A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Feb. 17, 1955: Hedda Hopper says, “Congratulations to the Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas for being able to land Mario Lanza (d. 1959). He'll receive $50,000 a week for a singing engagement there. And his fans will be flying in from all over the country to see and hear him again.”

Tregoff Sobs on Witness Stand

Photograph by John Malmin / Los Angeles Times Attorney Donald Bringgold and Carole Tregoff during a recess in the Finch trial. “Thousands of Dog Teeth!” Unfortunately, the continuation of this story wasn’t microfilmed, so this is all we have.

Feb. 16, 1960: Times sportswriter Frank Finch looks at the Dodgers’ “long bench.”  “Not counting pitchers, [Walter] Alston used 21 players at eight positions, yet only three of them started more than 115 games,” Finch says.

Hearing on the Gas House, Part 1

Sept. 8, 1959: This is the first part of a transcript of testimony by “Holy Barbarians” author Lawrence Lipton before the the Los Angeles Police Commission on the Gas House, the Beat hangout in Venice. I’ll be posting the remaining sections as time allows.

Officers Suspended Over Prostitution Investigation

“Florodora” is at the Grand Operahouse.     The “Florodora” girls are in town and “A Clubman” catches up with them – or tries to.

Feb. 14, 1910:  Police Officers Bowman and Whaling were suspended after reporting a brothel on Jackson Street. The more The Times investigates the matter, the more mysterious it becomes. Many Times stories of this era use the term “Goo-Goo,” a derisive nickname for the Good Government Party.

The Specials at the Whisky

Feb. 11, 1980: The long-awaited merger of punk and reggae is message, mirth and mayhem, Richard Cromelin says.

Matt Weinstock, Jan. 28, 1960

Leap Year Pitch     For a while it appeared we might tiptoe into 1960 without arousing the usual corny, anachronistic nonsense about leap year and the girls chasing the boys, object matrimony.  No such luck.  The subject was merely dormant.  Now it has busted loose all over, not merely among TV emcees and night club comedians specializing in double-entendre.     A press release from Chicago traces the origin to Scotland where in 1288 it was decreed that ladies "of bothe highe and lowe estait" could propose during leap years.  If a man refused he was fined, unless he could prove that another woman had a prior claim on his affections.  The purpose was to put money in the treasury and take spinsters off the welfare rolls.     And where do we learn all this?  In an encyclopedia the press release is plugging.  Yes, even leap year is only an excuse to sell something. ::      AS ALWAYS DURING EPIDEMICS, the City Health Department has received dozens of calls and letters with  suggestions for halting the flu.     One man stated he never got the flu, although everyone around him did, because he was very careful about keeping flies off his person.  This he accomplished by chewing raw garlic.     Another man was surprised the health people had never heard of his preventative -- putting a slice of raw onion in each shoe every day. ::     ONLY IN L.A. -- After searching vainly through the stationery stock in a notions store, David K. Williams asked the clerk if she had any graph paper.  She assured him it was on the counter he'd just inspected.  He said all the paper there had lines running only one way.  "Well, on our graph paper," she said proudly, "the lines only run one way!" ::     SMILE, MAN He's only a clothier's     dummy, A part of the window trim, With a  wooden sneer to     remind me My suit looked good on him.         --SHELDON WHITE ::     "PEOPLE DON'T  have fun anymore," a man I know deplored the other day.  Exception, please.  Publicist Paul Snell, with a log record of practical jokery.  He used to order 20 bales of hay delivered anonymously to friends' homes and things like that.     His most recent effort had to do with his wife's yearning to raise baby chicks.  He got over 20 of them and arranged with the poultry dealer to exchange them weekly with day-old chicks without her knowledge.  She couldn't understand for months how they could keep eating and not grow. ::     YESTERDAY I received a cigarette lighter (Made in Japan) with an ad for a Las Vegas gambling joint all over it.  An accompanying business card from publicist Hank Kovell has imprinted on it the horrid word "Payola," indicating a new era of truth and honesty may have arrived.  But thank goodness I remain pure.  The lighter doesn't work. ::     AHEM DEPT. -- The public address system at the Sports Arena has outlets in all sorts of nooks and crannies so no one will miss  a thing.  Which will explain the case of the nervous woman who rushed out of the powder room during a recent event.  She heard a man's voice and thought she was in the wrong place. ::     AT RANDOM -- A Santa Monica lady named Margie, who lets her parakeet Tweet (its one word vocabulary) fly around the room, reports it crawls under the covers with her these cold nights . . . Another TV cliche rapidly rising to the top 40:  "I didn't say that!" . . . Among the most frustrated persons in town is a newsman recovering from a  bad cold.  He went to the Smell-O- Vision movie, "Scent of Mystery," the other night and didn't smell a thing . . . Comedian Ray Hastings took a group of youngsters to the mountain last week end and as they neared the summit one boy said, "Hey, if we go much higher we're going to run out of sky" . . . A lady named Sylvia reports that a Lido Isle dress shop which for a long time has advertised a "Slight Sale" now announces a "Beeg Sale."

Pasadena Jazz Hall a Nuisance, Neighbors Say

“Wonder What a 20 Months Old Baby Baby Thinks About?” by Clare Briggs. View Larger Map 333 Summit Ave., Pasadena, via Google maps' street view.

Jan. 3, 1920: Capt. Jack, 85, walks on water and says anybody can do it if they practice ... And neighbors complain about the jazz music coming from the Mark Hall Social Club, 333 Summit Ave., Pasadena.

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Dec. 30, 1941: “Jackie Cooper is studying the finer points of drumming with Buddy Rich of Tommy Dorsey's band these days and doing so well that he sits in with the band at the Mocambo now and then just to get used to playing before an audience.”

The Empty Prophecy of Prohibition

Detectives Brown, Barnett and Harry Raymond in a raid on a club in Little Tokyo.

Dec. 28, 1919:  The Times analyzes the first six months of Prohibition and finds that many predictions have not come true. Some minor offenses have decreased, but violent crimes have risen sharply, police say. Instead of needing fewer officers, the LAPD says it needs to double the force and build bigger jails for all the prisoners charged under the new laws. "The best prophets all seem to have died in time to get written up in the Bible. Many things that were expected to happen after last July 1 have not happened; some unexpected things have. No prognosticator who held forth last June seems to have been altogether right, unless he confined his remarks to the obvious and then qualified that," The Times says.

Hips Are Coming Back!

“When a Feller Needs a Friend,” by Clare Briggs.

Dec. 26, 1919: New York is on the verge of another police scandal, The Times’ Harry Carr writes and hips are coming back. “I did not know that hips had gone or where; but if that fact holds any message for any aching soul, why there it is: hips are coming back!”

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Dec. 24, 1961: Bobby Darin says,  "If I were a drinker I wouldn't have to come out like a blockbuster. But I don't drink and come on in a nightclub cold sober to entertain a crowd that's invariably high. I have to get their attention and keep it. If you have no talent you have to be a nice guy so you walk out humble, but I don't think Crosby or Sinatra are humble men."

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Dec. 23, 1960: “Mary Martin invited the sons and daughters of radio and TV writers to a rehearsal of ‘Peter Pan.’ They were assembled on stage and she flew down to greet them. ‘Why, you're a girl!’ said one smart little lad. She explained Peter has always been played by a girl, invited them all to a matinee of ‘Sound of Music.’ ”