Before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town

Re:Before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town by keiferski on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @03:21PM (#41113147)

Many/most of Raymond Chandler’s works are set in the time period when LA was gradually shifting from oil to film as its predominant industry. I believe oil executives were in a few of the stories as villains too.

Great reads if you’re interested in the era.

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Re:Before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town by no_exit on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @05:08PM (#41114159)

Upton Sinclair's Oil! is pretty good too.

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Re:Before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town by mezentius on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @06:31PM (#41114790)

Absolutely. Chandler was in fact employed by an oil company before he tapped a richer vein (sorry) with his fiction.

Incidentally, while re-reading Chandler's "The Lady in the Lake," I realized that the scene in which Marlowe meets his employer, dozing off in a "high-backed chair" in his club's library, was a description of the library at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Today, if you're a member (or know one), you can pop up to the third floor, still preserved in all of its interwar ersatz-Gilded-Age splendor, and doze off in one of those distinctive high-backed chairs after a drink and schvitz.

It turns out that Chandler had worked across the street when employed by Dabney Oil, and visited the L.A. Athletic Club frequently.

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Re:Before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town by keiferski on Wednesday July 31, 2024 @12:22AM (#41116393)

Ah you’re right, I’ve read a few biographies of Chandler but somehow totally forgot he worked for an oil company. IIRC it was a job he got through his father in law.

Great trivia about the club - will definitely have to visit that if I make it to LA again.

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Re:Before LA became Tinseltown, it was an oil town by ahazred8ta on Wednesday July 31, 2024 @01:05AM (#41116525)

There was a Rockford Files episode where he distracted a crooked businessman in LA by buying the mineral rights under his house and sending a drilling crew to his front yard.

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