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.

A Real Nailbiter

demerveux1 Today, fencing master and underwear salesman Lt. Gerard De Mereux was vindicated for the second time in the space of a week. Last week, De Mereux was awarded $500 in damages in a suit against Hollywood director J. Stuart Blackton, who was accused of beating De Mereux with a horsewhip. De Mereux had been living as a guest in Blackton’s home, giving fencing and corrective gymnastics lessons to Blackton’s daughters.

De Mereux testified that Mrs. Blackton had given him a romantic note, and that as a gentleman, "the only honorable thing for him to do was leave." While packing his bags, Mrs. Blackton reportedly began to strike and spit at him, at which point, Blackton entered the room with a riding crop and beat De Mereux about the shoulders and chest. demerveux2

Blackton testified that the attack was prompted by De Mereux’s attack on his wife, during which he choked her and clawed at her with his fingernails, drawing blood. But ho! De Mereux presented to the jury his fingernails, and brought forth numerous witnesses who claimed that De Mereux had spent the past 12 years as a confirmed nailbiter who could not possibly have scratched a soul.

Following the judgment, De Mereux was taken before the Lunacy Commission on an insanity complaint offered by Albert A. Kidder, Blackton’s attorney. After several days of observation, physicians from the Lunacy Commission declared him merely "emotionally unstable," but were unable to find evidence of the insanity complaint, which, among other things claimed that De Mereux had threatened Blackton’s daughters.

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.

Only Your Studebaker Knows For Sure

April 2, 1927
Los Angeles

tonyheadline On this Spring day in 1927, investigating officers were pavement-pounding in the Italian neighborhoods, attempting to scare up information about the April Fool’s Day discovery of one murdered Antonio (Tony) Ferraro. But there was no talking to be had, and the crime scene revealed nothing in the way of tell-tale fingerprints or any such evidence, and so Tony Ferraro remains another unsolved Los Angeles gangland slaying.

Tony Ferraro was 34, married, and an erstwhile bootlegger. He had given up the bootlegging game back in January when officers knocked out his elaborate still at 532 South Soto St. Thereafter he had gone into the olive oil business–the evening of March 31 he set out from his home at 2724 Cincinnati St. with six one-gallon cans of the unctuous stuff (only to return for his funeral a week later). On the morning of April 1 a passerby’s attention was attracted by the stream of blood pouring forth from the back seat of Ferraro’s Studebaker, parked at 659 Kohler St.

ferraroandwife Robbery was not the motive, as Ferraro’s diamond ring, watch, money clip and olive oil were unmolested. Persons unknown entered Ferraro’s car, where he was beaten with a tire iron (his bruised hands indicating he put up a strong fight) and then shot in the head once with a .38 and twice with a .32. The body was then pulled from the front seat and lain across the olive oil in the back.

Ferraro was a Matranga relative and Los Angeles bootlegger who had had some problems with his business partners. In September of 1925, someone dynamited a vacant two-story building Ferraro owned at 2729 North Main; eight months later the home of his cousin, Victor Pepitone, 317 West 77th St., was dynamited; five months thereafter the home of Jim Mussacci, Ferraro’s business partner, 675 Lamar St., was destroyed in a dynamite explosion. The news from April 2 hints that Ferraro may have recently talked to authorities and implicated two former liquor trade associates, resulting in their arrest, but that clue went nowhere. Attempts to quiz the widow Constance resulted in her continued protestations that Tony had no enemies anywhere.

ferraroscar On April 5 the Times reported a rumor that Ferraro’s car had been seen the night of the 31st in Chinatown between when he set off from home at 6 p.m. and when the car was first spotted at 10 p.m. at Sixth and Kohler, but placing the killing in Chinatown didn’t make solving the murder any more possible or probable. That day Ferraro was released from the Coroner’s to his home once more; the cinematic mind must imagine properly florid gangland sendoff, with bouquets from those Wright Act violators Tony double-crossed.

And up in heaven, the special cloud reserved for unsolved LA homicide victims—Harry Katz there waiting with a martini—added one more.

ferraroburial

Vaseline Burglars, Beware!

April 1, 1927
Los Angeles

wilma1 wilma2

The fifteen year-olds just won’t stop! (Cf. yesterday’s post.) When the Vaseline Burglar (no, not one who steals Vaseline, nor are there untoward connotations) broke into the home of Mrs. Julius Rehak to grease up Mary Rehak’s engagement ring-encrusted hand, telling her “keep quiet or I’ll throw acid in your face,” little did he know he’d come in contact with redoubtable 15yo Wilma Rehak, who told him to throw up his hands. As he was not immediately forthcoming, from her steady hand a six shooter erupted with a terrific explosion, missing the interloper by inches, and sending him into precipitous flight.

Dolled as a Dapper Dad

March 31, 1927
Pasadena

pairclad Fourteen year-old Wilbur Garner had a lady-friend, and an older one at that, his inamoratette a fifteen year-old Eula Rittgers. They showed great attachment to one another at their Seventh Day Adventist School. When they decided to exchange biblical dullsville for the world”™s treasures, they outfoxed the Man by turning li”™l Eula into a eula boy. Inside a church wastebasket was found the Eula’s hair, and persons conforming to the two young boys’ description were spotted in Eagle Rock. A fashionable bobbed ‘do meets a Joan of Arc act. Appropriately observant. Guess they were absent the day they covered Deuteronomy 22:5.

jimmydavis In yet more fifteen year-old news, or, that is to say, further news of fifteen year-olds, fifteen year-old Jimmy Davis and an unnamed pal of his broke into the Monterey Park home of John W. Hardman, stealing fountain pens and trinkets and, more absurdly, did Jimmy garb himself in Hardman”™s best suit, silk shirt and black & white scarf. Figuring himself too conspicuous for his own good, Jimmy and pal returned to the house, threw the clothes on the floor and, afraid of being traced through fingerprints (his being known to local authorities for his repeated burglaries and check forgings), lit fire to the house. The house smoldered for some time before being rescued by the fire department, and Jimmy is now cooling his heels in juvenile hall.

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.

Thrift Pays?

March 28, 1927

Los Angeles

A classroom of children from the Thornton Avenue School learned a little something about the value of a dollar this afternoon when they witnessed a hold-up outside the Merchants Trust and Savings Bank at 25th and Central.

Harry Harris, the bank messenger for City Dye Works (3000 Central Ave.), was accosted at gunpoint by two bandits and relieved of the $3000 deposit he was about to make for his employer. When guns were brandished, the children "set up a din of screams and wails that would do justice to the most powerful siren." However, their cries did nothing to dissuade Harris’s attackers. After being robbed, Harris commandeered a civilian vehicle and followed the getaway car four blocks east on 25th before losing the bandits.

The school group had been taking a class trip to the bank to make their monthly deposits as part of the Los Angeles Banks School Savings Association’s "school thrift plan." While similar programs existed elsewhere in the country, the Los Angeles plan differed slightly, in that it sought to give the children more face time with their local bankers. Students were given home safes, passbooks, and made their own deposits.

Perhaps as a result of this hands-on approach, Los Angeles schoolchildren had the largest average savings accounts in the country. In 1927, 184 elementary and junior high schools in Los Angeles participated in the program, and students had close to 1 million dollars socked away in Los Angeles banks.

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….