Whats in That Embalming Fluid?

Dec. 18, 1907
Los Angeles

Los Angeles County Coroner Roy S. Lanterman was arrested on charges of being drunk and disorderly at the Navajo, a bordello run by Ida Hastings, 309 Ord St. Hastings called police, who arrested Lanterman.

A Mills Seminary graduate nicknamed “Suicide Ida” because of her attempts to kill herself “every time she has a serious setback in her numerous ‘love’ affairs,” Hastings had contacted police earlier in the evening, asking for protection from Lanterman, saying that he had attacked her. Hastings notified police when Lanterman, who was married, returned to the bordello, went to her bedroom and after a fierce fight, removed several photographs of himself as well as a letter.

Upon arriving, police found Lanterman hiding in a bathroom and refusing to come out. When officers finally took him into custody, they discovered he was drunk and armed with two revolvers. They also seized the photographs and the letter Lanterman had taken from Hastings.

“The Hastings woman refused to make any statement of the affair when seen early this morning. She said the facts would probably come out in court,” The Times said.

Lanterman contended that he was summoned to the bordello because a woman was in hysterics and while attending her, he was arrested by a new and apparently inexperienced police officer.

The desk sergeant said: “He was drunk; good and drunk.” An observation corroborated by the arresting officers, the night jailer and several others at the police station.

Lanterman hired famed defense attorney Earl Rogers, but Hastings refused to appear in court to press charges, so the case was dropped. However, charges were later brought by prosecutor E.J. Fleming under an 1880 law demanding the dismissal of any official who is intoxicated while on duty.

Officials closed the Navajo, and in January 1908, Lanterman resigned as coroner. He was soon indicted on charges of making false statements about his election expenses and submitting fraudulent travel expenses to the Board of Supervisors. In April 1908, he was sentenced to a year in prison, but his conviction was overturned on appeal in 1909.

Lanterman’s legal troubles were far from over, however. He was freed on a technicality after being indicted in 1916 on charges of performing an abortion on 17-year-old Elizabeth Johnson. The Times said: “Dr. Lanterman has practiced in Los Angeles for many years and is one of the best-known members of the local medical fraternity. He has offices in the Grosse Building.”

He was arrested in 1917 on charges of performing a fatal abortion on Mrs. “Reggie” Regina Greenburg Evans of San Francisco, which he claimed was “spite work” by his political enemies. In her dying declaration, Evans told her brother that Lanterman performed the abortion, but she told others at County Hospital that she tried to perform it herself. He was found not guilty and after a petition drive, regained his medical license in 1921.

In 1918, he was accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 20-year-old Marjorie Woodbury, during an outing to Malibu.

He and Dr. Paul Traxler were accused of murder in the 1929 death of film actress Delphine Walsh during an abortion. He was found not guilty, but lost his medical license for a second time.

He died in 1948 at the age of 79 in his home, 4420 Encinas Drive, La Canada, survived by his wife, Emily; and sons Lloyd and Frank. His services were conducted at Church of the Lighted Window, which his family helped found. The Lanterman mansion was turned into La Canada’s City Hall in 1985.

Bonus facts: His father, F.D. Lanterman, bought Rancho La Canada from the Verdugo family in 1875. The portion of the Glendale Freeway between the Ventura Freeway and La Canada is known as the Frank Lanterman Freeway in honor of the late state legislator, who served in the Assembly from 1950 to 1978.

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L.A. Rising

Dec. 15, 1905
Los Angeles

Anybody who sets out to study the development of the city’s neighborhoods can expect to do lots of driving. My recent travels have taken me to an obscure area of South Los Angeles to look for 1907-era houses mentioned in the Dec. 8 issue of The Times: one in the vicinity of 4615 Wesley Ave. and another around 124 W. 52nd St. (Bonus fact: Broadway in that area used to be known as Moneta).

I’ll post some pictures later. The buildings on Wesley are a mix of single-family homes and two-story apartments. As for preservation, you might as well call this neighborhood Stucco Heights.

The Dec. 15 issue pays another visit to South Pasadena and as these buildings involve a short walk rather than a long drive and time is short; well, you get the idea.

The Times says: “South Pasadena, just to the northeast, crowded by the bustling life of the great city to the south and penned in by the no less prosperous Pasadena on the north is one of the best examples of a suburban city.... South Pasadena has more handsome homes within the same area, about a mile and a half square, than any other similar place in the country. There are several modern business blocks also being erected, and a new library building.”

The Times notes 299 building permits in South Pasadena in the last year with a total valuation of $357,036 ($7,327,653.44 USD 2005).



One of the buildings noted is the First National Bank of South Pasadena at Mission and Diamond, now home to an antique store. And then there’s the library, where people are out doing Tai Chi every morning. I’ll post pictures when I get the film developed. We are old school around here....

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Roving to Monrovia

Nov. 24, 1907
Monrovia

The Times real estate section takes a look at what was then the distant suburb of Monrovia, 22 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The writer notes the increasing use of concrete and stone, explaining that the cost of lumber is forcing builders to use other materials. The writer also notes the broad, shaded verandas of three featured homes as well as the outlines of their roofs.

The story highlights the home of B.R. Davisson on East Orange Avenue, H.M. Slemmons (or Slemon) on North Myrtle Avenue and the home of John C. Rupp at Ivy and Greystone, built for $6,500 ($133,403.21 USD 2005).

Without exact addresses, it would be difficult for me to locate the Davisson and Slemmons homes, but I took a pleasant drive out to Monrovia recently to look for the Rupp house and was happy to find
that it is still standing and in beautiful condition. In fact, it was nice to discover that the neighborhood has quite a few well-maintained historic homes; a contrast to the condition of the houses I located in Pico Heights.

I had a brief chat with the homeowner who gave me a tour of the grounds. He said that Rupp, a financier, built the home for his wife, but that she decided it was too far from Los Angeles and wouldn’t live there. That’s apparently true, because Rupp put the home on the market in 1911.

Note that the ad for the home mentions a solar heater. I have no idea what this was and the homeowner didn't know anything about it. Obviously a subject for further research.

The homeowner also mentioned the Monrovia Old House Preservation Group, which has a website and offers a self-guided tour. I cannot vouch for these folks, but it does sound interesting and the area has some lovely old homes.

To get to the Rupp house, take the Foothill Freeway and get off at Santa Anita in Arcadia. Turn north and go to Foothill Boulevard and then turn right (east) and then left on Ivy. The home is at 269 N. Ivy. While you’re there, look at the large stone house on the northeast corner, built in 1894. I’ll post some pictures when I get the film developed (we’re old school around here).

Lmharnisch.com
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Religious Recycling

Nov. 18, 1907
South Pasadena

Calvary Presbyterian Church at Center (now El Centro) and Fremont was dedicated in a service featuring prominent local religious leaders, including Dr. John Willis Baer, president of Occidental College.

The Times notes that the original church building was located on Columbia Street, but the location was inconvenient, so the church bought the Nazarene Chapel on Center.

The church, which cost $10,000 ($205,235.70 USD 2005) incorporates much of the old First Presbyterian Church of Pasadena, which was at Worcester Avenue and Colorado Street, The Times says.

Fortunately, this church is still standing and I’ll post some shots once I get the film developed.


In other news, Police Chief Kern talks frankly with The Times about the crime wave that is gripping the city.

Destruction from last year’s San Francisco earthquake has deprived career criminals and hobos of their usual winter quarters, so they are heading to Los Angeles, Kern says. In addition, layoffs across the Southwest have sent waves of the unemployed to Southern California.

“From the railroad detectives and mining men of large interests I have learned that nearly all of the railroads are discharging men from all their departments. Men are also being thrown out of work at the mines in Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada,” Kern says.”

“It enormously complicates the police problem and makes life in Los Angeles more dangerous,” the chief says. “To a very large extent they are men who are not in the habit of saving money and they arrive here broke and out of work. The next step is crime.

“I learn from the County Jail that many of the vagrants coming there to serve time are mechanics and workmen who have never been arrested before.”

Kern advocates the creation of a state police department charged, among other duties, with searching all trains entering California to clear them of hobos and vagrants.

Now pay attention:

“OWING TO THE ENORMOUS TERRITORY COVERED BY THIS CITY OUR MEN CAN’T BEGIN TO PATROL IT. WE OUGHT TO HAVE MORE POLICEMEN. I KNOW THAT SEEMS TO BE A CONSTANT CRY, BUT THERE ARE ACTUALLY DISTRICTS OF THIS CITY WHERE A POLICEMAN WOULD BE A CURIOSITY.”

I swear, this should be carved over the doors of the new LAPD headquarters.

Read about the history of Pasadena Presbyterian Church here.

Lmharnisch.com
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Curb Appeal

Nov. 3, 1907
Los Angeles

Mrs. E.N. Eskey is building this 10-room house in Pico Heights, on Van Ness just south of Pico.

According to The Times, the two-story house (with basement) has a first floor divided into a reception hall with an oak staircase leading upstairs. The living room features built-in bookcases and a massive brick mantel. The dining room has a built-in buffet and china closet, with a pantry and kitchen.

The floors are quarter-sawn oak on the first floor and maple flooring in the rest of the house. The Times says there are four chambers, presumably bedrooms, a sewing room and a bathroom upstairs, as well as an alcove.

In the basement, a coal bin and a Rudd heater.

The cost? $5,000 ($102,617.85 USD 2005) a bargain by today’s standards. Note that in March 2004, 1244 S. Van Ness sold for $1,037,500.

Check out Zillow.com

Lmharnisch.com
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Update: This house is still standing and has been painted blue. I'll post some photos once I get the film developed (yes, I'm old-school).

Location Sleuth

Here’s a frame grab from the opening shots of “Double Indemnity.” According to the script, the car driven by Walter Neff speeds through an intersection, narrowly avoiding a delivery truck bearing the sign: “READ THE LOS ANGELES TIMES.”

But tinkering with the photo (the original is very dark, after all we are talking about film noir) shows that the truck apparently reads “Los Angeles Examiner.” Although it’s difficult to be positive, the elaborate “E” on the second line almost surely gives it away as the Examiner. It certainly isn't the Los Angeles Times. Either way, it’s definitely a newspaper truck as bundles of papers tumble from the back when the driver slams on the brakes.

Here’s one of my favorite passages from the script, describing the Dietrichson house:

“Spanish craperoo in style, as is the house throughout. A wrought-iron staircase curves down from the second floor. A fringed Mexican shawl hangs down over the landing. A large tapestry hangs on the wall. Downstairs, the dining room to one side, living room on the other side visible through a wide archway. All of this, architecture, furniture, decorations, etc., is genuine early Leo Carrillo period. Neff has edged his way in past maid who still holds the door open.”

As for the location, my guess is Hill and 3rd Streets, across from Grand Central Market. Any other ideas?

Lmharnisch.com
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Not a Pretty Moment

Sept. 21, 1907
Los Angeles

It is one thing to know in the abstract about racial intolerance at the turn of the 20th century and quite another to have to read it in the daily paper. I will spare you the long quotes in pidgin Chinese dialect, but trust me, they make the Charlie Chan movies look like models of multiculturalism.

The Times is covering the deportation of 26 men to China, 11 of them from Los Angeles: Ah Lee, Chin Toy, Gee Kay, Jew Sang, Jung Sing, Lee Fan, Lee Sing, Lui Fat, Lum Chong, Ng Ngai and Wong How. The rest were from San Diego.

All the men, except for Ah Lee, who was arrested in the recent tong wars, were unhappy about being deported, the paper said, adding that guards would be watching closely for friends trying to slip the men a departing gift of opium for the long journey to China aboard the ship Korea.

Immigration official A.C. Ridgway said that for some reason, most Chinese men in Los Angeles have the proper paperwork to be in the United States. “Naturally a few illegally in this country will now and then slip into Chinatown, but they are soon detected by our men,” he said. “We have not made any arrests of Japanese for the past two months. No doubt they are brought to this district, but it is very difficult to locate the fellows who do not have proper passports.”

The Times noted that in recent weeks, the Japanese immigrants have been heading to British Columbia and Washington State.

I feel compelled to salute one of the prime figures of film noir: James Wong Howe (born Wong Tung Jim in 1899), who emigrated to Pasco, Wash., about 1904.

Lmharnisch.com

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Brian De Palma's 'The Black Dahlia'

“The Black Dahlia,” directed by Brian De Palma, screenplay by Josh Friedman based on the novel by James Ellroy. Starring Josh Hartnett (Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert), Aaron Eckhart (Leeland “Lee” Blanchard), Scarlett Johansson (Kay Lake), Hillary Swank (Madeleine Linscott) and Mia Kirshner (Elizabeth Short). Universal Pictures.

(Contains spoilers. You have been warned)

While not quite the “Heaven’s Gate” of film noir, “The Black Dahlia” is a long (121 minutes), bloated, confusing, self-important, self-consciously artsy movie undermined by miscasting, absurd plot turns, naive symbolism, an utter disdain for history and laughable overacting that make Robert Towne’s ponderous, plodding “Chinatown” sequel, “Two Jakes” (1990), look like a taut thriller. After what may be a strong opening weekend thanks to heavy marketing, interest should plummet except among the most ardent fans of De Palma, Ellroy and the Dahlia murder.

As regular blog readers will know, “The Black Dahlia” is based on Ellroy’s 1987 novel, which in turn is distantly related to the unsolved 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, an unemployed 22-year-old cashier and waitress whose gruesomely mutilated body was posed in a vacant lot just off Crenshaw in the 3800 block of South Norton Avenue between Coliseum and 39th Street.

I last read Ellroy’s novel in 1996 and have no desire to renew my acquaintance with it, but if my recollections are correct, Friedman and De Palma have stayed fairly close to the plot, which is one of the movie’s worst flaws. Recall, for example, that director Curtis Hanson and screenwriter Brian Helgeland radically altered, restructured and streamlined “L.A. Confidential” in filming the movie. Granted, the story arc of “L.A. Confidential” wilts a bit more with each viewing, but it’s quite forceful the first time.

The most marked difference between “Dahlia” and other classics of the more recent genre is that although “L.A. Confidential” is firmly planted in the 1950s and “Chinatown” takes place in the 1930s, De Palma’s film has shallow roots “once upon a time in Los Angeles.”


Clearly, a movie nominally set in 1943-47 in which the lead characters attend a silent movie (above, “The Man Who Laughs, ” 1928--note that the characters are sitting in the balcony, which was reserved for blacks back in the ugly days of segregation. And look at the man right behind Harnett. He's smoking. In a theater?? Oops!) has nothing but contempt for the past, which is reflected in a thousand ways, from male actors’ scruffy haircuts (see above) and inability to wear hats (at right) properly to a laughable lesbian nightclub scene (below) featuring K.D. Lang in top hat and tails singing “Love for Sale,” which rather than depicting the classic film noir era is most evocative of “Bugsy Malone,” a far more accurate film. Note to Elisabeth Fry, personal hairstylist for Eckhart: Men's haircuts in the 1940s look like Red Manley's, above. I mean really!





One can find fatal flaws in virtually every area of this movie with little effort—in fact the most difficult task in critiquing the film is remembering everything that’s wrong with it.

First, there’s the dialogue: “She looks like that dead girl! How sick are you?”—not quite “She’s my sister and my daughter,” is it? Then there’s miscasting (at 31, Kirshner is much too old to play the 22-year-old Black Dahlia), opulent production design by Dante Ferretti (at right, police officers lived like this on LAPD pay? Who knew?), music (Mark Isham in the entirely predictable “cue mournful trumpet” genre), odd costuming—Friday casual for the men, fall collection for the women—(Jenny Beavan), down to the crowd scenes, which are busy to the point of distraction. And I wish I had the cigarette holder franchise on this film. I would be a rich man.

Even special effects are misused, with an earthquake that serves no purpose except to underline an obvious plot turn. Granted, the overly complex story is almost impossible to follow, but in this instance, De Palma must assume the audience has an IQ of about 50. And unlike the shocking and painfully realistic nose-slitting scene in “Chinatown,” the far worse violence inflicted on the Black Dahlia is amusingly fake. If De Palma was hoping to make a slasher flick, he failed badly.

Nor does Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography escape a rap on the knuckles for a ridiculous lesbian stag film (presumably made at a cost surpassing the combined budgets of all blue movies produced from the 1920s to the 1950s), and a self-conscious and overly elaborate shot in which partners Blanchard (Eckhart) and Bleichert (Hartnett) engage in a shootout, followed by the camera slowly rising up floor by floor of an entire apartment building, proceeding to a befuddling shot of the building’s roof before it at last discovers the Black Dahlia’s body in a vacant lot in the adjoining block. As visual storytelling, this is a grandiose and miserable failure. It reminds me of Leni Riefenstahl’s famous rising shot in “Triumph of the Will,” except that one works and this one doesn’t.

And then there’s Fiona Shaw, (below) who chews so much scenery that she must have been rushed to an oral surgeon to have the splinters removed.



For that matter—and perhaps this is what makes the heart


of the film beat so faintly—there is very little of the Black Dahlia in “The Black Dahlia,” who only surfaces far into the picture.

In fact, the first 30 or 40 minutes are devoted to boxing matches between the two detectives, nicknamed “Fire” and “Ice” from the Symbolism 101 school of writing. (I know it’s in the book, but that’s no excuse).

The bouts lead up to a prizefight intended to win support for an LAPD bond measure (yawn). There’s an awful lot of 10-ounce gloves, blood and a couple of front teeth thrown around by Blanchard and Bleichert as they fight it out, then traverse L.A. with Lake (Johansson), who is nominally Blanchard’s girlfriend but has much more interest in Bleichert. In theory, a torrid triangle might juice up the plot, but “Dahlia” plays this interest as flat as a day-old Pepsi.

Speaking of Symbolism 101, we have Kay Lake, all in white with peroxide hair and Madeleine Linscott (Swank) entirely in black. Get it?




It’s only after all this boxing and De Palma’s version of the Zoot Suit riots (let’s get this straight: the cops are beating up sailors during World War II to protect Mexicans?) that the film discovers the Black Dahlia’s body in that artsy shot. For the record, the body, rather than horrifying, looks laughably fake and what can I say about a crow landing at the crime scene and being chased away except I know someone who flunked Symbolism 101.

So where is the Black Dahlia in this confusing mess? She exists entirely on film. Of course in real life, Elizabeth Short never got a screen test or even appeared in a school play, but De Palma gives her one and Kirshner, trying her best at the impossible task of acting 22, makes it as pitiful as possible (Costuming note: A screen test in which the actress has big runs in her nylons?) with an intentionally miserable reading of Vivian Leigh’s famous monologue from “Gone With the Wind.”




The handling of the crime scene? Ridiculous even by Hollywood’s lax standards (note to anyone who ever wants to be a homicide detective: No smoking!). Vintage black-and-white police cars swarming the streets (bonus fact: there isn’t a single black-and-white in the original pictures. Check if you don't believe me) and detectives bellowing instructions like some shark-jumping 1970s cop show that any good investigator would already know. Ditto the morgue.

Anybody who knows anything about investigative procedures will laugh themselves sick at this movie. I’m especially thinking of one of the more surreal scenes in which Bleichert attempts to question a young woman (Rose McGowan) who is wearing an Egyptian/Babylonian costume that is only explained at the end of the scene—not that anyone cares by that point.

Running a close second is the interrogation of a juvenile suspect (in the book, her name is Linda Martin). In reality, Lynne Martin had to be questioned by juvenile officers because she was underage, but this becomes another victim of De Palma’s contempt for the past.

From this point, the movie lurches from one absurdity to another. Blanchard dies while fighting a tall, skinny man with steel-rim glasses who looks like James Ellroy’s double (Bill Finley) and they plunge over the railing of a steep staircase, falling several floors. What to do with the bodies? Well this is De Palma, so Bleichert watches as his alleged friend/partner is cremated in the basement incinerator. Think the department might start asking rude questions about what happened to him? And how about Lake?




Then there’s the contrasting love/sex scenes, and it’s obvious De Palma hasn’t a clue how to stage either one. The sex scene, between Harnett and Johansson, occurs in the dining room, when, overcome with passion, Bleichert rips away the tablecloth, sending dishes everywhere, and has his way with Lake. Isham’s score is lushly romantic, an oddly contrasting choice of music, and amour like this is sure tough on the Havilland china and the Baccarat crystal.



The love scene, between Swank and Harnett (above, in a Friday-casual day in the Homicide Division), is just as amusing with Bleichert and Linscott having a little pillow talk while she’s wearing nothing but huge pearl earrings and a long matching necklace with pearls the size of small onions, ensuring, I would imagine, a rather bumpy ride.

And about those crazy—and I mean crazy—Linscotts. (At right, Swank and John Kavanagh grieve over the loss of a Ming vase). Bleichert knows exactly how to make rich people confess to murder: Use their valuable antiques for target practice. The last time I checked, police revolvers hold six rounds, so unless Bleichert was planning to fight off one of them as he reloaded I can’t imagine what he thought he would do after his sixth question. Then again, not everybody can send a crystal chandelier crashing to the floor with one shot—some of us need two. (If J.J. Gittes had taken a few potshots at Noah Cross’ art collection “Chinatown” would have been a much different film).







And while you're at it, Bucky, take out a couple of those clown paintings, please.

Did I mention Fiona Shaw? Just keep an eye on her.

My prediction? After this movie, the Black Dahlia will be radioactive at the box office for years.

(I just realized something. With that haircut, Josh Harnett looks like Shemp Howard).

Larry Harnisch
Lmharnisch.com
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ps: Nathan says:

Nice work!

I've tried to post a comment, but Blogger won't let me (says I have an invalid password, and it won't let me start a new account, oh well). My comment would have read as such --

If you want to get nitpicky about historical accuracy...assuming someone does...please allow me to continue the conversation.

In 1947, the featured Rosslyn Hotel had two neon blade signs, not one. Of course spending the money on the CGI to add the other blade would be too much to ask, as long as I wasn't the one asking it.

And in the alley where Our Heroes beat up GIs, there's a seven-digit phone number on a wall advertisement, ie, 555-4689 or somesuch. I trust I don't have to tell readers here how wrong that is.

The switch from yellow 45 plates with the 46 sticker to 47 black plates is abrupt, and works in theory, but I'd have to see the picture again to make certain it was done correctly. Of course not everyone in Los Angeles switched to the black plate in the first weeks of January.

I will say this, if there's ANY reason to see this movie, it's Fiona Shaw. She will go down as the great guilty pleasure, like watching Mantan Moreland get all googly-eyed in one of his 40s "spook" pictures.


thanks again,

Nathan

Interring the Short-Handled Log Implement

An incredibly curious thing happened yesterday. I’ve been taping segments for an “America’s Most Wanted” episode on the Black Dahlia and the producer called to see if they could get some shots of me in the Biltmore bar talking to Detective Brian Carr, who is assigned to the case.

The Biltmore usually charges astronomical fees for filming and sometimes even buckets of money won’t gain access if the shoot is related to the Black Dahlia, which I learned with another TV production. However, Universal came up with buckets and buckets of money to rent big chunks of the hotel, (including the 10^th floor with the Presidential Suite) for a press event publicizing Brian De Palma’s upcoming movie.

Of course I agreed, so Brian Carr and I set up in the bar (hyped mercilessly by the hotel as being the spot where Elizabeth Short was last seen—in reality, an absurd claim that shows what people want to believe about the Black Dahlia case. For the record, Elizabeth Short didn’t drink for most of her life and when she did, it was very moderately). We had a nice chat on camera.

Then the producer, Fred Peabody, said that James Ellroy was in the hotel and it would be nice to get a shot of the three of us. Mind you, Brian Carr and I have decent roles in the 2001 documentary “James Ellroy’s Feast of Death” where I get into my Black Dahlia research and James voices strong support for my scenario involving Walter Bayley as a possible suspect. And then, as most people know, James wrote the introduction to Steve Hodel’s “Black Dahlia Avenger” that says “Steve convinced me” that George Hodel was the killer. Brian has even more contempt for the Hodel scenario than I.

So Brian and I were rather curious as to how James would react to us on camera. The five of us (camera operator, sound man, producer, Brian and I) went up to the Presidential Suite to find James. After waiting about half an hour because it was around lunch, Peabody came back with James.

And the first thing James said when he came into the room and warmly shook our hands was: “Don’t anybody say the name ‘Steve Hodel.’ ”

We talked and joked for a few minutes on camera. I said: “The last time the three of us were together, Nick Nolte showed up wearing a bathrobe covered with dog hair” and we all laughed. Brian twisted James’ tail about not getting a ticket to the premiere, so James got him one immediately. And James asked me if I still had the same phone number at The Times. I said yes, adding: “You know where to find me.”

James shook hands and promised: “I’ll call you next week and we will discuss times past.” I hope he calls. It was good to see the old boy. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing that life brings to us with age.

Woof, daddy-o.

Ps. Yes, I passed Scarlett Johansson in the hallway. I only got a moment’s impression of her, and I could certainly be wrong. But speaking as a parent, I wouldn’t want my 21-year-old son to be dating her, although he would surely disagree.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

Nooooo!!!

I couldn’t stand the thought of James Ellroy’s copies of “Black Dahlia Avenger” going for so little on EBay. After all, don’t people know the book has been optioned by New Line Cinema? Surely books that are inscribed to the Demon Dog of American Fiction are worth more than $20. So I bumped up my bids by 50 cents on the hardback and paperback.

Outbid!

As mentioned on L.A. Observed.

My prediction? Once people see the Brian De Palma movie, the Black Dahlia will be radioactive at the box office for years to come. Read a review from the Venice Film Festival.

During the first hour, the hope that the director has tapped into something really great mounts with each passing minute. Then, gradually, the feverish pulp imagination of James Ellroy, on whose novel Josh Friedman based his screenplay, feeds into De Palma's dark side. The violence grows absurd, emotions get overplayed, and the film revels once too often in its gleeful depiction of corrupt, decadent old Los Angeles. Disappointingly, the film edges dangerously into camp.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

Paul Schrader's 1971 Notes on Film Noir

Paul Schrader’s 1971 essay “Notes on Film Noir” in all its sappy, naive glory, with typos by me.  

In 1946, French critics, seeing the American films they had missed during the war, noticed the new mood of cynicism, pessimism and darkness which had crept into the American cinema. The darkening stain was most evident in routine crime thrillers, but was also apparent in prestigious melodramas.

The French cineastes soon realized they had seen only the tip of the iceberg: As the years went by, Hollywood lighting grew darker, characters more corrupt, themes more fatalistic and the tone more hopeless. By 1949, American movies were in the throes of their deepest and most creative funk. Never before had films dared to take such a harsh, uncomplimentary look at American life, and they would not dare to do so again for twenty years.

Hollywood’s film noir has recently bgecome the subject of renewed interest among moviegoers and critics. The fascination film noir holds for today’s young filmgoers and film students refelcts recent trends in American cinema: American movies are again taking a look at the underside of the American character, but comapred to such relentlessly cynical films noir as Kiss Me Deadly or Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, the new self-hate cinema of Easy Rider and Medium Cool seems naive and romanntic. As the current political mood hardens, filmgoes and filmmakers will find the film noir fo the late Forties increasingly attractive. The Forties may be the Seventies what the Thirdtie were to the sixties.

Film noir is equally interesting to critics. It offers writers a cache of excelent , little=known films (film noir is oddly both one of Hollywood’s best periods and least known), and gives auteur-weary critics an opportunity to aply themselvse to the newer questions of classification and transdirectorial style. After all, what is film noir?

Film noir is not a genre (as Raymond Durgnat has helpfully pointed out over the objections of Higham and Greenberg’s Hollywood in the Forties). It is not defined, as are the western and gangster gnres, by conventions of setting and fonclifct, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood. It is a film “noir” as opposed to the possible variants of film gray or film off-white.

Film noir is also a specific period of film history, like German Expressionism or the French New Wave. In general, film noir refers to those Hollywood films of the Forties and early Fifties which portrayed the world of dark, slick city streets, crime and corruption.

Film noir is an extremely unwieldy period. It hars back to many prefious periods: Warners’ Thirties ganster filsm, the French “poetic realism” of Carne and Duvivier, Sternbergian melodrama and fatehrst back, German Expressionist crime films (Lang’s Maubse cycle). Film noir can stretch at its outer limits from the Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958) and most every dramatic Hollywood film from 1941 to 1953 contains some noir elements. There are also foreign offshoots of film noirs such as The Third Man, Breathless adn Le Doulos.

Almost every critic has his own definition of film noir and personal list of film titles and dates to back it up. Personal and descriptive definitions, however, can get a bit sticky. A film of urban night life is not necesarsarily a film noir, and a film moir need not necessarily concern crime and corruption. Since film noir is defined by tone rather than genre, it is almost impossible to argue one critic’s description definition against another’s How many noir elements does it take to make a film noir noir?

Rather than haggle definitions, I would rather attempt to reduce film noir to its primary colors (all shades of black) those cultureal and stylistic elements to which any definition must return.

At the risk of sounding like Arthur Knight, I would sugest that there were four conditions in Hollywood in the Forties which brought about film noir. (The danger of Knight’s Livlieset Art methoid is taht it makes film history less a matter of structural analysis and more a case of artistic and social forces magically interacting and coalescing). Each of the following four catalytic elements, however, can define the film noir, the distinctly noir tonality draws from each of these elements.

War and postwar disillusionment.  The acute downer which hit the U.S. after the Second World War was, in fact, a delayed reaction to the Thirties. Allthrough the Depression, movies were needed to keep oeple’s spirits up, and for the most part, they did. The crime films of this period were Horatio Algerish and socially conscious. Toward the end of the Thirties, a darker crime film began to appear (You Only Live Once, the Roaring Twenties0 and, were it not for the War, film noir would have been at full steam by the early Forties.

The need to produce Allied propaganda abroad and promote patriotism at home blunted the fledling moves toward a dark cinema and the film noir thrashed about in the studio system, not quite able to come into full prominence. During the War the first uniquely film noir appeard: The Maltest Falcon, the Glass Key, This Gun for Hire, Laura, but these films lacked the distinctly noir bite the end of the war would bring.

As soon as the War was over, however, American films became markedly more sardonic—and there was a boom in the crime film. For fifteen years the pressures agains American’s amelioristic cinema had been building up and given the freedom, audiences and artists were not eager to take a less otpimsitic view of things. The disillusionment many soldiers small businessmen and houseive/factory employees felt in returning to a peacetime economy was directly mirrored in the sordidness of the urgan crime film.

This imemdiate postwar disillusionment was directly demonstrated in films like Cornered, the Blue Dahlia, Dead Reckoning and Ride the pink Horse, in which a serivdeman returns from the war to find his sweetheard unfaithful or daed, or his business partner cheating him, or the whole society something less than worth fighting for. The war continues, but not the antagonism turns with a new viciousness toward the American society itself.

postwar realism: Shortly after the War every film-producing country had a resurgence of realism. In American it first took the form of fiolms by such producers as Louise de Rochemont (House in 92nd Street, Call Northside 777) and Mark Hellinger (The Killers, Brute Force) and directors like Henry Hathaway and Jules Dassin. “Every scene was filmed on the actual location depicted,” the 1947 de Rocemont-Hjathaway Kiss of Death produly procalimed. Even after de Rochemont’s particular “Maart of Time” authenticity fell from vogue, realistic exteriors remained a permanent fixture of film noir.

The realistic movement also suited America’s postwar mood; the public’s desire for a more honest and harsh view of American would not be satisfied by the same studio streets they had been watching for a dozen years. The postwar realstic trend succeeded in beraking film noir away from the domain of the high-class melodrama, placing it where it more properly belonged, in the streets with everyday people. In retrospect, the pre de-Rochemont film noir looks definitely tamer than the postwar realistic films. The studio look of films like The Big Sleep and The Mask of Dimitrios blunts their sting, making them seem more polite and conventional in contrast to their later, mor realistic counterparts.

The German Influence. Hollywood played host to an influx of German pxpatriates in the Twenties and Thirties and these filmmakrs and technicians had, for the most part, integrated themselves into the American film esbalishment. Hollywood never experienced the “Germanization” some civic-minded natives feared and there is a danger of overmphasizing th eGerman influence in Holywood.

But when, in the alst Forties, Hollywood decided to paint it black, there were no greater masters of chiaroscuro than the Germans. The influence of expressionist lighting has always been just beneath the surface of Hollywood films and it is not surprising in film noir to find it pursting to find a larger number of German and East Europeans working in film noir.

First Lang, Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, Franz Waxman, Otto Preminger, John Brhm, Anatole Litvak, Karl Kfruend, Max Ophuls, John Alton, Douglas Sir, Fred Zinnemann, William Dieterle, Max Steiner, Edgar G. Ulmer, Curtis Bernhardt, Rudolph Mate.

On the surface the German expressionsit influence; with its reliance on artificial studio lighting, seems incompatible with postwar realism, with its harsh unadorned exteriors, but it is the unique quality of film noir that it was able to weld seemingly contradictory elements into a unfirom style. The best noir technicians simply madke all the world a sound stage, directing unnatural an dexpressionistic lighting onto realistic settings. In films like Union Station, They Live by Night, The killers is an uneasy exhiliratingt combination of realism and expressionism.

Perhaps the greatest master of noir was Hungarian born John Alton, an expressionist cinematographer who could relight Tiems Square at noon if necessary. No cinematographer better adapted the old expressionst techniques to the new desire for realism and his black and white photography in such gritty film noir as T-Men, Raw Deal, I the Jury the Big Comb equals that of such German expressinst masters as Fritz Wagner and Karl Freund.

The Hardboiled tradition. Another stylistic influence waiting int he wings was the hardboiled school of writers. In the Thirties, authors such as Ernest Himginway, Dahsiell Hammett, Raymond Chanlder, James M. Cain, Horace McCoya nd John O’Hara crated the “tough,” cyunical way of acting and thinking which separated one from the world of everyday emotions0—romanticism with a protective shell. The hardboiled writiers had their roots in pulp fiction or journalism and their protagonists lived out a narcisstic, defeatist code. The hardboiled her was, in reality, a soft egg comparied to his existential counterpart (Camus is said to have based The Stranger on McCoy). But he was a good deal tougher than anything American fiction had seen.

When the movies of the Forties turned to the American “tough” moral understrata, the hardboiiled school was waiting with preset conventions of heroes, minor charactesr, plots, dialogue and themes. Like the German expatriates, the hardboiled writers had a style made to order for film noir and in turn they influence noir screrenwriting as much as the German influence noir cinmatography.

The most hardboiled of Hollywold’s writers was Raymond chandler himself, whose script of Double Indeminty (from a James M. Cain story) was the best written and most charactieristicaly noir of the period. Double Indemnity was the first film which played film noir for what it essentialyw as: smalltime, unredeemed, unheroic. It made a break from the romanitc noir cinma of the later Mildred Pierce and The Big Sleep.

{in its final stages, however, film noir adapted and then bypassed the hardboiled school. Manic, nuerotic post-1948 films such as Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, D.O.A. Where the Sidwlk Ends, White Heat and the Big Heat are all post-hardboiled; the air in these regions was even too thin for oldtime cynics like Chandler].

Stylistics: There is not yet a study of the stylistics of film noir and the task is certainly too large to be attempted here. Like all film movements, film noir drew upon a reservoir of film technicuqes and given the time one could correlate its techniques, tehmes and causal elements into a stylistic schema. For the present, however, I’d like to point out some of film noir’s recurring teniques.

• The majority of scenes are lit at night. Gangsters sit in the offices at midday with shades pulled adn the ligths off. Ceiling ligths are hung low and floor lamps are seldom more than five feet high. One always has the suspicion that if the lights were all suddenly flipped on the characters would shriek and srink from the scene like Count Dracula at sunrise.


• As in German expressionism, oblique and vertical lines are preferred to horizonatal. Obliquity adheres to the choreography of the city and is in direct opposition to the horizonal American tradition of Griffith and Ford. Oblique lines tend to splinter a screen, making it restless and unstable. Light enters the dingy rooms of film onir in such odd shapes—jagged trapezois, obtuse triangles, vertial slits—that one suspects the windows were cut out with a pen knife. No character cna speak authoritatively from a space which is being continually cut into ribbons of light. The Anthony Mann/John Alton T-Men is the most dramatic but far from the only example of oblique noir chorteography.


• The actors and setting are often given equal lighting emphasis. An actor is foften hiddein in the realistic tableau of the city at night, and more obviously his face is often blocked out by shadow as he speaks. These shadow effecsta re unlike the famous Warnger Brothers lighting of the Thirteis in which the central character was accentuated by a heavy shadow; in film onir, the central character is likely to be standing in the shadow. When the environment is given an equal or graeter weight than the actor it, of course, creates a fatalistic, hopeless mood. There is noth8ing the protagonist can do; the city will outlast and negate even his best efforts.

• Compositional tension is preffered to physical action. A typical film noir would rather move the scene cinematographically around the actor than have the actor control the scene by physical action. The beating of Robert Ryan in The Set-up, the gunning down of Farley Granger in They Live by Night, the execution of the taxi driver in The Enforcer and of Brian Donlevy in the Big Combo are all marked yb measured packing, restrained anger and oppressive compsitiosn, and seem much sloer to the film onir spirit than the rat-tat-tat and screeching tires of Scarface twenty years before or the violent, expressive actions of Underworld U.S.A. ten years later.

• There seems to be an almost Freudian attachment to water. The empty noir streets are almost always glistening with fresh evening rain (*even in Los Angele) and the rainfall tends ot increase in direct proportion to the drama. Docks and piers are second only to alleyways as the most popular rendezvous poitns.

• There is a love of romantic narration. In such films as The Postman Always Rings Twice, Laura, Double Indemnith, The Lady From Shanghai, Out of the Past and Sunset Bouelvard, the narrration creates a mood of temps perdu. An irretrievable pas, a prederermined fate and an all-envelooping hopelessness. In out of the Past, Robert Mitchum relates his history with such pathetic relish that it is obvious ther eis no hope for any future: one can only take pleasure in reliving a doomed past.

• A complex chronological order is frequently used to reinforce the feelings of hopelessnessa dn lost time. Such films as The Enforcer, The Killers, Mildred Pierce, The Dark Pask, Chicago Deadline, Out of the Past and the Killing use a convoluted time sequence to imerse the viewer in a time-disoriented but highly styled world. The manipualation of time whether slight or complex, is often used to reinforce a noir princple: the how is always more important than the what.

Themes: Raymond Durgnat has delineated the themes of film noir in an excellent article in the British Cinema magainze *(the failmy tree of film noire, August 1970) and it would be foolish for me  to attempt to redo his thorough workin this short space. Durgnat divides film noir into eleven thematic categories and although one might criticiaee zome of his specific groupings, eh does cover the whole gamt of noir production (thematically categorizing over 300 films).

In each of Durgnat’s noir themese (whether Black Widow, kilers-on-the, run, dopplegangers) one finds that the upwardly mobile forces of the Thirties have halted, frontierism has turned to paranoise and lcaustrophibiua. The smalltime ganster has now made it big and stis in the mayor’s chair, the private eye has quit the police force in disgust and the young heroine, sick of going along for the ride, is taking others for a ride.

Durgnat, however, does not touch upon what is perhaps the overriding noir theme: a passion for the past and present but also a fear of the future. The noir hero dreads to look ahead but intstead tirs to survive by the day and if uncessuful at that he retreats to the past. Thus film noir’s techniques emphaisze loss, nostaligia, lack of clear priorities, insecurity, then subjerge these self-=doubts in mannerism and styule. In such a world style becomes paramoutn; it is all that separates one from meaninglessness. Chandler described this fundamental noir theme when he dsecribed his own fictional world: “It isnot a very fragrant world but it is the world you live in and certain writers with tough minds and a cool spirit of detachemtn can make very interesting patterns out of it.”

Film noir can be subdivided into three broad phases. The first, the wartime period 1941-46 approximately, was the phase of the privaet eye and lone wolf, of Chandler, Hammett and Greene, of Bogart and Bacall, Ladd and Lake, classy directors like Curtiz and Garnett, studio sets and ingeneral more talk than action. The stuiod look of this period was reflected in such pectures as the Malese Falcon, Casabalnce, Gaslight, This Gun for Hire, the Lodges, the Woman in the Window, Mildred Pierce,m Spellbound, Teh Big Sleep, Laura, the Lost wEekend, the Strange Love of Martha Ivers to Have and Have Not, Fallen Angel, Gilda, Murder My Swtt, the Postman Always Rings Twice, Dark Waters, Scarlet Street, So Dark the Night, the Glass Key, the Mask of Dimitrios and The Dark Mirror.

The Wilder/ Chandler Double Indemnity provided a bridge to the postwar phase of film noir. The unflinching noir vision of Double Indemnith came as a shock in 1944 and the film was alsmot blocked by the combined efforts of Parmoutn, the Hays office and star Fred MacMurry [That sounds like total bullshit to me, LRH] Three years alter, whoever, Dobule Indemnitys were dropping off the studio assembly line.

The second phase was the psotwar realistic period from 1945-49 (the dates overlap and so do the films; these are all approxmiate phases for which threre are many exepctions). These films tended mroe toward the problems of crime in the streets, political corruption and police routine. Less romantic heroes like Ricahrd Conte, Burt Lancaster and Charles McGraw were more suited to this period, as were proletarian directors like Hathaway, Dassin and Kazan. The realistic urban look of this pahse is seen in such films as The House in 92nd Street, The Killers, Raw Deal, Acto of Violence, Union Station, Kiss of Death, Johnny O’Clock, Force of Evil, Dead Reckoning, Ride tghe Pink Horse, Dark Passage, Cry of the City, the Set-up, T-Men, Call Northside 7, Brute Force, t/he Big Clock, Theives Highway, Ruthelss, Pitfall, Boomerang! And the Naked City.

The third and final phase of iflm noir from 1949-53, was the period of psychotic actio and suicidal impulsse,. The noir horer, seemingly under the weight of ten eyars of despair, started to go bananas. The pyschotic killer who in the first period [had] been a subject worthy of study (Olivia de Havilland in The Dark Mirror) in the second a fringe threat (Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death) now became the active protagonist (aJames Cagney in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye). There were no ex uses given for the psychopathy in Gun Crazy0—it was just “crazy.” James Cagney made a neurotic comeback and his instabiility was matched by that of younger actors like Robert Ryan and lee Marvin. This was the phase of the “B” noir film, and of psychoanalytically inclied directors like Ray and Walsh. The forces of personal disintegration are reflected in such films as White Heat, Gun Crazy, D.O.A., Caught, They Live by Night, Where the Sidwalk Edns, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Detective Story, in a Lonely Place, I the Jury Ace in the Hole, Panic in the Streets,the Big Heat, On Dangerous Ground and Sunset Boulevard.

This third phase is the cream of the film noir period. Somecrtiics may prefer the early “gray” meldrama,s others the postwar “street” films, but film noir’s final phase was the most aesthetically and socioligcally piercing. After ten years of setaedily shedding romatnic conventions the later noir films finally got down to the root causes of the priod: the loss of public honor, hoeric conventiosn, personal integrity and finally psychic stability. The thrid phaase films were panifuilly self-aware. They seemed to know whtey stood at the ned of a long tradition based on dsepair and disintegration and did not shy away from the fact. The best and charateristicaly noir films—Gun Crazy,White Heat, Out of the Past, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, D.O.A., They Live by Night and the Big Heat—stand at thend of the period and are the results of self-awareness. The third phase is rife with end of the line noir heroies. The Big Heat and Where the Sidwalk Ends are the last stops for the urban cop. Ace in the Hole for the newspaperman, the Victor Saville-produced Spillane series (I the Jury, the Long Wait, Kiss Me Deadly) for the private eye. Sunset Boulevard forthe Black Widow, White Heat and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye for the gangster. D.O.A. for the John Doe American.

Appropriately, the amsterpeice of film noir was a straggler, Kiss Me Deadly, produced in 1955. Its time delay gives it a sense of detachment and thhoroughgoing seediness—it stands at thene do fa long sleazy tradition. The private eye hero, Mike Hammer, undergoes the final stages of degratation. He is a smallt-eim “bedroom dick<’ and maeks no qualms about it beacuse the world around him isn’t much better. Ralph Meeker, in his best prformances, plays Hammer, a midget among dwarfs. Ropbert Aldrich’s teasing direction carries noir to its sleaziest and most preversely erotic. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the “great whatsit” and when he finally finds it, it turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb. The inhumanity and meaningless of the hero are small matters in a world in which The Bomb has the final say.

By the middle Fifteis film noir ahd ground to a halt. There were a few notable straggles, Kiss Me Deadly, the Lewis/Alton The Big Combo and film noir’s epitaph, Touch of Evil, but for the most pasrt a new style of crime film had become popular.

AS the rise of McCarthy and Eisenhower demonstrated, Americans were eager to see a more biourgeois view of themselves. Crime had to move to the suburbs. The criminal put on a gray flannel suit and the footsore cop was repalced by the “mobile unit” careening down the expressway. Any attempt at social criticism had to be claoekd inludicrous affirmations of the American way of life. Techinically, television, with its demand for full lgithitng and close-ups gradually undercut the German infleunce and color cinmatograph way, of course, the final blow to the “noir” look.

New directors like Siegel, Fleisher, Karlson and Fuler and TV shows like Dragnet, M-Squad, Lineup and Highway Patrol stepped in to create the new crime drama. This transition can be seen in Samuel Fuller’s 1953 Pickup on South Street, a film which blends the black look with the Red scare. The waterfront scenes with Ricahrd Widmark adn Jean Peters are in the best noir tradition but a lter dynamic fight in the subway marks Fuler as a directr who would be better suited to the crime school of the middle and late Fifteis.

Film noir was an immensely creeative period==probably the msot creative in Hollywood’s history-at least if this creativity is measured not by its peaks but by its medial level of artistriy. Picked at random, a film noir is likely to be a better made film than a randomly selected silent comedy, meusical, western and so on [oh what fatuous crap—LRH] (A Joseph H. Lewis “B” film noir is better than Lewis “B” western for example). Take ans a whole period film noir achieve an usually high level of artistry. [and we don’t have to feel guilty for “slumming,” eh? LRH]

Film noir seemed to bring out the best in everyone: directors, cameramen, screenwritesrs, actors. Again and again, a film noir will make the high point on an artist’s career graph. Some directors, for example, did their best work in film noir (Stuart Heisler, Robert Siodmak, Gordon Douglas, Deward Dmytryk, John Brahm, John Cromwell, Raoul Walsh, Henry Hathaway) other directors began in film noir and it seems to me never regained their original heights (Oto Priminger, Rudoplph Mate, Nichaolas Ray, Robert Wise, Jules Dassin, Ricahrd Fleischer, John Huston, Andrew de Toth and Robert Aldrich) and other directorw sho made gerat films in other molds also made great film noir (Orson Welles, Max Ophusls, Fritz Lang,Elia Kaza, Howard Hawks, Robert Rossen, Anthony Mann, Joseph Losey,Aflred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick). Whether ornot one agrees with this particular schema, its message is irrefutable: film noir was good for practiallye very director’s career (two interesting exceptiosn to prove the case are King Vidor and Jean Renoir).

Film noir seems to have been a creative relase for everyone invovled. It gave artists a chance to work with previosly forbidden thesems yet had conventions strong enough to protect the mediocre. Cinematographers were allowed to become highly mannered and actors were sheltered by the cinematorgaphers. Itw as not until years later that critics were able to disginsuish between great directors and great noir directors.

Film moir’s remarksable creativity makes its longtime neglect the more baffling. The French of course, have been students of the priod of rsome time (Borde and Chaumeton’s Panorama du Film Noir was publisehd in1955) but American crticis until recently have preferred the weastern, the musical or the gangster film to the film noir. Some of the reasons for this neglect are usperficial; otehrs strike to the heart of thenoir style. For a long time, film noir, with its emphasis on corruption and despire, was considerred an aberration of the Amrican character. The western, with its moral primitivism and the ganster film with its Horatio Alger values, were consdiered mor Aemrican than the film noir.

This prejudice was reinforced by the fact taht film noir was ideally suited to the low budget “:B”: film and many ofthe best nori films were “B” films. This odd sort of economic snobbery still lingers on in some critical circles: high-budget trash that is considered more worhty of attention than low-budget trash and to praise a “B”: film is somehow to slight (often intentionally) an “A” film.

Tehre has been a critical revival in the U.S. over the last tne years but film noir lost out on that too. The revivla was auteur (director) oriented and film noir wasn’t. Auteur criticism is intereste in how directors are different; film onir criticism is concerned with what they have in common.

The fundamentla reason for film noir’s neglect, however, is that theact that it depends more on choreopgrahy than sociology and American critics have always been slow on the uptake when it coems to visual style. Like its protagonists, film noir is more interested in style than theme, whereas Aemrican critics have been tradioanly more interseted in theme than style.

American film critics have always been sociologists first and scientsits second. Film is importnat as it realtes to large masses, and if a film goes awry it is often becasue the theme has been somehow “violated” by the style. Fil noir operates on opposite princples. The theme is hidden int he style and bogus themse are often haunted (“middle class values are best”) which contradit the style. Although I believe style determines the theme in every film it was easier for sociolgocial critics to discuss the themes of the western and gangster film apart from stylistic analysis than it was to do for film noir.

Not surprisngly it was the ganster film, not the film noir, which was canonized in the Partisan Reveiw in 1948 by Robert Warshow’s famous essay “The Ganster as Tragic Hero.” Although Warshow could be an aesthetic as well as a socioloical critic, in this case he was interestedi n the western and ganster film as “popular” art rather than as style. This socilogical orientation blinded Warshow as it has many subsuejquent critics to an aestheically more important developemtn in the ganster film—film noir.

The irony of this negled is that in retropsect the ganster films Warshow wrote about are inferior to film noir. The Thirties ganster was primarly a reflection of what was hpapening in the country and Warshow analhyzed htis. The film noir, althoouth it was also a sociologcial reflection, went furtehr than the ganster film. Twoard the end film noir was engaed in a life and dath strugle with the materials it reflecte; it tried to make Aemrica accept a moral vision of life abased on style. That very contradition—promitng style in acutlure which valued themes—forced film oir into artically invigorating twists and turns. Filmn noir attacked and interpreted its socioloical conditions and by the cloe of the noir period created a new artistic world whhich went beyond a simple sociolical reflection, a nightmarish world of Aemrcian mannerism which was far more a craetion than a reflection.

Because film noir was first of all a style because it workd out its ocnflicts vidually rather than thematically because it was aware of its own identity, ti was able to create artistic solutions to sociological problems Adn for these reasons films like Kiss Mea Deadly and Kiss Tomorrow Goodby and Gun Crazy can be works of art in a way that gangster films like Scarface Public Enemy and Little Caesar can never be.

Blogging the Wolfe Book, Request Line X

I have ceased blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe uses the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks.Now, I am taking a few requests before wrapping up the project. Today, we’ll continue our examination of Pages 213-215 at the request of Regular Anonymous Correspondent (who e-mailed me with some more pages. I hope I haven’t lost track of them).

You won’t believe this.

Trust me, you won’t.

Is it worse than faking documents?

Well no. But it’s close.

Remember all that stuff yesterday about Gerald and Sara Murphy?

Here’s the quote:

“It was through Manny [Edward G. Robinson Jr.] that I met Arthur James at the Holiday House in Malibu. Owned by prominent artist Gerald Murphy and his wife Sara, the Holiday House stood on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean and became a hideaway for Hollywood celebrities who didn’t want to be seen in public with the wrong woman—or the wrong man. Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato used to stay there, as did Marilyn Monroe, upon occasion, with a young congressman from Boston named Jack Kennedy.”

Note: “Prominent artist Gerald Murphy and his wife Sara.”

So I went through all this research on their house in the Hamptons and how they were the inspiration for “Tender Is the Night.”

Are you ready?

Grab hold of something and hang on tight.

Those were the wrong Murphys.

No, really! I heard from Regular Anonymous Correspondent yesterday, who pointed me in the right direction.

Wolfe isn’t talking about prominent artist Gerald and Sara Murphy. He means prominent film director DUDLEY Murphy and his wife, Virginia. Or as The Times would have referred to him at one point: Film director Dudley “Emperor Jones” Murphy. And the Holiday House was a restaurant and motel at 27400 W. Pacific Coast Highway.

And it must have been some secret hideaway, Murphy wanted to do a TV series based on his guests’ experiences. (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 25, 1950). Hm. Times gossip columnist James Copp paid a visit and overheard John Garfield telling the dieting Shelley Winters not to eat that filet mignon.

Looks like Copp was a regular out there. He wrote about it all the time. Although he never seemed to mention Edward G. Robinson Jr., Arthur James or Donald H. Wolfe.

Well this is interesting. Richard Neutra designed the apartments in 1949 but he and Murphy didn’t get along so Murphy designed the restaurant himself. (Lois Dwan, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 8, 1978).

Apartments apparently demolished in 1986. Used as film location for “Rockford Files” and “$6-Million Man.”

Let me put it this way…..

We’ve already seen that Elizabeth Short wasn’t in Los Angeles in 1944.

That’s when Arthur Curtis James Jr. said he met her. In fact James said he took her to Tucson in 1944, when he got arrested for violating the Mann Act. He drew two years in prison for that little number.

Then in 1947 he confessed to writing bad checks in September 1946, claiming they were to buy luggage for Elizabeth Short. Again, not true, although this story appeared in the Herald-Examiner and John Gilmore’s “Severed,” which is 25% mistakes and 50% fiction.

And Wolfe says James ran some rooming houses for Florentine Gardens business manager Mark Hansen, which is also false. “Severed” doesn’t make this claim, however. This is a new one.

And then Wolfe botches the facts about where the conversation supposedly took place between him and one—if not two—CDPs (conveniently dead people). Just a little matter of the wrong prominent Murphys.

So we’re supposed to believe:

“James said some ‘big shot’ had taken a fancy to Elizabeth and gotten her pregnant, and Hansen had tried to set her up with an abortionist. Instead, she fled to San Diego. The last time James said he saw her was several days before she left the city, and he had heard that the ‘big shot’ was Norman Chandler, heir to the Chandler dynasty. James recalled that he hadn’t heard from Elizabeth again or known what had happened to her until he recognized her picture in the paper and read the gruesome stories.”

Is Wolfe kidding or what?

Time for my walk.

Shout out to:

Malmo, Sweden (212.73.174.180) 6 hours?

Japan (219.110.229.241)

City of Los Angeles (161.149.63.203)

Note: Nobody using Windows 98. I’m very proud of you. I was starting to worry.

Hurry back.