On my week off last month, I fulfilled a longtime wish by visiting two repertory movie houses in L.A., both of them owned by Quentin Tarantino: the New Beverly in the Fairfax District and the Vista Theater in Los Feliz.
At the former I saw the very funny “What’s Up, Doc?”, the 1972 throwback screwball comedy with Barbara Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. Being surrounded by 200 other moviegoers certainly added to the effect. Laughter begets laughter.
Days later, I was at the Vista, a 1923 single-screen gem that reopened last November after a restoration under Tarantino’s ownership. The weekend 10 a.m. matinee enticed me: W.C. Fields in “The Old Fashioned Way.”
I got there via Metrolink, taking the first train, transferring to the B Line subway, disembarking at Vermont/Sunset and then hoofing it four blocks to the theater (4473 Sunset Drive), arriving in plenty of time.
1934’s “The Old Fashioned Way” was pretty funny. And, as a bonus, this 91-year-old movie, headlined by one of the 20th century’s greatest comic stars, surprised me with an Inland Empire reference. Somebody pinch me.
Fields plays an actor-manager who leads a struggling troupe of vaudeville performers and bills himself as The Great McGonigle. He tends to leave unpaid bills in their wake. Near the end, in an Ohio backwater, the local lawman confronts Fields backstage before showtime.
Lawman: “I have a telegram here from your friend, the sheriff of Cucamonga.”
Fields, nervously: “The sheriff of Cucamonga?”
Fields reads the telegram, chuckles and says: “It’s for Ichabod McGonigle. Different family entirely.”
Nice try. After the curtain comes down, Fields is forced to close his traveling show for good. No one escapes the heavy hand of Cucamonga law.
More Cucamonga
Is this 1934 exchange, only seven years into movies’ sound era, the earliest Cucamonga joke in mass media? It’s possible.
Jack Benny didn’t launch his Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga joke on radio until 1945, and Bugs Bunny didn’t take a wrong turn in Cucamonga until 1948. (I am something of a scholar on the subject.)
Anyway, there at the Vista, I fished a receipt and pen out of my pocket and jotted a note to myself in the dark. Even at a Sunday morning matinee in L.A., I am on the job.
More Fields
An internet search reveals that if W.C. Fields had had his way, he might have made more of Cucamonga.
A 1938 Hollywood gossip column by Louella Parsons shared that the next Fields movie, at that point untitled, had been pitched by Fields as “The First Gentleman of Cucamonga.”
Continued Parsons: “Paramount politely but firmly told him no marquee was long enough to hold all those letters.”
Coming to Upland
Upland’s city-owned train depot is a rare Metrolink station to host businesses. Half the space is leased to Pacific Wine Merchants, which has a popular wine bar, while the other half has been harder to keep a tenant in.
On March 10 a lease was approved by the City Council for a new tenant: 42nd Street Bagel. Based on the lease agreement, the shop is likely to open this fall.
If the name is familiar, the bagel shop is a staple of the Claremont Village and once had a second location on Upland’s Foothill Boulevard.
Co-owner Laura Cayley told council members she had long been thinking of expanding beyond Claremont, where she also owns Viva Madrid and Petiscos. And Upland’s downtown restaurant scene is picking up.
“We’re very excited,” Cayley said. “I’m seeing a lot of very good and positive things.”
If a successful Claremont business is eyeing downtown Upland, that’s a very good and positive thing too.
Birthday pi(e)
Thanks for the good wishes for my 61st birthday. A few of you noted correctly that March 14 is also Pi Day. Pie had to wait, but I indulged days later in Pasadena at the venerable diner Pie ‘n Burger, where I had one of each namesake item.
You may also recall my lament here that demand at Claremont’s I Like Pie in its last week of operation meant I was unable to buy one of its Pop-Tart-like hand pies. (Even owner Annika Corbin later confided that she wasn’t able to snag one.)
In a visit a week later to L.A.’s Grand Central Market, I was walking past Bastion, a bake shop, when I noticed the display case held apple hand pies. I stopped and bought one.
The universe provides.
brIEfly
“What’s the snobbiest neighborhood in L.A.?” comic Mario Riveira asked people on the street in L.A. in a recent Instagram video. Beverly Hills, Venice and Calabasas were popular answers. But 909 bonus points to the man who said: “Either Westwood or Chino Hills.”
David Allen snubs Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in favor of Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.