Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: George P. Hommel, Pensive Photographer

Posted on July 27, 2020 by lmharnisch

Thelma Todd Portrait Hommel
Overshadowed by the work of 1920s Paramount colleagues Donald Biddle Keyes and Eugene Robert Richee, stillsman George P. Hommel crafted thoughtful portraits highlighting both the beauty and sorrow of those he photographed. Like Keyes,  the peripatetic Hommel always looked for new challenges, new opportunities, keeping him on the move. Unobstrusive and elegant, Hommel’s work reveals hidden depths in those he shot.

Little is known about his early life. Born George Peter Hommel in New York City, May 8, 1901, Hommel turned to photography at a young age. Trades list him as an assistant cameraman working with Edwin Carewe in 1919. At the time, Pathe director Carewe had established his own unit to produce “The Girl of the Moulin Rouge” with Dolores Cassinelli in Europe. Young Hommel gained early film experience serving as an assistant cameraman, studying the importance of lighting, angles, and setting a mood.

Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.
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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on July 27, 2020 by lmharnisch

Aug. 1, 2020, Condemned Women
This week’s mystery movie was the 1938 RKO picture “Condemned Women,” with Sally Eilers, Louis Hayward, Anne Shirley, Esther Dale, Lee Patrick, Leona Roberts, George Irving, Richard Bond, Netta Packer, Rita LaRoy and Florence Lake. Musical direction by Roy Webb, photography by Nicholas Musuraca, art direction by Van Nest Polglase and Feild M. Gray, recorded by Earl A. Wolcott, montage by Douglas Travers, edited by Desmond Marquette.

Story and screenplay by Lionel Houser. Produced by Robert Sisk. Directed by Lew Landers.

“Condemned Women” has never been commercially released on VHS or DVD. It last aired on TCM in 2017. Copies of unknown quality are available on the gray market.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on July 20, 2020 by lmharnisch

Forbidden
This week’s mystery movie was the 1932 Columbia picture “Forbidden,” with Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, Ralph Bellamy, Dorothy Peterson, Thomas Jefferson, Myrna Fresholt, Charlotte V. Henry and Oliver Eckhardt.

Story by Frank Capra, adaptation and dialogue by Jo Swerling, edited by Maurice Wright, photography by Joseph Walker.

Directed by Frank Capra.

“Forbidden” is available on DVD from TCM in “Frank Capra: The Early Collection.”

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights — Celebrities in Bloom

Posted on July 20, 2020 by lmharnisch

Mary Pickford Orchid
Photo: Mary Pickford admires a namesake orchid. Courtesy of Mary Mallory.

Note: This is an encore post from 2012.

Flowers, like actors, sometimes have short-lived celebrity. Once their aura of uniqueness fades, many languish or fall by the wayside. Some disappear. Others continue to thrive because of their hardy nature, popularity, or beauty.

Breeders and growers of flowers have struggled to develop attention-grabbing names for their plants for hundreds of years. Many name discoveries after themselves; others give monikers to plants that resemble the person they are named for or might help it prosper. Most plants that gain popular names are hybrids developed through luck or discovery.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: 2178 High Tower Drive, L.A.’s First Community Elevator

Posted on July 13, 2020 by lmharnisch

The_Los_Angeles_Times_Fri__Mar_24__1939_
The Tower appeared in the March 24, 1939, installment of Nuestro Pueblo by Joseph Seewerker and Charles Owens of the Los Angeles Times.

Both marketing gimmick and necessity, the elevator shaft that gave the name High Tower Drive to a street in the Hollywood Highland Avenue Tract is now an icon in Los Angeles. Almost 100 years old, the tower represents the can-do spirit of Los Angeles and its residents.

In 1901, Los Angeles investors H.J. Whitley, F.H. Rindge, Griffith J. Griffith, M.H. Sherman, and E.P. Clark organized the Los Angeles Pacific Boulevard and Development Company to purchase land for development north of Prospect Boulevard in Hollywood. Sherman and Clark, brothers-in-law from Arizona, owned the streetcar line around the city adjacent to land they purchased for later sale as residential lots. Their trolley line ran down Prospect Boulevard and up Highland Avenue as well. The November 18 Los Angeles Evening Press stated “the purpose of this corporation is to boom Hollywood, to make it an attractive suburban town.”

Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.

 

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on July 13, 2020 by lmharnisch

2020_0718_title

This week’s mystery movie was the 1964 picture “The Last Man on Earth,” with Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Umberto Rau, Christi Courtland, Tony Corevi and Hector Ribotta.

Photographed by Franco Delli Colli, edited by Gene Ruggiero, production manager Vico Vaccaro, assistant director Carlo Grandone, assistant production manager Lionello Meucci, art direction by Giorgio Giovanni, makeup by Piero Mecacci. Music composed by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter, orchestration by Alfonso d’Artega, music editor Norman Schwartz.

Screenplay by Logan Swanson and William F. Leicester from the novel “I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson. Produced by Robert L. Lippert, associate producer Harold E. Knox. Directed by Sidney Salkow.

Associated Producers Inc. in conjunction with Produzioni La Regina.

“The Last Man on Earth” is available on DVD from TCM.

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Book Review: ‘Cary Grant – A Brilliant Disguise’

Posted on July 8, 2020 by lmharnisch

Cary Grant Cover

Executive summary: “Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise,” the latest in Scott Eyman’s long series of Class-A Hollywood biographies, opens strong with the last day of the acclaimed actor’s life and quickly declines to a tedious slog in a book more like a catalog than a life story. Only for the most ardent Cary Grant fans, and even they will end up skipping sections and just thumbing through it to see what Eyman says about Grant being gay. Forthcoming from Simon and Schuster on Oct. 20, 2020; 576 pages, $35 for hardcover, $16.99 for Kindle.

::

Young Archie Leach, born in Bristol, England, in 1904, has a nightmarish childhood with terrible parents, finds refuge in the theater, comes to America, makes some lousy films that are mostly forgotten, and then goes on to fame and fortune in his carefully invented and nurtured persona of the always elegant and charming Cary Grant. He is tight with a dollar, painfully insecure, obsessed with his career and meticulous about his clothes. In later life, he becomes a father during his brief marriage to Dyan Cannon, takes LSD (lots of LSD) and in retirement watches TV game shows and gets his home remodeled.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on July 6, 2020 by lmharnisch

Other Men's Women
This week’s mystery movie was the 1931 Warner Bros. picture “Other Men’s Women,” with Grant Withers, Mary Astor, Regis Toomey, James Cagney, Fred Kohler, J. Farrell MacDonald, Joan Blondell, Lillian Worth and Walter Long.

By Maude Fulton, dialogue by William K. Wells.

Photography by Barney McGill, edited by Edward M. McDermott,  musical direction by Erno Rapee, wardrobe by Earl Luick, Vitaphone Orchestra conducted by Louis Silvers.

Directed by William A. Wellman.

“Other Men’s Women” is available on DVD from Warner Archive in Volume 3 of “Forbidden Hollywood.”

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Emma Lazarus’ ‘The New Colossus’ Calls to All Immigrants

Posted on July 6, 2020 by lmharnisch

Jan. 19, 1884, Harper's Weekly
Construction of the Statue of Liberty, artwork by John Durkin, Harper’s Weekly, Jan. 19, 1884.

Note: This is an encore post from 2018.

Written in 1883 to help raise money for building the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty would stand, Emma Lazarus’ 14-line poem “The New Colossus” would take on a life of its own: becoming enshrined on the statue as a memorial to the poet and as a statement of welcome to those seeking refuge in our country. As we approach Independence Day, the meaning behind its words rings even clearer today.

Born July 22, 1849, in New York City as the fourth of seven children to wealthy merchant Moses Lazarus, Emma received a strong private education, learning to speak at least four languages and becoming an excellent writer, especially in poetry. Ralph Waldo Emerson mentored her. She translated works of literature as well as setting down her own odes, many based on romantic literature and others on troubling historic events regarding her fellow Jews, receiving much praise upon their publication. She also worked to alleviate the suffering of women and the poor.

Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.

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L.A. Celebrates the Fourth of July 1889 – 1960

Posted on July 4, 2020 by lmharnisch

image

July 4, 1944: Uncle Sam in a cartoon by Edmund Waller “Ted” Gale for the Los Angeles Examiner and republished in the Milwaukee Sentinel.

 

Note: This is an encore post from 2014.

Here’s a look at how Los Angeles has celebrated Independence Day over the years.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights – The Tale of the Alden Besse

Posted on June 29, 2020 by lmharnisch

Alden Besse
Alden Besse, photographed by Asahel Curtis, Wikipedia Commons.

Surviving tempests, fires, illness, auctions, lawsuits, and salvages, the old whaling ship Alden Besse saw many an exciting adventure over more than 59 years. A magnet for disaster, accidents, and adventure, the ship even served as a set for many an early Hollywood silent film. The history of the Alden Besse seems as exciting as any adventure story or film.

Built in Bath, Maine, out of stout oak by the company Goss and Sawyer in 1871, the 840-ton, narrow-hulled, slender clipper Alden Besse was named after sea captain Alden Besse of Wareham, Massachusetts. Upon completion, the ship hit the high seas, sailing around the Horn of Africa to California, to the Orient, and every place in between. Besides serving the whale trade, the Alden Besse carried all manner of cargo, including lumber, rice, scrap iron, bricks, coal, sugar, beer and coffee.

Mary Mallory’s latest book, “Living With Grace: Life Lessons from America’s Princess,”  is now on sale.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on June 29, 2020 by lmharnisch

July 4, 2020, Mystery Photo

This week’s mystery movie was the 1957 film “The Black Scorpion,” with Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas, Mario Navarro, Carlos Muzquiz, Pascual Pena, Fanny Schiller, Pedro Galvan and Arturo Martinez. Screenplay by David Duncan and Robert Blees from a story by Paul Yawitz. Photography by Lionel Lindon, edited by Richard L. Van Enger, art direction by Edward Fitzgerald, sound by Rafael L. Esparza, orchestrations by Bert Shefter, electronic music by Jack Cookerly. Special effects supervised by Willis O’Brien, animation by Peter Peterson, assistant directors Ray Heinze and Jaime Contreras, sound effects by Mandine Rogne. Music composed and conducted by Paul Sawtell.

Produced by Frank Melford and Jack Dietz. Directed by Edward Ludwig.

“The Black Scorpion” is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Warner Archive.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + + +)

Posted on June 22, 2020 by lmharnisch

June 27, 2020, I Take This Woman

This week’s mystery movie was the 1940 MGM film “I Take This Woman,” with Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, Verree Teasdale, Kent Taylor, Laraine Day, Mona Barrie, Jack Carson, Paul Cavanagh, Louis Calhern, Frances Drake, Marjorie Main, George E. Stone, Willie Best, Don Castle, Dalies Frantz and Reed Hadley.

Screenplay by James Kevin McGuinness from a story by Charles MacArthur.

Musical score by Bronislau Kaper and Arthur Guttmann, recording by Douglas Shearer, art direction by Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse, set decorations by Edwin B. Willis, gowns by Adrian, photography by Harold Rosson, edited by George Boemler.

Directed by W.S. Van Dyke II

“I Take This Woman” is available on DVD from Warner Archive.

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Mary Mallory: Hollywood Heights – Josef von Sternberg’s ‘Salvation Hunters’

Posted on June 22, 2020 by lmharnisch

image
Georgia Hale is The Girl in “The Salvation Hunters.”

Note: This is an encore post from 2012.

From the very beginning of his career, director Josef von Sternberg possessed an extraordinary vision for the art, look, and feel of his films. They were as much or more about design and and art than about story or character. Nowhere is this more true than in his very first film, “The Salvation Hunters.” Shot on a shoestring budget, the motion picture revealed the discriminating pictorial eye and talent of this young man.

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Perry Mason and The Case of the Flawed Fedora

Posted on June 20, 2020 by lmharnisch

'Perry Mason'

Oh dear. HBO Max’s Perry Mason origin story is set in 1932 Los Angeles, which you would never know by looking at this photo of Shea Whigham and Matthew Rhys. IMDB lists a huge number of costumers, so I can’t be sure who is the hat wrangler, but please. This is not how anybody wore a hat in 1932. This may surpass “Boardwalk Empire” in ridiculous costuming, which is an achievement.

Perry Mason
Good grief. Shea Wigham’s costume and newsboy cap look horrible. Nobody dressed like this in the 1930s. No one. That jacket looks like a horse blanket.

Why do films and TV shows set in the 1930s and 1940s have to be so wretched when it comes to costumes? (For reference on good period costuming, see “Chinatown” and “L.A. Confidential.”)

For reference: Proper men’s outfits from 1931-32.

Little_Caesar

Edward G. Robinson, “Little Caesar” (1931). Note the angle of the brim. Note the height of the crown. Note the width of the hatband. Note the lapels on the jacket, with matching vest. The hat isn’t stuck on Robinson’s head like a baseball cap. It’s meant to convey style and class.

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Posted in 1932, Fashion, Film, Hollywood | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

‘The Lid Off Los Angeles’ – Liberty Magazine Examines Corruption in the LAPD and at City Hall

Posted on June 18, 2020 by lmharnisch

The Lid Off Los Angeles

On Nov. 11, 1939, Liberty magazine began a six-part series by Dwight F. McKinney and Fred Allhoff on the Harry Raymond bombing and the reform movement of Clifford E. Clinton. Liberty also published a response by Dist. Atty. Buron Fitts. The series made an enormous impact in its day, but Liberty is only available on microfilm. So here’s the entire series, uploaded from my files to Archive.org.

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: M.E. Firman, Lady Detective

Posted on June 15, 2020 by lmharnisch

Marie Firman, L.A. Times, July 17, 1917
In the early 1900s, most women in the United States lacked the right to vote. Groups such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association organized to actively campaign for enfranchisement. Winning the vote would lead to other reforms regarding child rearing, property ownership, fiduciary matters, and most importantly, independence. Women could gain control of their lives and bodies, following their own dreams and career paths, moving beyond roles of mother, wife, teacher, shop clerk or secretary.

Motion pictures aided their mission, making films about the suffrage movement before producing films featuring strong and independent women, particularly in such serials as “Perils of Pauline,” “The Exploits of Elaine,” and “The Adventures of Kathlyn.” Heroines in these films confronted dastardly villains, wild animals, and dangerous adventures, investigating and solving crimes and mysteries.

Mary Mallory’s latest book, “Living With Grace: Life Lessons from America’s Princess,”  is now on sale.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + + +)

Posted on June 15, 2020 by lmharnisch

Lonely Are the Brave

This week’s mystery movie was the 1962 Universal release of the Joel Productions picture “Lonely Are the Brave,” with Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, Michael Kane, Carroll O’Connor, William Schallert, George Kennedy, Karl Swenson, Bill Mims, Martin Garralaga and Lalo Rios.

Photography by Philip Lathrop, filmed in Panavision.

Art direction by Alexander Golitzen and Robert Smith, set decoration by George Milo, sound by Waldron O. Watson and Frank H. Wilkinson. Edited by Leon Barsha, makeup by Bud Westmore and Dave Grayson, hairstyles by Larry Germain, assistant directors Tom Shaw and David Silver.

Music by Jerry Goldsmith, musical supervision by Joseph Gershenson.

Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, based on the novel “Brave Cowboy” by Edward Abbey.

Produced by Edward Lewis.

Directed by David Miller.

“Lonely Are the Brave” is available on Blu-ray from TCM.

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Black Dahlia: ‘The Murder Squad’ Botches the Black Dahlia Case

Posted on June 12, 2020 by lmharnisch

murder_Squad

I have a longstanding aversion to podcasts, especially “true crime” podcasts and particularly when it comes to “true crime” podcasts about the Black Dahlia. “The Murder Squad,” with Billy Jensen and retired Detective Paul Holes, released an episode earlier this week on the Black Dahlia and I thought that Holes, given his outstanding work on the Golden State Killer, might have some worthwhile insight on the case. I won’t make that mistake again.

Executive summary: Lots of bad information from Billy Jensen scraped off the Internet. Paul Holes scans the incomplete medical report included in the inquest,  looks over some morgue shots from the Internet and comes up with the wild claim that Elizabeth Short’s mouth was slashed so she could perform oral sex on the killer and that she asphyxiated while performing oral copulation. Don’t waste your time on this or risk your head exploding .

Caveat: I got through the ad for hair dye, but quit listening at the 46-minute mark when Holes got into the “asphyxiated while performing oral copulation” stuff. I am also not linking to the podcast because I don’t want to spread its misinformation any further.

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Posted in 1947, Black Dahlia, Cold Cases, Homicide, LAPD | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + + +)

Posted on June 8, 2020 by lmharnisch

June 13, 2020, Macomber Affair
This week’s mystery movie was the 1947 United Artists release of Benedict Bogeaus’ “The Macomber Affair,” with Gregory Peck, Joan Bennett, Robert Preston, Reginald Denny, Jean Gillie, Carl Harbord, Earl Smith, Frederic Worlock and Vernon Downing.

Screenplay by Casey Robinson and Seymour Bennett from an adaptation by Seymour Bennett and Frank Arnold. Adapted from “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” by Ernest Hemingway, a Cosmopolitan magazine story.

Production associate Arthur M. Landau, photography by Karl Struss, production manager Ken Walters, art direction by Erno Metzner, set decorations by Fred Widdowwson, edited by George Feld and Jack Wheeler, sound by William Lynch, women’s wardrobe by Greta, men’s wardrobe by Jerry Bos, makeup by Otis Malcolm, Miss Bennett’s hairdresser Meryl Reeves, assistant director Joseph Depew.

African photography by O.H. Borraldaile, John Wilcox and Fred Francis, through the courtesy of the Kenya Game Department.

Music by Miklos Rozsa.

Assistant to producer Carley Harriman. Produced by Benedict Bogeaus and Casey Robinson. Directed by Zoltan Korda.

“The Macomber Affair” has never been commercially released in the U.S. There is a Spanish version on a Region 2 DVD. It last aired on TCM in 2016, according to an online database, however, TV logs show that it also aired on TCM in 2017.

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Posted in 1947, Books and Authors, Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 30 Comments