| The Naked City | Nov 27 2021 |
For as long as you both shall live—or until you try to murder each other.
We never cease to be amazed by how much access mid-century news photographers had to crime scenes. These photos made today in 1953 by a Los Angeles Examiner lensman show what we mean. Married couple William and Estelle Walker had checked into a motel on West 9th Street in Los Angeles, and at some point a domestic spat caused someone, possibly the motel manager, to call the cops. Police arrived to find that the Walkers, those impetuous lovebirds, had both gotten stabby. We don't know who picked up a knife first, but it sure looks like William got the worst of it. He has a head cut that makes you wonder if Estelle was aiming for his eyes. We don't know who was to blame for the fight, but regardless, you have to feel for them both that their bad day was captured on film. Good thing they had no idea digital technology would help the entire world see it a lifetime later. They'd have died of embarrassment.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 29 2021 |
Chandler's Los Angeles is dark day and night.
We're still marveling over Sandro Symeoni's cover work for Ace Books. Each is better than the next. The one above isn't signed, but it's him for sure—well, we think so. It's a beautiful street scene for Raymond Chandler's Pick-Up on Noon Street, not a novel but an anthology of medium length stories originally published in pulp magazines during the 1930s. The collection, comprising four tales set in Los Angeles, first came out in 1950, with this Ace edition appearing in 1960.
The title story was originally published in 1936 as “Noon Street Nemesis” and deals with an undercover narc named Pete Anglish, who accidentally becomes involved in kidnapping and human trafficking. The story is unique because it's set partly in L.A's African American community and it doesn't traffic in the disparaging terminology you usually find under such circumstances. There are good guys and bad guys of all types, with no particular weight given to their backgrounds. It's also a good tale.
In 1935's “Nevada Gas” the title refers to cyanide gas, which comes into play in a specially modified limousine two killers use to execute an unfortunate in the back seat. A Los Angeles tough guy with the excellent name Johnny De Ruse learns that the car was an exact duplicate of the murdered man's actual limousine, which he then entered with no clue the ride would be his last. That's a lot of effort to kill a man, and it intrigues De Ruse greatly, but his curiosity draws the attention of several lethal characters.
In 1934's “Smart-Aleck Kill” a tough Tinseltown detective named Johnny Dalmas tries to solve a murder the cops think was a suicide. The victim was a director of smut movies, but the reasons for his death have to do with something else entirely, and Dalmas has to dodge bullets and overcome duplicity to solve the case.
In 1936's “Guns at Cyrano's” a detective-turned-hotelier named Ted Carmady finds a beautiful blonde who's been knocked out in one of his rooms, and lets his protectiveness lead him into the world of gangsters and fixed prizefights. Cyrano's is a nightclub where the blonde works as a dancer, and where Carmady gets neck deep in murder.
Of the four stories, we liked “Nevada Gas” the best because the character of De Ruse was the most interesting and resourceful, but the leads are all similar—all are basically cousins of Philip Marlowe, kicking ass and taking names in an L.A. rife with hustlers, thugs, wise-ass cops, and corrupt one percenters. If you think of Pick-Up on Noon Street as a sort of Marlowe sampler plate, it should certainly do the job of making you hungry for the main course.
Of the four stories, we liked “Nevada Gas” the best because the character of De Ruse was the most interesting and resourceful, but the leads are all similar—all are basically cousins of Philip Marlowe, kicking ass and taking names in an L.A. rife with hustlers, thugs, wise-ass cops, and corrupt one percenters. If you think of Pick-Up on Noon Street as a sort of Marlowe sampler plate, it should certainly do the job of making you hungry for the main course.
| Hollywoodland | Oct 25 2021 |
L.A. residents turn out in droves for a flower show.
Above is a photo of legendary burlesque dancer Lili St. Cyr shot at Ciro's in Hollywood today in 1951. St. Cyr was always controversial, but her performances at that particular locale got her into hot water in the form of an obscenity bust, as we noted a while back. Cops thought she had gone fully nude. It remains an open question whether she did. We even left it open in a detailed post we wrote about the arrest. But if pressed, we'd say she did show it all. We think so not because of any contemporary accounts, which are contradictory, but merely because in the old novels we've read young burlesque dancers had little choice when starting out, and established dancers would do it to start rumors, and thus lure more people to their shows. Generally, in these fictional accounts when they dropped their g-strings, they did it an eyeblink before the stage lights went dark. Almost too fast too see. One character who did this in a novel even aspired to be as good and popular as St. Cyr, so we kind of think if all these authors wrote full nudity as plot devices maybe it was because peelers—including Lili—showed their lillies in real life. But since nobody ever caught it on film, we'll never know for sure.
| The Naked City | Sep 26 2021 |
You're the lawyer, not me, but listen—I have an idea for a defense strategy. First, let me introduce my mother-in-law.
The above photo from the University of Southern California archive of Los Angeles Examiner crime photos shows an L.A. homemaker named Karen Jacobsen in the midst of a pre-trial conference with public defendant Victor S. Baker today in 1961. Jacobsen needed a lawyer for the most important of reasons—to beat a murder charge. She had stabbed her husband Lawrence to death while they were in his car. She said it happened after a terrorizing ride, and claimed it was in self defense of both herself and her two daughters. She was arrested but freed on bail, and this conference occurred during her pre-trial release period.
When she was tried later in the year a jury acquitted her, but we knew that before even reading about the trial, and you wanna know how? That's her mother-in-law Edith sitting next to her in the photo below, offering emotional support. Her attorney: “Your honor, I'd like to enter into evidence defense exhibit A, the deceased's mom, who's obviously fine with his death, so, like... defense rests.” If your own mom isn't in your corner when your killer is on trial, forget it. Probably Lawrence never visited her, so she'd been thinking of him for years as dead already.
Los AngelesUniversity of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles ExaminerKaren JacobsenLawrence Jacobsenmurder
| The Naked City | Aug 28 2021 |
Two mafia pals split the bill.
In our continuing focus on Los Angeles crime scene photos, above you see a shot of a mob hit on two unidentified gangsters who met their end over spaghetti dinners in an Italian restaurant booth. The worst part? They barely even got started on their meals and didn't get a chance to touch the crackers at all. That was today in 1933. Most of the crime scene photos we have are within our Naked City category, which you can access by clicking those words in yellow just above the title of this post.
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 19 2021 |
Dick Powell faces a clear and present danger.
Italian artist Giorgio Olivetti painted this poster for Nei bassifondi di Los Angeles, which was made in the U.S. and better known as Cry Danger. It starred the always excellent Dick Powell, with Rhonda Fleming in support. Its Italian title means, rather uninspiringly, “in the the slums of Los Angeles,” but the poster has inspiration to spare. It eclipses the U.S. promo completely. You can see that here, as well as read about the film. Nei bassifondi di Los Angeles premiered in Italy today in 1953.
ItalyNei bassifondi di Los AngelesCry DangerGiorgio OlivettiDick PowellRhonda Flemingposter artcinemafilm noir
| Hollywoodland | Aug 7 2021 |
You know, young lady, I used to have one exactly like that but I used it so much it eventually wore out.
This is a rather amusing shot of professional celebrity, sometime actress, and buttcrack innovator Vikki Dougan's caboose being checked out by an older woman at a Los Angeles social event. You know the story by now. Aspiring star Dougan and her agent were looking for a way to garner publicity, and because so many actresses were wearing low cut dresses that showed cleavage, they cooked up the scheme of having Dougan appear in public with dresses that were low cut in the rear. Thus her nickname: the Back. These dresses would at moments even dip to buttcrack level, which was scandalous, but effective in terms of getting Dougan's name into the tabloids. She soon had the most famous back—and crack—in Hollywood. And of course who can forget the time she showed her girlfur? We certainly can't. The above shot has been nicely colorized, and dates from 1957. Many sites say 1956, but it's part of a photo series made by lensman Ralph Crane for Life magazine and published in ’57. We have an uncolorized shot, slightly different (notice the interested woman isn't wearing glasses in that one) below. We'll have more from Miss Dougan soon.
| The Naked City | Jul 30 2021 |
Hello? Hello? Are you still there? What was that loud thump? Hmph. The line's gone dead.
We get nearly all our crime scene shots from the USC digital archive, but today we have a different source. This one comes from the Los Angeles Police Museum and shows a man named Raymond Gross, who died today in 1953 after overdosing on barbiturates. The shot is unusual because, as you can see, he died while talking on the phone. Gross had gotten the drugs by prescription to alleviate pain caused by a brutal beatdown he'd received months earlier at the hands of a sailor named Lee Roy Collins. Collins broke Gross's nose, jaw, and inflicted a subdural hematoma. The two had met out on the town, Gross invited Collins back to his apartment, and at some point the encounter became violent. Possibly Collins always intended to beat and rob Gross, or he got the idea after a disagreement. In any case, police were able to find Collins thanks to evidence he'd dropped while fleeing. He was arrested and tried for the beating, but acquitted. That's no surprise. Gross was gay, and beating a gay man was not really considered a crime in 1953. Collins may have been gay too, but you can be sure his story in court was that Gross made a shocking and unexpected sexual overture. Back then a story like that would have been like using a get-out-of-jail-free card. Months later, still taking pain pills because of that violent attack, Gross ended up the way you see him above. Suicide? Accident? That remains unknown.
| The Naked City | Jul 23 2021 |
You can pull a man from water but you can't make him breathe.
And in contrast to Yôko Azusa, who's very adept in water, here you see a photo of someone who didn't fare well in that medium. This shot shows cops fishing drowning victim John Ray Thompson from MacArthur Park Lake in Los Angeles today in 1951. This is another curious and macabre discovery from the digital archives of the Los Angeles Examiner. Such imagery fascinates us because this type of news content, now unseen in the U.S., was prevalent in Central America when we lived there. We assume it still is. It was known as nota roja, basically “red reports,” essentially, if it bleeds it leads. The Thompson photo shows no blood, but the principle is the same. We have no idea how he drowned. Whether by accident, suicide, or murder, that information doesn't appear anywhere online that we looked, and might not have been printed back in ’51 either. Examiner photographers shot rolls of film every week, and editors picked the best photos for the paper. There's no guarantee an item on Thompson's death ever ran. But however he drowned, it was a bad ending.
| Hollywoodland | Jul 17 2021 |
Ready, aim, when the concession manager bends over we all nail him in the ass.
Today in 1955 the soon-to-be global tourist attraction Disneyland debuted to 28,000 invited guests, media, and assorted celebrities on hand to lend a bit of glitz to the kitsch. Stars who were present included Eddie Fisher, who hosted the festivities, Debbie Reynolds, Danny Thomas, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Art Linkletter, Irene Dunne, Jeff Chandler, Eve Arden, Marilyn Maxwell, George Gobel, Margaret Whiting, Gale Storm, Charlton Heston, and many more. The above photo shows, left to right, Adelle August, Steve Rowland, and Kathleen Case enjoying the air rifle attraction, and Case in particular must have been a hell of a shot, firing away from the hard-to-master seated position. No word on whether any of the trio won a prize, but we doubt it. On the other hand, considering the congestion and the mess 28,000 people can make maybe the prize was being allowed to the front of every line and having a celebrity potty watched over by a furry mascot wielding a mop and bucket. We aren't sure how long Case and Co. hung around—it was 101 degrees Fahrenheit that day and the water fountains weren't functioning—but it looks like they went above and beyond the call of publicity. If we had to guess, though, we'd say they left immediately after Case felt the monkey's warm anus on her bare shoulder.
Los AngelesAnaheimDisneylandAdelle AugustSteve RowlandKathleen CaseEddie FisherDebbie ReynoldsDanny ThomasOzzie NelsonHarriet NelsonArt LinkletterIrene DunneJeff ChandlerEve ArdenMarilyn MaxwellGeorge GobelMargaret WhitingGale StormCharlton HestonWalt Disney
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