Local News: Tabloid Pictures from the Los Angeles Herald Express 1936 - 1961

Rating:
Summary: Vintage press photos are good fun at a good price
Review: Diane Keaton. Local News: Tabloid Pictures From the "Los Angeles Herald Express" 1936-1961. D.A.P.: dist. by Art Publishers Inc. 1999. 144p. photogs. ISBN 1-891024-13-2.PHOTOG

The "L.A. Herald Express" was a tabloid rag started by Citizen Hearst in 1931, which miraculously managed to line the bottoms of bird cages for 30 years until merging with the L.A. Examiner. The paper thrived on grab-you-by-the-throat headlines, sensationalistic stories, and photos of everything from tear-jerker shots of lost dogs, to gruesome crime scenes of headless and handless corpses, to fires, crossdressers, and school kids practicing air-raid drills in hopes that hiding under their desks would protect them from being turned into raisins in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Commies. These 92 duotones selected by editor Keaton (yes, it's THAT Diane Keaton) hearken back to the days of whiskey-breathed news hacks and cigar-champing shutterbugs leering out from behind weathered Speed Graphics with no. 2 press bulbs and lightsaber flashes. Mostly kitschy now, they nonetheless have value in showing how editors enhanced the emotional kick of a still photo by retouching the prints with drawn-in tears, etc. Press photography is gaining acceptance as an art form, so this volume should be of interest. Good fun at a good price. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Vintage press photos are good fun at a good price
Review: Diane Keaton. Local News: Tabloid Pictures From the "Los Angeles Herald Express" 1936-1961. D.A.P.: dist. by Art Publishers Inc. 1999. 144p. photogs. ISBN 1-891024-13-2. PHOTOG

The "L.A. Herald Express" was a tabloid rag started by Citizen Hearst in 1931, which miraculously managed to line the bottoms of bird cages for 30 years until merging with the L.A. Examiner. The paper thrived on grab-you-by-the-throat headlines, sensationalistic stories, and photos of everything from tear-jerker shots of lost dogs, to gruesome crime scenes of headless and handless corpses, to fires, crossdressers, and school kids practicing air-raid drills in hopes that hiding under their desks would protect them from being turned into raisins in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Commies. These 92 duotones selected by editor Keaton (yes, it's THAT Diane Keaton) hearken back to the days of whiskey-breathed news hacks and cigar-champing shutterbugs leering out from behind weathered Speed Graphics with no. 2 press bulbs and lightsaber flashes. Mostly kitschy now, they nonetheless have value in showing how editors enhanced the emotional kick of a still photo by retouching the prints with drawn-in tears, etc. Press photography is gaining acceptance as an art form, so this volume should be of interest. Good fun at a good price. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Quelle Disappointing!
Review: Having read NY Noir I waited for this one with bated breath. I could have unbated by breath, I was mightily disappointed. The photos were average at best, some were even white-outs. I can't imagine why those would even be included. The captions/ descriptions were placed on the page before each set of pictures and I found it very bothersome to have to flip back and forth.If only the subject matter had been a bit more compelling...oh I don't know why, but the book just did not move me. It took me about 15 minutes to read the entire book. If you are really interested in true crime/photography, any book by Weege or New York Noir are two I highly recommend. Save your money on this one and look at it in the library.

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommend this.
Review: Hmm... interesting. Diane Keaton's dark side is something I hope we get to see more of. With this fascinating book, HEAVEN, UNSTRUNG HEROES, even her TWIN PEAKS episode... she's clearly, not only a gifted actress, but an intelligent director with a strong creative voice. I only hope she gets a project worthy of her talents, instead of more pop fodder. :-) But for now, I'll relish this powerful, insightful collection.

Rating:
Summary: Stunningly ordinary.
Review: This should have been an interesting idea for a book, a bit of nostalgic tabloid froth. Instead I was disappointed to find it is just a collection of less than mediocre images from the photo morgue of the LA Herald Express. I don't think the publishers realised the essence of down market newspapers are the headlines and photos, the story would be written to fill the remaining space. To separate the headline from the photo really doesn't work, so each page photo in the book should have shown a small tear-out from the paper with the punchy headline and the photo. To have one without the other produces a very dull book, which is probably why I was able to buy a copy at a really low remainder price.

There are very few photos in the book that warrant a second look taken as they were for each day's paper and not history. Many of them have small amounts of retouching which is a bit odd as the image quality was of no interest to the readers, some have retouching that is just plain amateurish, a woman's tears on page fifty-six and a building aflame on pages 130-131. A few show the picture cropping marks and the paint used for cut-outs.

All the photos show the ordinary folk of Los Angeles in moments of anguish, no celebrities, politicians or momentous events, the Herald left all that stuff to the more professionally produced dailies. Comparing these photos with the ones from the New York tabloid Daily News ('New York Exposed' ISBN 0810943050 or 'New York Noir' ISBN 0847821722) shows just how parochial, ordinary and dull the Herald's output was but the title of the book is, after all, local news!