Kim Cooper – Page 16 – 1947 Project

Noir City: Los Angeles vs New York at the American Cinematheque

The 8th Annual Festival of Film Noir is coming to the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian from April 12-May 2, and getting discount tix for the whole series is a fine reason to become a member. Each screening includes a film set in Los Angeles set against one in New York. What burg will be the winner in this battle of mood, nuance, betrayal and pain? I think you know where our bet is laid!

We’d like to especially pull your sleeve to the rare Leonard Maltin-introduced 35mm screening of He Walked By Night on April 22, based on the unbelievable-yet-true Erwin Walker case (more here)–as seen on our Halloween Horrors crime bus tour, where we share startling, little-known facts about the crime spree, graciously provided by Walker’s stepson. Sure, you can pick this public domain flick up on DVD at the 99 Cent Only Store, but you really want to see John Alton’s beautifully shot scenes of that L.A. River sewer escape bigger than life.

For more info on the Festival of Film Noir, please visit the series webpage. And do come by and say hello at the reception on opening night, April 12, when some of the 1947project gang will be in attendance to answer your questions about the upcoming Esotouric bus adventures, including the noir-heavy Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, and editor Denise Hamilton and contributors Jim Pascoe, Diana Wagman, Christopher Rice, Neal Pollack, Patt Morrison, Emory Holmes II, Gary Phillips, Lienna Silver and Naomi Hirahara will be on hand with copies of the brand new Los Angeles Noir anthology. This is the second of a slew of Los Angeles Noir events 1947project folks will be attending.

Innovation – Yay or Nay

April 3, 1927
America

The world is changing, sometimes for better, others for worse. In Chicago, the Western State Bank has responded to the concerns of its late night poker playing constituency by installing an ingenious device in the wall of their newest branch. This gadget permits an account holder to relieve himself of his attractive burden by way of a secure "cash chute," a heavily armored tube alarmed with electrical and radio wave protection, thus protecting his winnings from street thug or wife alike.

But in the nation’s capitol, the baggage handlers of the Union (Station) Transfer Company are crying poverty, blaming the flimsiness of fashionable ladies garb for the reduction in trunks being shipped ahead. Why, travelers simply stuff their wardrobes into suitcases and pack them in their cars! Accordingly, UTC is requesting permission to apply a rate increase to those sad saps who didn’t get the suitcase memo… but while they can gouge their customers, they can’t hold back the sands of time.

The Imaginary Friends of the Monkey Mask Bandit

March 30, 1927
Los Angeles

Afterwards, when they examined the attic, they found evidence that he’d hidden for days up there, nourishing his evil plans with a diet of orange juice and liquor, quietly scheming during banking hours, constructing his army of robot helpers after everyone went home.

Ah, yes, the robot helpers. These were artificial arms with toy guns in their “hands,” constructed with ropes and weights to smash through the ceiling of the Merchants’ National Trust and Savings Bank branch at 24th and Hoover just as the robber, clad in a hideous monkey mask, confronted his prey. Who would dare take on the robber while unseen, if strangely still, friends held the room at gunpoint?

And so it was that the robber, Luger in one hand and .22 in the other, held up Manager Philip Simon and five employees and relieved Simon of about $8400 in bills prepped for the day’s banking. He was hard to ID beneath the gruesome cheesecloth monkey mask covering the upper portion of his face, but his victims noted that he was a small man, with a distinctive jaw and thick foreign accent with which he called some of them by name, apparently having spied on the workers during his time above.

This was the second peculiar robbery to befall Merchants’ National in less than a week; on March 25, two cliche Old West cowboys armed with .45s ambled into the branch at Jefferson and San Pedro and courteously relieved the cash drawers of about $2000 after suggesting customers and staff find comfy spots on the floor.

As for our mad attic genius, he made a clean getaway, and his identity remained mysterious until November 2, 1929, when officers stopped a man named Pete Marzec (aka Pete Nanzec), 33, while he was walking near Seventeenth and Main. They asked if they could open his suitcase, and Marzec obliged, but around the time they pulled out his gun, rope ladder and mask collection, he made a dash for a nearby fence. He didn’t make it; a bullet through the gut sent him to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital in critical condition. Later, more burglary tools and guns were found in his room nearby at 1622 Santee Court.

Marzec recovered in time to be indicted on the 1927 job and an earlier bank robbery that netted $12,600. Despite the claims of a confederate that he was in Kansas City at the time of the crimes, Marzec was damned by the discovery of guns recognized by his victims, masks matching those worn in the robberies, and a notebook in which the dates and amounts taken from the banks was noted in Polish.

Marzec was a three time loser who as Michael Blevika had escaped from a New Mexico Prison in 1922, so his conviction came with a minimum sentence of 14 years in Folsom Prison. Superior Judge McComb, perhaps in recognition of the extra robbers unable to be tried for the crimes, doubled the sentence to 28.

Marzec appealed on the grounds that it was unfair to convict someone of both burglary and robbery for the same crime, but was denied, and shuffled off to prison, where we trust he built many imaginary friends to protect himself and keep off the lonelies in the long, dark nights.

Odd Masher Nabbed In Expo Park

March 29, 1927
Los Angeles

Busted in Exposition Park on a vagrancy charge after aggressively flirting with passing fillies, licensed chauffeur (read: cabby) Jerry McFarlane was dumped in the men’s tank at the Central Jail, where fellow inmates quickly noticed what booking officers had not: trash-talkin’ "Jerry" was actually Grace Kenny McFarlane, 22, blonde and biologically female.

She was promptly pulled from the cell and plopped in front of an L.A. Times photog, who snapped a pair of mirror image pix highlighting the two sides of fair McFarlane, and a reporter whose all-too-brief interview revealed the unique philosophy of the Jazz Age youth.

"It’s much more fun to be a man. Besides, I get along better, too, and the life is freer and easier." Except, of course, when it lands one in the pokey. "I wish I could get out and get back with the gang. I was going to take a frail out the night I was arrested. It’s lots of fun to take a girl to a dance or a show and not have them get wise." And even more fun, we’d wager, when they do.

For more on the secret homosexual shadow worlds of early 20th century Los Angeles, see Daniel Hurewitz’ Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics or Faderman and Timmons’ Gay L.A.

Blood & Dumplings Crime Bus Podcast

Jacob Adelman of the venerable AP rode along with the gang on the Blood & Dumplings Crime Bus Tour on St. Patrick’s Day, and produced a delightful little audio document of the day for the AP’s youth-oriented asap section. It includes an overview of the tour, some excerpted crime stories from the tour, and interviews with a few of the delightful passengers. Why would otherwise normal people choose to spend their Saturday hearing tales of mayhem and horror? Click slowly and see….

All Hail Jinx Ballantrae!

March 27, 1927
Portland, OR

Moving Picture star Marie Prevost travelled all the way to Oregon to exhibit Jinx Ballantrae, one of the handsome Cairn Terriers trained by her husband of three years, leading man Kenneth Harlan, at the Portland Kennel Club’s fifth annual show. And for the first time ever, a Cairn Terrier was named best in show. We’re sure it had little to do with the pretty lady on the end of the lead, though. After all, her three Cairns also swept up all the prizes at last years San Fernando Valley Kennel Club meet.

A month later, Miss Prevost and Mr. Harlan would exhibit their Cairns at the first annual Glendale Dog Show, Miss Prevost clad in a handsome green John Held sports outfit. Also on the floor: Francis X. Bushman and Harold Lloyd with their Great Danes and Arthur Rankin with a whippet. This time, the silver cup was taken by Lloyd Bacon and his Wire Haired Terrier, and Jinx Ballantrae let out a terrific growl that was heard all the way to Tujunga. And in May, Miss Prevost filed for divorce from Mr. Harlan on grounds of cruelty, complaining that he kept her up all night before shooting days with drunken phone calls saying he’d be home soon, and that when he did come home he brought unsavory people with him and made lots of noise in the swimming pool. But everyone knows that Jinx made her do it, still miffed about his hometown loss.

And if we point our futurist’s spyglass further still, we see 1937, and that unpleasant business with alcoholic Miss Prevost starving to death and being gnawed on by another little doggy. Ugh, put the spyglass down. Let’s leave the pretty lady, her handsome husband and frisky pups to enjoy their moment in the sun.

…and to Matron I leave a wild goose chase

March 23, 1927
Los Angeles

Notorious con artist Mrs. Mary Williams, aka Rose Mary Langhorn, has expired aged 65 in General Hospital while awaiting trial on charges that, shortly after making her acquaintance aboard the steamship Mongolia between Havana and L.A. last spring, she relieved Mrs. Marguerite Nonemacher of Highland, California of the burden of $3000 cash money, in exchange for some oil stock royalties which were certain to yield $10,000 shortly, and $500,000 in the longer term. Mrs. Nonebacher bit, and later squealed when not a nickel or a whisper was forthcoming from her shipboard pal or the phantom wells.

The APB that went out for the flim flam artist described a plump, cheery gal of later years, who was "full of conversation and bounced about the boat calling everybody ‘honey’ and ‘dear.’"

"Sure I stole her money," said Mary whatever-her-real-name-is on her deathbed, but merely for "the fun of the thing." It all started when she was a rich young woman ruined after trusting other wealthy people, and so devoted her career to exacting revenge on other members of her former class. And who can begrudge her that?

The dying woman made a will naming a New York friend as her executor. But as California law forbids wills to be executed by non locals, she was instructed to think again. Not having many friends in California, and perhaps feeling indisposed to benefit Mrs. Nonemacher, Mary chose Chief Matron Vada Sullivan of the County Jail.

And that’s why Matron is leaving work today to take a ride up to Ukiah, where Mary’s strongbox was stored, to examine its contents and her bank accounts. Assuming all are well-stuffed, there will be numerous local souls benefiting from their proximity to the fading swindler, among them attorney M.W. Purcell ($1000), Father Vanderdoucht ($1000), three physicians ($1000 each) and nurse Florence McDaniel (a ranch).

above left: Matron in 1937, and it’s pronounced Dee-KEY, sheesh.

Recommended viewing, Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve, our favorite filmic treatment of the shipboard swindler’s art and love:

and the new year is…

Gentle reader, we’ve concluded our explorations of the good year 1907, and now turn our jaundiced gaze to a fresh chronological target. Our next year is both keen and nifty, where the bubbles in the market are nearly as dangerous as the fizz in your bathtub gin. Come along with us now, not backward this time, but forward, as we make the leap from sweet little 1907 to scandalous, jazz-age 1927 L.A. Bye bye, ostrich farms and bungalows, success waves and lemon fiends. We’ll miss you more than you’ll ever know, but we just can’t stay. The lure of the unknown is just too strong, not to mention the rumors of dresses that show the knee. Hotsy totsy!

We’re pleased to announce a new contributor to the site, Mary McCoy. Look for her posts every Wednesday, and should you find yourself downtown on Thursday March 29, drop by the Central Library at 12:15 to hear her 45 minute presentation on "L.A. True Crime-Fact or Fiction."

What secrets does 1927 hold close to her pretty chest? Stay tuned as we unwrap the flap, exposing scandals, oddities, horrors and delights, and maybe, just maybe, a murder on your block!

Blood & Dumplings in the Pasadena Star-News

Nathan Marsak as Hitler on the 1947project Crime Bus Tour

Why yes, Pasadenans, that was our own Nathan Marsak glowering out at you from page three of the Sunday paper, doing his little AH impression on the former site of the American Nazi Party Headquarters in deepest El Monte, as part of the Blood and Dumplings Crime Bus Tour. To read Molly R. Okean’s story, which oddly enough in the web version doesn’t feature Sarah Reingewirtz’ striking photograph, just click here.

We had a great day exploring the San Gabriel Valley with a bus full of charming passengers, including a stop for dumplings at Monster Park (sorry about the soy sauce shortage!), turn-of-the-century bungalow poetry from co-host Richard Schave, black cats crossing our paths and some truly chilling tales of forgotten crimes and misfortunes. Thanks to everyone who joined us, especially Sister Kelly and Brother Nathan, and watch this space for announcements of upcoming tours, criminal and otherwise.

1947project at Saving LA event at the Los Angeles Theater, Sunday 3/18

Join us, gentle reader, this Sunday March 18, at the glamorous and seldom open Los Angeles Theater (1931) in the heart of downtown for the Saving LA preservation event. There will be speakers in the main hall and tables hosting representatives from local publishers and historical organizations, including 1947project. Stop by to see one of the most beautiful theaters in the city and to connect with others who care about preserving signs of the past. Linger to hear my visionary husband Richard Schave speak in the 3 o’clock hour about the vast possibilities for community building that can be accessed using free web tools.

Event details: Los Angeles Theater, 615 S. Broadway, 10am-4pm, free.

More info and a full schedule are at the Saving LA blog, https://savingla.blogspot.com/