Blogging the Wolfe Book, Our Story So Far

Larry Harnisch (described by James Ellroy as a Dahlia scholar/Dahlia freak, take your pick) is blogging in real time as he reads Donald H. Wolfe's "The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles."

Part 1, Blogging the Wolfe Book
Part 2, The Monster
Part 3, Extra! Extra!
Part 4, Sniff Test
Part 5, Weather Report
Part 6, The Boy on the Bicycle
Part 7, A "C" From the Health Inspector
Part 8, Neutral Milk Hotel
Part 9, A Moment of Silence, Please
Part 10, The Riddler

And this, not the Wolfe book, but something more enduring, an installment in the "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue" series, one of my mother's childhood favorites.
Part 11, The Thrill Is Gone
Part 12, I'm My Own Grandpaw
Part 13, The Subject Is Roses
Part 14, Teutonic Thoroughness
Part 15, Time for a Reality Check
Part 16, a Moment of Silence
Part 17, The Lookies
Part 18, Uncle Vern
Part 19, The Houyhnhnms
Part 20, The FBI Story
Above, another of my mother's favorite childhood books.
Part 21, The Cloudy Crystal Ball
Part 22, The Funny Papers
Part 23, The Pinata
Part 24, He Walked by Night
Part 25, Loyalty
Part 26, Missing Man Formation
Part 27, Collecting Our Thoughts
Part 28, A Rain Check
Part 29, Wreck of the Old 97
Part 30, Tick, Tick, Tick
Part 31, Phoning It In

Part 32, Foxy Grandpa
Part 33, Pied Type
Part 34, Limbo
Part 35, Paint by Numbers
Part 36, Bust of a Man
Part 37, Mystery Woman
Part 38, Slasher Flick
Part 39, Aiding and Abetting
Part 40, Who Was That Masked Man?
Part 41, The Whole Nine Yards
Part 42, The Face Is Familiar
Part 43, Our Far-Flung Correspondents
Part 44, Honored Guests

Part 45, Nothing but Compost
Part 46, Snooze Alarm
Part 47, Wax On, Wax Off
Part 48, An Army of One
Part 49, Family Ties
Part 50, Trying to Make It Real Compared to What
Part 51, Slinging Hash
Part 52, The Numbers Game
Part 53, Imagine My Surprise
Part 54, Tell It to the Marines
Part 55, Evil Genius
Part 56, The Lady in Red
Part 57, Lines of History
Part 58, The Countdown Begins
Part 59, Pleas and Thank-Yous
Part 60, Deuteronomy 33:24
Part 61, Request Line I
Part 62, Request Line II
Part 63, Request Line III
Part 64, Request Line IV
Part 65, Request Line V
Part 66, Request Line VI
Part 67, A Mystery Solved
Part 68, Request Line VII
Part 69, Courtesy Card
Part 70, Request Line VIII
Part 71, Request Line IX
Part 72, How to Fake a Document
Part 73, The Old Spuriousity Shoppe
Part 74, Request Line X
Part 75, Request Line XI
Part 76, Request Line XII
Part 77, Request Line XIII
Part 78, Request Line XIV
Part 79 (I can't believe it myself), Request Line XV
Part 80, Request Line XVI
Part 81, Request Line XVII
Part 82, L.A. Abortions in the 1940s
Part 83, Request Line XVIII
Part 84, Request Line XIX
Part 85, Request Line XX
Part 86, Request Line XXI
Part 87, Request Line XXII
Part 88, The Two-Minute Executive Summary

Strange Fruit

Feb. 1, 1907
Los Angeles

I was all set to write about Leroyxez, “The Human Pincushion,” being nailed to a cross promptly at 4 p.m. at Chutes Park, and then a story about lynching in the U.S. caught my eye.

Year	Number of Lynchings
1901	135
1902	36
1903	104
1904	87
1905	65
1906	73

Of the 73 victims for 1906, all but four were African American men, the exceptions being an African American woman and three white men, according to the wire story from the Washington Post.

State	Number of Lynchings
Mississippi	13 (down from 20 in 1905)
Georgia	9
Louisiana	9
Florida	6
Texas	6
Alabama	5
North Carolina	5
South Carolina	5
Arkansas	4
Kentucky	3
Missouri	3
Tennessee	2
Indian Territory	1
Maryland	1
Colorado	1

Triple lynchings were conducted in Georgia, North Carolina and Missouri. The alleged crimes including stealing a silver dollar and stealing a calf (both in Louisiana), carrying a loaded pistol, petty robbery, improper proposals, miscegenation, criminal assault, assault and murder, attempted murder, murder and robbery, double murder, quadruple murder and quintuple murder. One victim was lynched for allegedly attacking three white women in one afternoon, the story says.

In the case of R.T. Rogers, one of three whites lynched in 1906, the mob chartered a train from Monroe, La., to Tallulah. His case had been in the courts for two years and eight months on charges that he killed a business rival.

J.V. Johnson, a white man, was lynched in North Carolina while awaiting a new trial after the jury deadlocked on whether he was guilty of killing his brother.

The third white man, Lawrence Leberg, “a tramp,” was hanged from a telephone pole in Las Animas, Colo., for allegedly killing a farmer who had befriended him.

“One victim was shot and the corpse burned; two were shot while they cowered in their cells, the mobs firing from outside the prisons; four were hanged and burned; two hanged and shot; 21 shot in the open; and 42 hanged,” The Times says, leaving us to wonder about the final victim.

There is no further information on the woman who was lynched.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

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.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Note to "Dahlia Avenger" Fans

Here’s a publicity still of “Maddy” Comfort from “Kiss Me Deadly” for sale on EBay. Her name is also spelled “Mattie” and “Mady.”

Comfort is referred to in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s files on George Hodel. Investigators checking on his possible involvement in the Black Dahlia murder discovered two photos of her, one by herself in which she is nude and another in which she and George Hodel are holding a cat.

When shown the photos, Hodel’s former wife Dorothy was unable to identify the model. But she is identified elsewhere in the district attorney’s files as “Mattie Comfort, 4028 W. 28th St. RE 2-0207 HO 4-0266.”

By the way, the woman in one of the photos that Steve Hodel claims shows Elizabeth Short has positively been identified as Marya Marco a.k.a. Maria San Marco. Just as I’ve been saying from Day One. I don’t read Steve Hodel’s website, but people who do informed me that Hodel says Marco recognized herself in publicity photos about the case and contacted him. As with all the important witnesses in “Avenger,” she is given a phony a name.

Here's another picture of Comfort in a screen grab from "Kiss Me Deadly."



And another photo for sale on EBay:




Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

In the Line of Duty

Dec. 3, 1907
Los Angeles

Officer Patrick Lyons had been on the force for four months when he was shot in the head while trying to arrest two robbers a little after 11 p.m. at Central Avenue and 14th Street.

There’s no picture of him in The Times, and news stories say nothing about his past or his family. His superiors at University Station said the 30-year-old officer, who lived at 720 E. 5th St., had previously worked as a special patrolman and was “a most promising young policeman.” We know far more about the killer, Daniel Meskil, and his companion, Rolla Robe. They had barely met before they began the holdups that would climax in Lyons’ death.

Meskil arrived from Chicago a month earlier and had just rented a room at 933 S. Broadway when he shot himself in the left hand trying to catch a heavy revolver he knocked off a table. At the Receiving Hospital, doctors amputated portions of his index finger and thumb.

Investigation showed that Meskil had been the terror of the Nebraska town where he had grown up, inflicting violence on his family. He was frequently in trouble with the law and had served time in reform school. Meskil said he once killed a man by knocking the victim down a cliff, simply because he felt like it. A few days before the slaying, Officer Roller had searched Meskil because he looked suspicious. “For that I made up my mind to kill you just as soon as I got an easy chance,” Meskil said during his trial.

Robe, a union plasterer, said he met Meskil on Nov. 30 at the Arizona poolroom on Main, which served as the union hall. Meskil asked him to have a drink “and we went out and had several drinks, eight or 10, and Meskil paid for them because I was broke,” Robe said.

“Meskil seemed to have plenty of money and said he got it by holding people up, and that the Los Angeles police were easy, and he asked me to join him in getting a place that night and said I need not be seen. I told him I was not in that business but at last I said I would join him as I was broke.”

More drinks followed, and Meskil went into Hoegee’s hardware store, where he bought an old Colt Bisley .45 with an outdated box of black powder cartridges. Then they went to hold up Gerleman’s market at 813 S. Central Ave., where Robe used to work, only to be run off when the owner’s daughter yelled “Here come two policemen!”

The men fled in the market’s horse-drawn wagon, which they crashed trying to avoid a streetcar, then went to a winery at 14th and Central. In scooping money from the cash drawer, Robe scattered dimes all over the floor and Meskil forced him to pick up the money, saying: “Damn you; if you do a job like that again I’ll kill you.”

Lyons was standing across the street and saw the men. Winery owner Arthur Grosser said he heard Lyons order: “Throw up your hands. Give me that gun or I’ll kill you.” As Lyons searched Robe, Meskil drew the Colt .45 and shot the officer. Grosser said he saw Lyons “lying on the sidewalk with a gaping wound in his forehead, one eye shot out and the blood was running in a thin stream to the gutter.” The men fled, although Robe was quickly captured.

During the autopsy, investigators recovered fragments of the bullet, which shattered when it hit Lyons’ skull. By weight, police determined that it was too heavy to have been from Robe’s .38, but had been fired from a .45. Because of the old, caked grease on the bullet fragments, investigators determined that it was an obsolete military cartridge and soon located receipts from the sale at Hoegee’s store, the only place in town where such ammunition was sold. A search was begun for a man missing a left index finger and thumb.

Walking his beat the next day, Officer Anthony Connelly noticed a suspicious stranger watching a game of checkers in a poolroom at 7th Street and Central. Making sure he had his pistol ready, Connelly asked to see the man’s left hand, which was in a pocket. “What the hell business is it of yours?” the man asked.

As soon as Connelly pulled out the man’s left hand, Miskel drew a pistol and the men fought, but Connelly was able to jam his hand against the hammer of the gun so that it wouldn’t fire. “Billiard cues were scattered about the room and everything breakable had been broken,” The Times said. Meskil’s fight for his life ended when Connelly yelled at one of the men to help and someone cracked Meskil on the head with a pool cue.

The men were convicted of Lyons’ murder. Robe was sentenced to life in prison and Meskil was sent to the gallows. It was sometimes thought that Meskil would undergo a jailhouse conversion as he was frequently visited by gospel singers and ministers. “One day a preacher asked Meskil to pray with him in the jail office,” The Times said. “They both got down on their knees and the murderer arose with tears streaming down his face.”

“I never heard about that before,” Meskil said. “And that is as near conversion as he ever got,” The Times said.

At San Quentin, Meskil became known as one of the hardest and toughest men, often attacking his cellmates. There were the usual appeals and for a time it looked like Meskil would not be executed. But then a final date was set.

Before he could be hanged, Meskil tried to commit suicide by escaping from his cell and jumping from the roof. He spent the last months of his life dying by inches in constant pain with “tuberculosis of the spine” as a result of breaking his back.

“He shrieks in agony until given opiates,” The Times says.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Slaughter of the Innocent

Nov. 23, 1907
South Pasadena

Warning: This is a grotesque, tragic story with graphic details.

Pasadena Detective Wallace H. Copping is investigating the murder of a young baby boy, whose half-eaten body was found in a pigpen on the Berry ranch in South Pasadena.

Authorities say the boy, weighing about 14 pounds and less than 10 days old (yes, quite a large baby by today's standards), was discovered by Mrs. J.H. Anderson, whose husband leases the ranch. Apparently Mr. Anderson picked up the baby’s body as he made the rounds of about 20 homes gathering garbage to feed his pigs.

After the garbage was dumped into the pigpen, Mrs. Anderson “was surprised at the uproar among the swine and investigated.”

“To her horror, she saw the nude body of a baby, with the legs eaten away above the knees and the right arm torn away.” The Times said: “Mrs. Anderson risked her life to rush in and rescue the body of the infant.” Further investigation showed that the baby boy had been struck in the head with a hatchet.

Police dug through the debris, gathering anything that would identify the source of the garbage, and accompanied Anderson as he retraced his route, making inquiries at each home. The body was put on display at a local mortuary, with police taking the names of the hundreds of people who came in an unsuccessful attempt to identify the boy.

Police theorized that the mother had entrusted the baby to the father, who killed the boy rather than find it a loving home. Given the sensational publicity, they hoped that she would recognize the baby’s description and contact authorities. But unfortunately, The Times has nothing further about this case.

Bonus fact: Wallace H. Copping, a Spanish War veteran, died in 1949, at the age of 75.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) blogspot.com

The Murderous Mother

Nov. 21, 1907
Los Angeles

The woman who threw her baby from an inbound train was arrested at her mother’s home at 12^th Street and San Pedro after the girl's nurse contacted authorities, saying that she read about the incident in the newspaper and suspected the woman because she took the baby on a trip while leaving all the infant’s clothes at home.

Louise [or Louisa] Williams, who is in custody in San Bernardino, says the baby’s father “is a worthless mulatto, sometimes employed as a porter on the Salt Lake Overland trains,” according to The Times.

Despite initial reports that a passenger saw the infant thrown from the train and leaped off to rescue her, The Times says that the baby girl was found by a tramp who contacted Mr. Mattock, a nearby rancher. Mattock was afraid to move the injured baby without official permission, so left her there until he could contact police.

Mattock took the baby to his home, but she died of her injuries shortly after a doctor arrived.

On Feb. 19, 1908, Louise Williams pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Cramer B. Morris, her attorney, noted that Williams was only 17 and said she threw the baby off the train because “she was suddenly overwhelmed with the shame of meeting her mother and sisters at Los Angeles, who had not learned of her ruin.”

On March 2, 1908, Williams was sentenced to five years in San Quentin, despite testimony that she was mentally unstable. “After sentence was pronounced, women in the courtroom broke into heartbroken cries, but the girl smiled, apparently unaffected, The Times said.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Fatal Fury

Nov. 16, 1907
Los Angeles

Mrs. Amanda Cook (she is also identified as Jennie and Mary) came to Los Angeles from Boston in 1906 with two of her children in search of her husband, Frederick, a union plasterer and bricklayer. She advertised in the newspapers without success and finally took a job as a cook at the Juvenile Detention Home.

Persuaded by her cousin to seek a divorce, she hired attorney George W. MacKnight, who sought out her errant husband and began divorce proceedings.

One day, after being threatened with divorce, Frederick appeared at the juvenile home and upon seeing his wife, said: “What the hell did you come out here for? Why didn’t you stay with your folks in Boston?”

At his office, MacKnight attempted a reconciliation. When asked if he thought he should support his children, Frederick said: “Yes, but I blow in my money with the boys and cannot save a dollar for the kids.”

Frederick said he didn’t want to get a divorce, so MacKnight asked Amanda if she would take her husband back. “Fred, you know I’ll do that in a minute,” she said. Frederick agreed to rent a house for them as long as MacKnight dropped the case—but the lawyer refused until Frederick made good on his promise.

As soon as the Cooks got into the hallway, Frederick said: “Do you think I’m going to be damn fool enough to support you and those kids?”

His wife replied: “Oh, Fred, you don’t mean that. Why, you just promised to take us back and get a little house for us all together.”

“Well,” Frederick replied, “if you don’t make the lawyer of yours dismiss this case I’ll kill you and him and the judge, too, and if the bum police ever catch me, I’ll kill myself.”

Amanda got a divorce, telling her lawyer: “I’m not afraid of him because he has threatened to cut my throat or blow out my brains a thousand times.”

Frederick began plotting to kill her. His first idea was to murder her at juvenile hall by shooting through a hole he cut in a screen, but he fled after being caught putting a pistol in the opening.

The next idea was far more cunning. A champion roller-skater,

Frederick went to a hairdresser on South Broadway, where he bought a false mustache and had his hair dyed, explaining that he was so well known in roller contests that he was prevented from entering.

On Aug. 27, 1906, he found Amanda on the fast streetcar from Santa Monica, sat next to her and shot her in the forehead, then stood up and shot her twice more. Several passengers grappled with him and got the gun, but Frederick swung free of the moving streetcar “near the Hammel and Denker ranch,” The Times said, and escaped.

Amanda’s bloody body was left between the seats as the car completed its rounds, slowly sliding down until “only the pathetic, shabby little shoes stuck out into the aisle to haunt those who made that terrible ride,” The Times said.

Frederick surrendered a year later in Fort Worth, Texas, claiming the shooting was authorized by “unwritten law” because he caught his wife with another man.

In 1908, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison at San Quentin. As for the Cooks’ three children (an older child had been left with relatives in Boston) no record can be found.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

A Man Ray Jigsaw Puzzle

The Detroit News has published an article on book dealer John K. King, who is offering “Man Ray: Photographs 1920-1934 Paris” inscribed by Man Ray to Dr. George Hodel. The book sold Sept. 14, 2006, for $4,600 in an auction by PBA Galleries.


King is offering it for $8,500. Not a bad profit. Of course it would be worth even more if Man Ray had said something incriminating like, “In fond memory of our murderous little rampage across Los Angeles, you evil genius, you.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

Solve this as a jigsaw puzzle.

Nine out of Ten

Oct. 14, 1907
Los Angeles

“In nine cases out of ten, where there is a shooting, there is also a woman,” said The Times.

In this case, there was Oscar E. Otto, a young chauffeur with a hot temper and a gun. There was his 19-year-old wife, the former Irene E. Jester, “a silly little creature with futile tears and French heels.” And there was J.C. Henderson, another chauffeur with a gun and better aim or more luck.

Untangling the story of this fatal triangle—at least it was a triangle in the mind of Mr. Otto if no one else—is difficult, in part because of the charges and countercharges and partly because the presses weren’t properly inked and much of the text is faint.

But a few things seem clear: In May, about the time of the Ottos’ first anniversary, Henderson was hired to take a man and two women from the Saxonia apartments to Fred Ward’s roadhouse on Mission Road, otherwise known as the East Side Athletic Club.

“Both women were introduced to him as single women and it was not until their return to the city, when one of the women refused to ride down Pico Street, that Henderson suspected she was married,” The Times said.

The next day, Henderson said, he received a phone call from Mrs. Otto, asking to meet him on Main Street. He said he barely recognized her because her face was swollen from a vicious beating. She asked him for $10 ($205.24 USD 2005), explaining that after her husband beat her, he ripped up her clothes and threw her out of the house.

Sometime later, she barged into Henderson’s hotel room and darted into a closet, claiming that her husband was out to kill her. Mr. Otto, although he was a smaller man, followed and beat Henderson viciously.

Of course, Mr. Otto had a different story. He sued Henderson for alienation of affection in August, charging that his wife and Henderson had gone for many long drives, and visited resorts and cafes, where his wife “drank intoxicating liquors to excess,” The Times said.

Since then, witnesses at the murder trial said, Otto had talked constantly of revenge. On the night of the killing, a friend said, the two of them had gone for a drive to East 9th Street and Tennessee, where Otto said he had an appointment with a man.

Finding Henderson (at right) at the garage at 9th and Tennessee, Otto said: “There’s the _______,” according to The Times. Although it was too dark to see much, the friend said, he noticed a man backing away from Otto, who cried out: “I am shot!” Otto ran back to the car, drove almost two blocks and collapsed, saying, “Get a doctor.”

Henderson testified that he had been driving down Broadway when Otto jumped on the running board and threatened to kill him before jumping off at 9th Street. Henderson said he took his car to the garage on Tennessee Street and spent about 15 minutes putting it away when Otto arrived.

As Otto jumped out of his car, Henderson said, he saw a flash of light and was sure that Otto had fired at him. He was afraid to run because Otto might shoot him in the back, so Henderson stood with his hand on the pistol in his pocket until Otto got close.

“He called out as he came near and as I kept backing away, ‘Pull it out, you _______. That’s just what I want. Pull it out,’ ” Henderson said.

“I backed as far as I could, and then, as he reached out his left hand and struck me on the face, I fired. I did not dare to take my hand away from my gun as I thought it was his intention to provoke me into doing so and that then he would shoot me.”

“I did not think that I had hit him and it was not until he had run back to within 15 feet of his auto that I heard him say, ‘I’m shot.’ Still, I thought he had only been hit slightly. I did not fire but once as I was satisfied when I saw him retreat.”

The jury in Henderson’s murder trial returned a verdict in two minutes: Not guilty.

And in an intriguing but unexplained footnote to the story, shortly before he died, Otto asked to see Miss Jossie Golman. She said he was nothing to her but a friend and refused to go.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

2 Die in Tong War

Oct. 13, 1907
Los Angeles

Gunmen imported from out of town by the Hop Sing Tong entered the tailor shop of Lem Sing at 806 Juan St. in Chinatown and under the pretense of having some clothing made, wounded him when he turned to reach for some material. The men also killed Wong Goon Kor, who was, according to The Times, “lying in a bunk under the influence of opium.”

The three fleeing men threw away their revolvers as they ran down Marchesault Street, through Stab in the Back Alley to Apablasa Street, where they got into a vegetable wagon that took them away.

But apparently unfamiliar with Chinatown, the gunmen went into the wrong business, mistaking it for the shop at 802 Juan St. run by Joe Fong.

At the hospital, Sing told police: “I owe Chan Mon money. He asked me for it today. Then he sent Deputy Constable McCullock to collect it. I could not pay. Then three Hop Sing Tong men came to my store and asked for clothes. When I turned around, they shot me and my tailor. I fell upon the floor and remember no more until I was brought in here.

“One of the men was about 20 years old, had no queue and was about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and wore American clothes. The second man was about 30 years old and had chin whiskers, and the third man was about 43 years old and wore a queue. He did the shooting.”

Gravely wounded, Sing died the next day after identifying three men as the assailants, although his statement was questioned because he had previously identified three different men.

A few days later, an arraignment was held for Charley Wing of Portland, Ore., a man of mixed ancestry described by The Times as “a man of good education, speaks English fluently and is a power among the yellow men. His hair is brown, his mustache light brown and there is but little appearance of the Oriental in his makeup. In court yesterday, he looked more like some student of theology than like a murderous highbinder.”

Charges were also filed against Charley Sam Foo Ling, known as “the Bakersfield Kid,” and Wong Chung.

The Times noted: “Chinese tong men yesterday buried the dead tong gladiators. From the Pierce Brothers’ morgue, a dismal procession wended its way to the Chinese Cemetery in Boyle Heights. There, the Chinese were interred, money being thrown into the caskets, together with food and paper prayers to see them safe on their journey to heaven.

“On top of the grave, other food was placed to attract the attention of evil spirits lingering near. The chief dish was a fine roast chicken. As soon as the Chinese left the cemetery, evil spirits in the form of barefooted Negro youngsters swarmed down upon the grave and carried off the roast fowl as a prize.”

Historic details like that are certainly vivid, and it’s nice to have them, but they make me wince at the same time.

Unfortunately, there is no further information on the three defendants in the tong killing.

Bonus fact: Apablasa Street was named for the owner of the rancho where the original Chinatown (now the site of Union Station) was built.

Read the Marsakster’s posts on the tong war here and here and here.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

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
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

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