Drowning – 1947 Project

Cupid’s Arrows Bent

October 9, 1927
Ventura County and Beverly Hills

Two stories from today’s paper prove yet again that the course of true love rarely runs smoothly. The first comes from Las Turas Lake (now Lake Sherwood) at Las Turas Country Club, where W.T. Verry, Jr. narrowly escaped death this afternoon when his friends finally figured out that what they thought were flirtatious gestures between Verry and a pretty miss on the pier were actually "frantic signals for aid" from a drowning man. Verry was pulled from the lake by J.E. Bower and revived by artificial respiration.

Meanwhile, 23-year-old Grace Dawson today resumed planning her Tia Juana wedding, cancelled because the bride was in County Jail when she was scheduled to walk down the aisle. Several days ago, detectives searching the Beverly Hills residence of bootlegger and narcotics kingpin "Black Tony" Parmagini turned up an address. A squad under Chief George Contreras then proceeded to 201 South McCarthy Drive where they found Miss Dawson, 25-year-old Alice Gray, and another young woman (who jumped out of Contreras’s automobile at a traffic light on Sunset Boulevard), along with sixty-five cases of mixed whiskies and other liquors. Dawson and Gray were booked for violation of the Wright Act before being released on bail of $1000 each.

Wanderlust At Sea

manfound! October 7, 1927
Long Beach

Between Christ’s wanderings in the deserts of Jericho, and Kidder’s huddlings in the gardens of Glendale, there was Robert Sankey.

Sankey, 44, a prominent Riverside contractor, was in a splendid mood September seventh last; he had no domestic or financial troubles, and bid his lovely wife and 13 year-old daughter goodbye that morning in his home at 270 Bandini Avenue before a trip to Laguna Beach. He made it to Laguna Beach, and picked up $12,000 ($132,359 USD2006) in cash which he had been paid by the Colton School Board for the construction of Colton High School.

Sankey then told friends he was going for a swim, and left his bag, clothing, glasses and shoes at a hotel near the beach. From there he disappeared…the sea was dragged repeatedly for his body, but to no avail. Had the briny deep swallowed Sankey? And what became of the money? And what’s this?—a few days ago, some Sankey acquaintance came forth and reported having seen Sankey on a Seattle-bound boat a day or two after the disappearance.

Today, Mrs. Paul McKenzie peered nervously through the window of her home at 4010 Massachusetts, Long Beach. There was a dazed, raggedy man wandering aimlessly up and down in front of her house for the better part of two hours. When she got up the nerve to confront the torn and tattered stranger, all a-jibber-jabberin’ to himself, it was, you guessed it, her brother, Robert Sankey. Oh no, he insisted, I’m Andrew Borg.

Well, the Borg, I mean Sankey, had only $500 left (in checks issued by a Seattle bank) of the twelve grand, and even less of an idea as to where he’d been or what he’d done. He could only confirm that his clothes had been given to him by “the skipper,” and that he’d been to sea in a small boat with two men and a woman.

Further investigation revealed that Sankey recently boarded the steamer Evanger at San Francisco (booking passage to Buenos Aires as “Andrew Borg, grain dealer, Witchita, Kan.”), but put ashore at San Pedro the day he reappeared in Long Beach.

Sankey remains in his Borgian state at Seaside hospital, where Riverside county authorities are vexed with Seaside staff; the Sheriff is itching to serve two warrants on Sankey, each charging sixteen counts of violating the State wage law, but the pesky physicians demand that officers wait ‘til Sankey’s physical condition permits such activity.

Whether amnesia or grift, please bear in mind…steer clear of small boats, and beware "the skipper."

theskipper!

Now in Phantomscreen

June 29, 1927
near Cordova, Alaska

Hollywood death came to the far north today, in the loss of stuntman Ray Thompson, 29, a player in a white water rapids stunt gone wrong on the roaring Copper River in remote Abercrombie Canyon. Thompson was on location for the new M-G-M picture Trail of ’98, starring the fiery Dolores del Rio, under the direction of assistant director Harry Schenck. Numerous small boats were in the stream packed with stuntmen and cameramen shooting a thrilling scene of Gold Rush-era peril, when Thompson and F.H. Daughters of Spokane fell into the water. Joseph Bautin of Juneau jumped in to try to save the men, and joined them in death; his was the only body recovered. Also in the water that day, stunt man Gordon Craveth, who managed to swim to shore.

Motion Picture News previewed the film and its innovative projection technique, but made no mention of the blood shed in its production:

"A big picture, easily of roadshow size, and big because of spectacular sequences this is our opinion on The Trail of ’98, directed by Clarence Brown for M-G-M. More pointedly, it is a presentation of the right sort, by which we mean that the presentation is the picture itself, through the "Fantomscreen," of which more later.

As to the artistic greatness of The Trail of ’98, we don’t know. Who does? But big at the box-office it will certainly be, unless we miss our guess.

The story is the Klondike Gold Rush, and is of epic dimensions. The cast- Dolores del Rio, Ralph Forbes, Tully Marshall, Karl Dane, Harry Carey, George Cooper, and others- is, excellent, with Carey in the forefront as to honors, and Dane and Cooper mostly carrying the

The frenzied rush to the Klondike from all corners of America, and what happened to the individual in his or her fight against the perils of the North, form the story background.

The handling of the characters in this screen version of the Robert W. Service story is dwarfed by the spectacular features. These are four in number: a breath-taking snowslide; the running of the rapids in frail boats; the Chilkoot Pass stuff, with big panorama shots; and the burning of Dawson City.

For the snowshoe sequence, the screen is suddenly enlarged to twice normal size, and moved down to the curtain-line. The effect is, of course, electrifying and carries a big punch. The same method is used with the running of the rapids, a remarkable spectacle. The "Fantomscreen" device, which moves the screen forward or back without interrupting the picture, is a great piece of show manship.

The picture will be roadshowed by J.J. McCarthy, who handled the six great roadshows of the industry’s history: The Birth of A Nation, Way Down East, The Ten Commandments, The Covered Wagon, The Big Parade, Ben Hur."

Flood World

May 6, 1927
Coolidge America

Let’s keep abreast of the rising waters, shall we? The men in top-hats and diamond stick-pins are upset that cotton and cotton related goods are on the downswing, and the decline of trade/farmwork/rail freight is destroying the country, and the dollar is weakening.

Of course, the less elaborately garbed cannot muster quite the concern:

floodworld

But enterprising folk around Memphis have begun erecting tree houses in the great cottonwoods and willows, where they build their stills to keep a thirsty populace sated. Sheriff Knight has seized a dozen giant hooch-hatcheries from the treetops, placed there by ingenious bootleggers.

Here in the southland, the Orange County Fruit Exchange began sending citrus, and the stars came out to raise 125g’s (1,475,000 USD2005).

dempseyandthewaters

Wither Sim Cross?

April 27, 1927
Los Angeles

Sim Cross is alive, ALIVE! The Los Angeles man, resident of 4195 Third Avenue, was believed a suicide by pals after a full suit of clothes but the underpants were found on the beach at Redondo on April 19. Mugs were raised, his good and bad points debated, and perhaps the pals even parcelled out his nicest ties among them. But on the 21st there came a telegram, signed Sim and sent from San Francisco, announcing that reports of his demise were not to be believed.

In time, he returned home, bearing a singularly peculiar tale. The last thing he remembered, see, he was fighting a riptide. And then, inky darkness. He came to 48 hours later in an SF hotel room, with bruised feet and no idea how he got there. In the room, clothes and a suitcase he’d never seen before. He dressed, and stepped into the street, where two men accosted him. It was thanks to them, they said, that Sim was in this spot. And now all they needed was for him to take someone’s place in a hospital for a few more days and…

Here Sim drew the curtain over one of the most perfect descriptions of cliche detective’s peril as we’ve ever read. He claims that he simply demured and came home.

Was it all fantasy? Or did once there dwell strangely maleable hoodlums, who would conk a guy while he swam and spirit him away to play a part in a bandage opera, then let him go when he said he wasn’t in the mood? We’ll never know, for after this one extraordinary incident, Sim Cross vanished from the record, but never from our hearts.

No Mermaid She

April 10, 1927
Venice

It was motorist S.H. Henry who saw it first, bobbing in the Grand Canal with slow, horrible motions. He leaned in and saw a middle aged woman’s body, fully clothed save for her hat, bound round with rope. He ran for the cops. When they hauled her out, they found there were no ropes, but long strands of seaweed that had caught round the body as it floated through the gentle waterways.

A bruise on the brow suggested violence, but ultimately it was determined that the victim, Mrs. Margaret Kelly of Chicago, had killed herself after long despondency over ill health. Perhaps she vainly hoped the balmy winds and lovely vistas of Venice-by-the-Sea would sooth her worries. She had $207 cash when found, more than enough for her passage first to Sharp & Nolan undertakers (beachside specialists in these messy water cases), thence to Chicago and the afterlife.

A Bohemian Lazarus

June 6, 1906
Los Angeles

Last February Antone F. Lieblich, a well-off Bohemian of middle years, sold his property in Eudunda, near Franklin Harbour, Australia and sailed back home to Austria. He never made it. After going ashore in Genoa, Lieblich vanished, and when a man’s body washed up soon after, it was duly identified and Lieblich’s family informed of his passing. His property was split up, and the mourning for the long-lost kin commenced.

Until July, that is, when Lieblich’s Australian attorney received a letter from his client–return addressed 2416 East Ninth Street, Los Angeles–with instructions for a few final real estate transactions. The Australian police became interested, and made inquiries through the police of many nations, but the mysterious Herr Lieblich was nowhere to be found. The Los Angeles police visited the Ninth Street address, and learned that a man fitting Lieblich’s description had been staying there last July, but he had made no friends in the neighborhood, and no one knew where he had gone.

So look carefully about you, Los Angeles! That dark, well-built man with the slightly graying beard and the odd accent might just be Antone Lieblich, come out of his mossy grave and wondering where all his money’s gone!

One Less Sailor in Pedro

May 6, 1907
San Pedro

The British bark Falls of Gary arrived in San Pedro tonight, 144 days from Antwerp, journeying around the Horn to bring a load of cement to Los Angeles. An uneventful journey, except that they arrived one man short. James Milligan, cook and steward, had been drinking heavily before the vessel set off. At one day out he was put to bed by shipmates and when sought again, had vanished. The disappearance is being considered a suicide.

Not a shocking story in and of itself–but one must wonder: cement? Had Los Angeles not evolved to the point of discovering the wonders of water mixed with gypsum? Granted, I love Hassids and Quentin Metsys and Belgian chocolate, but what makes Flemish cement so precious that it must be imported here on three-masted vessels flying the flag of Edward VII?