Hello!

Michael McQuarrie sends us another Hollywood-themed movie reel from ‘Periscope’ … the kind of vintage reel that offers glimpses into a past that fascinates us at CineSavant. Two-thirds of this half-hour is spent bopping around typical Hollywood views, starting with Grauman’s Chinese, festooned with a big sign proclaiming in CinemaScope, There’s No Business Like Show Business.

In addition to the usual sights — hey, it’s our Fairfax Farmer’s Market, you know from the Bosch books — we get a nice peek at one of the RKO back lots with ruined fake buildings, etc., and lots of neon on Hollywood Blvd. The last third drifts away to the original Knotts Berry Farm, and then to San Francisco and San Diego, ending at San Juan Capistrano. The link is at

1954 Visit to Hollywood and More 

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The new issue of the Noir City magazine is out, and once again it is a winner — editor Imogen Sara Smith and the contributing authors tap interesting angles about noir films and related hardboiled topic in literature and the (mostly) Los Angeles night world made famous in pulp fiction and pulpier movies. This issue has articles on first rank film locations (Mary Mallory), and more obscure filming destinations (Eddie Muller):

Noir City.Nicholas Laskin digs deep into the ‘street realism’ film Crime Wave, and Imogen Sara Smith seeks out insights on the ‘street rejects’ seen in the semi-docus The Savage Eye and The Exiles. There’s more coverage of neo-noir (Brian Raftery), Hardcore, The Limey and Mulholland Drive (Danilo Castro), and a debate as to whether the horror film Night Tide can be pigeonholed as noir — which also offers a telling history of the Venice Beach area.

The magazine again has more hard content (and nicer photos) than many a noir book on the market. It can be ordered at the  Film Noir Foundation News Page.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson