  

  March 16, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 16, 1961: Around the league, Elgin [Baylor] is known as "The Big Hurt." He's a four Band-Aid player. The man assigned to cover him usually stocks up with liniment and aspirin and approaches his task with all the zest of a man asked to defuse a live bomb with a hairpin. At 6 feet, 5 inches, 225 pounds, Baylor is such a powerful, punishing player that his teammates, to a man, are positive he could win the heavyweight championship of the world if he wanted to train for it, Jim Murray says. 

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Austrians Plan Worldwide War Against Judaism, March 16, 1921

Posted on March 16, 2011 by lmharnisch

 

  March 16, 1921, Wrench  

  March 16, 1921  

March 16, 1921: Edna Wallace Hopper, who about two wives ago was the wife of De Wolf Hopper, is in the city. She is reported as forming her own picture company and said yesterday that she will shortly have some plans to announce in that regard, Grace Kingsley says.

I haven’t done much in the 1920s recently and thought I’d pay a visit. I had forgotten about the comics of Clare Briggs, and there’s one on the jump.

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Posted in 1921, art and artists, Comics, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood, Religion | Comments Off on Austrians Plan Worldwide War Against Judaism, March 16, 1921

Chicken Boy

Posted on March 15, 2011 by lmharnisch


Photograph by Bruce Cox/Los Angeles Times

Feb. 5, 1970: Behold the wonder of Chicken Boy on the roof of a restaurant on Broadway near 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles.

In 1977, Art Seidenbaum looked at oversized signs as part of Los Angeles’ vernacular architecture, which he called “litertecture” as in “literal architecture.”  Chicken Boy’s oversized playmates included a turbaned swordsman over Ali Baba’s Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, the Carpeteria Giant, the supersized mechanic for Hal’s Tires in West Hollywood and the Colossus of Hickory Burger.

There are several more plastic giants to be found in Los Angeles, according to a website that tracks them.
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Posted in 1970, 1977, Architecture, art and artists, Art Seidenbaum, Downtown, Food and Drink, Photography | 2 Comments

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 15, 1941

Posted on March 15, 2011 by lmharnisch

 
 

  March 15, 1941, British Plan Continent Invasion  

   March 15, 1941, Comics  

March 15, 1941: Tom Treanor writes about two articles on Los Angeles, one in Fortune magazine and the other in Western Advertising, by Ramsey Oppenheim.

Treanor says: “In trying to interpret Los Angeles, Mr. Oppenheim goes into an extensive analysis of our basic physical advantages to which is added something he calls the Los Angeles spirit, which is such a complicated, peculiar, individualistic thing that it defies summary here.

“Without being able to describe it, we all have a vague notion of what it is, and whatever it is, we can thank whatever powers may be that we have it. In half a century or less it probably will make us the greatest city in the world.”

I hear the Hays office will slap the wrist of the movie mag that printed a captious caption under a Bette Davis-Mary Astor photo, Jimmie Fidler says.

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Jim Murray, March 15, 1961

Posted on March 15, 2011 by lmharnisch

 

 
 

  March 15, 1961, Patterson- Johansson  
  March 15, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 15, 1961: Jim Murray watches a broadcast of the Floyd Patterson – Ingemar Johansson fight at the Orpheum Theatre on Broadway.  

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Another Good Story Ruined — The Black Dahlia

Posted on March 15, 2011 by lmharnisch
Mady Comfort I received a news alert the other day about an upcoming play titled “The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse” in which Daniele Watts will portray Mady Comfort, at left, purportedly “Elizabeth Short's best friend.”

I honestly don’t know how such nonsense gets started.

Mady Comfort was not Short’s “best friend.” There is nothing in any original newspaper accounts or in any official documents to show they ever met.  Comfort did nothing more than pose for photos for Dr. George Hodel, according to “Black Dahlia Avenger.”     Any attempt to link Comfort and Short is nothing but lunacy.

Posted in 1947, Another Good Story Ruined, books, Coming Attractions, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood, LAPD, Stage | 6 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo Fan — Eve Golden

Posted on March 14, 2011 by lmharnisch

 

eve_golden_ndEve Golden, a regular Daily Mirror reader and Mystery Photo fan, is a photo archivist in New York and has written several show business biographies, including “Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara” and “Platinum Girl: The Life and Legends of Jean Harlow.”  

In an interview with The Hollywood Sign Girl, she says: I never took any writing classes or planned to write. But I was working as an advertising copywriter in the late '80s and thought "what a shame there has never been a decent book on Jean Harlow," then thought, "Why don't I write one myself?" being kind of an idiot and not having the slightest idea what I was getting myself into.
Posted in books, Mystery Photo, Photography | 2 Comments

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 14, 1941

Posted on March 14, 2011 by lmharnisch

 
 

  March 14, 1941, British Open Vast Air Offensive  

  March 14, 1941, Comics  

March 14, 1941: Some time ago, this column told of the work of Ruby Berkley Goodwin, the Fullerton Negro poetess whose work has attracted national attention. Wendell Malliet & Co., New York, have just announced Mrs. Goodwin's first volume of poetry, "From My Kitchen Window," Lee Shippey says. 

THAT GREAT-WINGED monster, the B-19, is almost finished. I saw it yesterday and it was like seeing a nightmare, according to Tom Treanor.

Ask Paramount why Luise Rainer isn't being tested for Maria in "For Whom the Bell Tolls?" She'd be terrific, Jimmie Fidler says.

Also on the jump: Ruby Berkley Goodwin, former personal secretary to Hattie McDaniel and Ethel Waters, dies in 1961 at the age of 58.

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Posted in 1941, 1961, art and artists, books, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Lee Shippey, Obituaries, Tom Treanor | 1 Comment

Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

Posted on March 14, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 12, 2011, Mystery Photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

[Update: This is Sally Marr, Lenny Bruce's mother. She is conferring with Frankie Ray ("Dracula's Dog") Perelli on the set of the film "Cinderella." Please congratulate RJ, Dewey Webb and Mary Mallory for identifying her and Kitty Bruce.

Here’s a mystery lady with a mystery companion.
 
There’s a new photo on the jump!

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | 5 Comments

Jim Murray, Feb. 27, March 14, 1961

Posted on March 14, 2011 by lmharnisch

 

  March 14, 1961, Patterson  

 

  Feb. 27, 1961,Jim Murray  

Feb. 27, 1961: Jim Murray takes his wife and two other women to see boxing at the Olympic. One question: The best way to wash blood out of boxers’ trunks.

Murray writes a nice piece about Angel Macias, who is at the Angels training camp, even though he is 16 and too young to be signed to a contract.Murray mentions a TV documentary about Macias titled "How Tall Is a Giant," which sounds like it might be worth seeing. 

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Posted in #Jim Murray, 1961, broadcasting, Columnists, Film, Sports, Television | 1 Comment

In Walter (Cronkite) We Trust, March 14, 1981

Posted on March 14, 2011 by lmharnisch

 
 

  image  
   March 14, 1981, Dan Rather  

March 14, 1981: Howard Rosenberg, The Times Pulitzer Prize-winning TV critic, watches Dan Rather’s debut in taking over from Walter Cronkite on the “CBS Evening News” and he is not a happy man.

Art Seidenbaum and I overlapped at The Times, but I was a rookie and he was one of the senior writers at the paper, so I never introduced myself when I would see him in the hallway or (usually) smoking a cigarette somewhere. I regret that now because I enjoy reading him and he sounds quite approachable. The book he's reviewing, Bill Henderson's "His Son: A Child of the Fifties" may not be remembered now (it ranks 9.3 millionth at Amazon), but Art's insights are well worth reading.

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Posted in 1981, @news, art and artists, Art Seidenbaum, Blues, broadcasting, Columnists, Comics, Howard Rosenberg, Television, Walter Cronkite | 2 Comments

Another Good Story Ruined: Saucers Over L.A.! — Part 7

Posted on March 13, 2011 by lmharnisch

  Feb. 26, 1942, Searchlights  

  Feb. 26, 1942, Copy Negative  

These days, many of The Times photos and negatives are held at UCLA. Here’s one of two negatives that Scott Harrison of our photo department got from the archives. As I said at the beginning, the searchlight photo has been heavily retouched, but it is authentic to some extent.

ALSO

Another Good Story Ruined: Saucers Over L.A.! – Part 1

Another Good Story Ruined: Saucers Over L.A.! — Part 2

Another Good Story Ruined: Saucers Over L.A.! – Part 3

Another Good Story Ruined: Saucers Over L.A.! – Part 4

Another Good Story Ruined: Saucers Over L.A.! – Part 5

Another Good Story Ruined: Saucers Over L.A.! – Part 6

Another Good Story Ruined: The Battle of Los Angeles

 

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Posted in 1942, Another Good Story Ruined, Photography, UFOs | 4 Comments

Jim Murray, March 13, 1961

Posted on March 13, 2011 by lmharnisch

 

  March 13, 1961, Patty Berg  

 

  March 13, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 13, 1961: Jim Murray writes from Palm Springs about a game between the Angels and the Cubs.

“The opposition was the Chicago Cubs, not formidable under the best of circumstances, but this was their "B" team. The Cubs, of course, don't have an "A" team. They have two units of equal mediocrity in spring training but the one Ernie Banks travels with usually rates a "B-plus" classification.”

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Posted in #Jim Murray, 1961, art and artists, Columnists, Sports | 2 Comments