Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Cinecon 57 – Brightening Days With Classic Film2

Posted on September 8, 2021 by lmharnisch

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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.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on September 6, 2021 by lmharnisch

Tunes of Glory. At night, a snowy brick road leading to an elaborate Scottish fort on a distant hill

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.

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Mary Mallory: Hollywood Heights – the Photoplayer

Posted on September 6, 2021 by lmharnisch

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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, Fotoplayer Orchestra
Sept. 21, 1912: The $10,000 American Fotoplayer Orchestra at the Mozart Theater.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Cinecon 57 Opens Labor Day Weekend

Posted on August 30, 2021 by lmharnisch

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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.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on August 30, 2021 by lmharnisch

Sept. 4, 2021, Patterns Title, New York skyline silhouetted in black against the sky.

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.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Mack Sennett and Studio City’s Central Motion Picture District

Posted on August 30, 2021 by lmharnisch


Studio City CMPDistrict


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.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights – Vice Raid and Early TV in Hollywood’s Biggest Storehouse

Posted on August 24, 2021 by lmharnisch

Hollywood Storage, Courtesy Google Earth
The Hollywood Storage Building as seen in Google Earth.

Originally Los Angeles’ tallest building when opened in 1926, the Hollywood Storage Building at the southwest corner of Highland Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard towered over the rapidly expanding film city. Today it ironically advertises entertainment programming with giant billboards on its edifice. The Hollywood Storage Building still serves as one of Hollywood’s premier storage locations, as beautiful as it is practical.

Los Angeles residents needed little to no extra storage space pre-1900, as few possessed many superfluous items. With the rise of department stores and the birth of credit, many began purchasing consumer products advertised in magazines or newspapers to keep up with their acquisitive neighbors. Most storage facilities began small, more for businesses to store records and documents, led by the Bekins family and their moving/storage business.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on August 23, 2021 by lmharnisch

Beyond the Rocks Poster

This week’s mystery movie was the 1922 film Beyond the Rocks, with Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, Edythe Chapman, Alec B. Francis, Robert Bolder, Gertrude Astor, June Elvidge, Mabel Van Buren (which I’ve been reading as “Martin Van Buren” all week, though the movie isn’t THAT old), Helen Dunbar, etc.

Directed by Sam Wood, written by Jack Cunningham from the 1906 novel by Elinor Glyn.

Beyond the Rocks is available on DVD and via streaming. A video on the restoration of the film is on YouTube. Here’s the AFI entry on the film.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on August 16, 2021 by lmharnisch

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This week’s mystery movie was the 1944 Twentieth Century-Fox film Four Jills in a Jeep, with Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, Mitzi Mayfair, Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra, John Harvey and Phil Silvers. “Introducing Dick Haymes in his first motion picture.” Guest stars Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda and George Jessel.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Norvell, Astrologer to the Stars

Posted on August 16, 2021 by lmharnisch

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Norvell and Hedy Lamarr in Screenland.

Note: This is an encore post from 2015.

 

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines astrology as “the divination of the supposed influences of the stars and planets on human affairs and terrestrial events by their positions and aspects.” For thousands of years, practitioners of this pseudo-science have attracted legions of followers hoping to divine their futures. Those that more accurately predicted events rose to positions of great power and influence, like the renowned Nostradamus.

Astrologers have always been popular in the film and entertainment industries, fields where luck and timing often influences who will become big stars or successes. Many are superstitious, because their careers depend so much upon chance and their futures can be problematical. Many insecure or questioning performers often turned to these fortune tellers hoping to make the right decisions in shaping their careers or finding love and romance.

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

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on August 9, 2021 by lmharnisch

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This week’s mystery movie was the 1952 MGM comedy Young Man With Ideas, with Glenn Ford, Ruth Roman, Denise Darcel, Nina Foch, Donna Corcoran, Ray Collins, Mary Wickes, Bobby Diamond, Sheldon Leonard, Dick Wessel, Carl Milletaire, Curtis Cooksey, Karl Davis, Faye Roope, John Call, Nadene Ashdown, Barry Rado/Norman Rado, Wilton Graff and Martha Wentworth.

Screenplay by Arthur Sheekman.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: How the Walk of Fame Was Born

Posted on August 9, 2021 by lmharnisch

Walk of Fame Groundbreaking

Gigi Perreau and Linda Darnell, center, at the groundbreaking for the Walk of Fame, with Francis X. Bushman and Charles Coburn, right, in an L.A. Times photo.

“Everyone needs a gimmick” goes a lyric in the musical “Gypsy,” and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce dreamed up a great one in the mid-1950s to attract business and tourists to the area. Tying in with the concept of Hollywood and fame, the group decided to fashion dream streets filled with flashy lights, colored sidewalks, and starry tributes to filmland celebrities, what we know now as the Walk of Fame. In August 1958, the first test stars were premiered to test the viability and look of the notion.

In the 1920s, Hollywood Boulevard stood as one of the most glamorous streets in the world, filled with upscale shops catering to celebrities and other cognoscenti. Posh restaurants and nightclubs lined the boulevard, which attracted thousands of people to watch the annual Santa Claus Lane parade. By the 1950s however, much shopping and retail had moved to suburbs and neighborhood centers, leaving Hollywood Boulevard a shell of its former success……

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‘Breakfast in Hollywood’ – Behind the Scenes

Posted on August 2, 2021 by lmharnisch

Breakfast in Hollywood

Mary Mallory sends along a promotional brochure from last week’s mystery movie Breakfast in Hollywood. Thanks, Mary!!

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on August 2, 2021 by lmharnisch

The Big Knife, Main Title

This week’s mystery movie was the 1955 film The Big Knife, with Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, Ilka Chase, Everett Sloane, Wesley Addy, Paul Langton, Nick Dennis, Bill Walker and Mike Winkelman. And Miss Shelley Winters as Dixie Evans.

Adapted for the screen by James Poe. From the stage play by Clifford Odets.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights – Brazil Touches Off Riot at 1932 L.A. Olympics

Posted on August 2, 2021 by lmharnisch

1932 Olympics

The Xth Olympiad hosted by Los Angeles from July 31 through August 14, 1932, overflowed with drama and intrigue in everything from finances to competition. None was as striking as the Brazilian team’s adventure in making it to California, using coffee as its payment. Although all countries suffered financial setbacks due to the Great Depression, none dreamed up as creative a scheme to fund their trip.

It was a miracle the Games even made it to Los Angeles, as many of Europe’s reigning sports elites viewed the city as a sleazy frontier outpost. Real estate man Billy Garland spent 12 years lobbying and winning the rights to the 1932 Olympics for Los Angeles, unsure of how to garner public support or financing for the Games in the city. Once the stock market bottomed out in 1929, global financial doldrums led to the possibility of few teams participating or sending fans while ticket sales plummeted.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on July 26, 2021 by lmharnisch

July 31, 2021, Breakfast in Hollywood, Main Title

This week’s mystery movie was the 1946 film Breakfast in Hollywood, with Tom Breneman, Bonita Granville, Ray Walburn, Beulah Bondi, Billie Burke, Edward Ryan, Zasu Pitts, Hedda Hopper, Andy Russell,  Spike Jones and His City Slickers and the King Cole Trio.

Original story and screenplay by Earl Baldwin.

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Mary Mallory: Hollywood Heights – Hollywood Country Club

Posted on July 26, 2021 by lmharnisch

Feb. 6, 1921, Hollywood Country Club

Note: This is an encore post from 2012.

With the name Hollywood Country Club, one would assume that a golfing club so named would be located in the actual city or hills of Hollywood, California. While a club by that name was twice attempted to be organized, it failed to materialize. In the late teens a group formed to build a new Hollywood Country Club, this time in the hills between Ventura Boulevard and what would become Mulholland Drive, in what is now Studio City, California.

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Saluting Marilyn Thomas — Miss Muscle Beach 1953

Posted on July 19, 2021 by lmharnisch

Marilyn Thomas
Marilyn Thomas in an undated photo on Muscle Beach.

In 2005, I did a blog post for the 1947project on Miss Muscle Beach of 1947. Back then, only the Los Angeles Times was online, so when I listed the winners, I couldn’t verify who took the title of Miss Muscle Beach 1953. I said: “Not recorded, possibly Marilyn Thomas.”

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on July 19, 2021 by lmharnisch

July 24, 2021, Mystery Photo

This week’s mystery movie was the 1943 RKO Picture Gildersleeve’s Bad Day, with Harold Peary, Jane Darwell, Nancy Gates, Charles Arnt, Freddie Mercer, Russell Wade, Lillian Randolph, Frank Jenks, Douglas Fowley, Alan Carney, Grant Withers and Richard LeGrand.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights – Sweets for the Jazz Age at Paulais

Posted on July 19, 2021 by lmharnisch

Paulais 1925
The exterior of Paulais at Hollywood Boulevard and Las Palmas, c. 1925. Courtesy of the University of Southern California Libraries and the California Historical Society.

The 1920s Jazz Age brought high-spirited verve, flamboyance and progressivism in reaction to the haunting death and destruction of World War I. Blending eclectic cultural elements, eye-catching colors, and lavish ornamentation, design of virtually every type reflected the more optimistic and exuberant period.

Dessert shops and cafes combined lavish decoration and sweet treats, appealing to all the senses. Why just buy treats when one could enjoy luxurious and upscale furnishings suggesting plentiful times for everyone? Henry G. Mosler and Saul Magnus’ Hollywood branch of their Paulais Cafe did just that, reflecting the jazz-mad time in its lush and stylish interiors. Two years before the opening of the Pig’N Whistle on Hollywood Boulevard, Paulais brought high-end elegance to dessert just east of the Egyptian Theatre.

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