This week’s mystery movie was the 1948 MGM film Three Daring Daughters, with Jeannette MacDonald, Jose Iturbi, Jane Powell, Edward Arnold, Harry Davenport, Moyna MacGill, Larry Adler, Mary Eleanor Donahue, Ann E. Todd, Dick Simmons, Amparo Iturbi and Tom Helmore.
In the September 2024 Ask Me Anything on the Black Dahlia case, I talk about my work in progress, Heaven Is HERE! and my current focus on the crime scene
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Note: This is an encore post from 2013.
Hollywood has always been creative in promoting its films and personalities to the public. Employing posters, lobby cards, window cards and photographs, silent film production companies hyped upcoming films. With the success of these forms of advertisements and publicity, companies began selling or giving away photographs, buttons, pillow tops, plates and pennants featuring likenesses of popular moving picture stars as souvenirs and collectibles to eager fans.
The film industry was usually not the first to conceive of ideas; instead, it built on successful practices and gimmicks of other fields. One such popular practice the silent film industry quickly copied was the manufacture and distribution of small felt pennants promoting either producing companies or the film stars of such organizations.
Now on Amazon: “Hollywoodland: Tales Lost and Found” by Mary Mallory
This week’s mystery movie was the 1959 Columbia picture The True Story of Lynn Stuart, with Betsy Palmer, Jack Lord and Barry Atwater.
Reminder: Boxie and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on the Black Dahlia case Tuesday, September 3, at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on YouTube and on Instagram.
I’ll give an update on the book and discuss some Black Dahlia news nuggets. I’ll also revisit one of the eliminated suspects who keeps getting traction (and isn’t George Hodel).
Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them! I’ll also get to the backlog of questions from previous sessions. The video will be posted once the session ends so you can watch it later.
Remember, this is only Black Dahlia questions. I have a separate Ask Me Anything on George Hodel on September 17, at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
Long an entertaining trope for many a movie and stage play, the boarding house for theatrical performers offered an opportunity to gather together a colorful band of characters while at the same time providing them a supportive haven and family in times of trouble. Robert L. L. Warner and Pert Kelton constructed their own bohemian apartment hotel at 6326 Lexington Ave. for exactly the same reasons. Besides a great financial investment, it represented their own aims to create a home away from home for entertainers. Opening as the Warner-Kelton Hotel, the graceful building has operated under the name Hotel Brevoort for most of its existence.
Back in 1913, considered 6326 Lexington Ave. a lovely place at which to construct a home. When Warner and Kelton purchased the property in 1927, moved it to S. Figueroa, where it would remain for decades before being demolished. Continue reading
This week’s mystery movie was the 1937 Paramount picture Waikiki Wedding, with Bing Crosby, Bob Burns, Martha Raye, Shirley Ross, George Barbier and Leif Erikson. Continue reading
W. Scott Darling and Eleanor Fried Darling, Film Daily, 1926.
Women made the silent film industry the giant success it became during the 1920s. Thanks to their example in uplifting filmmaking, movie attendance skyrocketed among women. To maintain supply for this exploding demand, women were eagerly recruited to maintain production assembly lines. Females also flocked to the industry eager to land high paying jobs to contribute to family budgets, demonstrating their intelligence, quick thinking, and leadership skills both behind and in front of the camera handling anything thrown their way during the middle decade of the silent film period.
While many enjoyed long careers creating movie magic, others retired from the screen as they became wives and mothers, only to find their contributions forgotten. Jill of All Trades Eleanor Fried achieved great success editing, writing, and serving as business manager while single but found herself forced to abandon her career by her new husband, unable to fully fulfill her potential. Continue reading
Here’s Boxie (formerly Boxy) and I with this month’s “Ask Me Anything” on George Hodel.
In this session, I discussed Steve Hodel’s indignant rebuttal to last month’s Ask Me Anything on George Hodel regarding Brian Carr’s statement at Steve never asked to see his father’s file before writing “Black Dahlia Avenger,” and if Steve had asked, Brian would have showed it to him “out of professional courtesy.”
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This week’s mystery was the 1953 Twentieth Century-Fox picture Call Me Madam, with Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor, Vera-Ellen, George Sanders, Billy De Wolfe, Helmut Dantine, Walter Slezak, Steven Geray, Ludwig Stossel, Lilia Skala, Charles Dingle, Emory Parnell and Percy Helton. Continue reading
Reminder: Boxie (formerly Boxy) and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on George Hodel and Steve Hodel on Tuesday, August 20, at 10 a.m. Pacific time on YouTube and Instagram.
Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them! The video will be posted once the session ends so you can watch it later.
As climate change worsens around the world, so do the outbreak of wildfires. Just in the last few years, such countries as Canada, Greece, and Australia have experienced devastating fires, as has such U. S. states as Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Texas, and of course California, These conflagrations continue exploding in size, power, and devastation, destroying homes, businesses, and or course, lives.
In 1944, the United States Forestry Service desired an eyecatching mascot to inspire audiences to honor the beauty and glory of nature by preventing and putting out forest fires. Though they had employed lavishly illustrated posters for several years in their worthy cause, including a Disney-inspired poster featuring Thumper the rabbit, Flower the skunk, and an adult deer, their poster released on August 9, 1944 featuring a friendly, lovable bear that came to be known as Smokey Bear is one of the world’s most famous advertising icons and celebrities, designed by commercial artist Albert Staehle. Continue reading
This week’s mystery movie was the 1949 picture Champion, with Kirk Douglas, Marilyn Maxwell, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart, Luis Van Rooten, Harry Shannon, John Day, Ruth Roman and Lola Albright. Continue reading
In the August 2024 Ask Me Anything on the Black Dahlia case, I talk about my work in progress, Heaven Is HERE! and where I got the title.
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Note: This is an encore post from 2012.
Filmmakers have always loved shooting around the Los Angeles area because so many diverse locations offer tantalizing story possibilities at a fraction of the cost of traveling around the United States or out of the country to film. One of the most popular places employed for location shooting by early filmmaking companies was Pasadena, California. It offered many intriguing filming locations for such directors as D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett.
The timekeeper is Weegee, btw.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1949 RKO picture The Set-Up, with Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford, Percy Helton, Hal Fieberling, Darryl Hickman, Kenny O’Morrison, James Edwards, David Clarke, Phillip Pine and Edwin Max. Continue reading
Reminder: Boxie and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on the Black Dahlia case Tuesday, Aug. 6, at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on YouTube and on Instagram.
I’ll give an update on the book and discuss the excerpts I posted July 29 for Elizabeth Short’s 100th birthday.
Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them! I’ll also get to the backlog of questions from previous sessions. The video will be posted once the session ends so you can watch it later.
Remember, this is only Black Dahlia questions. I have a separate Ask Me Anything on George Hodel on Aug. 20, at 10 a.m. Pacific time.
Epic Answers: How to End Poverty in California.
90 years ago, author and former Socialist Upton Sinclair entered the race for Governor of California as a Democrat, hoping to better the lives of common people and the unemployed. Upset at the idea that taxes would be raised on the wealthy and independent film production would assist the unemployed, rich Hollywood moguls colluded to destroy his campaign with the first use of negative advertising in mass media, setting the stage for what we see today in political campaigns.
The motion picture industry had long profited off of Sinclair and his works. In 1914, his muckraking novel “The Jungle” was adapted into a feature film. Director Alice Guy Blache helmed the 1917 film “The Adventurer,” about a young woman trying to honestly survive in a cold and cruel city. In 1920, Director Jack Conway produced “The Moneychangers” for Benjamin B . Hampton Productions. Most importantly, MGM produced the hard hitting melodrama “The Wet Parade” starring Walter Huston, Robert Young, Neil Hamilton, and a young Myrna Loy, detailing two families’ struggles against demon alcohol during Prohibition. Sinclair specifically wrote the book to demonstrate the deep need for Prohibition, reflecting his father’s and two uncles’ struggles with and later deaths due to alcoholism and its effects on his family. Continue reading
This week’s mystery movie was the 1939 MGM picture Idiot’s Delight, with Norman Shearer, Clark Gable, Edward Arnold, Charles Coburn, Joseph Schildkraut, Burgess Meredith, Laura Hope Crews, Skeets Gallagher, Peter Willes, Paterson, William Edmunds, Fritz Feld, Virginia Grey, Virginia Dale, Paula Stone, Bernadene Hayes, Joan Marsh and Lorraine Krueger. Continue reading
Viewing of the sample excerpts is now over. Thanks for reading!
This is the opening of Chapter 30 of Heaven Is HERE! 4,600 words.
ladailymirror.com 