On The Tinsel Front

Category: Episode 1

  • Culver City #1

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Ollie: It’s in California in a town called Culver City, which is near Los Angeles… This is the first of what will be a number of posts about Culver City, a Southern California town with a rich history and the location for much of TINSEL FRONT’s first season. The city was founded in 1917 by…

  • Episode 1: “Washed Out”

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    Christopher Bomba
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    1942.  After washing out of flight school in Louisiana, Pvt. Oliver Whelan is assigned to an U.S. Army Air Forces base near Los Angeles, California.  He eagerly heads west only to find that there’s been some kind of mistake… WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND DIRECTED by Christopher Bomba STARRING… with…  MUSIC: SOUND EFFECTS courtesy of Soundly, Epidemic…

  • The Sunset Limited

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Ollie: Am catching the train to L.A. tonight, well, actually, tomorrow morning. It leaves around three AM… The train Ollie would have taken from Louisiana to Los Angeles was the Southern Pacific’s SUNSET LIMITED. “The Sunset Limited is a long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak on a 1,995-mile (3,211 km) route between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Los Angeles, California, with major stops in Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, and Tucson. Introduced…

  • Union Station

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Ollie: Dear Bet: A few hours ago we pulled into Union Station in Los Angeles. It’s a big, beautiful building — tall ceilings, impressive wood beams, beautiful Spanish tiles… L.A.’s famous train station — where a newly arrived Ollie takes note of a beautiful girl named Elle — was only three years old in 1942.…

  • Pacific Electric Railway Red Cars

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Ollie: As instructed, I got off the trolley at the National stop and walked up a block… “The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s.” Wikipedia Los Angeles’ once great transit system plays a…

  • First Motion Picture Unit

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Ollie: There was a stretch of large buildings strangely fronted by a mansion – or what looked like a mansion. Big letters over the front porch read “U.S. ARMY AIR FORCES.” But I gotta tell you, it was not like any base I’d ever seen… “The 18th AAF Base Unit (Motion Picture Unit), originally known as the First…

  • Ronald Reagan

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Ollie: That’s when it dawned on me. This was that actor, Ronald Reagan. … here he was, a lieutenant in the Army Air Force and some big cheese at this base. While there are many websites that detail Reagan’s military service during the war, this article from the National Museum of the United States Air…

  • Schwab’s Pharmacy

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Ronald Reagan: “Who knows, maybe there’s an actor in you. This could be your big break. Beats hanging out at Schwab’s…” This Lt. Reagan reference (which goes completely over Ollie’ head) is to Schwab’s Pharmacy, where, local legend had it, an aspiring actor or actress could be discovered. The following is from Historical Hollywood Photographs,…