Jim Heimann Sins of the City: The Real Los Angeles Noir, Chronicle Books: San Francisco, CA, 1999, 159 pp.
". . .
". . . Prostitution, gambling, and drugs provided a livelihood for thugs as well as cops. Both factions served as enforcers . . .
"Almost from the start, Los Angeles had a reputation as a hell-hole. In the mid-1800s it was filled with murderers, vigilantes, thieves, and prostitutes. Streets were rutted paths where mongrel dogs roamed and dead animals were dumped. L.A.'s first notoriety in national headlines was spurred by the massacre of Chinese immigrants near the old city plaza on the Calle de los Negros. . . . Morrow Mayo's book Los Angeles . . . "a dreadful thoroughfare forty feet wide, running one whole block, filled entirely with saloons, gambling-houses, dance halls and cribs. It was crowded night and day with people of many races, male and female, all rushing and crowding along from one joint to another . . . Nigger Alley was a madhouse, filled with a mass of drunken, crazy Indians of all ages, fighting, dancing, killing each other off with knives and clubs, and falling paralyzed drunk in the street. Every weekend three or four were murdered."
"In 1871, this crowd went on a killing spree after a Chinese resident, shooting wildly in the street, accidentally hit "a white man." Within minutes denizens of the area swarmed the Chinese enclave, lynching, ransacking, stabbing, and beating "the heathens." Eventually nineteen victims were left dead. The Grand Jury indicted one hundred and fifty men, with six sent to jail. Several days later the six were released on a technicality. . . ." p. 5
" . . .
"In the 1920s prohibition increased the problems . . .
"Gangs and crime bosses knew a good thing when they sniffed it and came crawling across the country the to set up shop. Bootleggers such as Tony Conero, Dominic DiCiolla, and Albert Marco, controlled the business. Vice lords Guy McAfee, Nola Hahn, Jack Dragna and Bob Gans commandeered their turf, laying claim to numbers rackets, prostitution, gambling, and slot machines. They were local hoodlums . . .
". . . The kingpin of police corruption was chief of police Ed "Two Gun" Davis. He and his city hall cronies made sure L.A. remained safe for bribes and graft, which escalated in the twenties and thirties to a wholesale spoils system. Their regime culminated in 1938 with the car bombing of private investigator Harry Raymond, an ex-LAPD detective who was in the process of exposing the corruption. The bombers were traced back to the LAPD's Intelligence Squad, and the ensuing public outrage ousted Mayor Frank Shaw while Chief Davis, along with twenty-three of his fellow officers, was forced into resigning.
"One of L.A.'s important contributions to the regular rackets lay three miles off its coast. The first gambling ship arrived in 1928 to entertain and unload the pockets of residents and rubes. The various barges that anchored off the coast for the next decade were a lucrative trust for the local syndicate. Flaunting legal jurisdiction, they operated openly until the late thirties, when a series of raids finally grounded them. Ships such as the Rex, the Montfalcone, the Tango, and the Monte Carlo were memorably drafted onto the pages of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.
". . . After the war . . .
". . . beach front communities including Long Beach, Venice, and Santa Monica hosted "games of chance" that were just another form of illegal lottery. Bridge, keno, tango, and bingo parlors were everywhere. The thinly veiled gambling dens fed small-time bunco artists for a short period after the war but were slowly eliminated by the mid-fifties." p. 10
". . .
p. 32 [Caption: "Exhibitionism and body worship. Hedonist pursuits practiced in earnest at Muscle Beach in nearby Santa Monica, a suburb favored as a location by fiction writers." Jim Heimann Collection photograph of a bodybuilder, flexing in front of the platform's equipment locker which has been inscribed Phil B. and Bill R., with Frosty Cup, Leo's Place, Burgers behind the platform.]
p. 83 [Caption: "The Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles was a grittier venue for sportive pleasures and replaced the Vernon Arena in 1925 with seating for 15,000. It, too, had a reputation for harboring a criminal element in its cigar-soaked halls."]
p. 89 [Caption: "Dance marathons masqueraded as entertainment for a fad-hungry Los Angeles whose population gobbled up the sport. The Depression-era craze served as the background for They Shoot Horses Don't They?, a novel set in a seaside ballroom similar to the one advertised in this brochure." Pictured "Official Program All American Championship Non-Stop Dance Marathon No Sleep No Rest How Long Can They Last? 25c Any Time 25c Free Parking" Duke Hall " Master of Ceremonies Now Being Staged at La Monica Ball Room Santa Monica-on the Pier Phone S.M. 22606 Broadcasting Three Times Daily KTM Tune In 760 Kilocycles 8:00-8:05 a.m. 1:45-2 p.m. 10:00-10:30 p.m." And the photo is labeled "Couple No. 4 Charlie Loeb and Billie Jones Marathon Dance Presented by Duke Hall Santa Monica, CA in white ink; in black ink "1,167 hrs" and "To my friend Jack Niedorf? best of luck Your Pal, Charlie Loeb"]
p. 94 [Caption: "L.A.'s most famous evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson shrewdly combined theatrics and admonitions to her needy followers to "Give, give, give, until it hurts! Praise the Lord." Captivating thousands of followers with elaborate shows staged at her Foursquare Church in Echo Park, pictured above, she also broadcast her sermons to thousands more who sent in contributions, keeping Sister Aimee well endowed despite several scandal-tinged episodes. If L.A. was a city poisoned by sin, Sister Aimee was its antidote."]
pp. 114, 115 [Caption: "Bugsy Siegel, c. 1940, "Bugsy sprawled on the couch of Virginia Hill's rented Beverly Manse, June 20, 1947. Returning from a trout dinner in Ocean Park, Siegel and his bodyguard retired to the couch to catch the early editions of the newspapers . . . Speculators figured too much money was mishandled in the construction of the Vegas Flamingo and East Coast bosses wanted him eliminated."]
pp. 130, 131 [Caption: "Top. The Rex, Santa Monica Bay's most renowned gambling ship, awaits the Sheriff's Department men approaching the barge for a raid, ca., 1938. Bottom. The operation. Gaming tables and slot machines, ready for the evening's "squirrels" to arrive. Cops and Robbers. Another raid on the Rex with owner and operator, Tony Cornero (on the left) showing off his playing equipment to Johnny Klein, D.A. investigator; George Contreas, Captain of the Sheriff's Department; and Charles Dice, Chief of the Santa Monica Police, May, 1936."]
"The Royal Crown seemed to ride as steady as a pier on its four hawsers. Its landing stage was lit up like a theater marquee. Then all this faded into remoteness and another, older smaller boat began to sneak out into the night toward us. It was not much to look at. A converted sea-going freighter with scummed and rusted plates, the superstructure cut down to the boatdeck level, and above that two stumpy masts just high enough for a radio antenna. There was a light on the Montecito also, and music floated across the wet dark sea."
-Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely.
pp. 132, 133 ["Top Aboard the Rex, cops detain patrons while the ship gets the once over, ca. 1939. Bottom. Slot machines from the gambling ship Lux are given the heave-ho onto a waiting barge for the trip back to the mainland, February 1941. Opposite. The Rex under assault. During the "Battle of Santa Monica Bay," Tony Cornero's "associates" keep the Sheriff's Department at bay by hosing their speedboats, August 1939."]
pp. 146, 147 ["The Venice Pier pulled in crowds of revelers looking for inexpensive excitement. Writers of the noir found it the perfect locale for fog-shrouded intrigue, ca. 1940. Top: another front for penny-ante crime, mechanical horse races were shut down when investigators exposed their fixed wirings. Bottom."Bridgo parlors with exotic names such as Carneo, Vogue, Shamrock, and Canasto were a variation of the same old con game that kept popping up in beachfront amusement zones. The "sucker games" were wiped out in Venice in a clampdown of the racket in 1949."]
Noir Writers
". . . Few of the writers were natives. Authors such as Raymond Chandler, Nathanael West, John Fante, Evelyn Waugh, and Aldous Huxley drew inspiration from local news accounts. The tales were there for the asking. The local rags and newspapers published the city's dirtiest laundry. . . . early writers of the noir culled these stories, adding the chaos and cynicism of the corrupt city . . .
"Later, a new crop of writers such as John Gregory Dunne, Walter Mosley, and James Ellroy . . . From the dreams and nightmares of the real city they crafted fact into fiction, and the photographs substantiated their writings." p. 156
The Photographers:
"Early in the twentieth century, the city was filled with daily tabloids: the Los Angeles Times, the Daily News, the Mirror, the Examiner, the Herald, the Hollywood Citizen. Photographers such as Delmar Watson represented the typical news photographer. George Watson, Delmar's uncle, worked initially for the Times later becoming manager of Pacific and Atlantic Photos, a forerunner of United Press International Wire Photos. One of the town's most aggressive news photographers, George Watson shot the region's most acclaimed personalities, events, disasters, and crimes. Delmar Watson described the Los Angeles shooting scene as one that was free form and filled with spontaneous decision making. Bruce Henstell in his book Sunshine and Wealth quotes Daily News editor Matt Weinstock describing his newspaper's staff of ten photographers as uncontrollable: they "could terrorize everyone with flash powder which after the explosion filled the vicinity with throat-searing smoke."
"After the war and into the fifties, stringers for East Coast scandal sheets such as Confidential shot viciously unflattering celeb shots, or anything else that looked like a story. Forerunners of today's paparazzi they were an unorganized group who were an unwelcome intrusion around town.
"A few commercial photographers, in the course of their assignments, caught another side of the Southland: the posed and precise Los Angeles. The Mott, Dick Whittington, Merge, and other studios produced some of the most enduring images of L.A. A studied treatment was given to tourist attractions, architecture, movie premieres, grocery store openings, flossed-up streets, and hand shaking politicians. Together with the freewheeling newspaper photographers, they captured the genuine Los Angeles noir." p. 158
Bibliography: [partial]
Clinton Anderson Beverly Hills Is My Beat, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1960.
Bruce Henstell* Sunrise and Wealth, San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1982
Mayo Morrow Los Angeles: A History with Side-Shows, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932
Charles Stoker Thicker 'n Thieves, Santa Monica, Calif.: Sidereal Co., 1951
Matt Weinstock My L.A., New York: Current Books, 1947
Basil Woon Incredible Land New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1933
p. 159