Movies during the silent era were hugely influential. They were the primary means of how people leaned social etiquette, how to dress, how to act on a date, and even the proper way to kiss. People studied their favorite movie stars intensely and emulated their mannerisms, speech, and demeanor. The women were just coming out of the Victorian Era and into the Jazz Age, and they were looking for guidance in how they should fit into this new age of freedom for them. Men also were groping for h...

The starvation caused by the potato famine in Ireland resulted in a huge immigration of Irish to the United States, primarily to New York City. They settled in the lower slums of Manhattan, and by their sheer numbers overran the lower east side. Poor, uneducated, and unskilled, the Irish lived in the most depressed area of the city. The Irish youth joined the famed Five-Pointers gang, which terrorized the Lower East Side with burglaries, stickups, robberies, and occasional battles with the...

Joan's childhood was right out of a Dickens novel. Her mother was indifferent to her, her 3 fathers ran out on her, and her brother held her in contempt. She grew up alone and friendless, having to work her early years at a succession of menial jobs in order to make ends meet for her mother and shiftless brother. Having to work at school so many hours to pay her tuition, Joan had no time to be educated and much to her shame later in life, she had only completed the 5th grade. When Joan's 3...

The motion picture industry started out ridiculed and despised at the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century. The first movies in the 1890s were shown in vaudeville; then in penny arcades; then in nickelodeons. In the penny arcade one deposited a penny in a small machine and saw though an eye-piece a number of flip cards go by in rapid succession simulating movement. Later the machines would accommodate a small filmstrip spooling by. The penny arcades were usually locate...

This book deals primarily with the Al Capone Era in Chicago. Technically this would cover a six-year, eight-month period of time from when Johnny Torrio was shot by "Bugs" Moran in January 24, 1925 to October 24, 1931, when Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in prison for income tax evasion. However, the book will go back a bit earlier, when Johnny Torrio first brought Capone to Chicago from New York and follow through to Capone's time in prison, his retirement in Florida, and his subsequ...

The "Dust Bowl" of the early 1930s spawned the era of the Mid-West bank robbers. Gangs led by Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, and "Baby Face" Nelson became the stuff of American legend. None of them was spectacularly successful at bank robbing and all of them came to bad ends, being shot down in the end by the law. They all, however, caught the public imagination and were the anti-hero's of their day. This was the era of the Great Depression where the banks were perceiv...

The "Dust Bowl" of the early 1930s spawned the era of the Mid-West bank robbers. Gangs led by Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, and "Baby Face" Nelson became the stuff of American legend. None of them was spectacularly successful at bank robbing and all of them came to bad ends, being shot down in the end by the law. They all, however, caught the public imagination and became the anti-hero's of their day. This was the era of the Great Depression where the banks were perce...

Jean Harlow was widely considered as the reigning sexpot of the golden age of Hollywood filmmaking. She usually played the part either of a tough-talking moll or a prostitute and was every man's fantasy date. The reality, however, was far different. Although Jean engaged in sex from time to time, she was not possessed by it like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, or Mae West. In fact, one of the men she married, Paul Bern, was seemingly incapable of physically satisfying any woman, and this did n...

The "Dust Bowl" of the early 1930s spawned the era of the Mid-West bank robbers. Gangs led by Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, and "Baby Face" Nelson became the stuff of American legend. None of them was spectacularly successful at bank robbing and all of them came to bad ends, being shot down in the end by the law.The "Dust Bowl" bank robbers personified the anti-hero who gave the banks a taste of their own medicine and the public could not get enough of it. Whe...

East London included the London docks and run-down areas of Whitechapel, Spitalfields, and Bethnal Green As the parish of Whitechapel in London's East End became increasingly overcrowded, housing conditions steadily worsened and the area was overrun with violence, robbery, and alcoholism. London's East End was perfect for crime. A maze of streets, alleys, courts, and yards covered the East End and the gaslights, which were few and far between, did little to illuminate the dark shadows. The...

Errol Flynn was literally born the star that he became. His entire life was one of a swashbuckling rogue who strode across life's stage bigger than life and in the process reduced everyone else's life to insignificance. As thrilling and exciting his swashbuckling movie roles were, his real life adventures frequently surpassed them. His life was the things dreams were made of and he enjoyed every minute of it. Errol was born in the South Seas, a mysterious and romantic place for moviegoers ...

Almost everyone, at least in the English speaking world, is familiar with the story of Custer's Last Stand. By any measure it is a gripping story of how some 200 cavalrymen under the direct command of Colonel George Armstrong Custer met their end at the battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876. In no small measure the classic movie with Errol Flynn, They Died With Their Boots On, has perpetuated the myth of a Custer leading his command in a doomed mission of self-sacrifice in a heroi...