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 UNDERTOW, starring Scott Brady, John Russell, Dorothy Hart, Peggy Dow, and Bruce Bennett. Directed by William Castle.
TCM says:
After buying a half-interest in a small lodge near Reno, Tony Reagan, a recently discharged veteran, runs into Danny Morgan, an old friend from Chicago. Danny, who operates a Reno casino owned by Chicago racketeer Big Jim Lee, offers Tony a job, but Tony declines, stating that he gave up the “business” long ago. Tony shows Danny the engagement ring he plans to give Sally Lee, Big Jim’s niece and ward, and Danny, in turn, shows off the ring he has bought for his girl. Confident and carefree, Tony then helps novice gambler Ann McKnight win at the craps table. The next day, after he wires Sally that he will be seeing her soon, Tony boards the same Chicago-bound airplane on which Ann is traveling. Tony and Ann, a schoolteacher, spend the flight chatting, and Ann can barely hide her disappointment when Tony tells her about Sally. As Tony deplanes in Chicago, he is met by police detective Chuck Reckling, a childhood friend, who informs him that his captain, Kerrigan, wants to see him.
In 1943, the court sentenced Carl G. Hopper, the human fly, to fifteen years to life in prison. Of course, the human fly would not be content to sit in Folsom Prison while some of the best years of his life, um, flew by.
Hopper wangled an early parole so that he could join the Army—but if Folsom couldn’t hold him, how could the Army expect to? By late October 1944, he’d escaped from the guardhouse at Camp Roberts.
On October 27, 1944, at 7:50 p.m. someone observed Hopper in a car listed as stolen. A radio patrolman and a military policeman approached him at Third Street near Lucas Avenue. Exiting the vehicle, he approached the officers on foot. He drew a gun and made his escape when the M.P.’s gun jammed as he tried to fire at the fleeing man.
An hour later, Hopper held up John D. Bowman of Downey in front of 1212 Shatto Street. Bowman told cops that the bandit was “too drunk to know how to drive,” so he forced Bowman to start his (Bowman’s) car for him and then he sped away.
Next, he turned up in Beverly Hills, where he accosted Freddie Schwartz and Maude Beggs as they arrived at 514 N. Hillcrest Street for a party. Schwartz complied with Hopper’s demand for money, but he only had a $5 bill which Hopper hurled back at him in disgust, complaining that it was not enough.
At 10:35 pm. Hopper held-up Sherman Oaks residents Mr. and Mrs. Julian N. Cole and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Deutsch on Valley Vista Blvd. He took $25 from Cole and $2 from Deutsch.
Only minutes later, he held up Dorothy Snyder in the 600 block of S. June Street, but he refused to take her money when he discovered she had only $7 in her purse. The fly was a gentleman.
Hopper’s one-man crime wave continued.
A about half a block away from where he’d encountered Dorothy Snyder, he held up Dr. Rudolph Mueller, getting away with $65.
After robbing Dr. Mueller, police officers, S.W. Stevenson, and K.M. Aitken observed Hopper driving at a high rate of speed. They pursued him until he crashed into a palm tree on Second Avenue near Santa Barbara Street. The fly fled on foot between.
About ten minutes following the car crash, Hopper committed another hold-up. This time he robbed C.B. Kaufman of his sedan and $55 near 43rd Street and Western Avenue.
Then the fly disappeared.
At the Mexican border near Tijuana, Hopper got caught when his attempt to shoot a U.S. Customs Service inspector, who had stopped him for routine questioning, was thwarted. The inspector, Richard McCowan, wasn’t entirely satisfied with Hopper’s answers to his questions and ordered him to wait. Hopper responded by pulling out a .38 caliber revolver and jamming it into McCowan’s abdomen. Hopper may have seen too many western movies. He tried to discharge the weapon by fanning it, but failed to pull the hammer back far enough. Police took him into custody.
Hopper admitted his identity and boasted of how he led police in Los Angeles on a merry chase. He denied committing any of the crimes laid at his feet. He said, “they are just trying to pin something on me.”
The police did not have to pin anything on him. When they busted him, he had a gasoline ration book and a driver’s license made out to C.B. Kaufman, the man he had robbed of $55 and his sedan.
During the couple of days he conducted his one-man crime wave, Hopper committed six robberies, netting him $147. He stole three automobiles, one of which was a police car.
Authorities returned Carl to the Los Angeles County Jail, where they booked him on suspicion of the various crimes committed during his escape from Camp Roberts. They set his bail at $10,000.
The court tried, convicted, and then sentenced Hopper to life in Folsom Prison.
On December 12, 1946, only three years after his escape from the Hall of Justice Jail in Los Angeles, Hopper attempted to break out of Folsom. He slugged a guard, ran to the top cell block, broke a skylight, and made his way to temporary freedom over the roof, and down the ladder of an unmanned guard tower. Then he took a 12-foot leap from a wall. Hopper got no further than the prison yard when he discovered the American River, swollen by recent rains, was far too dangerous to cross.
When guards found Hopper, he said that he was “cold, wet and hungry.” They returned him to his cell.
The ordinary housefly lives from 15 to 30 days. The human fly never reached old age. On June Jail in Los Angeles, twenty-nine-year-old Hopper hanged himself with a bed sheet tied to a piece of plumbing in his solitary cell in Folsom Prison.
On April 2, 1943, Carl Hopper, a 22-year-old bandit and kidnapping suspect, made a daring escape from HOJJ (Hall of Justice Jail). His agility earned him the nickname of the “Human Fly. “
Police hunted the fly for several days before he surfaced in a shoe store at 4411 W. Slauson. He entered the store and, simulating a gun, he held up the manager, Hans A. Camnizter. He got away with $23.51. A private patrolman, Edward Scheld, heard the ruckus and saw Hopper fleeing the store. Scheld fired a couple of rounds, but they went wild. Hopper ran to the rear parking lot where he forced Sam Tenn and his wife out of their car and drove away. The Tenn’s car was found abandoned in the 400 block on E. Fairview Avenue, Inglewood.
Hall of Justice c. 1939 [LAPL Photo]
On April 18th, officers answered a prowler call at the home of Mrs. James Lehy, 38 Marion Avenue, Pasadena. Patrolman Gerald Wilson noticed Hopper limping along Harkness Street, a block away. Patrolman Wilson thought the limping man was drunk because he smelled of booze. Wilson cautiously approached the man and took him into custody for public intoxication. While driving toward the Pasadena Police Station, Hopper attacked Wilson in the neck, took the broadcasting microphone from the car, and leaped out.
Wilson gave chase. He caught up with Hopper in front of 234 N. El Molino. Hopper struggled, but Wilson subdued him and got him to the station.
At first Hopper refused to reveal his identity, but when they confronted him with fingerprint records and his photo in a police bulletin, he confessed. Then he wouldn’t shut up. He boasted about how he eluded police for over two weeks.;
“I started for San Francisco, hitchhiking, but learned there was a police blockade on the highway, so headed back here. Things went all right until last Thursday, when some fellows were chasing me, and I broke my leg getting off a little roof.”
The human fly continued to brag that he was under the noses of police every day in Pasadena. He’d taken a room in a house across from Pasadena Junior College, bought some collegiate clothes, and hung around malt shops where he mingled with students, showing off his leg in a plaster cast. His injured leg was his excuse for not being in the Army.
Police wanted to know how the human fly spent his time following his flight from the Hall of Justice. He told them on the day he escaped he went to the beach, bought a pair of swimming trunks, and lay all day with his face in the sand to avoid recognition.
Police booked Carl in Pasadena Jail for drunkenness, resisting arrest, vagrancy, suspicion of burglary and violating the Selective Service Act. They later transferred him to Central Jail and booked him on suspicion of robbery.
Officers took Carl to his room at 73 N. Harkness Street in Pasadena, but they didn’t find anything of interest except a small bottle filled with water. Hopper said he carried the vial on hold-ups and pretended it was nitroglycerin! He also told cops he used a cap pistol in his robberies.
Because the fly was such a slippery character, police believed his leg cast might hold hacksaw blades, a gun, or other jail breaking equipment. They planned to x-ray the cast to be sure. When they did, all they found was Carl’s leg.
Of course, everyone wanted to hear the details of the fly’s original escape. He recounted the story chapter and verse. He said he found his way to the 14th floor roof top, and lowered himself down a ventilator shaft to the eighth floor. He then exited through a window and ran down the stairs.
He said, “I was scared all the time. I’m darned lucky to be alive. The worst part was getting over the hump (the rounded top of the ventilator) and down the side of the fire wall. I put one foot inside the ventilator, next to the wall, and started sliding. Every four feet there was a two-inch reinforcing flange, and I grabbed that to slow up. I just about tore my fingers off.”
He told police that at one time he wanted to turn around and go back, but he couldn’t climb up. When he reached the eighth floor, he jumped six feet sideways into space and caught a narrow window ledge; still six floors above the concrete bottom of a light well.
Jesse Owen
Hopper attempted to plead insanity, but that went nowhere. He entered a guilty plea to two counts of armed robbery and one count of attempted robbery. Superior Judge Arthur Crum sentenced the human fly to a term of 15 years to life. He admitted to the judge that he was already on a 50-year parole from San Quentin where he served 26 months for first-degree robbery. They released him in December 1942 and began his life of crime anew.
Bailiffs, H. H. Parker and N. C. LeFever led the still limping fly away. The injury didn’t stop him from boasting about being an escape artist. Judge Crum reminded him others had escaped from the jail before him, but Hopper replied, “Not in the daytime, Your Honor.”
He said he could outrun Jesse Owens, handicap or no handicap. He even offered to prove it if the deputies would turn their backs. They declined.
