1947 “Heartaches” First Big Screen Film (PRC Pictures) To Reference Black Dahlia Murder Just Five Months After Crime Occurred

December 8, 2019
Los Angeles

I recently received this “heads up” email from an astute reader, “Bill S.”

              Here’s an oddity, Steve:
A long-forgotten 1947 PRC murder mystery, “Heartaches” from 1947.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S64CkQUryMc
Take a look beginning at around 13:38 in.
Is this the first movie reference to the Dahlia killing?

I checked it out and Bill S. is absolutely correct. My response to Bill:

Here is a clip from the film mentioning the murder that occurred just five months prior to “Heartaches” release in June 1947:

Heartaches clip 1947FNL

KUDOS to Bill S. for identifying this source, which to my knowledge is the first public identification of the reference in 72-years!

File the following under “More Weird Synchronicities”:

Below is a partial listing for the cast of the above referenced 1947 film “Heartaches”:

Note that one of the actors in the film is “Lash La Rue” who plays the part of Delong, aka Trigger Malone.  “Lash”  was better known for his many cowboy roles in Westerns of that day, wearing all black he was credited as being “the fastest whip in the West.” Lash reportedly would later teach actor Harrison Ford how to use a bullwhip for his role as “Indiana Jones” in the 1980s franchise.

As happenstance would have it, some sixteen years later, my new bride, Kiyo Hodel and I would buy Lash LaRue’s Laurel Canyon home, a mansion on Utica Drive, for the then astonishing price of $37,500.  (How was I ever going to manage the $184.00 monthly mortgage payment on a cop’s salary?)

Hodel Laurel Canyon Residence

The Utica Drive residence was originally built by famed film screenwriter/director Tay Garnett.

Tay Garnett circa 1937

Garnett was one of Hollywood’s best and most viewers would agree with Wikipedia’s assessment that he “…had  some big hits with two Greer Garson films, Mrs. Parkington (1944), The Valley of Decision (1945), then made The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), starring John Garfield and Lana Turner, which is probably his best-known film.”

Here’s an aerial and street view of the Garnett/LaRue/Hodel residence estate.

The property had several rental units on it that my ex-wife, KIYO, an “Astrologer to the stars”, after our divorce, then rented out in the 1960s to a few struggling singers and their bands. Kiyo’s tenants on the property included a then-unknown singer by the name of Jim Morrison and his band, “The Doors” who rented the streetside property.

The upper cabin rental on the property she rented out to another struggling musician by the name of Neil Young and his new band, Buffalo Springfield.

Kiyo and a young Young photo for Time Magazine taken at Utica Dr. property 1969

See related blog, Kiyo Hodel, Laurel Canyon Astrologer to the Stars and the Black Dahlia investigation.  HERE.