When east coast sophisticates came west to partake in that sweet motion picture money, they mocked and marveled at our eclectic local architecture. For as real estate developers scrambled to satisfy the needs of a booming population, they'd looked to Hollywood set designers for inspiration. And almost overnight, and on a single block, one could choose to live in a home styled in the vernacular of Ancient Egypt, Andalusian Spain, Norman France or Tudor England. Among the most exuberant of…
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Depression-era Southern California: Amongst the burgeoning urban sprawl built atop bulldozed orange groves and the bitter realization that you can’t eat the sunshine, Maryland-born James M. Cain found his writer's voice. The unforgettable regional stories he spun between 1934-44, in novels ”The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Mildred Pierce” and “Double Indemnity” and their subsequent film adaptations, would help launch a unique American genre: Film Noir. How did this East Coast sophisticate go from managing editor of “The New Yorker” to…
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