Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: New Books Examine Film Noir, the Mankiewicz Brothers and Women in the Movies

Posted on May 10, 2022 by lmharnisch

Dark City cover with John Garfield and Lana Turner
Over the last several months, a plethora of film books have been released, examining Golden Age Hollywood up close or at large, offering something for everyone from experienced cinephiles to new film fans. Some come from TCM hosts or others with close connections, providing context and education on classic Hollywood, its films and players.

TCM Noir Alley host and Czar of Noir Eddie Muller’s recently revised and updated Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir provides a lavishly illustrated expanded compendium of all things dark and dangerous in the gritty world of film noir. The book takes a mesmerizing journey into the backstabbing world of post-World War II Hollywood and the seamy and sinister underbelly of the genre, offering detailed analysis and history on its films, players, and themes.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on May 9, 2022 by lmharnisch

May 14, 2022, Phantom Lady, Main Title
This week’s mystery movie was the 1944 Universal picture Phantom Lady, with Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Thomas Gomez, Aurora, Elisha Cook Jr., Fay Helm, Regis Toomey, Joseph Crehan and Andrew Tombes.
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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on May 2, 2022 by lmharnisch

May 7, 2022, Chances Main Title

This week’s mystery movie was the 1931 First National picture Chances by A. Hamilton Gibbs, with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Rose Hobart, Anthony Bushell, Holmes Herbert, Mary Forbes, Edmond Breon and Harry Allen. Continue reading →

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Ida May Park Finds Direction in Films

Posted on May 2, 2022 by lmharnisch

Ida May Park, Photoplay
Ida May Park in Photoplay.

Note: This is an encore post from 2018.

Virtually forgotten today, Los Angeles-born Ida May Park earned the distinction of being one of the first women to direct feature films in early Hollywood, as well as write and produce, before being pushed aside as Wall Street money took over film production. Her long career acting on stage enhanced her film career, one in which she focused on creating strong women characters around which stories revolved.

Born December 28, 1879, to laborers Charles and Martha Park in Los Angeles, Ida seemed drawn to entertainment at a young age, appearing with the Alcazar Acting Company in San Francisco by 1897, perhaps after her family moved to Sacramento, where her father later served as a postman. Within a few years, Ida became an itinerant actor, performing with troupes around the United States.

Mary Mallory’s latest book, “Living With Grace: Life Lessons from America’s Princess,” will be released June 1.
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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: TCM Classic Film Festival Salutes Hollywood’s Golden Age

Posted on April 28, 2022 by lmharnisch

After a two-year absence due to the Covid pandemic, the TCM Classic Film Festival triumphantly returned to Hollywood, four-day nirvana for vintage film fans. The festival joyfully celebrated classic cinema, screening mostly 35-millimeter film prints on the big screen the way they were meant to be seen and happily reunited long-missed friends. Overloaded with films, special programming, and celebrity appearances, the event offered the opportunity to immerse oneself in the glamour of Golden Age Hollywood.

For my weekend, I mostly focused on Pre-Code films and special programming. My festival kicked off with a rare screening of the 1933 Columbia film Cocktail Hour starring Bebe Daniels and Randolph Scott, a dashing light aperitif to start off a frantic film weekend. While only slightly risque, the movie revolved around the effervescent, independent artist Daniels, celebrating life and a career on her terms and surrounded by men. Daniels sketches magazine covers for her dandy boss Scott while trading flirty repartee. Chasing excitement she embarks on an Atlantic cruise, pursued by men along the way. Composer/director Victor Schertzinger keeps the film uptempo and energetic, a heady little cocktail featuring an entertaining performance from Daniels, promising early work from Scott, and sprinkled with cameos by character actors like Willie Fung, Sam McDaniel, and Rolfe Sedan. Film historian Cari Beauchamp offered background and history before the film with guest Suzanne Lloyd, granddaughter of silent film great Harold Lloyd, who met Daniels several times.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on April 25, 2022 by lmharnisch

Main Title. A brick wall with a menacing shadow
This week’s mystery movie was the 1943 picture Hangmen Also Die! with Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee, Gene Lockhart, Dennis O’Keefe, Alexander Granach, Margaret Wycherly, Tonio Selwart, Jonathan Hale, H.H. v. Twardowski, Billy Roy, Reinhold Schuenzel, Louis Donath, Arno Frey, Sarah Padden, Byron Foulger, Edmund MacDonald, Lionel Stander, Lester Sharpe, Arthur Loft, George Irving and James Bush.

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Mary Mallory: Hollywood Heights – ‘Auction of Souls’

Posted on April 25, 2022 by lmharnisch

Jue 23, 1919, Auction of Souls
Photo: June 23, 1919, “Auction of Souls.” Credit: Los Angeles Times

Note: This is an encore post from 2011.

Los Angeles has long been a haven for refugees and artists, particularly those fleeing political and militaristic struggles.  As early as 1915, Armenians began arriving in Southern California after fleeing from the massacres and pogroms inflicted on them by Kurds and Turks.  By December of that year, 1,500 Armenians lived here without knowing the whereabouts of many members of their families back home.

Many continued to come, as the papers warned of massacres, imprisonment, torture, and murder of innocent men, women, and children. Genocide.  An article’s headline in the September 27, 1915, Los Angeles Times read, “Massacre of Armenians at Height of Its Fury, … Report States that Five Hundred Thousand Men, Women, and Children Have Either Been Killed by the Turks or Driven to the Desert to Perish of Starvation – Extermination of Non-Moslems is Programme Decided Upon.”  850,000 were reported killed by late October, nearly three quarters of the population of the entire country.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on April 18, 2022 by lmharnisch

William A. Wellman's Track of the Cat. A snowy background with trees

This week’s mystery movie was the 1954 Warner Bros. film Track of the Cat, with Robert Mitchum, Teresa Wright, Diana Lynn, Tab Hunter, Beulah Bondi, Philip Tonge, William Hopper and Carl Switzer.
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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: TCM Classic Film Festival Returns to the Big Screen

Posted on April 18, 2022 by lmharnisch

tcm_header
The TCM Classic Film Festival welcomes movie fans as it returns to Hollywood after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. The festival features something for everyone, whether it’s star appearances, new film restorations, classics films, and even special programming. Based at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel, the festival will hold screenings April 21 through 24 at such theaters as the El Capitan, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre IMAX, and the Hollywood American Legion Theater.

Film historian and author Leonard Maltin receives highly deserved praise for his dedication to celebrating and recognizing the history of film with the Robert L. Osborne Award. Maltin will receive his prize before the presentation of Universal’s 1933 Pre-Code Counsellor at Law.

Note: Patrons are strongly encouraged to purchase festival passes  ($399-$2,549) to ensure entry to screenings. Individual tickets are sometimes available at each individual theater’s box office on a first-come, first-served, standby basis prior to the start of a film. Individual tickets are $20 and students with valid student ID receive 50% off.

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Correction: A previous version of this post referred to the movie Spy Smasher as Spymaster.
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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Noir City Packs a Modern Punch

Posted on April 13, 2022 by lmharnisch

Noir_city_banner
Noir City Hollywood, with hosts Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode, is back, hitting town with a vengeance Friday with stunning photochemical restorations and 35-millimeter prints after an almost two-year absence due to the pandemic. The hard-boiled, driving lineup features themes seemingly ripped from today’s headlines, offering a powerful examination of social issues while providing riveting entertainment. The festival also highlights the work of several insightful, daring filmmakers caught in the often duplicitous, backstabbing, and treacherous underbelly of Hollywood, with a mini focus on blacklisted writer/director Cy Enfield, who offered a pessimistic, messy look at repressive policies.

Kicking the festival into high gear is Enfield’s engrossing Try and Get Me (1951), based on the true story of a 1934 kidnapping and murder in San Jose that sparked mob violence. Slick criminal Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges) manipulates gullible, struggling ex-GI Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) into profitable criminal activities that quickly take a calamitous turn before offering a searing indictment against vigilante justice.

Tickets and information on Noir City Hollywood, Friday through Sunday at Hollywood’s American Legion Post 43 Theater, 2035 N Highland Ave.

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Black Dahlia: BethShort.com Domain Listed for $5,499

Posted on April 12, 2022 by lmharnisch

bethshort_com_screen_shot_02
BethShort.com c. 1998, platform for the late, lying John Gilmore and many graphic crime scene photos.

If you were on the Infobahn in the dial-up modem days and were interested in the Black Dahlia case, you may recall Pamela Hazleton’s now-defunct website BethShort.com, with its color scheme of black backgrounds, white type and bright yellow links. The website launched in the late 1990s and had a curious affiliation (always denied) with the late, lying John Gilmore (d. 2017). Continue reading →

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on April 11, 2022 by lmharnisch

Main Title for Double Door with credits superimposed on a pair of doors.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1934 Paramount picture Double Door, “The play that made Broadway gasp,” with Evelyn Venable, Sir Guy Standing, Kent Taylor, Mary Morris, Anne Revere, Colin Tapley, Virginia Howell, Halliwell Hobbes, Frank Dawson, Helen Shipman and Leonard Carey.
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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Hollywoodland Opens March 31, 1923

Posted on April 5, 2022 by lmharnisch

Hollywoodland Ad 10-23 Hollywood Citizen
An ad for Hollywoodland, October 1923.

On March 31, 1923, owners of a new hillside development in the Hollywood Hills called Hollywoodland announced the opening of their elaborate new tract in stories run in Los Angeles and Hollywood newspapers. For all the syndicate partners, it represented the pinnacle of their real estate careers in hyperbole as well as class, the first tract to sell a lifestyle of glamour and success. Hollywoodland would be as much about selling ambition and making it as it would be in promoting a humble family home location.

Hollywoodland perfectly encapsulated the lives and careers of its five owners, men who had risen from modest means to achieve wealth and power. Savvy in real estate and business promotion, all were as shrewd in crafting career personas to build their empires. Behind the scenes, these dreamers and schemers plotted their rise up the ladders of success, achieving renown and respect from other hard-nosed businessmen.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on April 4, 2022 by lmharnisch

2022_0409_main_title
This week’s mystery movie was the 1927 silent picture Rubber Tires, with Bessie Love, Harrison Ford, Erwin Connelly, May Robson, Frank Coghlan Jr., John Patrick and Clarence Burton. Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , , | 39 Comments

Black Dahlia: Larry Harnisch Reviews Steve Hodel on ‘Black Dahlia Avenger’

Posted on March 30, 2022 by lmharnisch


I made a “reaction” video of me watching a Steve Hodel Zoom session sponsored by Sisters in Crime of Atlanta.

I have been fact-checking Steve Hodel since Black Dahlia Avenger was published in 2003 and even I was amazed by some of his lies. Notice that Elizabeth Short is barely mentioned in Steve’s presentation. It’s all about his “journey.”

Also: 6 Reasons George Hodel Didn’t Kill Elizabeth Short.

Steve is a skilled liar and in this video, he unintentionally gives a master class in how police officers lie: He is always confident, self-assured, if he sees an inconvenient fact coming his way, he sidesteps it. He gives out the minimal information and nothing extra. He never gets rattled or loses his cool. He is always in control of the narrative. When he cannot dispute the facts, he attacks the individual, which is what he does with me. I’m the “sour grapes” hardcore “naysayer” who dares to question the great LAPD homicide detective.

Part 1 runs 112 minutes. Part 2 in on the jump.

A Personal Message to Steve Hodel.
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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on March 28, 2022 by lmharnisch

April 2, 2022, Main Title of House by the River, showing a wide river

This week’s mystery movie was the 1950 Republic film House by the River, with Louis Hayward, Lee Bowman, Jane Wyatt, Dorothy Patrick, Ann Shoemaker, Jody Gilbert, Peter Brocco, Howland Chamberlin, Margaret Seddon, Sarah Padden, Kathleen Freeman, Will Wright, Leslie Kimmell and Effie Laird. Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 33 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Crossword Mama, You Puzzle Me

Posted on March 28, 2022 by lmharnisch

Crossword Mamma You Puzzle Me
“Cross Word Puzzle Mama, You Puzzle Me,” courtesy of Mary Mallory.

Recording of “Cross Word Puzzle Mama.”

Note: This is an encore post from 2014.

The 1920s were a decade of fads. Everything from mah jongg, radio, bridge, golf, solitaire and dance steps exploded into popularity before being replaced by the next big thing. Though around for about a decade, crossword puzzles shot to fame when Simon and Schuster introduced a crossword puzzle book in 1924.

Various forms of puzzles existed for centuries before the crossword puzzle. Frances Hansen writes in “The Crossword Obsession” that Greeks inscribed word squares into statues in 6th century B. C. Acrostics, anagrams and riddles puzzled people for decades as well, a form of study for learning vocabulary, word origins and the like. Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times, notes that word square puzzles became popular in the 1870s, though existing since 1859. In 1896, the San Francisco Call ran a regular section called “cross-word puzzle,” similar to Mensa mind puzzles and quizzes today.

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

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Elsa Lopez, Silent Film Art Director

Posted on March 22, 2022 by lmharnisch

Lopez_motionpicturenew26novd_0452
Scenes of Paris, 1922, art direction by Elsa Lopez.

Virtually unknown today, women like Elsa Lopez played an integral part in the early silent film industry. Not just actresses or in administrative behind-the-scenes jobs, females made active contributions in creating moving pictures, serving in positions in which they helped shape the look and production of movies, a fledgling, open industry looking for dynamic ideas. Argentinian born, Lopez provided creative elements to industry superstars at a time when few women of color offered important input, becoming one of the first Latino women to gain status in Hollywood.

Born 1887 in Argentina, Elsa Solano Lopez remains somewhat cloaked in mystery before arriving in Hollywood, and kept her life a closely guarded secret after entering the film industry. By 1910 she lived in Portland, Oregon, where on October 29, 1910, she married clerk Justin Patrick O’Connor, giving birth in 1912 to their son Patrick Justin O’Connor. By 1914, the family lived in Los Angeles, with O’Connor serving as mercantile reporter and Elsa serving as housewife/mother. A later short industry biographical notice said she served as interpreter and newspaper writer early in her career.

Lopez and other women will be showcased in an exhibition of images from collector Dwight M. Cleveland’s poster collection opening April 8 at New York City’s Poster House called Experimental Marriage: Women in Early Hollywood.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on March 21, 2022 by lmharnisch

2022_0326_Main_title
This week’s mystery movie was the 1956 MGM picture Meet Me in Las Vegas, with Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Agnes Moorehead, Lili Darvas, Jim Backus, Oscar Karlweis, Liliane Montevecchi, Cara Williams, George Kerris, Betty Lynn, Pete Rugolo, Jerry Colonna, Paul Henreid, Lena Horne, Frankie Laine and Mitsuko Sawamura. Continue reading →

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on March 14, 2022 by lmharnisch

2022_0319_main_title
This week’s mystery movie was the 1958 Universal picture A Time to Love and a Time to Die, with John Gavin, Lilo Pulver, Jock Mahoney, Don DeFore, Kennan Wynn, Erich Maria Remarque, Dieter Borsche, Barbara Rutting, Thayer David, Charles Regnier, Dorothea Wieck, Kurt Meisel, Agnes Windeck, Clancy Cooper, John Van Dreelen, Klaus Kinski, Alice Treff, Alexander Engel, Dana J. Hutton, Bengt Lindstrom, Wolf Harnisch, Karl-Ludwig Lindt and Lisa Helwig.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 33 Comments