You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen and subscribe at all these great places:
https://atozhistorypage.start.page
www.beyondthebigscreen.com
Click to Subscribe:
https://www.spreaker.com/show/4926576/episodes/feed
email: steve@atozhistorypage.com
Parthenon Podcast Network Home:
parthenonpodcast.com
On Social Media:
https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory
https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage
https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage
https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage
https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/
Music Provided by:
"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Episode Transcript
This is Beyond the Big Screen Podcast with your host
Steve Guerra. Yeah, I mean urban planning.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I don't know when that became a thing, but I
think probably in the forties and fifties in LA Whether
they called it that or not, somebody had to be
doing it because it was a necessity. I mean, that
kind of growth. And you know, the growth happens across
the entirety of the culture. Right, so while the government
(00:37):
is growing, it's becoming a larger entity, and the population
is growing, well, crime is growing too. I mean at
the very beginning of the movie, in the opening narration,
they talk about Mickey Cohen, the kind of the local
mob boss, getting arrested and leaving a power vacuum. And
then we learned that these guys are being taken out
(00:59):
to the dry Hotel and kindly asked to return home and.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Not apply their trade there in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
These you know, that's because the there's growth and expansion,
and that's going to attract people of all types. You know,
you're you're entrepreneurs of all kinds, including the criminal ones.
And so when I first saw this, I actually, uh,
you know, I saw it while I was still on
the job and and uh and had.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Like some wish fulfillment going on at parts of it.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
When when Dudley Smith and those guys were telling these gangsters,
you know, this is a city of angels and you
don't have any wings, you know, go back to Cleveland,
go back to Jersey. You know, I was like, Wow,
that's a great way to handle crime. Of course, then
I find out the reason they're doing it, so that
they can take over, and then I was like, ah,
all the all the although air came out of my balloon.
But you know, obviously that's not something you would really do.
(01:54):
But you know, I mean, here, I am a working cop,
and I'm I'm emotionally sympathetic to what they're doing, because
why are they doing it?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Trying to make their city a better place, right, They're.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Trying to keep a bunch of you know, career criminals
that organize crime and from you know, getting a foothold
in their city. And yeah, they're taking extraordinary means to
do that, but maybe the means are justified by the end.
And had that and it would have been an interesting
question within the framework of the movie if Dudley Smith
(02:30):
had not been you know, if he didn't have an
ulterior motive, and if he wasn't actually trying to become
a crime boss himself, essentially, that's unfortunate obviously. But if
if that hadn't happened, then then a larger question that
would come out of this movie would be how do
you feel about that? You know, a known criminal comes
(02:51):
to town and the cops find out about it, and
they grab him and they take him out to a
secluded place and they smack crap out of him and
tell him to go home. You there's a lot of
Los Angelinos that would say.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Well, you know, I'm not on I feel about.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
You know, they would have equivocated, right, And and again
that's that's a form of corruption for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
But you know, we we don't.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Live in a perfect world, and so people, all different
kinds of people have all different kinds of thresholds for
what they consider corrupt. And like you and I may
differ on certain topics if we sat down and you know,
is this too much? Is that too much for whatever
profession you want to talk about? And and so it's
just just really interesting to me. Again, you have the
(03:40):
larger culture of Los Angeles and what their needs and
desires are, particularly with this quickly expanding city that you mentioned,
that are dictating to a degree the culture within the
police department. Now, how they're responding maybe isn't directly how
the larger culture instructed them to respond, but it's still
(04:02):
a direct response
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.