Film Noir Friday: The Great Guy [1937]

Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Tonight’s feature is THE GREAT GUY, starring James Cagney and Mae Clark.

A little bit of trivia, thanks to TCM: This was James Cagney’s first film in more than 11 months because of litigation following the termination of his contract at Warner Bros.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

When Joel Green, head of the Department of Weights and Measures, is nearly killed in a car accident by corrupt politician Marty Cavanaugh, ex-prizefighter Johnny Cave replaces him. Facing a city-wide racket of faulty measures, Johnny fines merchants who are cheating the public and ignores the customary bribes and threats of Cavanaugh’s men. The night after he refuses a job offer from Cavanaugh, Johnny is abducted. He wakes up, stinking of alcohol, in the gutter with his hair dyed red.

Film Noir Friday-Saturday Matinee: Pushover [1954]

PUSHOVER_1954

Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Today’s feature is PUSHOVER [1954], starring Fred MacMurray, Phil Carey, and Kim Novak.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

A carefully planned bank heist by hoodlum Harry Wheeler and his partner leaves a policeman dead and $200,000 stolen. After the police investigation, headed by Lt. Carl Ekstrom, identifies Wheeler as the culprit, Eckstrom assigns detective Paul Sheridan to befriend Wheeler’s girl friend, Lona McLane, who has moved into an apartment in town. Paul stages a meeting with Lona and a powerful attraction develops between the two. Paul takes Lona to his apartment for the night, then spends the next several days with her.

 

 

BONUS CARTOON: HOLLYWOOD STEPS OUT [1941]

Film Noir Friday, On Saturday! — Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye [1950]

Welcome!  The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open — a day late.We had to scrape gum off of the floor and throw away old popcorn boxes and soda cups. But the theater is open now, so find a seat and get comfortable. Tonight’s offering is KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE from 1950 starring James Cagney and Barbara Payton.

Turner Classic Movies says:

From the trial of the survivors, we flash back to amoral crook Ralph Cotter’s violent prison break, assisted by Holiday Carleton, sister of another prisoner…who doesn’t make it. Soon Ralph manipulates the grieving Holiday into his arms, and two crooked cops follow her into his pocket. Ralph’s total lack of scruple brings him great success in a series of robberies. But his easy conquest of gullible heiress Margaret Dobson proves more dangerous to him than any crime.

From Wikipedia:

James Cagney, directed by Gordon Douglas and based on the novel by Horace McCoy. The film was banned in Ohio as “a sordid, sadistic presentation of brutality and an extreme presentation of crime with explicit steps in commission.”

Sounds perfect to me! Enjoy the film!

 

http://youtu.be/6LF8YDBSR80

Thugs with Spoons

public-enemy_1452829i

THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)

“Why you, I oughta…”

Tough guy talk and a shiv concealed in a shoe, shirt, or somewhere truly unsavory (where the sun don’t shine) may be gangster film cliches, but those moments are based on truth. The bad guy patter has become more profanity laced over the decades, but criminals are true to type whether they’re celluloid or flesh and blood. Hoods hold grudges and pay-back is a point of pride.

On May 12, 1958, in Department 42 of the Hall of Justice, two punks from East L.A. were on trial for a murder committed during the course of a robbery. Fifty-one year old Jose Castellanos, a local groceryman, had been shot to death by twenty-three year old Gregory Valenzuela. Castellanos and his wife were in their store at 435 S. McDonnell Avenue when two would-be robbers came in and demanded money. Castellanos leaped for a counter and pulled out his own gun to fend off the crooks; he managed to fire a round before being mortally wounded. Mrs. Castellanos watched in horror as her husband died.

Gregory Valenzuela [Photo courtesy USC Digital Archive]

Gregory Valenzuela [Photo courtesy USC Digital Archive]

Sheriff’s Detective Sgts. N.L. Peterson and Ned Lovretovich rolled to the scene of the shooting and began their investigation.  Valenzuela was ID’d by Castellanos’ widow, and within a couple of days he was located hiding with four other young men in an empty house behind the home of a friend, Joseph Lozano.

Valenzuela told officers that he and an unnamed accomplice decided “to hit” the Castellanos’ grocery store.

It’s possible that Valenzuela and his accomplice were members of White Fence (aka WF), one of the oldest street gangs in East Los Angeles. Even though the gang claims it goes back to 1911, it didn’t emerge until the 1930s when it began as a male sports team associated with the La Purisima Church. The WF name supposedly derives from a white picket fence that surrounded the church. The moniker makes the gang sound benign; but nothing could be further from the truth.

Photo found: http://www.handselecta.com/interview_gribbb.html

[ http://www.handselecta.com]

By 1957, when Castellanos was murdered, White Fence was one of the most powerful and violent gangs in the the area with criminal enterprises ranging from auto theft to murder. Over the years WF hasn’t vanished, it has thrived. It now has members in Las Vegas, El Paso, Florida, and Guatemala.

It was diligent police work by detectives Peterson and Lovretovich that resulted in the ID of Valenzuela’s accomplice — twenty-three year old Augustine Acosta. As killers will do, Acosta and Valenzuela developed a grudge against the cops who had arrested them, especially Sgt. Ned Lovretovich — and they were determined to get him.

Det. Sgt. Ned Lovretovich

Det. Sgt. Ned Lovretovich [Photo courtesy USC Digital Photo Archive]

On May 12, 1958, following the afternoon recess, as the defendants Valenzuela and Acosta were being led back into the courtroom by the bailiff  they suddenly broke away and attacked Det. Sgt. Ned Lovretovich with sharpened metal spoons — shivs! Lovretovich was not seriously injured, he received a stab wound to his right shoulder and an abrasion on his cheek. Valenzuela and Acosta were subdued by force and taken away.

When questioned Gregory Valenzuela characterized the courtroom stabbing incident as “Just a misunderstanding”. He claimed not to recall much of what had happened and said that he didn’t know why he’d jumped Lovretovich; later he would say that the motive was that the detective was framing him. Classic.

Acosta’s interview was considerably more colorful than Valenzuela’s had been. When he was asked if he’d care to tell the investigators what happened in the courtroom, Acosta replied:

“No. Fuck everybody. I don’t give a shit.”

Where did Acosta get the spoon he’d sharpened into a shiv?

“It’s for you to find out. You’re the law, not me.”

Acosta gave the same motive for the attack on Lovretovich as Valenzuela had:

“Because the punk knows I’m not guilty and is railroading me.”

During the course of the questioning, Acosta unequivocally stated his reason for attacking the detective:

“…I meant to kill the motherfucker.”

The interview ended when Acosta expressed his desire to return to his cell:

“Let me go back to the tank…”

Gregory Huerta Valenzuela and Augustine Acosta were found guilty of first degree murder in the death of Jose Castellanos and sentenced to life in state prison. The two also plead guilty to assault w/intent to commit murder and injury to a county employee for the attack on Lovretovich — they received sentences to run concurrently with their life terms.

foundguiltyI have no idea if or when Valenzuela and Acosta were released from prison.  Det. Sgt. Lovretovich not only survived the attack on him, he lived to be 90 years old.

 NOTE: Many thanks to Mike Fratantoni for sharing this deranged tale with me.