VLVL2 (15): Noir Center

[Dave Monroe]

   "Among the first mall rats into Fox Hills,
aborginal as well to the Sherman Oaks Galleria, Pairie
and Che had been known to hitchhike for days to get to
malls that often turned out to be only folkloric,
false cities of gold.  But that was cool, becauise
they got to be together.  This time they'd arranged to
meet in lower Hollywood at the new Noir Center,
loosely based on crime movies from around World War II
and after, designed to suggest the famous ironwork of
the Bradbury Building downtwon, where a few of them
had been shot.  This was yuppification run to some
pitch so desperate that Prairie at least had to hope
thge whole process was reaching the end of its cycle. 
She happend to like some of those old weird-necktie
movies in black and white [...] and she personally
resented this increasingly dumb attempt to cash in on
the pseudoromantic mystique of those particular olden
days ...." (VL, Ch. 15, pp. 325-6)


"Sherman Oaks Galleria"

http://www.shermanoaksgalleria.com/

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature77.htm

http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/snd/valleygirl.html


Main Entry: ab·orig·i·ne 
Pronunciation: "a-b&-'rij-(")nE, -'ri-j&-
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin aborigines, plural, from ab origine
from the beginning
1 : an aboriginal inhabitant especially as contrasted
with an invading or colonizing people ...

Main Entry: ab·orig·i·nal 
Pronunciation: "a-b&-'rij-n&l, -'ri-j&-n&l
Function: adjective
1 : being the first or earliest known of its kind
present in a region ...

http://m-w.com/


p. 325 "false cities of gold"  Pynchon playfully
compares these mythical malls to the seven cities of
Cibola, which kept Coronado on the run so long.

p. 326 "The Noir Center Mall"  The shops are puns on
famous film noir titles: Bubble Indemnity = Double
Indemnity; Lounge Good Buy = The Long Goodbye; Mall
Tease Flacon = The Maltese Falcon; The Lady 'n' the
Lox = Lady In the Lake.

Main Entry: fla·con 
Pronunciation: 'fla-k&n, -"kän; fla-'kOn
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French, bottle -- more
at FLAGON
: a small usually ornamental bottle with a tight cap 
http://www.mindspring.com/~shadow88/chapter15.htm

Double Indemnity (1944)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0036775/

The Long Goodbye (1973 [!])

http://imdb.com/title/tt0070334/

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0033870/

But note as well ...

http://imdb.com/title/tt0022111/

The Lady in the Lake (1947)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0039545/

And see here, e.g., ...

Naremore, James.  More than Night: Film Noir in
   Its Contexts.  Berkeley: U of Cal P, 1998.

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8118.html

As well as ...

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/Noirbib.html

http://www.utoronto.ca/innis/library/cinemagenres.html


"The Bradbury Building"

Apart from Blade Runner, the Bradbury has featured in
many films like Double Indemnity, Marlowe, D.O.A.,
Chinatown, Wolf and Lethal Weapon 4 and TV shows "City
of Angels," "The Outer Limits" and "Banyon."

http://www.brmovie.com/Locations/Bradbury_Building.htm

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://www.usc.edu/dept/geography/losangeles/lawalk/old/bradbury.html

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Bradbury_Building.html

http://www.laconservancy.org/tours/downtown/bradbury.shtml

http://www.hollywoodusa.co.uk/FilmLocations/bradburybuilding.htm


	
		
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