Friday, June 29, 2007

Hooverville J. Edgar Hoover was the first director of the F.B.I. That's what  they called him, too. The Director, even behind his back. Like it was all a movie, Jimmy Stewart. Hoover  ran the F.B.I. with a keen eye and by 1947, had the best network of  reliable informants ever and every bit of it crossed his desk. Everybody gave it up for J. Edgar in those days. With pictures and negatives. He liked newspaper clippings that praise the work of the Bureau best. January 25, 1947 3:15pm. A teletyped confrence was issued concerning the Short murder, that's page 8 of the FOIA documents from the FBI's Files For those of you following along. FROM LA TO DIRECTOR AND NY DATED JAN. TWENTYTHIRD ADVISING [redacted] IDENTIFIED PHOTO FOUND IN VICTIMS EFFECTS AS [redacted] AS A PSYCHONEUROTIC PATIENT WHOSE WIFE COMMITTED SUICIDE [redacted] AFTER KILLING CHILD. TRUE NAME OF SUSPECT[redacted] IS [redacted] HIS WIFE COMMITTED SUICIDE [redacted] AFTER KILLING TWO YEAR OLD DAUGHTER. SUSPECT CONFINED AT [redacted] END OF PAGE ONE. Now that's odd. That's the plot of The Blue Dahlia (1946). Screenwriter Raymond Chandler has seemingly taken the idea from a real tragedy in then-recent L.A. history. How do we know this? The killer was from the area. A story like that should have made the papers, but was likely not printed for morale or security reasons. The very sad story got out somehow. The legendary Hollywood grapevine probably helped. Chandler was reportedly drunk and unusually desperate at that time, as were the studio creeps at Paramount, so they went with the taboo little tale, though they cleaned it up some and gave it the standard Hollywood happy ending. Raymond Chandler 12:09:58 PM    comment