4 Aces, located in Palmdale, California, is every Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford and B-Minus-film noir from 1949 to 1960 wrapped up into one, big, delightful fake. The Diner This is where you take the woman hitchhiking in heels with a suitcase and a shady story about her father, in Chicago, kicking her out of… Continue reading Fake Americana With a Topping of Grit: 4 Aces Movie Ranch, Palmdale
Category: 1940s
Cutaways from the 1940s (1940 to 1949).
Farny: Mysterious Drop-Dead Death of Bette Davis’ Husband
An overactive imagination could come up with a scenario where Bette Davis kills her second husband, Arthur Farnsworth. After all, pick any Bette Davis movie at random, and she’s probably killing someone. Just the other night, I caught a very random Bette Davis movie: a weird 1964 late-late-film noir called Dead Ringer where Bette Davis… Continue reading Farny: Mysterious Drop-Dead Death of Bette Davis’ Husband
Man-Eating Sex Queen of Great Neck, New York, Dorothea Matthews
This English Tudor house, located at 201 Clent Road, Great Neck, New York, may not look like much of a love nest. But in 1948, its chief female resident, Mrs. Dorothea Matthews turned this house into something approaching the Playboy Mansion, East. It wasn’t until Mrs. Matthews’ divorce proceedings from her husband Mark Matthews in… Continue reading Man-Eating Sex Queen of Great Neck, New York, Dorothea Matthews
When a Lowly Writer of Pirate Tales Found His Way
He was old, his wife sick, he had lost his job, and he was drinking too much. It didn’t help that the country had hit rock-bottom in the worst financial depression of its history. Still, the human spirit persists. In 1932, jobless and dejected Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) persisted in a very small way by signing… Continue reading When a Lowly Writer of Pirate Tales Found His Way
Woody Guthrie’s Song “Deportee”: Well-Meaning Fantasy
It was a plane crash that killed 32 people, mainly illegal immigrants, and spawned Woody Guthrie’s song “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).” For over 70 years, “Deportee” has come to signify the heartlessness of the American public, media, and law enforcement system towards illegal immigrants. Recorded by Joan Baez, Kingston Trio, Hoyt Axton, Nanci Griffith,… Continue reading Woody Guthrie’s Song “Deportee”: Well-Meaning Fantasy