Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero! (Book) (2012)

You do not have to be a film noir fan to enjoy Jim Dawson’s book. Fans of classic film in general would find plenty to enjoy on the pages of Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero!. For one thing, Dawson does not limit his discussion to film noir. He includes a lot of other types of films that used the Bunker Hill neighborhood for location shooting.

I happened to find a copy of Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill in my library system, but you can find a copy at the Internet Archive. Reading the book at the archive apparently requires a sign-in. Click here for more information.

Dawson delves into the history of the neighborhood, the politicking over its so-called urban renewal phase (which led to its destruction in the 1960s and eventual replacement), and the impact it had on the film industry. He includes information about writers, including pulp fiction and detective fiction writers, and where they lived. Raymond Chandler, for instance, was a Bunker Hill resident for a time, both before and after his marriage, and drew inspiration from the neighborhood. Chandler grew more and more disillusioned about how Los Angeles accommodated its growing population, and his detective Philip Marlowe refers to this situation occasionally while on his investigations.

Dawson’s book includes lots of photos, which is another plus, of course. Dawson is obviously knowledgeable about his topic, and he includes a lot of information in the photo captions, too. Many of the photos are stills from the films discussed in the book, but quite a few are behind-the-scenes shots of on-location film shoots.

For even more information from Jim Dawson about the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles, click here.

If ever the book is updated for a second edition, I have a wish list of suggested changes:

◊ A book index would be extremely helpful for cross referencing. And it should include information from both the text and the photo captions, please.

◊ The map on page 28 should have its own chapter, with a legend showing the ratio of inches (half inches, quarter inches) to miles, more details about the locations featured, and a revised numbering system that follows the numerical sequence more intuitively. And listing it in the contents would make it much easier to find.

I don’t want this wish list to sound like a list of complaints because the book is a joy to read. Classic film fans would enjoy all the information and the accompanying photos. The photos include snapshots of the structures that made Bunker Hill so unique: the Victorian era architecture; the hilly terrain that forced builders to include public staircases, innovative building designs, and lengthy tunnels; and the Angels Flight rail, all of which are features in many films noir.

The book is short at only 160 pages total and so it’s a quick read—unless you are someone like me, who likes to cross reference and consult that handy map on page 28. But if you are someone like me, somehow you are going to count that as a plus, too.

The last chapter is titled “A Selective List of Films Shot on Bunker Hill.” It’s an alphabetical list of such films and, once again, films from different types of genres are included.

And now I have a (another) new list of films noir to see.

Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero!  •  By Jim Dawson  •  Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2012

The image of the front cover is from the book published by The History Press.

The Lady Confesses (1945)

The Lady Confesses is an independent film production that was distributed by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), a so-called Poverty Row studio that produced B films on the cheap. And The Lady Confesses was certainly produced on the cheap. But even with a low budget for the film and a major spoiler for me (see the note in blue type below), I found the story engrossing. And it is compact: The film’s running time comes in at just under sixty-four minutes.

The Lady Confesses is in the public domain. You can watch it online for free at the Internet Archive by clicking here. This print is one of two at the archive, and neither one is of high quality, but viewers won’t have trouble following the story.

I knew very little about The Lady Confesses before I saw it at the Internet Archive. One of the prints had comments that I wish I hadn’t read because one of them gives away the identity of the murderer. If you don’t want to know that before you watch the film, I recommend watching without reading the comments first if you happen to find that print instead of the one at the link provided above.

The film starts with an anonymous woman knocking on Vicki McGuire’s front door. This woman tells Vicki that she cannot marry her fiancé, Larry Craig, because she, the anonymous woman, is his long-lost wife Norma. Norma has been missing for seven years and was presumed dead, but now she is back to disrupt her husband’s wedding plans and his life.

That same night, Larry Craig is in a nightclub, Club 711 (or the 711 Club; it goes by both names in the film), and he was already drunk when he arrived there. He talks to several people: Steve, the bartender; Lucky Brandon, owner of the nightclub; and Lucile Compton, a singer. He must be a regular because he seems to know almost everyone. Lucile convinces Larry to stay in her dressing room to sleep it off before visiting Vicki.

By the time Vicki calls the nightclub looking for Larry, he is sober enough to drive. He picks up Vicki before going to Norma’s home to settle their disagreements and arrange for a divorce. But when they arrive, they are greeted by Detective Harman, Captain Brown, and several police officers. The police are already at Norma’s home because she has been murdered. Larry identifies the body, and Larry and Vicki soon become suspects. They both have the same motive: Once Norma is out of the way, they can proceed with their wedding plans.

Captain Brown naturally wants to know where Larry and Vicki were all evening. Captain Brown takes Larry back to Club 711 to talk to witnesses to confirm Larry’s alibi. Detective Harmon leaves with Vicki to confirm her alibi, which viewers learn about through conversations later. Captain Brown talks to Gladys, the hat check girl; Steve, the bartender; and Lucile Compton, the singer. While Captain Brown and Larry Craig are in Lucile’s dressing room, Lucky Brandon enters to give Lucile her paycheck. Captain Brown asks Lucky if he saw Larry Craig earlier in the evening, and Lucky denies it, even though Larry did see him in Lucky’s nightclub office and even called out to him just before he left the club. Both Larry and Lucile protest the veracity of Lucky’s denial, but he insists that he never saw Larry at the nightclub earlier in the evening. Vicki’s alibi is not airtight either so she, too, remains on the suspect list.

(This article about The Lady Confesses contains some spoilers.)

Captain Brown goes to Lucky Brandon’s nightclub office next to talk to Lucky. Lucky admits that he and Norma Craig knew each other and that she loaned him $10,000 when he first opened the club. He maintains that he was in his nightclub all night during the hours when Norma was murdered. But small details between his, Larry’s, and Vicki’s stories are not adding up perfectly enough, and Captain Brown naturally continues his methodical investigation.

Both Vicki McGuire and Larry Craig believe that Captain Brown is unsure of their alibis and that their motives concerning Norma Craig being in the way of their marriage are too strong to ignore. Vicki decides to get a job at Club 711 so she can find out what she can, which Larry thinks is a bad idea. Both of them are under scrutiny, and the police can handle the investigation without Vicki putting herself in harm’s way. Vicki is undeterred by Larry’s arguments. She bribes the nightclub photographer to take her place for a couple of days.

Vicki McGuire is an amateur sleuth, but she manages to pick up several possible clues that the police seem to have missed so far:

◊ The developer working in the nightclub’s darkroom, Bill, tells her that Norma Craig and Lucky Brandon were running around together and that Lucile Compton has a crush on Lucky.

◊ Vicki overhears Lucky and Lucile arguing about Norma Craig. Vicki then goes into Lucile’s dressing room to get more information out of Lucile, but Lucile is called back to the nightclub stage to perform.

◊ Vicki snoops through Lucky Brandon’s nightclub office and finds a receipt dated the night of Norma Craig’s murder. It is made out to Norma.

◊ Lucky Brandon leaves the nightclub in a hurry, in his own car, and Vicki follows him in a cab. She follows him on foot into Norma Craig’s house, where he retrieves a pen that he had lost there. (The print at the Internet Archive is murky during these scenes, and the film is too dark to see much of what is going on. But viewers definitely know the pen belongs to Lucky Brandon because his name is engraved on it.)

How did Vicki turn into such a competent investigator, and so quickly? Is it just plain luck, or is she really that good at getting people to talk and not getting caught in places she has no business in?

The Lady Confesses is a tight story, but a few details nagged at me. None of them detract much from the story, which was meant to be compact. One of them, of course, is Vicki’s successful turn to investigation:

◊ Vicki McGuire barges into Lucile Compton’s dressing room—always uninvited—and snoops in Lucky Brandon’s nightclub office. She doesn’t need a warrant because she is not a police officer, but her bravado and confidence seemed like a rather sudden turnaround to me. Norma Craig seemed more capable of intimidating her, murder suspects not so much.

◊ Larry Craig (played by Hugh Beaumont) and Vicki McGuire (played by Mary Beth Huges) have very little chemistry on-screen. It’s hard to believe that Larry has any affection for Vicki, even before she begins her amateur sleuthing and discovers some dangerous secrets about him.

◊ How did Norma Craig keep up her beautiful and expensive home when she was gone for seven years (or more)?

◊ Were Norma and Lucky “running around” on the sly (and fooling everyone) during the seven years that she was supposedly missing? Or did Lucky find out that Norma was back in town and very much alive before anyone else did?

It is quite possible that these last two points would be answered if the print were crisp and the sound were perfect. Answers are not necessary, however, to enjoy the story. And I always enjoy seeing an actor like Hugh Beaumont, who is probably much more famous for his role as Ward Cleaver in the television sitcom Leave It to Beaver, in a film noir role. Mary Beth Hughes gets top billing, though, and she deserves it. The story really is more about her character, and she does more to help the investigation than would be expected of any ordinary civilian!

May 16, 1945, release date  •  Directed by Sam Newfield  •  Screenplay by Helen Martin  •  Based on a story by Irwin R. Franklyn  •  Music by Lee Zahler  •  Edited by Holbrook N. Todd  •  Cinematography by Jack Greenhalgh

Mary Beth Hughes as Vicki McGuire  •  Hugh Beaumont as Larry Craig  •  Edmund MacDonald as Lucky Brandon  •  Claudia Drake as Lucile Compton  •  Emmett Vogan as Police Captain Brown  •  Barbara Slater as Norma Craig  •  Edward Howard as Detective Harmon  •  Dewey Robinson as Steve, the nightclub bartender  •  Carol Andrews as Margie, the nightclub photographer  •  Ruth Brande as Gladys, the nightclub hat checker  •  Jerome Root as Bill, the nightclub photo developer

Distributed by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC)  •  Produced by Alexander-Stern Productions

The Lost One (Der Verlorene) (1951)

It’s hard not to make comparisons between The Lost One, a film cowritten and directed by Peter Lorre and one in which he also stars, and M (1931), one of Lorre’s first film appearances twenty years earlier. Both films were produced in Germany, the first before Lorre’s escape from Nazi Germany and the second on his return to the country after Germany’s defeat at the end of World War II. Lorre’s performance in each film is spectacular in very different ways, but there are overlaps in theme and subject matter that seemed especially obvious to me because I saw The Lost One for the first time just a few weeks after seeing M.

You can see The Lost One free online. Click here to see it at the Internet Archive. The link gives you the option of seeing the film with and without English subtitles. I saw the film on DVD and at the archive, and the print at the archive is crisp compared to the DVD version. Click here to read my blog article about M.

In both films, Lorre plays a murderer, and both characters (that is, the murderers) make claims about not being able to rein in their murderous impulses. In M, it is implied that World War I had such a traumatic effect on both soldiers and civilians that it unleashed antisocial behaviors. (This point is brought up in the commentary provided on the DVD.) In The Lost One, all the characters are struggling to cope with wartime destruction and then the aftermath in the postwar period following World War II. Both films are bleak in their subject matter and in their portrayal of the human condition.

The Lost One includes a disclaimer stating that it is based on factual reports from the last few years (prior to 1951). It is what is known as a rubble film, a film produced on location amid the rubble left behind after the end of World War II. It was filmed in postwar Hamburg, Germany, and the war’s destruction is noticeable in almost every shot. The war still hangs heavy over German society after the end of the war. Much of the extended flashbacks feature the bombed-out city. The present of the film takes place in a refugee camp for people displaced by the war.

The narrative starts in the postwar period, when an attendant working in the Elbe-Duvenstett refugee camp meets Dr. Rothe and tells him that someone named Novak is waiting to meet him and to assist with dispensing vaccines for the newly arrived camp inhabitants. The attendant tells Rothe that Novak is a chemist from Katowitz. He has experience and can also help Rothe with his patient workload. Rothe is in the clinic to administer vaccines when Novak shows up. He and Rothe recognize one another immediately. Rothe is visibly upset, upset enough to get up, leave the clinic, and head to the railroad tracks.

After continuing his work in the clinic, Novak arrives to what he thinks is Rothe’s empty office. He helps himself to a drink and is startled when Rothe lights a cigarette in the dark. They share a past that neither wants to talk about, at least not right away. Both want to be sure that the other will keep their secrets. Novak tells Rothe that Winkler shot himself in the head. Rothe says that that leaves just the two of them: Novak and Rothe. Novak admits that he is on the run and needs identification papers. When they run out of alcohol in the doctor’s office, Rothe suggests that they move to the camp canteen, where they can eat and drink.

At this point, viewers are in the dark about the secrets that Rothe and Novak share, and they do not know who Winkler is or how he figures in their shared past. Rothe changed his name after the war to Dr. Neumeister and assumed a new identity. He already has identification papers. Novak’s name during the war was Hösch, and he needs identification papers to flee Germany.

Rothe and Novak continue their conversation when they arrive at the camp canteen, and Rothe says that everything changed for them on December 8, 1943. The mention of this date prompts the first of several long flashbacks that tell the story Rothe has been avoiding for years. Novak would rather avoid it, too, but unlike Rothe, he is barely perturbed by the past or his current situation. He is confident, even arrogant, about his role in his shared history with Rothe. He is also convinced that Rothe can be easily blackmailed and would never do anything to harm him. He even tells Rothe at one point that he is an amateur and that he could never pick up a gun and shoot him, even though Novak knows that Rothe has the gun that Novak once carried when he was still a member of the Gestapo. He needs identification papers to escape Germany and any postwar prosecution, and he is also confident that Rothe will help him escape.

(This article about The Lost One all the spoilers.)

The extended series of flashbacks reveals that Rothe and Novak’s shared dark past suggests they are not really all that different, even though Rothe was (and still is) a respected doctor and researcher developing vaccines and antibiotics, and Novak was a Gestapo agent working undercover in Rothe’s laboratory during the war. Viewers can infer that Novak is now a wanted war criminal. Inge Hermann, Rothe’s fiancé, sold his research secrets to the Allies in London via her father in Stockholm. Rothe learns about this from Colonel Winkler and Novak, and Novak learned of it by sleeping with Hermann and gaining her trust. When Winkler and Novak broke the news to Rothe, he was overcome by two betrayals: Hermann’s and Novak’s. The date is December 8, 1943, and Rothe eventually strangles Hermann later that day. Winkler and Novak cover up the crime by calling it a suicide.

Rothe tells Novak that Hermann confessed to the affair but not to the leak of his medical research to the Allies. She attempted a reconciliation with him, but he couldn’t go through with it when Novak called on the telephone. His intrusion into the discussion between Rothe and Hermann seems to have been the catalyst that pushes Rothe over the edge and prompts his first murder.

It was hard to tell if Rothe resented Novak’s intrusion only or if he feared what Novak would do if Hermann had been allowed to live indefinitely. Novak did say that he was willing to confront Hermann himself about the research secrets, but he didn’t say explicitly if part of his mission was to kill her. It is also hard to tell if Rothe feared any repercussions from the German state because of his own carelessness. It is possible that he was worried about all these factors. Once he kills Hermann, however, he continued his research, and Novak continued working at the institute alongside him.

But the burden of living with his actions eventually becomes too burdensome for Rothe. He goes through Novak’s desk at the institute looking for a cigarette, a small step that leads to one disaster after another. In addition to cigarettes, Rothe finds Inge Hermann’s letters to Novak; he also finds Novak’s gun. He burns the letters and then decides to kill both Colonel Winkler and Novak. His search for Novak leads him to Winkler’s house because he suspects Novak of being there when he cannot find him at work or at his own home. By chance, he comes upon a secret assassination plot to kill Adolf Hitler. He overhears other Nazi officers arriving at Winkler’s home and giving the password “Babylon.” He uses it to enter and eavesdrops on the officers discussing some details of the assassination attempt.

But Novak had followed Rothe to Winkler’s home. He knew that his gun was missing and was sure that Rothe had taken it after finding the burned letters. Novak arrives at Winkler’s home where he learns of the plot himself, but he doesn’t show himself to Rothe or anyone else in the home. He calls in other Gestapo agents, and the plot is foiled. Colonel Winkler escapes and returns Novak’s gun to Rothe. His last words are instructions to kill Novak.

Novak admits now, in the canteen at the refugee camp, that he lied to Rothe: Winkler never killed himself. He and other agents caught him as was trying to escape to Switzerland. They tortured him for more information and then hanged him. Rothe is thoroughly disillusioned at this point. He had come to admire Winkler for trying to organize an assassination attempt against Hitler, and he has even more contempt for Novak now that he knows Novak’s role in Winkler’s death.

Novak tells Rothe that he and Rothe have always been lucky, and they are both lucky now to be alive. But Rothe doesn’t want to be alive and remember all that he has done, which now includes his unwitting role in leading Novak to Winkler and the secret assassination plot. Rothe pulls out Novak’s gun and then shoots him before he even has a chance to look up from the meal in front of him. Novak never believed that Rothe could shoot him or kill anyone. After shooting Novak, Rothe leaves the camp canteen and walks back to the railroad tracks. He stands on the tracks waiting for the next train, and when it arrives, he doesn’t jump out of the way.

I saw The Lost One twice on a borrowed DVD and again at the Internet Archive. The subtitles, that is, the translation, was slightly different for both versions, and I would like to give a shoutout to the translators. The choices they make when translating influence the story in subtle ways, and I find it interesting to see the different versions. For example, the DVD translation specifically identified Hösch as a Gestapo agent. The translation at the Internet Archive identified him simply as a concerned employee of the institute where both he and Dr. Rothe work. Even the spelling of Hösch’s name differs between the two versions: Hösch versus Hoesch.

As I said, The Lost One is a very dark film, even for a film noir. There aren’t many films, noir or otherwise, that end with all the main characters dead, as they do in this film. It is another example of the desperation that continued for so many people in Europe after World War II ended. I tend to think of the armistice as a definite ending point to the war. All the conflict had ended, and society was finally able to return to normal. That’s what I was taught. But that was not really true, not even here in the United States, where there was no fighting and there was no rubble to remind people of the horrors of war. If everything really had returned to normal, there probably wouldn’t have been an audience for film noir after World War II.

The Lost One is a great film and a good representation of life during and immediately after World War II. I saw it three times, and repeat viewings are certainly a big help in understanding the plot, especially because it is a German film. But it is not necessarily an easy film to watch.

September 7, 1951, release date  •  Directed by Peter Lorre  •  Screenplay by Peter Lorre, Benno Vigny, Axel Eggebrecht, Helmut Käutner  •  Music by Willy Schmidt-Gentner  •  Edited by Carl Otto Bartning  •  Cinematography by Václav Vich

Peter Lorre as Dr. Karl Rothe (aka Neumeister)  •  Karl John as Novak (aka Hösch/Hoesch)  •  Helmuth Rudolph as Colonel Winkler  •  Johanna Hofer as Frau Hermann  •  Renate Mannhardt as Inge Hermann  •  Eva Ingeborg Scholz as Ursula Weber  •  Lotte Rausch as Helene, the woman on the train  •  Gisela Trowe as the prostitute  •  Hansi Wendler as Dolien, Rothe’s secretary  •  Kurt Meister as Preefke  •  Alexander Hunzinger as the drunk  •  Josef Dahmen as Liske, the canteen manager •  Georg Siebert as Placzek, the man with the injured eye

Distributed by National-Filmverleih  •  Produced by Arnold Pressburger Filmproduktion