The Black Owl

Posted on by
Reply

Gun crimes were rampant in Los Angeles during the 1930s, even purse snatchers armed themselves. Robbers, motivated by desperation, hunger or good old-fashioned greed, stalked Spring Street, the “Wall Street of the West”, hoping to pull off the perfect bank heist.

Security First National Bank.

On December 31, 1931, twenty-four-year-old Timothy Blevins found Old Man Depression a formidable adversary. No matter what he did, he couldn’t escape the financial hole he was in. Knowing that he wasn’t alone offered him no consolation. He recently lost his job as a busboy in a cafe at 5610 Hollywood Blvd. He took a job with a county road gang.

Being on a road gang is exhausting work, but he may have stuck with it if his eighteen-year-old wife, Cornelia, hadn’t left him and gone home to her mother. She was just fifteen when the couple had married in Ojai, Arizona a few years earlier, but living with Timothy was no picnic and after three years she’d had enough. He was despondent, and contemplating suicide. Cornelia couldn’t take any more of Timothy’s dark moods, and she intended to get their marriage annulled as soon as possible. It wouldn’t be too difficult for an eighteen-year-old to start over again.

Cornelia bumped in Timothy when she returned to their former home at 1135 South Catalina Street to get some clothing. She was dismayed, but not surprised, to discover that his mood hadn’t lightened. In fact, he appeared to be as morose as ever.

Timothy was sitting alone in the apartment, brooding over how he could change his circumstances—and he devised a plan.

In 1931, the Spring Street financial district, located just north of Fourth Street to just south of Seventh Street, was the beating heart of capitalism in the city. In fact, they referred the area to as the “Wall Street of the West.”  There were at least twenty banks concentrated within a few blocks. The eleven-story steel frame building at the corner of Fifth and Spring Street that housed the Security-First Bank stood out. Built in 1906 by the architecture firm of Parkinson and Bergstrom, the Italianate style structure was the tallest building in Los Angeles until 1911. 

It was shortly after 2 pm on the last day of 1931, and while the Security-First Bank was no longer the only skyscraper on Spring Street, it was still impressive enough to look to Timothy like an opportunity. He resolved to take it. He gripped his case tighter and stepped over the threshold into the crowded lobby.

Tracy Q. Hall, the vice president of the bank, was in his office and a dozen customers waited to have a word with him. Blevins strode up to the rail which enclosed Hall’s office and placed the case he was carrying on the wood work. He handed Hall a note. The crudely printed note, written on a blank check from the Bank of America, contained a demand for $100,000 and stated that there were enough explosives in the bag to turn the block into smoke and ashes.

Hall quietly read the note and then glanced up slowly to take the measure of the man who would dare to make such a loathsome threat. Timothy drove his point home and, to reveal the contents of the case; he snapped open the catch and suddenly the “infernal machine” (a bomb) was visible.

The two men continued to hold each other’s gaze, but Timothy blinked first. He released his grasp on the case, whirled around, and ran for the exit. Hall grabbed at the fleeing man but just missed him. Blevins continued to run and, in his haste, he knocked down Peter J. Anderson, a patron of the bank and proprietor of a garage at 221 East Fifth Street.

LAPD Traffic Officer Olsen

Anderson let out a cry, and so did Hall, who was in hot pursuit of the fleeing man. Timothy dashed out onto Fifth Street and it looked like he was leading a parade. Behind him were Anderson, Hall, and Sam Sulzbacher, the bank’s doorman. When they reached Main Street, Traffic Officer R. W. Olsen joined the chase.

Timothy ducked into a theater on Main, but Officer Olsen has seen him go into the building. Naturally, Timothy tried to blend in with the theater crowd, but it was no use. Olsen found him and took him into custody.

While police escorted Timothy to their headquarters, Hall turned the infernal machine over to LAPD Captains McCaleb and Malina. Upon examination of the device, they found a dry battery wired to a quart jar full of ethyl gasoline. Also, inside the case, there was an empty milk can and a small bottle of carbide powder; above the quart bottle were two brown sticks of dynamite.

On the lid of the box, printed with black paint, was an admonition:

“The Black Owl. Will deal you death. Don’t talk,”

Then McCaleb and Malina read the note that the suspect had handed to Hall:

“There is enough explosive here to tear up the block. Read carefully. Do exactly as told. Starting with biggest denominations fill bag. We will go to the vault first. When I have enough, you will take me out the back door. Get me a taxi. Then take your time going back, or I have to take care of you. If you describe me too well, this will not fail to work. There is poison gas to kill every one (sic) within.”

The note was terrifying, but it wasn’t enough to prevent Tracy Hall from doing his best to bring the robber wanna-be to heel.

At police headquarters Timothy, sullen and mumbling incoherently, refused to make any statement other than to tell the cops: “you can call me Dave Lowre.” Then he attempted to snatch a pistol from Officer Olsen. Half a dozen detectives jumped on him and prevented his escape. He became somewhat more cooperative following his aborted escape attempt, but he never revealed the inspiration for his nom de felon.

Timothy Blevins, glowering during questioning by an unnamed LAPD detective. [Photo courtesy of UCLA Digital Collection]

The judge arraigned Timothy in Municipal Court and set his bail at $10,000—he was stuck.

The complaint against Timothy charged him with burglary, attempted robbery and violation of Section 601 of the Penal Code because he transported dynamite into a public building, endangering the lives of others.

Timothy originally pleaded insanity, but he withdrew the plea. Instead, he entered a plea of guilty to the charge of illegally transporting dynamite. The likely reason for his change of plea was that he could apply for probation if he wasn’t insane.

Timothy hoped for probation, but the judge denied him, and sentenced him to San Quentin.

Film Noir Friday: The Letter [1929 & 1940]

Posted on by
Reply

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 we’re going to take a deep dive into two movies based a story by W. Somerset Maugham. An actual murder in Kuala Lumpur in 1911, inspired Maugham to write THE LETTER. If you are interested in the crime that provided the inspiration, search for Ethel Proudlock.

First, we’ll check out Eddie Muller’s (the Czar of Noir), introduction to the 1940 version of the film for TCM’s Noir Alley.

The 1940 version stars Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall (who appeared in the 1929 version in the role of the lover). Directed by William Wyler, the movie opens with an unforgettable scene. The tension never lets up.

TCM says:

Leslie Crosbie, the wife of a British rubber planter in Malay, shoots and kills Jeff Hammond, and claims that she was defending her honor. To defend Leslie, her husband Robert sends for family friend and attorney Howard Joyce, who questions Leslie’s story.

The 1929 version of THE LETTER, stars Jeanne Eagels and Herbert Marshall. Jeanne Eagels’ life was tragically cut short by drug addiction. She was nominated posthumously for her work in THE LETTER.

TCM says:

Marooned on a rubber plantation in the East Indies, Leslie Crosbie turns to Geoffrey Hammond for the love and diversion that she does not find with her husband.

The Tragic Death of Marvin Gaye

Posted on by
Reply
1973: Soul singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye at Golden West Studios in Los Angeles, California. (Photograph by Jim Britt/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images)

On April 1, 1984, on the eve of his 45th birthday, Motown superstar and R&B legend, Marvin Gaye Jr. died of gunshot wounds inflicted by his own father.

The two men were at odds for Marvin Jr.’s entire life. Marvin Sr. was habitually unemployed—a vodka drinking fundamentalist preacher whose hobby was cross dressing. Like some artistic geniuses, Marvin Gaye Jr. had his share of flaws and demons. He put most of the millions he earned in music up his nose. He was a misogynist who beat his wives and girlfriends and was, in his own words, a “sex freak.” His hobbies were voyeurism and sexual sadism.

According to Marvin’s mother, his father showed no desire for Marvin, no love for him, and believed he was another man’s child. It’s not surprising that when the two men were together under one roof after years of living apart, the results were tragic. Marvin returned home from the “Sexual Healing” tour, drug addicted and paranoid, and even though they lived in the same house, Sr. and Jr. rarely spoke. Marvin stockpiled guns and, for some unknown reason, he gave his father an unregistered.38.

On the evening of March 31st, Sr. became increasingly angry when he couldn’t locate an insurance document. He started yelling at Marvin. Alberta briefly calmed her husband down; but he must have spent the night stewing instead of sleeping because, by the morning of April 1st, he was in a rage. He hollered at Alberta, who was in Marvin’s room. Marvin confronted his 71-year-old father, shoved him to the floor and beat and kicked him. Alberta intervened, and the two men went to neutral corners, but it wasn’t long before senior was back at the door to Marvin’s room—and he had the.38. He fired into Marvin’s chest, hitting him in the heart; he then moved toward his mortally wounded son and fired a second time.

Marvin’s brother, Frankie, who lived next door, held his brother as he died. Frankie wrote in his memoir that Marvin’s last words were, “I got what I wanted… I couldn’t do it myself, so I made him do it.” An ambulance rushed Marvin to California hospital where they pronounced him dead.

They charged the old man with murder but, because of his age and a recent brain tumor diagnosis, he could plead to voluntary manslaughter. They gave him a six-year suspended sentenced and six years of probation. After spending 49 years together, Alberta divorced him.

Reporters asked Marvin Sr. if he loved his son—he said, “Let’s say that I didn’t dislike him.”

Film Noir Friday: Born to Kill [1947]

Posted on by
2

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 BORN TO KILL, starring Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, and Walter Slezak.

TCM says:

After he discovers that Laury Palmer, the owner of a Reno boardinghouse, was romancing him only to make her boyfriend Danny jealous, Sam Wilde, a seductive but violent drifter, kills both her and Danny. Cool, sophisticated Helen Brent finds the bodies in the boardinghouse, where she has been living during her divorce proceedings, but instead of notifying the police, she calmly boards the next train to San Francisco. 

Enjoy the movie!

https://youtu.be/KltT_rTDYx4

This is my rifle…

Posted on by
Reply

Before it became home to B-girls in the 1950s, 513 S. Main Street was the location of a shooting gallery. I have never understood what would compel a person to work in a business that involved handing a stranger a loaded weapon. It’s impossible to know if the person firing the rifle is depressed or angry until it’s too late.

Is this really a good idea?

On December 2, 1939, a patron of the shooting gallery used his last quarter to buy six shots. He fired five times at the moving targets before he turned the weapon on himself and fired the remaining slug into his heart. The unnamed man died at the scene.

It was December 14, 1940 when Duncan Adams, 37, an employee of a local dairy, strode up to the gallery, gave the clerk a quarter, and picked off targets shaped like furry little squirrels. He emptied the rifle, but then reached over and grabbed a.22 caliber target pistol and squeezed the trigger. The gun misfired, but before any of the horrified witnesses could stop the man, he frantically pulled the trigger until the sixth chamber clicked into place and discharged a bullet which ripped a hole through his skull. He died four hours later at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital.

The last tale in this grim litany occurred on September 23, 1942. In exchange for the usual quarter, Thomas Nelson, the proprietor of the shooting gallery, handed 22-year-old Willie Davis a rifle. Nelson’s story was that Davis had attempted to steal the rifle, so he grabbed a weapon and pursued him down Main Street. Davis told a different tale. He claimed Nelson had tried to pick a fight with him after renting him the rifle and he was trying to get away.

The fun never stops.

The ensuing gunfight sent bystanders fleeing for cover and tied up traffic on the busy street for at least twenty minutes. Nelson and Davis both sustained serious wounds. John Hagen, an innocent bystander who was seated at the counter of a nearby café, was also wounded in the melee.

The B-girls who eventually replaced the rifles at 513 S. Main Street could be dangerous when loaded; but less likely to kill.

Film Noir Friday–Saturday Night: Lady of Burlesque (1943)

Posted on by
Reply

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 LADY OF BURLESQUE (aka THE G-STRING MURDERS) directed by William A. Wellman and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Michael O’Shea. While not a classic noir film, it is a murder mystery and, I think, it pairs nicely with the post on Betty Rowland.

Gypsy Rose Lee (Photo courtesy New York Public Library)

LADY OF BURLESQUE is based on the novel The G-String Murders written by strip tease queen Gypsy Rose Lee. There have been claims that Craig ghosted the book, but I believe Ms. Lee did it on her own.

If you’re not familiar with Craig Rice, she wrote mystery novels and short stories, and is sometimes described as “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction.” She was the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time Magazine, on January 28, 1946.

Before we roll the feature, let’s enjoy one of Gypsy Rose Lee’s dance routines–followed by a clip from a Tex Avery cartoon starring the lecherous wolf character.

TCM says:

S. B. Foss, owner of the Old Opera House on Broadway in New York City, promotes his new recruit, burlesque dancer Dixie Daisy, hoping that she will draw a large audience. Dixie’s performance draws cheers from the crowds and from comedian Biff Brannigan, who ardently admires Dixie even though she hates comics because of past experiences with them. When someone cuts the wire to the light backstage that signals the presence of the police, the performers are surprised by a raid, and pandemonium ensues. As Dixie flees through a coal chute, someone grabs her from behind and tries to strangle her, but her assailant escapes when a stagehand comes along.

Betty Rowland–1939 Burlesque Bust

Posted on by
2
Betty Rowland–Burlesque Queen

In November 1939, police took into custody several performers and comics at the Follies Theater at 337 S. Main Street. Among them was Betty Rowland, the “Red-headed Ball of Fire” and charged them with exhibiting an indecent show. The defense spent a day in jury selection trying to assemble a “shock proof” panel who could withstand seeing the forty-four photos secretly shot by police photographer George T. George, and handle hearing the “hair curling” transcripts from the show read by undercover Policewoman Cheryl Goodwin. Would the jury of nine women and three men be up to the task?

The halls surrounding the courtroom became a popular hangout for citizens hoping to catch a rare glimpse of a burlesque queen in daylight. The ladies arrived demurely dressed, sans makeup, disappointing the gawkers.

The highlight of the trial came when Officer Jerry J. Uhlick, a husky 200-pounder, stood up at the request of the City Attorney and demonstrated the bumps and grinds he’d witnessed from his seat in the audience.

As the courtroom convulsed in laughter, Uhlick quipped, “Miss Jo Anne Dare performed the dance on the theater stage better than I can!” Although he admitted that he “took a fling at the stage in my younger days.” We assume the fling wasn’t as a dancer.

The defense showed photos of jitterbug dancers and said that moves every bit as suggestive as the bumps and grinds seen on the Follies stage were being performed by young people nightly all over town. They also showed photographs from popular movie magazines showing scantily clad movie stars.

FILM FUN MAGAZINE, 1937

Despite the vigorous defense, Judge Arthur S. Guerin convicted all the defendants. The judge ordered each of them to pay $250 fines as a condition of their two-year probation. During their probation period, they must not engage in immoral shows. The owner, Tom Dalton, paid $3,000.00 in fines.

Betty was a force to be reckoned with during the heyday of burlesque. She had a stage presence that belied her diminutive stature, and she was the highest paid dancer in her field.

Betty Rowland

Betty was only in her teens when she began dancing professionally at Minsky’s in New York. Burlesque houses thrived in NYC during the early 1930s, but by 1935 citizens’ groups were trying to close them, and Mayor LaGuardia had deemed burlesque a “corrupting moral influence”. The city’s licensing commission tried to pull Minsky’s license, but the State Court of Appeals refused to do so without a criminal conviction. In 1937, the mayor and the citizen’s groups finally got the break they’d been waiting for when they discovered a stripper at Minsky’s working without her G-string. That was enough for criminal charges to be filed, and they revoked Abe Minsky’s license. New licensing regulations would allow the burlesque houses to remain in business, if they didn’t employ strippers! 

Burlesque gigs in New York dried up. In May 1938, Betty and her troupe opened in Los Angeles at the Follies Theater. It was supposed to be a limited engagement, but Los Angeles audiences loved Betty. She continued to perform at the Follies for most of her long and successful career.

I met Betty a few times several years ago. I found her soft-spoken, charming, and a natural storyteller with a wicked sense of humor. Betty graciously answered my many questions.

Here I am with the wonderful Betty Rowland

I asked her about the dispute over Barbara Stanwyck’s costume in the 1941 film, “BALL OF FIRE.” She chuckled and told me the dispute was a publicity ploy. Stanwyck’s costume is a knock-off of one of Betty’s.

Because I love vintage perfume and cosmetics, I asked her if she had a signature scent. She said she loved Coty’s L’Aimant. L’Aimant is the first fragrance from Francois Coty, launched in 1927. L’Aimant means magnet in French. The composition is elegant, sophisticated, and classic combination of flowers—perfect for her. I sent her a bottle in the hope it would evoke happy memories.

The slow slide to the end for the Follies began after the 1930s, as the theater fell into disrepair. By 1967, it was the last working burlesque house in Los Angeles. That same year Eleanor Chambers, assistant to Mayor Sam Yorty, failed in her bid to get the city’s Cultural Heritage Board to protect the theater and the Burbank Theater down the street at 548 (which was a combo film and live performance house in 1967). We give Eleanor high marks for creativity. She suggested to the board there were historic costumes from the Gilded Age stored inside the building–the building opened in 1904 as the Belasco.

Unfortunately, Eleanor’s best efforts failed. They bulldozed the Follies in 1974.

Joni Mitchell is right:

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot!

Betty Jane Rowland passed away at 106-years-old on April 3, 2022.

Film Noir Friday: Big Town After Dark [1947]

Posted on by
Reply

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 BIG TOWN AFTER DARK, starring Philip Reed and Hilary Brooke.

Enjoy the film!

 TCM says:

When Lorelei Kilbourne (Hillary Brooke) leaves her job as the police reporter for the Illustrated Press, Managing Editor Steve Wilson (Philip Reed) employs the publisher’s niece, Susan Peabody (Ann Gillis), to replace her. Susan becomes involved with gangsters in plotting a $50,000 swindle against her…

The Cartoon Bandits

Posted on by
4

Not everyone celebrates the 4th of July with fireworks and a BBQ.

On Friday, July 4, 1941, two men armed with a sawed-off shotgun entered the California Kitchen cafe at 410 Glendale Boulevard and held staff and patrons at gunpoint while they stole $67.50 from the register and $35 from their victims. As soon as they left, twenty-year-old Carson Citron, a talented cartoonist who sketched visitors to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, called for a pencil, grabbed a paper bag, and drew realistic likenesses of the robbers.

Jerry Towslee, manager of the Kitchen, and all the patrons, attested to the accuracy of Citron’s art work. The police immediately reproduced the sketches for circulation.

Over the next week, the Cartoon Bandits continued their spree of robberies, car thefts and kidnappings stretching from LA to Oakland and back to LA. They carjacked Paul Ashbrook and his date, Katherine Dietz, in Oakland. They drove the couple 80 miles east to Stockton, where they tied them up and left them in a cemetery. Ashbrook told police one of their captors said, “We’ve got to scram out of here now, but we’re going back and get that cartoonist!”

Police had victims of the bandits compare Citron’s sketches to mug shots and they identified the suspects as Edward Walker, a twenty-six-year-old robber paroled from Folsom Prison, and twenty-two-year-old Carl Westover, a San Quentin alum.

Early on the morning of July 10th, the gunmen abandoned a car in a lot at 450 S. Spring Street. They kept the lot attendant, Fred Hunt, at bay while they transferred a suitcase to another vehicle, which they drove off in.

For the next few hours, the bandit pair added new names to their roster of victims. Alvin Marshall lost $40 in a liquor store on Whittier. They took $8 from Ray Eckenroth at a gas station on W. Washington Blvd. Then they pulled into a gas station at 3251 Eagle Rock Blvd., bought gas and soft drinks, then pulled guns on the attendant, O. R. Bates and relieved him of $40. Evidently proud of their newfound fame, they boasted, “We’re the cartoon bandits. You can tell those—Los Angeles policemen we’re back in town and going to be plenty of grease in their hair.”

The bandits headed south.

Later in the day, as San Diego patrolmen Earl Myrick and Thomas Hays cruised in their radio car, they recognized a stolen sedan. They followed the car for four blocks, then drew up alongside it with their revolvers drawn. Westover had a.38 caliber revolver in the pocket of his pants. All the way from Los Angeles to San Diego, he held a sawed-off shotgun in his lap. He said, “But we decided to go to the Grant Hotel garage, so I broke the shotgun down and put it in a handbag in the back of the car.” Then he sneered, “If I could have got my gun, I’d have blown you cops all over the place.”

On July 11th, Detective Lieutenants Claude Thaxter and H. C. Henry drove down to San Diego to take the bandits into custody. Westover, the younger of the two and a former San Diego schoolboy, admitted to Municipal Judge Philip Smith how he and Walker robbed a liquor store.

The bandits also confessed they’d staked out Citron’s home and planned to beat but not shoot him, but there were police cars out front and they changed their minds. That is when they left for San Diego.

Westover claimed responsibility for a $3000 supermarket robbery, but it was quickly determined he was still in prison at the time of the crime. Called to the stand and asked about committing perjury, Westover mused, “Well, I committed so many stick-ups I can’t remember them all, and won’t be able to serve out all my time anyhow!”

In October, the Cartoon Bandits pleaded guilty to one count each of robbery in Judge A. A. Scott’s courtroom. Each of them received a sentence of five years to live in Folsom.

In 1957, Carl Westover, serving his life sentence as an honor worker in the San Quentin prison dairy, escaped. Oceanside policeman Ray Wilkerson captured him as he attempted to break into a car. Westover attacked Wilkerson with a screwdriver and ice pick, fracturing his skull, but two other officers arrived in time to subdue him. A career criminal, it appears Westover may have died in prison in 1998 at age 79.

As for Walker, he, like Westover, began his criminal career as a juvenile. The 1950 Federal Census shows him incarcerated in Folsom. I don’t know what happened to him after that. If anyone has information on Walker, please share.

Film Noir Friday: Where the Sidewalk Ends [1950]

Posted on by
Reply

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 WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Gary Merrill.

Enjoy the film!

 TCM says:

New York City police detective Mark Dixon and his partner Klein return to the 16th precinct where Inspector Nicholas Foley introduces them to their new commander, Lt. Thomas. Later, Foley meets with Dixon to inform him that more battery complaints have been filed against him, but Dixon is unrepentant.