Orson Welles prepares a crucial scene in "Touch of Evil"
Downtown L.A.'s refurbished Million Dollar Theater recently screened the Orson Welles classic dark tale of corruption and murder, "Touch of Evil." The film was originally released in 1958 after the studio took control of it from Welles. There’s a recut and redubbed version in circulation these days that is largely restored to the version that Welles intended thanks to a 40-plus page memo he sent the producers protesting changes made to the film. Using the memo as a guide, restorers fixed much of the damage done by studio meddling 50 years after the original release.
Film historians consider "Touch of Evil" to be the last film of the classic noir era, which began with "The Maltese Falcon" in 1941.
"Touch of Evil" is set in a Mexican border town, but Venice Beach, with it's Spanish style colonnades, stood in for a jerkwater berg overlooking our neighbor to the south.
Welles co-wrote the script, directed and co-starred along with Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Marlene Dietrich. Also, playing supporting roles are Zsa Zsa Gabor and Dennis Weaver.
Below, a video about the "Touch of Evil" restoration:
See the photo at top, and note how the crane shot is used in a clip from the film's opening:
Barbara Stanwyck, third from left, and Fred MacMurray await their cues.
"Double Indemnity" recently had its 70th anniversary. The Billy Wilder directed film is a top contender for best noir of all time. It features great performances by Fred MacMurray (Walter Neff), Barbara Stanwyck (Phyllis Dietrichson) and Edward G. Robinson (Barton Keyes) and is packed with classic dialog:
Walter Neff: I was thinking about that dame upstairs, and the way she had looked at me, and I wanted to see her again, close, without that silly staircase between us.
Phyllis: We're both rotten. Walter Neff: Only you're a little more rotten.
Edward S. Norton: That witness from the train, what was his name? Barton Keyes: His name was Jackson. Probably still is.
The terrific script unfolds mainly in flashbacks. Wilder and Raymond Chandler adapted the James M. Caine novel of the same title. Chandler, a dean of Los Angeles crime fiction, makes a cameo appearance in the film -- see the clip, below:
Check out the clip below, in which Walter spills the details of his crimes:
Below, another rarely seen production shot from the film:
Police guard the wartime rationed canned goods used on the set.
Mike's Historic Buildings: LA Noir: The Bryson: "He drove down to Wilshire and we turned east again. Twenty-five minutes brought us to the Bryson Tower, a white stucco palace with fr...
You've heard it all here before. So, Johnny Depp is going to take another shot at playing a famous gangster.
The money was finally right, according to Deadline Hollywood. How do you think this one will stack up next to "The Departed," the other Whitey picture that was made before he was captured? Paramount signed on to partly finance the deal and the shooting begins in Boston in eight weeks. Does anyone know of any Boston locations that are being lined up for themovie? I'm guessing the courthouse on the waterfront where the actual trial took place would be a prime location for exterior shots.
Scott Cooper is set to direct and Joel Edgerton plays disgraced FBI agent, John Connolly. It's all based on a very good book titled "Black Mass" by Dick Lehr and Gerald O’Neill. The Whitey Bulger story is solid stuff -- it even has a third act now that Whitey's behind bars.
The Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles has been the scene of strange goings on.
I
t’s probably not overdoing it to say that the Cecil Hotel, recently rebranded as the Cecil Hotel Apartments, is one of L.A.’s spookiest buildings. At least two bona fide serial killers – “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez in 1985 and Jack Unterweger in 1991 – called it home, and the 95 year-old hotel, built in 1927, has had several murders and its share of jumpers who went out the higher windows and hit the sidewalk below or the hotel’s marquee. One jumper landed on a pedestrian and killed him as well as herself.
The Night Stalker
But one of the truly strangest stories is that of Canadian tourist Elisa Lam. She went missing from the hotel Jan. 31, 2013, and was found drowned in one of the Cecil’s rooftop water tanks. She had been dead in the tank for two weeks and wasn’t discovered until guests complained about the smell and taste of the hotel’s drinking water and low water pressure in the showers. A maintenance man went up to the roof to investigate and made the grisly discovery.
Security video shot inside a Cecil elevator captured Lam just before she went missing. She appears to be frightened, pushes buttons for all of the floors and seems to be hiding inside the elevator. She steps off of the elevator and makes strange gestures, as though she’s speaking with someone. See video, below.
Some observers say that it would have been impossible for her to make her way to the roof and somehow get inside the water tank unassisted. Below, a local news reporter explains how difficult it would have been for Lam to get inside the water tank.
Police ruled her death an accidental drowning. We’ll probably never know for sure what actually happened that night on the roof of the Cecil. Below, see Cecil guests’ reactions to drinking, bathing and brushing their teeth with the tainted water from the rooftop tank. CNN gives a rundown on the hotel's tragic history.
There are mug shots, and then there are mug shots. They've become a standard feature on gossip websites, such as TMZ, where actors, pop singers and other Star Trailer trash get their dirty linens aired.
But mug shots from the olden days tell a different, more engrossing story. Here are some tough characters in the 1920s who got their pictures saved for posterity. It may be just the primitive photographic technology of the day that brings out each subject's most sinister characteristics, but these hombres look like they'd kill you for a Hershey's Candy Bar. Speaking of primitive, the police photographers of that era seemed to take a casual approach to their jobs. There are just a couple of standard poses -- standing and sitting; hat on and hat off.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any information about these perps. Just use your imagination and assume the worst. Chances are you'll be pretty close to the mark.
I first saw "The Conversation" at the Brattle Cinema in Cambridge, Mass., and I remember it was one of those landmark films that stood out even among the Fellini, Kurosawa and Bergman works that the theater routinely scheduled. The Watergate-era film had Gene Hackman's astonishing performance as Harry Caul, the electronic surveillance expert who finds himself in hot water, and Francis Ford Coppola's spare script and spot-on direction. Check out some little seen production pictures that were snapped at San Francisco locations where the film was shooting.
