I’m on jury duty this week, so in that theme I’m posting mystery judges from Perry Mason.
Update: This is Jason Johnson from The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife.
Brain Trust roll call: Beach Gal (Wednesday’s mysterious jurist), Michael Ryerson (Wednesday’s mysterious judge), Sarah (Wednesday’s enigmatic justice) and Tucson Barbara (Wednesday’s mystery judge).
I’m on jury duty this week, so in that theme I’m posting mystery judges from Perry Mason.
Update: This is Grandon Rhodes from The Case of the Restless Redhead.
Brain Trust roll call: Michael Ryerson (Tuesday’s mystery judge), Howard Mandelbaum (Monday’s and Tuesday’s mystery judges), Beach Gal (Tuesday’s mysterious judge), Mary Mallory (Tuesday’s mystery judge), Tucson Barbara (Tuesday’s mystery judge), Patrick (Tuesday’s mystery judge), Sheila (Tuesday’s mystery judge), Sylvia E. (Tuesday’s mysterious judge), Jenny M. (Tuesday’s mystery judge), Sarah (Tuesday’s mystery judge), L.C. (Tuesday’s mystery judge) and Thom (Monday’s and Tuesday’s mysterious judges). Adding Mike Hawks (Tuesday’s mystery judge).
I’m on jury duty this week, so in that theme I’m posting mystery judges from Perry Mason (yes, another TV show).
Update: This is S. John Launer from The Case of the Golden Fraud, starring Mystery Movie veteran Arthur Franz of The Atomic Submarine, The Sniper and The Wild Party.
Brain Trust roll call: Michael Ryerson, Alexa, Beach Gal, Robert Morrissey, Tucson Barbara, Mike Hawks, Sarah, Rain on the Roof, Patrick, Jenny M. and Funky PhD and Mary Mallory. Adding L.C. and Johnny Yuma in The Case of the Spurious Spam Folder.
A postcard of the Avila Adobe, listed on EBay for $1.89.
“A people that has lost touch with its historical past, forgotten its traditions and wasted its heritage is as unfortunate as a man who has lost his memory. Without knowledge of the past, both the present and the future are meaningless.”
Harry Chandler, Olvera Street News, December 1933
Note: This is an encore post from 2019.
Long before Los Angeles or Hollywood possessed any historic preservation organizations fighting to save architectural, cultural or historically significant buildings, Los Angeles Times Editor and Publisher Harry S. Chandler astutely summed up what preservation is all about: saving structures that help define a sense of identity and place, showing where we as a society and people come from.
Throughout its history, the city has often turned a blind eye to its past, demolishing buildings reflecting the daily lives of both ordinary and powerful citizens trying to make an impact on their own time and place. These sites and buildings often reveal the history of less powerful citizens of the time, those of other races, cultures, and orientations that are often written out of historical texts.
Mary Mallory’s latest book, “Living With Grace: Life Lessons from America’s Princess,” is now on sale.
When early moving picture companies set down roots in the farming community of Hollywood, they employed simple structures like barns, warehouses, and even an abandoned roadhouse as studios. These early production entities ventured west in 1909 and 1910 to escape frigid, icy winter conditions looking for sunny, warm weather in order to shoot scenes, while some later companies arrived to escape the wrath of the Motion Picture Patents Company.
In 1911, David Horsley rented a former rest stop and tavern at the northwest corner of what is now Gower and Sunset from Marie Blondeau to establish Hollywood’s first permanent film studio. In existence for less than 20 years, this simple one-story building possessed a colorful story ready made for the daring, adventurous young medium.
Halloween is coming up, so I’ll issue my annual warning: Don’t dress up like “The Black Dahlia.” It’s not honoring the memory of Elizabeth Short. It’s not “Justice for Beth,” however you might define it. Just don’t do it.
The Motion Picture Museum and Hall of Fame, about 1932. Photo courtesy of Marc Wanamaker, Bison Archives.
On September 30, 2021, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures finally opens to the public. Long a dream of many in the Hollywood entertainment industry, film museums in Los Angeles over the last century have failed due to a variety of reasons: lack of attendance, little faith in the concept, money problems, and even indifference and stinginess by the motion picture studios.
The academy has flirted with movie museums before. In 1928, it established a small museum at the University of Southern California in conjunction with its university film classes, which was called the Museum of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, housing cameras and projectors from the primitive days of cinema. In late October 1940, the academy considered creating a film museum in what was then the Cafe Trocadero, to include a variety of exhibits on the production and creation of films as well as a history of the medium from its beginnings. It would cooperate with various local Chambers of Commerce and the Museum of Modern Art’s Film Library to produce exhibits, showcase films, and outfit the museum. Instead, the Board of Governors announced at its November meeting that it was dropping its option on the club and any concept of a film museum would be postponed due to needing a much larger space for exhibits, theaters, and thousands of guests.
This week’s mystery entry was The Last Letter, Season 5, Episode 7 of Death Valley Days from 1956, with William Pullen, Clint Eastwood, Forrest Stanley, George Pembroke, Russ Todd, John Sargent, Gregg Barton and Robert Sherman.
Directed by Stuart E. McGowan. Executive Producer Dorrell McGowan. Production Supervisor Dorothy B. McCann.
Screenplay by Ruth C. Woodman.
Photographed by Brydon Baker. Supervising editor Arthur H. Nadel.
Music editor Eve Newman. Assistant director Clark Paylow. Sound effects editor Verna Fields. Set decorator George Sawley.
Production designer Alfeo Bocchicchio. Wardrobe by Bob Richards and Muriel Poole.
Death Valley Days is available on streaming on many platforms.
Note: Perry Mason buffs, prepare for next week and very niche mystery photos. Non-TV fans can sit this one out.
A. Victor Segno is my favorite Los Angeles charlatan and I’ve written about him several times. His scam was to have people send money to him at his HQ in Echo Park and in return he would send out a “success wave.” Postal authorities who investigated Segno said he received more mail than any other single individual in California.
Here is Segno with a “success wave” (artist’s concept). Also notice the beautiful hair, the subject of one of Segno’s many treatises, which also included mentalism and living to be 100. He wrote about being happy “tho’ married,” although his decamping with his secretary would suggest that his knowledge of the subject was mainly theoretical.
My 2007 post from the 1947project.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1957 RKO film The Girl Most Likely, with Jane Powell, Cliff Robertson, Keith Andes, Kaye Ballard, Tommy Noonan, Una Merkel, Kelly Brown, Judy Nugent and Frank Cady.
Screenplay by Devery Freeman.
Note: This is an encore post from 2012.
Many people come from all over the world to try and make a new start in Hollywood, particularly in the film industry. Among these over the years have been many artists from Eastern Europe looking for new opportunities to create art and live freely. One such early trekker seeking fame and fortune was Slavko Vorkapich, recognized as one of the top practitioners of montage editing and shooting in the 1930s and 1940s.
An autographed photo of Myrtle Gonzalez by the Martel-Carruthers studio, inscribed to Jean Herscholt, listed on EBay at $250
Mostly forgotten today because of her untimely death in the 1918 influenza epidemic, Los Angeles native Myrtle Gonzalez began singing and reciting as a child before becoming one of cinema’s first Latina stars. Proud of her Hispanic heritage, Gonzalez never stooped to portraying negative stereotypes of Latinos, but instead focused on dramatic and action roles, gaining the moniker “nature girl.”
Born September 28, 1891, in Los Angeles, Gonzalez grew up in the Catholic Church, a refuge for her Los Angeles-born father, Manuel, and her Irish American mother, Lillian. The Gonzalez family supposedly lived for several decades in Los Angeles, with her great-grandfather one of the first people married in the Old Plaza Church. Lillian practiced her music talents, performing in church and organizing programs of recitations, songs, dance and drama for a variety of venues, often as benefits for organizations like the Plaza Church. She directed choirs for adults and children, taught music lessons and managed her students as well. In 1901, she even produced and directed a children’s opera version of “Cinderella” featuring more than 100 voices.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1947 Twentieth Century-Fox film The Brasher Doubloon, with George Montgomery, Nancy Guild, Conrad Janis, Roy Roberts, Fritz Kortner, Florence Bates and Marvin Miller.
Screenplay by Dorothy Hannah. Adaptation by Lenoard Praskins. Based on a novel by Raymond Chandler.
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A copy of the Lymanhouse cookbook “What Actors Eat (When They Eat!)” by Kenneth Harlan and Rex Lease has been listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $79.88. This book, by the L.A.-based publishing house, features recipes by movie stars of the day, and is extremely rare and very desirable among movie history fans. It generally goes for hundreds of dollars when you can find a copy, which is almost never. If you try Mr. Laurel’s ham ring mold, let us know how it is.
Note: As always, a vendor and item should be thoroughly evaluated before submitting a bid.
For the second year in a row, the Cinecon Classic Film Festival occurred virtually, bringing a respite from ongoing COVID struggles with entertaining and informative movies and television kinescopes. Overflowing with music, heart-tugging animals, and even issues society is wrestling with today, the festival offered a diverse and winning program for those missing their classic film fix, with strong documentaries stealing the show.
Friday kicked off with the slight 1927 “Dynamite Dan,” a so-so poverty row crime and boxing picture featuring Boris Karloff as a shady operator with the first screen appearance of young Mary Brian (thanks Mike Hawks!). The breezy musical short “Make Mine Monica” introduced 1949 audiences to aspiring singer/starlet Monica Lewis, cute as a button. Gossip columnist turned TV host Ed Sullivan appears as himself in this slight but sweet short.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1960 film Tunes of Glory, with Alec Guinness, John Mills, Dennis Price, Kay Walsh, John Fraser, Gordon Jackson, Duncan Macrae, Percy Herbert, Allan Cuthbertson, Paul Whitsun-Jones, Richard Leech, Gerald Harper and Peter McEnery. Introducing Susannah York.
Executive Producer Albert Fennell.
Photo: Joe Rinaudo with his Fotoplayer. Credit: Joe Rinaudo.
Note: This is an encore post from 2011.
For a short time in the 1920s, 8,000-10,000 photoplayers ruled the roost at medium-sized motion picture theaters. Basically organs with player piano rolls that allowed an operator to make all types of sound effects along with songs, photoplayers helped theater owners reduce costs by replacing their small orchestras with just one piece of equipment and one player.
One roll would play as another would be queued, and the operator could produce any manner of sound effects from items contained in and on the organ, such as percussion drums, bells, whistle, fog horn, train whistle, car horn, Indian tom toms, cymbals, etc.
Not only are they fun to listen to, but especially entertaining to watch the operator as well. Of course, sound would quickly put photoplayers out to pasture in the early 1930s when talkies arrived, but they were very popular for about 18 years.
Sept. 21, 1912: The $10,000 American Fotoplayer Orchestra at the Mozart Theater.
Sequences from William S. Hart’s “Blue Blazes Rawden” will be shown at Cinecon 57.
For those missing attending classic film screenings in person, the 57th Cinecon Classic Film Festival, the granddaddy of American vintage film fests, presents over 20 hours of rare and newly restored motion pictures and television kinescopes over Labor Day weekend, Friday, September 3 through Monday, September 6, 2021 on its webpage at www.cinecon.org. Occurring virtually once again due to the pandemic, the free event offers a little something from virtually every genre for film lovers of all ages. The festival will feature introductions by special guests, classic Cinecon memories, a Jane Withers tribute, and even surprise titles.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1956 film Patterns, with Van Heflin, Everett Sloane, Ed Begley, Beatrice Straight, Elizabeth Wilson, Joanna Roos, Valerie Cossart, Eleni Kiamos, Ronnie Welsh, Shirley Standlee, Andrew Duggan, Jack Livesy, John Seymour, James Kelly, John Shelly, Victor Harrison, Sally Gracie, Sally Chamberlin and Edward Binns.
Edited by David Kummins and Carl Lerner. Assistant editor James Barclay, production manager Max Glandbard, unit manager James Di Gangi.
Note: This is an encore post from 2013.
Eighty-five years ago, the Mack Sennett Studio opened at 4024 N. Radford in Studio City. The studio functioned as a magnet in hopes of drawing other film production companies and studios to the surrounding land owned by Central Motion Picture District.
The Central Motion Picture District land syndicate was conceived by Harry Merrick, formerly president of the Chicago Assn. of Commerce, now a local real estate man. Merrick helped organize Chicago’s Central Manufacturing District and recognized that the wide-open space near the Los Angeles River in North Hollywood could function in a similar fashion for the movie industry.
ladailymirror.com 