Harts and Diamonds: A Tale of Two Jacks (Part II)

One Jack is a man on the lam. The other is a boy without a mother. Part II.

Mark Hellinger Makes a Prediction About Show Business

The Broadway Melody premiered at the Astor Theatre on February 8, 1929.  Mordaunt Hall, the very first movie critic for the New York Times was in attendance.   In his review the next day, he used some fabulous words to describe the film: “This alternately lachrymose, laughable and bellicose feature…” Mark Hellinger, in his column in…

Replenishing Maxwell Bodenheim

Max Bodenheim, a poet and novelist, had a strange way with women.  He tended to leave them gasping for breath. In early July 1928 Bodenheim lived at 144 MacDougall Street in Greenwich Village.  Next door, nineteen year old Gladys Loeb was found unconscious in her attic apartment, the gas was on and she was out.  I’ve read,…

Newspapers, Planes and Philip Payne

Mark Hellinger was rudely awakened at two o’clock in the afternoon on Monday September 17, 1928.  It was a very strange combination of sounds that startled this inveterate Broadway reporter.  In his words,  I heard the whirr of an airplane, the blatant notes of a Calliope that was offering some kind of song, a bugle call and…